India embraces Putin despite Ukraine kids hospital attacks

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warm public exchange with Vladimir Putin this week highlights a geopolitical fault line that Western governments cannot ignore.

In a post on social media, Modi wrote: Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine. We also reviewed the progress in our bilateral agenda, and reaffirmed our commitment to further deepen the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. I look forward to hosting President Putin in India later this year.

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The message comes a little over a year after one of the most widely condemned Russian strikes of the war, when a missile hit Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in July 2024. Ukrainian officials said dozens were injured, including young patients undergoing cancer treatment.

Independent investigators, open-source analysts, and Western governments concluded that the damage was caused by a Russian missile. The Kremlin has denied targeting civilians, yet its forces have struck medical facilities, schools, and residential areas throughout the conflict.

For London, Brussels, and Washington, Modi’s post amounts to a public embrace of a leader whose military stands accused of war crimes. It calls into question the effectiveness of a strategy centred on isolating Russia diplomatically and economically. India’s approach has been consistent since 2022. It has sharply increased purchases of discounted Russian crude, secured energy supplies amid global price volatility, and maintained defence ties with Moscow. Russian-origin equipment remains a substantial part of India’s arsenal, from fighter aircraft to air defence systems.

The decision to reaffirm this partnership at this moment sends a clear signal to Moscow that it retains influential allies who will engage publicly despite the ongoing war. For India, the reasoning appears rooted in pragmatism. Energy security, diversification of arms supply, and the preservation of strategic autonomy are likely to outweigh Western expectations of alignment on sanctions or public condemnation.

In much of the Global South, the war in Ukraine is not framed primarily as an attack on the rules-based order or European security. Instead, it is seen as a distant conflict with complex origins and costs that are often measured in terms of energy prices and trade disruption. This perception allows leaders like Modi to sustain or deepen ties with Russia without major domestic political repercussions.

In the UK and across much of Europe, the optics are markedly different. Hosting Putin in New Delhi despite strikes that destroyed a children’s hospital and displaced Ukrainian families risks being interpreted as tacit acceptance of Russia’s conduct.

Image Оксана Іванець, Олександр Шульман / АрміяInform, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons