Moscow-Kyiv to Delhi, connect the dots

Why in the News

India has stepped up its diplomatic engagement on the Russia-Ukraine war, holding senior-level meetings in both Moscow and Kyiv. The engagement follows an American track that has produced contact without a settlement. Negotiators for the United States President met the Russian President over the weekend, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) travelled secretly to Moscow two weeks earlier to press the Kremlin to cut a deal. Neither belligerent has changed position on the ground, since each of the two great powers supplies the other’s adversary in a separate conflict. The tension is that India now holds access to both capitals at a moment when the mediator with actual leverage is stretched across two theatres.

What access has India actually acquired?

1. A meeting at the level of the Russian presidency: The External Affairs Minister met the Russian President directly rather than through the standing bilateral machinery.
2. The war raised at a multilateral summit: The Prime Minister took up the war with the Russian President at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, urging an end to it “for humanity’s sake”.
3. A reciprocal opening in Kyiv: The External Affairs Minister travelled to Kyiv. The Ukrainian President thanked India for its “commitment to ending this unjust war”.

Why has the American track not converted contact into a settlement?

1. The intelligence channel has been reopened at the top: The last known visit to Russia by a serving CIA Director was nearly five years ago, made to warn the Kremlin that Washington knew of its plans to invade Ukraine. That deterrence effort failed, and the present visit was reportedly aimed at persuading Moscow to cut a deal.
2. A reset announced more than a year ago has changed nothing: The two governments have talked since their summit at Anchorage and remain on opposing sides of two active conflicts.
3. Each power arms the other’s adversary: The United States supplies Ukraine with intelligence to strike targets inside Russia. Russia does the same for Iran in the Gulf.

What does the conduct of the war show about its direction?

1. Neither side will back down under escalation: Russia has intensified drone and missile strikes on Ukraine. Ukraine has relentlessly targeted Russian energy infrastructure.
2. The damage has reached Russian domestic supply: The disruption has been severe enough for Moscow to turn to India for petrol imports, and restrictions on fuel sales have been imposed across Russia.
3. The war is leaking into third countries: A series of suspected acts of sabotage across Europe is being investigated for possible links to Russia. Any loss of life on European soil raises the risk of the conflict spilling further into the continent.

What would a realistic first step look like?

1. A ceasefire basis before a settlement: The immediate requirement is to bring Moscow and Kyiv back to the table and establish a basis for a ceasefire, rather than to open with terms neither will accept.
2. A narrow opening ask rather than a comprehensive one: Protection of energy and civilian infrastructure, along with commercial shipping lanes in the Black Sea, is available as a first step because it serves both belligerents’ own interests.
3. A collective call rather than an Indian one: New Delhi can use the BRICS summit it hosts, with the Russian and Chinese Presidents expected to attend, to build a collective call for confidence-building measures instead of a solitary appeal.

Challenges to an Indian mediation role

1. India is an interested party in the war’s economics: Discounted Russian crude has made Russia India’s largest oil supplier since 2022, so any Indian proposal is read in Kyiv and Brussels through the trade relationship. Eg. Moscow’s turn to India for refined petrol deepens the same commercial dependence.
   The Fix: Separate the commercial track from the diplomatic one by routing the peace effort through a designated special envoy rather than through the ministries that handle energy trade.
2. No leverage exists over the party financing Ukraine’s defence: The war’s outcome turns on American intelligence and weapons supply, and India holds no instrument that touches that flow. Eg. Strike intelligence for targets inside Russia is supplied by Washington, not by any BRICS member.
   The Fix: Aim at a humanitarian and infrastructure truce that neither capital needs American consent to accept, rather than at a comprehensive settlement.
3. BRICS is not a conflict-resolution forum: The grouping has no mediation machinery, no secretariat with a political mandate and no record of brokering a ceasefire. Eg. It issued no collective position when the war began in 2022.
   The Fix: Seek a narrow chair’s statement on infrastructure and shipping protection rather than a group position on the war itself.
4. Both belligerents currently believe escalation still pays: A mediator arrives with nothing to offer when neither side has reached the point of exhaustion. Eg. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and Russia’s intensified missile campaign both increased through the current phase.
   The Fix: Hold an offer of monitoring and verification capacity in reserve, so India has something concrete to supply once a pause becomes attractive to both.
5. India’s own track record is regional, not extra-regional: New Delhi has not brokered a ceasefire between two states outside its immediate neighbourhood, so its convening power rests on access rather than on precedent. Eg. Its wartime role so far has been the delivery of humanitarian consignments and the evacuation of students.
   The Fix: Build the role incrementally through technical facilitation, beginning with grain, nuclear-plant safety and prisoner exchange files.

Conclusion

Access to both capitals is a diplomatic asset that decays if it is not converted into a specific ask. The two governments that can end the war are simultaneously arming opposite sides of a second one, which is the ceiling any external mediator runs into. The concrete thing to watch is the BRICS summit in New Delhi from 11 to 13 September, and specifically whether its outcome document names infrastructure and shipping protection at all.

Back2Basics

1. Confidence-building measures: Reciprocal steps taken by adversaries to reduce the risk of accidental escalation and to make each side’s intentions readable, adopted without either side conceding its political position.
2. Typical forms: Advance notification of military exercises, hotlines between commands, limits on deployments in a defined zone, and agreed exclusions of a category of target from attack.
3. Why they precede a ceasefire: They require no agreement on the disputed issue itself, so they can be adopted while the war’s causes remain unresolved.
4. Precedent in this war: The Black Sea Grain Initiative of 2022 allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume under an inspection arrangement without either belligerent altering its war aims.

[2019, GS2, 15 marks] “The long-sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalised Nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order”. Elaborate.”