'Cultural gap': Jaishankar defends Modi-Putin hug

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hugging of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a gesture that had drawn much criticism from the West.

Modi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv with a warm hug that came barely six weeks after Modi had similarly hugged the leader of Ukraine's arch-enemy, President Putin.

After Modi met with Putin in July, the Western media was full of news with headlines such as 'Modi's Embrace of Putin Irks Biden Team Pushing Support for Kyiv' while the BBC in one of its reports said, 'Photos from Moscow showed a beaming Mr Modi hugging the Russian president'.

Zelenskyy himself had posted on X then without naming names: 'It is 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.'

On Friday, during a media briefing after the Modi-Zelenskyy talks, Jaishankar was asked about the 'embrace' in a question meant to seek comments on apparent linkages with Modi's meetings with Putin earlier and Zelenskyy now.

"In our part of the world, when people meet people, they are given to embracing each other, it may not be part of your culture but I can assure you it is part of ours. In fact, today, I think, I saw, Prime Minister (Modi) also embrace President Zelenskyy," Jaishankar replied to a specific question by a Western reporter which mentioned as many words about Modi's embrace of Putin a few weeks ago.

"And I have seen him do it with a number of other leaders in a number of other places. So, I think, we have a slight ... cultural gap here in terms of what these courtesies mean," Jaishankar added.

Much to the chagrin of the Western powers that be, Modi met Putin in July and spoke about how a solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and how peace efforts do not succeed in the midst of bombs and bullets.

On Friday, India maintained that Ukraine and Russia need to engage with each other to find a solution to the ongoing conflict between them as Modi held wide-ranging talks with Zelenskyy under the shadow of the raging war.