According to India, Ukraine has requested more medicines and medical equipment, and has invited Indian companies to assist in rebuilding the country.
Ukraine made the request during First Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Emine Dzhaparova’s four-day visit to India, which concluded on Wednesday, according to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
Dzhaparova’s visit was the first by a high-ranking Ukrainian official since Russia invaded her country in February last year.
According to the ministry, Dzhaparova met with India’s junior foreign minister, Meenakshi Lekhi, and handed over a letter from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The statement gave no details about what the letter said.
“Rebuilding infrastructure in Ukraine could be an opportunity for Indian companies,” the ministry cited Dzhaparova as saying.
Since the beginning of the conflict, India has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including drugs and medical equipment. According to the Indian ministry, India also intends to supply school buses to Ukraine.
According to the statement, Dzhaparova suggested that rebuilding infrastructure in Ukraine could be an opportunity for Indian companies.
According to the Indian foreign ministry, the two countries agreed to hold their next round of foreign ministry consultations in Kyiv on a mutually convenient date.
India has not been as harsh on its old ally Russia as some other countries have been, and it has increased its purchases of discounted Russian oil while maintaining high-level contacts with Moscow.
India has sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict, with Modi telling Russian President Vladimir Putin in September that it was no longer “an era of war.”
During her visit, Dzhaparova told the media that Ukraine wanted India to be more involved in resolving the conflict and that she hoped to welcome Modi to Kyiv “one day.”
The diplomat paid a visit to India during its rotating presidency of the Group of 20. (G20).
Dzhaparova stated that Kyiv expects India to invite Ukrainian officials to G20 events, and Zelenskyy is eager to address a G20 summit in New Delhi in September, as he did via video at the group’s most recent summit in Indonesia.
The Indian ministry did not refer to these requests in its statement.
India does not want the war to overshadow G20 events, Indian officials have said, but the first two G20 ministerial events that India hosted, in February and March, saw rifts over the war between Group of Seven nations on one side and Russia and China on the other.