Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s upcoming visit to Moscow later this month prompted speculation among some that those two countries are driven by shared opposition vis-à-vis some third parties, in particular America and/or India. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, however, put the kibosh on that by telling a reporter who asked about this that his country doesn’t engage in bloc politics nor does it have any such mindset. This policy affirmation is consistent with Prime Minister Khan’s prior statements to that effect, including the one that he made earlier this week during an exclusive interview with CGTN where he said that his country actually wants to bring the US and China together again.

The author extensively explained the mutually beneficial reasons why Russian-Pakistani relations have intensified over the past few years in his recent piece “Interpreting Putin’s Diplomacy With The Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani Leaders”. To summarize for those readers who only have a casual interest in this topic, those two countries are driven by shared security threats stemming from Afghanistan as well as their joint desire to strengthen connectivity, energy, and trade ties. Just like India ensures that none of its partnerships with third countries such as those in the Quad endanger Russia’s interests, so too does Russia do the same with its own like with China and Pakistan vis-à-vis India.

Nevertheless, there will certainly be those abroad who’ll maliciously misportray Russian-Pakistani relations as supposedly being driven by shared opposition to America and/or India but that’s certainly not the case. Although Pakistan’s ties with the US are presently very complicated due to America’s unfriendly attitude as of late towards that South Asian state, Islamabad has no interest whatsoever in working against Washington. Both it and Moscow are simply diversifying their partnerships in order to optimize their complementary balancing acts that are increasingly defined by their shared geo-economic interests in the Eurasian Heartland.

It’s important to remember this since those earlier mentioned forces will do their utmost to propagate weaponized narratives falsely presenting the growing Russian-Pakistani partnership as being against America and/or India. It isn’t, nor will it ever be, since neither country has any such intentions as was just explained. Those who claim otherwise are trying to stir up trouble and antagonize their targeted audience, which will most likely be Indians. After all, they already tried doing just that during Ruptly-funded redfish’s (stylized with a lower-case r) Kashmir video scandal like the authored exposed in his previously cited piece interpreting President Putin’s personal diplomacy with various leaders.

American “perception managers” in particular hope to proverbially kill two birds with one stone by doing so. They aim to drive a wedge between Russia and India while also presenting Pakistan as a liability to US interests in the eyes of their American audience in order to justify the Biden Administration’s continued neglect of its historical partnership with that country. While there’s no much that one can do to change Americans’ minds, it’s crucial to ensure that Indians maintain the proper perception of Russian-Pakistani relations in order to prevent them from being misled into thinking that the Kremlin is backstabbing its special and privileged strategic partners in New Delhi.

That was precisely the weaponized information warfare narrative that the three influential American accounts that the author called out in his earlier cited piece had attempted to propagate to that audience. The anonymous “Prop Or Not” McCarthyite rabblerouser, the RAND Corporation’s Derek J. Grossman, and Heritage Foundation’s Jeff M. Smith are not to be trusted in their assessments of this subject under any circumstances considering the evidence that the author unearthed exposing their deliberately deceptive efforts to mislead Indians into thinking that Russia inexplicably turned against their civilization-state.

Having clarified all of this, observers should be optimistic about the outcome of Prime Minister Khan’s upcoming trip to Moscow. It’s always a welcome sign when former rivals enter into a rapid rapprochement and turn the page on their turbulent past like Russia and Pakistan have finally done. These mature and responsible moves ensure stability in Eurasia, especially in its geostrategically significant Heartland region. Expanded connectivity, energy, and trade ties as well as diplomatic coordination on Afghanistan and regular anti-terrorist exercises are mutually beneficial and don’t threaten the interests of any third partners, least of all America and especially India.