Modi and Putin will talk about working together on nuclear issues beyond the Kudankulam fuel cycle and building Small Modular Reactors.

FILE PHOTO: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk during a meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, on September 1, 2025.  Photo by Reuters  New Delhi:  The next m...

New Delhi: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin meet soon, they will talk about how to improve cooperation on nuclear energy between India and Russia. This will go beyond the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and include working together on Small Modular Reactors and the fuel cycle.

Putin will arrive in New Delhi on Thursday for a two-day trip.  He will meet with Modi for the 23rd annual India-Russia summit, as well as with President Droupadi Murmu.

The summit will probably focus on the two countries' nuclear energy cooperation.  The two sides will talk about how the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu is doing. This is India's and Russia's main project in the field of nuclear power.

The first and second units of the KNPP, which have two Russian VVER 1000 pressurized water reactors, began commercial operation in 2014 and 2017, respectively.

Rosatom, the state-owned atomic energy company of Russia, says that the third unit is currently going through pre-startup operations and getting ready for safety tests. 

A source in New Delhi said that India would ask Russia to speed up the building and installation of the fourth unit, as well as the delivery of the equipment.

At the 22nd summit in Moscow in July 2024, Modi and Putin agreed to stick to the schedule for the rest of the KNPP units, including when supplies would be delivered.

It is suggested that the KNPP will have six VVER-1000 reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 MWe.

The source told DH that the 23rd summit in New Delhi this week would look at the building of the fifth and sixth units of the KNPP.

Moscow also wants to talk to New Delhi about the proposal for two more VVER 1200 reactors at the KNPP. 

The Modi government in New Delhi has announced a Nuclear Energy Mission in the Union Budget for 2025–26. Russia has also asked for a second site in India to build another nuclear power plant.

The SMRs will be very important in making the Modi Government's goal of increasing India's nuclear power generation capacity to 100 GW by 2047 a reality.