Furious Zelensky slams Indian PM Modi for embracing ‘world’s bloodiest criminal’ Vladimir Putin during Moscow visit – hours after ‘genocidal’ Russian missile attack on Kiev children’s hospital

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has sharply criticised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for embracing the “world’s bloodiest criminal” Vladimir Putin.

The Indian leader is currently being received in Moscow by the Kremlin autocrat.

Modi arrived on the day Putin’s forces shelled the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kiev with a powerful Kh-101 missile, a day of brutal Russian attacks on Ukraine that killed 38 people — including four children — and wounded more than 170.

The couple embraced when they met when Putin received him at his Novo-Ogaryovo palace outside Moscow. Zelensky had met Modi last month.

The furious Ukrainian president wrote: “It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy embracing the world’s bloodiest criminal on such a day in Moscow.”

Prime Minister Modi and President Putin embraced yesterday while holding a friendly rally

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced during an informal meeting yesterday

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi take a walk during yesterday’s meeting

Zelensky met Modi last month and described the Indian prime minister’s friendly meeting with Putin as a “devastating blow”

Emergency and rescue personnel, along with medics and others, clear the rubble from the destroyed building of the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital after a Russian missile attack

Children who were patients at the centre – one of the largest children’s hospitals in Europe – had to be evacuated

Putin and Modi looked warm as they drank tea, exchanged compliments and toured the sprawling estate, with Putin chauffeuring the visiting Indian leader around in an electric cart.

However, Modi coolly demanded that all Indians serving in the Russian armed forces be released and sent home.

Anger has erupted because Indians felt misled and went to fight on Putin’s front lines.

“Russia has agreed to discharge all Indians serving in the army and facilitate their return,” NDTV reported.

Modi is also believed to have instructed Putin to find a diplomatic way out of the war.

Dialogue and diplomacy are the ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, because a solution cannot be found on the battlefield, he told the Russian dictator.

This came after Volodymyr Zhvnyr, general director of the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kiev, said that Russia is a “terrorist state” that “should not exist as a country” because of attacks on civilians, including children.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow

It is also believed that Modi has instructed Putin to find a diplomatic way out of the war

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit a horse stable during their meeting

Our hospital is the largest [children’s] “It is the best hospital in Europe,” he said. “Every day, more than 600 children are treated here.

‘Here children find hope: hope for health, hope for life. And this was precisely [medical] facility hit by a Russian missile today.

‘I’m tired of saying that Russia is a terrorist country.

“This is further proof that Russia should not exist as a country.”

The hospital director said: ‘I feel very sorry that this happened, that people died and that children were injured.

‘All Ukrainians are concerned about children with cancer, who need dialysis and who no longer receive help.

‘And we, Ukrainians and the whole world that supports freedom, must remain strong.

‘We must be able to strike back at the aggressor.

‘We must win, because without victory there is no peace.

‘Glory to Ukraine. Glory to our armed forces. Glory to the doctors.’

Two people were killed and 32 injured in the hospital.

Rescue workers work at the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital which was damaged in a Russian missile attack, during the Russian attack on Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, July 8, 2024

Dramatic images show the scale of the devastation after Russia’s horrific attack on a hospital in Kiev this morning

Today a huge fireball can be seen rising over Kiev, next to another plume of smoke

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed today that Russia had not targeted hospitals, but that Ukraine was blamed for the attack.

A journalist asked the dictator’s spokesman: ‘How can Russia, after yesterday’s tragedy in the children’s hospital in Kiev, continue to claim that the special military operation [war] has no civilian goals?

Peskov responded: “I urge you to consult the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which categorically denies any attack on civilian targets.

“It says it was a case of a falling anti-missile.”

It is believed that this is a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile.

Peskov said: ‘We continue to maintain that we do not attack civilian targets.

“Attacks are being carried out on critical infrastructure facilities, on military targets that are in some way related to the military potential of the regime in Kiev.”