India received another batch of medical aid comprising more than 9 tonnes or 225 thousand packs of anti-COVID-19 medication from Russia early Tuesday morning.
"Hope it would further help to meet the gap of vitally important medicines in India as well as to strengthen the confidence of the Indian people during these critical times," Nikolay R. Kudashev, Russia's ambassador to India, said.
Kudashev underlined that Russia is one of India's leading partners in the field of anti-COVID-19 cooperation, providing vaccines as well as offering support in various multilateral formats.
This is the second batch of humanitarian relief in a month to arrive from Russia after President Vladimir Putin promised emergency aid to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the peak of the crisis in the last week of April as New Delhi was struggling with shortages of oxygen, medicine, and ventilators. Earlier, the Russian government had shipped 22 tonnes of aid, including 75 ventilators, 150 medical monitors, and 200,000 packages of medicine in the last week of April.
India, which has been recording around 250,000 new infections daily for a week now, is experiencing a crippling shortage of both medical oxygen as well medicine to treat COVID patients.
Russia also delivered 210,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to India in two batches in May after India's drug regulator approved the vaccine for emergency use in April this year. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced on Monday that it is launching production of the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 in India jointly with Indian pharmaceutical producer Panacea Biotec, with full-scale production due to start this summer.