PM Modi prods Putin to stop Russia-Ukraine war

The two leaders began their first face-to-face meeting since Moscow's forces invaded Ukraine

Today's era is not of war, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told Russian President Vladimir Putin, nudging him to end his military operations in Ukraine and contribute to the effort to end global food, energy and fertiliser crises caused by the conflict.

Modi and Putin had a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

“I know that today's era is not of war and I have spoken to you many times on the phone (conveying) that democracy, diplomacy and dialogue are such things that touch the world,” Modi told Putin. “Today we will get a chance to discuss how we can move forward on the path of peace in the coming days. I will also get an opportunity to understand your viewpoint,” the prime minister said in his opening remarks during the meeting with the Russian President.

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In his address to the SCO summit earlier, Modi expressed concerns over disruptions in supply chains due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the resultant food and energy crises around the world. He later told Putin that “the biggest concerns” facing the world and especially the developing countries were the difficulty in ensuring food security, fuel security, and fertilisers. “We must find some way out and you too must contribute to that,” he stressed during his meeting with the Russian President.

Putin, however, blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the continuation of the war. “I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, your concerns that you constantly express. We will do our best to stop this as soon as possible,” he assured the prime minister, but added: “However, unfortunately, the opposing side, the leadership of Ukraine, announced its refusal to continue negotiations and declared that they wanted to achieve their goals by military means, as they say, ‘on the battlefield’.”

“(The) whole world also knows how Russia's relationship with India has been and how India’s relationship with Russia has been and therefore the world also knows that it is an unbreakable friendship,” Modi, however, added in his remarks at the meeting with Putin.

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India has been drawing flak from the United States and other western nations for not joining them in denouncing Russia for its aggression against Ukraine – primarily in view of its decades-old strategic partnership with and its dependence on the former Soviet Union nation for military hardware. India stressed dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the conflict but abstained from voting on several US-backed resolutions against Russia in different organs of the United Nations.

New Delhi also irked the western nations with its move to procure oil from Russia at a discounted price and explore options to continue India-Russia bilateral trade circumventing western sanctions on the former Soviet Union nations.

The prime minister, however, on Friday prodded the Russian President to do his bit to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.