The United States has clarified that India's energy imports from Russia were minuscule and energy payments did not come under sanctions. 

Given the misinformed clamour in some American media and a section of politicians criticising India for buying oil from Russia, President Joe Biden’s Spokesperson Jen Psaki said Monday in Washington: “Right now, just to give everybody the full scope of it, India’s imports of Russian energy represent only 1 to 2 per cent of their total energy imports”.  

In contrast to India, Germany imports about 55 per cent of its enormous gas need from Russia in addition to buying coal from it but it has escaped criticism or the snide questions that have dogged India.  The other countries in the European Union that import Russian energy have also been free of criticism or demands to immediately cease imports.

Psaki also clarified that “just given some of the reporting, energy payments are not sanctioned; that’s a decision made by each individual country”. 

She gave the clarifications while answering a reporter’s question that if “as part of this new effort to ramp up sanctions, is the administration going to be ramping up pressure on China and India to abide by existing sanctions”?

Given India’s pivotal role in the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy and its attempts to curtail China’s influence, Washington has generally been supportive of India despite its neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its purchases from Russia.

“We also we’ve been very clear that each country is going to make their own choices, even as we have made the decision and other countries have made the decision to ban energy imports”, she added. 

In another indication of this policy, Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby deflected questions about sanctions on India for buying the Russian S-400 Triumf missile defence system drawing attention instead to New Delhi’s defence purchase diversification.

 “We remain encouraged by India's continued diversification of their defence equipment over just the past decade”, he said at the Pentagon briefing on Monday.

Psaki said that US Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh had offered to help India reduce the minuscule amount of its oil needs that it imports from Russia.

In his talks with Indian officials last week in New Delhi, Singh “made clear that we’d be happy to be a partner in reducing their reliance or even their small percentage of – of reliance on that”, she said.

But he also told Indian officials that it was not in their country’s interests to increase imports from Russia, she said.

“While he explained both the mechanisms of our sanctions and reiterated that any country or entity should be abiding by those, we also made clear that we’d be happy to be a partner in reducing their reliance or even their small percentage of – of reliance on that”, Psaki added. 

Asked if the S-400 would be incompatible with India being in the Quad, Pentagon spokesman Kirby said, “I think we've made it very clear to India, our concerns about this particular purchase. We've been very clear about that”.

The Quad is the four-nation group of India, the US, Japan and Australia that try to coordinate their strategies to ensure a free Indo-Pacific region where China has stepped up its aggressive posture.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, Germany Ambassador Walter J Lindner said. his country ha dno wish to "preach" India into cutting back Russian oil imports, given its own dependence on Russian energy supplies.

"There is no denying that many countries in Europe are dependent on Russian oil and coal. We didn't know that Putin will one day attack a neighbouring country. We are already reducing the imports massively. We want to reduce the dependency of oil to 0 per cent by the end of this year," Lindner told NDTV. 

Asked about India buying Russian oil during the war, Lindner said, "Every country has its own past, its own dependencies. There's no preaching here. We have sanctions and if that can be used to stop the war, we will use that."

Shrugging off growing global pressure to distance itself from the Kremlin, Indain Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday had said that India will continue buying cheap Russian oil in the nation's interest and said energy security came first.

"We have started buying, we have received quite a number of barrels -- I would think three-four days supply and this will continue," Sitharaman said at an event organised by CNBC-TV18 channel.

State-run oil companies in India have been buying Russian oil that has faced a growing boycott by the West since the beginning of war in Ukraine. The country has contracted Russian crude oil for deliveries over the next three to four months, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said.

(SAM)