Posts from multiple users on the social media platform X on Sunday claimed that Russia had officially signed the joint statement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in favour of Pakistan over India. However, no such development occurred.
The SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping comprising members such as China, Russia, Pakistan, India, and Iran. Their defence ministers’ meeting was held on June 26 as a precursor to the annual summit of their leaders set for the autumn.
The defence ministers attending the SCO meeting failed to reach a consensus on a joint statement due to India’s refusal because of what it said was “a lack of consensus on referring to ‘terrorism’”.
Russia and India are close allies with significant military and defence interests, while the former’s relationship with Pakistan has seen significant growth in recent years.
On Sunday, digital news outlet The Daily CPEC shared a post on X that read: “Breaking: Russia has officially signed the joint SCO statement, supporting Pakistan’s position over India.”
It was viewed by 915,000 users.
Former Indian soldier and journalist Pravin Sawhney also quoted the post with the following caption: “This is a sure signal of where regional geopolitics is moving. Pakistan’s profile is on the rise!” racking up 563,000 views.
The claim was extensively shared by multiple users on X, here, here, and here, gaining 297,000, 159,000, and 80,000 views, respectively.
Other shares of the viral claim could be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in Pakistan’s regional position following the conflict with India earlier in May.
A keyword search for “Russia” and “SCO summit” yielded no relevant news stories from credible international media outlets or Chinese state news outlets that corroborated the alleged development.
As per the claims, Russia had officially signed the joint statement; however, checking Russian media outlets, including TASS, Russia Today, and Sputnik, yielded no announcement, press release or report to this effect.
All reported news coverage around the June 26 defence ministers’ meeting, such as by British outlet BBC and international wire news agency Reuters, was solely on India’s refusal to sign a joint statement at the summit over concerns the document was biased towards Pakistan for not mentioning April’s terror attack on Indian tourists, which subsequently led to the lack of any joint statement being issued.
Since then, there has been no other SCO-related development where member states have signed any statement.
Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim that Russia officially signed the SCO summit statement in favour of Pakistan is false. No statement was issued after the June 26 SCO defence ministers’ meeting and no such development has occurred or been reported by credible media outlets or state news outlets.
This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.
