The Russian government on Thursday downplayed President Donald Trump’s statement that he has persuaded India to dramatically reduce its massive purchases of Russian oil, teasing a major offering of Russian military hardware as an incentive for India to keep funding President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Trump said on Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia.”
“That’s a big stop,” Trump added, to dispel any notion that Modi was merely talking about a modest reduction in Russian oil buys, as India has implemented a few times over the past year.
India currently lags behind China in Russian oil purchases, although it has occasionally been Moscow’s top customer in the years since the invasion of Ukraine began.
India bought very little oil from Russia before the invasion, but Russia began offering deep discounts on its prices after most Western buyers turned away.
President Trump imposed a 25 percent punitive tariff on India for buying Russian oil in August, on top of the 25 percent general tariff he set for Indian goods. Analysts noted the tariff was high enough to largely eliminate India’s savings from buying Russian crude, especially since the discounts offered by Russia have been getting smaller.
Besides the financial advantage of pouring cheap oil into its energy-hungry industrial economy, India has also been reluctant to compromise the friendly relations it has enjoyed with Russia since the days of the Soviet Union. Russia used to be India’s only source for military hardware, and still provides the bulk of India’s weapons, a fact Russian officials mentioned as they outlined their response to Trump’s announcement.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak expressed confidence on Thursday that India would continue to do business with Russia, despite Trump’s assertion to the contrary.
“We continue to cooperate with our friendly partners. Our energy resource is in demand, it is economically viable, reasonable, and I am confident that our partners will continue to collaborate with us, interact, and develop energy cooperation,” Novak said, as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news service.
“We only see signals in the media,” Novak said of the possibility that India might stop buying oil from Russia.
“Our partners emphasize that no one can dictate to them, and they will choose their own path,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was even more dismissive, treating Trump’s comments about Indian oil — and his subsequent remark that he would “get China to do the same thing” next — as mere idle banter.
“We rely on the official statements issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, as well as a statement from Beijing. These statements are publicly available, and we are guided by them,” Peskov said on Thursday.
Russia’s ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, cited India’s long alliance with Russia as a reason the Indians would not deal a body blow to the Russian economy by abandoning their oil purchases.
“Our oil supplies are very beneficial for the Indian economy and the welfare of the Indian people,” he said.
Alipov stressed how India relies on Russia for its military hardware, and hinted at more advanced weapons to come, if New Delhi plays its cards right.
“For more than six decades, uninterrupted cooperation in defense has served as the backbone of India’s armed forces. This cooperation long ago moved beyond a traditional buyer-seller model to joint production and full technology-sharing arrangements,” he said.
“Approximately 70 percent of India’s military equipment is of Russian origin. A testament to its effectiveness, as demonstrated by the Operation Sindoor,” he said.
Operation Sindoor was India’s brief conflict with Pakistan in May 2025, prompted by a horrific terrorist attack on Indians in the disputed Kashmir region.
India blamed Pakistan for harboring the terrorists and possibly even helping to coordinate the attack. The Pakistanis denied these allegations and a week of airstrikes and artillery exchanges ensued. President Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire to end the conflict, an achievement for which Pakistan believes he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Virtually every detail of the Operation Sindoor conflict is disputed between New Delhi and Islamabad, including the damage inflicted by both sides. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif insisted the conflict was a great military victory for his forces and boasted of how they turned seven of India’s warplanes into “scrap and dust.” India claims it shot down six of Pakistan’s aircraft, but refuses to confirm how many of its own planes were lost.
Both sides used Russian military equipment — acquired through China, in Pakistan’s case — so, on the whole, the conflict does not seem like the most inspiring endorsement for the quality of Russian arms. If Pakistan’s claims are accurate, three of the Indian planes they shot down were French-made Rafale jets, so that might help a little with Russia’s advertising campaign.
India’s reliance on Russia for weapons has been eroding as it seeks to diversify its arsenal, although Russia remains its top supplier for the moment. Pakistan was planning to lessen its reliance on China by purchasing more weapons from other countries, including buying direct from Russia, but in September it signed a mutual defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, which gets most of its weapons from the United States.
Alipov nevertheless predicted on Thursday that India’s defense relationship with Russia would expand.
“Our shared achievements, including the joint production of BrahMos supersonic and soon-to-be hypersonic cruise missiles, Su-30 MKI jets, T-90 main battle tanks, AK-203 rifles, and naval frigates in India will continue to expand,” he said.
“Building on this legacy, we can move confidently toward local production of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter, supporting India’s AMCA program. Discussions are also underway on drones, anti-drone systems, advanced radar, and other force multipliers,” he added.
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