Chennai, December 18 2025
“Marking the 25th anniversary of the Russia–India bilateral strategic partnership, 2025 has emerged as a landmark year, with ties continuing to strengthen despite global geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges, yielding significant outcomes across multiple spheres, including enhanced collaboration with South Indian States,” said Mr. Valerii Khodzhaev, Consul General of the Russian Federation in Chennai, South India.
Addressing a press meet organised by the Consulate General of the Russian Federation and the Russian House to brief on Russian-Indian cooperation over the past year, he said that the partnership between the two countries, elevated to a special and privileged strategic partnership 15 years ago, remains longstanding and time-tested, “as an invaluable asset that provides a strong foundation for future cooperation, resilient to changing political situations and expediencies”.
Highlighting the state visit of Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, to New Delhi on December 4-5 as a major milestone, Mr. Khodzhaev said the year’s political engagements had provided a significant impetus to further consolidate bilateral ties. He added that the agreements and understandings reached at the summit are expected to strengthen the existing institutionalised cooperation framework, giving fresh momentum to trade and economic ties, scientific and technological collaboration, defence and security, as well as cultural and academic exchanges.
Mr. Khodzhaev also noted that the new agreements are significant for strengthening regional cooperation between Russia and India, including Southern India. In recent months, he said, there has been notable positive momentum in engagement with South India, with several major projects progressing steadily, including the construction of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, modernisation of the Indian railway network, and joint development of natural resource deposits.
Talking about progress in the economic field, Consul General said that the business cooperation between India and Russia is becoming increasingly diversified, with a clear shift towards high-end sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, pharma tech, fintech and agritech. He noted that, to bridge the awareness gap between entrepreneurs, several Russian business delegations visited Southern India, strengthening engagement with Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, while the first South India business mission from Tamil Nadu was also organised to Russia recently.
In his remarks, Mr. Alexander Dodonov, Director of the Russian House in Chennai, highlighted the strong potential for academic and university collaboration, citing the high standards of educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana and their capacity to train skilled and semi-skilled manpower. He said this has gained added relevance in the context of the mobility agreements signed at the recent bilateral summit. With Russia’s higher education system having reached top global standards over the past decades, Russian universities have expanded opportunities for Indian students to pursue studies in Russia in 2025.
