Kyiv, February 05, 2023 (PPI-OT):Senior Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko has urged the United States to impose secondary sanctions on India if it keeps buying Russian energy. As the Ukraine-Russia war nears the one year mark, a top official has called for sanctions to be imposed against India. The official who heads the foreign affairs committee in Ukraine’s parliament said that he had previously lived in New Delhi and found the question of India’s oil purchases “painful”. But as the war continues with no end in sight, the lawmaker also backed sanctions against buyers contending that such nations were “financing the Russian economy and the Russian military machine”.

“They should be consistent. This is a global conflict between democracy – the free world – and authoritarian regimes. There shouldn’t be any compromise because of material economic interest,” he said. The western sanctions against Moscow are currently not recognised by India. Meanwhile, according to a report by a British media outlet citing unnamed sources, Indian refiners have started paying for a significant part of their Russian oil purchases in UAE dirhams.

Indian refiners and traders are concerned they may not be able to continue to settle trades in dollars, especially if the price of Russian crude rises above a cap imposed by the Group of Seven nations and Australia in December. That has led traders to seek alternative methods of payment, which could also aid Russia’s efforts to de-dollarize its economy in response to the Western sanctions.

For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org