'Russia has never hurt our interests': Jaishankar to German daily

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar continued to defend India's decision to buy Russian oil, saying Moscow has never hurt New Delhi's interests and both nations have always had a stable and friendly relationship.

Ever since the start of the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, India has been procuring crude oil from Russia and is now Moscow's leading source of crude, accounting for nearly 36 per cent of its oil imports.

Attending the 60th Munich Security Conference from February 16-18, Jaishankar said in an interview with German Daily Handelsblatt that India has always had a stable and friendly relationship with Russia.

"Everyone conducts a relationship based on their past experiences. If I look at the history of India post-independence, Russia has never hurt our interests," he said in response to a question on the Indo-Russian relationship being a burden on the India-Europe ties.

"I do not expect Europe to have a view of China that is identical to mine, Europe should understand that I cannot have a view of Russia that is identical to the European one. Let us accept that there are natural differences in relationships," the minister said in the interview, which was published by the Ministry of External Affairs today.

When the fighting started in Ukraine, Europe shifted a large part of its energy procurement to the Middle East, which was, until then, the main supplier for India and other countries.

"What should we have done? In many cases, our Middle East suppliers gave priority to Europe because Europe paid higher prices. Either we would have had no energy because everything would have gone to them. Or we would have ended up paying a lot more because you were paying more," he said.

The minister reiterated that with its policies "stabilised the energy market and prevented a surge in global oil prices that would have been a huge political issue in lower-income countries.

"If no one had bought the crude oil from Russia and everyone had bought the crude oil from the other countries, prices on the energy market would have shot up even further. Global inflation would have been much higher - and that would have been a huge political issue in lower-income countries," he told the daily.

On being mentioned by Handelsblatt that Russia continues to be the most important arms supplier for India, Jaishankar pointed out that "many Western countries have long preferred to supply Pakistan".

He, however, added that things have changed in the past ten or 15 years with India's new purchases that have diversified with the USA, Russia, France, and Israel as the main suppliers.

Much of Jaishankar's views corresponded with what he had already said at the panel discussion in Munich, 'Growing the Pie: Seizing Shared Opportunities', which he attended on Saturday along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.

On being asked whether India could be a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the minister said: "We have already helped with very specific issues".

"Wherever we can help, we are happy to do so. We are open when we are approached. However, we do not believe that we should initiate anything in this direction on our own," the minister told the daily.

He added that India is deeply convinced and committed to bringing the conflict to an end.

"Everyone is suffering from this conflict. I don't know exactly how it will end, we're not deep enough into the process to know," he said.

The minister mentioned that the global order is under duress due to shocks like Covid, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, and disruptive climate events, and to address these challenges, the international order must evolve further.