US Believes It's Not In India's Interest To Accelerate Or Increase Imports Of Russian Energy, Other Commodities: White House

The United States has said that it would be ramping up pressure on India and China to abide by existing sanctions on Russia amid Moscow's ongoing military offensive in Ukraine.

"Certainly our expectation and our public and private message will continue to be that every country should abide by the sanctions that we have announced and that we are implementing around the world," White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in reply to a question on whether the US would be ramping up criticism of India, China and other nations not abiding by American sanctions on Russia.

She said that US deputy national security advisor Daleep Singh was in India recently.

"I would note that, you know, just given some of the reporting, energy payments are not sanctioned; that’s a decision made by each individual country. And we’ve been very clear that each country is going to make their own choices, even as we have made the decision and other countries have made the decision to ban energy imports," she said, according to a readout of the press briefing by the White House spokesperson.

"What Daleep did make clear to his counterparts during this visit was that we don’t believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities," Psaki added.

"Right now, just to give everybody the full scope of it, India’s imports of Russian energy represent only 1 to 2 percent of their total energy imports," the White House spokesperson clarified.

"So, while he explained both the mechanisms of our sanctions and reiterated that any country or entity should be abiding by those, we also made clear that we’d be happy to be a partner in reducing their reliance or even their small percentage of — of reliance on that [energy imports]" she added.

Psaki said that US expects China to also abide by the sanctions.