Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hold bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this evening at Durban on the sidelines of the ongoing 5th BRICS Summit in South Africa. Both the leaders will review the progress in India-Russia relations after the successful Summit in Delhi in December last year.

The two leaders are expected to discuss regional and international issues and also hold talks on enhancing civil nuclear cooperation and increasing bilateral trade. Traditionally, the Indo-Russian strategic partnership has been bonded on cooperation in areas of defence, civil nuclear energy, space and counter terrorism measures. The two sides are also expected to discuss measures to increase the Indo-Russian bilateral trade from 8.9 billion to 20 billion US Dollars by 2015.

AIR Correspondent covering the BRICS Summit, reports that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also hold talks with South African President Jacob Zuma and the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.