Russia Won’t Punish India For Reducing Its Oil Imports

Putin is too risk-averse to jeopardize Russia’s national interests in this context.

Trump’s Executive Order rescinding the US’ punitive 25% tariffs on India for its import of Russian oil didn’t come without strings attached. Going forward, the US “shall monitor whether India resumes directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil”, in which case the 25% tariff might be reimposed. Till now, “India’s Russian Oil Imports Helped Prevent A Global Polycrisis” by keeping oil prices and supply stable, thus averting cascading crises across the Global South if prices skyrocketed and supply dwindled.

Nevertheless, “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil”, thus resulting in a stable diversification of suppliers after Russia had at one point accounted for a whopping one-third of India’s oil imports. About that, “India Has Imported $168 Billion in Russian Oil Since Start of Ukraine War”, but the over $40 billion a year on average that Russia received from oil sales to India will now become a thing of the past due to the US’ newfound monitoring of its oil imports.

Accordingly, “The Indo-US Trade Deal Might Sharply Shift The Direction Of The Global Systemic Transition” if Russia either relies on China to replace its lost Indian oil market at the risk of becoming too dependent on it or agrees to tough compromises with the US on Ukraine for phased sanctions relief that would gradually return its oil to the global market, but there’s no indication yet of what Russia will do. Even so, one scenario can be ruled out, and it’s that Russia punishes India for reducing its oil imports.

Dr. Brahma Chellaney, who’s a highly esteemed Indian thinker, expressed worry about this possibility in a recent X post. He wrote that “India risks a strategic rupture with Russia, its key defense partner”, if it complies with the US’ demand to reduce its Russian oil imports. The innuendo is that Russia might withhold military-technical exports to India, reduce cooperation in this sphere, and thus leave India vulnerable to China and Pakistan due to its continued dependence on Russian arms.

There are three reasons why Russia would never do this. First, military-technical exports to India are reliable streams of budgetary revenue, the opportunity of which Russia wouldn’t ever pass up for any reason and especially not as the economy begins to stagnate. Second, India is on track to become the third-largest economy by 2030, and Russia won’t do anything that would risk losing access to its market after already losing the massive American and European ones due to sanctions.

And finally, Russia counterbalances China through its close ties with India, without which it would risk disproportionate dependence on the People’s Republic with all the strategic vulnerabilities that entails. Putin is highly risk-averse so it’s difficult to imagine him letting Russia become dependent on China. That said, Russia might signal its displeasure with India through symbolic MoUs with Pakistan, but the US wields de facto veto rights over Pakistan’s partnerships nowadays so nothing would likely come of them.

All things considered, while Russia would prefer for India to continue its large-scale oil imports, it won’t punish India for the inevitable gradual reduction thereof in compliance with the US’ demand. Russian hawks might think poorer of India, but their ties aren’t expected to worsen since Putin is too risk-averse to jeopardize Russia’s national interests in this context as was explained. For these reasons, Russian-Indian relations will remain strong, but Russia won’t forget that India ultimately bent under US pressure.