Amid stiffening ties between US and India over Russian oil imports, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval arrived in Moscow for a visit aimed at strengthening ties between Russia and India.
External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar is also expected to follow later in the month.
Although the visit had been scheduled in advance, it now has renewed urgency because of US President Donald Trump’s comments regarding India’s relationship with Russia.
Earlier in the day, Trump had said in a CNBC interview, “India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25% (tariff), but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil. They’re fuelling the war machine. And if they’re going to do that, then I’m not going to be happy.”
Trump has also accused India of making profits from Russian oil despite people being killed in Ukraine by the “Russian war machine”.
