“A lot to gain from this” – Delhi residents voice support for Russia over Ukraine crisis
Delhi residents voiced their support for Russia on Thursday (March 31), even after the international community began isolating Moscow for its attack on Ukraine.
“We have a lot to gain from this. When you see that we are now directly buying oil from Russia, we couldn’t do that earlier, and we can now do that and we have a long-standing trade relation, like, we buy our military aircrafts and all from Russia,” said Priyanka Dobhal, a linguist from a multinational company.
Lured by steep discounts following Western sanctions on Russian entities, India has bought at least 13 million barrels of Russian crude oil since the country invaded Ukraine in late February. That compared with some 16 million barrels for the whole of last year, data compiled by Reuters shows.
Russia has also long been India’s biggest supplier of defense equipment, despite growing purchases from the United States in the past decade. Defense analysts say Russian supplies are more cost-competitive and vital for India as it faces a superior Chinese military.
Reuters has reported that India and Russia are trying to work out a rupee-ruble payments mechanism to maintain trade between them.
“I do not think there is any other country in the world other than Russia which India can trust. No matter how Russia is, it has thoroughly supported India on several international platforms,” Indian student Ramesh Kumar said.
Reuters
(Production: Bhushan Kumar, Sunil Kataria)
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