US President Donald Trump claimed Monday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “agreed to stop buying Russian Oil”. He said that, as part of the India-US trade deal, India would purchase more oil from the "United States and, potentially, Venezuela."
Trump also announced a cut in tariffs on Indian goods from 50% to 18%. Previously, the US had imposed a 25% reciprocal tariff on Indian goods, plus an additional 25% penalty linked to India's continued imports of Russian crude amid the Ukraine war.
Image created using ChatGPTHere's what we know so far:
Trump says India will buy Venezuelan oil
A few days back, Trump had said that India is "going to be buying Venezuelan oil as opposed to buying it from Iran." He made the claim while responding to a question about China during an interview aboard Air Force One. However, India has not confirmed it yet.
What India has said about Russian oil purchase over the years
Last week, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said in an interview that India’s imports of Russian crude are expected to continue declining.
The world’s third-largest buyer of crude is looking to diversify its suppliers, Prui told Bloomberg Television last Tuesday. He added that the country is now in a position to diversify its oil suppliers and currently buys from 41 nations.
"There has been no mandate from the Indian government on Russian oil purchases, and companies are making their own decisions," Puri told the media outlet.
He said shipments from Russia have already dropped to 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd), down from an average of 1.8 million barrels last year. “There is a declining trend,” Puri said. He added, “These are market-driven conditions.”
In August 2025, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also said, "...We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China. We are not the biggest purchasers of LNG; that is the European Union."
"We are not the country which has the biggest trade surge with Russia after 2022; I think there are some countries to the South," Jaishankar said during a joint press briefing with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on 21 August 2025.
He had said while addressing Western criticism, "We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia."
"Incidentally, we also buy oil from the US, and that amount has increased. So honestly, we are very perplexed at the logic of the argument that you had referred to," the minister said.
Meanwhile, Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a regional summit in China.
How much does India import from Russia?
India emerged as the largest buyer of Russian seaborne oil. At its peak, India was taking more than 2 million barrels of Russian crude a day, Bloomberg reported.
Daily flows fell to around 1.2 million barrels in January 2026, according to data from Kpler.
According to Bloomberg, officials at a major industry event last week estimated that imports could drop further to 800,000 barrels to 1 million bpd in the coming months, a level seen as achievable for India and acceptable for the US.
"About half of that total would go to Nayara Energy, a plant part-owned by sanctioned Russian producer Rosneft PJSC, with the balance split among others, the report added.
Meanwhile, a European think tank said in early January that India imported about 144 billion euros' worth of crude oil from Russia since the start of the Ukraine war.
It claimed that Russia supplied about 35% of all crude oil that India imported, ahead of fresh sanctions the US imposed on two of Russia's leading oil exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil, coming into effect from 22 November 2025.
However, Russia's share in Indian oil purchases has since dropped to less than 25% and may dip further, as the primary buyer, Reliance Industries, shunned Russian oil.
Curated by Emma Watson
