In a major decision amid the ongoing military confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh, India has pulled out of the multi-nation exercise in Russia next month because Chinese as well as Pakistani troops are also slated to take part in the combat drills. “It has been decided that it would be incorrect for our troops to take part in an exercise where People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers will also be present, even if it is a multilateral drill,” said a senior defence officer.
“PLA soldiers, after all, crossed all red-lines by brutally attacking our soldiers in the premeditated attack in Galwan Valley on June 15 (20 Indian and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in the skirmish). It cannot be business as usual with the PLA,” he added.
The defence ministry, however, attributed the pullout from the exercise to the raging Covid-19 pandemic. “Russia and India are close and privileged strategic partners. However, in view of pandemic and consequent difficulties in exercise, including arrangements of logistics, India has decided not to send the contingent this year for the exercise. We have conveyed this to Russia,” it said.
The decision to withdraw from the ‘Kavkaz 2020’ counter-terrorism and “strategic command-post exercise”, to be held in Astrakhan region of south Russia from September 15 to 27, was taken after meetings attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat and Army chief General M M Naravane.
The official reasoning at that time was that Indian soldiers would exercise not just with Chinese and Pakistani troops but about 13,000 military personnel from at least 19 countries, including Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members as well Central Asian Republics. India and Pakistan in 2017 became full members of the SCO, which was initially constituted by Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 2001.
But with growing disquiet about India’s participation in the exercise in the backdrop of the military confrontation in eastern Ladakh, which will enter its fifth month next week, the “government sanction letter” was withheld till the final decision was taken. “Russia has now been told of our withdrawal from the exercise. The raging Covid pandemic was also another concern,” said another officer.
