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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan Saturday – as he uses his arrival in Hiroshima not only to meet Kyiv’s backers but to woo leaders from the Global South.
The in-person meeting was the first between the two leaders since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine some 15 months ago, and took place hours after Zelensky made a dramatic arrival at the three-day summit of the world’s industrialized democracies.
Zelensky’s in person attendance at the G7 – unconfirmed by host country Japan until just Saturday morning – gives the wartime leader the opportunity to meet with the member nations who already squarely back Ukraine – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – and press them for continued military aid.
But it also offers Zelenksy a chance to seek support for Ukraine and its vision for peace with leaders from a handful of other nations also attending the summit – some of which have not joined the West in leveraging sanctions against Russia or those, like India, that have refused to condemn Russia at the United Nations.
India is historically a major purchaser of Russian weaponry and has long-standing ties to Moscow.
