Raymond E. Vickery Jr. and Tom Cutler
On a day in July when NATO leaders, joined by leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, were meeting in Washington to devise new measures to stop Russia’s takeover of Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian government he represents were embracing President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and the Russia he controls. And then, just over a month after Modi was in Moscow embracing Putin, he was in Kiev shaking hands with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. More importantly, in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Modi and Zelensky were pledging their “cooperation in upholding principles of international law, including the UN Charter, such as respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.”[1]
In some ways, Modi’s visit to Ukraine on August 23 was an attempt to balance criticism from the United States and its allies of his July 8 bear hug of Putin. However, it was more than a balancing act. Modi’s visit to Ukraine (and neighboring Poland) was certainly a far cry from Indian minister of external affairs S. Jaishankar’s defense of India’s nonaction in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when he said in June 2022 at the GLOBSEC security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that its problems are the world’s problems.”[2]
India has now implicitly acknowledged that respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is a problem for India as it is for the rest of the world. This is a welcome development and a development necessary if India is to become a world security leader and not primarily a regional actor focused on its disputes with its neighbors. However, in the face of Russia’s flouting of the basic international principles that India holds dear, namely nonaggression and anti-imperialism, India has yet to take any action that might affect its “special and privileged strategic partnership” with Russia.
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