Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, March 13: As the Russian forces further closed in on Kyiv on the 18th day of its invasion into its neighbouring country, India temporarily shifted its embassy in Ukraine to Poland amid “deteriorating security situation” in the Ukrainian capital city.
Russia further intensified its offensive on Kyiv and the port city of Mariupol where a mosque was shelled on Saturday. Ukrainians also informed that seven people, including a child, were killed after Russians fired at an evacuation convoy.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi headed a meeting with his top ministers and bureaucrats on Sunday afternoon over the Ukraine war and its impact on India. The meeting was attended among others by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The officials who were part of the meeting included National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, PM’s Principal Secretary PK Mishra, Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.
Sources said the “high-level meeting” was called by the Prime Minister “to review India’s security preparedness, and the prevailing global scenario in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.”
Official sources in New Delhi said the Indian embassy in war-hit Ukraine had been temporarily relocated to neighbouring Poland. “In view of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Ukraine, including attacks in the western parts of the country, it has been decided that the Indian Embassy in Ukraine will be temporarily relocated in Poland,” said the government. “The situation will be reassessed in the light of further development,” it added.
A significant number of officials in the Indian embassy in Kyiv was already working from its camp office in Lviv for the last few days. Lviv is a city in western Ukraine that is around 70 kilometres from the border with Poland. The decision comes as Russian troops are closing in on key Ukrainian cities and towns including the capital Kyiv. Modi was briefed on the latest developments in Ukraine, including the details of Operation Ganga – mission launched to evacuate Indian citizens from Ukraine – the government said in a statement.
On February 24, Russia began a special operation to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics in countering the aggression of Ukrainian troops. The Russian Defence Ministry said the special operation is targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure only and the civilian population is not in danger. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine. Ukraine says more than 1,500 civilians have died in a near two-week siege, which has left the city without water or heat, and running out of food.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, New Delhi’s primary concern had been to evacuate the 20,000-odd Indian nationals stuck in various cities, many of whom found their way to the borders to enter the neighbouring nations. Most of the Indian nationals were medical students and are now back in their homeland, thanks to “Operation Ganga.”
However, another concern within the establishment is supply of weapons as most of what India imports are of Russian origin. A week ago, Defence Minister Singh had met three service chiefs to take stock of the situation, vis-à-vis, pending Russian weapons imports, delivery and reserves of spares, and the maintenance of the ones. While officials within the defence establishment have assured that the armed forces have spares for more than six months as stocks were renewed owing to the ongoing standoff with China in eastern Ladakh since May 2020. From fighter jets, tanks and submarines, to air defence systems, frigates and rifles, more than 60 per cent of the weapons available with Indian Armed Forces are of Russian origin. Many of these weapons also have Ukrainian components, including missiles and gas turbines for warships.
India has already signed agreements worth over $12 billion with Russia for some significant weapons to be delivered in the coming years. In the short term, both Indian and Russian sides have assured that the delivery of the four of the five S400 Triumf air defence units that the country had bought in 2018 will continue as per schedule. There could be some delay, but that, too, is unlikely.
Apart from that, India is waiting for the delivery of two Talwar-class frigates from Russia, for which Ukraine had supplied the gas turbines. Ukraine was also supposed to supply gas turbines for two more such frigates, which will be built in India though.
India is also getting two nuclear ballistic submarines on lease from Russia, Chakra 3 and Chakra 4, the first of which is expected to arrive in 2025. All these projects could be jeopardised under the threat of European sanctions on Russia. While the United States had been lenient with India in imposing sanctions under their 2017 law Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), but in the changed global situation, there are concerns that the US may not be as tolerant as India continues to buy sophisticated weapons from Russia.
Meanwhile, the United States increased its defence of NATO regions and moved 12,000 troops along the borders with Russia, in regions of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Romania. Waves of Russian missiles pounded a military training base close to Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland, killing 35 people. The strike followed Russian threats to target foreign weapon shipments that are helping Ukrainian fighters defend their country against Russia’s grinding invasion.
More than 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the sprawling training facility that is less than 25 kilometers from the closest border point with Poland, according to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Poland is a key location for routing Western military aid to Ukraine.
The office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said a total of 85 children have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. More than 100 more have been wounded, the office said. Officials also said that bombings and shelling have damaged 369 educational facilities in the country, 57 of which have been completely destroyed.
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia was trying to create new “pseudo-republics” in Ukraine to break his country apart. In his address to the nation, Zelensky called on Ukraine’s regions, including Kherson, which was captured by Russian forces, not to repeat the experience of Donetsk and Luhansk. Pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in those eastern regions in 2014.
City council members in Kherson, a southern city of 290,000, on Saturday rejected plans for a new pseudo-republic, Zelensky said. Russia recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic before invading Ukraine in February. Moscow said it had to protect the separatist regions, and is demanding that Ukraine recognize their independence too.