Prime Minister Narendra Modi emplanes for Poland’s Rzeszow from capital Warsaw on August 22, 2024. Photo: X/@MEAIndia via PTI

The symbolism and balancing act aside, Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, will focus on cooperation in defence, with India operating a large inventory of military equipment of both Russian and Ukrainian origin.

In the three years since the war in Ukraine, India has seen supplies and spares held up for some time and has attempted to diversify and reduce dependence by turning to domestic companies as well as seeking alternate vendor base in other countries.

The situation has improved since and spares, components and supplies have started coming, though not to the pre-war levels, according to official sources. Both Russia and Ukraine have assured that they would ensure timely deliveries though it is not up to the earlier schedules yet, the sources said.

Sources said Ukraine has several cutting-edge systems and technologies many of which are battle-tested. It has expressed interest in forming joint ventures with Indian companies.

The war in Ukraine in February 2022 impacted all three services of the Indian military that have huge inventories both from Russia and Ukraine. Immediately after the war began, the Indian Army terminated several contracts related to air defence, armour and artillery as it faced escalation in prices from other countries since spares and supplies became scarce and were diverted, shooting up prices, officials said. Further, quality claim resolutions became very time consuming.

The Army turned to indigenous defence manufacturers for smaller components and sub-assemblies. This was also done by the Navy and Indian Air Force (IAF).

“The Army has reached out to domestic vendors, tried to minimise imports of spares, assemblies and so on to the extent possible and diversified the vendor base where domestic options were not available to about 7-8 countries notably Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic among others,” a source said. The indigenous push was particularly in small components and ammunitions, officials said.

With Russia, there has been an added element of payments as Russia was shunted out of the global SWIFT system and the rupee-rouble trade couldn’t cater to large payments.

The impact of such tensions is not entirely new as in the past, tensions between Russia and Ukraine had considerably delayed the modernisation of the IAF’s AN-32 transport fleet. Ukraine upgraded over 100 AN-32 transport aircraft of the IAF under a deal finalised in 2009. While upgrade of 45 AN-32s in Ukraine was completed in 2015, remaining aircraft were to be upgraded by IAF Base Repair Depot, Kanpur which got considerably delayed.

For the Indian Navy, probably the impact is as acute, if not more, as over 30 frontline warships are powered by engines from Zorya Nashproekt of Ukraine. Indian Navy drew a roadmap to achieve a certain level of servicing locally in the next few years. In addition, Zorya is tying up with an Indian company to carry out certain level of engine maintenance reducing the need to ship engines to Ukraine, sources stated.

Defence trade between India and Ukraine continued till just before 2022. For instance, after the Balakot air strike in 2019, IAF made emergency procurement of R-27 air to air missiles for its SU-30MKI fighters. At Aero India in February 2021, Ukraine signed four agreements worth $70 million which includes sale of new weapons as well as maintenance and upgrades of existing ones in service with the Indian military, as reported by The Hindu earlier.

An overview of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fires, in Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine. File photo
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

India has abstained in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted the resolution on Thursday, July 11, 2024, with 99 votes in favour, nine against and 60 abstentions, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Those voting against the resolution included Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia and Syria.

Also read: What are the risks surrounding Zaporizhzhya, the nuclear power plant in a war zone?

The resolution titled ‘Safety and security of nuclear facilities of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant’ demanded that Russia “immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”

It also demanded that Russia urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately return the plant to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine to ensure its safety and security. It called for the “immediate cessation of the attacks” by Russia against the critical energy infrastructure of Ukraine, which increases the risk of a nuclear accident or incident at all nuclear facilities of Ukraine.

The draft resolution was introduced by Ukraine and was sponsored by over 50 member states, including France, Germany and the United States.

It called upon Moscow, until it returns the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant of Ukraine to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine, to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia with timely and full access to all areas at the plant that are important for nuclear safety and security to allow the Agency to report fully on the nuclear safety and security situation at the site.

Resolution do not reflect reality: Russia

In the explanation of the vote before the vote on the resolution, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said the General Assembly has “unfortunately” adopted many documents that are non-consensual, politicised and do not reflect reality.

“Make no mistake: votes in favour of today’s draft will be regarded by Kyiv, Washington, Brussels and London as evidence of support for their policy of further escalating the Ukrainian conflict to the detriment of steps taken by a sensible part of the international community to find a peaceful, sustainable and long-term solution to the conflict,” he said.