Putin adopts limo diplomacy in China jaunt with India's Modi

Bloomberg News on Sep 1, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Little more than two weeks after Vladimir Putin took a ride in Donald Trump’s armored limousine at the start of their Alaska summit, the Russian president is embracing back-seat diplomacy again: this time in China with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The spin-cum-meeting in the Russian-made Aurus limo marks a further revving up of Putin’s occasional habit of taking world statesmen literally for a ride.

Leaders including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in 2024, United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Moscow last year, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2018 have joined Putin for a drive in his vehicle, offering the chance for informal chats at what are usually highly structured meetings.

The mini road-trip for Putin and Modi to reach the venue for their bilateral meeting lasted only about 15 minutes, but the two leaders then sat inside the car for a further 45 minutes to continue their discussions, according to people familiar with the matter. That threw the tightly choreographed agenda of their meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit into disarray, forcing organizers to pivot.

Such occasions allow Putin to showcase the Aurus to world leaders, making it both a diplomatic tool and a chance to boost the prestige of the Russian-made luxury vehicle abroad.

That he did it while a guest of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who’s hosting the SCO meeting in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin, made the drive with Modi all the more remarkable.

China is fiercely proud of its storied Hongqi line of limousines that are used by Xi. Established in 1958 by the First Automobile Works Group as the country’s first independently produced car brand, the name means “red flag” in Chinese, a nod to the Communist revolution that resulted in the founding of modern China.

Its first model was based on the American Chrysler Imperial C69, and Hongqi vehicles were for a time only available to high-ranking officials in the country.

Xi rode in a bulletproof gasoline-powered N701 limousine when he met then President Joe Biden in the U.S. in 2023. Biden described the car as “beautiful.”