KYIV: India’s Narendra Modi arrived in wartime Kyiv on Friday to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the first trip by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since Kyiv gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The visit comes at a volatile juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces still in Russia’s western Kursk region following their incursion on Aug. 6 and Russian troops grinding out slow but steady advances in Ukraine’s east.
The visit, which follows a trip by Modi to Moscow in July, is important for Western-backed Kyiv, which has been trying to nurture diplomatic relations in the Global South in its efforts to secure a fair settlement to end the war.
“Reached Kyiv earlier this morning. The Indian community accorded a very warm welcome,” Modi wrote on X. The Ukrainian railways company showed footage of him stepping off a train carriage and being received by Ukrainian officials.
In the run-up to the trip, he said he was looking forward to sharing “perspectives on peaceful resolution of the ongoing Ukraine conflict.”
Modi’s visit to Moscow last month coincided with a heavy Russian missile strike on Ukraine that hit a children’s hospital. The attack prompted Modi to use emotive language to deliver an implicit rebuke to Putin at their summit.
But the trip elicited fierce criticism from Zelensky who said it was a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in the Ukrainian president’s office, told Reuters Modi’s visit to Kyiv was significant because New Delhi “really has a certain influence” over Moscow.
“It’s extremely important for us to effectively build relations with such countries, to explain to them what the correct end to the war is — and that it is also in their interests,” he said.
India, which has traditionally had close economic and defense ties with Moscow, has publicly criticized the deaths of innocent people in the war.
But it has also strengthened its economic ties with Moscow after Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia and cut trade relations with it over the invasion.
Indian refiners which rarely bought Russian oil in the past have emerged as Moscow’s top clients for sea-borne oil since Russia poured troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Russian oil accounts for over two-fifths of India’s oil imports.
PEACE VISION
Ukraine has said it hopes to bring together a second international summit later this year to advance its vision of peace and involve representatives from Russia.
The first summit in Switzerland that pointedly excluded Russia in June attracted scores of delegations, including one from India, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy.
“Lasting peace can only be achieved through options that are acceptable to both parties. And it can only be a negotiated settlement,” Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West) in the Indian foreign ministry, told reporters.
“This is an important visit that is expected to catalyze our ties in a whole range of sectors,” Lal said, listing economic and business links, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education, pharmaceuticals, defense and culture.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst, said he expected no breakthrough proposals to be made to end the war during the trip by Modi, who visited Poland on Thursday.
For there to be an attempt to negotiate, the military situation has to stabilize and the presidential election must be held in the United States, a close ally of Ukraine, he said.
He said the visit was important for India to demonstrate it was “not on Russia’s side” and that Kyiv wanted to normalize relations after Modi’s Moscow trip.
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Indian PM Modi arrives in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s Zelensky
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Indian PM Modi arrives in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s Zelensky
- The visit comes at a volatile juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces still in Russia’s western Kursk region following their incursion on Aug. 6
- The visit, which follows a trip by Modi to Moscow in July, is important for Kyiv, which has been trying to nurture diplomatic relations in the Global South
Former Bolivian President Arce arrested in corruption investigation a month after leaving office
LA PAZ: Bolivian law enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested former President Luis Arce as part of a corruption investigation, opening an uncertain chapter in the country’s politics a month after the inauguration of conservative President Rodrigo Paz ended 20 years of socialist rule.
A senior official in Paz’s government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Arce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of charismatic former leader Evo Morales (2006-2019).
A special police force dedicated to fighting corruption confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in custody at the unit’s headquarters in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz.
Officials described Arce’s arrest as proof of the new government’s commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said.
But underlining the country’s polarization, Arce’s allies said his arrest was unjustified and smacked of political persecution.
Accusations of theft from a fund for rural peasants
Authorities accused Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party. As Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales transformed the country’s power structure and gave Indigenous peoplemore sway than ever.
Serving on the board of directors of the Indigenous Peasant Development Fund from 2006 to 2017, Arce was in charge of allocating funds to social development projects in rural areas. During that time, officials allege, Arce siphoned off some of that money for personal expenses.
“Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this vast economic damage,” said Oviedo.
Bolivia’s attorney general, Roger Mariaca, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning.
He said Arce would remain in police custody overnight before being brought before a judge to determine whether he will remain detained pending trial. The charges against Arce carry a maximum sentence of 4-6 years in prison.
An ex-president allegedly grabbed from the street
Arce’s key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president’s innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.
Although the prosecution said it issued an arrest warrant, she said Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows in an upscale La Paz neighborhood on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.
Arce had been walking along the cafe-lined streets of Sopocachi after teaching an economics class at a major public university, Prada said, and managed to tell her of his arrest before losing communication. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that account of events.
