Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted sharply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to Russia and termed his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts."
PM Modi held an informal meeting with Putin at the latter's official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on Monday, marking his first trip to Russia since it began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Zelenskyy, who met PM Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit last month, said in a post on X, "It is a huge disappointment and 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 on such a day."
Geeting the Russian President yesterday, PM Modi had engulfed him in a big hug. The bonhomie between the two was on full display as they chatted over tea, traded compliments, and went on a tour of the sprawling estate grounds with Putin driving the visiting Indian leader around in a golf cart.
Zelenskyy's criticism came on the same day that a Russian missile struck a children's hospital in Kyiv, killing at least 24 people and causing widespread destruction.
On the other hand, PM Modi is believed to have told Putin that dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward to resolve the Ukraine conflict as a solution can't be found on the battlefield, as per sources.
Ahead of the bilateral talks between PM Modi and Putin, the US called upon India to make it clear to Russia that any resolution of the Ukraine conflict must respect the United Nations charter and Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Russian missiles blasted cities across Ukraine on Monday, damaging the country’s largest children’s hospital and other buildings in a fierce assault that interrupted heart surgeries and forced young cancer patients to take their treatments outdoors. At least 41 people were killed, officials said.
The daytime barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, Zelenskyy said on social media. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 30 missiles.
It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months, hitting seven of the city’s 10 districts. At least seven people were killed in the capital, including two staff members at the hospital. Strikes in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s birthplace in central Ukraine, killed 10.
"It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing," Zelenskyy said.
