New Delhi, Aug. 24 -- The fertilizer price on the global market is one number. The price India actually pays for Russian fertilizer is another. The gap between them is what years of Western sanctions have failed to close - and what Subrahmanyam Jaishankar came to Moscow on Monday, in part, to protect.

the Kremlin's Dmitry Peskov made that explicit - and India holds the BRICS chair this year.

Putin's greeting at the Kremlin was warm in its framing and precise in its implication. "Your visit today highlights the level of relations that have developed between Russia and India for decades," he told Jaishankar, describing India in Moscow's established formulation as "a special and privileged partner." The phrasing is deliberate: Russia's dip...