What is happening?
Just weeks after he met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kyiv on August 23rd. Speaking with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Modi said he respected and supported Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He also offered to help “as a friend” to bring about a peace deal and urged Zelenskyy to hold peace talks with Putin. Modi’s trip to Europe also included a stop in Poland, where he met with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda. During the visit, India and Poland signed a strategic partnership, promising to cooperate on various issues from security to agriculture.
What is the broader picture?
Modi’s visit to Ukraine follows several strategic goals. His meeting with Putin was met with unease in the West, which India sees as a potential source of support in its rivalry with China. Visiting Ukraine is meant to send a reassuring message to leaders in Washington and Brussels that India is not taking Russia’s side in the war, which is especially important as Russia’s international isolation is driving it further into China’s embrace. Furthermore, maintaining good relations with both parties is meant to confirm Delhi’s non-alignment, a decades-old staple of Indian foreign policy.
By offering his help bringing peace to Ukraine, Modi has also pitched India as a potential mediator in the conflict. This moonshot idea would greatly boost India’s international standing, with the benefit of upstaging China and its vague twelve-point peace plan. More realistically, Modi appears to hope that his latest initiative will earn him Western goodwill regarding India’s regional interests. In a phone call after his visit to Kyiv, Modi and Biden discussed Ukraine and Bangladesh, where India is set to lose influence after its ally, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country. India and the USA have not seen eye to eye on this issue, with Washington welcoming the establishment of Bangladesh’s provisional government.
Why does it matter?
Besides signaling to the West, Modi’s latest diplomatic initiative shows he is aware of the growing importance of Central and Eastern Europe. In 2025, Poland will chair the EU Council and the Three Seas Initiative, amplifying its already strong voice in the EU’s foreign policy. In advance of this critical year, India may hope to improve its relationship with Central and Eastern Europe, especially as it angles for a Free Trade Agreement with the bloc. This March, India already succeeded in reaching a $100 billion deal with the four members of the EFTA.
Russia’s decreased capacity to export military equipment has also set India looking for new security partners. Poland’s WB Group, one of the largest private defense contractors in Europe, is already active in India, and the two countries have also been cooperating on armored vehicles. Besides their interest in modernizing military equipment, India and Poland have agreed to explore cooperation in fields such as energy, mining, and agriculture. India’s dependence on Russian fertilizer has become a major source of concern with the war in Ukraine, and Eastern European countries make up a non-negligible proportion of European fertilizer exports.
