Looking ahead, the political economy of framing matters as much as the diplomacy itself. The Ukraine crisis remains principally a Putin decision, with consequences that ripple through Europe and beyond. For India, the test is to maintain strategic autonomy while continuing to participate in a global order that increasingly codes around values like sovereignty, humanitarian norms, and the rule of law. For the United States and its Western partners, the tightrope is to preserve solidarity on Ukraine and sanctions while avoiding over-determination of a complex trade relationship that one day could become a hinge on which broader security alliances turn. The immediate imperative is calibrated diplomacy: clear attribution of aggression, disciplined policy messaging, and a negotiation posture that keeps India and other pivotal partners engaged without granting any side a pretext to fracture the coalition that underwrites Europe’s security architecture. In the long run, the paramount goal is to uphold a rules-based order in which military aggression is unequivocally condemned, economies remain interoperable yet resilient under sanctions, and allies operate with a shared sense of purpose even when strategic calculations compel them to diverge on specific tactics.