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The leaders of India, Narendra Modi, and Russia, Vladimir Putin, met at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The Indian Prime Minister took advantage of the occasion before the cameras to tell his Russian counterpart that “this is not the time for a war”, regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Putin responded that he is doing “everything possible” to end the conflict.
Within the framework of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, SCO, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, met with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin and reproached him for his policy that promoted the war in Ukraine.
Modi told Putin in the middle of a televised conference that “this is not the time for a war”, stressing that he had already spoken with the Russian president “on the phone about this”.
After the comment, the Russian president made a gesture, pursed his lips, looked at Modi before lowering his gaze and touching the back of his neck. Afterward, Putin told Modi that he understood the Indian leader was worried about Ukraine, but that Moscow was doing “everything to put an end to this as soon as possible.”
For the Kremlin president, Ukraine is the one who has rejected the negotiations. Given these statements, the government of Volodímir Zelenski has said that it will never accept that Russia stays with Ukrainian territory and that it will fight to expel the invaders from its country.
The conflict, which began on February 24, almost seven months ago, has turned into a confrontation with the West, which Putin has avoided by saying that he can look to the great Asian powers of India and China.
The war has caused the worst confrontation since the Cold War, has left thousands dead and economic instability in the world with a runaway inflationary rise.
India seems to play both sides
India has taken advantage of the Ukrainian war by becoming the second largest buyer of Russian oil, after Chin. Many countries have reduced their purchases after the invasion, while India takes advantage of deep discounts on crude oil.
New Delhi and Moscow have had good relations since the Cold War, so much so that Russia is their biggest arms supplier. According to figures from ‘Business Standard’, India is the second largest arms importer in the world and bought 49.4% of these supplies from Russia between 2016 and 2020.
The country ruled by Narendra Modi is a member of the SCO as well as the Quad group, a bloc that also includes the United States, Australia and Japan that seeks a counterweight to China’s growing military and economic power.
Last year the Russian president visited New Delhi and after a greeting hug to Modi hailed India as a “great power”. The two countries strengthened their military and energy ties on that occasion.
Despite this, the former Indian ambassador to Russia, Pankaj Saran, described Modi’s comments on Ukraine as “quite frank” and stated that the Ukraine crisis “had caught the attention of the whole world and created problems for the developing world”. .
Washington, for its part, has pressured New Delhi to condemn the war in Ukraine, but the Asian giant has not done so to date.
Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and the “color revolutions”
As Russia faces heavy losses on the battlefield, President Putin seeks, at all costs, not to be left alone and isolated as the West claims.
Just on Thursday, the presidents of Russia and China met at the SCO. Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Xi Jinping was also “concerned” about the war in Ukraine, but praised Beijing for taking a “balanced” position.
In this is Xi’s first foreign trip, after the Covid-19 pandemic, he did not mention anything about the war in Ukraine in public, although he said that “the world has entered a new period of turbulent changes” and “we must grasp the trend of the times, strengthen solidarity and cooperation, and promote the building of a closer community with a shared future with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
In addition, the Chinese president called for unity and mutual support “in efforts to safeguard security and development interests, prevent external forces from staging color revolutions, and jointly oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries under any pretext.” .
Xi Jinping took the words from Putin, who has repeatedly accused the United States of starting “color revolutions” that seek to remove elites from power. Washington denies these claims and says they are the product of Putin’s paranoia.
With Reuters and AFP
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