Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Uzbekistan on Friday. The two world leaders were meeting for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year.

“Today’s time is not a time for war”, Modi told Putin at the bilateral meeting. The Russian leader said that he understood India’s concerns over the ongoing conflict, NDTV reported.

“I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, your concerns. We will do our best to end this as soon as possible”, Putin said at the summit.

“We got the opportunity to discuss furthering India-Russia cooperation in sectors such as trade, energy, defence and more. We also discussed other bilateral and global issues”, Modi wrote in social media post after the meeting.

India has not publicly condemned Russia for its actions in Ukraine and has endorsed the use of diplomacy to resolve the issue. China has taken a similar “balanced” stance, which was praised by the Russian President earlier on Friday.

As Russia has been isolated from most western countries, India has continued to maintain economical ties with Moscow. New Delhi reported an uptick in energy trade with Russia.

New Delhi and Moscow have longstanding ties dating back to the Cold War, and Russia remains by far India’s biggest arms supplier.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday said China was willing to work with Russia to support “each other’s core interests”, though Putin admitted that Beijing had “concerns” about the situation in Ukraine that he would address.

“We highly appreciate the well-balanced position of our Chinese friends in connection with the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin said, facing Xi across a long table.

“We understand your questions and your concerns in this regard, and we certainly will offer a detailed explanation of our stand on this issue during today’s meeting, even though we already talked about it earlier,” he added.

Putin’s rare mention of Chinese worries comes as Beijing has been anxious about the impact of volatile oil prices and economic uncertainty due to the war in Ukraine that has dragged on for nearly seven months.