Jaishankar says India is in touch with Russia and Ukraine to ease war

Warsaw,UPDATED: Sep 4, 2026 22:08 IST

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Warsaw on Friday that India has been in continuous touch with both Ukraine and Russia and is trying to see whether ideas and suggestions can be developed to help reduce the conflict and, ideally, bring it to an end. He made the remarks after talks with Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosaw Sikorski.

Jaishankar, who arrived in Warsaw from Kyiv after meeting Ukraine's top leadership on Thursday, said India believes that an endless war must give way to an end to the fighting through dialogue and diplomacy. He also said the Ukraine-Russia war would not end because of trade decisions such as buying or not buying oil, but through negotiations.

At a joint press conference with Sikorski, Jaishankar said the two sides discussed complex global challenges, including supply chain resilience and food, fuel and fertiliser security. Referring to the war in Ukraine, he said, "The Deputy Prime Minister and I also understandably discussed some major global and regional issues, notable among them is the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year... I myself have just come here from Kyiv." Replying to a question, he said India has been in continuous touch with both the Ukrainian and Russian sides. "What we are trying to do is to see if there are ideas and suggestions which can be developed in some way in which they will contribute to the mitigation, ideally, the cessation of the conflict," he added.

A day earlier in Kyiv, Jaishankar had said India was ready to extend "any help in any manner" to end the war. He met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha during the visit. After the talks, Zelenskyy said he was "grateful to India for its commitment to ending this unjust war". Jaishankar had also said, "This certainly must not be a time of war. Peace is needed. This is India's clear position," and expressed hope that other major world powers would also take a clear stand that the war must end and that a reliable peace must be achieved.

On Friday, Jaishankar reiterated that India believes endless war must give way to an end to war. "These are wars without winners. Every additional day means more death, more destruction, more loss to the parties themselves, and more cost to the rest of the world," he said in Warsaw. He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had voiced this concern publicly recently. "Our efforts must therefore focus on promoting dialogue and diplomacy. We must each do what we can in whichever way we believe could be most effective and support the efforts of others to bring this conflict to an end. This is India's strong conviction, and we are acting on it," he added.

On India's purchases of Russian oil, Jaishankar said the issue was the conflict itself and that the solution lay in negotiations, not trade. "This war is not going to end... not because somebody chose to buy or not buy oil or alumina or fertilisers or metals and minerals. It will end when there is diplomacy, when there is dialogue and when there is negotiation. So, I think let's diagnose the problem right," he said. Overall, Jaishankar's remarks in Warsaw underlined India's position that the war must end through diplomacy, while New Delhi remains in touch with both sides and ready to support efforts that could help bring the conflict to a close.

With PTI Inputs

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