Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, touching base with the Russian leader three days after returning from a visit to Ukraine.
According to the Kremlin, Modi “shared insights” from his Ukraine trip with Putin and “exchanged views” on the war.
During his conversation with Putin, Modi reportedly “underlined the importance of dialogue and diplomacy as well as sincere and practical engagement between all stakeholders to achieve an abiding and peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
The Kremlin readout of the call did not mention Russia’s massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv on Monday and, if Modi had any thoughts about the attack, the Russians did not see fit to share them.
According to the readout, Putin shared his “principled assessment of the destructive policies of the Kiev authorities and their Western patrons,” which is most likely shorthand for Putin complaining about Ukraine invading Russia’s Kursk province.
The Russian government claims the Ukrainian incursion was aided, and possibly directed, by the United States. Ukraine has confirmed using American-made bombs to strike targets in Kursk, but the Biden administration claims it was not consulted about the Ukrainian assault.
According to the White House, Modi also spoke with President Joe Biden on Monday. Biden reportedly “commended” Modi for visiting Ukraine and Poland to deliver a “message of peace and ongoing humanitarian support for Ukraine.”
The White House said Modi and Biden “affirmed their continued support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in accordance with international law, on the basis of the U.N. Charter.”
There has been much recent speculation in Indian and Western media that Modi will present a peace proposal for the Russia-Ukraine war and offer to act as an intermediary, since India has worked to maintain good relations with both Russia and the West.
During Modi’s visit to Ukraine, the Indian government denied that any firm peace proposal has been drafted. Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar stressed that Russia would have to be fully involved in crafting such a proposal.
Ukraine would also have to be involved and, unfortunately for Modi’s peacemaker aspirations, his trip to Kyiv ended on an awkward note.
After Modi departed Kyiv on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a press conference in which he chided India for buying huge amounts of oil from Russia.
Zelensky also suggested Modi should be much more perturbed by Russia tricking Indian citizens into combat service in Ukraine and by the disrespect Russia showed when it attacked a Ukrainian children’s hospital while Modi was in Moscow last month.
Zelensky criticized Modi for hugging Putin when he visited Moscow in July, which peeved Modi’s government enough to summon the Ukrainian ambassador. Modi’s embrace of Zelensky before their meeting on Friday was noticeably awkward.
India’s Firstpost on Monday blasted Zelensky for “hypocrisy” toward India and suggested the Ukrainian leader check up on how much Russian oil his Western friends are buying these days:
Kpler, a data provider, stated that Russia is now the EU’s second-largest LNG supplier, with nearly 16 per cent of EU’s total LNG supply in 2023 which was an increase of 40 per cent from 2021. And France, Belgium, and Spain account for 87 per cent of LNG imports.
Modi told Zelensky during his Kyiv visit that India was never “neutral” on the war, but has always “chosen the side of peace.” Zelensky appears to be running out of patience with India saying it hates the war while refusing to condemn the Russian autocrat who started it.
On the other hand, Zelensky is shrewd enough to understand that India might be the only game in town when it comes to plausible peace brokers, especially if he wants negotiations that seem credible enough to make Putin look bad for blowing them off.
Zelensky said on Sunday he supports India hosting a second summit on peace and, on Tuesday, his office said the second summit should be “held in one of the countries of the Global South.” The Global South is a general term for developing nations, and India styles itself as the natural leader of that group.
The first peace summit was held in Switzerland in June and Russia did not attend. The Ukrainian government says it wants Russia to attend the second, although Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s current invasion of Russia is “connected to the second peace summit” as “one of the points of Ukraine’s victory plan,” which is not the sort of sales pitch that will make Putin eager to send in his RSVP.
Zelensky also said his government will “not be able to hold a peace summit in a country that has not yet joined the peace summit communique.”
The communique in question explicitly condemns Russia for starting the war and causing “large-scale human suffering and destruction.” It has dozens of signatories, but India is not one of them.