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How India’s Russian Oil Buys Stabilise Global Markets And How The West Quietly Benefits
Standing beside his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was unambiguous. “We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China,” he said, pushing back against what he described as a “perplexing” narrative from the West. Addressing media questions about US tariffs on Indian goods, Jaishankar defended India’s decision to import discounted crude from Russia as one driven by national interest, and more importantly, one that helped stabilise the global energy market.
“We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia,” Jaishankar stated, clearly suggesting that India was now being unfairly penalised for doing exactly what the West had informally endorsed.
The comments come at a time when India finds itself at the centre of a geopolitical energy debate, triggered by Washington’s decision to double tariffs on Indian goods, now totalling 50 per cent, with an additional 25 per cent penalty imposed specifically over energy trade with Russia.
The premise behind the penalty, that India is the “largest buyer” of Russian oil and thus fuelling Moscow’s war chest, has been repeatedly contested by New Delhi. Jaishankar, in Moscow,laid out the data: India is not the top importer of Russian oil (that would be China), not the biggest buyer of Russian LNG (that would be the EU), and not even the trade partner with the sharpest post-2022 surge in volume with Moscow.
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