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01-12-2025
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss all aspects of their countries’ “privileged strategic partnership” when Putin visits New Delhi next week, the Kremlin said.
India, a major buyer of Russian oil, has also bought its weapons for decades, though a top defence official said the country had bought US arms worth nearly $30 billion in the past decade and aims to produce more of its own equipment.
“They (the Russians) have been our friends through both fair and foul weather, and we are not going to sort of stop our defence cooperation with them anytime soon, but I do want to stress that India follows a policy of strategic autonomy,” Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said in New Delhi on Friday.
India was diversifying its suppliers, he told an industry event, adding but “more than anything else we are trying to ensure that we increasingly do spend the bulk of our money within the country.”
Putin last visited India in December 2021, just a few months before Russia went to war in Ukraine the following February.
“This visit is of great importance, providing an opportunity to comprehensively discuss the extensive agenda of Russian-Indian relations as a particularly privileged strategic partnership,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Modi to stop India’s buying of oil from Russia. In August, he imposed an additional tariff of 25% on Indian goods in what Moscow said amounted to illegal trade pressure on New Delhi.
Trade and refining sources said this week that India’s December oil imports from Russia were set to hit their lowest in at least three years, off November’s multi-month highs, as refiners sought options to avoid breaching Western sanctions.
During his state visit from December 4 to 5, Putin will hold talks with Modi and have a separate meeting with President Droupadi Murmu, the Kremlin said, saying a number of unspecified intergovernmental and commercial documents would be signed.
Last month, India’s oil imports from Russia in November are set to hit their highest level in five months, preliminary data from Kpler shows, as refiners rushed to secure barrels ahead of a US deadline to end transactions with sanctioned Russian oil producers. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, has been the biggest buyer of discounted seaborne Russian crude after Russia was shunned by Western countries following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to visit the South Asian country next month, according to the Kremlin. His last trip there was in December 2021, a few months before ordering troops into Ukraine.
Britain, the European Union and the United States have tightened sanctions on Moscow over the war, with Washington’s latest measures targeting the country’s biggest producers Rosneft, opens new tab and Lukoil, opens new tab.
Buyers of Russian oil had until November 21 to wind down dealings with the two companies. India’s purchases of Russian oil are expected to rise to 1.855 million bpd this month from 1.48 million bpd in October, according to provisional data from ship tracking agency Kpler, defying numerous predictions for a fall in the wake of the new sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil. This would be the highest since July when it imported 1.52 million bpd.
“Russian supply is expected to be high in November as many refineries tried to fill the stocks prior to the US sanctions deadline and also due to the rule for oil products production for EU market from non-Russian oil from 2026,” a trade source said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
