Diplomacy is usually conducted across polished tables. Increasingly, it is also conducted in the back seat of an armoured limousine. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin closed bilateral talks on the eve of the 18th BRICS Summit. Then they travelled together in Putin’s Aurus Senat to the INNOPROM exhibition at Bharat Mandapam. In Delhi, the choreography was shorter but no less pointed: two leaders who have met twice in a fortnight choosing the same sealed cabin rather than separate official cars.
The talks themselves were businesslike. Trade, energy, defence, civil nuclear cooperation, critical minerals, railways and industrial projects featured on the agenda, along with the $100 billion bilateral trade target by 2030. But the image of Modi and Putin sharing the Russian presidential limousine carried a significance beyond the formal agenda. It was the same car that turned heads at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China last year, when Putin waited for Modi and the two men boarded the Russian State limousine.
Putin’s arrival in New Delhi was itself a carefully controlled exercise. He landed at the Palam Air Force Station having travelled by one of two identical Ilyushin Il-96-300PU aircraft. The two planes took off together and were identical in model, colour, and shape, using a well-established decoy technique designed to prevent foreigners from figuring out which plane carries the president.
The presidential command aircraft known as the Il-96-300PU is commonly referred to as the Flying Kremlin and is more loosely known as a “doomsday plane”. The “PU” stands for Punkt Upravleniya, which means command post. Based on a four-engine longrange airliner, it is 55.35 metres long, has a 60.12- metre wingspan, and is powered by Aviadvigatel PS90A turbofans. The aircraft can fly about 11,000 kilometres without refuelling and is operated by the Special Flight Detachment Rossiya.
Its significance lies less in its size than in its function. The aircraft is equipped with encrypted communication systems, satellite links, and secure radio channels, allowing the president to remain in contact with Government, military, and intelligence networks while in the air. It also has defensive systems, allegedly including radar-jamming equipment, electronic countermeasures, and decoy launchers intended to confuse incoming missiles. The exact specifications remain classified.
The term “doomsday” comes from the aircraft’s wartime role. According to Russian descriptions of the Il96-300PU, it can serve as an airborne command post and help direct the armed forces during a nuclear crisis. It is commonly believed to carry a nuclear “button”. However, that goes beyond what is publicly known. The system that authorises the use of nuclear weapons in Russia is linked to the Cheget briefcase that accompanies the president, not to a single switch on the plane. Although the aircraft is capable of carrying out secure strategic command, it is not independently verified as a stand-alone means of launching a nuclear weapon.
Inside, the aircraft has been fitted out to serve as both a residence and a workplace. Reports mention a private suite including a bedroom, an office, a conference room, a dining area, a kitchen, a medical section and a small gym. The cabin is described as being of a high standard, with woodwork, leather and gold-coloured fittings. Those luxurious details, however, are based on second-hand accounts rather than the official inventory.
The aircraft was only one element of a much larger security operation. Support aircraft had already transported equipment to India, including Putin’s armoured Aurus limousines, while Russian security officers worked with Indian security personnel at the summit sites. Putin was in Delhi for bilateral talks with Modi before the two-day BRICS leaders’ meeting at Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13. It was his first in-person appearance at a BRICS event outside of Russia since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
On the ground, Delhi had been transformed under Operation BRICS Kavach. By Friday night, the ITC Maurya in Chanakyapuri no longer resembled a five-star hotel. It had become the inner keep of a multi-agency lockdown designed to protect Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and at least 16 other heads of state and Government.
Four security rings surrounded Putin. The first was a Close Protection Team of 25 to 30 Russian commandos who stayed with the President at all times. The second consisted of senior Delhi Police officers. The third included Delhi Police commandos and Central Armed Police Force members, while the fourth, outer ring was local police covering streets, rooftops, and areas around the hotel.
