Donald Trump Claims India Will Stop Buying Russian Oil. What Numbers Say

US President Donald Trump has claimed that India has assured him that it will curb its Russian seaborne crude exports, months after Washington slapped 25 per cent punitive tariffs on New Delhi over the purchase. The US leader also said he would try to get China to do the same as Washington intensifies efforts to cut off Moscow's energy revenues. 

New Delhi and Beijing are the two top buyers of Russian seaborne crude exports.

"He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) has assured me there will be no oil purchased from Russia... You know, you can't do it immediately. It's a little bit of a process, but the process is going to be over with soon," Trump told reporters.

He further claimed that if India doesn't buy Russian oil, "it makes it much easier" for him to broker a truce between Russia and Ukraine. "...They will go back to Russia after the war is over," he added.

India's Response

India did not immediately confirm or deny Trump's remarks. So far, despite Trump's punitive tariffs, New Delhi has continuously defended buying oil from Russia -- a historic partner of India -- despite Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Delhi has said that Russian oil imports were necessary to keep energy prices low and stabilise its domestic market and has called the US tariffs "unjustified".

The Trump administration has imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on India as a penalty for its purchases of Russian oil, taking the total levies imposed on India by the US to 50 per cent, among the highest in the world. India is the only major economy to be hit by what Trump has described as "secondary tariffs", even though China is also a major buyer of Russian crude.

What Data On Oil Export Shows

Despite Trump's claim, Moscow appears to still be New Delhi's biggest source of oil. According to data compiled by commodities and shipping markets tracker Kpler, New Delhi, in September alone, accounted for 34 per cent of inbound shipments despite a 10 per cent dip in imports in the first eight months of 2025.

The agency's latest data pegs New Delhi's crude imports in September at more than 4.5 million bpd (barrels per day). It's 70,000 barrels more than imports in August but a slight dip when compared to the year-ago period, data showed. 

According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), in September, India remained the second-largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels, buying oil worth Rs 25,597 crore.

Data, however, showed that India's state-owned refiners scaled back the Russian oil imports by over 45 per cent between June and September. Nonetheless, that didn't necessarily seem to have impacted crude shipments in the country, as the drop seems to be driven by market dynamics and not because of the US tariff threat and European criticism of India's trade amid the war in Ukraine. 

The October oil trade between India and Russia broadly remained in line with expectations at 1.6 million bpd.