When Imran Khan Went to Russia

One can't help but feel a wee bit sorry for Imran Khan. The Pakistani PM - the first to visit Moscow in more than two decades - lands in Russia, and within hours, his host gets busy with a bigger job. To be fair to Vladimir Putin, he did not keep Khan waiting even with a packed not-earlier-on-the-schedule schedule. Rawalpindi's finest bowler also understood that something big was underfoot since, upon arrival in Moscow, he reportedly commented, 'What a time I have come...so much excitement!' Which sits a bit odd with his pre-visit 'concern' about the situation in Ukraine. If it wasn't for his much-famed anti-Americanism, the former Oxford Blue could well have said, 'Gee whiz!' upon arrival.

Today's Pakistani papers and TV news will certainly have capsules on Khan's Russia visit. Knowing the Russian media, they, too, will showcase the decency of a president towards a visiting prime minister. But with the timing being such and the news liable to shift to something else that Moscow is going to be busy with for a while now, it is unlikely that the world will comment or analyse the significance of Khan's laying the wreath at the 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier' hours after the Kremlin, whose soldiers once fought the mujahideen in the Zia-ul-Haq era in a country bordering Pakistan and Russia, invaded Ukraine.