Modi attacks Putin over Ukraine war

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that now was not a time for war, and directly attacked the Kremlin chief publicly over the nearly seven-month-old conflict in Ukraine.

Faced with the West over the war, Putin has repeatedly said that Russia is not isolated because it can look eastward to major Asian powers such as China and India.

But at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), concerns spilled out into the open.

“I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I spoke to you on the phone about this,” Modi told Putin in a televised meeting in the ancient Uzbek Silk Road city of Samarkand. Read more

As Modi made this remark, the supreme leader of Russia since 1999 has been biting his lips, looking at Modi and then looking down before touching the hair on the back of his head.

Putin told Modi that he understands the Indian leader has concerns about Ukraine, but that Moscow is doing everything it can to end the conflict.

“I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, the concerns that you constantly express,” Putin said. “We will do everything we can to stop this as soon as possible.”

He said Ukraine rejected the negotiations. Ukraine has said it will fight until all Russian forces leave its territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would never accept a “peace” that would allow Russia to keep Ukraine’s land.

The war in Ukraine, which erupted when Putin ordered troops to invade on February 24, has killed tens of thousands of soldiers, sparked the worst confrontation with the West since the Cold War and pushed the global economy into an inflationary spiral.

India became Russia’s second oil buyer after China as others reduced their purchases after the invasion.

Putin told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday that he understood Xi had concerns about the situation in Ukraine but praised the Beijing leader for his “balanced” stance on the conflict. Read more

color revolutions

Xi, on his first trip outside China since early 2020, has not publicly mentioned the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese leader said the world had entered a new period of turmoil and that partners such as Putin and Central Asian leaders should prevent foreign powers from instigating “color revolutions”.

“The world has entered a new period of turbulent change, and we should grasp the trend of the times, strengthen solidarity and cooperation, and promote the building of a community of closer destiny with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Xi said.

“We should support each other’s efforts to protect security and development interests, prevent outside forces from making color revolutions, and oppose interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext.”

Xi slammed “loss games and bloc politics,” a veiled reference to the United States that Beijing has criticized in the past for relying on allies to counter China’s spectacular rise to great-power status on hold.

Putin has repeatedly said that the United States is planning so-called “color revolutions” along the lines of those that have ousted established elites from power in places like Ukraine.

The United States denies such allegations and says they show the terrifying nature of Putin’s Russia.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was ousted in the Maidan revolution and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where Russian-backed separatists are fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.

The stability-obsessed Chinese Communist Party, which is likely to give Xi next month a third term of leadership and cement his position as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has in the past warned of so-called “color revolutions”.

A source in the Uzbek government told Reuters on Friday that Xi had stayed away from a dinner attended by 11 heads of state in line with his delegation’s policy on COVID-19. Read more

Additional reporting by Shivam Patel, Yu Lone Tian, ​​Ryan Wu and Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Olsas Oysoff and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Catherine Evans, Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Otis

Our criteria: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.