Sumy success with operation ganga winding down india must now take a clear position on ukraine crisis

Sumy success with operation ganga winding down india must now take a clear position on ukraine crisis

In an extremely delicate operation, the last big group of about 700 Indian students was finally evacuated from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy. Establishing a humanitarian corridor for the extraction had proved to be quite challenging. In fact, earlier attempts failed due to Russian shelling. But hectic diplomacy on India’s part finally resulted in a breakthrough with the Ukrainians and Russians agreeing to provide safe passage to the Sumy students. They are now expected to cross over to Poland from where they will board Operation Ganga flights back to India.

The successful Ukraine evacuation adds to India’s long list of such rescue missions from war-torn countries. The most notable ones include the 1990 Kuwait airlift where around 1,70,000 Indians were brought back home after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, kicking off the first Gulf War. Similarly, when conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2006, India launched Operation Sukoon to evacuate not just Indians but also nationals of neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal with the help of the Indian navy. Then during Operation Rahat in 2015, India evacuated nearly 4,000 citizens along with foreign nationals of 26 countries from war-torn Yemen.

That said, now that the Ukraine rescue operation is winding down, the focus will shift back to India’s position on the war. Hitherto, the need to evacuate around 20,000 Indian citizens in Ukraine was seen as one of the factors influencing New Delhi’s neutral position on the war. But with most Indians out, pressure will grow on New Delhi to take a clear stand.

This is already evident in France’s stated desire to see India play a more “forceful” role in the next phase of UNSC meetings, while the US has long made clear that India can’t have different standards for the Indo-Pacific and what’s happening in Ukraine. There’s no denying that Russia’s aggression on Ukraine was militarily unprovoked and violated the sovereignty of an independent state. With China too violating India’s territorial sovereignty, the only way New Delhi can counter Beijing is through the support of the US and its allies. Plus, Russia is now primed to be in the China camp. India can’t afford to abstain from critiquing Russia any longer.