Jakarta. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Indonesia had been an ASEAN partner that his country could trust, as the Southeast Asian bloc navigates its relations amid the Ukraine war.

Prabowo is now in the Russian port city of Vladivostok. Putin had invited him as a chief guest to the annual Eastern Economic Forum. As they began discussing their bilateral ties over lunch, Putin briefly talked of how Moscow perceives Jakarta’s presence in the regional grouping.

“Indonesia is one of Russia's trusted friends in ASEAN,” Putin told Prabowo via an interpreter.

Prabowo, too, apologized for having skipped the Kazan Summit in June, where Putin hosted his ASEAN counterparts. Only Indonesia and Myanmar sent people below the leader level, with Jakarta represented by its chief diplomat Sugiono. Prabowo said that he had to “focus on domestic affairs at the time”.

“But I’m paying off my ‘debt’ [of not attending the Kazan summit] now by coming to Vladivostok,” Prabowo said, making Putin giggle.

Only the first few minutes of the lunch were live-broadcast.

Indonesia has kept a pro-peace stance on the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

Prabowo’s predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo flew to the world’s breadbaskets to repair the disrupted supply chain about a few months after the full-scale war erupted in Feb. 2022. 

ASEAN has been avoiding directly naming Russia in its statements on its invasion, including in a July 2026 communiqué. The document only saw ASEAN calling for “immediate cessation of the hostilities” in the war in Ukraine.

But Moscow-linked cooperation has made headway in the region in recent months. Some Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia, are pivoting to Russian oil and nuclear power. Singapore is the only ASEAN member to have slapped sanctions on Russia following the war. Its leader Lawrence Wong, however, came to the Kazan gathering, where members agreed to deepen Russian cooperation in commerce and other fronts.

Indonesia’s official statistics showed that bilateral trade neared $3.6 billion in the first seven months of 2026. The figure is expected to grow once its tariff-slashing Eurasian trade deal enters into force. ASEAN reported that its two-way merchandise trade totaled $17.8 billion in 2025.

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