Ukraine says it has received proposals from India, Turkiye, Egypt and the United States to broker talks with Russia. The offers come as the two adversaries escalate attacks on each other’s energy and port infrastructure with their war now in its fifth year. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha revealed the four proposals at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday and singled out New Delhi’s.
None of the proposals aims to end the war. Each seeks a narrower truce, covering energy facilities, ports or commercial shipping in the Black Sea. India has not made its plan public.
Quoting unnamed sources, however, Indian media have reported it has three parts. According to the Hindustan Times, it would aim to protect infrastructure, keep grain and energy supplies moving through Black Sea ports, and ensure the safety of commercial shipping. The first part – mutually halting strikes on energy facilities and ports – matches what Kyiv has been demanding.
Sybiha said any deal must be a complete energy truce that covers port infrastructure as well. The second part builds on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Turkiye and the United Nations mediated in 2022 but Russia abandoned in 2023. The third part, protecting merchant ships and their crews, is particularly important to India because Indian sailors have been killed or harmed on Black Sea routes.
The sources were quoted as saying India’s plan goes further than the other three proposals because it covers infrastructure and shipping together. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that it incorporates elements of the Turkish, Egyptian and US initiatives. The Kyiv Post reported that Sybiha also described the plan as addressing a possible ceasefire along the front lines, although other accounts said he gave no specifics.
The proposal likely took shape during Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s first visit to Ukraine last month and in a later meeting with Sybiha at the UN General Assembly in New York, also in September. Jaishankar said New Delhi was “trying to be helpful, starting with the Black Sea safety of shipping issue”. Neither Ankara nor Cairo has published details.
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