Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday said he had a “very productive” conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to negotiate a credit line for purchasing discounted oil from Moscow to “defeat” the worst economic challenges faced by the island nation.

During their conversation, Rajapaksa also urged Putin to restart the services of the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot to the country. Sri Lanka is going through the worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948 and needs to obtain at least $4 billion to tide over the acute shortage in foreign exchange reserves.

“Had a very productive telecon with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. While thanking him for all the support extended by his government to overcome the challenges of the past, I requested an offer of credit support to import fuel to Lanka in defeating the current economic challenges,” President Rajapaksa said in a tweet.

The two Presidents “discussed issues of bilateral economic cooperation, in particular in energy, agriculture and transport”, according to a press statement released by the Kremlin in Moscow.

In May, Sri Lanka purchased 90,000 tonnes of oil from Russia. Western countries have largely halted energy imports from Russia as part of the punitive sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February. A spike in global oil prices has forced a number of developing countries to buy Russian crude.

A Sri Lankan delegation is also scheduled to leave for Russia on July 9 to hold several rounds of preliminary discussions with high-ranking representatives in Moscow