Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit India for the first time since ordering the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, another sign that US-led efforts to isolate him on the world stage are failing.

While the dates for the trip to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi are still being determined, “we are looking forward to it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. video comments to India’s ANI news service published Tuesday that he later confirmed to Bloomberg News.

“After two visits of Prime Minister Modi to Russia, now we have a visit of President Putin to India,” Peskov said. “We attach great importance to these contacts.”

India and Russia held annual summits between the two leaders before the invasion of Ukraine. New Delhi skipped the face-to-face meeting in December 2022 after Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons in war, according to people with knowledge at the time.

Putin and Modi held talks when Russia hosted the BRICS summit last month. The Indian leader also met Putin in Moscow in July, his first trip to Russia since the start of the war and his first bilateral visit since winning a third term in Indian elections.

Modi embraced Putin and called him his “friend” at those talks, which came a day after a deadly Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kiev sparked international outrage.

Modi’s readiness to visit Putin has raised concerns in the US, which has sought to make the Russian leader a pariah over the war in Ukraine. However, Washington also knows it needs India to help counter China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Moscow and New Delhi have had close ties since the Cold War era. India is a major customer for Russian military hardware and has also become a top buyer of Russian oil as the US and its allies in the Group of Seven tried to restrict wartime sales.

If Putin goes to India, it will signal his growing confidence in traveling abroad since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him last March for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

India is not a member of the ICC and is not bound to implement the mandate. However, Putin opted not to attend last year’s G-20 summit in India.

In September, Putin visited Mongolia, which is a member state of the ICC and faced international criticism for failing to fulfill its obligation to implement the mandate.

South Africa, which is a signatory, asked Putin not to attend last year’s BRICS summit because of the mandate. Putin refused to go to this week’s G-20 in Brazil, which is also an ICC member state, saying his attendance at the summit would have been a distraction from the mandate.

(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)