Sergey Lavrov Says The West Is Using AUKUS And Quad Against Russia

The remarks were made during a discussion at Raisina Dialogue, India’s premier conference on geopolitics organized jointly by the external affairs ministry and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that Russia wants to be friends with India and China, and that Moscow’s energy policy will be geared towards “reliable” partners like New Delhi and Beijing in the wake of Western sanctions.

Lavrov made the remarks during a discussion at Raisina Dialogue, India’s premier geopolitics conference organized by the External Affairs Ministry and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Lavrov argued Moscow was simply trying to stop a war started by NATO and the West in a combative session, arguing Moscow is only trying to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lavrov replied to a question from the audience about the cost of deepening ties with China on India: “We never make friends against anybody. We have excellent relations with China and excellent relations with India.”

As a result of Russian facilitation of Indian participation in mechanisms such as the Russia-India-China (RIC) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), India and China can find common solutions and cooperate. In his words, “We will continue with this policy. We will never play any country against any other.”

Since May 2020, when the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) began, Russia has repeatedly attempted to bridge differences between India and China. While the contacts did not lead to any immediate breakthrough, Russia facilitated meetings between the foreign and defence ministers of India and China in Moscow on the margins of SCO meetings in September 2020.

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Since the West imposed sanctions and a price cap on Russian oil, India and China have become the largest buyers of discounted Russian oil, Lavrov said.

It influenced Russia’s policy, including its energy policy. The blunt way to describe what changed is that we would no longer have any partners in the West,” he said.

He added, “Russia’s energy policy will be orientated towards reliable [and] credible partners, among them India and China.”

Additionally, Lavrov accused the US and the West of using mechanisms such as Quad and AUKUS to drive a wedge between Russia and other countries.

Some outside players are also trying this in the context of so-called Indo-Pacific strategies, in the context of AUKUS, in the context of militarizing Quad, not for economic reasons, he said.

“Asean plus Quad, promoted by our American friends, is openly aimed at ruining the East Asia Summit. In other words, it would be the East Asia Summit minus China and Russia. These are questions you need to answer openly,” he said.

Similar accusations have been made by Lavrov about the Indo-Pacific policy and Quad in the past, only to be dismissed by the Indian government. Hours before he participated in the Raisina Dialogue, Quad foreign ministers told another session at the same venue that the grouping did not include security.

As part of his argument, Lavrov attempted to portray Russia as the side that had been wronged by NATO’s expansion of its security alliance in the Ukraine conflict. As he said, we are trying to stop the war that NATO and the West launched against us.

[US president Joe] Biden, [US secretary of state Antony] Blinken, and [European Union chief of foreign and security policy Josep] Borrell have repeatedly emphasized the need to defeat Russia on the battlefield. According to him, it is existential for the West…if it is existential for them, then it is existential for us as well.

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