Russia Claims Quad Nations Trying To Force India Into Military Alliance: ‘Trying To Involve…’

Last Updated:May 30, 2025, 22:35 IST

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov highlighted that Quad member countries were actively pushing for naval and military exercises outside the official Quad framework.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (File photo: PTI)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has claimed that India’s joined the QUAD alliance, comprising the United States, Japan, and Australia, ostensibly for trade; however, the member nations were reportedly already coordinating naval and other military exercises.

“We spoke to our Indian friends back then and they told us that their interest in joining the Quad is exclusively of trade of economic nature and cooperation in other peaceful areas," he said at a security conference in Eurasia in the city of Perm, as quoted by media reports.

He highlighted that Quad member countries were actively pushing for naval and military exercises outside the official Quad framework.

Lavrov further warned that these actions were part of a broader strategy to militarise the alliance, adding, “they try to involve all the four countries into these exercises. And I’m sure that our Indian friends, they can see this provocation clearly."

He also called for reviving the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral format. He said the “time has come" to restart RIC meetings, adding that, in his view, India and China have reached an understanding on easing border tensions.

“I would like to confirm our genuine interest in the earliest resumption of the work within the format of the troika — Russia, India, China — which was established many years ago on the initiative of (ex-Russian prime minister) Yevgeny Primakov, and which has organised meetings more than 20 times at the ministerial level since then, not only at the level of foreign policy chiefs, but also the heads of other economic, trade and financial agencies of the three countries," Lavrov was quoted as saying by TASS.

The RIC platform, originally launched in the late 1990s, has remained dormant since the deadly Galwan clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in June 2020. While Russia had hinted at trilateral engagement during the BRICS Summit in Kazan in 2024, Lavrov’s latest pitch marks the most explicit call to formally revive the RIC mechanism since Galwan. Lavrov’s renewed pitch signals much more than just a procedural revival — it reflects Moscow’s shifting diplomatic calculus amid changing global alignments.

Earlier, Lavrov had alleged that the West is attempting to create a rift between India and China to foster antagonism between the neighbouring countries.

While speaking at a meeting of a diplomatic club, he had asserted that Western strategies in the Asia-Pacific region are designed to fuel tensions between the two Asian nations.

“Take note of the current developments in the Asia-Pacific region, which the West has started calling the Indo-Pacific region to give its policy a clear anti-China orientation — expecting thereby to additionally clash our great friends and neighbours India and China," Lavrov had said.

Moscow, Russia

News world Russia Claims Quad Nations Trying To Force India Into Military Alliance: ‘Trying To Involve…’