And yet, realistically speaking, this is as much as Zelensky can expect from India – a fairly neutral position that also implicitly criticises the Russians for starting the war and calls them out when necessary for military excesses. As for Zelensky’s peace plan, while some elements of his 10-point plan are unexceptional – restoring security around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and ensuring food security by protecting Ukraine’s grain exports, for example – others do not seem designed to create conditions for an immediate cessation of hostilities. His call for the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders with Russia as well as for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes are cases in point. While both are perfectly legitimate and even necessary conditions for long-term peace and stability as well as for justice, they will be difficult for the Russians to swallow especially after they have also suffered such heavy casualties and sustained what is presently to all intents and purpose a massive unravelling of their military reputation.
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The Russians, too, have called for peace negotiations but seem to believe they can hold on to their limited territorial conquests in Ukraine. That could still constitute a political victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the same time, stopping the war now could also be seen as bringing with it political costs as it would throw into starker relief the massive losses – in men, material and reputation – that Russia has suffered for comparatively little gain. If they cannot win outright, it might well serve the Russians to let the conflict drag on through the winter and the next year before they start serious negotiations banking on a degree of fading public memory of the events of this year.
In any case, Russian bombing of critical civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, including power stations, leaving millions without electricity and heat during winter, rather than affecting morale might actually lead to a more hardline negotiating position from Kyiv.
Needless to say, if both parties are going to take maximalist positions, there is very little that third-party negotiators, including India, will be able to achieve. Peace, therefore, looks a distant prospect. Both sides might even be looking to claw back some advantage as winter deepens.
Meanwhile, contrary to Putin’s expectations of Western nations wearying of the continuing conflict and gradually reducing their support for Ukraine, they have, if anything, become bolder in supporting Ukraine’s war efforts. This then is only likely to strengthen Putin’s narrative that Ukraine was in cahoots with the West to undermine Russian security and that the conflict was inevitable. Defeats and losses in men and materiel can then be seen as an acceptable price to pay.
From the perspective of peace negotiations and third-party mediators, therefore, the West led by the US is clearly not a neutral party.
Nor for that matter is China, the other major global player that could have lent its good offices as a mediator. Instead, the Chinese have used the conflict as a subset of their own ideological competition with the West and to stand with Russia despite the latter’s obvious violations of international law. At the same time, as is its wont, Beijing seeks a situation in which both Russia – China’s biggest neighbour and one that is blamed still for the loss of Chinese territory during the so-called "century of humiliation" – and the West led by the US – seen as China’s principal strategic challenger, today – might somehow weaken themselves so that it is in a position to take advantage.
For the rest of the world, the continuing conflict poses an economic challenge with pressure on food security for especially the poorest countries dependent on wheat imports from Ukraine, and for Western countries who having sanctioned Russian oil and gas supplies must now pay more dearly for supplies from elsewhere. And if China were to suffer from a prolonged Covid wave or multiple waves over the next few months, as it is likely to, there will be still more economic pain on the horizon.
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