Pope Francis (R) met Patriarch Kirill (R) at Havana airport in Havana in February 2016 in the first meeting of a Catholic pope and head of Russian Orthodox Church, on a mission to try to overcome the rift in Christianity dating back to Great Schism of 1054. The Ukraine conflict has dimensions ranging from geopolitics to …
Whither India-Russia ties?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) at press conference with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar (R), Delhi, April 6, 2021 On Monday, the prominent Moscow daily Kommersant commented that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to New Delhi on April 5-6 “is not going to be easy because relations between the two countries are …
Putin creates conditions for ending bloodshed in Caucasus
The trilateral Armenia-Azerbaijan-Russia statement of November 10 on Nagorno-Karabakh is a major development in regional and international security. A daring attempt is afoot to tamp down an ethnic conflict with political overtones by redrawing territorial boundaries. The agreement bears the imprimatur of President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s separate statement attests to it. Broadly, under the deal, Azerbaijan will hold …
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Russia has mixed feelings about Biden
Vladimir Putin (R), then Russian prime minister, met with US Vice President Joe Biden (L) in Moscow, March 10, 2011. The conspicuous reticence on Moscow’s part to congratulate Joe Biden on his spectacular victory in the US elections was bound to get noticed internationally. That prompted Moscow to explain its stance. The Kremlin explanation is …
The Sino-Russian Alliance Comes of Age — Part 3
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) signed the statements on the “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era” and on “strengthening contemporary global strategic stability”, Moscow, June 5, 2019 The first part of the three-part essay is here. The second part is here. Discourse of shared legacies The …
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Belarus, Navalny cast shadows on Russia’s ties with EU
Belarusian opposition protestors marching toward the presidential palace, Minsk, September 6, 2020 The Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu disclosed on September 6 on the state television that there has been a thirty percent increase in aerial surveillance on the country’s borders by NATO jets in August as compared to last year. Unlike in the past when surveillance …
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Putin had a dream to reset the world order
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, Jerusalem, January 23, 2020, to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz Moscow has a way of signalling to the White House on critical issues from time to time through public statements calibrated to catch President Trump’s attention. It happens usually …
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Stars and stripes rise over Vistula River
US President Donald Trump (R) & Polish President Andrzej Duda (L) at a press conference, White House, Washington, June 24, 2020 The visit by Polish President Andrzej Duda to the White House on June 24 marks an important milestone in the United States’ transatlantic strategies. It comes at a time when a growing number of …
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Why the OPEC+ deal is a many-splendoured thing
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech proposing a summit in September of the “founder countries of the United Nations, the five states that hold special responsibility to save civilisation,” Jerusalem, Israel, January 23, 2020 A perfect deal is where all protagonists get something out of it. All oil-producing countries stand to gain if oil …
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Covid-19: Modi, Putin to coordinate efforts
Russian President Vladimir Putin donning a bright yellow full-body hazmat suit and respirator as he visited a hospital on Moscow outskirts that is treating coronavirus patients, March 24, 2020 Soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation on Wednesday on the government’s coronavirus response and measures to be adopted to deal with the …
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