Supporting Ukraine only right choice for true 'Vishwaguru': Ukraine minister to India

Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova, who arrived in India on Monday, said supporting Ukraine is the "only right choice" for true 'Vishwaguru'.

"Happy to visit India -the land that gave birth to many sages, saints and gurus. Today, #India wants to be the Vishwaguru, the global teacher and arbiter. In our case, we've got a very clear picture: aggressor against innocent victim. Supporting Ukraine is the only right choice for true Vishwaguru," Dzhaparova tweeted.

Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister is on her four-day visit to India. She will hold talks with Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Sanjay Verma, during which both sides are expected to discuss bilateral relations, exchange views on the current situation in Ukraine and global issues of mutual interest.

She will call on Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture, Meenakshi Lekhi and meet with Deputy National Security Adviser, Vikram Misri.

The minister further said that India should be pragmatic in diversifying its energy resources, diversifying military contracts, in diversifying political interaction.

"And we feel that there is an extraordinary time that we live in. And as my President Philip Merzelinski says, extraordinary times need extraordinary decisions. So of course, PM Modi with his 3D policy of democracy dialogue and to my knowledge its diversity. I think that this no-era of war and strategic application is really, really important," the Ukraine minister stated.

"So we hope that India and Ukraine will be even though we are distant geographically, but we will become closer physically and politically and in many other ways."

Emine Dzhaparova pointed out that like India Ukraine had never attacked anyone in its 1500 years of history, but it has become a victim of unprovoked and neocolonial war.

"We also feel that we have this arbitrary by promoting the values justice of Peace, as your Prime Minister in Samarkand said, that it's not an era of war. I mean, we do support this purely and fully, but unfortunately, we have aggressive countries who question the existence of other countries and then the question of India's involvement as a leader in the Global South, as a G-20 presidency.

I think that we hope that India would be involved and engaged in global issues and challenges, economic challenges, energy challenges, and nuclear challenges to a greater extent because the Ukrainian issue is a weakness port today from Russia," she said.

Emine Dzhaparavo's visit to India marks the first official visit of the East European country since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February last year.

The MEA in the press release noted, "India shares warm and friendly relations and multifaceted cooperation with Ukraine." It further said, "Over the last 30 years of establishing diplomatic relations, bilateral cooperation between the two countries has made significant progress in the areas of trade, education, culture and defence. The visit will be an occasion to further mutual understanding and interests."

Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for resolving the issues through dialogue and diplomacy. He has spoken to both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Russian counterpart Vladamir Putin several times.

With inputs from ANI