Kyiv Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday extended Holi greetings with an emotional video portraying freedom fighter leader Mahatma Gandhi and his contribution to India's freedom struggle. Taking to social media, Kuleba confirmed his visit to India next week, thus marking one of the first official visits of a top Ukrainian leader since Russia escalated a war in February 2022. In fact, he asserted this would be his maiden trip- which means the main focus of Kuleba would be meeting top officials of India.
Earlier, India TV reported Kuleba's visit to New Delhi and foretold the main agenda would revolve around the upcoming peace summit in Switzerland. Although Kuleba did not reveal the agenda directly on social media platforms but emphasised the clip over Gandhi's contribution to India's independence. The Ukrainian leader stressed that the war-torn nation also needed the same zeal to secure victory against Russian forces.
"Today, India celebrates Holi, the most beautiful and colourful spring holiday. I wish everyone a happy Holi! Standing here in Kyiv, in front of Mahatma Gandhi's monument, I am also pleased to announce that this week I will pay my first-ever visit to India," he said.
Ukrainian leader's main agenda
Kuleba also recalled a recent conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy where both leaders spoke about peace formula. During the conversation, Zelenskyy told PM Modi to play the role of peacemaker. In return, the Indian leader also echoed the same but did not commit to any deadline. Therefore, it is expected that Kuleba would insist his Indian counterpart Dr S Jaishankar use India's good relations with Russia to end the ongoing conflict early.
In January, Jaishankar and Kuleba held a phone conversation focusing on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Kyiv's peace formula. Following the conversation, Kuleba had said that he conveyed to his Indian counterpart the "peace formula" and Ukraine's plan for the 'Global Peace Summit' of leaders.
Notably, Ukraine is seeking to rally support for Zelenskyy's 10-point peace plan amid signs of war fatigue as the front lines remain largely unchanged and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has become a more pressing focus of global attention. Surprisingly, Russia, which has been playing the main role in the war, was not invited to the summit.
Global peace summit on Ukraine that excludes Russia is simply "absurd" and will fail: Russia
Any global peace summit on Ukraine that excludes Russia is simply "absurd" and will fail, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Tuesday. Peskov also told the news outlet Argumenty I Fakty that Russia was pursuing its two-year-old war on Ukraine to protect itself from the West.
"Can the Ukrainian problem be resolved without Russia's participation? The reply is clear - it cannot," Peskov said in the interview conducted last Thursday, a day before the mass shooting at a concert hall outside Moscow.
"Because Ukraine has been turned into an instrument in the hands of the collective West with whose help it intends, so it seems to them, to put more pressure on Russia, restrain Russia and abandon it to the fringes of development. And, should they succeed, to finish it off," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already denounced as unworkable a Ukrainian peace plan calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Kyiv's 1991 borders, including Crimea, seized and annexed by Russia in 2014. Peskov reiterated that the plan was unthinkable, and also denounced plans discussed by the European Union and other countries to take control of profits from Russian assets and turn them over to Ukraine.
(With inputs from agency)
