Rising Conflict and India’s stakes in its ties with Ukraine, Russia

Context: India has broken its silence on the crisis arising out of Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s border. In this article we are going to discuss What are Russia’s intentions, why is the West concerned, and what are India’s stakes in its ties with each side?
Key Issue

• Russia claims that the eastward expansion by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which they call “enlargement”, has threatened Russia’s interests and has asked for written security guarantees from NATO.
• The crisis has led to many diplomatic moves with the U.S., NATO and the European Union holding talks with Russia.

Current Scenario

• The rising tensions between Russia and NATO over the mobilization of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border threaten to disrupt peace and stability in the region and have huge implications on geopolitics.
• Ukraine has become a bone of contention in Moscow’s relations with the West, with Russian troops massed near its border and NATO’s forces on standby in case Russia attacks its neighbour. 
• Ukrainian forces have been patrolling the border in the east and the north, including in Chernobyl in Ukraine, which falls on the shortest route between Russia and Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

Reason:  For the past eight years, Putin regime has used a combination of direct military intervention, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, economic pressure, and coercive diplomacy to try and force Ukraine into abandoning its Euro-Atlantic ambitions. 

• The failure of these efforts has led us to the current confrontation, with Russia now warning of ‘military-technical measures’ if it does not succeed in re-establishing its dominance over Ukraine.”

Why is Russia doing this?

• A famous saying of Vladimir Lenin is that “For us, to lose Ukraine would be to lose our head.”
• Putin had called the break-up of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century”. 
• Throughout his 22-year rule so far, he has sought to restore Russia’s influence in the countries that were part of erstwhile Soviet Union.
• According to him: Russians and Ukrainians were one people who shared a single “historic and spiritual space” and that the emergence of a “wall” between them in recent years was tragic. Ukraine disputes Putin’s version of history.
• Of the 14 then republics whose control Russia lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine was the most crucial one, since it was the second largest economy and second-most populous among them.

Is there a geography and resource angle too?

• After Russia, Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe too. It has major ports on the Black Sea and shares borders with four NATO countries. 
• Europe depends on Russia for about one third of its natural gas – providing enormous leverage for Putin in any dispute with the West – and one of the main pipelines passes through Ukraine. Controlling this Ukrainian territory would enhance Russia’s pipeline security.

So, how did the West come into the picture?

• Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, NATO has expanded eastward by taking in 14 new countries, including some that were part of the Soviet Union. 
• Russia views this as a threat, and feels the West is not respecting the non-threatening commitments made in the early 1990s.
• Ukraine is not a NATO member but has an assurance made in 2008 that it will eventually be able to join.
• After Russia annexed the Crimea region in 2014 and reportedly provided support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s demands

• Russia has demanded a ban on further expansion of NATO that includes countries like Ukraine and Georgia that share Russia’s borders.
• Russia asked NATO to pull back its military deployments to the 1990s level and prohibit the deployment of intermediate range missiles in the bordering areas.
• Further, Russia asked NATO to curb its military cooperation with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
• Russia not just wants to prevent NATO’s future expansion but also its retrieval from Russia’s rim land.
• Russia has also asked for a written response by the U.S. to its proposals regarding security guarantees and official commitments for non-expansion of NATO eastwards.

India’s stand

• India called for “a peaceful resolution of the situation through sustained diplomatic efforts for long-term peace and stability in the region and beyond”.
• With key strategic partners on both sides, India can’t afford any hasty moves hurting its vital stakes. 
• While there is concern about Russia’s “muscle-flexing”, New Delhi does not want to jeopardise its close military ties with Moscow, particularly amid the stand-off with China on the eastern border.
• The historical relationship goes back seven decades. While it has stagnated in some areas and atrophied in others, the strongest pillar is defence. 
• Although New Delhi has consciously diversified its new purchases from other countries, the bulk of its defence equipment are from Russia: Estimates say 60-70 % of its supplies are from there.

Is India worried about the Russia-China axis?

• India is indeed conscious that the hostility between the West and Russia may push Moscow in the direction of Beijing.
• The West’s approach towards Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 brought Moscow much closer to China. 
• India has always felt that it was the West that enabled this with the anti-Chinese rhetoric from Washington and the collapse of oil prices, making Russia increasingly dependent on Chinese consumption. 

Western analysts see this as a “friendship of convenience” between two countries led by strongmen.

• Beijing and Moscow, however, do not always see eye to eye with each other.  
• China does not recognise Crimea as part of Russia, and Moscow, formally speaking, takes a neutral stance on Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea.

Are there other concerns for India?

• There is an Indian community in Ukraine, mostly students in medical colleges. The Indian Embassy in capital Kyiv has started collating information on them, as part of preparations for possible hostilities. 
• As per government estimates, 18,000 Indian students were in Ukraine in 2020, but the numbers may have dipped due to Covid lockdowns and classes moving online.

Conclusion

• India hasn’t issued any condemnatory statements as is being done by the Western powers. For now, New Delhi is hoping that the situation will be resolved by skilled negotiators on both sides. The continuing diplomatic activities between the various stakeholders is a positive sign that suggests that a military conflict is not imminent. However, there is no clarity on the de-escalation along the borders.