India's Modi prepares for record 3rd term as nations congratulate his government on election victory

NEW DELHI (AP) — The United States, Russia, China, and other nations sent their congratulations Wednesday as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government began preparations for his swearing-in for a record third term following the world's largest democratic election.

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party met with allies who unanimously elected Modi as the National Democratic Alliance leader. Modi is likely to be sworn in as the prime minister on Saturday, local media said.

Official results from the Election Commission showed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance or NDA won 294 of the 543 seats, more than the 272 needed for a majority but far fewer than had been expected. For the first time since the BJP swept to power in 2014, it did not secure a majority on its own, winning 240 seats, far fewer than the record 303 it won in the 2019 election.

Modi met on Wednesday with Indian President Droupadi Murmu and tendered his customary resignation along with that of his Cabinet ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.

Congratulatory messages to Modi from leaders of regional countries including Nepal and Bhutan were the first to arrive, while the White House commended India for its “vibrant democratic process.”

Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesperson, said the U.S. looks forward to furthering “our partnership with the Indian government to promote prosperity and innovation, address the climate crisis, and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Modi to congratulate him and the National Democratic Alliance on their historic victory in India’s general election, Biden also commended the people of India for participating in the largest democratic exercise in human history.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone with Modi on Wednesday and “warmly congratulated” him. Putin and Modi “expressed satisfaction with the current level of the specially privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India, which will continue to expand in all directions," said a readout by the Kremlin.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Wednesday extended congratulations to the BJP.

"A sound and stable India-China relationship is in the interest of both countries and conducive to the peace and development of this region and beyond,” she said, adding that China is ready to work with India in the fundamental interest of the two countries.

Tensions remain high between India and China, with tens of thousands of soldiers massed on their disputed border since 2020. A clash left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers dead.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he looked forward to seeing India attend a peace summit to be hosted by Switzerland.

"Everyone in the world recognizes the significance and weight of India’s role in global affairs. It is critical that we all work together to ensure a just peace for all nations,” he said.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said he looked forward to expanding collaboration in trade, technology and other sectors to contribute to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

In the election, the opposition Congress party won 99 seats, improving its tally from 52 in the 2019 polls. Among its key allies, the Samajwadi Party won 37 seats in northern Uttar Pradesh state in a major upset for the BJP, the All India Trinamool Congress took 29 seats in West Bengal state, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won 22 seats in southern Tamil Nadu state.

Combined, the opposition INDIA coalition won a total of 232 seats.

The BJP may now be “heavily dependent on the goodwill of its allies, which makes them critical players who we can expect will extract their pound of flesh, both in terms of policymaking as well as government formation,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“At the very least, the result pricks the bubble of Prime Minister Modi’s authority. He made this election about himself,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political commentator, said in The Indian Express newspaper. “Today, he is just another politician, cut to size by the people.”

More than 640 million votes were cast in the marathon election held over six weeks, the world’s largest democratic exercise.

FILE - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, greets along with his newly sworn in cabinet ministers at the swearing in ceremony at the forecourt of presidential palace in New Delhi, India, Thursday, May 30, 2019. Modi met with India's President Droupadi Murmu customarily and tendered his resignation along with his ministers ahead of the swearing-in ceremony likely to occur in the coming days. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi shares the stage with Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, left, and Home Minister Amit Shah, right, before addressing supporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, with Defense Minister Rajnath Singh leaves after addressing supporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. On the banner it's written in local language 'Thank you Bharat". (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, chats with Defense Minister Rajnath Singh before addressing supporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters shout slogans as they listen to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is greeted by supporters as he arrives at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses supporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Kremlin warned Monday that President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles adds “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.

Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.

It also came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others. Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.

Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

The Kremlin was swift in its condemnation.

“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the U.S., South Korea and NATO said North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk border region.

Biden’s decision almost entirely was triggered by North Korea's entry into the fight, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and was made just before he left for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.

Peskov referred journalists to a statement from President Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes.

It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”

Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said.

Putin warned in June that Moscow could provide longer-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allowed Ukraine to use its allies' arms to attack Russian territory. After signing a treaty with North Korea, Putin issued an explicit threat to provide weapons to Pyongyang, noting Moscow could mirror Western arguments that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how to use them.

“The Westerners supply weapons to Ukraine and say: ‘We do not control anything here anymore and it does not matter how they are used.’" Putin had said. "Well, we can also say: ‘We supplied something to someone -- and then we do not control anything.’ And let them think about it.”

Putin had also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.

Biden's move will “mean the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in military action against Russia, as well as a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict,” Russia's Foreign Ministry said.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue military support to Ukraine. He has also vowed to end the war quickly.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a muted response Sunday to the approval that he and his government have been requesting for over a year, adding, "The missiles will speak for themselves.”

Consequences of the new policy are uncertain. ATACMS, which have a range of about 300 kilometers (190 miles), can reach far behind the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line in Ukraine, but they have relatively short range compared with other types of ballistic and cruise missiles.

The policy change came “too late to have a major strategic effect,” said Patrick Bury, a senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.

“The ultimate kind of impact it will have is to probably slow down the tempo of the Russian offensives which are now happening,” he said, adding that Ukraine could strike targets in Kursk or logistics hubs or command headquarters.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, agreed the U.S. move would not alter the war's course, noting Ukraine "would need large stockpiles of ATACMS, which it doesn’t have and won’t receive because the United States’ own supplies are limited.”

On a political level, the move “is a boost to the Ukrainians and it gives them a window of opportunity to try and show that they are still viable and worth supporting” as Trump prepares to take office, said Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The cue for the policy change was the arrival in Russia of North Korean troops, according to Glib Voloskyi, an analyst at the CBA Initiatives Center, a Kyiv-based think tank.

“This is a signal the Biden administration is sending to North Korea and Russia, indicating that the decision to involve North Korean units has crossed a red line,” he said.

Russian lawmakers and state media bashed the West for what they called an escalatory step, threatening a harsh response.

“Biden, apparently, decided to end his presidential term and go down in history as ‘Bloody Joe,’” lawmaker Leonid Slutsky told Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, called it "a very big step toward the start of World War III” and an attempt to “reduce the degree of freedom for Trump.”

Russian newspapers offered similar predictions of doom. “The madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta said.

Some NATO allies welcomed the move.

President Andrzej Duda of Poland, which borders Ukraine, praised the decision as a “very important, maybe even a breakthrough moment“ in the war.

“In the recent days, we have seen the decisive intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine, above all, those missile attacks where civilian objects are attacked, where people are killed, ordinary Ukrainians,” Duda said.

Easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing,” said Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna of Russian neighbor Estonia.

“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he told senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”

But Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, known for his pro-Russian views, described Biden’s decision as “an unprecedented escalation” that would prolong the war.

Matthew Lee in Washington, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Danica Kirka in London, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic, contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack in Odesa, Ukraine, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack in Odesa, Ukraine, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, police officers evacuate an injured resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a police officer, right, evacuates an elderly resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)