India's Foreign Ministry confirms Modi's upcoming visit to Ukraine.

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India's Foreign Ministry confirmed on Aug.

19 the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Ukraine. Details of the trip will be shared later in the day, the Foreign Ministry said, but it will likely occur sometime in August. The visit, which was first announced by Indian media in July, will be Modi's first trip to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war.

The previous month, Modi visited Russia and held talks with President Vladimir Putin, a meeting that included a widely criticized hug between the two leaders. In June, Modi met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Italy during the G7 summit. They discussed the ongoing situation in Ukraine, with Modi emphasizing the importance of "dialogue and diplomacy." He reiterated that India would continue to support a peaceful resolution, according to the meeting's official handout.

New Delhi has been calling for a diplomatic solution to Russia's war against Ukraine but has been simultaneously fostering close economic ties with Moscow. India became one of the chief buyers of Russian oil following Western sanctions, although pressure from U.S. sanctions increasingly threatens this trade. While India participated in Ukraine's global peace summit in June, Modi did not attend personally, and India's representative did not ultimately sign the joint communique.

Modi was also one of the few democratically elected leaders to congratulate Putin on his reelection in March after a vote that was widely considered to be neither free nor fair.

Opinion: Modi's Kyiv visit will be a tightrope walk between Washington and Moscow

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly plans to visit Ukraine in late August, a little over a month after his controversial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, which coincided with NATO's summit in Washington.

Images of Modi hugging Putin - on the same day that Russia bo...