India could face severe blowback if it gets closer to Moscow, says US

India could face severe blowback if it gets closer to Moscow, says US
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are seen before their meeting in New Delhi, India, April 1, 2022. @DrSJaishankar/Twitter/Handout via REUTERS

While the war has been going on in Ukraine, India has been lining itself up to potentially be a large recipient of some cheap Russian oil. But the US has said that if India goes ahead with growing a relationship with Moscow, it would be bad news.

According to Biden’s top economic advisor, India could be looking down the barrel of “significant and long-term” consequences if it keeps chasing a more explicit alignment with Russia.

Key comments:

“There are certainly areas where we have been disappointed by both China and India’s decisions, in the context of the invasion,” the director of the White House National Economic Council, Brian Deese, told reporters on Wednesday.

“What Daleep did make clear to his counterparts during this visit was that we don’t believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities,” press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week, referring to Daleep Singh, the Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, who has been one of the main architects of the sanctions against Russia in the war.

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