Amid a flurry of diplomacy to end the Ukraine war, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talk with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this week in New York on the sidelines of the UN summit. 

Jaishankar wrote on X after their meeting at the Russian Mission, “Discussed our bilateral cooperation and regional issues”.

The previous evening Jaishankar had indicated that India is trying to see if it could involve the two countries in a peace effort.

He said at the Asia Society in New York, “We have been engaging both the Russian government and the Ukrainian government – in Moscow and in Kyiv and in other places – to see whether there is something we can do which would hasten the end of the conflict and initiate some kind of serious negotiation”.

He said India was “sharing” with both countries the conversations it had with them and his sense was that “both sides appreciate it”.

New Delhi, which has historically had close diplomatic and strategic ties with Moscow, is forging an independent path open to the West giving it room to be a conduit between the two countries for peace diplomacy.

In his Wednesday morning address to the UN General Assembly, Zelensky mentioned his meeting with Modi, and on Tuesday at the Security Council he said that he had invited India to a “second peace summit to end the war”.

At Monday’s Modi’s meeting with Zelensky, their second within a month, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a release that “the way forward on pursuing a path to peace” came up “prominently in their discussions”.

Modi reiterated “India’s clear, consistent, and constructive approach” to resolving the conflict with Russia through diplomacy and dialogue", the ministry said.

When he visited Ukraine last month, Modi said, “Personally, as a friend, if there is any role that I can play, I would very much like to play that role toward peace”.

After his return home, Modi spoke by phone with Putin and he wrote on X that they “exchanged perspectives on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and my insights from the recent visit to Ukraine.” 

India followed that up with a trip earlier this month by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to meet Putin and, according to reports, brief him on the prime minister’s visit to Kyiv.

In the month before his Ukraine trip, Modi had visited Moscow to meet Putin.

While India, which is heavily dependent on Moscow for defence materials, continues to buy oil and petroleum products from Russia at negotiated discounted rates, an investigation by the news agency Reuters said that munitions made by Indian companies were finding their way to Ukraine through third countries in Europe.