With President Vladimir Putin decreeing that Russia’s army will boost its numbers to 1.5 million and become the world second largest army – after China’s – by the end of this year, America and the European Union (EU) should shed their illusions about India and China prevailing upon Moscow to make peace with Ukraine ‘quickly’ as Prime Minister Narendra Modi counselled President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the latest BRICS summit in Kazan, They can’t and won’t.
For one, Putin told Modi that it was difficult to set a timeline to end the war. Additionally, in September, Moscow’s decision to spend 6.3% of GDP on national defence – which would make defence expenditure a third of all spending, Russia’s highest level since the end of the Cold War – underlines that he is not dreaming of peace but of conquering Ukraine. And the reported presence at least 3, 000 troops from North Korea on the Russia-Ukraine border augurs a deliberate escalation of Moscow’s war in Ukraine – which Putin defends as “Russia’s business”.
China makes common cause with Russia against America’s global primacy and is the stronger partner in their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Like China, India – which is a member of the US-led Quad – has been one of Russia’s largest oil buyers since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. And although New Delhi once equipped more than 70 per cent of its military with Russian arms, it has little influence over Moscow. This is unsurprising. Europeans should recall that huge purchases of Russian energy by EU countries after Russia severed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 did not dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine eight years later. Confronted with this fact in 2022, the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, lamented that she had no influence over Putin. If oil purchases and sales decide “influence”, Putin must have had considerable influence over her. He can now influence India because of its military and economic reliance on Moscow. That could explain India’s concession to Russia when Modi visited Moscow in July: their joint statement referred to the conflict “around Ukraine” rather than in Ukraine
At another level, Modi’s visits to Russia and Ukraine in July and August respectively, and New Delhi’s claim that it delivered missives from President Volodymr Zelenskyy to Putin were of no avail: Moscow denied receiving such messages or a peace plan from New Delhi, thereby tarnishing India’s claim to be a peace facilitator.
Since mounting his long-planned assault on Ukraine, Putin has continually threatened to expand the war and carry out nuclear strikes against any country that helps Ukraine. Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Kursk may have been aimed at giving it a tactical advantage on the battlefield – rather than at annexing Russian territory – but it has provided Russia with a pretext to continue wielding its sword, possibly with North Korean troops.
As America and Britain debate giving Ukraine missiles which would empower it to strike deep into Russian territory, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov, has warned of a “brutal” response. Apparently Moscow does not deem its unfinished war against Ukraine to be savage enough.
China has at least presented a peace plan: India hasn’t even done that, though New Delhi has repeatedly claimed to be on the side of pace.
China proposed a peace plan in 2023 and another one with Brazil last May. India, which retreated to the periphery in 2022 by stating that Ukraine was Europe’s problem, is now playing the global peace envoy and insisting that Russia and Ukraine “will have to negotiate”. However, it cannot persuade them to do that. That is because India is a weak influence on Russia. Whether on arms or oil it has been Russia’s client. Since the war started, Russia has stopped most arms deliveries to India and other customers. Diversifying its arms retailers, India has increased military purchases from France, Israel and America – but at least 60 per cent of its military platforms remain dependent on Russia. As a nascent arms manufacturer, it will not achieve self-sufficiency for at least two decades. India hopes to produce matériel with Russia because other friends offer it less than Moscow.
China’s astonishing economic and military rise and its hostility to America give it more influence over Russia than India. It can advance Russia’s global interests more than a laggardly India. China’s GDP per capita is $12,614; its defence spending is $231 billion. India’s GDP per capita is $2,484.8, its military expenditure $74 billion.
Pacific China’s strong ties with Eurasian Russia preceded its oil buys from Russia. They have cultivated each other for more than two decades. Air and naval drills were held in the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk in September – like joint exercises in the Indian Ocean in 2019 – aimed at strengthening their ability to jointly deal with security threats against their common foe, America. Russia’s war in Ukraine has made Moscow heavily dependent on Beijing economically as an investor and energy buyer. Consequently, India cannot turn Russia against China by buying unprecedentedly large quantities of Russian oil.
Peacemakers are supposed to be impartial, but the abstention of India and China from UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and their claims that they are on the side of peace – actually mask their refusal to condemn Moscow’s aggression while expecting Kyiv to cave in. Zelenskyy’s condemnation of Modi’s embrace of an invader after Russia bombed a children’s hospital in Kyiv was haughtily dismissed by New Delhi, which summoned Ukraine’s ambassador to voice its displeasure with the president.
Putin’s applause for India, China and Brazil as trusted partners will not burnish their image as impartial peace brokers. In their different ways China and India are helping Russia. In June, both rejected Zelenskyy’s peace proposals, which called for the preservation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Modi followed that up during his July visit to Moscow by declaring that Russia was India’s “all weather friend and a “trusted ally”
Like the Chinese plan of 2023 the China-Brazil plan opposed the use of nuclear weapons without saying that Russia has threatened to use them several times.
Meanwhile, dual technology exports by China and India to Russia have angered the US, EU and Japan. America and the EU have warned Indian companies of sanctions if they give any goods and technology which might help Russia to sustain its war machine.
All told, the EU and America should stop entertaining illusions that self-styled Chinese and Indian peace brokers, upholding their own national interests, can cajole an aggressive Russia into making peace. Instead they should give a war-ravaged but undefeated Ukraine the help it needs to win against a destructive, aggrandising Russia.
Anita Inder Singh is a founding professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. She has been a Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC and has taught international relations at the graduate level at Oxford and the LSE.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
