UKRAINE-INDIAN WAR
New Delhi, 1 April (EFE).- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov thanked India during a meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar this Friday on the occasion of his official visit to New Delhi.
“We appreciate that India is looking at this situation in its entirety, not just from one side,” the head of Russian diplomacy said in his statement before the start of the meeting.
India has maintained a neutral profile since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has refrained from condemning the aggression in the UN General Assembly.
For some analysts, India’s position is defined by its deep military dependence on Russia, the supplier of 60% to 70% of India’s weapons equipment, in addition to acquiring Russian crude oil today at prices lowered by sanctions.
This neutrality, added to today’s meeting, has drawn skepticism from the United States and other European countries, a concern Lavrov used to criticize “our colleagues in the West” for today “putting every major international issue on the Crisis in Ukraine”. .
Instead, in his speech, the Russian highlighted the “friendship” that historically binds India and Russia and described his “strategic alliance” with New Delhi as his country’s “most important foreign policy priority”.
A merger that has recently led to a “stepping up” of bilateral relations, with the development of numerous projects in the fields of energy, science, technology or the pharmaceutical industry.
For his part, Jaishankar stressed that the meeting would serve to discuss “contemporary issues and concerns” in “a difficult international context beyond the pandemic,” assuring that India has always been in favor of resolving differences and disputes through dialogue and diplomacy.
Alongside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the session will also serve as India and Russia attempt to define an effective payment mechanism to allow the Asian country to import Russian crude at a more competitive price without facing sanctions that will weigh on Russia’s economy.
Lavrov’s visit has put India in the spotlight of the western media, which has questioned this convergence of positions between the two nations against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict.
Just this week, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and White House Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Daleep Singh traveled to India.
During an event where he spoke with Jaishankar, Truss assured his counterpart that “strengthening ties with India is more important than ever” and stressed the need for “like-minded nations to work together”.
Asked about the relationship between Russia and India, US State Department spokesman Ned Price assured in Washington yesterday that his country does not intend to change the relationship between Russia and India, but aims to “allow the international community to have its say comes in unison” to call for an end to the violence in Ukraine.