PremiumJapan's Kishida says the Quad leaders agreed that current situation in Ukraine makes it even more important to work toward realising a free and open Indo-Pacific
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As Russia's military aggression in several key cities advances, leaders of the Quad group comprising the US, India, Australia and Japan held a meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, while referring to Russia's military aggression in Ukraine, said the quad leaders agreed that the Indo-Pacific region should not allow what's happening in Ukraine right now.
"We've agreed that unilateral changes to the status quo with force like this should not be allowed in the Indo-Pacific region," Kishida said, Reuters reported. " says," said.
Yesterday, the MEA had confirmed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate along with President of USA Joseph R Biden, Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison, and Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida in a Quad Leaders' virtual meeting.
Before this, the Quad leaders held an in-person summit in Washington in September last year. The Quad has been focusing on cooperation in areas such as producing vaccines, connectivity projects, facilitating the mobility of students, and looking at promoting startups and technology collaboration.
Putin says Russia's offensive to continue
As Russia's military offensive against Ukraine enters the eighth day, more than a million people have been displaced. Both the countries are engaging in the second round of talks over the crisis today, even though Russia's advance in key cities of Ukraine continues. As per the latest developments, some of the key areas of cities like Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Odea, Kherson are already under Russian control.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron today that the goals of Russia's operation in Ukraine -- its demilitarisation and neutral status -- will be achieved in any case. He also said that Putin said any attempts by Kyiv to delay negotiations would result in Moscow adding more items to its list of demands.
With inputs from agencies
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