Russia

COVID-19: Russia-ASEAN strategic partnership in action

On June 17, foreign ministers of ASEAN member states and Russia held a special meeting via video conference to discuss current tasks on countering unprecedented challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and its adverse impact on the political and economic landscape of the Asia-Pacific region and the whole world.

They unanimously adopted a substantial eight-page joint statement pointing out clearly how we as strategic partners define our common approaches to the complexity of problems we face now and what practical measures we are going to undertake.

As the ministers of ASEAN member states and Russia agreed, COVID-19 demonstrated that security, economic development, health and well-being of all nations in the region are closely interconnected. And this is probably the most valuable lesson we have to learn, because the main questions now are what we want to see in the region after the pandemic and what we have to do now to make a better world all around.