Peter Mandelson attained notoriety years ago in a British political loan scandal. He resigned not once, but twice, from former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet.
Britain frequently rewards notoriety by sending the disgraced minister to the House of Lords. Now 70, Lord Mandelson believes India can play peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine war. He wrote in a newspaper op-ed: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine represents a historical opportunity for India to step up, build on its nonaligned heritage and become a global peacemaker.”
Modi’s visit to Ukraine on August 23 will last just a few hours. He travels to Kyiv from Warsaw in Poland after completing a more comprehensive visit in a country with which India has significant trade and technology ties.
Poland hasn’t forgotten that India gave refuge to 6,000 Polish women and children who escaped Soviet detention during the Second World War.
Modi’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not just dwell on the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war but on how India and Ukraine can cooperate in the massive infrastructure rebuilding that the war-ravaged country will need after the conflict ends.
And end it will. Zelenskyy, for all his public bravado, knows that the time for negotiations with Moscow is drawing near. If Donald Trump wins the November 2024 US presidential election, Ukraine will have to accept peace on Russia’s terms. Trump has said multiple times that he will end the Russia-Ukraine war in weeks through talks, not on the battlefield.
Zelenskyy’s key worry is that Trump as president will halt the transfer of US weaponry that has helped Ukraine resist Russian advances. Without US and NATO weapons, Ukraine will be forced to negotiate on Moscow’s terms.
Ukraine’s lightning thrust into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6 was aimed at using the captured territory as a bargaining chip when diplomatic negotiations with Moscow begin.
What if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election as seems increasingly likely? Zelenskyy would clearly prefer a Democratic president even though Kamala’s support for Ukraine in the war against Russia is not as strong as outgoing President Joe Biden’s.
Biden has a long history with Ukraine. His son Hunter earned millions of dollars as a director in the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Biden’s support for Ukraine has been crucial for Zelenskyy. He knows that whether Trump or Kamala is the next US President, the supply of US and NATO fighter jets, cruise missiles and drones will dry up.
This is where Modi’s short visit to Kyiv could prove productive. Like most Western commentators, Mandelson uses a carrot-and-stick while arguing that it’s in India’s national interest to play a larger role in resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
He first warns, stick in hand: “The relationship between Russia and China has now evolved into a proper ‘no limits’ geopolitical and military alliance, supported by North Korea and Iran. These countries are forming a consolidated anti-democratic axis that is prepared to ignore the rule of law, human rights and the sanctity of international borders. It is in India’s strategic and geopolitical interest to ensure that such an alliance does not dominate the Global South and threaten India’s territorial integrity.
Mandelson then brings out the carrot: “As one of the largest economies in the world, India must now show leadership in promoting regional and global stability. With power comes responsibility. Modi is one of the few political leaders in a position to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv.”
With a new US president in power soon, fatigue over the Russia-Ukraine war will grow in Washington, London, Berlin and Paris. Germany has already announced it will cut its budgetary support for weapons to Ukraine by half. Other European countries are likely to follow suit.
Europe is broke
Germany is fighting recession. Britain has endured two quarters of a technical recession. France is in political limbo with a fragmented legislature. Italy is beset with illegal immigrants flooding across the sea from the Middle East.
The Russia-Ukraine war has meanwhile destroyed Ukraine’s economy. Rebuilding its bombed infrastructure will take years and billions of dollars. Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have crippled power across Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian minister warned that as winter approaches in October, most Ukrainians will have to do with just 7 hours of electricity every day. Half of Ukraine’s total generating capacity of 18 GW has been destroyed.
Ironically, despite the most sweeping sanctions ever imposed on a country, Russia’s GDP growth of 3 per cent is higher than GDP growth in the US and across Western Europe.
India’s relationship with Europe is due for a reset beyond the Russia-Ukraine war. With Britain, it is dealing with a new prime minister, Keir Starmer. While Labour has a strong British-Pakistani constituency, Starmer knows that Britain’s interests lie in New Delhi, not Islamabad. He will give Pakistani lobbies short shrift and move ahead with the much-delayed free trade agreement (FTA).
Criticism in Europe over India’s continuing trade with Moscow has meanwhile ebbed. The target has shifted to China. The European Union (EU) recently announced an increase in tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) from 10 per cent to over 46 per cent. The Europe-China trade honeymoon is over as Beijing becomes a technology pariah in the West.
India occupies a sweet spot between the US-led West and the Russia-China bloc. While Beijing is keen to tap the expanding Indian consumer market as Western markets dry up, India has become an investment and talent hub for the West. The unprecedented growth of Global Capability Centres (GCC) established in India by over 1,600 MNCs has transformed the country from the world’s back office to the world’s engineering and R&D innovation centre.
Modi’s Kyiv visit comes at a time when the endgame of the Russia-Ukraine war has begun. What Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin at the September 2022 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) leaders’ meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, resonates even more strongly today: “This era is not of war.”
The writer is an editor, author and publisher. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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