A Rosneft oil tanker in the Baltic Sea off Russia’s Leningrad region on 3 May 2025. Photo: EPA / MAXIM SHIPENKOV
The US has criticised India for helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine as Moscow once again slashed the price of its crude oil exports to the country in an effort to guarantee its continued custom, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
India became a major importer of Russian crude after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, but has recently had punishing 50% tariffs imposed on its own exports to the US as the Trump administration seeks to punish New Delhi for continuing to import Russian crude oil.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, White House Trade adviser Peter Navarro accused “Brahmins” of “profiteering at the expense of the Indian people” and demanded that India end Russian crude imports. He also said that India had turned into a “laundromat for the Kremlin’s money”, the Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.
Despite the imposition of tariffs and criticism from US President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China this week that his country and Russia shared a “special” relationship, and showed no sign that he was considering ending imports of Russian crude oil.
On Monday, India’s Oil Minister Hardeep Puri rejected American criticism of its Russian fuel imports, arguing in English-language daily newspaper The Hindu that Russian oil flows had in fact helped to shield the global economy from a price spike.
Indian state-run and private processors received 11.4 million barrels of Russian crude oil between 27 August and 1 September, according to Bloomberg, with one cargo coming from a ship-to-ship transfer via the US-sanctioned Victor Konetsky, an oil tanker that forms part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, foreign-registered vessels it uses to circumvent sanctions.
The latest discount means that Urals, Russia’s benchmark oil, is now being offered at a discount equivalent to around $3 to $4 per barrel when compared to Brent. Just a week ago, the discount was only $2.50 a barrel, and in July it was lower still at $1. The discount is likely to spark increased interest from buyers, Bloomberg said.