The US would welcome any effort that could bring an end to hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, including whatever efforts Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “willing to undertake”, the White House said on Friday.
During a press briefing, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby placed the blame squarely on President Vladimir Putin for “what the Ukrainian people are going through”, asserting that there is still time for the Russian premier to end the war.
“I will let the Prime Minister speak to whatever efforts he is willing to undertake,” Kirby said in response to a question on if the US believes there is still time for PM Modi to convince Putin to end the hostilities.
“The United States would welcome any effort that could lead to an end of hostilities in Ukraine that are in keeping with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky’s objectives and his leadership, his determination of what is acceptable to the Ukrainian people,” Kirby further said.
India has maintained that dialogue and diplomacy is the “only way forward” and has refrained from publicly criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while abstaining on most Ukraine-related votes and resolutions at the United Nations.
Most countries in the West, on the other hand, have responded with sanctions on Moscow, including on oil exports.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, PM Modi has spoken with Putin as well as Zelensky a number of times.
During their bilateral meeting in October last year on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Modi pressed Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying “today’s era is not of war”.
In a phone conversation with Zelensky around the same time, Modi said there can be “no military solution” and that India is ready to contribute to any peace efforts.
His comments were appreciated in the West and emerged as the point of consensus at the G20 summit in Bali in November.
The declaration read, “The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today’s era must not be of war.”
During the press briefing on Friday, Kirby said Putin could end the war “right now”.
“Instead, he’s firing cruise missiles into energy and power infrastructure, and trying to knock out the lights and knock out the heat so the Ukrainian people suffer even more than they already have,” Kirby said.
“And since he is not willing to do that, clearly, we have got to make sure we can help the Ukrainians succeed on the battlefield so that when President Zelensky determines it’s time to negotiate — and he’s the only one that can make that determination — he can do it with the strongest hand possible,” he added.