UKRAINE: Modi To Visit Ukraine On August 23

Wires confirming that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Poland on August 21-22 and then to Ukraine on August 23 - Modi's first trip to Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

• Reuters notes that India's foreign ministry said that Modi's visit to Ukraine is not a "zero-sum game" appearing to suggest that the trip is not designed to dial back India's bilateral relationship with Russia.
• New Delhi, a key buyer of discounted Russian hydrocarbon products, has maintained strong ties with Moscow throughout the war, despite US efforts to incorporate India more closely in its network of allied Indo-Pacific states.
• The trip may be designed to manage some fallout with the US over Modi's July trip to Moscow, which hinted at more explicitly close relations. Although Modi's trip brought several new agreements, an absence of new defence deals may imply that India is edging closer to the West.
• FP notes that Modi's Moscow trip, "doesn’t bode quite as badly for Washington as some may think... [India] is pursuing unprecedented levels of security cooperation with Washington and embracing its Indo-Pacific strategy, which Moscow rejects. Russia, by contrast, is moving closer to China, India’s main strategic competitor, and flirting more frequently with Pakistan..."
• Bloomberg reports that Modi has "ruled out a role mediating an end to war in Ukraine," but adds that India has, "agreed to relay messages between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy."