A day after stating that India is in touch with both Ukraine and Russia over the ongoing conflict, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday spelt out the kind of conversations India was having with the two sides amid evolving dynamics. However, he emphasised that while it’s not an easy situation, it would be a big positive even if Kyiv and Moscow were to agree on something of a limited nature.The minister said that from the very beginning, India has held that this conflict is unlikely to be resolved on the battlefield. “Therefore, it was important to have negotiations between the parties… There were actually negotiations in the early stages of the conflict.”“Though we have been maintaining for some time that both parties should come to the table, and there were a number of conferences where countries gathered to express their support for peace, but often they would gather in the absence of Russia,” he said, in reference to initiatives like the Swiss peace conference.However, he added that New Delhi has always believed that there was no point “of having a gathering dealing with the Ukraine conflict where Russia is not there”.He said New Delhi started the latest round of conversations with both sides in July this year, after commercial ships came under attack from both sides in the Black Sea. In fact, after losing Indian sailors in such attacks, New Delhi had strongly conveyed its condemnation to both sides and also summoned envoys to register protest.Also Read | India proposal to end war most comprehensive, says Ukraine“In July, there were attacks on civilian shipping by both Russia and Ukraine. And in the course of those attacks, some Indian sailors were killed, some were injured. We regard these attacks as completely unacceptable, whether it is in the Black Sea, the Red Sea, or the Gulf. So, we protested very strongly to the Russians, to the Ukrainians. I myself took it up with the foreign ministers of both countries. We started getting active initially to secure the maritime shipping and the mariners involved in that,” he said.Jaishankar added that those conversations brought out the nature of the cargo which was being shipped. And there was the concern expressed about the grain exports which had come to a halt in the Black Sea. “So the conversation developed into whether non-attack on shipping is good, but is there a possibility of facilitating the shipment of grain… it got linked to energy. So, it became a somewhat broader conversation,” added the minister.Story continues below this adThe conversations started with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek in August. After that, Jaishankar went to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which was followed by another discussion between Modi and Putin in New Delhi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.“We still keep in touch with both sides. It’s not obviously an easy situation. It’s not something which anybody can say with a high degree of confidence that something is going to come out. But it seems definitely an effort worth making,” he says, adding that resolving concerns about grain, fertiliser and fuel are in India’s as well as the Global South’s interest.“We have the interests of the parties themselves that if they can even agree on something of a limited nature, we feel that in the given circumstance that’s a big positive,” he said.Also Read | Russian drones hit pharma warehouse owned by Indians, 1 killed: UkraineHe also spoke about the need to “fix the United Nations, not work around it”, and how this was going to be an age of flux for the world, with conflicts and tariff volatility making it turbulent, underlining that responding to the challenges emerging out of the “choppy waters” is the task at hand.Story continues below this ad“I’m very confident that we will rise to the challenges,” Jaishankar said during an interactive session at the 5th Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi, where he shared the dais with former foreign minister of Singapore, George Yong Boon Yeo, during the closing session.The minister, however, said that as India’s record shows, “we have been able to rise to the challenges, whether it was Covid, or the challenge of a double conflict today”. “The challenges of energy, food, fertilisers — we need to factor them into our thinking, plan and respond. That in a sense is the task before us. And I’m very confident that we will rise to the challenge,” he said.Jaishankar also spoke about championing the voice of the Global South. “The Global South expects India to articulate on the world stage,” he said. On reforms needed for the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, Jaishankar said, “The UN is gridlocked”, adding that a few countries were resisting its reforms.However, he said that the US is one of India’s principal strategic partners — “our largest economic account, our biggest trade account, it is a very major critical defence partner”.