Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently declared during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kiev that “This conflict, which is today in its fifth year, will not be solved because somebody is buying or not buying oil or alumina or minerals or metals or fertilizer.” This was in allusion to the Senate passing a bill in honor of the late Lindsey Graham last month, which would empower Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on Russia’s top energy partners.
About that, Politico reported that the bill “is poised to get shuffled aside in the House”, while The Hill cited an unnamed congressional aide who described it as “dead again”. The reason for their pessimism is that the Democrats oppose granting Trump powers that they believe would contradict the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling earlier this year and even some Republicans feel the same way. It therefore can’t be taken for granted that the US will impose any new pressure on India over its Russian oil purchases.
Jaishankar already proudly signaled that India would defy the US in that scenario, while Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov contextualized that likely decision by recently telling the media that “The world will not cope if Russian oil is excluded. The energy markets cannot afford that. Russian oil will stay in the market for India and other countries. We are interested in supplying oil to India. India is interested in buying that oil.” He also said that “India has shown that it’s able to stand its ground”.
In the immediate run-up to the Third Gulf War, however, India curtailed its Russian oil purchases under what most observers believed to be US pressure as an unofficial quid pro quo connected to the interim trade deal that they clinched in early February. India than reversed course and once again began massively importing Russian oil after the Third Gulf War led to a global energy crisis, so much so that 45% of its imports last month were from Russia. This piece here analyzed its recalibrated balancing act.
It was facilitated by the US giving India and then other countries too a temporary waiver on Russian oil purchases for the purpose of restoring relative stability to the global market amidst the large-scale disruption caused by the Third Gulf War. India would have probably defied US pressure not to purchase more Russian oil had it been imposed at the time since its economic growth, and thus its political stability with all that entails for its domestic security, largely depends on affordable energy prices.
The same calculations still hold true in the present and are expected to remain relevant for the indefinite future. Therefore, so long as the global energy crisis persists – and it’s expected to last at least until sometime next year at the very earliest realistic end date – India will likely defy US pressure over its Russian oil purchases, which are indirectly essential to its national security as was explained. It can correspondingly be concluded that India is maintaining them in furtherance of its own interests.
This observation debunks the false claim pushed by some alleging that India continues purchasing Russian oil as a “plausibly deniable” way of “bankrolling Putin’s war”. The reality is that India always prioritizes its national interests, it doesn’t do favors for anyone at its own expense, but it’s sometimes forced by circumstances beyond its control to make uncomfortable decisions. With that in mind, if the US imposes new pressure on India over its Russian oil purchases, then India is expected to defy it.
