(**** Strategic expert, Beni Sahab joins issue with me and says ....
** "International affairs are apparently not straight jacketed. Ergo, the current news of Modi's intervention prevented use of nuclear missile by Putin deserves to be accepted with pinch of Indian spices which even the rest of world now enjoys".
(see below for his detailed comment)
(India's global leadership is getting established no doubt. New Delhi has consistently condemned civilian killings and advocated for a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In September 2022, PM Narendra Modi told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that "this is not the era of war" during the SCO summit in Uzbekistan, expressing a commitment to exploring paths towards peace.)
The report claimed that intervention from Narendra Modi and countries like China may have made Russian President Vladimir Putin drop his plan of hitting Ukraine with a nuclear missile in 2022.
The report says the US sought to enlist the "help of non-allies in particular China and India" to discourage Russia from such an attack.
“One of the things we did was not only message them directly, but strongly urge, press, encourage other countries, to whom they might be more attentive, to do the same thing,” the second senior administration official told me.
US officials say that outreach and public statements from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped avert a crisis.
“I think we believe showing the international community the concern about this, particularly the concern from key countries for Russia and the Global South, was also a helpful, persuasive factor and showed them what the cost of all this could be,” the first senior administration official said.
“I think the fact that we know China weighed in, India weighed in, others weighed in, may have had some effect on their thinking,” the second senior administration official told me. “I can’t demonstrate this positively, but I think that’s our assessment.”
In the time since the nuclear scare of late 2022, I have asked US and European officials if they have identified any similar threats. The danger diminished as the war entered a period of relative stalemate in the east. However, the US and its allies remain vigilant.
“We have been less concerned about the imminent prospect since that period, but it’s not something that is ever far from our minds,” a senior US official told me. “We continue to refine plans, and … it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that we could be confronting at least the rising risk of this again in the months ahead.”
"US officials say that outreach and public statements from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped avert a crisis," the CNN report stated. It revealed that as Ukrainian forces closed in on Kherson, entire Russian units faced the risk of being surrounded.
Simultaneously, Moscow allegedly asserted that Ukraine might resort to using a dirty bomb. Within the US administration, the perception emerged that a devastating loss at Kherson could serve as a "potential trigger" for Russia to deploy nuclear weapons, and the dirty bomb claim might be a cover for such an attack, the report said.
ends
"That's an explosive revelation" -- R. Vijay ....
ReplyDelete"The revelation by the international media shows India's rising clout in global affairs. However, it also shows madness on part of Putin to think of using nuclear weapons." - R. Vijay, Maharashtra
ReplyDelete"Nuclear weapons are for detterance and I don't think that a country (Russia) which is carrying out offensive actions in Ukraine has a need to use nuclear weapons just to speed up the operation. First use of nuclear strike by any country will draw very adverse reaction from rest of the world and Putin can ill afford it. It may even adversely affect their relationship with China and India.
ReplyDeleteI think any nuclear country which is under threat of total annihilation, may think of using nuclear strike as an SOS." - Lt Gen (Retd) R N Kapur
There is no iota of doubt about India slowly and steadily creeping to deserving high table amongst comity of countries.
ReplyDeleteOur fiercely independent foreign and economic policies pursuing own interest first is a clear indicator.
The world does sits up and listens when a statement emerges from Indian leadership. But the question of India's intervention prevented use of nuclear arsenal by Putin needs deeper analysis. The nuclear threat in Russo-Ukrain conflict ostensibly was either grandstanding at best by Russia and message to Western powers to obviate their direct involvement from the conflict or IW campaign by West against Russia to paint Putin as evil tyrant. Possibly the inflated male ego prevented Russia from denying the charge.
The hypothesis is based on fact that during that phase of conflict, Russia was not even leveraging it's top end military hardware, then why would it resort to use of nuclear arsenal and earn the wreath of entire globe. Nuclear weapons are a means of last resort against existential threat which was not the case in the conflict.
International affairs are apparently not straight jacketed. Ergo, the current news of Modi's intervention prevented use of nuclear missile by Putin deserves to be accepted with pinch of Indian spices which even the rest of world now enjoys. - Beni Sahab, Delhi