External affairs minister Jaishankar defends India on Russian oil import

External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Thursday defended India’s decision to import energy supplies from Russia in a conversation with his British counterpart Liz Truss at the India-UK Strategic Futures Forum.

When Truss was asked about UK’s reaction on India purchasing discounted Russian oil, she said, “India is a sovereign nation; I am not going to tell India what to do what I have said is as a member of the UK government that is signed up to the Budapest Memorandum I feel a strong responsibility on behalf of the united kingdom to take all the action we can for the people of Ukraine and that is not the same as going around and telling other countries what to do.”

Jaishankar said that in the month of March Europe has bought 15 per cent more oil and gas from Russia than it did the month before.

Jaishankar said, “I was reading a report that in the month of March Europe has bought, I think 15 per cent more oil and gas from Russia than it did the month before. If you look at the major buyers of oil and gas from Russia, I think you will find most of them in Europe.”

He added, “We ourselves get the bulk of our energy supplies from the Middle East, about 7.5 – 8 per cent oil from the US and in the past maybe less than a per cent from Russia earlier.”

He further added that it’s natural for any country to look for a good deal when the oil prices go up.

“When oil prices go up its natural for a country to go out into the market and look for what are good deals for their people but I am pretty sure if we wait two or three months and actually look who are the big buyers of Russian gas and oil I suspect the list won’t be very different than it used to be and I suspect we won’t be in the top10 in that list,” Jaishankar further added.