A day after United States President Donald Trump claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “agreed to stop buying Russian oil,” Kremlim spokesman Dmitry Peskov Tuesday said that Russia has not heard any statements from India about stopping the country’s oil purchases. Trump on Monday claimed that India would buy much more oil from the […]
A day after United States President Donald Trump claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “agreed to stop buying Russian oil,” Kremlim spokesman Dmitry Peskov Tuesday said that Russia has not heard any statements from India about stopping the country’s oil purchases.
Trump on Monday claimed that India would buy much more oil from the United States and, potentially, from Venezuela.
“We haven’t heard any statements from New Delhi on this matter yet,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin spokesman also said that Russia intends to continue to develop its relations with India in every possible way, PTI reported quoting Russian media reports.
Sources in Russia’s energy ministry also backed Kremlin’s response, saying they have not received any notice from Indian refiners to cancel contracts.
Beijing is yet to respond to the development.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump, who was in a conversation with PM Modi on Monday, announced that India and the US agreed to a trade deal under which Washington will charge a reduced reciprocal tariff on Delhi, lowering it from 25 per cent to 18 per cent.
Trump had earlier imposed 50 per cent tariffs on India — one of the highest in the world — including 25 per cent levies for its purchases of Russian energy.
India buys about 88 per cent of its crude oil from overseas and converts it into fuels like petrol and diesel, PTI reported. Russian oil made up hardly 0.2 per cent of all crude oil imported by India until 2021. India became the largest buyer of discounted Russian crude after Western countries shunned Moscow following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
According to data from real-time analytics company Kpler, India’s import of Russian crude oil dropped to around 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first three weeks of January, from an average of 1.21 million bpd in December, and over 2 million bpd imports in mid-2025.
Iraq is now supplying nearly the same volumes of oil to India as Russia, up from an average of 9,04,000 bpd in December 2025, according to Kpler. Moreover, volumes from Saudi Arabia too have risen to 9,24,000 bpd in January, from 7,10,000 bpd in December and lows of 5,39,000 bpd in April 2025, Kpler noted.
