Foreign minister S Jaishankar will visit Russia on November 8 to meet his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Making the announcement today, Russia said the discussions will revolve around bilateral relations and international developments.
The visit comes at a crucial point in the ongoing Ukraine war, where Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of planning to use radioactive dirty bomb.
Moscow has said it plans to carry out annual exercises of its nuclear forces — shortly after alleging that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s regime has ordered the development of a radioactive dirty bomb, which is in the final stages. It also said that he might have the backing of Ukraine’s Western allies.
On Sunday, the Russian Defence Minister called his counterparts in NATO to discuss the matter. The western nations supporting Ukraine have rubbished the claims and accuse Russia of fear-mongering.
Ukraine has called it a Russian pretext to escalate the war.
Yesterday, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu that nuclear weapons should not be used by any side in the Ukraine war.
The nuclear option “should not be resorted to by any side as the prospect of the usage of nuclear or radiological weapons goes against the basic tenets of humanity,” he told Mr Shoigu, the government said in a statement.
