Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make first visit to Ukraine since Russian invasion

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine later this week, the external affairs ministry said on Monday ahead of his first trip to the war-torn country since the Russian invasion and about a month after meeting President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Ukraine since the Eastern European country declared independence in 1991. He is scheduled to leave New Delhi on August 21 for Poland before heading to kyiv.

This historic visit is of course taking place in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which will also be at the heart of the discussions. As you know, India has always advocated diplomacy and dialogue to reach a negotiated settlement, Tanmaya Lal, Secretary of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, said at a press conference in Delhi.

India is ready to provide all possible support and necessary contribution to help find peaceful solutions to this conflict.

New Delhi has refrained from publicly criticizing Russia over the war in Ukraine and has not joined the series of international sanctions imposed on it, despite pressure from Western countries, particularly the United States.

Since the escalation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Modi has met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky several times, including on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy in June.

When Modi traveled to Moscow in early July for the annual India-Russia summit, the trip and his embrace with Putin were met with criticism from the international community, including Washington and Kiev.

While Modi's upcoming trip to Ukraine is partly seen as a form of damage control after his trip to Russia, it is also an attempt at diplomacy by Delhi, said Amitabh Singh, associate professor at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“This is an important visit in the sense that the hope of diplomacy is still alive. Going to Ukraine will put some diplomatic pressure on both Ukraine and Russia,” Singh told Arab News.

It would be unfair to say that Modi is visiting Ukraine only to make up for the criticism he received for his visit to Moscow. India has always maintained that it enjoys a certain level of strategic autonomy. This is an attempt to show the international community that we are not only talking to Moscow, but also to kyiv.

Modi is likely trying to show the international community that diplomacy is essential to ending the war, Singh added.

Diplomacy is the only alternative, and that is probably the message Modi is trying to convey to Ukraine and Russia.

Aditya Ramanathan, a research fellow at Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru, said the visit was of immense significance.

He told Arab News: “Hosts will see this as an attempt at damage control, but too little, too late. However, seasoned India watchers will understand that this visit is a costly signal from Delhi to demonstrate its foreign policy independence.”

The Russian missile attack on a children's hospital in Ukraine during Modi's visit to Moscow created a terrible impression for India, Ramanathan added, saying the timing added to the momentum of his visit to kyiv this week.

The trip is part of India's attempt to navigate a complex and ever-changing geopolitical world while maintaining relations with old partners.

Indian and Russian interests diverge and Delhi is keenly aware that Russia's global importance is likely to decline, he said.

India-Russia relations span more than seven decades, and Moscow is its largest supplier of crude oil and the main source of its military hardware.

But over the past two decades, India's partnership with the West has strengthened, and it is now a member of the Quad, the four-state strategic security dialogue, also comprising the United States, Japan and Australia, which was established to counter China's growing regional economic and military influence.

India has no intention of abandoning one of its closest partners at this time, but there is no harm in negotiating with Russia's adversaries, Ramanathan said. If Moscow can woo Islamabad and Beijing, Delhi can woo kyiv and Washington.