NIAS Europe Studies | Expert Interview

Interview on Russia in International Order

12 January 2024

Ambassador D.B.Venkatesh Varma was a Member of the Indian Foreign Service from 1988 to 2021. During his diplomatic career, he has worked in the Ministry of External Affairs, in the Office of External Affairs Minister and in the Prime Minister’s Office. He served as India’s Ambassador to Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, to the Kingdom of Spain and to the Russian Federation, until October 2021.

In an interview to the NIAS Europe Studies team at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Ambassador DB Venkatesh Varma provided an overview of Russia as one of the old great powers of the world to its course of dramatic changes. According to Varma Russia today is more multinational, and multicultural compared to the Soviet period with strong minorities, Muslim minorities, Buddhist minorities, and Asiatic people from Siberia.

He spoke about the complicated history of Russia in trying to be part of the European family and being subject to attacks by Napolean, Nazi Germany and its civil war (intervened by 10 countries) between 1917 and 1924. Citing this Ambassador Varma stated how Russia compares the same to the present in Ukraine’s case where it views the West as a problem creator in its periphery. Giving a gist about Ukraine, he highlighted how it is one of the most important ex-soviet republics, yet not entirely under Russia’s sphere of influence and how its population is dived by western Ukraine, considered pro-European and eastern Ukraine, seen as pro-Russian.

According to Ambassador Varma, the trigger to the conflict in eastern Europe was due to the swinging of Ukraine’s foreign policy towards the EU where the population remained divided. The real trouble began when Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukraine’s President (Considered pro-Russian) was ousted in 2014. Following an insurrection of a pro-west government, the failure of the Minsk agreement to maintain the Donbass area with constitutional autonomy sparked a war in February 2022.

On the war in Ukraine, he said that it was not in favour of Russia in the first year but it turned so in the second year, with no longer being a war for territory but of attrition. According to him, in the long course of the war, Russia is placed in a favourable position compared to Europe, the US and the NATO’s military and financial assistance to Ukraine. This was due to the population support of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President and Russia’s advantage over material resources. He indicated the setting in of fatigue across Europe and the US in continuing its aid to Ukraine in the long term whereas Russia's concerns over the impact of sanctions in the long term have diverted it towards the East. Denial from the European markets for its energy has pushed it to look at China and India and he said: “Now Russia is more self-contained in a civilizational sense.” In terms of economy, despite strong sanctions, Russia has bounced back and continues its energy exports although the middle class is seen to be sceptical about the war. Finally, he ended his initial note concluding that Russia would insist on retaining a portion of Donbas after war consultations.