By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – The United States won’t set any “red lines” for India regarding its imports of energy from Russia. However, it does not desire to see a rapid acceleration in the purchases. This was stated by a senior U.S. official on Thursday while he visited New Delhi.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February, India bought at least 13,000,000 barrels Russian oil. This was in spite of steep discounts due to Western sanctions against Russian entities. This is compared to 16 million barrels of Russian for the entire year last year according to data compiled from Reuters.

Daleep Singh from the U.S. was a Deputy National Security Adviser to International Economics. She said, “Friends don’t set redlines,” and that it had encouraged its Asian partners not to rely on an “unreliable energy provider”.

Singh spoke before Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister arrived in Delhi for a two day trip.

India has been supplying its defense equipment to Russia for decades, despite increasing purchases by the United States over the past decade. Defense analysts believe that Russian defense equipment is more competitive and essential for India, which faces an inferior Chinese army.

Singh stated that the United States is ready to assist India in diversifying its energy and defense supplies.

“We are ready to assist India with diversifying its energy resources. It is much the same as for defense resources. He said that there was no ban on Russia’s energy imports at the moment.

We would be unhappy to see India import faster from Russia in relation to energy and other exports currently prohibited or restricted by international sanctions.

A U.S. official said that Washington is open to India purchasing Russian oil, provided the purchase price is lower than market rates.

Bloomberg reports that Russia has offered a 35-percent discount on barrels compared to levels before February’s Ukraine crisis, as Bloomberg reported.

Indian Oil Corp. has signed a deal with Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company, that allows it to purchase up to 2,000,000 tonnes of Urals, which is equivalent to approximately 15 million barrels in 2022.

RUPEE-ROUBLE FEES

Singh stated that the United States does not want its allies to help resurrect the rubble. It plunged right after war started, but it has been recovering in the last days.

He stated that he did not want to hear of mechanisms designed to support the ruble or undermine the dollar-based system or circumvent financial sanctions.

Reuters reports that India and Russia have been trying to devise a rupee/rouble payments system to continue trade between them.

China and India consider Russia to be a friendly country and have not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. India abstained in voting for the U.N. Resolutions on War but China has sided with Moscow in certain cases.

After meeting with Lavrov, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister said that Moscow and Beijing are “more determined” than ever to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation. The Western sanctions against Russia were also condemned by them.

Singh stated that India was suffering from the Russia-China bonhomie.

Russia will be China’s junior partner in the relationship. He said that India will be less favorable if China has more leverage over Russia.

In the event of future border tensions between India and China, he said that Russia can’t be trusted to save India.

(Additional reporting by Nidhi verma; editing by Sanjeev Mglani and William Maclean.