As Lavrov plans India visit, Putin aide ruffles feathers by repeating Trump claim on mediation
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to visit Delhi this month, even as a controversy brewed over Russia repeating U.S. President Donald Trump's claim, that India has denied, that Washington mediated the India-Pakistan ceasefire last month.
This is the first visit to India by a Foreign Minister from one of the UN Security Council's permanent member nations since Operation Sindoor. Diplomatic sources suggested that Mr. Lavrov could travel as early as next week, to discuss strategic and economic ties with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
Significantly, Mr. Lavrov will be arriving in India after a meeting with Pakistan's Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Syed Tariq Fatemi in Moscow on Tuesday, and before a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July if both leaders travel to the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil.
Also Read | India to get remaining S-400 missile systems by 2026, says Russia
India denies mediation claim
On Thursday, however, a comment by Mr. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov raised eyebrows. While speaking about Mr. Trump's conversation with Mr. Putin on Ukraine, he mentioned that other issues were also discussed, including the Middle East, 'as well as the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, which has been halted with the personal involvement of President Trump.'
When asked, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that it had 'clarified [India's] position fair and square' about the four-day conflict after India launched strikes on Pakistan's terror infrastructure in Operation Sindoor on May 7. 'The cessation of hostilities (May 10) happened bilaterally and was done by the two DGMOs [Directors General of Military Operations],' the MEA spokesperson said on Thursday.
Despite the consistent denials, Mr. Trump and U.S. government officials have said more than a dozen times, including in a sworn submission in a U.S. court, that the U.S. had 'mediated' between the two sides, using trade as 'leverage' to ensure an end to hostilities. It is unclear whether Mr. Ushakov simply repeated Mr. Trump's claims during the conversation with Mr. Putin ad verbatim, or whether Russia had any other source of information on the subject, but officials are expected to clarify India's position again during Mr. Lavrov's visit.
Also Read | Russia reiterates commitment to uncompromising fight with India against terrorism
'Game changer in economic ties'
Apart from discussing the details of Operation Sindoor, where the success of Indian military hardware — including those supplied by Russia, such as the S-400 air defence systems — was seen, Mr. Lavrov is expected to call for speeding up Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks between India and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the sources said.
The EAEU, which includes Russia and the former Soviet states of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, is a common market and customs union that has been in talks with India since 2015. In January 2025, the government said that 'India is finalising the terms of reference' for the FTA. Talks have been bolstered by the seven-fold rise in India-Russia bilateral trade from 2021 to nearly US $70 billion in 2024, primarily due to Indian purchases of Russian oil, despite western sanctions.
Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin told journalists that the EAEU-India FTA is the 'need of the hour', a 'turning point', and a 'game changer' in economic ties.
'The acceleration of the FTA talks was one of the most important topics on the agenda when PM Modi and President Putin met in Moscow in 2024,' Mr. Babushkin said, adding that India and Russia had since made progress on issues like payment mechanisms, insurance, and banking facilities.
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