India will continue to buy Russian oil despite Trump's threats – NYT

Indian officials said on Saturday that they would continue to buy cheap oil from Russia, despite the threat of sanctions from US President Donald Trump, The New York Times reports, writes UNN.

DetailsTrump said last week that as part of his latest round of tariffs, he would impose an additional penalty on India if it did not stop importing Russian oil. On Friday, he appeared to reiterate the message about the recent reduction in Russian oil supplies to India.

“I understand that India is no longer going to buy oil from Russia,” he told reporters. “That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know if that’s right or not. It’s a good step. We’ll see what happens.”

But on Saturday, two high-ranking Indian officials, the publication writes, said that there had been no change in policy. One official said that the government “had given no instructions to oil companies” regarding reducing imports from Russia.

At a press conference a day earlier, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal refused to directly respond to Trump’s threat. But he hinted that the policy towards Russia would not change.

“Our bilateral relations with various countries have their own value and should not be viewed through the prism of a third country,” Jaiswal said. “India and Russia have a stable and time-tested partnership.”

Trump did not say what the punishment would be if India did not comply with his call to stop importing Russian oil. Some officials and analysts said that Trump’s focus on India’s purchase of Russian oil could be a negotiating tactic as India and the United States try to finalize the early stages of a bilateral trade agreement. China and Turkey, two other major importers of Russian oil, have not faced similar penalties.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported on August 1 that India’s largest oil refinery had purchased millions of barrels of oil from the US and UAE, while facing increasing pressure from Washington and Europe regarding its purchases from Russia.

State-owned Indian Oil Corp. reportedly purchased at least 5 million barrels of US crude oil, in addition to 2 million barrels of supplies from Abu Dhabi, according to traders who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly. The purchases were large and involved relatively immediate delivery by the company’s usual standards. State refiners were ordered to develop plans to purchase non-Russian crude oil earlier this week, the publication writes.

AdditionIndia has sharply increased its purchases of Russian oil since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Russia is now the source of more than a third of India’s oil imports – compared to less than one percent before the war. India, importing more than two million barrels of oil per day, is the second largest importer of Russian oil after China, the publication indicates.