How should India respond to the crisis in Ukraine?

The developing confrontation between the West and Russia on the Ukraine issue does not serve India’s interests. We have very friendly ties with the US, Europe and Russia and would prefer not take sides. This would require very deft diplomacy on our part. India is now an important global player and both sides will be watching the position India takes. The US will want some show of support for its position, while Russia will want us to take an independent position and not succumb to US pressure. For India an actual military conflict will be most undesirable because its international repercussions will be grave and cushioning against them by us will be most difficult.

The US and the EU are issuing repeated warnings at the highest level that in case Russia invades Ukraine it will face sanctions of unprecedented severity. Russia has already been subject to severe sanctions in recent years and seems to have absorbed them so far without excessive difficulty. It has warned the West that the new sanctions t being contemplated- already leaked- will lead to a breakdown of ties. This is hardly a situation that would be welcome to the majority of the international community.

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Western sanctions will complicate further our dealings with Russia both in the military and economic domains. And this at a time when we intend to invest more in Russia’s hydrocarbon sector and in the economic development of its Far East. The CAATSA sanctions against us for the purchase the S-400 system have not yet been invoked but the pressure to do so in some measure will grow. A closer US scrutiny of additional “significant” defence purchases from Russia by us would follow. Oil prices are already shooting up also because of Ukraine related tensions, imposing costs on us. If the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is not allowed to become operational, as Biden has publicly promised with the German Chancellor by his side as if Germany had no agency in the matter, will impact global gas prices too, which too will negatively impact us. All this when our economy is emerging from the Covid crisis.

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