Modi’s visit to Moscow shows a less isolated Putin, angering Ukraine

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India strolled alongside President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia under the trees outside the Russian leader’s suburban residence as the sun set. He rode a golf cart along the paths, sipped tea during an hour-long conversation and petted a horse during a visit to Mr. Putin’s stables, all the while soaking up the tranquility of an estate that once belonged to the Romanov dynasty.

The scene, Monday night, kicked off the Indian leader’s two-day trip to Russia and illustrated a sobering reality: Despite the West’s stated goal of isolating Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, other countries have pursued their own interests vis-à-vis Moscow, helping Putin bolster Russia’s economy and wage war.

As Modi embraced the Russian leader, rescue workers in Kiev searched for survivors under the rubble of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital after a Russian missile strike. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Modi’s embrace a “huge disappointment” and a “devastating blow to peace efforts.”

The arrival in Russia of the leader of the world’s largest democracy has given Putin further evidence that he has avoided the pariah status that Western leaders tried to impose on him after the invasion. Putin has met twice in two months with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as well as the leaders of Vietnam, Hungary, Belarus and the countries of Central Asia, maintaining a robust diplomatic schedule.

Modi’s trip to Russia, his first in five years, also coincided with the start of NATO’s annual heads of state summit, which is taking place in Washington this year.

Western officials — who immediately condemned the attack on the Ukrainian children’s hospital, which Moscow denied responsibility for — have failed to persuade India to take a public stand against Putin’s war. Despite closer ties with the United States, Modi has avoided condemning the Russian invasion and called for “collective dialogue,” choosing instead to maintain the warm relations with Moscow that India has built since the Cold War.

“We’ve now had two and a half years of endless Russian atrocities, and most of the world is not discouraged or uncomfortable with having some kind of business as usual with Moscow,” said Andrew S. Weiss, the vice president for studies at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That’s a very sad commentary on Russia’s ongoing geopolitical pressure.”

A video clip of Mr. Putin sharing a warm embrace with Mr. Modi circulated widely on Indian news channels and social media. Mr. Putin referred to Mr. Modi as his “best friend” during their informal meeting on Monday, which the Indian leader described as essentially a gossip session, or chitchat, between friends. The Kremlin said it lasted three hours.

“Whenever you hear the word Russia, the first word that comes to the mind of every Indian is India’s companion in happiness and sorrow,” Mr. Modi said at a meeting with the Indian community in Moscow, according to Russia’s state news agency Tass. “Russia is India’s true friend.”

Mr. Modi’s warm words for Mr. Putin were noted in Kiev, where Ukrainians were reeling from Monday’s devastating attack on the nation’s children’s hospital. Images of children outside the devastated medical facility, their IVs still attached, or in some cases covered in blood, have devastated a country that has been exhausted by more than two years of Russian bombardment.

“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,” Ukraine’s Mr Zelensky said. wrote on X.

New Delhi’s stance toward Moscow has been favorable to both India and Russia. While India imported little Russian crude oil before the invasion of Ukraine, the nation has since grown to the number 2 importer of Russian oil after Chinawhich helps fill the Kremlin’s coffers despite a Western ban on most Russian oil imports. In many cases, India has refined Russian crude and re-exported it to European countries under the ban, giving the South Asian nation a lucrative role as a middleman.

The United States, which is seeking to strengthen ties with India as tensions with China rise, has not forced New Delhi to choose between Washington and Moscow.

In response to questions about Modi’s visit, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, told a news conference on Monday that he was not aware of any specific conversations between US and Indian officials about Modi’s trip to Russia.

Mr Miller said the United States “has made our concerns about its relationship with Russia very clear directly to India” and that he would “look at Prime Minister Modi’s public comments to see what he was talking about” to Mr Putin during the visit. He added that Washington hopes that any country that engages with Moscow makes it clear that Russia must respect the United Nations Charter as well as Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders.

There was no indication that Modi planned to convey such a message to Putin.

India has a long history of friendly relations with Moscow, dating back to the days of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and later Russia supplied much of India’s arms and military hardware for decades, though that dependence has diminished in recent years — partly due to pressure from the United States.

“This is a tested relationship and there is a consensus in India, irrespective of political orientation, that the relationship with Russia should be preserved and not squandered,” said Rajan Menon, an expert on international affairs and professor emeritus of political science at City College.

Putin has portrayed his invasion of Ukraine as an anti-imperialist struggle against the encroaching West, a message that has resonated in parts of the developing world that once struggled with Western colonialism.

Unlike in the West, where opinions about Russia are predominantly negative, many Indians have a positive view of the country, according to a Pew Research Center Survey conducted this year. In the poll, only 16 percent of respondents in India said they had an unfavorable opinion of Russia, compared to 46 percent who said they had a positive association with the country.

Mr Menon predicted that India would maintain closer ties with the United States in the long run, but not at the cost of choosing sides.

“Anyone who expects that you can peel India off and put it in the US column, that’s not going to happen,” he said. “Would you rather be completely dependent on the United States or Russia, or have a position of maneuverability between the two?”

Back home in India, representatives of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party traded vitriolic remarks with leaders of the Indian National Congress, his main opponent in parliament. Jairam Ramesh, a top Congress official, condemned Mr. Modi’s decision to make a two-day visit to Russia instead of visiting relief camps in the northeastern state of Assam, where floods have taken a heavy toll and where Rahul Gandhi, the opposition leader, has visited victims. But the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine was not discussed.