EAM Jaishankar defends India's long-standing ties with Russia

Foreign minister S Jaishankar on Monday defended India's long-standing ties with Russia and chided the West for backing military dictatorship next door for decades, amid recent moves by the US to revive its security partnership with Pakistan and Germany's efforts to call for a UN role in Kashmir.

"With regard to India and Russia, we have really a longstanding relationship with Russia, a relationship that has certainly served our interest well. And when you asked about the military equipment issue - we have, as you know, a substantial inventory of Soviet- and Russian-origin weapons, and that inventory actually grew for a variety of reasons - you know, the merits of the weapon systems themselves, but also because for multiple decades, western countries did not supply weapons to India and, in fact, saw a military dictatorship next to us as the preferred partner," Jaishankar said, while addressing a joint press meet in Canberra with his Australian counterpart.

He added: "So, I think we all in international politics deal with what we have. We make judgements which are reflective of both our future interest as well as our current situation, and my sense is in terms of this current conflict (between Russia and Ukraine), like every military conflict, there are learnings from it, and I am sure my very professional colleagues in the military would be studying it very carefully."