'No non-Western leader except Modi …': US analyst slams Trump aide for linking India to Ukraine war

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has launched yet another attack on India, criticising New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil and even going so far as to describe the Ukraine conflict as “Modi’s war.”

Accusing India of helping bankroll Moscow’s war effort, Navarro said: “Consumers and businesses and everything lose, and workers lose because India’s high tariffs cost us jobs, and factories, and income and higher wages. And then the taxpayers lose because we got to fund Modi’s war.”

The remarks reflect mounting frustration within the Trump administration as its stalemate with India deepens over trade issues and New Delhi’s ties with Moscow.

Peter Navarro has now called Russia’s war in Ukraine “Modi’s war.”
I don’t think any non-Western leader has expressed public opposition to the war as clearly and frequently as Modi has.

— Michael Kugelman (@MichaelKugelman) August 28, 2025

While India has consistently pushed back against what it calls American hypocrisy in singling it out for buying Russian oil, experts too have noted how Washington’s criticism often overlooks similar actions by other US partners.

Michael Kugelman, Director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre, said that no other non-Western leader except Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed open opposition to the war in Ukraine.

“Peter Navarro has now called Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘Modi’s war’. I don’t think any non-Western leader has expressed public opposition to the war as clearly and frequently as Modi has,” he said on X.

In another post on August 18, Kugelman had pointed out how India repeatedly called for an end to the war and PM Modi directly brought up the matter with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“A bit rich for the Trump administration to criticize India for bolstering and enriching the Russian war machine. India has repeatedly called for an end to the war. And Modi has directly and publicly told Putin to end the war. (Also China imports more Russian oil than does India),” he said.

A bit rich for the Trump administration to criticize India for bolstering and enriching the Russian war machine. India has repeatedly called for an end to the war. And Modi has directly and publicly told Putin to end the war.
(Also China imports more Russian oil than does India).

— Michael Kugelman (@MichaelKugelman) August 18, 2025

Ashok Malik, former policy adviser at MEA, in his piece in The Financial Times, highlighted the sharp contrast between America’s current punitive stance and its earlier encouragement of India’s oil imports to stabilise global oil prices.

“Frankly, India is being picked on because its trade negotiations with the Trump administration have still not concluded. It is resisting unreasonable demands and unfair expectations. The selective targeting for condemnation of India’s oil purchases from Russia will be interpreted as exerting pressure on New Delhi’s trade negotiators,” he said.

The timeline of the Russia-Ukraine war and India’s repeated outreach to leaders from both the countries vindicate Kugelman’s observations and dilute Washington’s charge that it is “Modi’s war”.

As early as March 2022, just weeks after the war started, PM Modi urged President Putin to hold direct talks with Zelenskyy, pushing for dialogue between the two countries.

Over the following months, PM Modi reinforced India’s stance at high-level engagements — from his landmark visit to Kyiv in August 2024, where he declared New Delhi was “on the side of peace,” to his meeting with Putin at the BRICS summit in October 2024, where he insisted the conflict must be resolved “peacefully and quickly.”

He famously told Putin in September 2022 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that “today’s era is not of war”. The remark was widely publicised by global media and later echoed in official statements by the United Nations, G20 declarations and even by Western leaders.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar recently countered US criticism over India’s Russian oil purcahse with a hard-hitting reminder.

“We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG, that is the European Union. We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022; I think there are some countries to the South,” he said.

Jaishankar added: “We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia. Incidentally, we also buy oil from the US, and that amount has increased. So honestly, we are very perplexed at the logic of the argument that you (the media) had referred to.”