WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday urged India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to increase his country’s reliance on Russian oil and gas, officials said, as part of a global effort by the United States to maintain economic pressure on Russia before his invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Biden also highlighted growing defense cooperation with India during a virtual meeting with Mr Modi – a line US officials have increasingly emphasized in hopes of convincing New Delhi to come down the fence on the Russian invasion.
During the meeting between the two leaders, Mr. Bid to Mr. Modes to assist in acquiring oil and other energy from other sources. The United States and its allies have been working for months to strip Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin of the financial resources generated by the sale of oil and gas around the world.
But Mr Biden was far from stopping pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil, which amounts to about 1 percent of its imports. And US officials said the president has not asked India to condemn Russia by name for its relentless military campaign against its neighbor, a step India has refused to take since the invasion began.
“The president made it clear that he does not believe it is in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters after the leaders’ meeting. which lasted about an hour.
Monday, Mr. Modi again called Russia by name even as he condemned the apparent human rights violations in Bucha, which the United States and others have said are evidence of war crimes.
“The news of the murders of innocent civilians in the city of Bucha was deeply disturbing,” Mr Modi said in public comments at the start of his meeting with Mr Biden. He did not attribute the killings to Russia, but said that “we have immediately condemned the killings and called for an independent investigation.”
India has long been dependent on Russia for military hardware, an important factor in the deep historical ties between the two countries. And so, despite worldwide condemnations of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Mr Modi’s government has tried to remain neutral – apart from criticizing Russia, while calling for negotiations and engaging Ukraine with humanitarian aid.
While US officials understood the complexities of India’s balancing act and saw New Delhi as an important ally in the face of an assertive China, they have at times expressed frustration at India’s stance offering Mr Putin some cover. Some US officials have warned of the consequences if India expands trade with Russia, especially any increase in oil purchases, as the West tries to tighten sanctions.
India symbolizes the challenge Biden and other Western allies face in expanding the coalition of countries seeking to punish Putin for his actions. The president has said global unity behind economic sanctions is key to forcing the Russian leader to end what Mr Biden calls his “war of choice” in Ukraine.
But while the United States has had success in rallying more than 50 countries, including much of Europe, behind that strategy, India and other countries around the world have held back. India abstained when the United Nations voted in March to condemn the invasion, and again when the UN expelled Russia from the organization’s Human Rights Council.
That came as no surprise to officials of the Biden government, according to longtime observers of India’s relations with other countries. Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Monday’s meeting underlined the careful US approach to relations with India over the decades.
“They understand that forcing India to make a choice is unlikely to be effective and may even be counterproductive,” she said. “And so I think I’ve seen them talk about empowering India to make choices rather than forcing India to make choices. And so they don’t talk about it publicly as choosing camps.”
This frustrates some inside and outside the government, who believe that India, the world’s largest democracy, and other countries should be more assertive in defending the principles of national borders.
And India’s determination to remain neutral in a conflict that grips Europe and much of the rest of the world is likely to irritate the group known as the Quad – the United States, Australia, Japan. and India – whose other countries firmly condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst with the RAND Corporation, said the issue highlighted differences between the four countries, even as the group claims to come together around a set of common values.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Russia is preparing a renewed offensive. Ukraine braces itself for a Russian attack along the eastern front, where Ukrainian officials have warned civilians still living in the region that time is running out to escape. But the road to safety is fraught with danger, with reports of Ukrainian civilians being killed while trying to flee.
“The Quad is really about maintaining a rules-based order, and a sovereign country, in Russia, invading and destroying another sovereign country in Ukraine is completely contrary to a rules-based order,” he said. “And so future Quad gatherings — and we’ll see them later this year — are going to be a little awkward and a little chilly.”
But both Mr. Grossman and Ms. Madan praised Mr. Biden and his administration for trying to be careful with India. Madan said there was little to gain for the United States from putting too much pressure on countries that have their own domestic realities.
“You want to try to attract as many people as possible to your positions,” she said, “but you also have to recognize that there will be a group of countries that will not necessarily be as like-minded as you.”
“The best thing to do is try to continue your efforts to align them a little bit with you,” she added, “but if not, don’t keep them aligned.”
As part of that effort, Biden on Monday echoed sentiments expressed by other US officials in recent weeks in efforts to reassure India that its source of military hardware will not dry up if it takes a firmer stance against Russia.
“We share a strong and growing important defense partnership,” the president said in his opening address, before the defense and foreign ministers of both countries met for an extensive dialogue. “The United States and India will continue our close consultations on how to cope with the destabilizing effects of this Russian war.”
India’s defense purchases from the United States have increased to about $20 billion in the past decade. But analysts have said it would take time to expand the ties to the point where India’s reliance on Russian military hardware would diminish. That requires overcoming deep-seated hesitations in the decades-long relationship between the United States and India.
In his comments, Mr. Modi continued India’s delicate line on Ukraine: he expressed concern about the suffering caused by the war, but refrained from calling Russia the aggressor.
“Our talks today are taking place at a time when the situation in Ukraine is very worrying,” said Mr Modi. “During this whole process, I spoke several times with the presidents of both Ukraine and Russia. I have not only advocated for peace, but also proposed direct talks between President Putin and the President of Ukraine.”
Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Mujib Mashal from Kathmandu, Nepal.