Ukraine Needs to Heed PM Modi's April 2022 Peace Appeal

The war in Ukraine is having several unintended and unforeseen effects that are damaging to even the economies of the countries urging Ukraine to fight on.

- M.D. NALAPAT

As early as April 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had publicly called for peace in Ukraine. It was clear from the absence of a rebuttal that President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation was open to such a call. Had President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine agreed with the Prime Minister rather than with the champions of war, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, much blood on the Ukrainian side would have been saved.

A peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia that same month, that was acceptable to the Kremlin, was scuttled by then UK PM Boris Johnson and the President of the US, Joe Biden. Not that Zelenskyy was hesitant in turning down the peace offer, given the volumes of assistance in money and weapons Washington and London had promised to give him so as to continue the war.

At the very onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, which began on 24 February 2022, the writer had said that NATO was ready to fight (Russia) to the last Ukrainian. NATO has now been split into pro-war and anti-war camps, the US being prominent in the latter and France and the UK in the former. Hence an amendment needs to be made, which is that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of what is left of Ukraine, appears determined to remain in office to the last Ukrainian.