Modi's Balancing Act Continues With Ukraine Visit

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Ukraine on August 23 in a trip seen as a diplomatic balancing act following Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month, which raised eyebrows in Kyiv and in the West.

Modi’s visit is the first trip by an Indian leader to Kyiv since the countries established bilateral relations more than 30 years ago.

The United States was particularly concerned with Modi’s two-day visit to Russia as it sees New Delhi as an important pillar in its strategy to contain an ascendant China.

Indian analysts say a primary reason for Modi's visit is to offset the damage from the July 8-9 Moscow trip, which coincided with a deadly Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv that elicited harsh international condemnation.

In a rebuke to the Kremlin, Modi said the death of innocent children is “painful,” reiterating India's stated stance that political problems cannot be resolved "on the battlefield."

More importantly, Modi's visit to Ukraine should be viewed as part of India’s multifaceted foreign policy of "strategic autonomy."

In pursuing that goal, New Delhi treads a fine line courting a closer security partnership with the West -- such as its Quad security grouping with Australia, Japan, and the United States -- as a bulwark against leading foe China.

At the same time, India maintains historically warm relations with Russia, relying on weapons and oil from Moscow at a discounted price. For that reason India has taken a neutral stance and neither condemned nor condoned Russia’s war in Ukraine, stating that the conflict should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.

New Delhi fears that if it condemned Russia and joined Western sanctions against Moscow it would alienate the Kremlin and push it closer to China and Pakistan, India’s archrivals.

By the same token, India doesn’t want to alienate Ukraine but rather position itself as an impartial stakeholder. In its carefully crafted balancing act, Modi has ruled out the role of India as a mediator aimed at ending the war, Bloomberg reported, citing an inside source. New Delhi has agreed to relay messages between Putin and Zelenskiy, it said.

From Ukraine's vantage point, India has been instrumental in luring some states from the so-called Global South to either remain neutral toward the war or show support for Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.

Expanding Economic Cooperation

Modi and Zelenskiy last met in June on the sidelines of the Group of Seven meeting in Italy. They have also spoken several times by phone since the start of the war.

Apart from talks on geopolitics, which is set against the backdrop of Ukraine’s recent incursion into the Kursk region of Russia, the leaders are due to focus on expanding economic cooperation.

Bilateral trade between India and Ukraine reached $3.3 billion in the 2021-2022 financial year, according to the Indian Foreign Ministry, a fraction of the $65 billion annual trade turnover between India and Russia.

Ukraine wants to strengthen economic ties with India, particularly in the agriculture, aviation, pharmaceutical, and industrial spheres, Zelenskiy said earlier this year.

In turn, India needs defense products from Ukraine, especially aircraft and marine engines.

Modi’s visit to Ukraine could evoke a negative reaction from Russia in a manner similar to how his visit to Moscow drew Washington’s ire.

The challenge for Indian diplomacy is to calibrate its private messaging to assuage concerns from both countries, while also portraying the trip as a bold new initiative, wrote Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian minister and diplomat.

"Pulling this off would be a geopolitical triumph. But if the visit goes awry, it could cause incalculable damage to India’s global standing," Tharoor said in an August 13 commentary for Project Syndicate.

Before Ukraine, Modi visited Poland, a strong ally of Kyiv, on August 22, the first trip by an Indian leader to Warsaw in more than 40 years.