Russia Ready To Address India’s Concerns Over Massive Trade Deficit: Peskov

New Delhi: Russia on Tuesday floated the idea of ​​creating an “architecture” to insulate its trade ties with India from pressure from third countries, saying New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude may decline “for a short time” due to Western sanctions. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a news conference broadcast on video ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi for the annual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Moscow was taking steps to increase supplies.

Addressing India’s concerns over its huge trade deficit, cooperation on small modular nuclear reactors and expanding defense and energy ties could be among the focus areas at Friday’s summit talks, he said.

Arriving on Thursday, Putin will hold talks with Modi in which many important results are expected, including in the fields of trade and defense, to further strengthen bilateral strategic ties.

The Russian leader’s trip to India comes at a time when India-US relations are going through arguably their worst phase in the last two decades after Washington imposed a massive 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods, including New Delhi’s 25 per cent duties on purchases of Russian crude.

Regarding India’s gradual reduction in its purchases of Russian crude oil following the US sanctions on two Russian companies, Peskov said that this decrease could last for a very “short time” and that he was confident that Russia would prevent the impact of Western restrictions.

“There are sanctions on Russia’s oil production sector, but we are finding ways not to let trade volumes decrease.

“We have deep experience in implementing under this regime of illegal sanctions,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin spokesman also called for the creation of a mechanism to insulate India-Russia trade and energy ties from pressure from third countries, an apparent reference to Western sanctions.

“We must create an architecture of our relationship that is free from influence from any third country.

“We must secure our relations, we must secure our mutually beneficial trade. We must secure our trade against pressures from outside,” he said.

The Kremlin spokesman called for a new global trading system in which the payment system (trading in dollars) is not used as a “political tool”.

Peskov stated that the implementation of a mechanism that would regulate trade in national currencies, avoiding the system dominated by the US dollar, could be included in the Modi-Putin talks.

“We understand the pressure on India,” he said, referring to the US.

Peskov also said Russia was fully aware of India’s concerns about its large trade deficit and was working to resolve the “problem”.

“There is a real imbalance in our trade. We are aware of this. We sell much more from India than we buy,” he said.

“We know that our Indian friends are concerned about this issue. We are jointly exploring the possibilities of increasing imports from India. We want to buy more from India,” he said.

New Delhi is concerned about the trade deficit increasing in favor of Moscow. India’s purchase of goods and services from Russia is around 65 billion dollars, and Russia’s imports from India are around 5 billion dollars.

Referring to India-Russia defense ties, the Kremlin spokesman highlighted the joint production of BrahMos missiles and described the initiative as an example of high-tech exchange.

“We are developing quite diverse, very complex systems. We are ready to share our experience with India,” he said.

Peskov said that the possibility of Russia supplying Su-57 fighter jets and additional batches of S-400 air defense systems could be discussed. He said that cooperation in the fields of small and medium-sized nuclear reactors is expected to come to the fore in the talks between Modi and Putin.

He said Russia has experience in producing these small reactors and is ready to provide the technology to India.

Asked about Russia’s “unlimited” friendship with China, Peskov said Moscow wants the same level of relations with New Delhi. “We are ready to go as far as India is ready. We are ready to develop our cooperation with India in every possible field.”

Peskov said Russia respects bilateral relations between India and China and hopes that both countries are capable of resolving their problems to maintain global stability and peace.

A Kremlin spokesman praised recent U.S. mediation efforts to end the Ukraine war as “very effective.”

Hours before US negotiator Steve Witcoff’s meeting with Putin, he said, “We hope it will be successful. We are ready to contribute to it.” Peskov stated that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will come to the fore at the Modi-Putin summit.

“Russia is open to peaceful negotiation; we must achieve our goals.

“We appreciate India’s position. We appreciate New Delhi’s readiness to seek a peaceful solution. We respect Prime Minister Modi’s position,” he said.

He said Russia was ready to cooperate with India “in the fight against terrorism”.

Asked about Moscow’s ties with Kabul, Peskov said: “We are developing our relations with Afghanistan.”

“We will continue to develop our relationship with Afghanistan,” he added.

Regarding Russia’s overall ties with India, Peskov said he was proud to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with India during his country’s historic growth.