Trump’s India squeeze to push Russian oil further into the shadows

[LONDON] Donald Trump is putting more pressure on India to slash its Russian oil purchases. This could deprive Moscow of vital revenue, but it will mostly just push more Russian oil into an increasingly large shadow market.

The US president said last Wednesday (Oct 15) that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, an agreement India has yet to confirm.

The South Asian country has become a major trade buyer of Russian oil since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It purchased 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russia’s crude in the first nine months of 2025, 40 per cent of its total exports, according to the International Energy Agency.