NEW DELHI, August 20. /TASS/. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may urge Ukraine to engage in peace talks during his visit to Kiev on August 23 but Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s Kursk Region has made it clear that the West will not allow Kiev to listen to him, Anuradha Chenoy, professor with the Jindal School of International Affairs at India’s Jindal Global University, told TASS.

"The attack by not just Ukraine, but by NATO as a whole, on Kursk, is a huge escalation from NATO's side, and they don't want peace," she said, describing the latest developments as negative.

According to the expert, Modi will tell Kiev that Ukraine "should have negotiations, because people in the Global South don't like war." "Mr. Modi likes to be the voice of the Global South, so he will speak only for India but he will suggest that the Global South would like a peaceful end and negotiations, which Ukraine will not bother, because their masters are NATO and the West and the US especially, and they are manipulated by them," Chenoy pointed out.

"The prime minister will use very diplomatic language. And basically, he will say we will continue giving some humanitarian support, but we suggest that you do something about peace, which they will not listen to. And there'll be these nice diplomatic things, but I don't think anything beyond that," the expert added.

She noted that Modi had earlier made India’s position clear, saying that "this is not a time for war." "Indians generally don't like wars, but they understood why Russia had to do the special military operation," the analyst said. According to her, the Indian prime minister’s recent visit to Russia, which took place simultaneously with a NATO summit, sent a message to the North Atlantic Alliance that it cannot dictate anything to India.

The Indian Foreign Ministry confirmed earlier that Modi would make an official visit to Ukraine on August 23 at the invitation of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The ministry added that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine would be one of the topics in the negotiations.

Settlement efforts and Kursk attack

Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out his proposal for the final settlement of the Ukrainian conflict at a July meeting with the Foreign Ministry’s leadership. Specifically, it stipulated Kiev’s neutral, non-nuclear and non-aligned status, its demilitarization and denazification, the lifting of Western sanctions against Russia as well as the recognition of the current territorial layout with Russia’s sovereignty over new regions which joined it following referendums.

On August 6, Russia’s borderline Kursk Region came under a massive attack from Ukraine. A state of federal emergency is in effect in the region. According to the Emergencies Ministry, over 120,000 people have been evacuated from nine border municipalities in the Kursk Region, with temporary accommodation centers set up in 24 Russian regions. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev has lost up to 3,800 troops and 54 tanks since fighting began in the Kursk area.

Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said that the Russian leader’s proposal for resolving the situation in Ukraine remained relevant but talks between Moscow and Kiev were impossible at the moment due to Kiev’s attack on the Kursk Region.