MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday praised India’s “well-deserved authority” in global affairs, highlighting its active role in addressing key international issues.In his Independence Day messages to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin also underlined Russia’s commitment to strengthening the “special privileged strategic partnership” between the two nations.”India enjoys well-deserved authority in the world arena and actively participates in resolving the most important issues on the international agenda,” he said.”We value our relations of special privileged strategic partnership with India,” Putin said.The Russian president exuded confidence that through joint efforts, Russia and India will continue to comprehensively increase constructive bilateral cooperation in various areas.”This fully meets the interests of our friendly peoples and is in line with strengthening security and stability at the regional and global levels,” Putin said.Putin’s comments come ahead of his high-profile meeting with United States President Donald Trump , scheduled for Friday in Anchorage, Alaska.Meanwhile Trump has claimed that the tariffs he imposed on India for purchasing oil from Russia have influenced Moscow’s decision to seek a meeting with Washington, as the country was losing its “second largest customer.”In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said, “I think everything has an impact,” and claimed that when he told India that “we’re going to charge you, because you’re dealing with Russia and oil purchases”, it “essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia.””And then they (Russia) called, and they wanted to meet. We’re going to see what the meeting means. But certainly, when you lose your second largest customer, and you’re probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role. India was the second largest, and getting pretty close to China. China is the largest (purchaser of Russian oil),” the US president said.India on Thursday said it has not halted oil purchases from Russia in response to the US President’s tariff threat and continues to buy based solely on economic considerations.Trump last week announced an additional 25 percent tariff on US imports from India — raising the overall duty to 50 percent — as a penalty for the country’s continued imports of Russian oil. The tariffs will come into effect from August 27.Since the steep tariffs are likely to hit the USD 40 billion of non-exempt exports that India does to the US, there has been chatter around stopping or curtailing oil imports from Russia.
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