By: Dr. Jayasree Nath
The ongoing Russia and Ukraine crisis entering four months since starting on February 24, 2022, has signaled a new trend mounting in the global order. The unsettled conflict between adjacent nations provided an opportunity to garner and interfere with the powerful countries, intensifying hostility even more between the involved countries. Although not a new phenomenon in global politics especially by the powerful countries for their vested interest, the current crisis startled a new trend in global politics. Secondly, it shows the repeated failure of international mechanisms to protect the sovereignty and integrity of a smaller nation. This has again put a question mark on the dialogue mechanism advocated by the UN (United Nations) to resolve the conflict between nations that are becoming irrelevant and obsolete. The invasion of Russia in Ukraine and the helpless response from powerful countries such as the United States and Europe show a new rise towards a head-on war which was mostly given up by nations to resolve their differences post-1991 after the end of the Cold War followed by two devastating World Wars.
The Consequences of the ongoing war crisis between Russia and Ukraine are global as well as regional. India in this junction is going to feel major diplomatic challenges in coming years both globally and terms of bilateral relations with both the countries. Balancing the situation, New Delhi has come up with a decision to see the conflict from its perspective giving a bilateral point of view of the crisis while the decision favours Moscow. New Delhi’s stand on Russia is due to its historical, diplomatic, and geostrategic relations with the region and especially with Russia. Besides, Moscow has been a time-tested friend for New Delhi. The foreign policy of India has been evolving keeping a balance with Russia. It holds key consideration in furthering New Delhi’s relations with Ukraine or Russia’s neighbouring region. On the other hand, India’s relationship with Ukraine is a progressive one while economic interest plays a major consideration.
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Shortly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine voted for independence and became an independent country recognized by the UN and other countries globally. The Budapest Memorandum in 1994 was signed by Ukrainian authority with major power of the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia which led to the giving up of all nuclear power arsenals becoming a non-nuclear nation. The signatories of the agreement committed to honouring the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine. However, problems started in 2004 with the presidential election that started witnessing a new rise of divisive politics; one camp was influenced by the West and the other by Russian authority. The winning of the Western-oriented presidential candidate enraged Russian authority. Since then, Ukrainian authority started getting closer ties with Western countries that making Moscow uneasy with Ukrainian authority. Historically, Russia and Ukraine had not only been politically attached during the Soviet period but there was a close cultural link between the two. The use of the Russian language and the Russian minority living in Ukraine, mostly the bordering areas between the two plays a significant role in connecting both the regions. However, the ethnic conflict became a significant rise with the conflict between the two nations. Before the recent crisis, Kyiv’s appeal for NATO membership advocated by the western-oriented president of Ukraine, the discussion over the extension of NATO membership to Ukraine at the 2004 NATO summit, and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 were major events that worsened the relations further. The 2019 presidential election in Ukraine which has brought Western-oriented Zelenskyy in power with large majority support caused animosity in Moscow. The current crisis started over current Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s crackdown on pro-Russian oligarchs including a close friend of Russian President Putin. Notwithstanding Putin’s repeated demand to not include Ukraine in NATO membership which was rejected by the current United States’ Biden administration further deteriorated the relations. All of these led to a war between the two countries leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.
New Delhi’s stand on the ongoing crisis is due to a synergic interest in geostrategic, energy, economic and cultural dimension based on historical relations shared with Russia for a long time. India’s diplomatic relations as an independent country started with a visit by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1955, the architect of India’s foreign policy. The reciprocal visit by the first secretary of the Communist Party Khrushchev in the same year led the relations towards a new height becoming an all-weather friend till now irrespective of changes in supreme leadership. Since then, the relationship has been elevated into a “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership” during the visit of the present President to India in December 2010. At the bilateral level, both countries’ cooperation ranges over many aspects that include political, security, defense, energy, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, and people-to-people contact ties.
Besides, both are partners of many multilateral regional platforms such as SCO, INSTC, BRICS, G20, etc. intended to fulfill their economic and geostrategic interests in supporting a multi-polar world order. Both share confidence and trust in their engagement with the neighbouring countries of each other including the countries of Central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
New Delhi’s stand on the crisis is more based on the calculation of its historical relations with Russia while at the same keeping a pragmatic interest in furthering oil diplomacy with the region. India has been looking into the energy market of Central Asia including Russia which is one of the largest reservoirs of oil and gas to meet the growing domestic energy demand along with sustaining economic growth. India is mostly dependent on Gulf countries to meet the domestic energy market. The diversification of the energy market is important for New Delhi seeing the volatile energy market of Gulf countries, as well as the overdependence, became a diplomatic challenge for India. Besides, Russia has been one of the key suppliers of military equipment to India for a long time. There are many significant defense deals New Delhi shares with Moscow. Notwithstanding, the nexus between China and Pakistan, India’s concern for Afghanistan and the Central Asian region is another geostrategic interest of New Delhi. In its stand, India has beckoned in favour of a non-interventional approach by third countries or powerful countries and has been urging both the countries to solve their differences bilaterally.
Despite the recent crisis’s connection with historical events of differences between the government of Ukraine and Russia, the way war has been started and the continuous development leads to an uncertain future in the coming days. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, breaking international law, was based on Russian President Putin’s presumption of the influence of the West in its neighbouring and bordering country which will create insecurity and integrity threat for them. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach is dangerous for not only the smaller countries of Europe, those who are dependent on other big powers for their security, but also sending a cautious move globally in terms of the use of hard power tactics to solve differences or other related geostrategic interests between countries.
India’s stand on the crisis is not taken lightly by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy along with US president Joe Biden. The US has criticized New Delhi’s approach and Washington termed it as ‘unsatisfactory’ but not ‘unsurprising’. The US and European countries have imposed very strict economic sanctions on Russia that have profoundly impacted the Russian economy. Although there is a discussion for consideration of rupee and rubble payments for trade and energy imports from Russia, the sanctions have narrowed down options for India. The challenges for New Delhi in its stand are not going to be momentary but will be long-lasting as it is going to mark a significant change in diplomatic ties, on one hand with Russia and the other hand with the West and Europe in coming years.
The Russia and Ukraine war crisis has again shown the result of conflicting influential power games played by Russia and the United States at the global level. Although it was assumed that the disintegration of the Soviet Union created a history leading towards the spreading of peace and democracy at the global level, the proxy war in smaller countries to get over influence remained a major tactic that has been used both during and post-Cold War period created another menace globally. It has encouraged the front war to solve differences. The unequal representation of international platforms where still major powers hold important roles in the decision-making of global importance infuriated the countries that had continuously demanded the reformation of UN platforms. As a result, it remained the feeder of superpowers’ interest and limited. In the meantime, India’s stand on the crisis is a discernible change in New Delhi’s foreign policy directives that is going to play a vital role in furthering relations with both the countries of Russia, Ukraine, and, at the same time, with Western countries. (The author is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Morigaon College & can be reached at jayasreemorigaoncollege@gmail.com)
