Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Ukraine in August

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be travellingto Kyiv in August, which will be his first visit to the war-torn country since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. The visit, which is still in the works, is expected to take place in the third week of August, most likely on August 23, several sources in Delhi's diplomatic circles have confirmed. Earlier this year, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky held a telephone conversation with PM Modi and invited the Indian leader to visit his country.

This month saw high-level exchanges between the twosides. EAM Jaishankar and Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and NSA Ajit Doval and his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Yermak held telephonic talks.

After the talks, EAM Jaishankar posted on social media that the talks were on "further developing our bilateral relationship".

A good conversation with FM @DmytroKuleba of Ukraine this afternoon.

Spoke about further developing our bilateral relationship.

🇮🇳 🇺🇦 — Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) July 19, 2024

PM Modi met Zelensky in June in Italy on the sidelines of the G7 summit. During that meeting, both sides had discussed the ongoing situation in Ukraine, with the Indian PM emphasising "dialogue and diplomacy". The PM "reiterated that India would continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution", according to the handout of the meeting.

This was the second such in-person meeting between the two leaders since the war -- the first being last year on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Japan. World leaders who have travelled to Ukraine, have gone via Poland due to the closure of airspace. It is expected that PM Modi could also travel via Poland, and hold a conversation with the Polish leadership, including PM Donald Tuskahead of his Ukraine visit.

A whole host of Western world leaders have travelled to Kyiv since the war started, and this includes US President Biden, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

Asian leaders who have travelled to Ukraineinclude, Indonesian President Joko Widodo who visited the war-torn country in June 2022 and was the first Asian leader to visit since the war first started.Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Kyiv in March of 2023. Kishida had visited Ukraine after his Delhi visit.

Watch |Russia-Ukraine war: India's PM Modi speaks to Zelensky, reitrates need for dialogue to end war

PM Modi's Russia visit

The visit comes almost twomonths after PM Modi's Russia visit. The visit to Russia was for the annual Russia summit, which came five years after his last visit. During the visit, among many things, the focus was on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Speaking to President Putin at the Kremlin, PM Modi said:"Your Excellency, let's take war, any conflict or terrorist acts: any person who believes in humanity feels pain when people die, and especially when innocent children die. When we feel such pain, the heart simply explodes."