The Russian Ambassador in Dhaka Aleksandr Mantytsky says he hopes Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent meeting with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not affect the Russo-Bangla relations.

“We highly appreciate the balanced policy of your country, of your PM, of your government on this Ukraine issue. I hope that it will continue in future,” Mantytsky said during a discussion organised by the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh, or DCAB, on Thursday.

Bangladesh has not directly condemned or criticised Russia since it instigated the war in Ukraine in February 2022, despite the country’s anti-war stance amid global polarisation.

The Bangladesh government has spoken of maintaining a ‘neutral’ position on several resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly on the Ukraine war.

Two and a half years since the start of the conflict, Hasina went to Germany to attend the Munich Security Conference, which is set to begin Friday.

President Zelensky is among the heads of government she is scheduled to meet for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the conference.

Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told the media on Wednesday that the meeting was being held due to interest from Kyiv. However, the meeting, he added, would have no effect on relations with Russia.

Asked whether it could lead to a cooling of relations with Russia, Mahmud said, “There isn’t even the slightest question about our meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine impacting our relations with Russia.”

As Hasina heads to Munich, the Russian ambassador said he also hoped it would have little impact.

In his words, Zelensky was trying to gain support for his ‘formula for peace’ from many world leaders.

“Of course, during meeting with the PM, as he is doing it frequently, he will try to gain support of his formula from the PM of Bangladesh,” Ambassador Mantytsky said. “This formula is promoted by Western countries.”

“Of course, you should understand that certain countries, they are trying to gain the support for this formula. There will be no peace with this formula, it was told many times by our president, foreign minister.”

He reiterated his hope that FM Mahmud’s statement would hold true.

“We hope that it will not impact [as stated by your FM yesterday].”

Mantytsky said Russia had its own interest and it does not look at Bangladesh through the lens of other countries.

“We are not in track of India, we pursue our own policy and it is written in our doctrine for foreign policy that we will have cooperation with all like-minded countries. You can see difference between approaches of Russia and India,” he said.

“But nevertheless you see we are pursuing here our own policy. We don’t look at Bangladesh through Indian eyes or any other eyes, whether it is Great Britain or America or others.”

The ambassador also affirmed Russia’s support for repatriating the Rohingya refugees, currently sheltered by Bangladesh, to Myanmar.