This is a clear cut case of aggressive war, a war of conquest to expand borders, what Nuremberg trials judged as the supreme international crime. Countries claiming they are "neutral" belies their position on more important prior agreements. U.N. Charter article 2(5) applies, and India and China are frankly not doing enough. They are weakening their own sincerity, and the international institutions we need.
If the U.N. system is being unwound, and I think it may be because having nuclear weapons is a more effective deterrent than the U.N. Security Council, the next causality will be the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1994, Poland insisted on joining NATO otherwise they were going to start a nuclear weapons program, because they didn't trust Russia. They weren't alone.
China and India's "neutrality" might be just enough non-coercive force that the war lasts longer, turning Ukraine into rubble. And what will Ukraine and other countries conclude? That the international community isn't at all effective at stopping wars of aggression, and they should probably develop nuclear weapons. In effect, "neutrality" incentivizes long term nuclear proliferation.
I don't see how nuclear proliferation is in the long term security of any country on earth. They are a deterrent up to a point, but I suspect the more nukes there are the greater the chance they're going to be used.
PRC and India are already in rough nuclear neighbourhoods, while they don't want any more regional proliferation, it's not exactly severely against their interests if US/EU are also encumbered with similar regional threats. Like PRC doesn't want NK to have nukes, but if NK must get nukes, then they better not be limited to short range nukes limited to region, including PRC's backyard - they better have ICBMs that can threaten US as well.
The international community isn't good at stopping wars conducted by major powers. It's not designed to be.
The IC isn't good at it when members dilute the agreements they're a party to, like China and India are doing in this case. The Charter clearly proscribes all members, including the major powers, from non-defensive war. That the Charter also puts the power to use force in the hands of the five permanent members of the Security Council does provide a loophole for e.g. Russia, to not hold itself accountable for having illegally started a war.
That's not the case with all agreements though. NATO's charter requires conformance to the UN Charter, but has an automatic defense clause that requires use of force if any member is attacked. Should it be true any member attacks another, the attacking member is (a) automatically outside the bounds of the NATO and UN charters (b) article 5 still applies, the other member states are obligated to militarily defend the member(s) attacked. There's no allowance for the sabotage found in the UN Charter by way of Russia vetoing action against its aggression.
Yesterday the US was waging war across the Middle East for the nearly the same reasons as Russia and they kept for themselves quite the same still...
China already chose a side. They are a party to the Budapest memorandum, they acknowledged Ukraine is a sovereign country, with its 1994 borders. China and India are parties to the UN Charter, and as this is clearly an unprovoked attack, a war of aggression to expand borders, is illegal under article 2(4). China and India are obligated by article 2(5) to do more than they are doing.
>US was waging war across the Middle East for the nearly the same reasons as Russia
Wrong. No major powers are backing Russia, the overwhelming majority of nations have condemned it and insist Russia should cease the attack. Russia insists upon the right to expand its borders, that's how this war got started in 2014, that's been the consistent position at the negotiating table now. They want territorial expansion and subjugation of the Ukrainian people contrary to the same Budapest memorandum they too are a party of.
Iraq had over a dozen UN resolutions against it before the 2003 invasion. 31 countries were party to the multinational force. (I think it's wrong that invasion occurred without UNSC approval. Nevertheless this was not a unilateral invasion.) And most importantly it was not a war of conquest, nor one to expand borders. Very much unlike what Russia is doing.
Surprise, surprise it had to do the payments through German banks, which btw is part of NATO.
It is a bit hypocritical for the west to expect India to act as a client state while NATO states like Germany continue to buy Russian gas.
