Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Xi and Modi “offered their good offices to help find a solution” to the Ukrainian Conflict during their talks with Putin at the 2026 BRICS Summit in Delhi. It’s unrealistic that either of them or their envoys could replace the role of the Witkoff-Kushner duo in mediating peace talks, but they could still meaningfully help end the conflict if they agree to dispatch peacekeepers. Some background is required in order to understand the relevance of this proposal.
What’s being suggested is a radically scaled-back version of the proposal for a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers that was shared here in January 2025. China and India would instead control the part of Donbass from which Ukraine might withdraw as part of a deal and patrol the rest of the frontline, including their formal border. A mission in Odessa is possible too for monitoring the region’s port activity and enforcing its maritime demilitarization as proposed here.
The Donbass dimension is the most immediately important since it’s widely understood that the “Spirit of Anchorage” entailed Trump unofficially agreeing to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from there in exchange for Putin then declaring a full ceasefire and Russia receiving some US sanctions relief. This analysis here explains how Putin could legally stop the conflict without first controlling all the disputed territory while this one here explains why Trump reneged on the aforesaid unofficial agreement.
Kushner confirmed that Zelensky refuses to withdraw to the line that Putin proposed in a likely allusion to leaving Donbass, but in the absence of Trump willing to coerce him to do so, Zelensky could be incentivized knowing that this lost land would be under peacekeepers’ control. It’s Ukraine’s “fortress belt” as CNN recently described it, ergo why he’s reluctant to give it up, but peacekeepers from Russia’s close Chinese and Indian partners would deter it from exploiting Ukraine’s cession of those bastions.
Their incentive could be to secure US sanctions waivers for resource-related business with Russia so as to maximally benefit from its natural wealth. Likewise, the US’ incentive for agreeing to this is for Russia to end the conflict, which is its condition for implementing the unspecified “major Russia-US projects” that Putin discussed with Witkoff-Kushner. Their grand strategic significance was earlier described here and here. More Indian, US, and joint Indo-US investments could also reduce Russia’s dependence on China.
A joint Sino-Indo peacekeeping proposal might either convince Zelensky to withdraw from Donbass or finally get Trump to coerce him into doing so – such as through credible threats to cut off arms, intelligence, and/or Starlink – in order to move the peace talks along to other issues like denazification. It’s therefore not a silver bullet solution, but a means of making progress on the overall process by resolving one of the key issues, after which compromises on others might be easier to reach.
Time is of the essence since Trump might lose the power to offer partial sanctions relief to Russia as part of the earlier speculative quid pro quo with Putin through the “Spirit of Anchorage” if the Republicans lose control of at least one chamber of Congress after early November’s midterms. Xi and Modi can always give Putin, Trump, and Zelensky a call to discuss the dispatch of their peacekeepers, so if there’s interest from either of them in going through with this, then they should convey it to them right away.
