India treated the visit of Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on March 28-29 in a low-key manner. His only official engagements were his discussions with his counterpart external affairs minister S Jaishankar and a meeting with deputy national security advisor (DNSA) Vikram Misri. Indeed, if a visiting foreign minister meets the DNSA because the NSA is unavailable, he would normally be given a call on a high dignitary to satisfy protocol requirements. The fact that this was not done goes to show that India wanted to do the minimum for Kuleba’s visit. This is not surprising because India and Ukraine relations have been cordial in the past decades but have never had any special warmth. More significantly, the Ukrainian leadership was critical of India’s circumspection on the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine was also condemnatory of India continuing to buy Russian oil. This would not have gone down well in Delhi. It is noteworthy that prior to Kuleba’s visit prime minister Narendra Modi and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a telephonic conversation. Modi told Zelenskyy that Indian humanitarian help will go on and he favoured upgrading the bilateral ties. Despite this the Kuleba visit does not show that India has forgotten Ukrainian slights.
This was also reflected in the ministry of external affairs statement regarding the visit. It noted “The meeting between EAM and foreign minister Kuleba held on 29 March 2024 focused on constructive dialogue and strengthening bilateral relations…including in areas such as trade and investment, science and technology, defence, agriculture, health, culture and education”. Ukraine has been a destination of a large number of Indian medical students who had to be evacuated when the Russian invasion of the country began in February 2022. Indeed, the successful pulling of Indian nationals including students was an accomplishment of the Modi government. The statement added that Jaishankar and Kuleba held separate discussions under the rubric of the India-Ukraine Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical, Industrial and Cultural Cooperation and its working groups. Both sides agreed to work towards holding the 7th IGC later this year”. This formulation itself was proforma. Given the uncertainties in Ukraine which is confronting Russian aggression convening the 7th IGC meeting will be challenging.
On what would have been the most important segment of Jaishankar’s discussions with Kuleba which is the continuing Ukraine-Russian war the MEA statement merely states “The exchange of views on regional and global matters involved a comprehensive discussion on the ongoing conflict and efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement”. There can be little doubt that Jaishankar would have underlined India’s view which was first articulated by prime minister Narendra Modi to Russian President in person in autumn 2022 when he said that this was not an era of war. Before and since then India has been urging diplomacy and peaceful negotiations as the only path to move to resolving the conflict.
On his part Kuleba would have mentioned the need for Russia to respect his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, to stop hostilities and vacate the Ukrainian territory it occupies. This is fine in principle but the fact is that Putin has shown no inclination of doing so and therefore there is no positive sign for the conflict ending anytime soon. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has put forward a ten-point peace plan. It is not surprising that the core of the Zelenskyy’s plan contains the position that Ukraine’s territorial integrity should be respected. Again, not surprisingly, the Ukrainian media reported that Kuleba in giving the aims of his India visit mentioned the implementation of the Peace Plan.
The conflict in Ukraine has reached more or less a stalemate. It is difficult to foresee a major change in the ground situation so long as Ukraine continues to be supported by necessary arms and ammunition to defend its present positions. While European countries are showing a determination to prevent a Ukrainian collapse there are signs of a degree of Ukraine fatigue in the US. The Republican party is displaying ambivalence on bearing the financial burden of continuing support of Ukraine though president Joe Biden is firm in his view that Putin must be stopped. The Ukraine issue is likely to be point of policy contention between Biden and Trump as the presidential election campaign gathers steam. From present indications it seems that Trump is not as firm on supporting Ukraine as Biden is. Besides, it is known that Trump’s approach to dealing with Putin was different from Biden’s. He was more accommodative of Russian concerns.
Meanwhile peacemaking processes on the Ukraine-Russia conflict will gradually shift to a Swiss decision to organize a conference “in the summer”. India has been invited to the conference which according to media reports may be held in June. At a meeting organized by a Delhi think-tank, Kuleba said that India should participate in the Swiss initiative and also press Russia to do so. He went so far as to say that Russia needs India more than the other way around. Clearly, this was not the most diplomatic comment for it would cause discomfort in India and Russia because they share a time-tested relationship now as equals. As of now it does not seem likely that Russia will attend the Swiss meeting and in its absence is unlikely to promote the cause of peace.
The fact is that Russia-Ukraine conflict will continue to be kinetic for the foreseeable future and whenever a ceasefire is achieved it will endure as an intractable one.