Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday that the war in Ukraine needed to end for humanity’s sake and that New Delhi would support every peace effort to stop the fighting.
Modi, who made his comments at the start of talks with Putin in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, called Putin “my friend” and hailed growing economic ties between the two countries which he said were guided by the need to put the interests of both nations above all else.
India, along with China, is one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil, which has helped Moscow replenish its budget since it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and was hit with sweeping Western sanctions.
“As you are aware, India supports all peace efforts in this regard, and we shall continue to do so in the future,” Modi told Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit, according to a Kremlin transcript of their exchange.
“Every day that the war continues, humanity is, in effect, set back a step, while every step towards peace gives all of humanity real hope for peace. We need to move from endless war to an end to the war, to a cessation of hostilities. And we will need to move precisely in this direction,” said Modi who has said before that he wants a peace settlement for Ukraine.
“Thank you very much, Prime Minister. We are moving forward along this path,” Putin responded, according to state media.
The Kremlin – which has repeatedly said that Russia is only ready to end the war on its own terms, which Ukraine has dismissed as an unacceptable demand to capitulate – said after the talks that Putin had briefed Modi on how the special military operation, Russia’s preferred description for its action in Ukraine, was progressing, the state TASS news agency reported.
Russia has hit printing presses and publishing houses across Ukraine in a series of recent attacks, destroying 12 million books and damaging other icons of Ukrainian history and culture, reports BBC.
Local media report that Russia has destroyed one third of all the books printed in Ukraine this year.
Nothing is salvageable at this Kyiv printing press. Even the pages that survived the flames have succumbed to water damage, from firefighting or exposure to the elements from the collapsed roof.
“I believe it is deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation,” says Haidai, commercial director of the Konvi publishing firm. “Over the past two months, some of the largest publishing houses have lost their logistics warehouses, where very large quantities of books were stored.
“The Russians are also destroying printing houses in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation. But frankly they will not succeed.”
More than 35 publishing facilities have been hit over recent weeks.
But it’s not just fresh pages coming under attack. Kyiv’s Pochaina second-hand book market was also struck, wiping out hundreds of individual stalls and countless treasured tomes.
Before firemen had finished extinguishing the blaze, I found Liliya Velyka, a 28-year-old book blogger, raking through the smouldering ruins, seeing if anything could be saved. She clutched a soaking copy of a sci-fi novel.
“Books are saving us and losing this is like losing our hearts,” she says.
Museums, art galleries, film studios, libraries, and opera houses have also been damaged. At Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the capital’s large medieval monastery and cultural heritage site, the golden domes of the Dormition Cathedral were hit.
Religious artefacts were moved to safety but a large section of the roof was set ablaze after a drone attack.
Leaders, including Putin, Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have arrived in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek for the World Nomad Games.
The games’ opening ceremony took place on Sunday on the eve of a summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation yesterday, which the visiting leaders also attended.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the summit, but Kyrgyz media said he stayed away from the opening ceremony of the games, citing the flooding and landslides in Tibet.
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