White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki answered in response to a question about India's interest in purchasing discounted Russian energy that "Our message to any country continues to be, obviously, abide by the sanctions. I don't think this would be violating [the sanctions], but think about where you want to stand when the history books are written in this moment in time. And support for the Russian leadership is support for an invasion that obviously is having a devastating impact."
This amounts to yet another attempt by America to meddle in India's sovereign affairs, which includes its foreign policy. It also represents the continuation of increasingly complicated Indian-American relations that first became noticeable in summer 2020. The US is aggressively imposing a false zero-sum choice onto its "fellow" Quad partner whereby India is being pressured to choose between it and Russia even though its national interests are indisputably best served by remaining neutral.
If the US truly had India's best interests in mind, then it wouldn't ever dare threaten it with CAATSA sanctions for purchasing Russia's state-of-the-art S-400 air defense systems nor would it pressure that country to not pursue advantageous deals for discounted Russian energy. The South Asian state requires the military-technological and energy products that Russia provides in order to ensure its interests. Therefore, attempting to deny it such is to work against India's national interests, which is unfriendly.
America's attitude towards India remains hegemonic since its strategists seemingly can't countenance the pragmatism of simply treating it like an equal as it deserves. Threatening sanctions and publicly pressuring it contradict the spirit of their strategic partnership that's unprecedentedly intensified in recent years due to their shared security concerns vis-à-vis China. The US should support India, not oppose it, yet it continues to do the opposite of what's objectively in their mutual interests.
The Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership is special, privileged, and historic. It's also impressively proven itself unbreakable despite decades of American attempts to drive countless wedges between them. India is neutral towards Russia's specialmilitaryoperation in Ukraine because it has no interest in choosing sides, let alone the one that would result in worsening its relations with the Eurasian Great Power. The US should respect this difference of interests that it has with India if it's truly its partner.
After all, Russia respects India's relations with Moscow's American rival the same as India respects Russia's relations with New Delhi's Pakistani one. "The Twists & Turns Of Russian-Indian Ties Over The Past Few Years" actually resulted in them strengthening their strategic partnership to the point where each party respects the other's policy differences on sensitive subjects so long as their moves don't threaten the other's interests, which they don't nor will they ever.
This sincere respect of the other's sovereign decisions is why those two decided to de facto synchronize their grand strategies by unofficially attempting to jointly assemble a new Non-Aligned Movement ("Neo-NAM"). This mutually beneficial vision has since become the paradigm for the further comprehensive development of their strategic relations following their reaffirmed partnership pact from early December that was signed during President Putin's game-changing visit to New Delhi.
American strategists are so blinded by their hubristic "American Exceptionalism" ideology that they're incapable of realizing that they're pushing India away from the hearty embrace that Prime Minister Modi immediately gave it upon entering office in 2014. No self-respecting Great Power would ever tolerate being spoken to like the US just did to India, not to mention all of the other unfriendly moves that American made against its so-called partner since summer 2020.
India has no intention of contributing to the worsening of bilateral relations with the US but will very proudly pursue its grand strategic interests even if its related policies aren't to America's liking. Unlike what Psaki claimed, India is standing on the right side of history by remaining neutral in the New Cold War. Those who objectively assess events will agree that it would be detrimental to Indian interests to side against Russia like America arrogantly demands. Its neutrality should be praised, not condemned.
Factual correctness does not matter, and never has.