Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky offered Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to host a peace conference on ending the conflict with Russia, Bloomberg has reported.
Modi visited Kiev last week, the first Indian leader to do so. He declined to mediate between Ukraine and Russia but reportedly said he would gladly “pass messages” between the two countries.
During the visit, Zelensky asked Modi to host a “peace summit” in India before November, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the exchange. Zelensky’s spokesman Sergey Nikiforov said that Kiev was considering hosting a conference in a Global South country, “in particular” India.
Modi has yet to respond, according to Bloomberg’s sources. India’s Foreign Ministry has not commented on the claim.
Zelensky himself has publicly brought up the possibility of a peace conference at a press briefing with reporters from India, after Modi had left Kiev.
“For peace, I truly believe that a second summit has to take place,” the Ukrainian leader said. “It would be good if it were held in one of the Global South countries.”
India is a “big country” and “a great democracy, the largest,” Zelensky said, but the problem is that New Delhi “hasn’t joined the communique of the peace summit,” he added.
The communique in question was the final statement of the failed June conference in Lucerne, Switzerland that sought to enlist non-Western support for Zelensky’s so-called peace formula. The ten-point wishlist first floated in late 2020 is a de facto blueprint for Russia’s surrender that Moscow has laughed off as divorced from reality.
China snubbed the Lucerne conference because Russia was not invited, while several delegations – including India, Indonesia and South Africa – declined to sign the joint statement.
The fact that Zelensky brought up the issue to Indian journalists after Modi left Kiev and made it look like Ukraine was conditioning India’s role on signing the communique “went down extremely badly” in India, according to independent journalist Swati Chaturvedi.
“Modi doesn’t like public embarrassment, and Zelensky left him red-faced in front of an Indian audience,” Chaturvedi said.