Use Ukraine crisis to boost ties with Russia: envoy tells India

New Delhi: Russian Ambassador Denis Alipov said on Sunday that the crisis in Ukraine would have consequences for the whole world, including Russia-India ties, and the intensity of the impact cannot be estimated now. But India could leverage the situation to boost relations with Russia, PTI reported.

Alipov said that the situation had opened many opportunities for India to expand businesses in Russia, and it would be sensible for the former to focus on economic cooperation with the latter.

"We perceive from the fact that our relations are developing in the interests of the two countries, and they are of strategic nature. There may be an impact in terms of transactions," he said.

He said that there is a bilateral working mechanism for mutual settlements in national currencies, which is already being used, but the only question is how to use it on a broader scale. He suggested that the use of the mechanism widely will help stabilise the impact of the sanctions.

But Alipov repeated the Russian approach of complimenting India's independent foreign policy and the strengthening of India's role and influence at the international level. He said that Russia has not put any pressure or conditions on India, but the US has imposed severe pressure on India.

Later, he said that the Russian government is doing its best in evacuating Indians from eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Sumy and Pisochyn, where 3,000, 670 and 900 Indians respectively are stuck. But the Ministry of External Affairs had informed on Saturday that the evacuation of Indians in Kharkiv and Pisochyn was almost complete.

Alipov said that they created special groups to rescue Indians to Russian territory and send them to India. But the battle is going on in certain places where rescue operations are challenging. He added that Russia had placed hundreds of buses along the borders to transport Indians.