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How the world media is covering Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Ukraine as Russia continues its war

How the world media is covering Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Ukraine as Russia continues its war

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ukraine on Friday, August 23, and met President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Russian military continues to invade the country. Arriving in Kyiv for talks, Prime Minister Modi hugged Zelensky and observed a minute’s silence at a memorial to children killed in the Russian invasion. Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Ukraine, which has not explicitly condemned the Russian invasion of Kyiv, has been closely watched by the West.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to war-torn Ukraine could be seen as a sign that India is stepping into the role of a peace broker and that New Delhi is offering itself “as a friend” to bring peace to the country.

The Moscow Times detailed how India continued to trade with Russia when the West imposed sanctions on Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine, saying: “…while Modi’s visit could be seen as a gesture of support for Kiev in defending itself against invading Russian forces, it should be remembered that he visited Moscow in early July after being re-elected for a third term – a move that was widely seen as a mockery of the free world.”

The French foreign news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) said: “New Delhi has avoided explicitly condemning Moscow’s invasion and instead presents itself as a possible peacemaker between the warring neighbors.”

“But neither side showed any signs of a breakthrough. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar later said it was ‘obviously a complex issue’ and India believed Moscow needed to be involved if peace efforts were to move forward,” AFP wrote.

According to Reuters, the optics were very similar to Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Moscow in July last year, “where he called for peace and hugged Russian President Vladimir Putin, angering Ukraine, where a Russian missile attack hit a children’s hospital the same day.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with President Vladimir Putin in Russia in July 2024, the day the Russian military launched an attack on the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Against the backdrop of Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Russia, the BBC reported: “It was surely no coincidence that Mr Modi’s first stop on Friday was the Ukrainian History Museum, where he was to view an exhibition commemorating all the 570 Ukrainian children believed to have been killed since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.”

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