India also, along with 34 others abstained from voting against Russia at the United Nations General Assembly, where a resolution demanding that Russia stop military operations in Ukraine was passed with 141 votes in favour.
In a statement, India’s ambassador to UN TS Tirumurti said India has decided to abstain in view of the “totality of the evolving situation”.
“We demand safe and uninterrupted passage for all Indian nationals, including our students, who are still stranded in Ukraine, particularly from Kharkiv and other cities in the conflict zones… this remains our foremost priority,” the statement added.
In the meanwhile, US appeared frustrated by India’s repeated abstinence from voting at the UN.
Let me say that all of us have been working to urge India to take clear position, a position opposed to Russia’s actions. But what have we seen so far? We have seen a number of abstentions: Asst State Secretary Donald Lu at the US Senate Committee hearing on ‘US Policy towards India’
Asst State Secretary Donald Lu, also said, “India’s maintained to not take either side to be a partner working towards diplomatic solution.We’ve seen them make right phone calls…unfortunately, they’ve not yet been effective’.
On being asked about India-Russia defence partnership, Asst State Secy Donald Lu said, “we’re in process of trying to understand whether defence tech that we are sharing with India can be adequately safeguarded, given India’s historical relationship with Russia & its defense sales”
Three decades ago, we could not have imagined selling anything to India on the defense side, that amount and the sophistication of what today we are transferring to India is staggering.
We’re making small steps as we assure you that we are working every day to make sure to close the gap between where we are and where our Indian partners are…Senior State Dept officials conducting various high-level dialogue with our Indian counterparts over Ukraine.
We have seen an interesting evolution in past couple of days. India at UN called for all states to abide by UN Charter to respect the sovereignty & territorial integrity of other states; a very clear reference to Russia’s violation of UN Charter & Ukraine’s sovereignty
