(Bloomberg) -- Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto, who last year unsuccessfully pushed a peace proposal that would have left Russia occupying parts of Ukraine, pledged to deepen ties at talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“We consider Russia as a real friend,” Prabowo, a former general who is currently defense minister, said Wednesday in televised remarks. “I would like to continue to maintain and enhance” the close relationship between the two countries, he said.
The visit is the latest sign of Putin’s success in countering the isolation that the US and its allies have sought to impose in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Moscow earlier this month to meet with Putin, who has courted so-called Global South nations as a counterweight to the US-led world order.
Prabowo also met with Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. The visit is intended to “strengthen bilateral relations between Indonesia and Russia and enhance cooperation, especially in the defense sector,” the defense ministry in Jakarta said.
Both Putin and Prabowo noted historically close ties since the Soviet Union built up relations with the Southeast Asian country early in the Cold War, though Indonesia later tilted to the US. “Indonesia and Russia have had friendly relations for decades,” said Putin.
Prabowo’s first visit to the Kremlin as president-elect comes on a trip to Europe in which he met French President Emmanuel Macron, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. All of those meetings were aimed at boosting defense links, the ministry said.
Earlier this year, Prabowo also traveled to China to meet President Xi Jinping in his first visit since winning February’s Indonesian election. He went on to visit Japan — a key US ally — in a sign that Prabowo intends to continue his predecessor’s middle-of-the-road strategy in navigating the US-China rivalry.
His visit to the Kremlin comes after Prabowo last month criticized Russia’s absence from a peace summit backed by Ukraine.
“Many countries feel that in a peace summit all elements must be present, especially Russia,” Prabowo said after discussing his country’s cease-fire proposals at the summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The former soldier officially succeeds Joko Widodo as president of Indonesia in October.
--With assistance from Henry Meyer.
(Updates with Prabowo-Putin meeting throughout)
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