NEW DELHI: A Ukrainian minister will visit India from Sunday in the first face-to-face talks between the two countries since Russia’s invasion of its European neighbor last year.
India imports much of its military hardware from Russia, and is walking a delicate balancing act between its increased security cooperation with Western countries and its reliance on Russia for defense and oil imports.
Its longstanding security ties with Russia have put New Delhi in an awkward diplomatic position, and while it has called for an end to hostilities in Ukraine, it has refused to condemn the invasion.
Emine Dzhaparova, Kyiv’s first deputy foreign minister, will “exchange views on the current situation in Ukraine” with a senior member of India’s foreign ministry, according to an Indian government statement.
India shares “warm and friendly relations and multifaceted cooperation” with Ukraine and the visit will be an occasion to “further mutual understanding and interests,” the foreign ministry statement added.
There was no indication that Dzhaparova would meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi or ministers from his government.
While India has stopped short of publicly denouncing the invasion, Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin last year that this was “not a time for war” in comments seen as a rebuke to Moscow.
India is also snapping up discounted crude from Russia, resisting Western pressure to freeze out Moscow.
It has opted instead to strengthen trade ties with its long-standing ally — with the added benefits of tempering inflation while saving public money.
A report in The Hindu newspaper on Saturday said Dzhaparova would meet with media and think-tanks in New Delhi in an effort to build support for Ukraine.
She was also likely to invite Modi to visit Kyiv, it said.
Putin may visit India in July for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, in what would be his first trip to Russia’s longstanding ally since December 2021.
Ukraine minister to visit India for talks
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Ukraine minister to visit India for talks
Near record number of small boat migrants reach UK in 2025
- The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday
LONDON: The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday.
The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May.
With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.
Home Office data as of midday on Wednesday showed a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government.
The Home Office is due to confirm the final figure for 2025 later Thursday.
Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” when he was in power.
Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too “stark” and “binary” and lacked sufficient context “for exactly how challenging” the goal was.
Adopting his own “smash the gangs” slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people smuggling networks running the crossings but has so far had no more success than his predecessor.
Reform has led Starmer’s Labour Party by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of 2025.
In a New Year message, Farage predicted that if Reform got things “right” at the forthcoming local elections “we will go on and win the general election” due in 2029 at the latest.
Without addressing the migrant issue directly, he added: “We will then absolutely have a chance of fundamentally changing the whole system of government in Britain.”
In his own New Year message, Starmer insisted his government would “defeat the decline and division offered by others.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, urged people not to let “politics of grievance tell you that we’re destined to stay the same.”
- Protests -
The small boat figures come after Home Secretary Mahmood in November said irregular migration was “tearing our country apart.”
In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings “shameful” and said Mahmood’s “sweeping reforms” would remove the incentives driving the arrivals.
A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said.
“Our landmark one-in one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France,” he said.
The past year has seen multiple protests in UK towns over the housing of migrants in hotels.
Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the largest-ever far-right protests in Britain, organized by activist Tommy Robinson.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November.
Labour is currently taking inspiration from Denmark’s coalition government — led by the center-left Social Democrats — which has implemented some of the strictest migration policies in Europe.
Senior British officials recently visited the Scandinavian country, where successful asylum claims are at a 40-year low.
But the government’s plans will likely face opposition from Labour’s more left-wing lawmakers, fearing that the party is losing voters to progressive alternatives such as the Greens.
