India Rejected Putin

There will be no visa-free travel with Russia.

Negotiations on a visa-free regime between Russia and India, which had been ongoing since the late 2010s, have reached an impasse.

Work on the agreement—which Putin had lobbied for and which provided for visa-free travel for tourist groups—has been suspended, TASS reported, citing Alexey Klimov, head of the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“Drafting such an agreement was a challenging task from the outset, given that our Indian partners had not previously entered into international treaties regarding visa-free group travel for citizens,” the diplomat explained.

Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of abolishing visas between Russia and India with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi back in 2019, according to The Moscow Times). After the war with Ukraine began—when India became a major buyer of Russian oil and Western countries imposed visa restrictions on Russians—Putin urged Modi to step up efforts on this issue. In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development sent India a proposal to launch such a mechanism, similar to those in place with China and Iran. The head of the ministry Maksim Reshetnikov stated at the time that this issue was “being worked out” through diplomatic channels.

In early December 2025, following the Russian president’s visit to India, Modi announced that steps would soon be taken to establish a visa-free regime for tourist groups from both countries for stays of up to 30 days. At the end of the month, India’s Ambassador to Russia Vinai Kumar stated that “preparations related to logistics and changes to the system” were already underway.

In the spring of 2026, it became known that Moscow hoped to conclude an agreement on a visa-free regime for tourist groups of three to 50 people with a stay of up to 21 days. The Ministry of Economic Development complained that the process was not moving “as quickly as we would like” and attributed the delay to complex inter-agency coordination in India.

A single-entry paper Indian visa for Russians costs 3,465 rubles, a double-entry visa costs 7,492 rubles, and a multiple-entry visa costs 9,909 rubles. An e-visa valid for up to 30 days is issued free of charge.

Last year, tourist traffic between India and Russia reached 143,000 trips, which is 15% higher than the 2024 figure. In the first half of 2026, the number of trips increased by 8%. More than 25,000 Indian tourists visited Russia, according to a September report by the Ministry of Economic Development.

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