Modi hugs Putin as Russia attacks Ukraine
Missile barrage on Ukraine damage nearly 100 buildings and leave 37 dead
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Missile barrage on Ukraine damage nearly 100 buildings and leave 37 dead
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugged Russian President Vladimir Putin and had tea with him at the latter’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow Monday as Russian missiles struck three cities and a town in Ukraine killing 37 people and injuring more than 170 others.
Modi told Putin it was a “moment of joy” to visit.
“Looking forward to our talks tomorrow as well, which will surely go a long way in further cementing the bonds of friendship between India and Russia,” Modi later wrote on X, posting a photo of the leaders hugging.
Modi last visited Russia in 2019 and hosted Putin in New Delhi two years later, weeks before Russia began its offensive against Ukraine.
India has shied away from explicit condemnation of Russia ever since and has abstained on United Nations resolutions censuring Moscow.
Meanwhile, dozens of Ukrainian volunteers including hospital staff and rescue workers dug through debris from the Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital, which was hit in the missile barrage, in a desperate search for survivors, Agence France-Presse journalists on the scene saw.
Kyiv said the children’s hospital had been struck by a Russian cruise missile with components produced in North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries and announced a day of mourning in the capital.
Russia hit back claiming the extensive missile damage in Kyiv was caused by Ukrainian air defense systems.
Moscow said its forces had struck their “intended targets,” which it added were only defense industry and military installations.
The strikes damaged nearly 100 buildings, including multiple schools and a maternity hospital, he added.
The air force said air defense systems downed 30 projectiles.
The emergency services said 22 people were killed in Kyiv on Monday, including at both medical facilities hit in the attack, and that another 72 had been wounded.
In Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rig, the strikes killed at least 10 and wounded more than 41, officials there said.
In Dnipro, a city of around one million people in the same region, one person was killed and six more were wounded, the region’s governor said, when a high-rise residential building and petrol station were hit.
And in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have taken a string of villages in recent weeks, the regional governor said three people were killed in Pokrovsk — a town that had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.
“This shelling targeted civilians, hit infrastructure, and the whole world should see today the consequences of terror, which can only be responded to by force,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media.
“Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes,” Zelensky said in a post on social media.
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