US authorities think relations that Russia shares with many of its partners, including India, can not be called alliances, John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House, said at a briefing on Friday (16).
Responding to a journalist who sought his reaction on Indian prime minister Narendra Modi telling Russian president Vladimir Putin during their meeting on the sidelines of the just concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that this "is not an era of war" in connection with the Ukraine conflict and whether it showed that alliances forged by Moscow were becoming weak, Kirby said those ties cannot be called "alliances", Russia's state-run TASS news agency said.
"These aren't alliances," the White House official said, since using the term in this context would be stretching it "way beyond its limits."
Kirby said there were not "a whole lot of sympathetic ears" at the SCO summit which was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and saw the presence of Chinese president Xi Jinping as well. According to Kirby, statements made by India and China gave such an indication.
During their meeting at the SCO summit on Thursday (15), Putin acknowledged China's "questions and concerns" about the ongoing war.
Kirby also said that Putin "is only further isolating" himself from the international community.
"We don’t believe that now is the time to be doing any business as usual with Russia," he added.
Putin told Modi that he knew India's position on the conflict in the east European nation and assured that Moscow "will do everything for all of this to end as soon as possible".
US secretary of state Antony Blinken also said on Friday that the concerns shown by India and China about the Ukraine war reflect the global apprehension about the conflict and added that it increases the pressure on the Kremlin "to end the aggression", CNN reported.
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