New Delhi, May 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia on May 21 for an informal summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the city of Sochi. The two leaders will discuss their respective national developmental priorities and bilateral matters. This will be an important occasion for the two leaders to exchange views on international matters in a broad and long-term perspective with the objective of further strengthening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) read.

The statement further added this informal summit in Sochi between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin is in keeping with the tradition of regular consultations between India and Russia at the highest levels. According to the statement, the summit is taking place at the invitation of Putin.

"There are plans to discuss key issues developing Russian-Indian very privileged strategic partnership and also to exchange views on vital issues of the international and regional agenda," the Russian news agency TASS reported citing, the Kremlin press service, as saying in a statement. This will be the first meeting between Putin and Modi this year, however, since the beginning of the year, the two leaders have had several phone conversations.

This comes barely a month after when Prime Minister Modi attended a two-day informal summit along with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan city.