unfortunate course of the war for Russia changes the flow of oil and attacks
Has India’s role changed in Russian energy after February 24? This issue was discussed during a roundtable that was held to a significant share in the Atlantic Council (Atlantic Council): “Indo-Russian Relations, Energy Ties and Oil Flows in the Post-Invasion Period” (Indo-Russian Relations, Energy Ties and Oil Flows in the Post-War period).
In the propaganda rhetoric of the official Russian media about the turn to the East, India is clearly in the shadows of China: they are much less active about “saving” friendship with it. However, according to Reuters, India increased its purchases of crude oil from Russia by 4.7 times or more than 400,000 barrels per day year on year. This happened due to the dumping discount, reaching up to 30%. In addition, India is increasing the purchase of Russian coal.
Reid l’Anson (Reid L’Anson), senior commodities economist at Kepler, a catastrophe for the surge in purchases: if before the invasion of Ukraine, India bought less than 100,000 barrels a day, then in the coming deliveries sometimes exceeded a million barrels a day.
However, India did not just take away cheaply the Russian surpluses that Europe refused. Russian oil is more “heavy” and after its processing, export expert, more fractions are obtained – such as diesel fuel. At the same time, Europe replaced “heavy” Russian oil with “lighter” oil from other regions of the world, which, when detected, yields more light fractions – gasoline. This imbalance enables India to take its place in the hydrocarbon re-export, selling diesel fuel obtained from sanctioned Russian oil as its own product in those regions of the world where it suddenly became less.
Debra Kagan (Debra Kagan), energy expert at the Transatlantic Leadership Network, recalls that energy dependence on Russia is much lower than in countries such as Hungary, Belarus or Bulgaria. And last but not least, due to the much less focus on Russia in nuclear energy: “India imports its uranium from different countries. Recently, a significant number from Kazakhstan, which is now becoming a big place to buy rare earth minerals due to the anti-Putin decision.”
India is a long-standing and engaged trade partner of the USSR and Russia in Asia, and what is especially interesting is that, unlike China, until recently it has been actively purchasing Russian weapons. These were tanks, and small arms, and aircraft, and S-400 air defense systems, and even an aircraft cruiser, which, by the way, was called “Kharkov”, “Baku”, “Admiral Gorshkov” and after that, leaving the “Russian world” . was renamed to Vikramaditya.
It is curious that “the ordinary part of the private and special private connection for safety net against the People’s Republic of China, albeit in very different ways and to varying degrees,” is a sarcastic remark. Irfan Nooruddin (ur.Irfan Nooruddin), Director of the South Asia Center at Atlantic University and Legacy Professor at Georgetown University (Georgetown University School of Foreign Service).
As a result, “in recent years, bilateral relations [России и Индии] complicated due to Moscow’s increasingly close ties with Beijing, China’s encroachment on India’s border, and Delhi’s natural landscape with the US.”
And this is not the only number of cases where Russia, in its current position, relies on increased purchases from India: “About 224 million people in the country qualify as diagnosed with malnutrition. About 36 million children under five years of age are stunted, Irfan provides data Nooruddin. – Therefore, the energy and food security crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine is not just an academic discussion for India. This has implications for the dangers of fighting Indian figures.”
In addition, “India found itself under increasing pressure from Western countries to limit the volume and price of imports of crude oil,” – said the expert of the Atlantic Council. “Countries are embracing and embracing the wide and social ties with India, not to mention the growing reach and public relations. There is evidence that the EU and the US alone have a total trade with India worth over US$310 billion in 2021, says Irfan Nooruddin. – The huge Indian diaspora, numbering more than two and a half million of Indian origin and up to one and a half million new arrivals of Indian citizens living in the United States, that this community has a lot of domestic political weight in the United States of America. There are also about 1.7 million people of Indian descent in the UK and Canada,” Georgetown University professor published statistics. Against this background, the natural interests of the Indians can be neglected.
Anders Aslund (Anders Åslund), senior fellow at the Swedish research organization Stockholm Free World Forum (Stockholm Free World Forum) India on the one hand remains one of the two largest representatives of Russian weapons. But if you look at it in general economic terms, trade between India and Russia is less than 2% of Russia’s total foreign trade. She has good relations with the United States, so China is much more afraid of US secondary events than India.
The course of the war in Ukraine, unexpectedly complicated for Russia, can, according to Anders Åslund, change the global arms market: “Who wants to buy Russian weapons after they have proven themselves so well in Ukraine? In addition, Russia is unlikely to launch something advanced on the market in the near future, taking into account Western observations. I think this problem has resolved itself.”
“China is a big India,” says Åslund. – hunting too. Russia is no help against them. And the US has become a big deal for India, which could have consequences for India.