Zelenskyy says he would support India hosting second summit on peace
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said negotiations were ongoing with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Switzerland regarding the second summit on peace in a conversation with Indian journalists shared on his social media on Sunday (25 August).
Zelenskyy also said he had told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would support India hosting the second summit on peace as Kyiv hopes to find a host among the countries in the Global South.
“But I want to be frank, and this applies not only to India, but to any state that would be positive about hosting a second summit. We will not be able to hold a peace summit in a country that has not yet joined the peace summit communique,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president added that he discussed all of the points from the communique and previous peace summit during the meeting with Modi on Friday.
The first visit by an Indian prime minister in modern Ukrainian history came at a volatile juncture in the war launched by Russia in February 2022. Moscow is making slow gains in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv presses a cross-border incursion.
In Kyiv, Modi urged Zelenskyy to sit down for talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine and offered to act as a friend to help bring peace.
India, which traditionally has close economic and defence relations with Moscow, has publicly criticised the deaths of innocent people in the war, but also strengthened its economic ties with Moscow.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it wants the war to end but on Kyiv’s terms, not Russia’s. Ukraine has been pushing to hold a second international summit later this year to advance its vision of peace and involve representatives from Russia.
The first summit, held in Switzerland in June, pointedly excluded Russia, while attracting scores of delegations, including one from India, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy. Zelenskyy urged Modi to sign the summit’s communique, which India has not done.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that talks were out of the question after Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on 6 August.
Kyiv’s top commander has touted the capture of almost 100 settlements in the assault, part of what military analysts see as an attempt to divert Russian troops from eastern Ukraine where Moscow’s forces are making gains.
Attack deep inside Russia
Homes were damaged and flights restricted in Russia’s Saratov region as a result of Ukraine’s drone attack on Monday in which a woman was also wounded, Russian officials and news agencies said.
A residential complex in the city of Saratov was damaged by falling debris from drones destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems, regional governor Roman Basurgin said on the Telegram messaging app.
“A woman was hospitalised in serious condition,” Basurgin said. “Doctors are fighting for her life.”
Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems destroyed nine drones over the Saratov region, which lies some 900 kilometres (560 miles) away from the border with Ukraine.
Russia’s RIA news agencies reported that flights were restricted at the regional Saratov airport, citing the airport’s press service.
Earlier, Basurgin said emergency services had fanned out at affected sites in Saratov and Engels, key cities in the region several hundred kilometres southeast of the capital.
Russia has a strategic bomber military base in Engels that Ukraine has attacked numerous times since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022.
There was no immediate information on damage at the base, or the scale of the Ukrainian attack on the region, which is several hundred kilometres away from the border with Ukraine.
Video posted on Telegram by the Russian news SHOT channel showed what it identified as a high-rise residential building in Saratov, with a damaged side and several windows blown out across three floors.
In Engels, the top floor of a residential building was damaged, it added.
The reports could not be independently verified. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, which they say aim to destroy infrastructure key to war efforts.
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