India Should Welcome a US-Russia Thaw - and Prepare for Being Less Needed in Moscow

A Warmer Washington-Moscow Line Helps India More Than It Hurts

• If India Prepares A US-Russia accommodation would, on balance, serve India's interests. It would ease the pressure on India's energy and defence ties with Russia. But it would also make India less central to Moscow, as happened in the early 1990s. India should welcome the thaw and prepare for that cost now.

Why a

thaw helps India India's ties with Russia have become a point of pressure in its relationship with the United States. In late September 2026, President Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, allowing tariffs of up to 100 percent on top buyers of Russian oil - a group that includes India.

As of October, no waiver for India had been announced. Then, on 9 October, after a call with Vladimir Putin, Washington eased sanctions on Russian diesel sold to global markets, with a licence running to 7 April 2027.

The immediate reason was domestic: diesel above $6 a gallon ahead of the 3 November elections. But the direction matters more than the motive. A Washington that is easing its own Russia sanctions is a Washington less able to punish India for its Russian ties.

The broader trajectory points the same way: the Alaska summit of August 2025, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow in September 2026 and the invitation to Putin for the G20 in Miami in December. If US-Russia relations warm, India's long-standing defence and energy partnership with Moscow stops being a liability in Washington.

The strongest objection The strongest counter-argument is serious.

Since Western sanctions in 2022, India has become the critical swing buyer of Russian crude, which reached an estimated 52 percent of its crude imports in July 2026. Because Russia had few other large buyers, India could demand deep discounts.

Some energy analysts argue that a thaw reopening Western markets to Russian oil would end that leverage. India would lose a discount that has quietly helped its inflation and fiscal position. On this view, India gains little from easier sanctions and loses its most tangible advantage.

Why the

position still holds The objection is real, but it treats a wartime windfall as a strategy. The discount exists only because Russia is cut off from other buyers. That is the same condition that exposes India to sanctions and tariffs.

India cannot keep the discount without also keeping the threat of 100 percent tariffs. A thaw trades an unstable gain for a more stable relationship with both powers. What a thaw really threatens is India's standing in Moscow.

In the early 1990s, a Russia eager for Western engagement pushed India down its list of priorities. That is the lesson to plan for. India should deepen what makes it valuable to Russia beyond being an oil buyer of last resort.

It should also protect its growing stake in Europe - in trade, technology, investment and defence - because Russia's confrontation with Europe may outlast any US-Russia deal.