India, Aug. 21 -- Foreign minister S Jaishankar, who met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday, said India is "very perplexed at the logic of the argument", when asked about the US government's assertion that penal tariffs have been imposed on India for buying oil from Russia despite its war with Ukraine.

"We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG, that is the European Union. We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022; I think there are some countries to the south," he said in response to a question at a joint press briefing with Lavrov.

The US has not imposed similar sanctions on China for its Russian oil imports y...