In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, centre left, and Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, centre, walk in Odesa, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The sound of a large explosion reverberated around the Ukrainian port of Odesa as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ended a tour of the war-ravaged southern city on March 6.

Mr. Mitsotakis said the delegations were getting into their vehicles when they heard the blast, which he called a “vivid reminder” that Odesa is gripped by the war with Russia. It is one thing to hear about the war and “quite another to experience war firsthand,” Mr. Mitsotakis said.

Mr. Zelensky said the explosion caused an unknown number of dead and wounded. “You see who we’re dealing with, they don’t care where to hit,” he told reporters.

Russian officials made no immediate comment.

Zelenskyy has regularly visited cities and military units on the front line during the war, always in secrecy until after he has left. Foreign leaders have made numerous trips to Ukraine, and they occasionally have had to take refuge in shelters when air raid sirens sound.

Also read: Zelensky says 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed since Russia invaded

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned on X, formerly Twitter, what she called the “vile attack” during the Greek visit. She called it a “new attempt at terror” by Russia.

Mr. Zelenskyy showed Mr. Mitsotakis around the destruction in Odesa, where in the most recent major Russian attack 12 people — including five children — were killed when debris from a Russian drone hit an apartment block on March 2.

Mr. Mitsotakis said Odesa held a special place in Greek history as the place where the Filiki Etairia organization was founded that fought for Greek independence from Ottoman rule in the 19th century.

New Delhi:

Praising India over its assertive global role, Grecian Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday said New Delhi is a great power on the world stage and an important ally in the pursuit of peace and security.

In his address on the inaugural day of the ninth Raisina Dialogue, a calendar event in the national capital which he graced as the chief guest on Wednesday, the Greek PM also spoke glowingly of the bilateral partnership saying that it binds the two nations closer than before.

“Today, India is a great power on the world stage, an important ally in the pursuit of peace and security, a rising force at the heart of the G20, and a leading player in the fight against climate change,” the Greek PM said, adding, “I want Prime Minister Modi to go further strengthening our partnership with India and I’m speaking about Europe should be a cornerstone of Europe’s foreign policy and this is certainly true for my country.”

Labelling the ties between India and Greece as a partnership between the world’s oldest and the largest democracies, Mr Mitsotakis said, “Today is a moment to both, reflect upon and celebrate the strength of a partnership between our two nations. A partnership between two allies, two countries that share similar values. A partnership that today binds us closer than ever before. A partnership between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy.”

Further calling India a leading democracy in the Global South, the Greek PM also spoke highly of the country’s growth story, saying, “I touched a little earlier on the growing importance of India’s role on the international stage. It is the leading democracy in the Global South. When it comes to shaping the direction of the global debate and addressing the great challenges, India is often regarded as, and rightly so, as a consensus builder.”

Describing India as an example for the world as he touched on the conduct of elections in the country, the Greek PM said, “Elections here in India, convincingly challenge any flawed notion that significant scale is a barrier to democracy. You are an example to the world. An example which should be celebrated, a demonstration of how democracy can deliver stronger economic growth.”

He said Greece has excellent relations with all countries, especially those that rank among the least developed ones.

“Greece has excellent relations with all countries in the least developed countries and is uniquely placed as a connector between and the Indo-Pacific. It presents so much opportunity for both our countries. We are already a well-established logistics sector as a national gateway but we want to increase connectivity in recent years is one of the busiest ports in Europe more of our ports are in the process of the environment as we check on something which is absolutely critical also for Indian control of the largest merchant marine retreat,” Mitsotakis said in his address.

Mitsotakis arrived in the national capital on Tuesday and was received by Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Meenakashi Lekhi.

The Grecian PM is currently on a two-day State visit to India.

Posting from his official handle on X, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal wrote, “Warm welcome to PM @kmitsotakis of the Hellenic Republic as he arrives in New Delhi on his first State Visit to India. Received by MoS @M_Lekhiat the airport. PM Mitsotakis is the Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at #RaisinaDialogue2024.”

Notably, this marks the first bilateral head of state or government-level visit from Greece to India after 15 years.

The last Prime Ministerial visit from Greece to India took place in 2008.

PM Modi, too, visited Athens on August 25, last year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Athens:

Faced with criticism for his alleged poor handling of the fires and floods that struck Greece this summer, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged fresh funding and reforms in order to fight the “climate war”. The promises could reinvigorate the image of his newly elected government that has been tarnished by footage of residents taking refuge on their roofs in desperate need of rescue as rising waters engulfed poorly prepared regions. 

“Greece is facing a war in a time of peace,” Mitsotakis said in his Thessaloniki International Fair keynote speech on Saturday. 

“Over a two-week period, we experienced the worst wildfire and the worst floods in our history,” he added.

“The climate crisis is here and forces us to see everything differently,” he said.

The floods devastated the fertile Thessaly plain in central Greece in early September.

The storms killed 17 people, swallowed cotton crops and fruit trees and killed hundreds of thousands of animals on Greece’s breadbasket.

They devastated a country that had just been hit by “the biggest fire ever recorded in the EU”, according to a European Commission spokesman, in the northeast region of Evros bordering Turkey. 

Twenty-eight people were killed in the fires, among them two firefighting pilots and 20 migrants in the Evros region. 

The deadly blaze followed violent flames that ravaged the tourist islands of Rhodes and Corfu in July, with thousands of evacuations ordered. 

Mitsotakis also pledged a 10 percent rebate on property tax for anyone who insures their home against natural disasters, adding he is considering making such insurance compulsory. 

The Sunday daily Protothema saw these announcements as “a restart” for the government. 

The conservative leader admitted a certain “confusion of responsibilities” between the state services responsible for responding to torrential rains, as well as “the frequent tendency” to shift blame to others.  

“In Thessaly and Evros, I have heard the anger of the people,” said the prime minister, whose New Democracy (ND) party won an absolute majority in the June parliamentary elections. 

He has come under sharp criticism from the opposition and residents affected by the floods.

The government was blasted for the slowness of the emergency services and the lack of preparedness, despite the fact that Thessaly was already hit by extreme weather in 2020. 

Fingers were pointed at failures in cooperation between the army and civil protection in the hours following the disaster.

In just three months in office, Mitsotakis has seen two of his ministers resign, including one in charge of citizen protection, because he was on holiday on an island in the Aegean Sea while fires raged. 

The press has been buzzing with rumours of a cabinet reshuffle following local elections on 8 October, although the government spokesman has denied any such plans. 

The Minister for Civil Protection and Climate Crisis, Vassilis Kikilias, is also in the hot seat, according to analysts and the media. 

The Mitsotakis government bears “enormous responsibility” for the destruction caused by the extreme weather, denounced Effie Achtsioglou, former labour minister and candidate for the presidency of the left-wing Syriza party. 

She condemned the fact that “no serious flood prevention work has been carried out”. 

According to a poll for the private television channel Mega, 61 percent of those questioned have a negative image of the government and 66 percent believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)