India Defends Russian Oil Purchases

(MENAFN) India has flatly rejected suggestions that outside forces have shaped its energy strategy, insisting that its oil procurement decisions are driven exclusively by national interest and market economics — not foreign pressure.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told an Indian English-language news television channel that India's international agreements, forged at the highest diplomatic levels, have empowered the country to broaden its energy supply base and insulate itself against the shocks of global disruptions — most acutely those stemming from the ongoing Middle East conflict.

"India was never told not to buy Russian oil," Puri said.

The Middle East conflict and its cascading disruptions to regional energy flows have thrown India's oil import strategy into sharp relief. The country relies on imports to meet the vast majority of its energy needs, making supply diversification a matter of economic survival rather than political preference.

Washington has issued sanctions waivers on Indian purchases of Russian oil on three separate occasions since the conflict erupted, framing the move as a mechanism to cool oil prices that spiked in the conflict's immediate aftermath. Puri pushed back on the suggestion that the waivers were instrumental to India's position, maintaining that New Delhi successfully steered through both the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts — crises he pointedly described as "not of our making."

India currently "imports energy from 41 countries," Puri said, citing the figure as evidence of the country's deliberate and sustained push to diversify away from any single source of supply.

The endorsement of India's pivotal role in global energy markets came from an unexpected quarter. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) last week, identified India as one of the primary engines of global energy demand at present, adding that over the next decade the country "will account for around half of the increase in global oil demand."

Sechin also flagged the growing uncertainty surrounding shipping passage through the Strait of Hormuz as a double-edged development for India — one that would inflict short-term pain while simultaneously accelerating New Delhi's pursuit of longer-term energy security solutions.

The diplomatic backdrop to India's energy calculus has been fraught. Washington imposed sweeping 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports in August 2025 — half of which were explicitly punitive measures targeting New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil. Those tariffs were subsequently reduced to 18 percent earlier this year following the conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement between the two nations.

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