Choked by West, Russia reaches out to India for investment in oil

At a time when the US and its Nato allies are bent on dismantling Russia’s financial structure for invading Ukraine, the Putin administration has started reaching out to nations which may help bail out the country from an impending economic crisis. Sanctions have already pushed Russia’s economy into a spin, a challenge it hasn’t faced since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri that President Vladmir Putin is keen on getting Indian investment in Russia’s oil and gas sector while expecting more reach to Russian oil firms interested in expanding sales in India.

Novak also said that the cooperation between two countries on civilian nuclear power can continue. He offered to build new units at a nuclear power plant in Kudankulam.

Also read: Big Oil already a victor from Ukraine

Russia has waged a war against neighbouring Ukraine which has drawn worldwide criticism of the Putin regime. The western nations including US, UK, France, Germany, Japan and other European nations have shied away from participating in the war directly but put their might behind Ukraine by imposing several economic sanctions against Russia. US President Joe Biden recently announced that the US will stop buying oil from Russia and would encourage European nations to follow suit. The UK too declared it would stop importing oil and natural gas from Russia by the end of this year.

Earlier, the US tried to put soft pressure on India to support sanctions against Russia after the Modi government abstained from UN Security Council vote against Russia’s aggression. India and Russia share a long-standing military and cultural association which goes back to the pre-Cold War days. Indian oil firms already have stakes in Russia’s oil and gas fields. At the same time, Russian companies own stakes in Indian refineries.