View from India: Russia-Ukraine peace are growing complicated

The situation around the Ukraine conflict is becoming more complicated. The US is in an election mode, and that means that any step that might disadvantage the Democratic presidential candidate cannot be taken. After supporting a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia all this while, any step to de-escalate or open the doors to negotiation would be almost impossible politically, writes Kanwal Sibal, the Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, and Deputy Chief Of Mission in Washington.

The choice is between escalating or avoiding any serious new escalatory step. It is here that the discussion over allowing Zelenskyy to use NATO-supplied long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory comes in. Ukraine is already striking deep into Russia with drones and has also launched a land invasion of Russia in Kursk. But for Russia, it will mean a major escalation by NATO if the UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles were used against Russia itself, although they have been used against Ukrainian territories that Russia has annexed. Russia has in practice accepted that distinction and not raised the stakes as President Vladimir Putin has now done.

The Russian president has warned that such a move will mean NATO entering into a direct conflict with Russia as these missiles cannot be launched without guidance by US satellites and, indeed, by NATO crews on the ground in Ukraine, as the Ukrainian military would not know how to prime them technically for targeting. Putin has declared that Russia will take appropriate steps to counter this escalation. What this could mean is a matter of speculation as Russia could have options below the nuclear threshold.

The UK, as usual, is determined to escalate the conflict. Five of its ex-Defence Secretaries want Ukraine to be given permission to use long-range weapons even without the US's approval. The UK's deep-seated hostility towards Russia seems almost compulsive. Its excessive warmongering could also be to both push the US to escalate while also acting as a willing front for the US to make the latter look more "responsible". The US, which is ultimately responsible for managing the consequences of escalation, and not Europe, seems hesitant to allow the use of its long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia but seems prepared to clear the use of British and French missiles. The fiction would be that the US would not be directly involved, though when Putin refers to NATO being involved - as these missiles need NATO technical support for launching them - he is implicating the US too.

Zelenskyy's strategy seems to be to drag NATO more and more into the conflict, no matter what the eventual cost is for Ukraine or for Europe, as the survival of his own regime is involved. The Western narrative on Ukraine is simple: Russia has violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a smaller European country; the attack is unprovoked and violates the international order; if Russia were to succeed it would next threaten Western Europe; Russia cannot be allowed to win, and therefore Ukraine has to be supported. Zelenskyy has exploited this simplistic narrative to seek more and more arms from the West, claiming that it is not merely a Ukrainian fight but a European one. He is now intending to go to the US to discuss his "victory plan" with Biden.

The US and Europe openly seek to use this conflict to impose a strategic defeat on Russia, and if that looks increasingly unlikely despite imposing draconian sanctions, then to, at least, continue to bleed and weaken Russia by prolonging the proxy war against it. This was the sense of the joint Op-Ed in Financial Times by the US and UK intelligence chiefs, which stressed it was vital to continue supporting Ukraine, with the CIA chief also seeing virtue in Ukraine's land attack against Russia in Kursk. The US Secretary of State and the UK Foreign Secretary also jointly visited Kyiv very recently and announced more financial aid to Ukraine.

It is in this background that India is seeking to play some role to nudge the two sides towards a negotiated solution to the conflict. India has not been deterred from taking this initiative despite the complexity of the issue, the seemingly irreconcilable position of the two sides on some fundamental points, and the fact that any peace effort with Russia and Ukraine cannot move forward without the US. We have not announced contact with the US on this subject.

India has raised its peacemaking profile by Modi sending Doval to St Petersburg to personally brief Putin on the talk the Prime Minister had with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Judging from what the Ukrainian ambassador to India said subsequently to the press here on India's peace efforts, it appears that Ukraine continues to aggressively define its position. The ambassador was out of line in asking India to convince Moscow to join peace talks, linking the legitimacy of India's bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council to taking a position of its own on global issues and not simply conveying messages from one side to the other and being a courier or messenger or a post box. He reiterated Zelenskyy's position that the condition for India to hold the next peace summit would be to join the Burgenstock communique

All in all, it is difficult to judge the dynamics of the peace initiative India has taken as the hurdles to peace are all too apparent at present.

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