The Kremlin has acknowledged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to personally walk up the ramp and receive President Vladimir Putin in Delhi took the Russian side by surprise, describing the gesture as unexpected and not part of the pre-agreed protocol plan. Modi’s spur-of-the-moment hug-and-ramp welcome at Palam Airport is being read in Moscow as a powerful signal of personal warmth and a reaffirmation of the “special and privileged strategic partnership” between India and Russia.