PM Modi and President Zelenskyy during a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit India, and the Ukrainian leader said he would be happy to travel to the “great” country.
PM Modi invited Zelenskyy during his wide-ranging talks with the Ukrainian President.
Prime Minister Modi paid a nearly nine-hour visit to Kyiv in the first-ever trip to Ukraine by an Indian PM since it became independent over three decades ago.
At a media briefing following the talks between the two leaders, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar confirmed that PM Modi invited Zelenskyy to visit India.
“It’s significant that our prime minister has visited Ukraine for the first time since 1992. It is natural on such occasions that he extends an invitation, which he did in this case,” he said.
“So we expect that at some point, as per his convenience, President Zelenskyy will visit India,” Mr. Jaishankar added.
A joint statement also said that PM Modi invited Zelenskyy to visit India at a mutually convenient opportunity.
Asked at a media briefing on Modi’s invitation, Zelenskyy said he would be happy to come to India.
“Yes, because when you begin a strategic partnership and you begin some dialogue, I think that you don’t need to waste time and take a big pause, and that’s why I think it will be good to meet together again,” he said.
The Ukrainian President also said he wants India to be on the side of his country.
“I read a lot about your big and great country. It’s very interesting,” he said, adding, “I very much need your country on our side.” “I will be happy to come to India as soon as your government and prime minister are ready to see me,” Zelenskyy said.
At the same time, he suggested the visit would also depend on the situation in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jaishankar, in response to a question, said that India’s energy trade with Russia also came up for discussion.
“Yes, it did. I wouldn’t say at great length, but what we did was to explain to the Ukrainian side what the energy market scenario was, the fact that today many energy producers are sanctioned, making the market potentially very tight, and why actually today there is a compulsion—in fact, not just a compulsion, I mean why it is in the interest of the international economy as a whole—that oil prices remain reasonable and stable,” he said.
India, the world’s third-largest oil-consuming and importing nation, bought USD 2.8 billion worth of crude oil from Russia in July, second only to China, which remains the largest importer of Russian oil, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in a report.
Russia emerged as India’s biggest supplier of crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel in refineries, after Russian oil became available at a discount following some European nations shunning purchases from Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Imports from Russia, which were less than one percent of the total oil imported in the pre-Ukraine war period, now make up almost 40 percent of India’s total oil purchases.
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