India’s Modi likely to meet Zelensky in Ukraine after Russia trip

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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi will make his first visit to Ukraine later this week, the foreign ministry confirmed on Monday.

He will likely fly to Kyiv between 21-23 August, about a month after he met Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Mr Modi will have talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. They previously met on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan in May and discussed trade and expanding ties.

They have also spoken by phone several times since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr Modi will most likely visit Poland as well, the foreign ministry said.

The visit to Ukraine is intended to reassure India’s partners in the West, who were apparently not too happy with Mr Modi’s visit to Moscow on 8-9 July.

Mr Zelensky said at the time, without naming Mr Modi, that it was a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day”.

Mr Modi’s visit coincided with a series of daytime Russian attacks across Ukraine, which killed 41 people and wounded more than 150.

New Delhi has adopted a carefully balanced policy on the Ukraine war, neither criticising nor condoning it, and has sought to increase trade links with Russia while building stronger ties with the West.

The Indian leader did, however, offer some veiled criticism of what was happening in Ukraine at the end of his meeting with Mr Putin. “Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks – everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives,” Mr Modi said. “But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense.”

He reiterated New Delhi’s position that Moscow and Kyiv should end the war through diplomacy. “Solutions are not possible on the battleground,” he said.

The South Asian country has offered to support measures to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Mr Modi’s upcoming visit to one of India’s oldest allies was aimed at improving bilateral trade and cooperation in areas ranging from nuclear energy to medicine, officials said.

India has traditionally had close economic and defence ties with Moscow and it has bought vast quantities of oil from Russia despite Western sanctions, explaining that it needed to secure its own interests first.

Kyiv, meanwhile, has asked New Delhi to help rebuild its economy, with Ukranian officials inviting investment from Indian companies at a business summit in January.