Shailesh Kumar, National Defence
New Delhi, 27 March 2025
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that President Vladimir Putin accepted the invitation of the head the Indian government extended by PM Modi when he last visited Russia. Putin is now “preparing a visit of the head of the russian state to the republic of India”. “Our relations have a strong material base trade and economic cooperation is steadily expanding we are successfully overcoming the attempts of individual ill-wishers to prevent this”, said Lavrov.
Lavrov appreciates PM Modi’s balanced position to solve Ukrainian crisis through dialogue and elimination of root cause of the conflict. Ukraininan inclusion in NATO is one of the biggest Russian concern as it threatens Russian security by and large. It must be recalled that Ukraine had passed a law banning religious organizations with links to Russia. The main target of the law is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOCMP), which was established in 1990 as a self-governing church under the canonical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). When the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was established in 2018 under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, it was hoped that the UOCMP and the OCU would gradually merge. But the war has dramatically reduced the space for dialogue and compromise. Instead, the continued presence of a religious organization formally affiliated with Moscow has angered patriotic Ukrainians and provoked the suspicion of the authorities.
“I would like to remind our Indian friends once again of all the attempts of the West to draw Ukraine into the expansion of NATO to the East, a threat to Russia’s security, as well as the purposeful and consistent policy of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime, which settled there after the unconstitutional banning of the canonical Orthodox Church, this is in violation of the provisions of the first article of the UN Charter and numerous international conventions, it is precisely the elimination of these root causes that would, in our deep conviction, become a solid foundation for long-term peace and a political settlement of the security crisis in the European part of Eurasia”, Russia’s top diplomat, Lavrov, added in a video message posted on the social media of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
Lavrov welcomed and thanked the Russian Council for International Affairs, the Embassy of India for India Russia conference. On March 27, 2025, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), supported by the Embassy of India in Russia, will host the first ever Russia and India: Towards a New Bilateral Agenda International Conference. The event will bring together public officials and experts from Moscow, New Delhi, and other cities and regions of the two countries.
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