India conveyed directly to Russia about absolute opposition to any use of nuclear weapons: Antony Blinken

New Delhi: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be travelling to India on 1 March to attend the meeting of G20 foreign ministers. ‘I think that had some effect’: Antony Blinken credits India’s opposition to Russia’s use of nuclear weapon In an interview given to a media house and shared by the State Department, Blinken said: “… I was engaged with my counterpart Mr. Lavrov; others were engaged with their theirs – but we urged, and I think successfully, other countries that might have a little bit more influence with Russia these days – like China, but also other countries like India – to engage him directly about their absolute opposition to any use of nuclear weapons. And we know that they conveyed those messages, and I think that had some effect.” ‘India is moving into military cooperation with us, France etc’ “India for decades had Russia at the core providing military equipment to it and its defences, but what we’ve seen over the last few years is a trajectory away from relying on Russia and moving into partnership with us and with other countries – France and so forth,” Blinken said. He further said the moment Putin decided to invade Ukraine, “we put into this through diplomacy to build a strong coalition, to build strong partnerships in advance – which, by the way, was the big difference from 2014; we had a run-up, and we were able to use diplomacy to bring countries together, both in terms of the support they provide to Ukraine, the pressure they put on Russia, and the strengthening of our NATO Alliance in a defensive way.” ‘China considering supplying war weapons to Russia’ Blinken reiterated that according to information, over the last couple of months it strongly indicates that China is now considering sending “lethal military support” to Russia. He also said he had a meeting with the top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Munich and directly told him about the concern, “what we were seeing, and reminded him of the many conversations between President Biden and President Xi and reminded him that this would be a serious problem in the relationship.” “What we’ve seen to date is China basically holding that line, which is to say there has been some nonlethal dual-use type support coming from quote/unquote ‘Chinese companies’ that almost certainly was approved by the state, because there’s really no difference, but not lethal military support.