New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- India's proposal for a Russia-Ukraine truce, focusing on a suspension of attacks on infrastructure and ensuring grain and energy supplies from Black Sea ports, was conveyed to the Ukrainian leadership during external affairs minister S Jaishankar's visit to Kyiv last month, people familiar with the matter said. Few details of the proposal have emerged, though Russian and Ukrainian leaders acknowledged India's role in public comments last week. Jaishankar himself has said India has moved beyond its advocacy of the past few years and engaged in conversations with Russia and Ukraine to end the war. The Indian proposal, the people said on condition of anonymity, is being seen as the most comprehensive as it consists of three components - a suspension of all attacks on infrastructure, including energy facilities, by both Russia and Ukraine, the free flow of both energy and grains from ports in the Black Sea, and an end to strikes on commercial shipping in the Black Sea. In contrast, ceasefire proposals from Egypt and Turkiye focus on ensuring the unimpeded supply of grains from the Black Sea by suspending attacks on commercial shipping, while a US proposal is focused on an "energy ceasefire", the people said. The response of Russia and Ukraine to the Indian proposal could not immediately be ascertained. The people acknowledged there had been follow-up exchanges between the three countries but did not go into details. The people said the Indian proposal figured in Jaishankar's separate meetings with Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha and President Volodymyr Zelensky when he visited Kyiv on September 3. Jaishankar's visit, the first stand-alone trip to Ukraine by an Indian foreign minister, came three days after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Kyrgyzstan on August 31. This was the meeting where Modi urged Putin to move from "endless war to the end of war". The Indian side has compelling reasons for making a push to end the war that began in February 2022 with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the people said. Grain and, more crucially, energy supplies from the Russian side have been impacted by the targeting of commercial shipping in the Black Sea in recent weeks, and the Indian proposal is aimed at ensuring the free flow of these commodities, the people said. Five Indian seafarers have also been killed in Russian and Ukrainian attacks on merchant vessels in recent weeks, and the Indian side has repeatedly pushed for an end to such strikes on commercial shipping. Black Sea ports account for almost 30% of Russian energy flows to India, and reports have said there has been a drop in supplies and a spike in freight costs for Russian crude exports, especially from the port of Novorossiysk, because of threats to merchant shipping. The Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act (SRIA), passed recently by the US Congress, is expected to kick in by mid-October, raising the prospect of 100% tariffs on Indian goods for purchasing Russian energy. Any forward movement on a ceasefire would help ease pressure from the US at a time when relations between New Delhi and Washington have been hit by concerns related to the SRIA. Sybiha told reporters in Kyiv on October 2 that Ukraine has received ceasefire proposals from India, Egypt, Turkiye and the US, and described the Indian one as the "most comprehensive". He said Ukraine is ready to consider different ceasefire formats, including along the front lines, but only if the truce covers attacks on energy and port infrastructure and the situation in the Black Sea. "We are ready for an energy and Black Sea truce, but only in this combination," Sybiha said. "This [should be] a complete energy truce, a stop to attacks on all energy facilities, including port infrastructure." Speaking at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow a day earlier, Putin said Modi "has excellent ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable.solutions". He also said Modi maintains a neutral position while being committed to ending the conflict. After his meeting with Sybiha in Kyiv last month, Jaishankar said the attacks on commercial shipping affecting Indian seafarers and the impact of fuel, food and fertiliser shortages on the Global South had figured in their discussions. "Understandably, it is for the parties involved to find a way. But if India can be of any help in any manner, we are ready, and this was the core of my discussion.with foreign minister Sybiha," Jaishankar told a media briefing....