Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the US administration of using "unscrupulous methods" of exploitation to force different countries not to buy Russian oil and gas. Against this background, he highlighted the firm position of the Indian leadership on the purchase of hydrocarbons from Moscow.
"Pressure on everyone demanding not to buy Russian oil is unscrupulous methods. You can call them differently: colonial and neo-colonial, but these are methods of exploitation," the head of the Russian foreign ministry said in an interview with RT India.
As Lavrov noted, the essence of these methods is "to force everyone to buy not cheap oil from Russia, but expensive oil and liquefied natural gas in The United States."
"In this way, they seek to rule the world through the control of world energy," the minister said.
At the same time, Lavrov drew attention to the fact that "not everyone is amenable to this pressure."
In this regard, the Russian Foreign Minister stressed that "India has firmly and repeatedly stated that it will determine in what volumes and from whom to purchase energy resources."
"There were sometimes rumors that some Indian customer refused one tanker carrying Russian oil. However, I repeat that India's position has been clearly stated," Lavrov highlighted the leadership of this country.
"There is no one word to describe this relationship [with India]," he continued, "not because human languages are not eloquent, but simply because it is difficult to imagine such a rich relationship. There is also no situation where our paths would diverge. It is simply impossible to do this. We started the conversation with what Russian-Indian relations are based on — friendship."
The Russian Foreign Minister emphasized that "those who are trying to worry about the future of Russian-Indian friendship should not worry."
"We should always see the threats that some are trying to put forward against our relations, trying to undermine them, creating some closed structures, trying to impose their approaches to relations with Russia. We all see this, as do our Indian friends, and it is all the more valuable that all these attempts fail to achieve results," he said, quoted by TASS.
As EADaily reported, the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to India, where he will also take part in the THE BRICS Ministerial Council.