Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit for their first meeting of the year.
What stood out in the meeting was Modi’s admonition to Putin that “we must move from ‘endless war’ to ‘end of war’ for the benefit of humanity,” in an explicit reference to the Ukraine conflict. This was an echo of his 2022 message at the Samarkand SCO summit, where he told the Russian leader that “now is not an era of war.” At the time, the remark was widely praised and cited across global diplomatic circles.
This time around, however, the fact that Modi read the statement off a slip of paper in his hand robbed the moment of its spontaneous gravitas.
In his broader remarks, the Prime Minister invoked “the path to peace” as the foundational message from the land of Gandhi and Buddha, noting that “every day spent in war sets humanity back, whereas every step taken towards peace fills humanity with new hope and enthusiasm.” It was a statement clearly tailored to garner headlines back home—and, predictably, main national daily newspapers led with it the following morning.
Yet, just as Putin paid little heed to the message in 2022, he is unlikely to act on it now.