Britain and India agreed on Friday to step up defence and business cooperation during a visit to New Delhi by Boris Johnson, who said a bilateral free-trade deal could be wrapped up by October.
On his first visit to the Indian capital as UK prime minister, Johnson discussed with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi ways to boost security ties with India, which buys more than half of its military hardware from Russia.
Britain hopes its offer of closer security ties with the West will encourage India to cut its defence reliance on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation"
