On Wednesday last week, Indian government officials said that state-controlled Indian Oil Corp. had reached a deal to buy 3 million barrels of oil from Russia’s Rosneft Oil Co. at a 20% discount to global prices.
This is a drop in the ocean of India’s oil needs, which stood at 4.5 million barrels a day in January. Still, if a payment system in rupees is worked out that insulates the transaction from sanctions placed on Russia, much more could follow.
The United States isn’t happy. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said India should worry about how it will feature in the history books when the story of the Ukraine invasion is written. If this one deal leads to more, you should expect questions about whether the West has reposed too much faith in India.