Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The West has failed to push Russia to the negotiating table to end the nearly 30-month-long ongoing Ukraine war. The United Nations, China, the Middle East, and others have failed, too.
With the possible return of a business-like Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025, Ukraine is afraid the US would not be as supportive in its war against Russia as it has been under the Biden Administration since February 2022, when President Vladimir Putin ordered a “special military campaign” in the neighboring country where large swathes are now in ruins, millions have fled, and hundreds of thousands died.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his two-day Russia visit on July 8 and 9, also raised the Ukraine issue, reiterating that peace could be achieved only through diplomacy and dialogue.
In his summit talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the PM delivered an unambiguous message, saying a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace talks do not succeed amidst bombs, guns, and bullets.
With the Israeli-Hamas war threatening to envelop more countries in the Middle East, the West’s priorities are also changing. The quickening geopolitical instability has forced Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to sue Moscow for peace.
It is against this backdrop and amid renewed global efforts to bring peace to the eastern European nation that India and Ukraine are looking at the possibility of a visit by PM Modi to Kyiv next month, the media, quoting multiple diplomatic sources, reported on Saturday.
PM Modi might visit Kyiv around the Ukrainian National Day on August 24 and travel to Poland thereafter, which would be the first visit by an Indian PM to Warsaw after more than four decades.
At his first face-to-face meeting with President Zelenskyy, on June 14, on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in Italy, PM Modi said India would continue to do everything possible to support a peaceful solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
He also told Zelenskyy that India believes in a “human-centric” approach to find a solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
At their meeting, the Ukrainian President invited the Indian PM to Kyiv.
PM Modi’s Russia visit drew criticism from the United States. Many Western countries were also ‘unhappy’ over his trip to Moscow.
India on Thursday, however, rejected Washington’s concerns over PM Modi’s trip to Moscow and asserted that all countries have the “freedom of choice” in a multipolar world and everyone should be mindful of such realities.