Several weeks after visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian President Narendra Modi is to travel to Ukraine on Friday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Modi’s Ukraine visit will be his first since the Russian invasion, the foreign minister announced in New Delhi on Monday. His visit to Putin in July was also the first time they’d met since the invasion.
Zelensky’s office confirmed the visit, which will take place on following a two-day visit by Modi to Poland. It said Modi and Zelensky would hold talks on bilateral and multilateral cooperation and sign a number of agreements, without providing details.
India, which has maintained a neutral stance on the war, has not joined the West in imposing sanctions on Russia and has repeatedly called for dialogue to resolve the conflict.
It maintains good relations with both the West and Moscow and has increased its imports of cheap Russian oil since the start of the war.
India is also heavily dependent on Russia for military equipment, even if it is attempting to reduce that dependence.
Zelensky expressed criticism of Modi’s visit to Moscow, which followed shortly after Putin’s re-election as president and was seen in Russia as a sign of the value Modi placed on relations between the two countries.
Images of the meeting, during which Modi and Putin embraced, went viral on social media at the time.
