Can Narendra Modi contribute to peace in Ukraine?

To claim that Narendra Modi’s visit would re-engage India with Europe’s security is much of a muchness when the Europeans themselves have subcontracted it to the US

After his public hugging of Russian President Vladimir Putin invited US ire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a beeline for Kyiv to no doubt embrace Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine. The Indian government has yet to formally announce the visit, but reports suggest that Modi’s official visit may take place on August 23.

What significance will this have for peace in Ukraine?

Modi’s homilies saying “this is not an era of war” lack credibility in Western eyes because India has simultaneously reiterated its “freedom of choice” and “strategic autonomy” on maintaining military and trade ties with Russia. So far it has not even described the invasion of Ukraine as an act of Russian aggression.

India took a distance from the peace summit organised at Zelenskyy’s behest by Switzerland, where Russia was pointedly not invited. India sent only a senior official and refused to sign the communique issued.

There is no way that Modi can persuade Putin or Zelenskyy to resile from their known positions. Modi cannot meet Putin’s basic concerns which form the very basis of the Ukraine conflict. The chief one concerns NATO’s continuing expansion eastwards despite assurances to Russia at the end of the Cold War that it would not extend itself even ‘an inch’ eastwards.

He cannot prevent the deployment of offensive weapons along Russia’s borders and he cannot ensure the withdrawal of NATO infrastructure back to the lines of 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed. The countries to which NATO expanded beginning in 1999 are: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004), Albania, and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023), and Sweden (2024). Nor can Modi convince Moscow to review its assessment that NATO co-operation with Ukraine sought to prepare it as a staging ground for potential strikes against itself.

Two other recognised goals of Putin in Ukraine are its demilitarisation (freezing the peacetime army of a ‘neutral’ Ukraine at 85,000 troops) and de-Nazification. Putin sees Zelenskyy as a promoter of neo-Nazis and would probably like a regime change. Modi cannot exert influence on Zelenskyy on these two issues either.

Even if Putin was ready to ‘freeze’ the war and negotiate, Zelenskyy has repeatedly refused to negotiate peace on Putin’s terms that would allow Moscow to keep the gains it has made on the ground — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. In fact, Zelenskyy has vowed to take back all lost territory, including Crimea seized by Putin in 2014 and the annexed portions of eastern Donbass, where separatist Russian leaders have been installed.

Therefore, Modi cannot expect anything more than a photo-opportunity in Kyiv. Like US President Joe Biden’s ‘surprise’ visit to Kyiv in February, India would have to notify Russia of the visit so that Modi’s visit is secured and he will have to travel through Poland by the land route as Ukrainian airspace is closed for civilian traffic.

Why then has Modi decided on an official visit to Ukraine when it is self-evident that he can achieve precious little? The only conclusion is that he is going there under pressure from the US and as a victim of his own image as a global leader.

After the Moscow visit, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti warned India that in times of conflict, there was no such thing as “strategic autonomy”. He cautioned India to “not take this relationship for granted” and underlined that while “our heads and hearts are aligned”, the real question was whether the two countries could “move the feet together”.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu told the House Foreign Relations Committee that the US government shared the “disappointment about the symbolism and timing of Indian Prime Minister Modi’s trip to Moscow” and added that the US was having “tough conversations” with India about the visit. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned India that Russia had become the “junior partner” of China and was “not necessarily going to be a great and reliable friend of India in a future contingency or crisis.”

The US supplied India not only much-needed intelligence during the Chinese incursions in 2020 but also the high-altitude extreme winter clothing for the additional Indian soldiers deployed in Ladakh to meet the Chinese threat. The purchase was made possible under the Logistics Exchange Memorandum Agreement (LEMOA), one of the four foundational agreements signed between India and the US to enhance defence, intelligence, and critical technology transfer.

Even now, it is through US satellite company images that the Indian public comes to know about Chinese activities in Eastern Ladakh, on the border with Arunachal Pradesh, or more recently, the bridge being built by the People's Liberation Army over Pangong Tso on the Ladakh border with China. The US, therefore, feels justifiably miffed at Modi’s show of affinity with Putin.

If it is under US pressure that Modi has decided to make a beeline to Kyiv, the Americans would be pleased at this ostensible course correction. No wonder then that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken not only emphasised the importance of a “just and enduring peace” for Ukraine in his meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Tokyo last Sunday. He would also have been mighty pleased to see India sign the Quad joint statement underscoring the importance of maintaining the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine while seeking “a comprehensive, and lasting peace in line with international law”.

Moscow would see these preconditions ruling out even a ceasefire, let alone moving towards compromises to end the war.

To claim that Modi’s visit would re-engage India with Europe’s security is much of a muchness when the Europeans themselves have subcontracted it to the US. The Ukrainian situation is a mess created by Europe, the US, and Russia. It has become a global crisis, but it is not something for which the international community can be held responsible, least of all India. 

Any meaningful peace talks must be between Moscow and Washington DC; the rest, including ‘guest appearances’ by ‘world leaders’, is just a sideshow.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.