*Russia will increase its use of non-Western currencies for trade with countries such as India, its foreign minister said on Friday, as he hailed India as a friend that was not taking a “one-sided view” on the Ukraine war.*
Sergei Lavrov visited India on a mission to shore up support from a country Russia has long regarded as an ally a day after U.S. and British officials pressed India to avoid undermining the dollar-based financial system and sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
India and China are the only major countries that have not condemned what Russia calls its “special military operation”. After Lavrov visited China this week, Beijing said it was “more determined” to develop bilateral ties with Russia.
“We are friends,” Lavrov told a news conference after meeting his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, adding India saw the Ukraine crisis in the “entirety of facts and not just in a one-sided way”.
Lavrov said Russia’s central bank had several years ago established a system for the communication of financial information and India had a similar system.