NEW DELHI, April 30. /TASS/. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not visit Moscow to attend Victory Day celebrations due to developments following a deadly terrorist attack in India’s Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a government source told TASS.

"The prime minister will not go [to Moscow]. It’s because of the current situation; things are happening," he said, referring to the terrorist attack.

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier that the Indian prime minister would not visit Moscow for Victory Day celebrations and the country would be represented at another level.

The Indian Foreign Ministry said on April 9 that Modi had received an invitation to visit Moscow to take part in Victory Day celebrations and his visit would be announced in due course. In late February, a military source in New Delhi told TASS about plans for the Indian prime minister to visit Moscow to attend a parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that many of the invited countries had confirmed their plans to participate in the celebrations. Peskov, in turn, noted that apart from the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), many other foreign leaders had also been invited, and Moscow would be glad to welcome all foreign guests who understood the meaning of the Victory Day.

Pahalgam attack

On April 22, armed men killed 25 Indians and one Nepalese national and wounded many more with machine gun fire in the popular tourist town of Pahalgam in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. According to media reports, Indian intelligence agencies allegedly found evidence that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in the terrorist attack committed by the Lashkar-e-Taiba group (outlawed in Russia). After the attack, India almost halved its embassy staff in Pakistan, suspended an agreement with Islamabad on the allocation of water resources, declared the military advisors of the Pakistani diplomatic mission in India personae non gratae, and also suspended the issuance of visas to Pakistani citizens.

Modi held a high-level security meeting on Tuesday. According to sources, he stated that the Indian armed forces had "complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets and timing" of the country’s response to the Pahalgam attack. On Wednesday, the Indian prime minister held a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs and chaired a meeting of the government’s security committee. A briefing on the outcome of the meetings is expected later in the day.