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

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 on Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, an agreement India has yet to confirm. India 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 percent of its total exports, according to the International Energy Agency. This US pressure on New Delhi comes as Kyiv has...