China and India condemned the Bucha killings in Ukraine but avoided blaming Russia

• China and India this week denounced the Bucha killings as "disturbing."
• But this doesn't signal a shift in their stance on the Ukraine war. Neither explicitly blamed Russia.

The governments of China and India in recent days both denounced the killings in Bucha, Ukraine, as very disturbing and called for an independent inquiry — but avoided explicitly condemning Russia over the massacre.

Though Russia has been widely accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine, including by independent watchdogs and a number of world leaders, China urged against assigning blame over the killings.

"The truth and the cause of the incident must be verified," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, per the Associated Press. "All parties should exercise restraint and avoid unfounded accusations before a conclusion of the investigation is drawn."

This came as Russia denied involvement in the killings, and spread conspiracy theories that images of dead civilians in Bucha were fabricated. Chinese state media has echoed this baseless narrative, leading to a rebuke from the White House.

"If you're repeating the propaganda of the Russian government and President Putin, you're on the wrong side of history," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

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Meanwhile, TS Tirumurti, India's permanent representative to the UN, on Tuesday told a meeting of the UN Security Council, "Recent reports of civilian killings in Bucha are deeply disturbing."

"We unequivocally condemn these killings and support the call for an independent investigation," Tirumurti added, without mentioning Russia once.

China and India have close ties with Russia, and both have refused to explicitly condemn Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Beijing and New Delhi regard Russia as an important trading partner, and often side with Moscow on geopolitical issues.

China is also one of the main reasons India wishes to maintain amicable relations with Moscow. An ongoing border dispute in the Himalayas between India and China has heated up in recent years, and New Delhi sees upholding ties with Moscow as crucial to helping it manage this issue. Roughly 85% of India's military equipment comes from Russia or is of Soviet origin, according to the Stimson Center think tank based in Washington, DC.

Denouncing the Bucha killings while refusing to assign blame to Russia signifies that neither country is willing to substantially change their positions on the war, even as they face increasing pressure from the US and EU to do so.

"Given that India has used the word 'condemned' in its statement even if without naming Russia, this is a shift from the previous stand," Happymon Jacob, a professor of international studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Reuters. "But this is too small a shift to be considered a significant change in the Indian policy towards Russia."

In moves that were indicative of their stances on the conflict and despite mounting evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces, China on Thursday voted against a UN resolution to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council and India abstained. The US-led resolution ultimately passed, marking a rare and historic diplomatic rebuke of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and a founding member of the UN.

China and India also abstained in early March as the UN overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution condemning Russia's invasion, after Moscow vetoed a similar resolution in the UNSC.

China and India are the two most populous countries in the world, with well over a billion people in each, and their politics can have a major sway over the direction of issues concerning the globe. But as things stand, neither is willing to take substantive steps against Russia as the war rages on in Ukraine.