Moscow/IBNS-CMEDIA: Russia has said India is free to purchase oil from any country, responding to US President Donald Trump’s claim that New Delhi decided to stop buying crude from Moscow in favour of Washington and Venezuela, media reports said.
“India is free to buy oil from whomever it wants,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency TASS.
“We, along with all other international energy experts, are well aware that Russia is not the only supplier of oil and petroleum products to India.
“India has always purchased these products from other countries. Therefore, we see nothing new here,” he added when asked about India’s alleged decision to switch oil suppliers.
Earlier this week, Trump, while announcing the long-delayed India–US trade deal, claimed that India had agreed to stop buying oil from its all-weather ally Russia and redirect its purchases to the US and Venezuela.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked Trump for the trade deal but made no reference to the Russian oil issue.
India, which depends on overseas sources for nearly 88 per cent of its crude oil needs, meets about one-third of its requirement through imports from Russia.
However, India reduced its Russian oil purchases to around 1.1 million barrels per day in the first three weeks of January, down from an average of 1.21 million barrels per day in the previous month and over 2 million barrels per day in mid-2025, following Trump’s additional 25 per cent tariffs on New Delhi, real-time analytics firm Kpler said, as quoted by NDTV.
