• Source:JND
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin shared a ride in his Russian-made Aurus limousine, where they had an hour-long conversation before joining their teams for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)summit in China.

Although the photo of the event went viral on social media platforms, the details of the conversation were not known immediately. Days after the viral moment, the Russian leader finally disclosed the details of the interaction. Putin said he briefed PM Modi about his recent meeting with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, in Alaska last month.

"This is no secret, I told him what we talked about in Alaska," state-news aganey TASS reported, citing the Russian president. Notably, President Putin was replying to a question by journalists on the matter at a press conference in China.

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Following the summit, President Putin and Prime Minister Modi held a private one-on-one conversation inside Putin’s Aurus limousine as they traveled to the venue for the Russian-Indian talks. The motorcade arrived at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Tianjin, where the accompanying delegations entered the building.

However, Putin and Modi remained in the car, continuing their discussion for another 50 minutes. Only afterward did they join their delegations in the negotiation room, where talks officially commenced, TASS reported.

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The Russian president waited for about 10 minutes for PM Modi to join him before boarding the car. The trip to reach the venue for their meeting lasted about 15 minutes, but they spent another 50 minutes in the car to continue their conversation.

“The two leaders continued their one-to-one dialogue on the way to the hotel, where they were to be joined by members of their teams. However, on reaching the hotel, they did not deboard the Russian president's limousine and continued their conversation for a further 50 minutes," Russian national radio station VestiFM reported.

Later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the two leaders had tete-a-tete in the car for about an hour.

(With inputs from agency)