“It was decided that it would be wrong for our troops to participate in an exercise in which soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will also be present, even if it is a multilateral exercise,” said a senior official on Saturday.
“The PLA soldiers, after all, crossed all the red lines brutally attacking our soldiers in the premeditated attack in the Galwan Valley on June 15 (20 Indians and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in the skirmish). It cannot be as usual with PLA ”, he added.
However, the Defense Ministry attributed the withdrawal from the exercise to the raging Covid-19 pandemic. “Russia and India are close and privileged strategic partners. However, in view of the pandemic and the consequent difficulties in the exercise, including the logistical arrangements, India has decided not to send the contingent this year for the exercise. We have transmitted this to Russia, ”he said.
Full coverage – LAC deadlock
The decision to withdraw from the counterterrorism exercise and strategic command post “Kavkaz 2020”, to be held in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia from September 15 to 27, was made after meetings attended by the Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Foreign Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, the chief of the defense staff, General Bipin Rawat, and the army chief, General MM Naravane, on Friday.
TOI had reported earlier this week that eyebrows were being raised over sending a tri-Service contingent of around 200 officers and troops for the exercise, in which China would have a significant presence with soldiers and warships.
The official reasoning at the time was that Indian soldiers would exercise not only with Chinese and Pakistani troops, but with around 13,000 military personnel from at least 19 countries, including Shanghai Cooperation Organization (OCS) and Central Asian Republics. India and Pakistan in 2017 became full members of the SCO, which was initially made up of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in 2001.
But with growing concern over India’s participation in the exercise in the context of the military standoff in eastern Ladakh, which will enter its fifth month next week, the “government sanction letter” was withheld until the decision was taken. final decision on Friday.
Rajnath Singh, however, will attend the SCO defense ministers meeting in Russia next week, but it is also “highly unlikely” that he will hold a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe. Jaishankar, in turn, is scheduled to visit Moscow for the SCO foreign ministers meeting on September 10.
“There is no change in the ground situation in eastern Ladakh despite several rounds of diplomatic and military talks,” the official said. Until now, China has remained intransigent in completing the withdrawal of troops in Pangong Tso and Gogra, as well as reducing its military build-up in the strategically located Depsang-Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector.
Instead, the PLA continues to furiously build its military infrastructure along the Royal Line of Control since its troops intruded deep into Indian territory at multiple points in eastern Ladakh in early May.
The infrastructure ranges from the construction of roads, lateral links, bridges and helipads in various sectors near LAC to the laying of fiber optic cables for its troops at the standoff sites in Pangong Tso and Gogra-Hot Springs, while increasing its air bases in Hotan. and Kashgar in Xinjiang, as well as Gargunsa, Lhasa-Gonggar and Shigatse in Tibet, as TOI already reported.
India, of course, has matched the PLA troop buildup and the deployment of tanks, artillery, surface-to-air missile batteries and other heavy weapons in the three sectors of the 3,488 kilometers of LAC stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
“In addition to more than 30,000 troops in eastern Ladakh alone, we have also deployed Akash air defense and BrahMos precision supersonic strike. cruise missile systems, in addition to other systems, in different places throughout LAC, ”said an official.
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