India has proposed a three-part Russia-Ukraine truce that would halt attacks on energy facilities and other infrastructure, keep grain and energy flowing through Black Sea ports, and end strikes on commercial shipping in the strategic waterway, people familiar with the proposal said.
It was conveyed to the Ukrainian leadership during external affairs minister S Jaishankar ’s visit to Kyiv last month. The proposal figured in Jaishankar’s separate meetings with Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha and President Volodymyr Zelensky during his September 3 visit to Kyiv, the first stand-alone trip to Ukraine by an Indian foreign minister.
The plan goes beyond separate ceasefire proposals from Egypt, Turkey and the US by seeking to cover both infrastructure and commercial shipping while keeping vital commodity flows open, the people said. Egypt and Turkey have focused on ensuring the unimpeded flow of grain from the Black Sea by suspending attacks on commercial shipping, while the US proposal has centred on an “energy ceasefire”, the people said. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow a day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has excellent ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable…solutions”. He also said Modi maintained a neutral position while being committed to ending the conflict. Jaishankar’s Kyiv visit came three days after Modi met Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan on August 31, when the Indian prime minister urged the Russian leader to move from “endless war to the end of war”.
There is also a wider economic and diplomatic stake for New Delhi. Black Sea ports account for almost 30% of Russian energy flows to India. The Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (SRIA), passed recently by the US Congress, is expected to take effect by mid-October, raising the prospect of tariffs of up to 100% on Indian goods over purchases of Russian energy.
There has also been a drop in supplies and a spike in freight costs for Russian crude exports, particularly from the port of Novorossiysk, amid threats to merchant shipping, according to reports.
“Understandably, it is for the parties involved to find a way.
Jaishankar has said India has moved beyond its advocacy of the past few years and is now engaged in conversations with both Russia and Ukraine to find a way to end the war. After his meeting with Sybiha in Kyiv, Jaishankar said attacks on commercial shipping affecting Indian seafarers, as well as the impact of fuel, food and fertiliser shortages on the Global South, had figured in their discussions. But if India can be of any help in any manner, we are ready, and this was the core of my discussion…with foreign minister Sybiha,” Jaishankar told a media briefing.
