Jaishankar says India is now talking to Moscow and Kyiv on Black Sea shipping

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Sunday that India had moved past advocacy on the war in Ukraine and was now in conversation with both Moscow and Kyiv. He said the talks had started with the safety of shipping in the Black Sea, and had gone on to grain exports, energy exports, and what he called non-attack possibilities. "Those are ongoing conversations right now," he said.

The remark is the first public acknowledgement from him that New Delhi is doing more than urging dialogue. He put it this way: India had advocated a settlement for many years, and in recent months had become a little more involved beyond advocacy. The venue of the comment was an event in India. He did not table a text.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Friday that Kyiv had received proposals from four countries, India, Turkey, Egypt and the United States. He called India's the fullest of the four, and said it was the first time New Delhi had signalled a willingness to play a more active role. Sybiha's ranking is his. Jaishankar has not published the paper Sybiha was ranking.

The Russian side of the same fortnight is a line from President Vladimir Putin. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had good ideas for a mutually acceptable solution. That comment followed Modi's talks with Putin in Bishkek on 31 August, where Modi said the endless war must now give way to an end of the war. Between Bishkek and Sunday, the Indian description moved from a prime ministerial sentence to a minister's account of channels on ships, grain, energy and non-attack arrangements.

Black Sea shipping is the item with a current body count. On Monday a commercial vessel, MV Royad Mammadov, was attacked in that sea. Two foreign seafarers were killed. Three Indians on board survived, one of them injured. A cargo ship sank after a drone strike, and Bulgaria opened a search. Jaishankar's starting point, safety of shipping, is the file those incidents sit in. A non-attack arrangement, if one were agreed, would be a commitment not to hit the grain and energy traffic both sides still need to move. He did not say either capital had accepted one.

Four proposals in Kyiv, and one minister in Delhi describing conversations, are not a negotiation. They are a claim that a negotiation exists at the level of shipping and exports. Turkey is already a party to the earlier Black Sea grain work and is one of Sybiha's four. Egypt is a buyer of the grain. The United States is a supplier of weapons and a sanctions authority. India's place in that list, on Sybiha's wording, is the proposal he found the most complete. The content of that completeness has not been released.

What Sunday made public is the shift in India's own description of its role, the three subjects beyond shipping, and the Ukrainian ranking of a paper New Delhi has not shown. What it did not make public is a ceasefire line, a date, or a Russian reply to the Indian text.

The Black Sea item is also the one India can discuss without taking a side on territory. Shipping, grain and energy are commercial flows. A non-attack arrangement is a limited ceasefire on those flows, not a map. Jaishankar listed them in that order, starting with ships. Sybiha's label may refer to a paper that goes further. Until the paper is public, the minister's list is the only Indian table of contents on offer.

Putin's "good ideas" and Modi's Bishkek line are the Russian-facing half of the same claim. They establish that Moscow has heard something from the prime minister and has not rejected it in public. They do not establish that a channel on non-attack arrangements has produced a draft both sides will sign. Sunday's value is the change in verb: from advocating a settlement to holding conversations on named subjects. The test of that verb is a text, a meeting, or a shipping incident that one side declines to repeat.