It may appear intriguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin put aside protocol and found time to meet India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Moscow. More so at a time when Europe is planning to arm Ukraine further and impose fresh sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine which had commenced about a year ago. It is an exceptional case that the Russian President chose to meet a government official, instead of top ministers, that too when Doval was among several other regional security advisers who gathered in Moscow for a conference recently. The unscheduled meeting assumed importance also because Doval had been in Washington and London before visiting Russia. What transpired between the two is seemingly put under wraps with both sides keeping mum.
The question is whether Putin needed an assurance from India, which will be playing an important role this year – hosting the G-20 and SCO summits – that it will not extend support to Europe’s plan to bolster Ukraine’s war efforts further. Russia is reportedly getting ready to launch an intensified Spring offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had travelled to London, Paris and Brussels scouting for arms assistance at a time when the war waged by Russia against his country is entering a new critical phase.
Defence officials in Kyiv are apprehensive about the launch of a new Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine on the first anniversary of the invasion on February 24. Reports suggest fresh troops are concentrating on the Russian side, facing Ukrainian forces. In such a situation it is of paramount importance for President Zelenskyy to get more military aid from Western countries. The urgency is such that Zelenskyy said in Brussels that he did not want to go home “empty-handed.”
Of course, he did not get what he specifically asked for, namely fighter jets, though arms aid is not announced publicly during war time. But, he got closer to the European Union family and returned with the sense that the more Putin intensifies his assault on Ukraine, the more Europe’s solidarity becomes uncompromising. Russia’s invasion began as an existential threat to Ukraine but its continuance for a year now poses a threat to the whole of Western Europe as well. The danger that Europe surely smells is that if Russia is allowed to win the war it has launched, its appetite for more European territories could only grow insatiable. The consequences will be to expose its neighbours to similar attacks and destroy the existing European order.
That such an eventuality is no mere speculation is clear from the statement French President Emmanuel Macron made alongside Zelenskyy and the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He said, “Russia cannot, must not prevail.” This is a new position that the French President took. Earlier, he had been humming the tune of “not humiliating Russia” or finding “security guarantees” for Russia.
The huge costs of the war and the chain effects are being felt across the globe. That could be prompting many countries to make the Russian President agree to return to the negotiating table for a peaceful solution to the conflict. India could hope to play the peacemaker’s role as host of G-20 summit.
It is not known what note Putin sounded during his meeting with Doval. He may also have made it clear to the latter that he would not brook India playing footsie with the West as India needs Russia for countering China’s hostilities towards it.
The Putin-Doval meeting can best be described as a surprise development in the midst of fresh war preparations in Ukraine. It may have opened a window of opportunity to broker peace, greatly needed by the world as it is in the grip of a cost of living crisis and needs peace to get the economies back on keel.