Modi’s Moscow Visit Showcases a Less Isolated Putin, Angering Ukraine

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India strolled alongside President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia under the trees at the Russian leader’s suburban residence as the sun set. He rode a golf cart along the paths, sipped tea during an hourslong chat and petted a horse on a visit to Mr. Putin’s stables, breathing in the calm of an estate that once belonged to the Romanov dynasty.

The scene, on Monday evening, opened the Indian leader’s two-day trip to Russia and illustrated a sobering reality: Despite the West’s intended isolation of Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, other nations have pursued their own interests with regard to Moscow, helping Mr. Putin shore up Russia’s economy and wage its war.

While Mr. Modi was hugging the Russian leader, rescue workers in Kyiv were searching for survivors under the rubble of Ukraine’s largest pediatric hospital in the wake of a Russian missile attack. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called Mr. Modi’s embrace a “huge disappointment” and a “devastating blow to peace efforts.”

The arrival in Russia of the leader of the world’s largest democracy has given Mr. Putin further evidence that he has avoided the pariah status Western leaders tried to force on him after the invasion. Mr. Putin has held two meetings with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in two months, along with meeting the leaders of Vietnam, Hungary, Belarus and the nations of Central Asia, keeping a robust diplomatic schedule.

Mr. Modi’s trip to Russia, his first in five years, also coincided with the start of the annual summit of NATO heads of state, taking place this year in Washington.

Western officials — who immediately condemned the attack on the Ukrainian pediatric hospital, which Moscow denied being responsible for — have failed to persuade India to take a public position against Mr. Putin’s war. Despite deepening ties with the United States, Mr. Modi has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and called for “collective dialogue,” choosing instead to maintain warm relations with Moscow that India has cultivated since the Cold War.