Donald Trump has said that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has assured him that the country will stop buying oil from Russia. “That’s a big step,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “Now we’re going to get China to do the same thing.” The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to questions about whether such a commitment had been made.
Before the Ukraine war, India imported less than 1% of its oil from Russia; that has surged to about 40% as Russia has discounted its oil below the price cap imposed by sanctions. Trump acknowledged that India could not halt shipments immediately, calling it “a little bit of a process, but that process will be over soon”. He has already imposed tariffs on Indian exports to the US, partly because of its Russian oil purchases, which help fund Russia’s war effort.
The European Union will urge G7 partners to consider using immobilised Russian assets to support Ukraine, the EU’s economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, told AFP on Wednesday. Under the EU plan, funds would be borrowed from the international deposit organisation Euroclear and loaned to Ukraine, with the expectation that Russia will eventually pay postwar reparations. The UK and Canada have indicated willingness to join the scheme, Dombrovskis said.
Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the alliance was “testing integrated systems that will help us detect, track and neutralise aerial threats” as it and the EU seek to boost anti-drone defences. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has arranged supplies of 3.7m artillery rounds to Ukraine this year under an internationally funded scheme, outgoing prime minister Petr Fiala announced. Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, also announced €500m in purchases for Ukraine under the Purl initiative.
Ukraine suffered further Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, with emergency power cuts imposed in all regions except Donetsk, the state grid operator Ukrenergo said. One person was injured when drones hit apartments and a logistics building in Nizhyn. Russia also struck a thermal power plant and gas facilities in several regions over the past week.
Italy’s top court has blocked the extradition to Germany of a Ukrainian man accused of coordinating the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Because of a legal error, the case against the suspect, identified as Serhii Kuznietsov under German privacy laws, will be reheard at a later date.
