Standing alongside the Indian ministers for foreign affairs and defense on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a pointed message about supporting Ukraine.
Blinken noted that the United States would continue to call on nations to back Kyiv, “just as we call on all nations to condemn Moscow’s increasingly brutal actions.”
In remarks at a news conference following the US-India 2+2 Ministerial in Washington, Blinken said, “Russia’s war against Ukraine is an attack on Ukraine’s people. It’s also an attack on that rules-based order that we both adhere to and defend.”
The United States, Blinken said, “will continue to increase our support to the government and people of Ukraine and call on other nations to do the same, just as we call on all nations to condemn Moscow’s increasingly brutal actions.”
Blinken declared that Russia’s war “stands in stark contrast to the vision that the United States and India share for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” and noted that Moscow’s actions were having worldwide consequences.
India has continued to purchase Russian oil in the wake of the war in Ukraine and last week abstained in a vote to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
The US secretary of state also said Monday that “India has to make its own decisions about how it approaches” the Russian war in Ukraine and that the US believes “it is important that all countries, especially those with leverage, press Putin to end the war.”
“We, as a general proposition, are consulting with all of our allies and partners on the consequences of Putin’s war, the atrocities being committed against the people of Ukraine,” Blinken said at the news conference following the US-India 2+2 Ministerial.
Blinken said it was important that “democracies stand together and…
Source : cnn
