India, June 26 -- New Delhi Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, currently at the centre of a row within the party, is on a private visit to Russia to promote a documentary series based on his book "Inglorious Empire" and has had meetings with key members of the Russian leadership such as foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

Tharoor is in Russia at the invitation of Russia's state-run television network RT, which produced the 10-part series based on his 2017 book, which itself was based on a speech he made at the 2015 Oxford Union debate on the theme "Does Britain owe reparations to its former colonies?".

He arrived in Russia on June 21 and participated in the St Petersburg Economic Forum before travelling to Moscow, where he met Leonid Slutsky, ...