Opinion: No, Modi's Ukraine Visit Wasn't About 'Ditching' Russia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Poland and Ukraine is being construed by pro-West lobbies in India as a new thrust of Indian foreign policy towards Central and East Europe, to re-balance and de-hyphenate its engagement with Russia and Central Europe, and more particularly, its ties with Russia and Ukraine.

The view of this lobby is that India, in defence of its Russia sensitivities, did not engage Ukraine and the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries so far. Modi's visit to Ukraine is therefore seen in these pro-Western circles as a long overdue correction of India's approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

India, it is argued, has all along stayed silent on Russia's unacceptable actions even when they challenged the core principles of India's worldview - the sanctity of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The political costs of this silence on Russian aggressions have been mounting and ergo the change in India's approach that we see.

A Shallow Analysis

This kind of analysis of India's foreign policy is ill-informed, shallow and ideological. Take the Czech Republic as an example of India's supposed lack of engagement with Central and East Europe. Look at the reality: India's former President, Ram Nath Kovind, made a visit there in 2018; the Czech PM visited India in 2019, when the Czech Republic was a partner country at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit; its Defence Minister came in February 2019, its Foreign Minister in January 2020; former CDS General Rawat visited the Czech Republic in November 2021; India's External Affairs Minister (EAM) went there in June 2022; the Czech Foreign Minister came to India in February 2023; the Czech Prime Minister came to India in January 2024 when the India-Czechia Strategic Partnership On Innovation was adopted. The Czech Foreign Minister visited India again in February 2024. Similarly, Prime Minister Orban of Hungary visited India in 2013, the Hungarian Foreign Minister has visited India three times - in 2020, 2022 and 2024 - while India's EAM visited Hungary in 2019. High-level visits have been exchanged with Slovakia too, as well as Poland.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has posed serious problems for not only India but the international community as a whole. The US, Europe and the G7 are pitted against Russia. China, which has intensive ties with the West, is supporting Russia, bearing in mind that Beijing is now seen by the US as its biggest adversary. It therefore sees the value of Russia as a partner. India has deepening ties with the West but also has close historical ties with Russia. India is not in a position to either alienate the West or Russia, as it needs both to protect and advance its larger national interest.

The Russia-Ukraine Issue Is Multilayered

If Russia has committed aggression against Ukraine, the list of aggressions that the US and its partners in NATO have committed against other countries is incomparably longer. If this has not deterred India from forging close ties with the US and NATO countries, why would it be wrong to preserve our ties with Russia? Should we have double standards too?

More pertinently, an objective analysis of the Ukraine conflict would show that the responsibility for it does not lie on one side only. It is not a simple case of violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one country. Much larger and complex issues of historical legacies, geopolitics, national security, balance of power, ethnic rights, external interference, regime change, etc., are involved.

India cannot take a simplistic view of the conflict. More so as those who want to promote the interests of the West should recall that on issues of our own sovereignty and territorial integrity, the record of the West has been adverse to our interests, and is not supportive even now.

Multilateralism Has Collapsed

Modi's visit to Ukraine should not be seen as India de-hyphenating its engagement with Russia and Ukraine. India, as well as the global south in general, has been impacted by the Russia-Ukraine conflict in many ways. Europe, too, has been hit by this conflict, which is also against our interest at a time when we seek to deepen our ties with Europe, especially on the trade and technology front, not to mention the larger issues of energy security, climate change, critical technologies, etc., which require constructive cooperation with Europe.

The complete breakdown of a dialogue between the US and Russia is against our interests too. The liberal use of sanctions as a political and economic tool disrupts our ties with Russia as well as with others, like Iran. Multilateralism has virtually collapsed. This prevents much-needed international cooperation to address problems that are global in nature. Viewing Modi's visit to Ukraine only in the context of balancing our ties with Russia is missing the larger point.

All the more so as Russia had been taken into confidence about the visit and no doubt felt assured that India would do nothing to harm its interests. Russia has never counselled us not to engage Ukraine, or, for that matter, forge closer relations with the US, including defence ties, an area of prime interest for Moscow in ties with India. The US, on the contrary, openly asks us to dilute ties with Russia, especially in the defence area.

A Range Of Reasons

The reasons for Modi visiting Ukraine are diverse. They flow from a developing willingness to play whatever role is feasible in resolving the conflict peacefully. Modi has been saying in many fora that India is willing to be helpful. India's rising stature under Modi's leadership, the success of India's G-20 presidency, the Indian discourse that we seek friendship with all, that we are in a position to talk to countries that may be adversaries of each other, the belief promoted by our Western interlocutors that Modi, after his homily to Putin that "today is not an era of war", could talk peace to the Russian persuasively, may explain why Modi may have felt it was time to carry his message of dialogue and diplomacy to Kyiv.

Beyond this, Modi may have wanted to defuse rising criticism in the US and Ukraine after his visit to Moscow where he embraced Putin in his signature greeting style that Putin too has adopted, by making a balancing visit to Kyiv. During the visit, he consciously embraced Zelenskyy on three occasions, put his arm around his shoulders and held his hand in a gesture of personal empathy and fellow-feeling. The Ukrainian side, keeping in mind that while in Moscow Modi had expressed great anguish to Putin at the killing of children in war, organised a visit to the exhibition in Kyiv on children killed in the ongoing conflict to expose Modi to Russian brutalities. The Ukrainian side had also wanted Modi to visit the hospital allegedly bombed by Russia, but the Indian side would have resisted being drawn into too many anti-Russia elements in the programme.

India's Position Is Clear

On substance, India yielded nothing during the visit on the fundamentals of its position on the conflict. India did not endorse Zelenskyy's 10-point peace plan that the Ukrainian president lobbied for. EAM Jaishankar declared in his press briefing that there were multiple ways of approaching the issue of peace talks. India's position is clearly reflected in the joint statement, to the effect that all stakeholders should be engaged to develop innovative solutions that should have broad acceptability. Jaishankar made it a point to draw attention to this para in the joint statement in his press briefing.

It is noteworthy that in the joint statement with Poland and Ukraine, the paragraphs on the Ukraine issue make no mention of Russia by name, just as in the case of the G-20 Delhi Declaration. But there, neither Ukraine nor Poland were present. This was a notable success of Indian diplomacy.
India preserved its equities with Russia while engaging Zelenskyy in Ukraine.

Perhaps the failure to draw India to his side and drive some wedge between India and Russia would explain Zelenskyy's remarks to the Indian press in Kyiv that conveyed his differences with India on substance and altogether lacked diplomatic propriety.

(Kanwal Sibal was Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, and Deputy Chief Of Mission in Washington.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author