Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who arrived in India amid the war against Ukraine, said on Friday that if India wants to buy something, then we are ready for discussion. He said that Russia has developed a system to trade in national currencies with countries like India and efforts to move away from dollar-based payment system will intensify.
In an interactive conference after talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, he said more and more transactions would be done using national currencies and bypassing the dollar-based system. Lavrov said that a one-rupee-ruble payment system for trade with India had already been implemented and could be further strengthened.
He said that Russia’s central bank had established a system for communication of financial information many years ago and India had a similar system. According to reports, New Delhi and Moscow are working on a rupee-ruble system to facilitate trade and around Western sanctions on Russian banks.
Asked about India’s plan to buy Russian oil with concessions, Lavrov said Moscow is ready to give whatever New Delhi wants to buy. We are friends. Explain that Russia is the largest supplier of defense equipment to India and Lavrov said that the two countries will use the rupee-ruble system to trade oil, military hardware and other goods.
“I have no doubt that there will be a way (found) to remove the artificial barriers that create illegal unilateral sanctions by the West,” he said. It also deals with the field of military-technical cooperation. Lavrov said that some progress has been made in talks with Ukraine.