After Rahul Gandhi’s Dig, Centre Explains Cancelling Russia Summit

Rahul Gandhi had tweeted, “Damaging our traditional relationships is short-sighted and dangerous for our future.”

The central government on Wednesday, 23 December, said that the annual India-Russia summit was cancelled due to the COVID crisis, informing against the “false and misleading” reports that reasoned the cancellation otherwise.

The India-Russia Annual Summit did not take place in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic. This was a mutually agreed decision between the two governments. Any imputation otherwise is false and misleading. Spreading false stories in important relationships is particularly irresponsible.

Anurag Srivastava, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson

This explanation came after Rahul Gandhi tweeted a media report captioned “Russia is a very important friend of India. Damaging our traditional relationships is short-sighted and dangerous for our future.”

Earlier, Roman Babushkin, the Deputy Chief of the Russian mission was quoted by PTI as saying: "We are facing some attempts by some countries to create containment and alienation in the Indo-Pacific region, which could threaten and jeopardise basic principles for regional cooperation, for example the ASEAN centrality and the ASEAN unity... Quad would be detrimental to the inclusive dialogue in the region."

The Quad is an alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia that is aimed at ensuring a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific and is often seen as a counter to growing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, NDTV reported.

Some reports have alleged that the India-Russia summit has been called off due to Moscow's comments on India’s “detrimental” contributions in ensuring peace and inclusivity within the Quad.

(With inputs from NDTV.)