India has gone beyond its advocacy of the past few years and engaged in conversations with Russia and Ukraine in recent months to end the war between the two countries, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday in the first public acknowledgement of New Delhi’s initiative to address the conflict.
He noted that India had taken a clear position on ending the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. “We have conversations with both Russia and Ukraine in this regard. We are trying to be helpful, starting with the Black Sea, [the] safety of shipping issue. He added: “Those are ongoing conversations right now. Modi met Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Kyrgyzstan in August and called for a shift from endless war to the end of war. The Ukraine conflict figured again in a meeting between Modi and Putin ahead of the Brics Summit in New Delhi last month. Modi also met Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the margins of the G7 Summit in France in June. “For us, Russia, and the Soviet Union before that, was a country that stood by us in many ways when our security, when our territorial integrity was under threat.
Jaishankar’s comments came two days after Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv has received ceasefire proposals from four countries, including one from India that is “most comprehensive”, and three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “excellent ideas” aimed at mutually acceptable solutions. Sharing limited details of the Indian initiative at the Munich Leaders Meeting in New Delhi, Jaishankar said it is focused on the safety of shipping in the Black Sea as ensuring grain and energy exports. “We have been advocating it for many years, and in recent months we have got a little bit more involved beyond advocacy,” he said. India, he said, is also “going beyond that to cover some immediate concerns which [Russia and Ukraine] have on grain exports, energy exports, non-attack possibilities”. That history is not forgotten,” he said. Without directly naming Pakistan, Jaishankar said that at a time when many countries “preferred backing a military regime next to us”, Russia had very good relations with India and this legacy shapes the current relationship.
“India and Russia have historically had very good relations, particularly since the 1950s.
