A man walks towards a damaged residential building in the town of Irpin on Sept 11, 2022. (SERGEI CHUZAVKOV / AFP)

Expressing serious concern over escalation of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, India and China have called for an immediate de-escalation of the situation and want to extend support for resolving the crisis peacefully.

New Delhi would offer support for efforts to calm the fighting, India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated in a statement.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Monday during a joint press meet with his Australian counterpart in Canberra that the Ukraine conflict does not serve the interests of anybody

“India is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including targeting of infrastructure and deaths of civilians,” said Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Federal ministry of External Affairs, on Monday. 

“We reiterate that escalation of hostilities is in no one’s interest. We urge immediate cessation of hostilities and the urgent return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue. India stands ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalation,” the spokesperson said.

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Regarding the tensions, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a press briefing on Tuesday： “The ongoing developments are worrisome. We call on relevant parties to find proper ways to address differences through dialogue and consultation.”

All countries deserve respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “support should be given to all efforts that are conducive to peacefully resolving the crisis,” Mao said on Monday while responding on the deadly missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday, according to the official website of the ministry.

This is one of the most prompt and sharp statements made by New Delhi and Beijing since the war began in February, experts said.

After expressing concern at the escalation of the conflict, India voted to reject Russia’s proposal for a secret ballot in the UN General Assembly on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow’s “illegal” annexation of four regions of Ukraine. 

New Delhi, along with over 100 other nations, favored a public vote on the text, rejecting Russia's proposal for a secret ballot. New Delhi has not revealed how it would vote on the resolution that will be moved on Wednesday or Thursday in New York.

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Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Monday during a joint press meet with his Australian counterpart in Canberra that the Ukraine conflict does not serve the interests of anybody.

Reiterating Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment in a recent summit that “today’s era is not an era of war”, Jaishankar said “a conflict today in some corner of the world can have a very profound impact on everybody across the world.” 

Both the countries, major players in the region, would like to see the conflict end fast, because the longer the war goes the Western countries will exert greater pressure on India to condemn Russia, said Atul Bhardwaj, adjunct fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies or ICS, New Delhi.

India depends on Moscow for more than half of its arms supplies, analysts said. India has a substantial inventory of Soviet and Russian-origin weapons because Western countries opted for a military dictatorship in the region as its “preferred partner” and did not supply arms to New Delhi for decades, Jaishankar said in Canberra.

Professor Swaran Singh, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, noted that any prospects of talks between United States and Russia have come to a naught and this has already made UN system dysfunctional.

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India and China want to put their join influence on their close partners Russia and Ukraine for an early end to this crisis of destruction, Singh added. 

Indian PM Modi had told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “today’s era is not an era of war” on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last month. Modi told Putin at the summit that the war had aggravated challenges for developing countries and termed their meeting “a chance to discuss how we can move forward on the path of peace.”

Putin acknowledged in the SCO summit in mid September that Chinese President Xi Jinping had raised “questions and concerns” about Russia’s conflict with Ukraine.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.