Modi in Ukraine: India Does Not Have the Leverage to Push Putin Towards Peace

The prime minister's trip was most likely an outcome of the poor optics of his July visit to Moscow, Russia.

Modi and Zelenskyy.

(Photo: X/@narendramodi)

In some ways, the considerable hype around Modi’s visit to Ukraine is inevitable. The visit has been termed “historic”, and while some have seen it as the cornerstone of a new Indian initiative to develop ties with Central Europe, others have seen it as a major contribution towards global peace and a significant step in the Indian effort to mediate between the belligerents to end the war.

But the reality is more prosaic. Modi's trip was essentially an exercise in balancing India’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war. It is difficult to get away from the feeling that the Indian prime minister's visit to Ukraine was an outcome of the poor optics of his July visit to Moscow.

Images of Modi hugging Putin were transposed with the death and destruction caused by the Russian attack on one of Kyiv’s biggest children’s hospitals on the same day. That day coincided with the beginning of the three-day annual NATO summit in Washington DC.

President Zelenskyy had personally criticised the Putin hug and spoken of his “huge disappointment” while watching it. Western countries, particularly the US, were sharply critical of the visit, questioning the “symbolism” and “timing” of the visit.

Russia-leaning Neutrality

There is no doubt that Modi’s visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since it emerged as an independent country in 1991, has its own importance. There is a great deal of potential in the relations between the two countries which was manifested in the wording of the joint communique that was issued after the visit. But as of now, the focus of the visit is issues of war and peace.

What the international community is looking for is whether the visit will be accompanied by a change in India's stance. And an even more important signal would be Indian activism in promoting a larger role in resolving the conflict. Can the Indian position go beyond declarations such as Modi’s “this is not an era of war” and “India believes in diplomacy and dialogue,” and shift gears to truly become a mediator between Russia and Ukraine?

Since Russia's invasion, India has maintained what can be termed as Russia-leaning neutrality. It has abstained from all resolutions critical of Russia at the United Nations; it has ignored sanctions on payments for oil imports and defence equipment; it refused to invite Ukraine to participate in the G20 summit in 2023, and though it participated in the Summit on Peace in Ukraine in June, it refused to be a party to the adopted resolution.

As of now, India’s position remains that peacemaking is something that Russia and Ukraine both need to do through direct negotiations and talks. “Both sides will have to sit together and look for ways to come out of the crisis,” Modi was quoted as saying after his talks in Kyiv.

Later he offered “personal help” to end the war, observing that only dialogue and diplomacy could do the work of ending the fighting. India was not “neutral” in the war, he said. “Right from the first day, our side was for peace.” Earlier in Poland, he had said that “India firmly believes that no problem can be solved on the battlefield.”

Oil

Modi's schedule included a visit to Ukraine’s history museum where he witnessed a programme in memory of all 570 Ukrainian children reportedly killed since the invasion began in February 2022. Both leaders placed soft toys at the make-shift shrine and Modi said that his heart with filled with grief at the young people “martyred.”

He later posted a picture standing next to Zelenskyy with his arms over his shoulders. Recall that in Moscow, Modi had sharply criticised the attack and in an implicit rebuke to Putin said that “when innocent children are killed, the heart bleeds and the pain is very terrifying.“

The elephant in the room was India’s oil imports from Russia, where New Delhi has overtaken Beijing as the biggest importer of Russian oil. They have grown from 0.5 per cent of India’s total oil imports to 44 per cent this month.

During the talks on Friday, the Ukrainians raised the issue and said that if India changed its policy here, the war would end. In his interaction with the Indian media, President Zelenskyy said that because of the sanctions, Russian trade elsewhere faced restrictions, and, “If you stop the import of oil, Putin will have huge challenges”. He bluntly noted that Putin’s war economy was benefiting from the billions he was earning through oil exports to India and China.

New Delhi Lacks Leverage

Later in response, as it were, the External Affairs Minister pointed out at a media briefing that Indian imports needed to be looked at in the context of embargoes on Iranian and Venezuelan oil and as of now they helped the international economy in ensuring that “prices remain reasonable and stable.”

All in all, the way the war is going, pressure for peace negotiations is likely to grow and both Ukraine and Russia will position themselves for it. As of now, there are no indications that the Russians are willing to talk peace. Despite the Kursk offensive, Kyiv is finding the going tough and as of now, Russia continues to occupy large territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Zelenskyy wants a second peace summit in November and says he will have a peace plan ready for it and has asked Russia to attend as well. This is a follow-up to the first summit in Switzerland that had been attended by 92 countries in June to advance a peace plan. Russia had not been invited and had criticised the summit. It remains to be seen how New Delhi will handle this proposal for a second peace summit.

November, of course, will also see elections in the US with an outcome that could be consequential for Ukraine. A victory for Donald Trump would put a big question mark on continued American support for the Ukrainian war effort. As it is, Germany is reducing new military aid to Ukraine because of political infighting in the ruling coalition. By November, it will also be clear how the surprise Ukrainian offensive in Kursk has fared.

In March, during a visit to Delhi, the foreign minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, had requested that India supply telecom, medical, and construction equipment to aid his country's reconstruction. But so far, India has not accepted the request. It has confined its aid to medical and humanitarian supplies.

It is apparent from all this that New Delhi perhaps lacks the kind of leverage that would be needed to bring the war to an end through negotiations. This kind of leverage is only available with the United States and Russia. While New Delhi no doubt has deep and broad ties with Russia, it does not have the heft, or probably the inclination, to push Putin towards peace if he does not want to. Even on oil, there is little chance that it will begin to cut imports from Russia at the behest of the Ukrainians.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)