Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed doubts about India's role in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), implying that what was initially described as an economic partnership is gradually becoming a military nature.
Addressing the Eurasian security forum in Perm, Lavrov reaffirmed that India had initially entered the grouping of the United States, Japan, and Australia with the explicit aim of creating contacts in trade and peaceful cooperation.
We also talked to our Indian friends at that time and they explained that their interest in joining the Quad is solely of economic nature trade and cooperation in other peaceful realms," Lavrov said, according to different media.
However, Lavrov pointed out that QUAD member states have been conducting coordinated naval and military exercises, though technically outside the formal QUAD structure. He alleged that such actions hint at a growing effort to militarize the alliance.
“They try to involve all the four countries into these exercises. And I’m sure that our Indian friends, they can see this provocation clearly,” Lavrov warned.
In the midst of these developments, the Russian foreign minister made a fresh push to re-activate the sleeping Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral arrangement. Reaching back into history and citing earlier diplomatic interactions, Lavrov emphasized that the moment had arrived to give the platform a new lease on life.
"I would like to endorse our sincere interest in the earliest possible return to the work in the format of the troika — Russia, India, China — that was created many years ago on the initiative of [ex-Prime Minister] Yevgeny Primakov," Lavrov stated, Russian news agency TASS reported.
He had pointed out that the RIC mechanism had conducted more than 20 ministerial-level meetings in the past, with not only foreign ministers but also heads of different economic and financial departments. But ever since the clashes along the border between Indian and Chinese troops in June 2020, the platform has practically gone on the backburner.
While Moscow hinted at a trilateral revival in the 2024 BRICS Summit in Kazan, Lavrov's recent statement is the clearest endorsement so far. The timing is not only Russia's desire to revive a sleeping diplomatic channel but also a strategic recalibration of priorities with increasingly aligned global realignments.
Lavrov has before now blamed Western countries for using regional tensions to push a wedge between China and India. In a diplomatic forum, he upbraided what he termed as a deliberate Western policy of stoking discord between the two giants of Asia.
"Pay attention to what is going on currently in the Asia-Pacific region, which the West has begun referring to as the Indo-Pacific region in order to provide its policy with a distinct anti-China direction — hoping thereby to further engage our great friends and neighbours India and China," Lavrov said.
His remarks reflect Moscow's increasing discomfort with Western-led efforts in Asia and its bid to reclaim stature by way of classic alliances like RIC — particularly as its own relations with the West continue to be tense.
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