Ukraine Calls on India to Play More Active Role in Peace Talks

Ukrainian Ambassador to India Oleksandr Polishchuk said Wednesday that New Delhi should take on a more active role in ending the war in Ukraine and relayed Kyiv’s wishes for India to “moderate” potential peace talks.

Polishchuk told Bloomberg that India could leverage its influence on Russia to bring the latter to the negotiation table, and it’s in India’s interest to be more active in its peace efforts.

“If India is aiming for [a] permanent seat in the United Nation’s Security Council to serve its own interest, it is setting the bar too low,” Polishchuk said.

Polishchuk added that Ukraine has proposed India host a peace summit before November this year to end the war in Ukraine, but he said it’s not clear if New Delhi would agree to do so.

Polishchuk’s statements coincided with India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s visit to Moscow as part of India’s peace effort.

India is currently casting itself as a potential peacemaker, with its Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Moscow and Kyiv for the first time this year since Russia’s 2022 invasion started, meeting the heads of both states.

Modi’s visit to Moscow coincided with a Russian strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, which led to criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a slight diplomatic scuffle, though Modi’s later visit to Kyiv was ostensibly smooth.

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The industrial city, which had an estimated pre-war population of more than 700,000 people, lies around 35 kilometres from the nearest Russian positions.

India has been reliant on Russian oil and weapons and has thus far refused to explicitly condemn Moscow’s invasion. However, it is also courting closer security partnerships with Western nations as a bulwark against its regional rival China, leading to what some called a “diplomatic tightrope.”

At present, India is presenting itself as a messenger between Kyiv and Moscow, but Ukraine’s Polishchuk has called for a more “robust role” from New Delhi and described the current efforts as playing “postman passing messages between Ukraine and Russia.”