India has decided to send humanitarian assistance to Ukraine even as it once again tacitly sent out a message to Russia by expressing regret at the United Nations Security Council over the deteriorating situation in the East European nation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told officials during a meeting in the evening that the first consignment of relief supplies to Ukraine should be dispatched on Tuesday. He also again expressed ‘anguish’ at the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
“There is no other choice, but to return back to the path of diplomacy and dialogue,” New Delhi’s envoy to the UN, T S Tirumurti, said, even as India once again abstained from voting at the Security Council on a procedural resolution to convene a rare emergency special session of the General Assembly of the international organisation on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
He reiterated New Delhi’s call for an immediate cessation of violence and an end to hostilities, thus nudging Moscow to stop military operations against Ukraine.
New Delhi has also decided to send humanitarian assistance to war-torn Ukraine, which has been resisting an invasion by Russia since February 24. Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists on Monday that the Government of India would send medicines and other essentials to the East European nation following a request Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla received from Kyiv’s envoy to New Delhi, Igor Polikha, for humanitarian assistance.
Polikha told journalists that he had conveyed Ukraine’s request for humanitarian assistance from India during a meeting on Sunday.
New Delhi has been cautiously avoiding siding with the US and other western nations on the issue of Russia’s military build-up around Ukraine. It has been calling for resolving the crisis through diplomacy and dialogue.
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