Russia is courting India in an attempt to circumvent Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine. India is a friend that does not have a “one-sided view” of the war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today during a visit to New Delhi. “We are friends,” Lavrov said after meeting his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. The New Delhi government assesses the situation in Ukraine as “entirely based on facts”.
Lavrov wants more rubles and rupees trade
Lavrov also announced that trade would increasingly be conducted in national currencies. The Russian central bank has created a correspondent system for the transmission of financial information, the Indian central bank has a similar system. “It is absolutely clear that more and more transactions are being processed through this system and in national currencies, ignoring dollars, euros and other currencies.”
Russia is India’s main arms supplier, and the two countries also want to use a rupee-ruble mechanism in trading oil, military equipment and other goods. “We are ready to supply whatever India wants to buy,” Lavrov said. “We have no doubt that we can find a way around the artificial obstacles created by the West’s illegal unilateral sanctions.”
India wants to buy Russian oil
At the same time, India announced that it would continue to buy oil from Russia. “I would put my country’s national interests first and I would put energy security first,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told CNBC-TV18. “Why shouldn’t I buy it? I need it for my people.” Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India has bought millions of barrels of crude oil at a bargain price in Russia.
US and UK officials yesterday urged India not to undermine Western sanctions against Russia. India and China are the only two major countries that have not condemned the war, which Russia itself describes as a “special military operation”.