Moscow: The Kremlin on Wednesday said India is free to buy oil from any country and that there is nothing new about New Delhi diversifying its crude oil suppliers. “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, reported PTI.
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Peskov was reacting to claims by US President Donald Trump that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and shift crude purchases to the United States and potentially Venezuela.
A day earlier, Peskov had said that Russia had not received any statements from India regarding the cessation of Russian oil purchases. Russian business radio Kommersant FM noted that unlike Trump, Modi did not mention any agreement on stopping Russian oil imports.
Energy expert Igor Yushkov of the National Energy Security Fund said Indian refiners cannot fully stop importing 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.
“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,” Yushkov added.
Yushkov recalled that when Russia redirected oil exports to India from European and American markets in 2022, it cut production by 1 million barrels per day, pushing global crude prices to USD 120 per barrel and driving US gasoline and diesel prices to record highs.
Trump last year imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on India, including a 25 percent levy linked to India’s purchases of Russian energy. India imports about 88 percent of its crude oil requirements. Russian oil accounted for just 0.2 percent of India’s crude imports until 2021, but India became the largest buyer of discounted Russian crude after Western countries shunned Moscow following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
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India’s imports of Russian crude fell to around 1.1 million barrels per day in the first three weeks of January, down from 1.21 million bpd in the previous month and over 2 million bpd in mid-2025, according to data from real-time analytics firm Kpler.
