The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that deliveries of Russian oil to India are steadily high, with no payment issues encountered, the state-owned news agency TASS reported.
“Russian oil supplies to India are maintained at a steadily high level and no problems arise with determining means of payment for oil exported by Russia,” Maria Zakharova, the official spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a briefing on Wednesday (Local Time).
The priority in payments “is given to national currencies,” she highlighted. “This makes it possible not to depend on the so-called ‘rules of the game’ imposed by the Westerners when making banking transactions,” TASS quoted Zakharova as saying.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in February this year reaffirmed India’s stance on buying Russian oil despite sanctions on Moscow amid military conflict with Ukraine. He said that India and Russia have always shared “stable and friendly ties” and Moscow has never hurt the interests of New Delhi.
In an interview with the German economic daily, Handelsblatt during his visit to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, Jaishankar said that Europe should understand that India cannot have a view of Russia that is identical to the European one.
On being asked about India purchasing Russian oil, Jaishankar said, “Everyone conducts a relationship based on their past experiences. If I look at the history of India post-independence, Russia has never hurt our interests.”
He said that India and Europe have talked about their stance and have not emphasised their differences. He said that Europe shifted a large part of its energy procurement to Middle East after the war erupted between Russia and Ukraine, which was until then the main supplier of energy for India and other nations.
“What should we have done? In many cases, our Middle East suppliers gave priority to Europe because Europe paid higher prices. Either we would have had no energy because everything would have gone to them. Or we would have ended up paying a lot more because you were paying more. And in a certain way, we stabilised the energy market that way,” he added. (ANI)