“This is a total abuse of power,” Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Arce was being held.
Mariaca, the prosecutor, promised the case was about nothing more than tackling graft in Bolivia.
“This is not persecution, nor is it a political act,” he said.
Paz swept to victory in October elections on a wave of public outrage over the unmitigated shambles that Arce’s administration bequeathed its successors, including sky-high inflation, a shortage of fuel and empty state coffers.
Critical to his popularity was his running mate, the straight-talking, TikTok-savvy former police Capt. Edman Lara, who achieved celebrity status when he denounced high-ranking police officers for corruption.
Courts not neutral arbiters
Experts long have noted that Bolivia’s brittle institutional framework fosters corruption, and that its politicized judiciary often lets those in power off the hook — whether on the left or right of the political spectrum.
Morales, who guided the country through an era of economic growth and shrinking inequality before his fraught 2019 ouster, was accused of stacking the constitutional court and bending the laws to stay in power.
When he resigned in the wake of mass protests over his disputed reelection to a fourth term, the right-wing interim government that took over issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials on charges ranging from terrorism to corruption.
Then Arce won the 2020 elections and went on to target his own political rivals.
Former interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges tied to her 2019 takeover and other right-wing opposition leaders landed in jail. Judges even went after Morales, Arce’s mentor-turned-rival, who remains hunkered down in Bolivia’s remote tropics evading an arrest warrant related to statutory rape.
Shifting political winds
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right, Añez and many of her allies have walked free from prison. President Paz has set to work undoing the leftist policies of Arce and Morales.
Celebrating Arce’s arrest on social media, Vice President Lara warned that the ex-president was just the first felled by what would become a wave of anti-corruption cases against former officials.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his message by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
A senior official in Paz’s government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Arce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of charismatic former leader Evo Morales (2006-2019).
A special police force dedicated to fighting corruption confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in custody at the unit’s headquarters in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz.
Officials described Arce’s arrest as proof of the new government’s commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said.
But underlining the country’s polarization, Arce’s allies said his arrest was unjustified and smacked of political persecution.
Accusations of theft from a fund for rural peasants
Authorities accused Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party. As Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales transformed the country’s power structure and gave Indigenous peoplemore sway than ever.
Serving on the board of directors of the Indigenous Peasant Development Fund from 2006 to 2017, Arce was in charge of allocating funds to social development projects in rural areas. During that time, officials allege, Arce siphoned off some of that money for personal expenses.
“Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this vast economic damage,” said Oviedo.
Bolivia’s attorney general, Roger Mariaca, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning.
He said Arce would remain in police custody overnight before being brought before a judge to determine whether he will remain detained pending trial. The charges against Arce carry a maximum sentence of 4-6 years in prison.
An ex-president allegedly grabbed from the street
Arce’s key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president’s innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.
Although the prosecution said it issued an arrest warrant, she said Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows in an upscale La Paz neighborhood on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.
Arce had been walking along the cafe-lined streets of Sopocachi after teaching an economics class at a major public university, Prada said, and managed to tell her of his arrest before losing communication. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that account of events.
“This is a total abuse of power,” Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Arce was being held.
Mariaca, the prosecutor, promised the case was about nothing more than tackling graft in Bolivia.
“This is not persecution, nor is it a political act,” he said.
Paz swept to victory in October elections on a wave of public outrage over the unmitigated shambles that Arce’s administration bequeathed its successors, including sky-high inflation, a shortage of fuel and empty state coffers.
Critical to his popularity was his running mate, the straight-talking, TikTok-savvy former police Capt. Edman Lara, who achieved celebrity status when he denounced high-ranking police officers for corruption.
Courts not neutral arbiters
Experts long have noted that Bolivia’s brittle institutional framework fosters corruption, and that its politicized judiciary often lets those in power off the hook — whether on the left or right of the political spectrum.
Morales, who guided the country through an era of economic growth and shrinking inequality before his fraught 2019 ouster, was accused of stacking the constitutional court and bending the laws to stay in power.
When he resigned in the wake of mass protests over his disputed reelection to a fourth term, the right-wing interim government that took over issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials on charges ranging from terrorism to corruption.
Then Arce won the 2020 elections and went on to target his own political rivals.
Former interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges tied to her 2019 takeover and other right-wing opposition leaders landed in jail. Judges even went after Morales, Arce’s mentor-turned-rival, who remains hunkered down in Bolivia’s remote tropics evading an arrest warrant related to statutory rape.
Shifting political winds
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right, Añez and many of her allies have walked free from prison. President Paz has set to work undoing the leftist policies of Arce and Morales.
Celebrating Arce’s arrest on social media, Vice President Lara warned that the ex-president was just the first felled by what would become a wave of anti-corruption cases against former officials.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his message by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
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