‘India stands vindicated on Russia-Ukraine war’: Jaishankar says solution won’t come from battleground

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine War stands vindicated as the war drags on in the fourth year.

In an interview with Denmark’s TV2 Channel, Jaishankar said that India has maintained from the beginning that direct contact between Ukraine and Russia is a must for the war to end — direct talks have now started between the two sides after they collapsed within weeks in 2022.

Jaishankar is on a three-nation tour of Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany on May 19-24, 2025. As for the India-Denmark relationship, he said that the country has an important place in sustainability and security matters.

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‘We are now vindicated three years on’

Three years into the conflict, Jaishankar said that India’s position in the war has been vindicated.

Jaishankar said, “We always said you’re not going to get a solution to the Ukraine conflict from the battleground. We also said you’re going to have to talk. There’s got to be dialogue. There’s got to be diplomacy. And there’s got to be direct contact. Now, there was a time that there were these conferences which were going on. Now, we attended those conferences. But we always said, ’look, what’s the point of gathering everybody else and not having Russia in the room?”

Jaishankar admitted that the Ukraine conflict has concerns for the entire world. He said that the conflict led to a food security and fertiliser crisis.

At the same time, Jaishankar addressed the way Indian position has been looked at in the West.

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While India has garnered some criticism in some quarters in the West for forcefully condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and continuing to purchase Russian oil, Jaishankar pointed out that European nations have also continued to buy Russian gas. He further pointed out that while Europe has been vocal about the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, it did not pay heed to the violation of India’s sovereignty by China and Pakistan.

Since 1947-48, Pakistan has continued to illegally occupy parts of Jammu and Kashmir and China has occupied eastern Ladakh’s parts since 1950s and 1960s.

“After the Second World War, we are one of the countries which actually have had, you know, a violation of our sovereignty. We still have a violation of our sovereignty by our neighbors. Pakistan and Kashmir region and China. And the fact is, Europe was very detached about it. In fact, at times, Europe was very
cynical about it,” said Jaishankar.