As head of G20, India has a crucial role to play: Ukraine envoy to New Delhi

The G20 theme during India’s leadership is ‘One Earth. One Family. One Future’. So, it offers a great window of opportunity,’’ said Ivan Konovalov, Ukraine’s Chargé d'affaires to India. (Image: News18 Creative)

The Ukraine government has asked India for humanitarian and technical assistance, given the old ties between the two countries and their peoples.

“India has a crucial role to play in this situation, particularly in the context of its G20 presidency this year. The G20 theme during India’s leadership is ‘One Earth. One Family. One Future’. So, it offers a great window of opportunity,’’ said Ivan Konovalov, Ukraine’s Chargé d'affaires to India.

“We understand and appreciate India’s old association with Russia. So, there is no question of asking for military assistance. We also respect India’s traditional non-aligned status in international relations,” he told Moneycontrol in an interview, adding that Ukraine had no trouble if India bought Russian oil because that was its strategic objective.

Earlier this month, a top Ukraine official called for sanctions to be imposed against India. Senior Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko urged the US to impose secondary sanctions on China and India if they kept buying Russian energy.

ALSO READ: India to amplify voices of startups during its G20 Presidency

In the case of Ukraine, Konovalov said, military hardware is meant for defending themselves and not for carrying out attacks on Russian territory.

He also said that Ukraine has reclaimed 60 percent of the land Russia had captured since the beginning of the war in February 2022. “We have inflicted heavy casualties and will evict Russia from our territory entirely,” he asserted.

“Despite all odds, Ukraine has withstood Russia’s full-scale invasion and fought back successfully. In 2022, the armed forces of Ukraine gained many victories on the battlefield ― the battles for Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy, the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and the Kherson liberation. We will continue liberating our territories until the full restoration of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We will ensure that the killing of our innocent citizens, women and children, will be stopped and avenged,” Konovalov said.

Ukraine’s military has gained significant momentum since September in pushing Russia out of the north-eastern and southern parts of the county. Russia currently controls roughly 14-15 percent of Ukraine. That area includes much of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in the east, as well as Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014.

In November last year, Ukrainian troops re-entered the southern city of Kherson, after nearly nine months of Russian occupation. The city was a key link in Moscow's effort to control the southern coastline along the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian official said that his country had been subjected to missile attacks from Russia but “our brave soldiers have fought on bravely and resolutely”.

Konovalov also said that the Russian attack on Ukraine did not begin in 2022 but dates back to March 2014 when it invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from his country.