India refuses a visa-free regime for Russia Negotiations on a visa-free regime between Russia and India, which have been going on since the end of the 2010s, have reached an impasse. Work on the agreement, which President Vladimir Putin pushed for and which provided visa-free travel for tourist groups, has been suspended, Alexei Klimov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's consular department, told TASS. "The development of such an agreement was initially a non-trivial task due to the fact that the conclusion of international agreements on visa-free group travel of citizens by our Indian partners was not practiced in the past," the diplomat explained. Vladimir Putin spoke with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, about the possibility of canceling visas between Russia and India in 2019. After the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, when India became a major buyer of Russian oil and Western countries introduced visa restrictions for Russians, Putin urged Modi to step up work on this issue. In 2023, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation sent India a proposal to launch such a mechanism by analogy with China and Iran. The head of the department, Maxim Rashnikov, noted at the time that "this issue is being investigated" through diplomatic channels. More details.