India is CONTINUING the relationship. Why did west START?
Didn't Germany INCREASE dependence on Russia even after Crimea?
There are no friends here. It’s a juvenile idea. The point is that India is a poor country with big energy demands. This is a good deal. Passing it up over “moral” reasons is pretty stupid.
Very well said. Buying from Venezuela and Iran is something that some American prefer over local production even, which further exacerbates the obvious lack of morals.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...
It's double the amount produced 10 years ago, so I think it's fair to say "record levels".
The 10% reduction began in April 2020, well before Biden, and since May 2021, production has equalled or exceeded 2020 production month-to-month.
But... Well, now the West has decided unilaterally to confiscate the Yachts from Oligarchs (who are not even gov representatives, but are ascribed 'ties to Putin).
It goes without saying that these guys aren't always the most moral bunch... but that still should not mean we forget about law for the sake of convenience.
We even returned some hundreds of millions to the Iran regime --despite claiming it belonged to the previous legitimate government...
So, it's all BS.
Yep - you can absolutely rule with medieval institutions, abuse your citizens as you see fit, and even bomb your neighbours at will, but God forbid that you take a bit of money from US companies - then the gloves are off for good!
This is the problem with only the US stopping oil purchases from Russia. The oil market is fungible, so buyers/sells are just going to move around, without any real impact.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-eyes-venezuelan-oil-russi...
You would think India would greatly empathize with the plight of the Ukrainian people given that Pakistan would like to steamroll India and China would love to subjugate India diplomatically. I really don't know why India thinks this is a good idea other than that they think they could single-handedly take on both China and Pakistan without the West's help in the future.
If Pakistan attacks, it's because of all the money that US put in to Pakistan for Afghanistan and war against terror. If it's also only Pakistan, Russia will help in China not directly getting involved.
Geopolitics is complicated. Least you can do is remove some of the ignorance of historical relationships.
If US is not helping Ukraine, do you think it will directly help India against China?
India is slowly warming to the USA and is in the quad and other security-oriented multilateral relationships but there is very well-founded distrust of the US and a general positive feeling about Russia, its most steadfast and reliable ally ever since India became independent and pursued a policy of non-alignment during the cold war.
The choice is not simple like in the west, if they don't get cheaper gas millions may die.
That said, Russia now seems to have a capricious and unstable leader. Gas prices are bad but the choice is either to stomach the high prices now or wait until Russia rips the band-aid off later for you at their own leisure.
That said, refineries are actually somewhat specialized wrt what kind of crude they can process. The US produces some types of crude in excess of its capacity to refine said crude and has more capacity to refine some types of crude than there is domestic supply.
Note also that the Canadian fossil fuel industry is somewhat intertwined with the US fossil fuel industry. The same is true wrt Mexico, albeit to a lesser extent.
Tracking diplomatic relations, US has blown hot blown cold with its strategic partners time and again. Some people are old enough to remember Donald Rumsfeld flew in meet Saddam Hussein, CIA trained Bin Laden in Yemen & Pakistan was a SEATO member with a huge military & financial backing. None of it holds today. Rather the very opposite. I think that scares Indian polity. They aren't dynamic enough to see the country as foes after enjoying decades of friendship, where they rely on US framework solely. At the same time, they feel independent enough to not be toeing the diplomatic line like S Korea or Japan for continued support. The ramifications & outcry from the Indian population can be quite severe. Western friendship has always been treated with a spoon of skepticism. This creates a terrible fix for the politicians.
That probably has been the premise why India was always gunning for NAM. They have wanted to position themselves between the two poles, maintaining cordiality & enough economic exchange. It gives them a sense of failsafe. Given their size, they see themselves as a regional power. But even today, they have to depend extensively on external support - on military & scientific projects, mainly.
Indian polity sees it in their interest to keep their ties to Russia for these reasons. They have an oversized dependence due to all the military hardware & industrial setup going back several decades. They are gradually transitioning to French, Israeli & US technology but they are still reliant on Soviet machinery in military & heavy industries (steel, shipbuilding, plastics etc.) That factors in their decision to act somewhat of a "friend in need".
EDIT: I will add in something my father, an ex-diplomat, mentioned the other day. This is chiming in the diplomatic chatter going around:
Ukraine apparently never supported India's position in several UN resolutions. From not supportong WTO-related pharma patent disputes & not endorsing India's NSG membership to not providing spares for the ageing Antonov transport equipment (instead, Russia provides the franchise version), Ukraine either was passive or voted against India. Much to India's diplomatic displeasure, they also sold & equipped Pakistan Army with T-80U tanks. When this war happened the bureaucratic / diplomatic mandarins have been non-commital about doing anything significant in support. In his words, "we aren't enemies, but Ukraine isn't a favored friend either".
EDIT2: I read some of the China related discussion. Frankly, with the border tussle, Russians have been non-committal so I don't think India is supporting Russia as a quid pro quo. In the event of any escalation, US would be more interested in keeping the balance of power in India's favor. Russians are reliant on Chinese consumption - and they know that to be the elephant in the room.