Russia-India: The partnership that broke US Hegemony? | WION Game Plan | Live Discussion
In the past week, the visit to Moscow of Indian Prime Minister Indira Modi, his first trip abroad since winning reelection and his first trip to Russia in five years, aroused the close interest and then the consternation of official Washington.
Modi’s presence in Moscow, his warm embrace with President Vladimir Putin, which was captured on video by major international broadcasters and disseminated globally, were a defiant response to American efforts at isolating Russia diplomatically as well as economically since the onset of the Ukraine war. Moreover, the agreements reached during the talks between the leaders on Russia’s participation in the Indian program to build further nuclear power generating stations ensure close economic ties between the countries for decades to come in a new vector.
My ten-minute interview with India’s premier English language global television company WION can be seen here:
Russia-India: The partnership that broke US Hegemony? | WION Game Plan | Live Discussion
The past week was also notable for another international event in Russia which has received scant attention in the West, though it also demonstrates convincingly that Moscow remains a major center of global politics in spite of America’s wishes. I have in mind the Parliamentary Forum of BRICS member states, whose 10th iteration was held in St Petersburg over the course of two days. Vladimir Putin delivered the keynote speech and Russia’s top legislators, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house, the State Duma, took active part in receiving and meeting with the visiting national delegations.
An invitation late last night by Iran’s Press TV to comment on their country’s participation in the Parliamentary Forum prompted me to organize my thoughts on this major event to share with a global audience. As Press TV told me, Iran’s Parliament speaker had just returned home after wrapping up his visit to Russia. I quote:
“At the airport, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said his trip was successful and cited the opportunities BRICS can provide for Iran through its independent payment system which allows its members to trade freely. The speaker said he followed upon the implementation of the agreements already reached with BRICS. He added that besides commerce, he discussed other issues such as terrorism, regional conflicts and ways to battle U-S unilateralism with his counterparts. Qalibaf during his visit to Russia held bilateral meetings with Russian officials including the country’s president.”
We discussed these issues in an interview that lasted approximately 10 minutes and for which I hope to receive the internet link later today. We talked about BRICS and de-dollarization, among other topics. I was given the opportunity to share some observations on the symbolic nature of the venue for this year’s Forum, the ‘Tauride Palace’ in central Petersburg.
There are two salient points to make about the venue. Firstly, it is the cradle of Russian parliamentarism. The Tauride Palace housed Russia’s very first State Duma, created following the Revolution of 1905. That Duma put constitutional limits on the autocratic rule of the Russian emperor Nicholas II. Moreover, the building has great symbolism for the apple of contention between Russia and the West today, the Crimea. The palace was built in the 1780s for Prince Potemkin, dit ‘Tavrichesky,’ who took possession of the Crimea on behalf of Empress Catherine the Great by vanquishing the Crimean Tatars and their Ottoman Turk overlords. The very name “Tauride” is borrowed from the Greek word for the Crimean peninsula as we know from Herodotus.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024