Maurya staff were vetted in both Delhi and their home states. Some rooms became command posts connected to the city’s C4I centre. AI cameras monitored for suspicious behaviour, such as unusual posture or lingering. Russian teams checked every corridor, rooftop, and kitchen. The delegation brought personal chefs and portable food-testing labs. Fake dignitaries were placed in some hotels to confuse any potential threats.
The security architecture extended far beyond the hotels. Officials estimated that about 15,000 Delhi Police officers and 200 paramilitary companies were involved, with the total reaching around 30,000 when airport, hotel, and venue staff were included. More than 100 NSG commandos were ready to respond quickly. Security teams practised helicopter descents, hostage rescues, and mock terror attacks at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Rajghat, Bharat Mandapam, and the Army Polo Ground.
Snipers were stationed on rooftops. Gesture-recognising cameras scanned crowds. Anti-drone systems protected 14 key points along routes from the airport to the hotels and summit venue. Drones, UAVs, and similar devices were banned until September 14, while airspace restrictions covered a 300-kilometre area. Nearly 5,000 traffic officers managed more than 35 controlled roads and 22 diversion points. Convoys travelled along planned, secure routes from Palam through the diplomatic area to Bharat Mandapam.
The arrangements extended into neighbouring states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan. Delhi was divided into sectors such as the airport, hotels, VVIP routes, and the summit venue, each led by a Special Commissioner. Officials said the operation was even stricter than the 2023 G20 because the guest list was more sensitive and the risks higher. Unmanned aerial vehicles, sudden protests, and graffiti were all considered real threats, with anti-graffiti teams patrolling at all hours. Each motorcade had its own code name, while teams collected biological waste from the Russian group as required by protocol.
Xi was expected to arrive at Palam on September 12 and stay at the Taj hotel, with the Delhi Police Special Cell handling his security. Chinese security officers had arrived days in advance with their own equipment and controlled certain floors, rooftops, and the area around the hotel. Other high-risk guests, including Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, were given separate hotels.
The Aurus Senat provided the most visible expression of this security culture. Russia’s answer to the idea that a great power should not borrow its presidential car from someone else, it was developed by NAMI and Aurus Motors after years of Mercedes dominance in the Kremlin garage. The long, heavily protected limousine is powered by a twinturbo V8 and built to shrug off small-arms fire, blast and chemical threats. Officials call it a fortress on wheels.
It travels with Putin on foreign visits, flown in on military transports, making the vehicle a rolling declaration of industrial selfreliance. Sharing it is not casual hospitality. It is a public grant of proximity.
China makes the same argument with different metal. Xi’s official car, the Hongqi N701, is produced in tiny numbers for the top leadership only. Its specifications are guarded. Reports describe thick armour, blast-resistant glass, special steel, and a powertrain that remains officially opaque. Hongqi, “Red Flag”, was born as a party car. The N701 is its latest iteration: not a consumer product, but a state object that travels with the Chinese president the way Air Force One travels with an American one.
Leaders have long used vehicles in this way. The American “Beast,” the British Bentley State Limousine and Japan’s Toyota Century Royal are each a mobile embassy, a security vault and a billboard for national industry. What has changed is the willingness to turn the ride itself into the message.
A shared car compresses protocol. It creates a private interval that official minutes cannot capture, while also producing an image that travels beyond the room where diplomacy is conducted. In an expanded 11-member BRICS gathering bringing together China, Russia, Iran and a cluster of other states with competing interests, such images perform a quiet diplomatic function.
They do not settle trade disputes or end wars. They do, however, signal that personal chemistry remains a working tool of statecraft, and that Moscow and New Delhi still prefer to display that chemistry in public.
Ukraine and West Asia hovered in the background, as they do at every such meeting. Yet the conversation between Modi and Putin continued well after the vehicle had stopped. For three days, Delhi was expected to act like a fortress, even as metro trains continued to run and shops stayed open. Four security rings surrounded Putin, the Special Cell monitored Xi, and a perimeter protected 16 leaders at Bharat Mandapam.
The Aurus will leave when Putin does. The photograph of two men in the same cabin will linger longer than the communiqué.
