India’s opportunity to buy Russian oil at cheap rates stems from the fact that Ukrainians are suffering because of Moscow’s aggression every day, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday, NDTV reported.
Kuleba added that New Delhi’s decision to allow Russian oil imports was morally inappropriate.
“If you benefit because of our suffering, it would be good to see more of your help addressed to us,” he told the channel.
Kuleba said that India’s decision on importing fuel from Russia must be seen through the prism of human suffering in Ukraine. “It is not enough to point fingers at the European Union and say, Oh, they are doing the same thing,” he said, according to NDTV.
The Ukrainian foreign minister was responding to a comment by his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar about Europe’s oil imports from Russia. Jaishankar had said on Monday that from February to November, the European Union had imported more fossil fuel from Moscow than India.
Kuleba said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement to Russian President Vladimir Putin that this was “not the time for war” was an encouraging one. However, he said that India needed to be more direct while referring to the conflict in Ukraine.
“We are waiting for the moment when Indian foreign policy will call spade a spade, and name the conflict – not ‘war in Ukraine’, but what it is, a ‘Russian aggression against Ukraine’,” the Ukrainian foreign minister said, according to NDTV.
New Delhi has increased its oil imports from Moscow significantly since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February. In September, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that India’s crude oil shipments from Russia had risen to 12% from about 2% in February.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, in what it claimed was a special operation to demilitarise and “de-Nazify” the east European country. Moscow had captured large tracts of territory in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine but has had to retreat from some of them due to the European country’s counter-offensive.
On November 10, Russian forces withdrew from Kherson, the only regional capital city it had captured since the invasion.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!