India’s purchase of Russian oil has often been presented as evidence of strategic autonomy. The more interesting question is how New Delhi made an apparent contradiction sustainable for as long as it did. Since 2022, India has expanded Russian energy ties while deepening trade, technology and security cooperation with the United States. This did not require the two relationships to become compatible. It required keeping their disagreements contained. India could treat Russian crude as an energy-security decision without determining its relationship with Washington, while closer US ties did not require it to disengage from Moscow. This arrangement is usually described as compartmentalisation. But New Delhi cannot create those compartments on its own. They also depend on what its partners need from India, how easily India can replace what they provide, and whether either side is willing to make cooperation in one area conditional on Indian behaviour in another.
The latest American pressure on Russian energy matters because Washington is doing precisely that. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 allows tariffs of up to 100 per cent on goods from the largest buyers of Russian energy. For India, this connects a refinery’s decision to buy Russian crude with the conditions under which Indian goods enter the American market. The question is therefore not simply whether India can replace Russian oil. It is whether the economic relationships that let New Delhi keep Moscow and Washington separate still leave enough room to do so.
Russian oil fitted unusually well into India’s foreign-policy model after 2022 because dependence ran in both directions. Western sanctions sharply reduced Russia’s European market just as Indian refiners gained access to discounted crude. From December 2022 through April 2026, China purchased 49 per cent of Russia’s crude exports and India another 37 per cent, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Moscow had become heavily reliant on two Asian buyers.
An analysis of official trade data estimates that Russian discounts saved Indian refiners at least $12.6 billion between April 2022 and June 2025. This gave the relationship a useful asymmetry. Russia needed Indian buyers, while Indian refiners retained access to other suppliers. New Delhi could therefore defend Russian purchases as commercial decisions rather than political alignment with Moscow. Washington objected, but its expanding interests with India in defence, technology, and the Indo-Pacific also gave it reasons not to let oil alone define the bilateral relationship. The separation was therefore sustained by more than Indian diplomacy. All three sides had reasons to tolerate it. Those incentives are becoming less favourable. The effective Russian price advantage over non-Russian crude fell from 13.6 per cent in 2022-23 to 2.8 per cent in 2024-25. By September, S&P Global assessed Urals delivered to India’s west coast at a premium to forward-dated Brent. Stronger Chinese demand is also competing with India for tighter Russian supply.
Yet Russian crude has not become irrelevant. India imports around 88 per cent of its crude requirement, while instability in West Asia has made excessive dependence on Gulf supply routes risky. Russian oil has become less profitable without becoming strategically useless. India nevertheless has more flexibility in oil than the headline dependence suggests.
Its refineries can process crude from a wide range of suppliers. As Russian availability has tightened, refiners have increased purchases of UAE Murban, Iraqi Basrah and Angolan crude. Russian arrivals fell from around 2.1 million barrels per day in August to roughly 1.75 million in September. (Reuters) That decline cannot simply be read as India yielding to Washington. Russian exports have tightened, Chinese demand has increased, discounts have narrowed, and shipping risks have changed alongside the threat of American penalties.
Nor do all Indian refiners face the same calculation. Reliance has had contractual commitments for Russian crude, while Nayara, partly owned by Rosneft, is considerably more exposed to Russian supply. State refiners have stronger reasons to diversify when sanctions or supply risks rise. This matters because India’s room for manoeuvre at the diplomatic level comes from adjustments further down the chain. Some refiners can reduce Russian exposure; others retain it when commercial conditions justify it. India can change the composition of its crude basket without converting every adjustment into a geopolitical choice.
Diversification therefore does more than reduce dependence on Russia. It preserves India’s ability to decide when Russian oil remains worth the political and commercial risk.
The harder problem lies in the US relationship. The American market accounted for about a fifth of India’s exports in 2025, but dependence is concentrated in particular industries. A NITI Aayog assessment found that the US took 38 per cent of India’s pharmaceutical exports, 31.3 per cent of electrical machinery exports and 31.1 per cent of gems and jewellery exports in 2024. Several textile categories were even more exposed. This gives Washington a different kind of leverage. It does not need to provide India with an alternative to Russian crude. Instead, it can make Russian crude more expensive by imposing costs on industries that have nothing to do with oil.
The 2025-26 tariff episode showed how this can work. Washington imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods over Russian oil purchases. In February 2026, the White House removed the duty, stating that India had committed to stop importing Russian oil. More importantly, the settlement did not remain confined to oil. The accompanying US-India trade framework covered tariffs and market access alongside Indian purchases of American energy and other products, while the White House also linked the wider relationship to defence cooperation. Washington was already negotiating across categories that New Delhi had benefited from keeping separate.
The September legislation extends that logic. A refinery’s sourcing decision can now potentially affect an exporter selling pharmaceuticals, jewellery or textiles into the United States. Pressure no longer has to remain within the relationship where the disagreement originated.
This, however, does not mean Washington can dictate India’s oil policy. The United States also has interests in Indian market access, supply chains, technology and security cooperation. Excessive pressure carries costs for the bilateral relationship, just as abandoning Indian buyers would carry costs for Russia. Nor can either dependency be reduced to a national trade number. Replacing Russian crude is easier for some refiners than others. Losing American demand would be more disruptive for some exporters than others. Both the ability to substitute and the time required to do so matter.
India’s room for manoeuvre therefore depends on three practical questions: how quickly it can replace what a partner provides, who inside India bears the cost, and whether the other side is willing to keep disagreements contained.
That is why the present dispute is not yet evidence that India must choose between Moscow and Washington. It instead reveals how India has avoided that choice. New Delhi has benefited from relationships in which dependencies were spread across partners, alternatives remained available, and disagreements did not determine cooperation elsewhere. Washington’s attempt to connect Russian oil with American market access makes that balance harder to maintain. India can respond by shifting crude suppliers, negotiating exemptions, or reducing its exposure to individual export markets, but each response shifts the cost elsewhere.
India has not lost the ability to deal with Russia and the United States simultaneously. But 2026 has clarified what sustains that ability. Cheap Russian crude helped when Moscow needed Indian buyers; refinery flexibility helps when those barrels become costly; access to alternative markets matters when Washington uses trade as leverage. None of these advantages is permanent. The limit of India’s approach will therefore not arrive when New Delhi is formally asked to choose between Moscow and Washington. It will arrive when avoiding that choice becomes more expensive than making it.
Essay: Preksha Jalan- Associate Fellow, Digital History Lab at The Advanced Study Institute of Asia (ASIA).
Produced by Decypher Team in New Delhi, India