A Janes report claiming Russia sought access to an Indonesian airbase just 1,200 km from Darwin has jolted Australia’s 2025 election campaign. Within hours, the claim triggered political accusations, diplomatic clarification, and a categorical denial from Jakarta. Geoffrey Gold unpacks the timeline, political reactions, and what it reveals about Australia’s security anxieties in a volatile global environment.
ON 15 April 2025, Janes, a globally renowned defence and security publication, published a report by its Singapore-based journalist Ridzwan Rahmat, that Russia had requested permission to base long-range military aircraft, including strategic bombers, at Manuhua Air Force Base in Biak, Papua, Indonesia, approximately 1,200–1,400 km from Darwin, Australia.
Founded in 1898, Janes is widely regarded as the gold standard for open-source defence intelligence. Its reputation for accuracy and privileged access to high-level sources lent significant weight to the claim, despite the report remaining unverified at the time.
"Jakarta has received an official request from Moscow, seeking permission for Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft to be based at a facility in Indonesia's easternmost province. Separate sources from the Indonesian government have confirmed with Janes that the request was received by the office of Minister of Defence Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin following his meeting with Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu in February 2025. In the request, Russia seeks to base several long-range aircraft at the Manuhua Air Force Base, which shares a runway with the Frans Kaisiepo Airport, documents that have been presented to Janes reveal."
The Biak airbase serves as the operational hub for the Indonesian Air Force’s Aviation Squadron 27, which operates a fleet of CN235 surveillance aircraft. In 2017, the base hosted two Russian nuclear-capable bombers during a patrol mission believed to involve intelligence gathering.
Military ties between Jakarta and Moscow have strengthened in recent years. In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Prabowo Subianto, then Indonesia’s Defence Minister and president-elect, to Moscow, where the two discussed defence ties. According to REN TV, a Russian media outlet, “special attention” was given to military cooperation.
In October 2024, ahead of joint naval drills between Russia and Indonesia in the Java Sea, Russia’s ambassador to Jakarta, Sergei Tolchenov, described military cooperation as “integral” to the bilateral relationship in an interview with Russian state-run news agency TASS. “For obvious reasons, I probably will not name any specific topics and projects now,” Tolchenov said. “But we are working quietly in this direction. Business, diplomacy, and especially the military-technical sphere love silence. I am sure that there will be substantive agreements.”
Following Sergei Shoigu's visit in February, when the controversial military request was alleged to have been made, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, is visiting Jakarta with a business mission and met President Prabowo in Jakarta on Tuesday, the president's office said in a statement.
A Rapid-Fire Timeline
The Janes report immediately ignited a media controversy in Australia, amplified by a heated 2025 federal election campaign only a week away from early voting leading to election day on 3 May. This timing heightened the stakes, as both the governing Australian Labor Party and the opposition Liberal-National Coalition had largely focussed on domestic issues, rather than details of the broadening implications of global tensions, the tariff war, and regional security concerns.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, leveraging his experience as Minister for Defence (March 2021 – May 2022) and six-year tenure on the National Security Committee, told ABC-TV:
“This would be a catastrophic failure of diplomatic relations if Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese didn't have forewarning about this before it was made public. This is a very, very troubling development and suggestion that somehow Russia would have some of their assets based in Indonesia only a short distance from the north of our country. We need to make sure that the government explains exactly what has happened here. Did the prime minister know about this before it was publicly announced by the president of Indonesia and what is the government's response to it?”
By mid-morning, the Albanese government responded firmly. At a press conference, Albanese confirmed Australia was still seeking clarification from Indonesia but criticised Dutton’s claim about President Prabowo making the announcement as “extraordinary overreach.” Foreign Minister Penny Wong reinforced this, saying the government was “reaching out to confirm” the reports and accusing Dutton of “fabricating” Prabowo’s statement, calling it “unbelievably reckless.”
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson, also the Coalition’s campaign spokesperson, later issued a statement welcoming Indonesia’s subsequent clarification and defending Dutton’s early remarks, saying they were a response to “media reports in a breaking news story,” which was appropriate given the election’s stakes.
The Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Coleman, and Shadow Minister for Defence, Andrew Hastie, made no public comments, likely due to Indonesia’s swift rebuttal quelling the issue. However, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Julian Leeser’s support for Paterson’s defence of Dutton was cited by party statements.
Indonesia’s Resolute Denial
"Government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity, said the Janes report had perplexed some parts of the Indonesian system, with confusion over just how advanced or serious the Russian bid was," the Australian Financial Review reported.
But, by the afternoon of 16 April, Indonesian Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin had assured his Australian counterpart Richard Marles that the Janes report was “simply not true” and that basing Russian aircraft was a non-starter, although he did not explicitly deny that a request had been made at some earlier stage.
Indonesia’s Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Freda Ferdinand Wenas Inkiriwang stated separately that the “report is incorrect.”
Indonesia’s swift dismissal of the report underscores its steadfast adherence to a non-aligned foreign policy, a principle rooted in its diplomacy since the 1955 Bandung Conference. By maintaining equidistance from major powers such as the United States, China, and Russia, Indonesia avoids entanglements that could compromise its neutrality.
Yohanes Sulaiman, a defence analyst and lecturer at Jenderal Achmad Yani University, highlighted the improbability of Indonesia permitting a Russian military presence, given its commitment to this balanced stance: “Even if Russia is proposing to use an Indonesian airbase, I doubt that the government will allow it. There will be very significant blowback,” he said. “The Indonesian military is very averse to having other countries build military bases in Indonesia.”
Retired Major General TB Hasanuddin, a member of Commission I (Defence, Foreign and Information Affairs) of the Indonesian House of Representatives, stressed that allowing foreign military bases on Indonesian soil would also contravene national law. “Our constitution and various laws and regulations expressly prohibit the existence of foreign military bases,” he declared in a statement.
This episode highlights both the strategic sensitivities of Australia’s northern approaches and Indonesia’s enduring commitment to its non-aligned foreign policy — a stance likely to remain unchanged, regardless of any Russian or Chinese overtures.
Geoffrey Gold is editor of the Indonesia Australia Report and an Industry Chair at the Australia Indonesia Business Council.