Well over fifteen days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the VIF strategic discussions group convened on 15 March 2022 to review the ongoing developments and to deliberate on the future trajectories of the evolving geopolitical situation. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director VIF and was attended by Amb. P.S Raghavan, Lt. Gen. Rakesh Sharma, Lt. Gen. Ravi K. Sawhney, Gen. N.C. Vij and Brig. Vinod Anand.

The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) organized a briefing for experts at the Vivekananda International Foundation on the recent developments in Russia-West Relations and the escalating situation in and around Ukraine. The welcoming remarks were delivered by Mr. Andrey Kortunov, Director General, RIAC. Russian experts, Dr. Yulia Nikitina, Ms. Ekaterina Chimiris and Mr. Sergey Utkin, presented a Russian vision of the current situation in Ukraine and spoke about the foreseeable scenarios and forecasts for the region at large. The discussion was moderated by Ms.

The theme of the conference was ‘Global Strategy and Foreign Policy Priorities in India-Russia Relations’, wherein various positives and road blocks in bilateral and multilateral were discussed. The discussion also focused on US, China, South Asia and Pakistan, besides the multi-lateral organisations, like the UN, SCO and BRICS.

The VIF invited Capt Maxim Shepovalenko (Retd), Russian Navy, for an interaction on India-Russia relations with emphasis on maritime cooperation. Lt Gen Ravi Sawhney, Dean, Centre for Defence Studies, headed the VIF panel which comprised of Amb D P Srivastava, Brig Vinod Anand and Cmde Gopal Suri, among others. Understandably, defence-industrial cooperation between India and Russia, which has experienced some drag in the recent years, topped the agenda for discussion.