Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised President Donald Trump for imposing “secondary sanctions” on India in response to its massive purchases of Russian oil, stating in an interview doing so was the “right idea.”
Indian media outlets have since aggressively covered the comments, condemning Zelensky and claiming that, thanks to India’s refining of Russian oil, even Ukraine is implicated in its trade with Russia.
President Trump announced the imposition of onerous secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Russia over the summer in an attempt to discourage bankrolling of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and bring about a rapid end to the war. India typically enjoys friendly relations with both America and Russia and has historically been a prolific buyer of Russian defense technology. Following the invasion and subsequent sanctions by Europe in 2022, India has becoming the biggest buyer of Russian crude oil, purchasing large amounts of the product and refining it for lucrative resale to countries that have sanctioned Russia directly.
In an interview with ABC News’ This Week on Sunday, Zelensky responded to a leading question on the Trump sanctions on India by supporting the measure. Host Martha Raddatz asked Zelensky if Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presence at a parade in Beijing last week to mark the end of World War II, also attended by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, was an indication that Trump’s policies had failed.
Modi also attended a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) prior to the parade in which he met with Putin and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
“No,” Zelensky responded to Raddatz’s question. “I think — what I think — I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries who continue make deals with Russia, I think this is right idea.”
Zelensky was far harsher on European countries that continue to purchase Russian fossil fuels than on India, however, again supporting a years-long campaign by Trump to discourage European energy reliance on Russia.
“We all understand that we need additional pressure on Putin. We need pressure from the United States,” Zelensky said on Sunday. “And I said that I think that President Trump is right about that Europeans, they — I’m very thankful to all the partners but some of them — I mean, they continue buy oil and Russian gas. And this is not fair if — to be open and to be clear, it’s not fair.”
“So we have to stop buy any kind of energy from Russia, and by the way, anything, any deals with Russia. We can’t have any deals if we want to stop them,” the Ukrainian president emphasized.
President Trump announced a massive overhaul of American trade policy in April that effectively forced all countries that do business with the United States to renegotiate individual trade deals. As part of this recalibration, Washington imposed a 25-percent tariff on goods from India, subject to the result of ongoing negotiations. On August 27, a second 25-percent tariff went into effect on Indian goods, pushing the total tariff rate on India to 50 percent, as a direct measure against India’s massive Russian oil buys. India is now one of the highest tariffed countries by the United States in the world, on par with the tariff imposed on Brazil that Trump explained was a response to its socialist government’s civil rights abuses against conservatives.
India “always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE,” Trump explained announcing the tariff.
The Indian government began dramatically increasing its purchases of Russian oil in 2022 following the imposition of European tariffs on Russia, which drove the price of that oil down as a result of decreased demand. As of July, India and Saudi Arabia are the world’s largest purchasers of Russian oil. That may soon change, as experts estimate that the tariffs on Indian goods will effectively eliminate any discount enjoyed from buying the sanctioned oil. According to an estimate by the New Delhi-based Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) published in August, India saves around $17 billion from buying Russian oil, but will be paying an extra $37 billion in tariffs after August 27 in the next fiscal year.
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Indian media heavily covered Zelensky’s remarks in support of Trump on Monday and Tuesday, noting that the Indian government has condemned Trump for taking allegedly “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable” action against an ally. The Hindustan Times noted that Zelensky recently held a friendly conversation with Modi in which the latter said that he “conveyed India’s consistent position on the need for an early and peaceful resolution of the conflict” and promised to make “every possible contribution” to ending the war, apparently excluding an end to buying Russian oil.
Zelensky explicitly requested in that conversation that India stop buying Russian oil.
“I noted that it is necessary to limit the export of Russian energy, particularly oil, to reduce its potential and ability to finance the continuation of this war,” Zelensky said in a public message on the phone call.
The Times of India, in its coverage of Zelensky’s comments this weekend, accused Ukraine of also bankrolling its own invasion by purchasing Indian diesel, which is produced by refining Russian crude.
President Trump has shown no indication that he intends on lifting tariffs on India anytime soon. Last week, he shared an image from the Chinese get-together featuring Modi on social media and implied that India’s relationship with America was heavily damaged.
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote.
Last week, Trump called trade with India a “one-sided disaster.”
“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us,” Trump narrated in a post on Truth Social, “Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades. The reason is that India has charged us, until now, such high Tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India.”
“Also, India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the U.S. They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late,” he continued. “They should have done so years ago. Just some simple facts for people to ponder!!!”
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