“The Global South wants the war in Ukraine to end,” declared India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in an interview with Le Figaro — a line the French daily saw fit to run as its headline. Yet behind the call for peace lies careful hedging: the veteran diplomat pointedly avoids taking sides between Moscow and Kyiv. Little surprise there. Delhi is snapping up Russian oil at cut-rate prices — and for all the talk of principle, profit comes first.
Russia is distant, both geographically and geopolitically. Its imperial ambitions are unlikely to reach India’s doorstep any time soon. New Delhi remains preoccupied with its enduring hostility towards Pakistan and its uneasy rivalry with China. Ukraine, to most Indians, is far away — and far from a strategic priority. Why forgo a cheap, reliable supplier on its behalf?
“We’ve helped both Ukraine and Russia, as much as we could,” Jaishankar insists. But the numbers tell a different story. In March alone, India imported more than $810 million worth of Russian oil products — the highest monthly figure ever recorded in bilateral trade. Russian media, citing Indian customs data, report that volumes have tripled compared to the same month last year. Any help to Ukraine, it seems, is dwarfed by the scale of commerce with the Kremlin.
According to Ukraine’s embassy in Delhi, India purchased $580 million worth of Ukrainian goods between January and September 2024 — a nine-month total still dwarfed by what it spent on Russian oil in a single month. As ever, economics trumps geopolitics. “Very large parts of the world, from Africa to Latin America and the Pacific Islands, believe that this conflict [between Ukraine and Russia] has had a negative impact on their economies and stability,” India’s foreign minister remarked. “The world wants it to end. On this issue, we speak on behalf of the Global South.”
India’s position is emblematic of how much of the non-Western world views the war. At journalism forums across France, African, Asian, and Latin American delegates tend to echo a similar refrain: Kyiv and Moscow must sit down for direct talks — the sooner, the better. Press them on who benefits from rushing such negotiations, and the reply is predictably evasive: it’s not for us to decide — just get on with it. Ukraine’s stubborn resistance unsettles, frustrates, and prompts awkward questions many would rather avoid. Hence the frequent invocations of a “diplomatic solution,” a phrase that features prominently in Global South discourse at every level.
Underlying this, of course, are deeper realities. Most of these countries remain economically fragile, which helps explain their unwillingness to back sanctions against Russia. Western aid to Ukraine, meanwhile, often inspires less solidarity than envy.
A month ago, two of the Global South’s heavyweights — China and Brazil — issued a joint statement on the “Ukrainian crisis.” The document “welcomes President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to start peace negotiations, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky’s consent to them… Both countries hope that Russia and Ukraine will begin direct dialogue as soon as possible, believing this to be the only path to ending the conflict.” The message strikes a tone of neutrality — but in substance, it plays far more to Moscow’s advantage than Kyiv’s.
The so-called Global South spans 79 countries and roughly 85% of the world’s population — some 6.5 billion people. Measured by both demographic weight and economic clout, India sees itself — with some justification — as a voice and leader of this vast bloc. Many of its members emerged only recently from colonial domination. Yet few of them see Ukraine as a fellow victim. On the contrary, lingering resentment toward former colonial powers has been deftly weaponised by Moscow to foment anti-Western sentiment. “Putin is trying to frame this as a war between the West and the ‘non-West,’” observes Oleksiy Haran, a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Ukrainian diplomacy, for its part, has for too long been largely absent from this part of the world.
Despite the war — and the financial strain it brings — Ukrainian embassies remain active in around 20 African countries, 13 in Asia, and six in Latin America. The realisation that Ukraine’s voice barely registers across much of this bloc only truly dawned after the full-scale invasion, when it became apparent that these countries hold the balance of votes in key UN resolutions. Officially, they maintain a posture of neutrality toward Russian aggression. In practice, most now tacitly abet it.
It’s a steep challenge for Ukrainian diplomacy, but one it cannot shy away from. This is a complex, high-stakes game — and in the long run, defeat is not an option.
