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Push for RIC revival: Why Moscow thinks the time is right to revive the Russia-India-China troika

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that “the time has come” to bring back the RIC mechanism, citing signs of de-escalation in India-China border tensions.

May 30, 2025 / 18:26 IST
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a concert before an informal dinner on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia October 22, 2024.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a concert before an informal dinner on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia October 22, 2024.

For the first time in nearly five years, Russia is pushing to revive the long-dormant Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral format – a strategic dialogue once envisioned as a counterbalance to Western power.

Speaking at a security conference in Perm on May 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that “the time has come” to bring back the RIC mechanism, citing signs of de-escalation in India-China border tensions.

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“I would like to confirm our genuine interest in the earliest resumption of the work within the format of the troika — Russia, India, China — which was established many years ago on the initiative of (ex-Russian prime minister) Yevgeny Primakov, and which has organised meetings more than 20 times at the ministerial level since then, not only at the level of foreign policy chiefs, but also the heads of other economic, trade and financial agencies of the three countries," Lavrov was quoted as saying by TASS.

The move is more than symbolic – it signals Moscow’s intent to reposition itself at the heart of Eurasian diplomacy amid growing geopolitical fragmentation, deepening ties with China, and India's strategic hedging between the West and East. But why now, and what does Russia hope to gain?