Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at latter’s request, Jul 29, 2022 No sooner than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned to Moscow after the SCO ministerial in Tashkent, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pending request for a conversation was scheduled late Friday evening. This has …
Continue reading “Shouldn’t Biden be talking directly to Putin?”
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov rounded off a tour of African states in a blaze of media publicity despite US hopes to “isolate” him The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press availability at the State Department on Wednesday made the dramatic announcement that he intends to speak to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov …
Continue reading “Lavrov is on Blinken’s list of people to call”
Russia’s massive Vostok 2018 manoeuvres, held four years ago was first of its kind after 1981 during Soviet era (File photo) The announcement by Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday on Vostok-22 strategic command post exercises during August 30-September 5 gives a big message to the West in political and military terms. The announcement said, “In addition to …
A 1894 image of Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers by Maurice Leloir, the French illustrator, watercolourist and writer As the conflict in Ukraine slouches toward Odessa, the war gets elevated to the sphere of a romantic adventure. If Alexander Dumas was alive, the idea might have struck him to write a sequel to his Three Musketeers, …
Combines work on a wheat field near the village of Talniki in Siberia (File photo). For the first time since the days of the tsars, Russia has emerged in recent years as the world’s largest wheat exporter The agreements signed in Istanbul on Friday regarding the export of grain out of Ukraine and Russia catch …
Continue reading “Ukraine grain deal is a feel-good event. But road to peace is long and winding”
Gazprom’s Nord Stream gas pipeline, Lubmin, Germany. The unthinkable is happening for the second time in five months: Russian gas giant Gazprom writes to German gas companies announcing force majeure effective from June 14, exonerating it from any compensation for shortfalls since then. The first time shock and awe appeared in German-Russian relations this year …
Presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan (clockwise from left) took part in the 6th Caspian Summit, Ashgabat, June 29, 2022 If the metaphor of the “Great Game” can be applied to the Ukrainian crisis, with the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at it core, it has begun causing reverberations across …
Continue reading “Ukraine’s ‘Great Game’ surfaces in Transcaucasia”
When the US National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan first spoke about a potential Iran-Russian drone deal, Moscow kept quiet and Tehran issued a pro forma rebuttal, which, taken together, suggested that it is a work in progress. Sullivan’s disclosure appeared at the fag-end of a White House briefing for President Biden’s forthcoming West Asia tour …
Continue reading “Russia-Iran relations take a quantum leap”
A goods yard in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave that has become increasingly isolated since the start of Ukraine war Finance ministers are the pangolins in the world of international diplomacy, solitary animals and predatory, unlike foreign ministers who are like glowworms, mesmerising and gorgeous animals that create light through their tail. While the US Secretary of …
US forms a West Asian Quad with Israel, India and UAE, which held its first summit meeting in virtual setting on July 14, 2022 coinciding with President Biden’s first regional tour of West Asia. India’s involvement with US President Joe Biden’s quixotic venture called “I2-U2 Summit” is bizarre, to put it mildly. India’s excellent relations …
