India Can Easily Resist All Western Pressures To Abandon Russian
The European Union has joined the bandwagon to lure India into taking the West’s side in the Ukrainian crisis. That said, India continues to take a neutral stance. Though some Moscow’s opponents accuse India of taking a pro-Russian stance, which India just ignores.
On April 24-25, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen paid a visit to New Delhi right after the visit of PM of Britain. European diplomacy offered cooperation with EU member-states as an alternative to economic ties with Russia, which a very confident India just politely listened to without commenting. Russia should not worry about the Western pressure on India, according to experts interviewed by the newspaper Izvestia.
So far, India Instead of abandoning Russian energy resources has started going for more of it. Instead of buckling under Western pressure, New Delhi has doubled its purchases of Russian oil.
Now, a diplomatic source told Bloomberg, the main purpose of the Visits by EU and British was to provide India with a viable alternative to diversifying military-technical cooperation, the field where Moscow has been leading for many years. According to Western and Indian media, New Delhi was offered to buy more weapons from Europe and create joint ventures in this area. India was also offered to resume negotiations on a comprehensive trade deal with the EU and to create a Trade and Technology Council.
A source in Indian diplomatic circles told Izvestia the situation in Ukraine hurt the country’s national interests. “Suddenly, we were face with such pressure. And now we have to digress from more important economic tasks to respond to this pressure due to the recent events,” the source said.
However, Russia should not worry about the Western pressure on India, experts told Izvestia. India cannot forget the Submarine and jet fighters purchase programmes from UK /US in early 1960s. Then the sabotage of engine project for HF24 the indigenous fighters and of course the MTCR and the NPT.
Today Indian missiles are among the top in the World.
The South Asian powerhouse’s ties with the West, and with the US and even more so with its former colonizer, the United Kingdom, did not prevent it from cooperating with the USSR once, and over the past decades India has pursued an independent foreign policy, Head of the Center for Indian Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Tatyana Shaumyan believes.
India is a country that has demonstrated its right to pursue its own foreign policy without regard to others. Russian-Indian relations are one of the important aspects of it. Russian-Indian mutual understanding and cooperation have a long-term nature.
