"New Delhi Is Free": Moscow On India Stopping Russia Oil Trade Under US Deal

Russia said India is free to buy oil from any country after US President Donald Trump claimed India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil as part of the trade deal between New Delhi and Washington signed earlier this week. The Kremlin noted that Moscow is not the only crude supplier for New Delhi, and there is nothing new about India's decision to diversify its crude suppliers.

India has been importing around 1.5 million barrels of Russian crude per day, even after Trump imposed 25 per cent punitive tariffs on Indian goods, according to Kpler, a global trade data provider. New Delhi is the second-largest purchaser of Russian crude, making it over one-third of the overall Indian imports.

"We, along with all other international energy experts, are well aware that Russia is not the only supplier of oil and petroleum products to India. India has always purchased these products from other countries. Therefore, we see nothing new here," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said while responding to a question on the US claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to switch India's crude purchase from Russia to the United States and, potentially, from Venezuela.

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Russia's Concerns

A day earlier, Peskov said that Russia has not received any statements from India regarding the cessation of Russian oil purchases.

Russia's Foreign Ministry also insisted that the hydrocarbon trade is beneficial for both New Delhi and Moscow.

"We remain convinced that India's purchase of Russian hydrocarbons is beneficial to both countries and contributes to maintaining stability in the international energy market. We are ready to continue close cooperation in this area with our partners in India," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing.

Russia's private Kommersant FM business radio noted that, unlike President Trump, PM Modi did not mention any agreement on stopping Russian oil imports.

India's Dependence On Russian Crude

Russian oil hardly made up 0.2 per cent of all crude oil that India imported till 2021. However, following Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when the Western countries shunned Moscow, New Delhi --the world's third-largest oil importer-- became the largest buyer of discounted Russian crude.

India buys about 88 per cent of its crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel, from overseas-- one-third of it comes from Russia. At the peak, India was taking more than 2 million barrels a day, a level that fell to around 1.3 million barrels a day in December, a figure that's likely to remain stable this month.

But Trump last year imposed 50 per cent tariffs on India, among the highest in the world, including 25 per cent levies for its purchases of Russian energy. Following this, India's import of Russian crude oil dropped to around 1.1 million barrels per day in the first three weeks of January, from an average of 1.21 million bpd in the previous month and over 2 million bpd imports in mid-2025, according to data from real-time analytics company Kpler.

Igor Yushkov, a leading expert at the National Energy Security Fund, believes that Indian refiners cannot fully stop the import of Russian crude.

"The American shale oil they export is light grades, similar to gas condensate. Russia, on the other hand, supplies relatively heavy, sulfur-rich Urals. This means India will need to blend US crude with other grades, which incurs additional costs, meaning a simple substitution won't be possible," he said while talking to news agency PTI.

"Russia typically exports 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day to the country. America won't be able to cover that volume. So, one gets the sense that Trump is simply trying to show that he won these trade negotiations and the deal was concluded entirely in line with US demands," he added

Last time, when Russia switched to the Indian market from European and American markets in 2022, it cut production by 1 million barrels per day. This led to prices rising to $120 per barrel, and the US set an all-time high for gasoline and diesel prices, Yushkov recalled.