A month and a half after visiting Moscow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to Kyiv for a trip that New Delhi is billing as a bold gambit aimed at brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine. Mr Modi, who will arrive in Ukraine on August 23 after a two-day trip to Poland, faced a torrent of criticism from Kyiv and its Western allies over the optics of his Russia visit on the day that Moscow’s missiles struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had described Mr Modi's Russia visit as a disappointment, while senior officials in the United States of America had said that Washington had communicated its displeasure to India. Mr Modi, on his part, had publicly expressed anguish at Russia’s bombing of the Ukrainian hospital, but that was clearly not enough to address the outrage over his Russia visit in the US or in Ukraine. Against that backdrop, Mr Modi's visit to Ukraine — the first by an Indian prime minister since the country's modern formation following the collapse of the Soviet Union — represents India's attempt at a balancing act. Yet Mr Modi's team has also projected the trip as a bid by the Indian leader to do what no one else has been able to do: mediate peace between Ukraine and Russia 30 months into a full-fledged war between the neighbours.

In that endeavour, Mr Modi has his task cut out. Ukrainian forces, in recent weeks, have entered Russian territory and grabbed control of hundreds of square kilometre of the Kursk region in their most audacious counteroffensive since Russia's February 2022 invasion. Mr Putin has threatened a firm response. Meanwhile, Russian forces are rapidly advancing towards the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, prompting Kyiv to order the evacuation of families from that urban centre. After months of a near stalemate, these developments on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine border mark a dramatic escalation in the war. Against this backdrop, it is unclear what Mr Modi can do to change the equation in favour of peace. His party and supporters had previously claimed — falsely — that he briefly got the war to stop in 2022. India is indeed a rare nation that enjoys good relations with both Russia and the West. But New Delhi must set realistic expectations from the visit. It takes more than tight hugs and big words to stop wars.