Russia supports the efforts of the Myanmar junta to “stabilize” the country and hold elections

Russia supports the efforts of the Myanmar junta to “stabilize” the crisis-hit country and hold elections next year, its foreign minister said Wednesday in talks with senior generals, according to Russian state media.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since last year’s coup, with rights groups accusing the junta of committing war crimes as it struggles to crush resistance to its rule.

Internationally isolated and with Western governments imposing sanctions, the military government has sought to deepen ties with key ally and arms supplier Russia – whose invasion of Ukraine it called “justified”.

“We stand in solidarity with the effort [by the junta] aimed at stabilizing the situation in the country,” Sergey Lavrov said during talks in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, according to the TASS news agency.

“Next year you will hold parliamentary elections and we wish you every success,” Lavrov added, referring to the planned August 2023 elections, which opponents of the coup said would be neither free nor fair.

On Monday, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who traveled to Moscow last month, said elections could only take place if the conflict-torn country was “stable and peaceful”.

The coup has sparked renewed fighting with established ethnic rebel groups in border areas, while dozens of civilian “People’s Defense Forces” militias have also sprung up to fight the military.

Russia – along with ally China – has been accused by human rights groups and a UN expert of arming the military with weapons used to attack civilians.

Lavrov and junta head Min Aung Hlaing also discussed opening new consulates “to encourage an increase in travel between their two countries,” TASS said.

The junta has not yet commented on Lavrov’s visit.

Lavrov is due to travel on to a meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia, from which the junta’s top diplomat was expelled.

The bloc joined a chorus of international outrage last week after the junta announced it had executed four prisoners, including a former lawmaker and a democracy activist, in the country’s first use of the death penalty in decades.

ASEAN is increasingly frustrated by Myanmar’s lack of progress on a five-point peace plan agreed last year.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen – the current ASEAN leader – warned Myanmar of more executions on Wednesday.

He said the regional bloc was “disappointed and concerned” by last month’s executions and that continuing to use the death penalty would mean a “reconsideration” of the five-point peace plan.

Isolated on the international stage, the junta has increasingly turned to allies like China and Russia.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was in Moscow on a “private” visit in July and reportedly met with officials from Moscow’s Roscosmos space agency and nuclear agencies.

In Naypyidaw, Lavrov said Roscosmos would work with the junta to build “new infrastructure” in Myanmar.

The army has justified its seizure of power with allegations of massive fraud in the 2020 election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) crushed a military-backed party.

Last year it canceled poll results and said it had uncovered more than 11 million cases of voter fraud.

International observers said the vote was largely free and fair.

According to a local observer, more than 2,100 people were killed in a military crackdown on dissidents.