As Lavrov plans India visit, Putin aide ruffles feathers by repeating Trump claim on mediation

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Delhi amid controversy over U.S. mediation in India-Pakistan ceasefire, discussing strategic ties.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to visit Delhi this month, even as a controversy brewed over Russia repeating U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim, that India has denied, that Washington mediated the India-Pakistan ceasefire last month.

This is the first visit to India by a Foreign Minister from one of the UN Security Council’s permanent member nations since Operation Sindoor. Diplomatic sources suggested that Mr. Lavrov could travel as early as next week, to discuss strategic and economic ties with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

Significantly, Mr. Lavrov will be arriving in India after a meeting with Pakistan’s Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Syed Tariq Fatemi in Moscow on Tuesday, and before a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July if both leaders travel to the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil.

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On Thursday, however, a comment by Mr. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov raised eyebrows. While speaking about Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Putin on Ukraine, he mentioned that other issues were also discussed, including the Middle East, “as well as the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, which has been halted with the personal involvement of President Trump.”

When asked, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that it had “clarified [India’s] position fair and square” about the four-day conflict after India launched strikes on Pakistan’s terror infrastructure in Operation Sindoor on May 7. “The cessation of hostilities (May 10) happened bilaterally and was done by the two DGMOs [Directors General of Military Operations],” the MEA spokesperson said on Thursday.

Despite the consistent denials, Mr. Trump and U.S. government officials have said more than a dozen times, including in a sworn submission in a U.S. court, that the U.S. had “mediated” between the two sides, using trade as “leverage” to ensure an end to hostilities. It is unclear whether Mr. Ushakov simply repeated Mr. Trump’s claims during the conversation with Mr. Putin ad verbatim, or whether Russia had any other source of information on the subject, but officials are expected to clarify India’s position again during Mr. Lavrov’s visit.