Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on a historic visit in which he is expected to push a settlement to end the war with Russia.
Modi is casting himself as a possible peacemaker, two-and-a-half years after Russia invaded and weeks into a major Ukrainian counteroffensive into Russian territory.
“No problem can be resolved on a battlefield,” Modi said ahead of his visit, adding that India supports “dialogue and diplomacy for restoration of peace and stability as soon as possible.”
Photo: Reuters
He is the first Indian prime minister to visit Ukraine.
A diplomatic breakthrough between Moscow and Kyiv looks more elusive than ever following Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
It is also unclear whether Modi himself could be an effective dealmaker, seen by many in Ukraine as too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Modi recently drew fresh condemnation in Kyiv for hugging the Russian leader during a visit to Moscow last month.
The Indian leader said that he planned to “share perspectives on peaceful resolution of the ongoing Ukraine conflict” with Zelenskiy, as well as discuss “deepening the India-Ukraine friendship.”
He was in Poland on Thursday before departing for Ukraine.
“As a friend and partner, we hope for an early return of peace and stability in the region,” Modi said on social media ahead of the visit.
Zelenskiy has said that “a number of documents are also expected to be signed” during the meeting with Modi.
Modi’s arrival was announced by Ukraine’s state rail operator, which published a video on Facebook of the Indian leader getting off a train in Kyiv.
Modi later wrote on X: “Reached Kyiv earlier this morning. The Indian community accorded a very warm welcome.”
While India has historically warm ties with Russia, it also courts closer security partnerships with Western nations as a bulwark against its regional rival China.
New Delhi has avoided explicit condemnation of Russia’s 2022 invasion and has abstained on UN resolutions that criticize the Kremlin, instead urging both sides to resolve their differences through direct dialogue.
However, a peace deal now appears further away than ever before.
Ukraine in 2022 passed a decree ruling out direct talks with Putin and Moscow recently said it would not countenance talks with Kyiv amid its surprise counteroffensive on Russia’s Kursk region.
Putin earlier this year demanded that Kyiv withdraw its troops from four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed — despite not having full control over them — as a precondition to negotiations.
Kyiv says that any temporary pause in the fighting would only give Moscow time to regroup and rearm for a future attack.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, US President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House
Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia was expected to meet Argentine President Javier Milei yesterday on a regional tour to drum up support ahead of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s swearing-in for a third term. Venezuelan authorities have offered a reward of US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of Gonzalez Urrutia, who insists he beat Maduro at the polls in July last year and is recognized by the US as Venezuela’s “president-elect.” The 75-year-old fled to Spain in September after being threatened with arrest by Maduro’s government, but has pledged to return to his country to be sworn in as
RSS