We are in Zelenskyy’s shoes now

LATE last year, the White House Historical Association added an exhibit to its White House tour for tourists — a full-scale replica of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, located a block away. It includes a tour of spaces barred for the public in the real building, including the Oval Office. Adding the wax figures of President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance arguing with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office before the media would complete the exhibit. The ‘showdown’, as the bare-knuckle scrap is now known, has shocked the entire world, signalling as it does the end of a world order that has prevailed since the end of World War II. The moment deserves to be memorialised.

Several ‘nuanced’ geopolitical arguments are being forwarded to explain the Trump-Vance attack on Zelenskky. That Trump wants the war to end, but Zelenskky wants to drag it out. That Trump’s mediation — Zelenskky is reluctant to sign off on it because it forces him to cede territory to Russia and half of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to the US for all time — is a confidence-builder with Vladimir Putin that will prevent further Russian aggression in Europe. That Trump wants to pull Putin out of China’s embrace so that the US and Russia can go back to being the two big boys in the West, while China can play in the East. But the jury is out on these interpretations. Some might argue that the Trump-Vance harangue of Zelenskky has diminished America.

What lessons can India take from this shape-shifting moment? So far, what is most evident is a sense of relief mixed with triumph that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, at least in the two encounters with the media that the two leaders had together, went off without the treatment that Zelenskky got. Self-congratulation is also aplenty about how the Indian foreign policy establishment was able to suss out Trump and return home with ‘outcomes’ on defence cooperation and trade. Zelenskyy is being ridiculed for going into the meeting ‘entitled’ and ‘without preparation’ to deal with a new President whose personal relationship with Putin has upended the trans-Atlantic consensus against Russia.

What did PM Modi do differently? Unlike Zelenskky, who demanded a security backstop from the US in return for agreeing to a peace agreement with Russia, Modi did not refuse to do anything that Trump wanted. India took back the undocumented Indian immigrants without a murmur. It also accepted that it was ‘US procedure’ to shackle them and fly them back in military aircraft. The government reduced some tariff lines before the PM embarked on his first meeting with Trump 2.0 and may ‘rationalise’ more in the run-up to the first draft of a trade agreement later this year. Delhi back-pedalled on the BRICS de-dollarisation plan after Trump tore into it, despite Modi’s advocacy of trade in local currencies at the Kazan summit in October 2024. Modi did not argue with Trump’s criticism of Indian tariffs in front of the media. Only time will tell if the Indian side was successful in pushing its case behind closed doors.

For India, more important than PM Modi coming out unscathed from his meeting with Trump should be what Beijing has taken away from the Oval Office encounter. Trump has indicated in recent weeks that he is not as passionate about protecting Taiwan as the Biden administration. He has demanded that Taiwan, which Beijing has not ruled out taking over militarily, must pay the US for its defence. He has accused the Taiwan chip-making industry of undermining US chip manufacturers. The treatment to Zelenskky has raised concerns of an emboldened China making a grab for Taiwan.

Closer home are an unsettled border with China, Chinese militarisation along this border, its claims in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the recent experience with Chinese territory-slicing tactics. During Modi’s visit, India and the US signed a defence cooperation deal in which “the leaders committed to break new ground to support and sustain the overseas deployments of the US and Indian militaries in the Indo-Pacific, including enhanced logistics and intelligence-sharing, as well as arrangements to improve force mobility for joint humanitarian and disaster relief operations along with other exchanges and security cooperation engagements”. China, which is gauging Trump’s actions for itself, has not reacted to this specific measure, but made a muted statement that “bilateral cooperation should not harm a third party”.

During Modi’s visit, Trump, who has made no secret of his admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping, said they used to be ‘very close’ and described China as “a very important player in the world”. He also offered to make peace between India and China. Perhaps in India’s only public rejection of a Trump idea, the Foreign Secretary batted away the offer politely later, saying it was a bilateral issue. Still, while thinking of India’s vulnerabilities vis-a-vis China, Trump’s casting of Ukraine as the aggressor, and his description of the parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia as Russian, and his formula for peace — surrender by the victim to the invader — should serve as a warning. We are all Zelenskky now.

India must now deal with the reality of a world where the friendships and partnerships of old may no longer count. With Trump in the saddle, the US offers no consolation. With him and Putin virtually on the same side, India can no longer fall back on Moscow to exercise strategic autonomy. In its own neighbourhood, India is not just friendless today; it has China glowering at it with Pakistan by its side. At a time when the developing world is looking for a country that can stand up to Trump’s trade and tariff wars, many wonder what India truly stands for. Leading members of the Global South such as Brazil and South Africa are chummier with Beijing than with Delhi.

Now abandoned by the US, Ukraine cuts a sorry figure. As former diplomat DB Venkatesh Varma has noted, Zelenskky’s case is a cautionary tale for those who are eager to don the role of a proxy. But history will not forget that he took on a determined enemy and a much bigger military, turning Russia’s expected ‘three-day’ invasion plan into a grinding stalemate that is in its fourth year now. He also returned home a more popular leader after the Oval Office showdown than he was when he left for Washington.