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Letter to editor: Scholar responds
An Australian researcher has responded to the Russian ambassador’s letter over the former's views about reports of a Russian request to base its aircraft in Papua, in the context of bilateral cooperation, published in an op-ed on April 17.
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Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel rappel from an Air Force H-225 M Caracal helicopter during the Super Garuda Shield 2024 joint military exercise, held on Sept. 6, 2024, which included Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in Situbondo, East Java. (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
I
was surprised to see Sergei Tolchenov, Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia, react so defensively to my piece explaining why Australia and the region would be concerned about the stationing of long-range Russian bombers in Papua (Letter to the editor: Russian ambassador responds, April 19, 2025). But even more surprising was that his response contained multiple errors of fact and interpretation.
Predictably Tolchenov takes aim at the AUKUS partnership, which he categorizes as a threat, claiming it undermines regional agreements on nuclear weapons free zones.
This is wrong on two counts. First, the aim of AUKUS is to deter hostile authoritarian powers from acts of adventurism. It therefore promotes strategic stability and a peaceful rules-based international order.
Second, AUKUS poses no challenge to regional agreements about nuclear weapons, for the simple reason that Australia, unlike Russia, not only does not possess them, but has the strongest bipartisan political and public commitment to never acquire them.
Tolchenov’s comments about AUKUS are particularly surprising given Russia’s own actions, its long-standing intent to sell nuclear reactors to Myanmar, Indonesia and others, its bellicose threats to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its strategic partnership with nuclear aspirant Iran and its about-face on cooperation with North Korea, which Moscow previously sanctioned nine times between 2006 and 2017 over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
By actively conniving with North Korea to support its brutal war of choice in Ukraine, Moscow has completely undermined any credibility it might claim to pronounce upon others’ policies.
Bizarrely, Tolchenov links the issue to sovereignty and human rights, asserting that the rights of one person end where another’s begin. His own government is hardly a beacon of virtue on this score, as Ukrainian citizens in Bucha might have been able to attest, if they had not been massacred by Russian troops following the unprovoked and illegal invasion of February 2022.
