New Delhi: Roughly two days after calling Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a “womaniser”, the country’s ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, posted a clarification on social media platform X Sunday, expressing his admiration for Lavrov and apologising for the ‘scandalous’ tone of his comments. The clarification came in the wake of sharp criticism of Alipov’s casual remarks on Lavrov.
“I’m sorry that my words had a scandalous tang to some. The only thing I meant is that Minister Lavrov is popular among women as a gentleman. And he’s much admired by men too for his intellect, charisma and wit.”
During a press conference Friday, hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia (FCC South Asia), a woman journalist noted that it would have been “nice” if the “popular” Russian president had come down.
“We are all great fans of Russia. President Putin is very popular with Russian women. If he had come to India it would have been very nice for us, and we would have really enjoyed,” she said.
In response, Alipov made a tongue-in-cheek remark, saying, “Thank you for your remarks on Russian men. Lavrov is married by the way, so he is coming…but he is a womaniser.”
He also discussed numerous issues with regards to Russia-India ties, including the coming G20 Summit. Speaking about India’s G20 Presidency, Ambassador Alipov observed, “Unfortunately, the Indian Presidency in G20 has experienced very strong pressure from some countries who, in Russia’s opinion, hijacked the G20’s agenda making the Ukrainian crisis as one of the top issues.”
He added, “G20 should focus on economic issues and finance but since last year, it was decided by some members of the group to discuss political issues within the G20, something that we do not accept,” suggesting political issues should be removed from the agenda in order to achieve a joint statement in next week’s meet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be skipping the New Delhi-hosted G20 Leaders Summit later this week and will be represented by Lavrov. Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since the 2019 one in Osaka, Japan. Most recently, the Russian president attended the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg via video call.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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