Thread by @seshanm

"Hurting from sanctions on Russia, India is losing faith in the West" wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/ec…

"Indian Oil Corp. had reached a deal to buy 3 million barrels of oil from Russia’s Rosneft Oil Co. at a 20% discount to global prices. This is a drop in the ocean of India’s oil needs, which stood at 4.5 million barrels a day in January."

"Take the cutoff of several Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system. We have grown accustomed to thinking of interbank communications as a global utility; they’ve now been turned into a tool of Western foreign policy"

"little thought was given to how countries such as India, which rely on SWIFT to pay for oil & fertilizers from Russia, would manage the fallout......
India’s reaction has been to look for a way around the sanctions by settling trade with Russia in rupees & rubles."

"European nations have yet to wean themselves off Russian energy supplies either. And, unlike them, India can hardly afford such bills. If oil remains above $70 a barrel for months, the rupee will collapse, the government will run out of spending money, inflation will skyrocket."

"The U.S. spent most of the last decade trying to convince India not to buy Iranian oil, only to try to get Iranian shipments back on the market as soon as the focus shifted to Russia."

"Indians fear that sanctions will push Russia ever closer to China and expand Beijing’s control over the global economy. If some in the West worry that India is not lining up on their side, just as many Indians worry that the West’s notion of “their side” does not include India."