NEW DELHI: In a pointed diplomatic signal amid escalating US pressure, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday, reinforcing India’s strategic ties with Moscow even as Washington presses ahead with tariffs and warnings over New Delhi’s energy trade with Russia.The high-level meeting, part of efforts to finalise President Putin’s year-end visit to India, came just hours after Jaishankar held wide-ranging talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.Discussions focused on boosting bilateral trade and protecting their energy partnership from potential US penalties. At a joint press briefing with Lavrov, Jaishankar publicly questioned the rationale behind recent US tariffs and criticism of India’s oil purchases from Russia.“We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG, that is the European Union. We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022; I think there are some countries to the South,” he said.The US recently imposed a 25% reciprocal tariff on Indian goods, along with an additional 25% duty specifically targeting India’s Russian oil purchases. The move followed US accusations that India is “profiteering” by reselling discounted Russian crude, a charge New Delhi strongly denies.“We have done everything asked of us in the past to stabilise the global energy market, including buying oil from Russia,” Jaishankar said, noting that India also imports significant volumes of oil from the US.“We believe that relations between India and Russia have been among the steadiest of the major relationships in the world after the Second World War,” the EMA added during the joint media briefing.Lavrov said: “We see a special importance in our relations as we see the emergence of a new architecture of international relations.”On Wednesday, Russia’s embassy in Delhi said it had activated a “special mechanism” to shield its energy trade with India from US sanctions.Russia’s Charge d’Affaires Roman Babushkin described Western pressure on India as “unjustified” and “neo-colonial.”His comments followed renewed warnings from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about possible secondary sanctions, in addition to existing tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.Notably, India and Russia have maintained close ties for decades, with Jaishankar citing “geo-political convergence, leadership contacts and popular sentiment” as pillars of the partnership.A day after co-chairing a trade meeting, Jaishankar also pressed Lavrov on India’s concerns, including a widening trade deficit, non-tariff barriers, regulatory hurdles, and reports of Indians serving in the Russian army.
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