The Diplomatic Tightrope: India, Russia, and the Ukraine War

This is the defining geopolitical issue of our time for India. The Ukraine war exposed the limits of our neutrality. We abstained from UN votes condemning Russia. We bought oil. But we also sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and urged restraint. The Western media labeled us as ‘on the wrong side of history.’ But I think we were just being pragmatic. Russia is a time-tested ally. They’ve stood by us during wars (1971) and during nuclear deals when the West shunned us. You can’t throw that away overnight. But the war has accelerated India’s tilt towards the West. We are seeing more joint military exercises with the US and deeper tech partnerships. India is slowly, carefully, moving out of Russia’s orbit, but it’s doing it at a pace that doesn’t cause a rupture. It’s a generational shift in foreign policy happening before our eyes.