RT by @StevensHelga: While India keeps the massive inflow of Russian oil, it pivots away from Russian arms and to Western technology as well as to domestically manufactured arms.
"We are not likely to sign any major military deal with Russia," said Nandan Unnikrishnan, a Russia expert at New Delhi think tank the Observer Research Foundation.
This is the 2nd major bad news for Russia.
Another unresolved issue is the huge amounts of Indian Rupees, which Russia has accumulated from the oil and gas sales. India pays only with its own currency which is not freely convertible and is stored in Indian banks. India's restrictions over capital flows make it impossible to transmit the money back to Russia. In fact, 1 billion USD in Rupees come each month on top of the pile which are vastly useless for Moscow, while India makes a huge profit on the world market.
India offered that the money is invested in Indian infrastructure where Russian construction companies can participate, but that would contribute nothing to Russia's short term needs and even less to Russia's war industry. India has Moscow completely where it wants it to be. Hence, it is only understandable that India keeps that Russian oil inflow intact and pretends to have "good ties".
This instance shows vividly how dependent Russia has become. The Russian babbling of the "Global South" along its posturing is less enticing when the Potemkin covers have been kicked away. It is no different with China where Russia's dependency is increasing with even bigger paces.
Superior powers can cheaply buy Russian gas with their own currency and with strings attached to Russia. History has coined entities like Russia where this kind of one-sided "agreement" has been established with one term:
Vassal states
https://www.bu…
🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/Tendar/status/1751612205433229546#m
[2024-01-28 14:24 UTC]
