The upcoming ASEAN-Russia summit may test whether ASEAN can keep Myanmar’s military leadership off the high-level regional stage it has so far denied them.

Russia is preparing to host an ASEAN-Russia summit in Kazan from June 17 to 19 to mark 35 years of relations. The Kremlin says invitations to Southeast Asian leaders are being prepared.

Myanmar’s junta-controlled foreign ministry recently confirmed that Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe discussed summit preparations with Russia’s ambassador in Naypyitaw.

Crucially, Myanmar currently serves as ASEAN’s country coordinator for dialogue relations with Russia. While there is no public confirmation yet that coup-maker Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been formally invited, the risk is glaring.

The pressure to reconsider ASEAN’s stance is also coming from inside the bloc. After visiting Naypyidaw on May 19, Malaysia’s foreign minister, Mohamad Hasan, said the Myanmar authorities appeared more open to bringing “all parties” together and called this a “positive development.”

Engagement itself is not wrong. But a softer tone from Naypyidaw is not proof that the killing will stop. Mohamad also called for an end to hostilities and an extended ceasefire; the real test is whether the military acts on those demands rather than merely receiving new diplomatic attention.

ASEAN leaders, however, did one important thing right at the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu in early May. They kept Min Aung Hlaing out. His staged election and new presidential title did not return him to ASEAN’s leaders’ table.

The Chair’s Statement acknowledged “minimal progress” on the Five-Point Consensus, denounced violence against civilians, and welcomed Aung San Suu Kyi’s transfer to a “designated residence.”

But exclusion alone is not a strategy. It is the floor, not the ceiling. After five years of war, “deep concern” is no longer a policy. For Myanmar’s people, ASEAN’s habit of delay is becoming indistinguishable from abandonment.

Delay measured in blood

The military has given ASEAN no reason to reward its claims of peace or even stability. ACLED data cited by the UN Special Rapporteur show military airstrikes on civilian targets rising from nine in 2021 to 1,140 in 2025.

OHCHR said in February that credible sources had verified the killing of more than 7,700 civilians since the coup, including more than 1,650 women and 1,000 children. Its annual update also found that 2025 was the deadliest year for children since the coup, with military airstrikes killing at least 982 civilians that year alone, a 52 percent increase from 2024.

The UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar reports that children were killed or injured in at least 640 airstrikes between the coup and 2025. As recently as May, an air attack killed at least five children at a playground in Chin State. During the military-controlled election period, the UN reported at least 170 civilians killed by airstrikes.

These are not arguments for patience. They are the cost of it: bodies, prison cells, and children afraid to sleep, study, or play.

Nor is this only Myanmar’s internal affair. The UN Special Rapporteur reports that armed conflict, cyber scam operations, drug trafficking, and refugee flows are now affecting neighboring countries’ sovereignty and citizens.

A consensus that buys time

The Five-Point Consensus was meant to stop the violence, deliver aid, and begin inclusive dialogue. Instead, it has become a waiting room where the junta makes gestures, ASEAN issues statements, and civilians continue to die.

The bloc is deeply divided. Thailand favors greater engagement with Naypyidaw. Malaysia is now testing whether the generals will talk. Other members remain wary of restoring legitimacy to a regime born from a coup and a staged election.

This exposes the danger of ASEAN’s consensus rule: it allows the governments most willing to accommodate the military to dictate the speed of the region’s response.

Min Aung Hlaing understands this perfectly. His foreign ministry complained after Cebu about “discriminatory measures” and “equal representation.” This is classic military logic: seize power, jail elected leaders, stage an election, and then demand recognition as the victim of unfair treatment.

His allies are also not waiting for ASEAN. Both China and Russia are already treating the rebranded regime as a new political reality. They are the military’s chief enablers, acting not just as critical suppliers of advanced weapons and spare parts, as identified by the UN Special Rapporteur, but as diplomatic shields for the junta at the United Nations and beyond.

If ASEAN now relaxes its position while Moscow and Beijing continue to give the junta military and diplomatic room to survive, it will not protect ASEAN centrality. It will surrender it.

Pressure before normalization

Before Kazan, ASEAN leaders must make clear that they will not accept Min Aung Hlaing’s participation in leader-level ASEAN engagement unless the military delivers measurable action: an immediate halt to airstrikes and indiscriminate violence; verified access and freedom to Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners; humanitarian delivery without military gatekeepers; and inclusive talks with democratic and ethnic resistance forces.

Any engagement with Naypyidaw should come with time-bound and verifiable commitments, backed by hard consequences for failure. Member states must block the flow of arms, dual-use goods, and jet fuel, and investigate the companies and financial channels that keep the military’s aircraft in the sky.

ASEAN must also formally engage the National Unity Government (NUG), the major anti-junta force and ethnic resistance organizations, and civil society. In many areas outside military control, local authorities linked to the NUG or ethnic groups administer communities and provide basic services. Speaking only to Naypyidaw is not neutral diplomacy. It actively rewards the actor using air power to demand recognition.

ASEAN has already spent five years waiting for the generals to change course. The question now is not whether ASEAN should talk to Myanmar’s military authorities. It is whether those talks will demand an end to violence or simply turn those into another stage for the junta’s pursuit of legitimacy.

Myanmar’s people do not need any more carefully crafted statements of concern or staged photo ops. They need pressure the generals can actually feel — before any more children pay the price for ASEAN’s caution.

Nyein Chan Aye is a Burmese journalist based in Washington, DC, who previously worked for the BBC and Voice of America and writes on Myanmar, the US, China, and regional affairs.