India has called for respecting “legitimate security interests of all sides” in the Russia-Ukraine military crisis, said former Indian Ambassdor to Russia D.B. Venkatesh Varma on Thursday.

Addressing an online event organised by the Russian news agency Sputnik here, Mr. Varma said Russia’s recent military moves are aimed at conveying to the United States that the world is not unipolar anymore. “India has excellent relation with Russia. President Putin and Prime Minister Modi have excellent personal rapport. Russian position is very clear. They have said that they are ready to talk. They have given written responses and they have received written responses and this dialogue is proceeding,” Mr. Varma said, referring to the intervention of President Emmanuel Macron to resolve the crisis between Russia and Ukraine over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastward expansion.

Mr. Varma spoke in response to a question from The Hindu on whether Prime Minister Modi could play a role in solving the crisis that has drawn a similar call for peace from Turkey’s President Erdogan. Mr. Varma said India has taken a position on the crisis as it was visible in the last week’s United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session on the Ukraine crisis, where India largely aligned with Russia by recognising “legitimate security concerns of all sides”.

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Mr. Varma remarked the crisis needs to be resolved saying, “India has an interest in resolving this crisis”, as such a military crisis has the potential of spreading to other parts of the world. “Most importantly, we said the Minsk agreement has to be respected. This is very significant because the current crisis has come out because one of the parties to the Minsk agreement has been backing away. They have in fact adopted legislations that go against fundamental principles agreed in the Minsk agreement,” Mr. Varma said, emphasising that both India and Russia are in favour of implementation of the Minsk agreement.

The former envoy said a party that wishes to go against the principles of the Minsk agreement will not find any support as the agreement is supported by the United States, France and others. “We [India] support the Minsk agreement and it is one of the primary demands of Russia that the Minsk agreement should be fully implemented,” said Mr Varma.

Addressing the event, Alexander Kramarenko, former Russian Ambassador and noted foreign affairs analyst, emphasised that Russia has “no intention” of attacking Ukraine and called for recognising Russia’s security concerns as NATO has placed offensive weapons systems close to the Russian borders. In one of his comments, Mr. Varma pointed out the gap in the American understanding of the European security situation that he described as “a mess”.

“The unipolar world has moved on. The world is no longer unipolar. But the United States and NATO runs a a policy in Europe based on the presumption that the world is unipolar. Russia is gently or not so gently reminding them that the world is no longer unipolar,” Mr. Varma said.