- The Indian leader is being hosted at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo palace near Moscow
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has sharply rebuked Indian premier Narendra Modi for hugging the ‘world’s most bloody criminal’ Vladimir Putin.
The Indian leader is currently being hosted in Moscow by the Kremlin autocrat.
Modi arrived on the day Putin’s forces had blasted Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv with a powerful Kh-101 missile on a day of savage Russian attacks on Ukraine which killed 38 – including four children – and wounded over 170.
The pair hugged when they met as Putin hosted him at his Novo-Ogaryovo palace outside Moscow. Zelensky had met with Modi last month.
The furious Ukrainian President posted: ‘It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.’
Prime Minister Modi and President Putin hugged as they put on a friendly display yesterday
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced during an informal meeting yesterday
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi take a walk during yesterday’s meeting
Zelensky had met with Modi last month and described the Indian PM’s friendly meeting with Putin as a ‘devastating blow’
Emergency and rescue personnel along with medics and others clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital following a Russian missile attack
Children who were patients at the centre – one of Europe’s largest children’s hospitals – had to be evacuated
Putin and Modi put on a friendly display as they chatted over tea, traded compliments, and went on a tour of the sprawling estate grounds with Putin driving the visiting Indian leader around in an electric cart.
However, Modi coolly demanded that all Indians serving in the Russian armed forces be released and sent home.
There has been anger that Indians felt misled into fighting on Putin’s frontline.
‘Russia has agreed to dismiss all Indians serving in its army and facilitate their return,’ said NDTV.
Modi is also believed to have told Putin to find a diplomatic way out of the war.
Dialogue and diplomacy is the way to resolve the Ukraine conflict because a solution will not be found on the battlefield, he told the Russian dictator.
This came as Volodymyr Zhvnyr, general director of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, said Russia was a ‘terrorist state’ that ‘should not exist as a country’ after its targeting of civilians, including children.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow
Modi is also believed to have told Putin to find a diplomatic way out of the war
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit a horse barn during their meeting
‘Our hospital is the largest [children’s] hospital in Europe,’ he said. ‘More than 600 children are treated here every day.
‘This is where children find hope: hope for health, hope for life. And it was precisely this [medical] facility that a Russian missile hit today.
‘I’m already tired of saying that Russia is a terrorist country.
‘This is further proof that Russia should not exist as a country.’
The hospital chief said: ‘I’m very sad that this happened, that people died, that children got wounded.
‘All Ukrainians are worried for the children with cancer and who need dialysis, who are left without help.
‘And we, Ukrainians and the whole world that supports freedom, must stay strong.
‘We must be able to fight the aggressor back.
‘We must win, because without victory there will be no peace.
‘Glory to Ukraine. Glory to our armed forces. Glory to the doctors.’
In the hospital, two died and 32 were wounded.
Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital that was damaged during a Russian missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 8, 2024
Dramatic images show the scale of the devastation in the aftermath of Russia’s horrifying attack on the hospital in Kyiv this morning
A huge fireball is seen rising over Kyiv next to another smoke plume today
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed today that Russia did not target hospitals, instead blaming the attack on Ukraine.
The dictator’s mouthpiece was asked by a journalist: ‘After yesterday’s tragedy at the children’s hospital in Kyiv, how can Russia continue to claim that the special military operation [war] has no civilian targets?’
Peskov replied: ‘I urge you to refer to the statement from the Russian Ministry of Defence, which categorically denies any strikes on civilian targets.
‘It states that it was a case of an anti-missile falling.’
This is believed to refer to a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Peskov said: ‘We still insist – we do not attack civilian targets.
‘Strikes are carried out against critical infrastructure facilities, against military targets that are in one way or another related to the military potential of the Kyiv regime.’