“The eighth of July. Center of Kyiv. Okhmatdit Another terrible crime of Russia and another dose of hatred for the enemy. On this day, the people of Kyiv did everything they could: they supported the rescuers and the victims, collected food, water and funds for the children, and even dismantled the debris themselves.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
The eighth of July. Center of Kyiv. Okhmatdit Another terrible crime of Russia and another dose of hatred for the enemy. On this day, the people of Kyiv did everything they could: they supported the rescuers and the victims, collected food, water and funds for the children, and even dismantled the debris themselves.
Among the hundreds of brave Ukrainians, there were four medical students from India, who also dismantled bricks, delivered water to people, and tried to do everything in their power. Four students from a country that many people consider foreign, unfriendly or even hostile to Ukraine. From a country that is so often included in the list of “pro-Russian” and does not see the prospect of partnership and friendship.
Why so? Looking ahead, we can say that the root cause lies both in the geopolitical landscape of India and in the ambiguous, short-sighted position of Ukraine in the past.
More than 50 years ago, during the Soviet Union, international relations with India developed very rapidly. Indians came to the Union to study, and high-quality Indian medicines, cosmetics, cotton and Indian tea arrived there, iron cans of which were stored in the homes of prudent owners for a long time. From the Soviet Union, metals, oil, machine tools, various technical devices, and most importantly, military equipment in large quantities were sent to India.
One problem: all this existed simultaneously with the complete leveling of any issues of nationalities and borders. By default, the word of the Soviets was taken by “great Russia” with its center in Moscow, not Kyiv, Minsk or, for example, Tbilisi. Few people in India remember that Delhi’s first space mission took place thanks to components from the Yuzhmash plant in Dnipro.
We could see the reflection of such a policy of the USSR in numerous examples of the most diverse countries in the world – from Europe to South America – some of which realized only in 2022 that Ukraine and Russia are no longer “one country”, not “CIS” and not -what kind of “partners”. The perception on the part of numerous citizens of India, shaped and joined by Soviet ideology, was no exception. She mercilessly included Ukraine and Russia among the “Soviet republics”, and later – among the “former Soviet republics”. Hence such a poor understanding of the context in which our country is now.
However, after the collapse of the USSR, India still had the opportunity to understand that Ukraine is not Russia. Although it was extremely negative for us.
Difficult and stormy 90s. Ukrainian heavy industry is adapting to the realities of the market economy with incredible difficulty and is doing something it has never done before: it is looking for sales markets. One of the largest branches of industry, the production of military equipment, begins to decline and is grasping for any means of salvation.
And here, it would seem, is a lifeline: a contract from Pakistan for the production of 320 T-80UD tanks, which from 1996 to 1999 were successfully manufactured and sold by the Kharkiv Plant named after Malysheva. A contract that Ukraine fulfilled for India’s longtime rival and enemy during the standoff over Jammu and Kashmir. A contract that India could perceive in the same way that Ukraine now perceives the supply of Iranian “Shaheeds” to Russia.
On the one hand, we kept the industry afloat. On the other hand, they cast a cold shadow on Indo-Ukrainian relations. On relations with that India, which in turn began to buy weapons from Russia.
However, as time passed, Ukraine’s interaction with the world’s largest democracy developed. Trade between the countries grew steadily in the 2000s, but, unfortunately, there was no question of competition between our interstate relations with India-Russia relations. Since the 1990s, Russia has been one of India’s largest suppliers of oil, chemical and engineering products, and, as already mentioned, military equipment.
Even under these conditions, Delhi’s emphasis was not definitively set. It’s no secret that Indians saw Ukraine as a great place for learning and development, as well as a reliable supplier of grain and various technical products. They invested in Ukraine, sold raw materials, and equipment: on the streets of Kyiv, even today, you can often see Indian TATA buses and trucks.
So, the fundamental nature of relations between Ukraine and India is undeniable. It was built over many years of economic cooperation, trade, development of cultural ties and social interaction. For example, as of 2021, there was an Indian diaspora community of almost 30,000 in Ukraine. After the start of the war, a large part of it was forced to move to the countries of the European Union, in particular, to Poland.
Despite this, as of 2023, there were almost 15,000 Indian students in Ukraine alone. To understand: this is the largest number of foreign students of Ukrainian universities among all nationalities in the world. China is second on the list – with only 5,400 students, which is almost three times less. This is only one indicator of the close relations between Ukraine and India, but there are much more eloquent ones.
As we can remember, during the adoption in February 2023 of the UN General Assembly resolution ES-11/6, which provided for the “immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian forces from the territory of Ukraine”, India “abstained”. However, already in May of the same 2023, during the adoption of the UN resolution “on the cooperation of the UN and the Council of Europe”, in which Russia was clearly named as an aggressor, India voted “by”. This is just one example of the vector that is currently moving in a positive direction for us. The most striking event took place recently in Kyiv.
On August 23, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi visited Ukraine. On the eve of this event, Bloomberg sparingly wrote that “Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Kyiv will take place after his trip to Moscow, which drew criticism from the United States” and that “the visit will last only a few hours due to the security situation.”
However, everything happened far from being so gray and whimsical. Only Modi’s conversation with President Zelensky in the Mariinsky Palace lasted “several hours”. After that, there was a meeting in a wide format, in which representatives of the ministries of Ukraine and India, as well as other members of the delegations, took part.
According to the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, the Prime Minister of India called the Russian invasion of the territory of Ukraine a “war”, and also supported the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. This is a very serious sign of India’s support for Ukraine in the current geopolitical situation.
After the official part of the visit, there was also an informal one – a meeting with students of the Oriental Languages Gymnasium and students of KNU named after T. G. Shevchenko, who study the Hindi language. Students point to the extremely warm tone of Modi’s communication with the youth. When a student of the Middle School of Oriental Languages sang a song in Hindi, the Prime Minister of India started singing along.
Interestingly, at this meeting, Modi was late again, and because of this, he was more than an hour late for the train from Kyiv. What could be a brighter proof of his sincere desire to visit Ukraine?
In addition to the publicly known facts, one cannot ignore the strength that the Indo-Ukrainian community currently has. In this difficult time, she is clearly focused on the development and strengthening of the partnership between our countries, business operations and investment attraction. The institutions that are currently being built and developed are the first rays of the sun that is destined to rise over our countries. The sun, which this time will not be overshadowed by Russia, because in a world where autocracies are merging at an extremely high speed, democracies cannot help but act as a united front.
It is democratic values that inextricably unite the Indian and Ukrainian peoples. And they are joined by those Ukrainians and Indians who together dismantled the rubble of Okhmatdyt. Those Ukrainians and Indians who now have no half-notes in relation to Russia. Those Ukrainians and Indians who know that there are no alternatives to democracy in our future.