Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit his country, to India. Zelenskyy has expressed his enthusiasm to go to the "great" country.
The invitation came after two leaders had detailed discussions. This is the first time ever that an Indian Prime Minister visited Ukraine after its independence over thirty years ago. The visit lasted nearly nine hours at Kyiv.
Briefing the media after the talks, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that during the meeting, Modi had indeed invited Zelenskyy to visit India. The minister said that it was only natural for Modi to have made the invitation during this visit since this is a historic visit. He added that President Zelenskyy is expected to visit India at a convenient time in the future.
A joint statement issued after the talks also repeated PM Modi's invitation to Zelenskyy to visit India at his convenience.
At a media briefing, Zelenskyy said in response to a question about the invitation, that he was willing to visit India and pointed out the fact that the dialogue just has to go on and the meeting again would give good results. Zelenskyy said he wishes India to side with his country, wishes to learn more about the country and said he is ready to visit once the Indian government is prepared for it.
Zelenskyy, however did say the timing would be contingent on the situation in Ukraine.
WHAT DOES THE MEETING MEAN? Furthermore, Jaishankar answered journalists' questions about India's trade in energy products with Russia. The minister said that even though the talk about this topic wasn't too long, the Indian side explained to the Ukrainians the energy market that already existed. He described the tight market conditions as a result of sanctions against many energy producers and, at the same time, an interest from all over the world in having stable and reasonable prices of oil.
According to a report by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), India, the world's third-largest oil consumer and importer, imported in July some 2.8 billion U.S. dollars worth of crude oil from Russia and could emerge as the second largest importer from Russia after China. Russia is now the largest supplier of crude oil to India, a shift attributed to the discounted Russian oil made available after some European countries reduced their purchases in response to the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Previously, less than one percent of the total oil imports to India came from Russia, while now it is close to around 40% of the country's oil purchases.
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