Now to India now because Prime Minister Narendra Modi is
set to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow
today after he arrived there yesterday,
made the global outcry over the Russian strikes in Ukraine.
Modi visiting Moscow for the first time since Russia launched
its campaign in Ukraine seeking to nurture New Delhi's long
standing relationship with Moscow.
At the same time, though,
he's also been caught in closer Western security ties after
being returned to power last month as leader of the
world's most populous country.
We're going to cross then to New Delhi.
Talk to our correspondent Navdita Kamari,
who joins us from there.
Navdita, a real balancing act,
I suppose, between Western allies and Russia.
What does Modi hope to get out of this?
This is a tricky part for India to find a
fine balance between a relatively new friend that is United
States and a time tested friend,
Russia.
I mean even after the war began,
there has been immense pressure on India by its western
allies to denounce and condemned
its invasion in Ukraine. But India has avoided to condemn
Russian act Geopolitics is going to be one of the
major issues when the two leaders will sit
to talk later today. As we know that
Russia is the major supply of Indias arms and military
equipment that accounts for nearly
60% of its total military stock.
Whereas United States has a promise to supply advanced weaponry
and India needs both
the United States and Russia to protect its borders with
China and also to counter the China's growing aggression in
the Indo Pacific
region. That's why India constantly is playing and making efforts
to find a balance in relations between India,
Russia and United States. There's another issue there as well,
as the opposition there in India is accusing Narendra Modi
of not doing enough to bring back Indian fighters that
they say were duped into going to fight for Russia.
That's correct. And at their dinner dinner meeting last night,
it is reported that Putin has
agreed to release and send back those dozens of Indians
who were tricked by local agents
on the promise of well paid jobs or even university
seats.
There have been reports for months that dozens of Indians,
mostly belonging to poor families,
who were tricked by local agents
and were brought to Russia.
And as soon as they landed there,
they were taken by groups and sent for military training
for up to two to three weeks.
And they were given arms and sent to war,
sent to fight war on the
front front lines. So that's why the issue has
been a big, you know,
discontent in here in India.
And the opposition has been putting pressure on the Indian
Prime Minister to bring back those Indians.