Indian PM Modi to visit Ukraine: foreign ministry

This handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on May 20, 2023, shows Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky meeting India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Japan – Copyright Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/AFP/File Handout

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine, the foreign ministry said Monday, weeks after Kyiv condemned him for hugging President Vladimir Putin during a visit to traditional ally Russia.

New Delhi’s foreign ministry did not give a date for the visit to Poland and Ukraine, but Indian media reports suggest it will take place later this week.

Modi has trod a delicate balance between maintaining his country’s historically warm ties with Moscow while courting closer security partnerships with Western nations as a bulwark against regional rival China. 

His government has avoided explicit condemnations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the more than two years since the conflict began, instead urging both sides to resolve their differences through dialogue.

Modi’s July visit to Moscow came hours after a Russian barrage hit multiple cities across Ukraine, killing more than three dozen people and heavily damaging a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Modi was pictured hugging Putin at his country residence a day earlier, drawing condemnation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

India and Russia have maintained close links since the Cold War, which saw the Kremlin become a key arms provider to the country.  

Since the Ukraine conflict began Russia has also become a major supplier of cut-price crude oil to India, providing a much-needed export market after the imposition of Western sanctions.

That has dramatically reconfigured their economic ties, with India saving itself billions of dollars while bolstering Moscow’s war coffers.

But Russia’s fight with Ukraine has also had a human cost for India.

New Delhi has pushed Moscow to return several of its citizens who signed up for “support jobs” with the Russian military, but were later sent to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine. 

At least five Indian soldiers have died in the conflict. 

Western powers have cultivated stronger relations with India as a hedge against China and its growing influence across the Asia-Pacific region, while pressuring New Delhi to distance itself from Russia.

India is part of the Quad grouping with the US, Japan and Australia that positions itself against China’s growing assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.

Modi also visited Russia in 2019 and hosted Putin in New Delhi two years later, weeks before Russia began its offensive against Ukraine.

India has largely shied away from explicit condemnation of Russia ever since and abstained on United Nations resolutions targeting the Kremlin.