New Delhi: Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov spoke about the “Ukraine crisis”, the Russian foreign ministry said.
The two ministers also discussed on Wednesday (September 25) their preparations for the BRICS summit scheduled to take place in Russia next month as well as the “situation in the Asia-Pacific … in in the context of the Western countries’ attempts to export elements of NATO structures to the region”, the state-owned TASS news agency quoted the Russian foreign ministry as saying.
The latter was an apparent reference to the Quad grouping of countries – comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia – that was revived amid China’s growing influence.
They also “confirmed their readiness to coordinate their stances in key multilateral frameworks”, the foreign ministry was quoted as saying.
Jaishankar and Lavrov’s conversation on Ukraine took place two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in what was their second meeting in a month’s time.
According to Zelenskyy and his office, the two heads of state discussed “enhancing [their] interaction on international platforms”, “implementing the peace formula” and enhancing trade and defence cooperation.
Some days earlier, Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. He told Putin Modi wanted him “specially and personally” visit Russia and brief Putin about Modi’s visit to Kyiv last month.
Modi had then said that “without wasting time, both sides should sit down towards this direction and find a way out of this crisis [the Ukraine war]”.
India has not publicly criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022.
Modi and Putin are expected to meet at the BRICS summit in Russia’s Kazan next month. The meeting will be the second this year, after Modi’s visit to Moscow in July, his his first bilateral foreign trip in his third term.
