Bloomberg reported last week that Saudi Arabia hosted another round of talks on Ukraine after last summer’s Jeddah talks in mid-December, though this time they were kept secret from the media. They were a dud just like the prior ones since India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye continued pressing Ukraine and its G7 allies to recommence peace talks with Russia. Those three and the other Global South states that attended, which were less than last summer according to the report, also refused to sanction Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed that meeting as a PR stunt while Sputnik reminded everyone that her boss Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was actually the first to reveal the existence of these supposedly secret talks during an interview in late December. What follows are the exact words that he said at the time, which will then be analyzed in order for the audience to appreciate their actual importance in this context:
“Considering our good relations [with Global South countries, ed.], I can say that another meeting like this took place 10 days ago – the G7 plus the leading developing nations. Not all countries from the world majority attended. Some turned down their invitations. The meeting took place in complete secrecy. Nothing was reported about it; there were no leaks…Our close allies and associates who attended that meeting did not promise to keep an issue that concerns Russia secret from us.”
While Bloomberg didn’t report on the full guest list from mid-December’s supposedly secret talks, they nevertheless explicitly noted the aforementioned three Global South states’ participation while also stating that Brazil, China, and the UAE eschewed participation in that latest round unlike the prior one. It can therefore be surmised that India, Saudi Arabia, and/or Turkiye were the one(s) that informed Russia about the details of that event.
The case can compellingly be made that India certainly shared this information with Russia considering those two’s decades-long special and strategic partnership that’s evolved in recent years to take on global dimensions. This isn’t hyperbole like some skeptics might instantly imagine but is predicated upon what Lavrov himself said about their ties during his press conference with Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the last week of the year during the latter’s trip to Moscow:
“We are sincerely grateful to our Indian colleagues for their striving to adopt a responsible approach to discussing and resolving regional and global problems in line with the principles of equitable and fair international cooperation. This approach is typical of India’s position on the developments in Ukraine and around it.”
Here are three pieces about last summer’s talks with respect to India’s position that Lavrov just praised:
* “There’s Nothing Wrong With India Attending The Western-Centric Ukrainian Peace Talks In Jeddah”
* “The Jeddah Talks Backfired On Zelensky”
* “India Showcased Its Neutrality At Last Weekend’s Western-Centric Peace Talks On Ukraine”
The hyperbolic fearmongering from a top Alt-Media influencer, who accused India of being a “Trojan Horse” for participating in those talks in a tweet that was seen by over 128k people, was proven wrong after that country proudly held firm on its position of principled neutrality towards this conflict. Those talks backfired by serving as a platform for India to promote its position to a wider audience of Global South and Western states alike, thus further legitimizing it after 18 months of Western media lies.
With this insight in mind as well as Lavrov’s revelation from late last month, it can therefore be confidently concluded that India certainly shared the details of that event with Russia, and that country would have been more forthcoming about everything than any other participant if others did so too. This previously unknown diplomatic engagement showcases just how much they trust one another in spite of the false claims to the contrary from the Western media and top Alt-Media influencers alike.