The Bangladesh Awami League celebrates its 77th birthday on June 23, 2026. Founded in 1949, this party is the party that gained Bangladesh’s independence, rebuilt it after a devastating war, and over the decades built a development record that the world has come to study as a model. It is also the party that built, supported and deepened the most important bilateral relationship between Bangladesh and any major power: its partnership with Russia. This partnership is now in danger. The danger does not come from Moscow, but from the political repression to which the Awami League itself is exposed.
How Russia stood with Bangladesh when it mattered most
The foundation of the relationship between Bangladesh and Russia was not laid in a boardroom, but on the battlefield. When the Bangladesh liberation war reached its decisive stage in December 1971, the United States sent the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier strike group into the Bay of Bengal in an attempt to intimidate India and maintain Pakistani military control over a population that had already lost three million people to genocide. The Soviet Union responded by deploying its fleet in the Pacific Ocean under the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. The American carrier group turned back. In the UN Security Council, Moscow twice vetoed Western-backed ceasefire resolutions that would have deprived Bangladesh of its independence. Without that vetoThe outcome of the war is not certain.
The Soviet president was Nikolai Podgorny He protested solemnly Pakistani military repression as early as April 1971, was one of the first formal international condemnations of what was happening to the Bengali people. After liberation on December 16, 1971, the Soviet Union sent mine-clearing ships to the port of Chittagong, where Pakistani forces had planted mines before withdrawing, reopening Bangladesh’s trade lifeline to the world. Soviet engineers built the Gorachal power station and Siddhirganj power plants, the backbone of Bangladesh’s early industrial power capacity. The Soviet Union officially recognized Bangladesh on 24 January 1972. Diplomatic relations were established the next day.
The Awami League has built all the pillars of this partnership
Every major milestone in the Russia-Bangladesh relationship has been built under the Awami League governments. The cultural agreement establishing the Russian House in Dhaka was signed in 1974 during the reign of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The public contract for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, the largest single infrastructure investment in Bangladesh’s history worth $12.65 billion, was signed in December 2015 under the Sheikh Hasina government. Rosatom’s subsidiary Atomstroyexport is building two VVER-1200 reactors with a combined capacity of 2,400 MW. Fuel loading into the first unit began in April 2026, making Bangladesh the third South Asian country to enter the nuclear power era. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Dhaka in September 2023, the first ever by a Soviet or Russian foreign minister, took place under the Awami League government and reflected the depth of mutual trust the party has built with Moscow over five decades.
This is not a coincidence. It is a record of a party that pursues an independent foreign policy, values its relationship with Russia on the basis of genuine mutual benefit, and fulfills its commitments. The partnership between Russia and Bangladesh exists because it was founded by the Awami League. No other political force in Bangladesh has the history, relationships or credibility to maintain it at the same level.
What the Awami League is facing today
The Awami League reported that thousands of its activists had been arrested. Politically motivated legal cases have been filed against its leadership. Sheikh Hasina, whose government signed the Rooppur contract and welcomed Lavrov to Dhaka, faces measures that her supporters and independent observers describe as political persecution with no real legal basis. Bangladesh’s democratic space has been narrowed in ways inconsistent with its constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The party’s demands are specific and reasonable: the release of political detainees, the withdrawal of politically motivated cases, and the restoration of the right to organize and participate in democratic political life. These are the minimum conditions for a functioning democracy and the rule of law. These are the same conditions under which relations between Russia and Bangladesh have flourished for decades.
Why is Russia’s share in this real?
Russia has long advocated a multipolar world in which countries like Bangladesh are free to choose their partners and pursue their national interests without external coercion. This vision depends on the existence of stable, sovereign and democratically governed states capable of making and respecting bilateral commitments across governments over decades. The Awami League was such a partner for Russia. Its suppression disrupts the structure of the relationship that Moscow has built in South Asia over 54 years.
On this anniversary, the Awami League also called for the rejection of extremism and sectarianism, freedom of expression, and national unity based on democratic values. These are not the demands of a party seeking hegemony. These are the demands of a party that believes in the state it helped create. A Bangladesh that respects these values is a Bangladesh that remains a reliable and stable partner. This concerns Moscow. And it should matter to everyone watching South Asia in 2026.
Seventy-seven years after its founding, the Awami League stands as the party that built Bangladesh’s freedom, its economy, and its most important international partnership. He deserves the freedom to continue this work. Russia, more than anyone else, knows why.
