India's Modi will visit Ukraine after Zelenskyy's criticism for meeting Putin in Moscow

NEW DELHI -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine this week and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the two countries announced Monday, weeks after he met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Modi will visit Ukraine on Zelenskyy's invitation on Friday, Tanmaya Lal, a senior official at the Ministry of External Affairs, said at a briefing in New Delhi. He said the visit will provide an opportunity for the two leaders to discuss cooperation in defense, economic and business ties, science and technology and other sectors.

Ukraine’s Presidential Office also announced Modi's trip, saying it's his first visit during which two leaders will sign multiple cooperation documents and discuss “matters of bilateral and multilateral cooperation.”

Modi’s trip to Ukraine comes a month after Zelenskyy criticized his two-day visit to Moscow in July, when he met with Putin on the day Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, killing scores of people.

Zelenskyy had described the meeting as a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.” He also chided Modi for hugging Putin during their meeting.

Modi did not address the strikes directly during his trip, but alluded to the bloodshed while speaking about his meeting with Putin.

“Be it war, a struggle or a terrorist attack, every person who believes in humanity, when there is loss of life, he is pained,” Modi said then. “When innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart pains. And that pain is very horrible."

India has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and instead has urged Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

"The conflict is ongoing and we believe that the resolution to this conflict can only come through dialogue and diplomacy," Lal said on Monday. He said “India has consistently advocated for diplomacy and dialogue to reach a negotiated settlement."

Under Modi, New Delhi is seeking to deepen its relationship with the West while also keeping ties with Moscow, a major defense supplier for India. He has carefully avoided rubbing Moscow the wrong way given the countries’ partnership dating back to the Cold War.

India has also become a key buyer of Russian oil following sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies that shut most Western markets off to Russian exports. India now gets more than 40% of its oil imports from Russia, according to analysts.

The U.S. has also raised concerns over India’s relationship with Russia, especially at a time when Washington has been seeking to strengthen ties with New Delhi as a counterweight to China.

At the time of Modi’s Moscow visit, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan had cautioned New Delhi that “a bet on Russia as a long-term, reliable partner is not a good bet.” The U.S. was also concerned with the timing of Modi’s visit as it came in the middle of the NATO Summit being held in Washington, where the West moved to bolster Ukraine.

Modi and Zelenskyy last met in June on the sidelines of the Group of Seven meeting in Italy. The two leaders have also spoken several times by phone since the start of the war.

Ukraine is interested in strengthening trade and economic ties with India, particularly agricultural exports, aviation cooperation, and pharmaceutical and industrial product trade, the Ukrainian president said earlier this year.

Bilateral trade between India and Ukraine countries has grown significantly in the last 25 years, reaching $3.3 billion in 2021-2022 financial year, according to India's foreign ministry.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India has also provided almost 100 tons of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and neighboring countries.

—-

Associated Press writer Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to this report.