Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar has underlined the need for New Delhi to keep its relationship with Russia “going”, noting that the differences between Moscow and the Western countries over Ukraine shouldn't affect India-Russia ties in any way whatsoever.
“We should not worry about what they are doing with other countries. We should keep our own relationship with Russia going… We should see how the interest of the Indian people is best served,” Jaishankar said at an interaction with local residents in north-west Delhi.
Jaishankar highlighted that the decisions made by authorities on the foreign policy front, including the decision to source crude, affects the common man on a daily basis.
“The price of petrol you pay every day is decided on whether we do a good foreign policy or not. If we had not done a good foreign policy, the price of petrol would have been very much high. Your cooking oil price would have been very much high,” Jaishankar explained.
Russia has emerged as India’s top crude supplier, with energy exports from Moscow having met 35 percent of New Delhi’s overall requirements.
Global data analytics firm Kpler reported this week that Russian crude exports to India jumped to 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in June, marking an all-time high. India’s crude imports from Russia have been increasing for ten straight months now.
In 2022-23, Russian crude exports to India surpassed 32 million tonnes, as per official data.
Before last February, a majority of Russian energy exports went to the European Union (EU). According to the European Commission, the EU bought 15.189 million tonnes (Mt) of Russian crude oil and refined products last February.
As part of its sweeping sanctions against Moscow, the EU imposed a ban on Russian seaborne crude and refined products last December. Russian oil exports through the pipeline connecting it to central Europe have been exempted from the EU ban.
Russia Turning Towards Asia, Moving Away from West
Jaishankar stated that trade between Russia and India hit an all-time high of $40 billion in the last financial year. He said that the annual trade turnover between India and Russia averaged just around $12-13 billion before last year.
“Till last year, Russia’s main economic partner were the western countries. After the Ukraine conflict, that way has been closed for them. Russia is turning more and more towards Asia, Africa, etc,” the foreign minister stated.
Jaishankar noted that besides India, Moscow’s economic ties with Beijing have also grown significantly since last year.
Bilateral trade between Russia and China was at an all-time high of $190 billion last year, according to Beijing.
The two nations have vowed to expand the bilateral trade levels to $200 billion this year.