Underlining Russia’s widening isolation on the world stage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India told President Vladimir Putin on Friday that it is no time for war — even as the Russian president threatened to escalate the brutality of his campaign in Ukraine.
The televised admonishment by Modi at a regional summit in Uzbekistan came a day after Putin acknowledged that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, had "questions and concerns” about the war.
Taken together, the distancing from Putin by the heads of the world’s two most populous countries — both of which have been pivotal to sustaining Russia’s economy in the face of Western sanctions — punctured the Kremlin’s message that Russia was far from a global pariah.