Ukrainian officers are cultivating nearer ties with India, pursuing mutual financial advantages whereas hoping to nudge the Asian large away from its historic shut ties with Kyiv’s warfare enemy, Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba visited India on March 28-29, the primary go to of a prime Ukrainian diplomat to the nation in seven years. Days earlier than that, the international locations’ presidents spoke by cellphone.

The main job for Kuleba`s go to — Ukrainian Ambassador to India Oleksandr Polishchuk mentioned in an interview with VOA — was to revive high-level political cooperation.

The events agreed {that a} high-ranking Indian official will take part in a Global Peace Summit set for this summer season in Switzerland with the purpose of supporting Ukraine.

India will even work on a attainable go to to Ukraine by its exterior affairs minister and arrange different top-level mutual visits, he mentioned. The events additionally agreed to renew the work of the India-Ukraine Inter-Governmental Commission, inactive since 2018.

The two international locations “agreed to revive the extent of cooperation between our international locations that existed previous to the full-scale warfare launched by Russia,” Kuleba wrote on X.

“Our immediate goal is to get trade back to earlier levels,” wrote his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

In an interview with the Financial Times (FT), Kuleba mentioned that India might enormously profit from increasing commerce and technological ties with Ukraine and take part in post-war reconstruction.

Kuleba famous that India’s shut ties with Russia are based mostly on a “Soviet legacy” that’s “evaporating.” One such legacy is India’s imports of Russian weapons, the share of which dropped from 76% in 2009-13 to 36% in 2019-2023, in line with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Polishchuk mentioned that since Russia can not fulfill all of its obligations to produce new tools and spare elements, India is attempting to ascertain its personal army manufacturing based mostly on Western requirements.

“Ukraine can partially meet the needs of the Indian armed forces, particularly the navy, since many warships use gas turbine engines produced in Ukraine,” mentioned the ambassador.

In an interview with The Times of India newspaper, Kuleba additionally softened Ukraine’s place towards India’s import of Russian oil, saying that Ukraine doesn’t object to it as a result of the deal was structured in a approach that Russia cannot make investments the revenue “within the manufacturing of tanks, missiles, and weapons.”

Paradoxes of India-Ukraine relations

Mridula Ghosh, a lecturer on the Ukraine National University of Kyiv-Mohyla and a local of India, pointed to 2 paradoxes within the relations between the 2 international locations.

First, she instructed VOA, that ties between India and Ukraine are strengthening whereas the U.S. Congress is unable to approve help to Ukraine and the U.S. and a few European international locations use the help to Ukraine as a bargaining chip in electoral politics. In India, she mentioned, overseas coverage shouldn’t be a part of the electoral debates as a result of it’s of little curiosity to the voters.

Second, the warming of relations between the 2 international locations on the very best degree occurred whereas Russia elevated its propaganda and affect on Indian society.

“When the full-scale war began, society was ready to condemn this aggression. The authorities, on the contrary, reacted restrainedly. Now, many people in power and intellectual circles clearly and correctly understand what is happening in Ukraine. But the media began actively disseminating Russian propaganda,” Ghosh defined.

Mediator between Russia and Ukraine?

In New Delhi, Kuleba referred to as on India to play a extra energetic position within the peace course of.

“With India’s more active involvement in this process, we expect that the number of countries looking at India and its role in this process will also grow,” Polishchuk mentioned.

However, observers doubt that India might mediate between Ukraine and Russia or affect Moscow to finish the warfare.

While India leaned nearer to the U.S. and the West lately, it “will not undertake steps that would significantly affect Russia strategically, just as Russia would not take an adverse position to affect India strategically in favor of China or Pakistan,” mentioned Nandan Unnikrishnan, a distinguished fellow on the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation to the South China Morning Post.

Former U.S. Consul General to India Katherine Hadda doubts that India would act as a mediator in a peace course of the place one of many events is absent — Russia doesn’t take part in summits based mostly on the peace system proposed by Ukraine.

“India has stressed that it will serve as a mediator [only] at both sides’ request,” mentioned Hadda in the identical article.

In a column for the Indian NDTV information outlet, Harsh V. Pant, a professor of worldwide relations at King’s College London, writes that reaching peace in Eurasia shouldn’t be India’s job.

“New Delhi would like to see a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war soon. But ultimately, it is for the main protagonists in this conflict — Russia, Ukraine, and the West — to decide what kind of Eurasian security architecture they can live with.”

Since the start of the full-scale aggression, India has not condemned Russia’s actions, gasoline abstained from voting for Ukrainian initiatives on the U.N. and has not joined the sanctions in opposition to Russia. Still, Ghosh believes India is transferring away from Moscow.

“The Indian elephant is slow but steady in reacting. At the beginning of the full-scale war, it was reluctant to make strong positional statements, but now it is reviewing many things. There is a decoupling from Russia.”