In addition to the regular alarms sounded by Russian authorities about NATO’s open military and economic warfare against Russia, they are also proceeding to organize alternative infrastructure and energy relationships. For example, President Vladimir Putin addressed the first International Transport and Logistics Forum, stating: “Russia can offer such solutions to the world and play an important role in forming a new architecture of global logistics and international trade. For our partners, Russian logistics routes can be advantageous both economically—by reducing delivery times—and from the point of view of diversifying global transport flows.”
Russian economic cooperation with India is an important component of this work on a “new architecture.” According to RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov will visit India soon, with Lavrov scheduled to be in New Delhi May 14-15, where he will participate in the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting. Indian purchases of Russian oil have risen again, since Trump temporarily waived sanctions on crude from Russia and India can no longer readily get oil from the Gulf states. New Delhi is now importing around 1.5 million barrels of Russian oil per day, a 50% increase from February.
RT also ran an interview about growing Russia-India cooperation, with foreign affairs expert Robindra Nath Sachdev, who, according to his online bio, is “an engineer-entrepreneur turned international relations expert and the President of the Imagindia Institute, an independent think tank. Mr. Sachdev was instrumental in the India-US nuclear deal in the late 2000s.” Sachdev argues that “Russia and India should boost their collaboration on energy security to support the Global South’s requirements.”
