Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Wednesday said that India has no difficulties with Russia in receiving military equipment and spare parts in the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis.
"I don’t think in recent months we have faced any particular problems in terms of servicing and spare parts supply of equipment that we have got in the past from Russia," Jaishankar stated while addressing the media jointly with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The visiting Indian minister asserted that New Delhi is guided by its national interests in its policies.
“Where we get our military equipment and platforms from, that’s not an issue, honestly, which is a new issue or an issue which has particularly changed because of geopolitical tensions,” the minister underlined.
The Indian minister emphasized that New Delhi purchases defense equipment from multiple sources after assessing “the quality of technology, the quality of capability, (and) the terms on which that particular equipment is offered.”
"We have a tradition of multi-sourcing and for us, how to get the optimal deal from a competitive situation is really what this is all about," he underlined.
The top Indian diplomat’s remarks come a week after a US State Department official claimed that New Delhi was "coming to understand" that Russia was "no longer a reliable weapons supplier."
"So, we have been in deep conversation with India about the fact that we want to help them have options to diversify here," the US State Department official said last Tuesday.
Around 70 percent of India's arms are of Russian origin. Since 2018, the Narendra Modi government signed a range of agreements with Russia to purchase air-defense missile systems, warships, and assault rifles.
Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh had also appreciated the Kremlin for supplying arms and spare parts, including the S-400 air defense missile system, during the border stand-off with China in 2020.