Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, August 23, visited Ukraine and met President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Russian military continues to invade the country. Arriving for talks in Kyiv, PM Modi embraced Zelensky with a hug and held a minute of silence at a memorial commemorating children killed in Russia's invasion. PM Modi's visit to Ukraine, which has not explicitly condemned Russia's invasion of Kyiv, was closely watched by the West.
News agency Associated Press (AP) said PM Narendra Modi's visit to war-torn Ukraine could be seen as India casting itself as a peace mediator as New Delhi offered “as a friend” to help bring peace to the country.
The Moscow Times listed how India has continued its trade with Russia when the West was imposing sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. It said, “…while Modi’s visit could be seen as a gesture of support for Kyiv as it defends against invading Russian forces, it’s worth remembering that he visited Moscow in early July after being re-elected for a third term — a move widely seen as him thumbing his nose at the free world.”
French international news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) said, “New Delhi, which has avoided explicit condemnation of Moscow's invasion, has cast itself as a possible peacemaker between the warring neighbours.”
“But neither side showed signs of a breakthrough, with India's foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar later saying that it was 'clearly a complex issue' and that India believes Moscow should be involved if peace efforts were to progress,” AFP wrote.
Reuters said the optics closely resembled PM Modi's visit to Moscow last month in July “where he called for peace and embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin, angering Ukraine, where a Russian missile strike hit a children's hospital on the same day.”
PM Narendra Modi met President Vladimir Putin in Russia in July 2024 on the day when the Russian military launched an attack on the largest children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine.
With PM Modi's visit to Russia in the backdrop, the BBC reported that “it was surely no coincidence that the first place Mr Modi was taken on Friday was Ukraine’s history museum where he was invited to watch an exhibition remembering all of the 570 Ukrainian children reported to have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022”.
