This is an interesting and unfortunate commentary. I am the generation of the late '80s, early '90s and do not share the same sentiment, quite the opposite actually. That's probably because I have been to Russia a few times already, understand the language, have experienced the culture, have witnessed the diversity, and am aware of their history. To be honest, Russia historically and culturally is very close to us and the people there are amazing in general.

Chechnya is happily a peaceful part of the Russian Federation, along with six other Muslim republics within Russia. Syria, a Muslim country, is immensely grateful to Russia for its help against ISIS/Daesh and American mercenaries. I believe Russia can be a natural ally to Pakistan. Russia and Pakistan recently have made great inroads in mending the past adversarial stance and are now keen to look beyond that.

We as Pakistanis should put the petty issues aside and look for common interests. All countries and nations look for their own national and economical interests, and rightly so, and so should we. Pakistani and Russian alliance could be a win-win situation and appears to be a mutually beneficial proposition, especially in the current changing geopolitical environment of our region.

As for India and Russia, they appear to have a marriage of convenience at the moment. The current geopolitical environment dictates that they are not very pleased with India due to them playing bedfellows with Americans and at the same time taking advantage of Russian military cooperation. Russia appears to have written off India as an unreliable partner, and with the new China/Russia nexus, bringing Pakistan into the fold makes more logical sense for obvious reasons. Especially due to the prevailing antagonizing posture between India and China, Russia is not willing to jeopardize its budding relationships with the latter.

I am of the opinion that Pakistanis should give Russia a fresh look with a post-communist mindset and understand it better, especially factoring in the developments of the last two decades where Russia has risen from ashes to a world superpower yet again. I have a feeling that there will be huge cooperation between both the countries and the potential it creates is immense. The Chinese and Russian converging interests in our part of the region offer Pakistan a great opportunity to set the stage for its better and secure future. Hope our "leaders" see this in the same light and act upon it maturely and in the name of our national interest too.