Moscow slams West for targeting India for Russian oil imports

New Delhi, August 28

India is in the centre of competing narratives by Russia and the US as they both seek to compete over the issue of energy supplies. Close on the heels of a top US official trying to persuade his Indian interlocutors to agree to a price cap on Russian oil, Moscow fielded its Indian envoy to argue that if the West could buy its oil and gas, so could India.

US Deputy Secretary for Treasury Wally Adeyemo Deputy Secretary Adeyemo had said ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was critical to addressing the issue of high energy prices. The main weapon with the West, now that its sanctions have largely failed, is to cap the price of Russian oil between $40 and $60 per barrel. This would provide crude at reasonable prices as well as deny Russia profits to prop up its economy and further the war in Ukraine.

“Our goal is to try and build out a coalition that is going to join us in implementing the price cap (Russian oil),” he said.

Thanks to booming imports of oil and coal from Moscow, India-Russia trade in the first six months this year was $11.1 bn as against $13 bn in 2021.

Double standards

Those in the West who criticise India not just slyly keep silent about the fact that they themselves actively buy Russian energy resources exempting them from their own illegitimate sanctions, but in doing so explicitly demonstrate their unprincipled position and double standards while claiming otherwise. — Denis Alipov, Russian Ambassador to India