NEW DELHI, 04 March 2022, (TON): It would be difficult for India to continue buying military hardware from Russia after US financial sanctions on that country in response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a senior official of the US State department told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on US-India relations.

The official appeared to imply that the US would not need to invoke sanctions against “an important security partner” for the purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence system.

said Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu “it’s my view that it’s going to be very hard for anyone to buy major weapon systems from Moscow in the coming months and years, given the sweeping financial sanctions that the administration with the support of Congress has levelled on Russia, the Russian banking system.”

He said that the US Secretary of State had been in the frontline of a pitched battle to get India on the same page as the US on the Ukraine issue, and that there had been an “evolution” in India’s position, and in addition we are asking India to do more.

US Senator Chris Murphy, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, held the sub-committee hearing with Senator Todd Young, Ranking Member of the subcommittee, on US policy towards India.