India could end the Ukraine war tomorrow. Modi needs to pick a side

Telegraph

15 hours ago

As White House spokesman Stephen Miller describes India's continuing purchase of Russian oil as 'unacceptable', the extent to which India is prepared to ramp back its long-standing close relationship with Russia remains unclear. As pressure mounts from the incentives for a closer US-India relationship and a pragmatic need to move closer to a Western military alignment in the face of a growing Chinese threat, India will have to choose.
India's longstanding close relationship with Russia harks back to the Soviet era, and particularly the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation. In 1971, at the height of the Bangladesh (then-East Pakistan) conflict, a threatened US intervention on behalf of Pakistan's then-President Yaya Khan in the form of an aircraft carrier was deterred by a Russian naval presence. Since that time, India has relied on mainly Russian-made military equipment for its forces but with an increasingly wider inventory in recent times including US, French and Israeli equipment. Prime Minister Modi maintains a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin but is increasingly pressured by a pragmatic need to face up to their nuclear-powered rival in Pakistan and its developing close ties with China.
However, with an increasingly muscular China exerting its influence in the region all previous certainties have waned considering the new reality. India sees itself increasing surrounded by potential enemies. Sri Lanka has found itself, through certain trade and development projects which have erred off plan beholden to China. A massive Chinese base is one aspect of that. Bangladesh is increasingly turning for commercial and other reasons to a more welcoming stance towards China. In the case of Pakistan, as the most recent 100-hour war showed, China has made Pakistan a close ally if not, in the eyes of some, a proxy.
Without going into the details of the encounter, there is strong evidence that, with the assistance of China, significant equipment and tactical shortfalls were exposed on India's side. Additionally, there is a perception that Pakistan won the diplomatic and presentational round too. This in mind, the Indian military are looking options for modernisation and developing a more domestic reliance for defence procurement.
One key area in which India was found wanting was in the capability of its drones versus Pakistan's capability, which many see as China's capability. In looking at solutions to this shortfall, India has looked widely at the best in class, including the Ukrainians. That has proven to be a blind alley, since their continued close association with Russia precludes any cooperation. Additionally, India has found that buying cheap Russian oil has been convenient to say the least. Before the extension of the war in February 2022, India bought around 68,000 of oil per day rising to 2.15 million barrels in May 2023 and levelling at around 40 per cent of its oil needs today, and in doing so – if President Trump is to be asked – funding the Russian war effort.
Will that change in the short term? On one hand, India's diplomatic pragmatism is a strong asset in an increasingly transactional diplomatic world. On the other, the burgeoning Chinese presence on India's borders and her membership of the Quad, an association of Japan, Australia and the USA, may nudge India away from its very close relationship with Russia to a more of an association of convenience. If the Indian military was to be asked that is the way forward. But in the end, it is the direction that Prime Minister Modi is inclined to lean that will dictate the direction of travel. Perhaps a Trump charm offensive may be more decisive in the short term as opposed to any form of coercion or strong words.