United States President Donald Trump’s extra 25 p.c tariff on India for its imports from Russia, saying it’s serving to gas Russia’s battle in Ukraine, has put the South Asian nation within the highest tier of tariffed nations to date.
Whereas New Delhi and Moscow are previous strategic companions with a relationship courting to the Chilly Conflict period, and Russia is a significant provider of India’s defence arsenal, Trump’s ire has predominantly been centered on the current surge in India’s oil imports from its previous ally.
India was “Russia’s largest purchaser of ENERGY, together with China, at a time when everybody needs Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE – ALL THINGS NOT GOOD!” Trump posted on his Reality Social platform on July 30.
On August 19, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent informed CNBC that “a number of the richest households in India” have been the largest beneficiaries of those imports.
The largest importer in India of Russian crude oil has been Reliance Industries (RIL), which is led by Asia’s richest individual, Mukesh Ambani.
Russian crude comprised a mere 3 p.c of RIL’s Jamnagar refinery’s complete crude imports in 2021. For the reason that battle in Ukraine, it has shot as much as a median of fifty p.c in 2025, in accordance with information from the Centre for Analysis on Vitality and Clear Air (CREA) in Amsterdam.
Within the first seven months of 2025, the Jamnagar refinery has imported 18.3 million tonnes of crude oil from Russia, a 64 p.c year-on-year enhance, and price $8.7bn. RIL’s imports from Russia within the first seven months of 2025 are solely 12 p.c decrease than the whole imports in 2024, CREA stated. Its methodology might be discovered right here.
That shift has been pushed by the value cap on Russian oil merchandise that kicked in on February 5, 2023, Vaibhav Raghunandan, a European Union-Russia analyst at CREA, informed Al Jazeera.
“The preliminary objective of the value cap was to curtail Russian revenues, whereas additionally making certain safety of provide globally,” stated Raghunandan. “A lowered value cap is technically purported to make this oil extra enticing for international locations like India and China, however prohibit Russian revenues.”
RIL didn’t reply to an in depth listing of questions from Al Jazeera.
Nevertheless, a stagnation of the extent of the value cap – it has been at $60 for greater than three years now – and an absence of enforcement have blunted its impact, Raghunandan added.
As an alternative, a shadow fleet – a fleet of a whole lot of vessels operated by Russia to evade policing of its exports – has helped be sure that consumers paid greater than the value cap. As just lately as January, roughly 83 p.c of Russian crude was being transported by way of these vessels, as per CREA information. In June, that was all the way down to 59 p.c.
CREA tracked RIL’s Russian crude oil imports at its Jamnagar refinery and exports, from 2021 to the top of final month, for Al Jazeera.
It discovered that the Jamnagar refinery has exported $85.9bn of refined merchandise globally from February 2023 until final month. An estimated 42 p.c ($36bn) of these exports have gone to international locations sanctioning Russia.
A 3rd of their complete exports, value 17 billion euros ($19.7bn), have been to the EU and $6.3bn of oil merchandise to the US, an estimated $2.3bn of which have been processed from Russian crude.
The US is the fourth-biggest importer amongst particular person international locations, in worth phrases, from this refinery for the reason that value caps got here into impact, topped solely by the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Singapore. In quantity, the US is the largest importer from the Jamnagar refinery, having imported 8.4 million tonnes of oil merchandise for the reason that value caps until the top of July 2025.
In 2025, the US imported $1.4bn of oil merchandise from the refinery, a 14 p.c year-on-year enhance, the third most of any nation globally.
US imports from Jamnagar consist primarily of mixing elements (64 p.c), petrol (14 p.c) and gas oils (13 p.c).
After RIL, Nayara Vitality, which is majority-owned by Russian companies, together with Rosneft, the state-owned oil and gasoline big, has been an enormous importer of Russian crude. Its Vadinar refinery, the second-largest non-public refinery in India after Jamnagar, acquired, on common, 66 p.c of its complete crude imports this yr from Russia.
By way of precise volumes, Nayara’s Russian imports quantity to a 3rd of what Reliance imports from Russia for its Jamnagar refinery, CREA stated.
‘A complete sham’
Analysts say it will be simplistic to recommend that India is bearing the price of the extra tariffs only for the advantage of one firm.
“It appears to me that even when many of the income went to Reliance, the Indian authorities has discovered it handy to proceed this commerce with Russia, each as a result of the cheaper oil imports helped with India’s present account deficit and likewise helped ship a message of non-alignment,” stated Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow on the Middle for a New American Safety, the place she focuses on the interlinkages between economics, finance and safety points.
India has traditionally sought to show strategic independence from main powers, refusing to align formally even through the Chilly Conflict with both the US or the Soviet Union.
Ajay Srivastava, founding father of the Delhi-based International Commerce Analysis Initiative, informed Al Jazeera that Trump’s tariff for India’s import of Russian oil was “a complete sham”.
“The entire thing of placing tariffs is a sham after they haven’t referred to as out the largest importer of Russian oil that’s China,” Srivastava stated, including that Trump was “scared to name out China … If tomorrow Trump and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin come to an settlement [over Ukraine], US will discover one other pretext to place tariffs on India” because the tariffs have been pushed by different points together with Trump’s frustrations over India not giving into US commerce calls for.
Reliance, he stated, might have profited from the decrease crude costs for Russian oil, and the one cause that’s underneath scrutiny is that it’s a non-public agency, and it’s human nature to query the rich.
For the reason that value cap kicked in and until the top of final month, 38 p.c of US imports of mixing elements, 4 p.c of jet gas imports and a couple of p.c of petrol imports have come from the Jamnagar refinery.
Analysts predict some adjustments within the offing. The EU has put in place a ban on imports of refined petroleum processed from Russian crude, a “important coverage change”, stated CREA’s Raghunandan, including that “if enforced strongly, will probably be vastly impactful”. The ban is about to start in January.
Greater than half of RIL’s jet gas exports have been to the EU, and “dropping this market would subsequently affect their revenues from some merchandise heavier than others. However general, it’ll create a big rethink for his or her export technique”, he stated.
However RIL in December additionally signed a 10-year contract with Rosneft, and it isn’t clear how that will play out with the sanctions.