Harm to India-Russia Relations Due to Moscow’s Ties to Beijing Is ‘Wishful Thinking’: Russian Envoy

The three-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia was a reiteration of the deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine.

New Delhi: Russia’s envoy to India Denis Alipov on Thursday described any speculation that India’s relations with Russia would be damaged due to Moscow’s close ties with Beijing as “wishful thinking”.

The three-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia was a reiteration of the deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine.

In his tweet, Alipov claimed that he was responding to the analysis in a section of the media on the outcome of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia.

“Profusion of analysis these days of the outcomes of Xi Jinping’s Russia visit. The impression as though various reputable Indian experts almost dream of Russia-China ties harming Russia-India strategic alignment. A wishful thinking case in point! (sic)” Alipov said in a tweet.

There is no direct reference to India in the joint statement, except for a mention of the Russia-India-China trilateral forum.

However, the Sino-Russian joint statement talked about politicisation of multilateral fora and the geo-political ‘blocs’, which is an implicit criticism about the G-20 summit statements and the ‘Quad’ group of countries.