India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval is set to join his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi for a virtual meeting of the NSAs of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping on Thursday against the backdrop of the border standoff.

The 10th meeting of the NSAs of the grouping is part of a series of events being hosted by Russia, the current chair of BRICS. This will be the fourth time this month that top Indian and Chinese leaders have been part of multilateral meetings hosted by Russia, following a virtual meeting of BRICS’ foreign ministers, and meetings of the defence and foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Moscow.

People familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that as in the case of the BRICS’ foreign ministers meeting on September 4, there will be no scope for bilateral discussions between the Indian and Chinese NSAs during the meeting.

Also read: Rajnath Singh to make statement on LAC in Rajya Sabha tomorrow

“There will be statements by the NSAs and discussions on the items on the agenda which has already been decided. Besides, the BRICS grouping has no scope for taking up bilateral matters,” one of the people cited above said.

On 17 September, the Russian chairmanship will hold the 10th Meeting of BRICS National Security Advisors.

According to a statement issued by Russia, the BRICS NSAs meeting is expected to discuss “threats and challenges to national security”.

“The meeting’s agenda comprises of challenges and threats to global, regional and national security in today’s world,” the statement said. It added that the event will take place via video conference and Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, will represent Moscow at the meeting.

Though both India and China have made it clear that they don’t want any third party mediation on the months-long border standoff that has taken bilateral ties to an all-time low, Russia has pushed the two sides to resolve their differences through dialogue.

The meetings of the defence and foreign ministers of the SCO in Moscow facilitated meetings on the sidelines between defence minister Rajnath Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe, and external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

The two foreign ministers agreed on a five-point roadmap to address the tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) but there has been little progress on the disengagement and de-escalation efforts on the ground, mainly because of China not pulling back its troops from friction points.

Tensions have been exacerbated by China’s provocative military manoeuvres on the south bank of Pangong Tso since August 29-30 and Indian troops are now preparing to remain deployed at forward positions through the harsh winter.