Six months after Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described New Delhi G20 Leaders’ Summit as ‘nothing to be proud of’, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba came to the Indian capital. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi for “freedom and independence”, Kuleba hoped to win New Delhi’s official attendance into Swiss Peace Summit in which Kyiv has announced that it will discuss its ‘peace formula’ to end the war in Ukraine that has now entered its third year.
Moscow, for its part, has already rejected Kyiv’s peace formula that calls for withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, release of prisoners, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and guarantees on nuclear safety.
In New Delhi, I had sincere and comprehensive talks with @DrSJaishankar about Ukrainian-Indian bilateral relations, the situation in our regions, and global security.
We paid specific attention to the Peace Formula and next steps on the path of its implementation.
We also… pic.twitter.com/2aLQQBuqAJ
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) March 29, 2024
From criticising India for buying Russian oil to meeting External Affairs Minister Jaishankar this week, Kyiv has travelled a distance in its Delhi outreach. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met PM Modi for the first time since the beginning of war in May last year.
The ball is in Delhi’s court on the Swiss summit.
Speaking at an event on March 27, External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar before meeting his Ukrainian counterpart, said: “We took a position from the start. That you are not going to get a solution to this conflict on the battlefield. Two years have passed. There were many who felt two years ago or somewhere in between that maybe they could. Today many of them don’t any longer.”
“We have also been the country who have the opportunity to talk to the Russians quite frankly and bluntly on the issue. On different aspects, the others have used us to pass messages,” Jaishankar said, meaning that New Delhi as Moscow’s ‘special and privileged strategic partner’ has been playing the middleman’s role for a while.
It is to these exact credentials of New Delhi that Kuleba came to appeal. Whether the visit was a success or not, New Delhi’s nature of representation at Swiss peace summit would tell.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The internet briefly moved over Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce this week as the Brazilian capital showed the world one rare moment of bonhomie between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
Holding hands, smiling at the skies, gushing at richly diverse Amazon forests — President Lula and Macron gave internet the wedding vibes all over. Macron spent three days in Brazil this week, including in the capital Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon, São Paulo, and Brasilia.
“They are going to marry in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” one person said online about the images. Notably, among the policy announcements made during the trip was a new $1bn investment plan to help protect the Amazon rainforest.
In one meme, shared by Macron and Lula on Instagram, the two leaders are seen walking hand-in-hand superimposed over a poster for 2016 romantic musical La La Land.
But French President used the photographic symbolism of the times of social media to score the points in favour of bilateral depth of ties between Paris and Rio.
“Some people compared the images of my visit to Brazil to those of a wedding, and I tell them: it was a wedding! France loves Brazil and Brazil loves France!,” Macron wrote on X.
Pretoria, South Africa
File photo of former South African President Jacob Zuma | Reuters
From South Africa’s corridors of power, former president Jacob Zuma was barred from running in the country’s general election in May.
The 81-year-old served as president from 2009 until 2018, when he was forced to step down because of corruption allegations.
In 2021, Zuma was convicted and jailed for 15 months for contempt of court.
South Africa’s constitution does not allow an individual convicted for more than a year to hold public office. Zuma now has until April 2 to appeal against his ineligibility.
