Speaking at an international forum in Slovakia on Friday, Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar argued that criticism of India for buying Russian oil was unfair when Europe is still importing oil and gas from Russia.
“Look, I don’t want to sound argumentative,” Jaishankar said when asked if India was helping to fund the Russian war effort in Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. “If India buying Russian oil is funding the war — tell me, then, is buying Russian gas not funding the war?”
“It’s only Indian money and Russian oil coming to India funding the war, and not Russia’s gas coming to Europe, not funding? Let’s be a little more even-handed,” he said.
“Europe is buying oil, Europe is buying gas,” he said, noting that sanctions packages against Russia have “carve-outs” for energy because banning Russian oil would harm European civilians too much.
“If you can be considerate to yourself, you can be considerate to other people. If Europe says we have to manage it in a way the impact on the economy is not traumatic, that freedom should exist for other people as well,” he contended.
Jaishankar further claimed Indian imports of Russian oil have increased from a “very low base,” so blaming India for financing the invasion of Ukraine is disproportionate.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seen on a screen, left, as addresses from Kyiv during an extraordinary meeting of EU leaders to discuss Ukraine, energy and food security at the Europa building in Brussels, Monday, May 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)
The 27-member European Union agreed on Monday to “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia” by the end of this year. The agreement included a special temporary exemption for oil brought through pipelines rather than ships, a concession necessary to secure Hungary’s support. Hungary obtains roughly 60 percent of its oil from Russia, mostly by pipeline.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for the an extraordinary meeting of EU leaders to discuss Ukraine, energy and food security in Brussels, Monday, May 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)
Informed of the EU decision, Russian representative Mikhail Ulyanov shrugged and said, “Russia will find other importers.”
Russian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mikhail Ulyanov is seen prior to the start of the quarterly Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, on March 7, 2022. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images)
India, on the other hand, is proceeding full steam ahead with purchases of deeply discounted Russian oil. India’s imports grew 900 percent over the past year, surpassing a million metric tons in April.
“Despite attempts to portray it otherwise, energy purchases from Russia remain minuscule in comparison to India’s total consumption. India’s legitimate energy transactions cannot be politicized,” the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas insisted in May.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Tran postulated on Tuesday that the end result of the EU embargo on Russian oil could be India buying up oceans of cheap Russian oil, refining it, and exporting it to Europe.
“This is not only an economic boon for India, but it also serves as an accelerator for India’s place in the new geopolitically rewritten oil trade map. What we mean is that the EU policy effectively makes India an increasingly vital energy source for Europe,” Tran said.
The same thought occurred to Reuters on Thursday, but with a warning that India risked incurring heavy EU sanctions on all of its refined oil exports if its refiners keep “sucking up cheap Russian crude.”
“There is the risk of secondary sanctions being imposed, but also of measures to make the physical trade more difficult, such as sanctions on ships that have visited Russian ports, bans on insuring Russian crude cargoes, or cargoes of refined products made from Russian oil,” Reuters predicted.
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