By Independent News Roundup
Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Albert Khorev said during a roundtable discussion organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad that “We are ready <…> to mediate the conflicts between Pakistan and India, as well as between Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Publicly financed TASS added that “The ambassador also noted that tensions in relations between South Asian countries are often provoked by external states.” These statements are actually much more significant than they appear.
Pakistan and Afghanistan already agreed to international mediation amidst their recent tensions, though the latest Istanbul talks failed to resolve their problems, while Pakistan and India have yet to do so due to Delhi’s position that their dispute is strictly bilateral. India also believes that Pakistan is solely responsible for this and doesn’t agree with blaming vague foreign forces instead, which it considers to be a means of deflecting from Pakistan’s responsibility for terrorism inside of India.
Accordingly, while Khorev’ proposal might have been positively received by Afghanistan even if expectations of a breakthrough in Moscow-mediated talks would be tempered due to Russia having no influence over it or Pakistan, India was likely surprised and upset by this. Mediators are supposed to be neutral, yet Russia supported India’s revocation of Article 370 in 2019 that Pakistan strongly objected to, so some might wonder whether the Kremlin’s position is changing. Here are some background briefings:
* 7 July 2024: “Modi’s Trip To Moscow Is Meant To Assess The Reliability Of Russia’s Geopolitical Balancing Act”
* 10 July 2024: “Modi’s Trip To Moscow Was Much More Important Than Most Observers Realize”
* 18 May 2025: “Russia’s Neutrality During The Latest Indo-Pak Conflict Was Due To New Policymaking Dynamics”
* 4 June 2025: “Russian Policymakers’ Perception Of India Might Be Changing”
* 7 June 2025: “Why’d Russia Lend Credence To Trump’s Claim That He Personally Stopped The Indo-Pak Conflict?”
The preceding hyperlinked analyses document some of the tacit changes in Russian policy towards the region since early 2024, the catalyst of which is the emergence in 2023 of what can be described as the pro-BRI faction within Russia’s policymaking community. It’s not pro-Chinese in the sense of insinuating that it’s more loyal to that country than to Russia, its members just believe that China’s BRI is the vehicle of positive geostrategic change in Eurasia and that its interests should thus be prioritized by Russia.
China’s and India’s interests misalign, however, especially as regards Pakistan. The result of the pro-BRI faction obtaining greater policymaking influence is therefore that Russia started to tacitly support some of China’s regional interests over India’s with Khorev’s proposal being the latest example of this. At the same time, Putin is Russia’s chief decisionmaker and he’s part of the balancing faction that rivals the pro-BRI one, so there are very real limits to how far any policy changes could ever go under his leadership.
On that topic, Putin will soon meet Modi in India, during which time Modi might diplomatically convey to Putin his country’s concerns about the pro-BRI faction’s influence. That could lead to Putin doing what’s needed to restore his balancing faction’s influence over theirs so as to keep Russia in India’s good graces. Ultimately, India will ignore Khorev’s well-intentioned but politically misguided mediation proposal that only meant to strengthen trust with Pakistan, so nothing is therefore expected to come of it.
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