U.S. President Joe Biden said that of the Quad countries, India’s response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression — i.e., Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine — had been “somewhat shaky”.
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“... In response to his aggression, there has been — we presented a united front throughout NATO and in the Pacific,“ Mr. Biden told a group of business leaders in Washington on Tuesday.
“The Quad is — with the possible exception of India being somewhat shaky on some of this... but Japan has been extremely strong, so has Australia, in terms of dealing with Putin’s aggression. We presented a united front throughout NATO and the Pacific,“ he said.
Mr. Biden will travel to Brussels on Wednesday for summit level meetings with allies and partners at NATO, the G7 and the European Council. He will also have bilateral discussions with his Polish counterpart Andrej Duda in Warsaw on Saturday. Poland has seen a large inflow of Ukrainian refugees since the war began.
India is among a small minority of countries that has not called out Moscow for its attack on Ukraine which began on February 24. The Biden administration had said, soon after the invasion began, that it hoped those countries with stronger ties to Moscow than the U.S. would leverage their relationship in a “constructive way”, and New Delhi has repeatedly highlighted the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been on the phone with the leaders of Ukraine and Russia. However, weeks into the attack, pressure has mounted for India to take a stronger stand against Mr. Putin.