ASTHA RAJVANSHI
Hours before India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Moscow on July 8, Russia fired missiles on Ukraine that killed at least 41 people, including four children at a children's hospital in Kyiv. The attack sparked widespread global condemnation, yet Modi was smiling as he posed for photos with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During Modi’s two-day visit to the Kremlin—his first trip to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022— the two leaders hugged each other outside Putin’s suburban residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, before holding informal talks over tea and taking a tour of the grounds. Putin told Modi he was “very happy” to see his “dear friend,” according to Russia’s TASS state news agency, while Modi called the visit a “wonderful opportunity to deepen ties” between the two countries in a post on the social media platform X.
In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Modi’s visit “a huge disappointment” on X, saying it was “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.”
It became clear, however, that Modi did not plan on challenging Putin over his actions in Ukraine during the visit, and instead used the trip to affirm longstanding strategic and economic ties between the two countries. The Indian leader’s engagement appears to be in part an attempt to stem the Kremlin’s dependence on regional rival China while he continues to walk a tightrope between the East and the West. “As the first state visit of his third term, Modi’s visit to Russia seeks to reassure Putin of the importance of the bilateral relationship at a time when India is deepening relations with the West,” says Chietigj Bajpaee, a senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House.
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