Ukraine- India relations
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Anti- India actions, statements
2025: Tariffs for doing deals with Russia ‘right idea’: Zelensky
Chidanand Rajghatta TNN, Sep 9, 2025: The Times of India
Washington : Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky jumped into the US-India tariff standoff on Monday when he backed the US decision to impose punitive import duties on countries making deals with Russia, while the Trump administration showed no signs of relenting on the vitriol its surrogates are spewing against New Delhi despite the president’s assertions of a “special relationship” with India.
Zelensky told ABC News in response to a question that he thought “the idea to put tariffs on the country (sic) who are continuing to make deals with Russia is the right idea”.
Brics countries ‘vampires who are sucking our blood dry’: Navarro
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called slapping tariffs on India a “right idea”, even though 15% of his ‘battered’ country’s diesel comes from India via refined Russian oil. US administration officials are now trying to press EU to join US in slapping additional sanctions on India for buying Russian oil even though, bizarrely, EU is a beneficiary of Russian energy routed through India.
White House trade counsellor Peter Navarro, meanwhile, resumed his rant against India on Monday, doubling down on the discredited view that only New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil was somehow fuelling Moscow’s war on Ukraine. “More bullshit from X. Fact: (India’s buying of Russian oil) it’s blood money and people are dying,” Navarro said on X, whose owner Elon Musk has called him a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”.
In separate remarks on TV, the Trump surrogate expanded his attack to Brics countries, calling them “vampires who are sucking our blood dry with their unfair trade practices”.
“The bottomline is none of these countries can survive if they don’t sell to the US... let’s see what happens... I don’t see the Brics alliance stay together since historically they all hate each other and kill each other,” Navarro said, after reports emerged of Brics nations expanding and accelerating trade ties to counter the prospective loss of the US market due to high tariffs.
Earlier, Navarro was mocked on X by readers who have challenged his views, pointing out, among other things, that China buys more Russian oil but has got a “hold” on additional sanctions, that EU too buys Russian energy via India, that India’s refining and re-routing of Russian oil was approved by the previous US administration, and US itself continues to trade with Moscow, all adding to Russia’s revenues. His response was to accuse “Indian special interests” of “trying to interfere in domestic US dialogue with lies”.
When Navarro ran a poll asking “should X present this ‘crap’ as comments from ‘diverse viewpoints’,” he was humiliated again — 80% of respondents said yes, pointing out that the community notes from readers on X takes into account viewpoints and approvals of contributors across regions and is not controlled by any one country.
That again triggered Navarro who suggested Indians on X were weighing in on the poll. “India has the largest population in the world and all it can do is manage few hundred thousand X propagandists to jerk around a poll? Too funny. America: look at how foreign interests use our social media to advance their agenda,” he complained.
Separately, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett insisted in a TV interview that India would continue to face sanctions because it is helping Moscow in its war against Ukraine, even though the question was about why US is not sanctioning Russia itself directly.
Several experts have called out the Trump administration for making India a fall guy for its ‘inability’ to take on China and Russia directly, but Navarro, Hassett, and treasury secretary Scott Bessent continue to embarrass themselves by dancing around the issue, unable to explain why Beijing is getting a pass for buying Russian oil, and why India is being singled out.
Indians in Ukraine
As in 2021
The Times of India / 16 Feb. 22
The government [of India] had said at the Security Council … more than 20,000 Indian students and nationals live and study in different parts of Ukraine, including in its border areas.
Pakistan and Ukraine
2022 – 23: Pakistan sells ammunition to Ukraine
Sep 19, 2023: The Times of India
Washington : Pakistan has sold munitions worth $900 million over the past year to Ukraine in a secret deal under pressure from the US, which in turn helped Islamabad secure an IMF bailout.
The so-called “bombs for bailout” deal, first reported in investigative website The Intercept, forced Islamabad from its neutral position in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even as Washington prioritised protecting Ukraine over furthering democracy in Pakistan.
The Intercept said records detailing the arms transactions were leaked to it earlier this year by a source within the Pakistani military. The documents describe muni tions sales agreed to between the US and Pakistan from the summer of 2022 to the spring of 2023, it added.
The Biden administration and IMF denied the story, but the Intercept said its reporting was based on documents outli ning the money trail, American and Pakistani contracts, licensing, and requisition documents related to US-brokered deals to buy Pakistani military weapons for Ukraine.
Imran ouster, weapons deal part of US ‘forgiveness package’ for Pak?
Some of the documents were authenticated by matching the signature of an American brigadier general with his signature on publicly available mortgage records in the US; by matching the Pakistani documents with corresponding American documents; and by reviewing publicly available but previously unreported Pakistani disclosures of arms sales to the US posted by the State Bank of Pakistan,” the investigative website The Intercept said.
Noting that Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare, the Intercept reported that as Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordnances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, tho ugh neither the US nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement. The weapons deals were brokered by Global Military Products, a subsidiary of Global Ordnance, a controversial arms dealer with “entanglements with less-than-reputable figures in Ukraine”, it said.
The transaction “is a window into the kind of behindthe-scenes manoeuvring between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price”, it added, with a lengthy backgrounder on Washington’s role in encouraging the Pakistani military to oust Imran Khan, who took an “aggressively neutral” stance on the war in Ukraine, from office, resulting in protests and unrest across the country.
The report said Washington warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Part of the forgiveness package apparently was the IMF bailout. “The economic capital and political goodwill from the arms sales played a key role in helping secure the bailout from the IMF, with the state department agreeing to take the IMF into confidence regarding the undisclosed weapons deal, according to sources with knowledge of the arrangement, and confirmed by a related document,” it added.
YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
2024: first visit by an Indian PM
August 24, 2024: The Times of India
New Delhi : PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine, the first ever by an Indian PM to the country, saw the two sides expressing commitment to working towards elevating bilateral relations to a strategic partnership, with Modi saying growth in ties in the middle of the conflict was a sign of maturity in the relationship. Among other things, Modi and President Volodymyr Zelensky also agreed to boost defence cooperation, including manufacturing in India.
Zelensky said history had been made with the visit, adding in a post on X after the bilateral meeting that India backed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. “And this is critical because everyone in the world must equally respect the UN Charter,” said Zelensky.
India and Ukraine signed four agreements including one for cooperation in agriculture and food industry and another for Indian humanitarian assistance for implementation of high impact community development projects in Ukraine. Two other agreements were signed for cooperation in medicines and drugs control and also culture.
Apart from focusing on political and economic cooperation, Modi and Zelensky also agreed to work towards stronger defence cooperation, including through joint collaborations and partnerships for manufacturing in India and cooperation in emerging areas. “The sides agreed to hold the second meeting of Indian-Ukrainian Joint Working Group on military-technical cooperation, established under the 2012 Defence Cooperation Agreement, in the near future in India,” said the joint statement.
In what was their fourth meeting in past few years, Modi and Zelensky, while seeking just, comprehensive and lasting peace, also reaffirmed their commitment to further developing bilateral ties for the benefit of the peoples of both countries based on mutual trust, respect, & openness.
