India is a great power that determines its national interests and chooses its partners, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, describing as “completely unjustified” the “enormous pressure” on New Delhi due to its energy cooperation with Moscow.

During a press conference here on Wednesday, Lavrov also termed as "insulting" Ukraine's remarks on the recent meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Moscow. “I think India is a great power that sets its own national interests, determines its own national interests, and chooses its own partners. And we know that India is being subject to enormous pressure, completely unjustified pressure in the international arena,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov was responding to a question about Prime Minister Modi's recent visit to Moscow and the opposition faced by India for its energy cooperation with Russia. With Russia presiding over the UN Security Council for the month of July, Lavrov is in New York to chair meetings of the Council being held under Moscow’s presidency.

Prime Minister Modi paid an official visit to Russia on July 8-9 at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin for the 22nd India – Russia Annual Summit. This was Modi’s first trip to Russia since the start of the Ukraine conflict.

India has not yet condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has consistently pitched for a resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also criticised Modi’s visit to Moscow, saying in a post on X that “A Russian missile struck the largest children's hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were buried under the rubble.

“It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day,” Zelenskyy had said of the Modi-Putin meeting.

India had conveyed to Kyiv its displeasure over the remarks. It was learnt that India’s disappointment over the comments by Zelenskyy was communicated to Ukraine’s mission in Delhi.

Referring to Zelenskyy’s comments about Modi's trip to Russia being “a stabbing in the back of all peace efforts”, Lavrov said, “So that was very insulting and the Ukrainian ambassador was called in” and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs “talked to him about how he should be behaving.” “The ambassadors were really behaving as if they were hooligans,” he said, referring to remarks made by some other Ukrainian envoys.

“So I think India is doing everything right,” he said.

Lavrov noted that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, after touring Western nations, answered questions including about why India was buying more oil from Russia.

Lavrov said Jaishankar cited statistics that showed that the West has also increased its purchases of gas and oil from Russia, despite some of the restrictions that have been imposed.

Lavrov said Jaishankar “went on to say that India will decide for itself how to trade with whom and how to defend its national interests.” “But the fact that the West is exhibiting its displeasure to powers - powers like China, like India - well, it shows their lack of erudition, their inability to partake in diplomacy, and also speak to the failure of political analysts. Because speaking this way, to these great Asian powers… you might dream of that but it's really beneath them. It's really beneath them behaving this way vis-a-vis any and all countries but in particular when they're speaking in this way to these two giants, these two great powers.” On India’s oil purchases from Russia, Jaishankar earlier said that it is his duty to put the interest of the Indian people first to ensure that they do not pay the cost of some other countries’ actions or some other region’s actions for fertilizer, food, etc.

“It’s not just that we buy oil from one country. We buy oil from multiple sources, but it is a sensible policy to go where we get the best deal in the interests of the Indian people and that is exactly what we are trying to do,” Jaishankar has said.

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