Russia’s G20 Sherpa Is The Latest Kremlin Official To Praise India’s Newfound Global Role

After all the lavish praise that Russia has officially bestowed upon India in less than two months’ time, there shouldn’t be any doubt about the sincerity of the Kremlin’s assessment that its partner finally succeeded in its grand strategic goal of becoming a globally significant Great Power. Folks can go back and forth over whether this is actually the case and what impact it could have on world affairs if true, but nobody should deny that this is the paradigm through which Russia is now formulating its policies.  

Russia’s G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash continued her country’s recent spree of praising India’s newfound global role in an interview with Manish Chand, who’s the CEO-Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network and India & The World magazine as well as the Director of the Centre for Global Insights India. Lukash isn’t just responsible for organizing Russia’s participation at the G20 like all of her fellow Sherpas are, but is actually among the most influential policymaking figures in her country.

According to her biography on the Roscongress Foundation website, which is a socially oriented non-financial development institution established by President Putin’s decree in 2007, she also serves as the Deputy Chief of the Presidential Experts' Directorate. The official Kremlin website describes Lukash’s office as being responsible for “prepare[ing] expert evaluations, analytical reports and other expert and analytical materials required by the President and the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office.”

In other words, she’s directly tasked by the Russian leader himself with advancing his policies and providing relevant feedback for recalibrating them as required by circumstances. Her professional role is important to consider when analyzing the praise that she just bestowed upon India in her interview with Chand where she declared that his country is “the major voice of the Global South”. This is no small accolade either since it shows that Russia regards India as leading what’s literally most of humanity.

I concluded a month ago after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the G20 that this was precisely the role that India envisaged itself playing during its chairmanship of that organization over the coming year. External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar then confirmed the veracity of my assessment at the beginning of December when declaring that “It is time when we must become the voice of the Global South.”

That coincided with Prime Minister Modi’s article detailing his country’s goals during its G20 chairmanship, which I elaborated upon here in explaining that it does indeed intend to lead the Global South with a view towards forming a third pole of influence in the global systemic transition. Intrepid readers can learn more about how India became a globally significant Great Power throughout the course of this year’s chaotic events in my detailed response to an influential Indian intellectual here.

It's beyond the scope of the present piece to rehash the insight shared in the preceding hyperlinked one, but it’s enough for the reader to learn that India’s grand strategy is to facilitate the global systemic transition’s evolution from bi-multipolarity to tripolarity prior to its final form of multiplexity. This goal aligns with Russia’s own grand strategic one as evidenced by the spree of praise that other Kremlin officials like President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier lavished on India.

The Russian leader praised his Indian counterpart in late October as “one of those leaders in the world who is able to pursue independent foreign policy”, shortly after which he then praised the Indian people for their talent and drive in comprehensively developing their country. His observation at the time was soon thereafter vindicated following the OECD’s latest report last month revealing that India grew at twice the pace of China over the past year.

Foreign Minister Lavrov then built upon his boss’ praise by sharing his own on two occasions thus far this month alone. This first instance was when he expressed his appreciation of India refusing to join the US’ alliances against Russia and China. A few days later, he then declared that “India is one of the countries that not only aspires to be, but is at the essence of the forming of a multipolar world as one of its most important poles.”

Putting all this praise in sequence, President Putin’s words about Prime Minister Modi’s policymaking independence and his positive observations about the Indian people laid the groundwork for his top diplomat praising that country’s strategic autonomy in the New Cold War. From there, Foreign Minister Lavrov concluded that this policy made India the center of the emerging Multipolar World Order, after which Lukash naturally realized that it had also thus become the voice of the Global South too.

Conceptually speaking, India’s pragmatic policy of principled neutrality towards the Ukrainian Conflict enabled its diplomats to successfully accelerate their country’s rise as the globally significant Great Power that they’ve always envisaged it becoming. Russia quite clearly concluded that it’s already achieved this premier status as evidenced by the spree of praise from its officials showing that they presently regard India as playing precisely this role in the global systemic transition to multiplexity.

Lukash’s words are the latest example of this, but they carry disproportionate significance considering that they came after the news that Prime Minister Modi won’t be traveling to Moscow this year to attend the annual Russia-India Summit like was previously planned. I explained at length here why that actually isn’t a big deal unlike what the US-led West’s Mainstream Media imagined, and Lukash’s praise of India as “the major voice of the Global South” confirms my view that Moscow wasn’t upset by this.  

Had there been any problem between these two decades-long special and strategic partners like some in the Golden Billion wishfully fantasized, then Lukash wouldn’t have said what she did seeing as how she literally represents President Putin in her professional capacity. She could have declined to share such a significant geostrategic assessment but instead decided to do so during that specific media appearance since the Kremlin truly doesn’t regard that development as a big deal exactly as I explained.

After all the lavish praise that Russia has officially bestowed upon India in less than two months’ time, there shouldn’t be any doubt about the sincerity of the Kremlin’s assessment that its partner finally succeeded in its grand strategic goal of becoming a globally significant Great Power. Folks can go back and forth over whether this is actually the case and what impact it could have on world affairs if true, but nobody should deny that this is the paradigm through which Russia is now formulating its policies.