New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS) Senior members of Nepal’s former cabinet, including deposed Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, have reiterated the involvement of “foreign hands” behind the Gen Z protests that led to the ouster of the government in September 2025.

Speaking to Russia’s state-run global television news network, RT, Oli said, “That (the uprising) was not a simple and usual thing. That was unusual, and it couldn’t have taken place all of a sudden. It was organised in a planned way; it was evident even at that time and later on.”

On Tuesday, the RT website carried another quote from an interview with Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, Nepal’s former foreign minister, who backed Oli’s assertion. “Those elements who were actively engaged with the deep state, who used the cross-border misinformation and disinformation to instigate the violence, they were active,” Gyawali told RT India.

He further claimed that Kathmandu’s growing engagement with India and China and its aspiration of being a bridge for the economic development of Nepal between the two neighboring countries was not a very good message to some powers.

In Monday’s interview, Oli claimed that Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had warned that protests like those in their countries could happen in Nepal as well. “Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were telling us… Leaders were talking that such things would happen, and things happened. It was an attack on our democracy, to send them back to poverty,” he told RT.

He added that the current situation in Nepal is not conducive to holding elections. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed Nepal’s interim prime minister after Oli’s ouster last year. A general election is scheduled for March.

Gyawali also said that the powers “wanted to use Nepal’s geostrategic location for their policy in their favour. So maybe our engagement with our neighboring countries may have some grievances to the big powers as well”.

RT also quoted its earlier report about a US-based news outlet, The Grayzone, having cited leaked documents “revealing that the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars tutoring Nepalese young people to stage the protests”.

The NED, it claimed, is officially a US State Department-funded nonprofit that provides grants to support “democratic initiatives” worldwide. On its website, NED describes itself as “a valuable resource for information related to democracy worldwide. Staff experts are available for comment on democratic development and related topics in Africa, Asia, Central Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East”.

According to the RT, the Grayzone investigations had revealed Nepal’s Gen Z protests happened as the US sought to neutralise Chinese and Indian influence over Kathmandu.

Russia’s television network further added that “International Republican Institute (IRI), a NED division, has been accused of funding clandestine activities in Bangladesh”. It went on to allege that NED has also “been accused of funneling tens of millions of dollars to Ukrainian political entities and anti-Russian interests”.

RT India was launched on December 5 last year, commemorating the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit, a tradition dating back to 2000, when President Vladimir Putin visited India.

–IANS

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