Krishna N. Das, Aftab Ahmad and Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will fly to India next week according to sources. He is hoping to make time for India, which is one of Russia’s largest buyers of Russian commodities, since the invasion of Ukraine by the international community.

As more deals are signed, there is no sign of a slowdown in buying. According to one source, the countries may discuss normalizing trade payments that have been disrupted due to Western sanctions against Russian banks. According to media reports, he may hold talks in India’s capital this Friday.

After a visit to Turkey in March for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, and an earlier trip to China on Thursday, this will be Lavrov’s first overseas trip.

India is dependent on Russia for its main supply of defense hardware, but the overall trade with Russia, which averages $9 billion annually over the last few years, is mainly fertilizer and oil. India and China trade more than $100 trillion annually, by comparison.

However, India bought at most 13 million barrels of Russian oil after the Ukraine attack. This is compared to nearly 16 million barrels that India imported for the entire year. Even though they have publicly criticized Moscow, many European nations continue to purchase Russian energy.

New Delhi called for an immediate ceasefire to be implemented in Ukraine, but refused to condemn Moscow’s actions. The country has abstained in voting on several U.N. war resolutions.

According to the Indian steel minister, India may now double its imports from Russian coking coal for steel making. Reuters published Tuesday’s report that India had recently agreed to purchase 45,000 tonnes Russian sunflower oils for its April delivery, after Ukraine cut off supplies. India purchased about 21,000 tonnes of Russian sunflower oil per month last year.

One senior Indian official stated that India will continue to import Russian products, particularly if they are at a discounted price.

According to a source, the government is looking into establishing a rupee/rouble trading system. Discussions between Indian financial officials and Russian counterparts are continuing. Because the discussions were secret, all sources refused to identify themselves.

Both the Reserve Bank of India and Indian government did not respond immediately to inquiries for comment.

MECHANISMS ANOTHER

According to the source, other options than the rupee/rouble trade window are possible, including the settlement of all quasi-governmental payments through central banks.

Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, who is an international scholar, said that India had decided to keep trading with Russia.

The Russian foreign minister visited the United States and raised the question of whether alternative methods can be used to improve trade relations.

The Russian embassy in New Delhi denied confirmation of the visit. India’s Foreign Ministry said that they had no further information.

India, another Indian source said that Russia is looking at India to allow it to use the Reserve Bank of India’s funds to purchase Indian corporate bonds as a gesture of goodwill despite the Ukraine crises.

Russia retained approximately 20 billion Rupees (263 million USD) in Indian payments to the RBI for Russian defense equipment.

Another Indian official stated that New Delhi will have to deal with West pressure in order to keep its relations with Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden stated this month that India’s actions against Russia were “somewhat uncertain”. After meeting Indian officials last week, a diplomat from the United States stated that India had never asked its partners to stop buying energy from Russia.