By Standing Up To EU, India Is Exposing Western Hypocrisy On Russian Oil

The decision by the European Union (EU) to impose sanctions on a refinery in India where Russian oil major Rosneft has stakes is not only hypocritical, but also goes against the spirit of India-EU ties, amid intense negotiations between the sides to seal a bilateral trade deal by end-2025. The move has the potential to sour ties between Brussels and New Delhi.

India's Firm No To EU Hypocrisy

Over the past four years, India has often been blamed in public forums and during private conversations, particularly in Europe, for importing Russian oil. The West has also employed coercion by sanctioning peripheral entities to deter Indian entrepreneurs in both the oil and non-oil sectors, thereby sending a message that dealing with business entities in Moscow would incur penalties.

The decision against the Gujarat-based refinery was yet another strong message to New Delhi for not toeing the EU line. The moral lecturing hasn't ended, even though several European states have been buying Russian oil refined in India, including by the refinery facing their sanctions. 

With India refusing to blindly toe the Western line on Russia, pressure may increase on New Delhi, particularly from Brussels, where the EU is headquartered, and where Eastern European states have a bigger voice in the current circumstances.

Indian entrepreneurs need to navigate choppy waters, as the EU move is also aimed at threatening even those industries that deal with non-sanctioned sectors in Russia. Under these circumstances, conducting trade in local currencies is the right prescription.

Sanctions On Russia Push It Closer To China

The idea of sanctions is to dent the Russian economy for its "war" against Ukraine, without factoring in that outcome, where the move pushes Moscow towards a tighter China embrace.

Deeper economic ties between Russia and China are neither in the interests of the EU and the West, nor of India. Although the dangers of closer Sino-Russian ties have often been flagged by India down the years, Western capitals continue to create circumstances that push Russia towards building deeper economic ties with Beijing.

Ever since India’s imports of Russian oil increased manifold, the government has rightly called out the Western hypocrisy, particularly that of the EU. A tougher approach is necessary to handle Europeans who seek to make what is essentially a European war into a global one. 

The Russian economy has withstood the onslaught, in large part because several countries of the Global South, including some of the US's closest partners like the Gulf countries, have increased their trade with Moscow.

These countries, which have suffered under such coercive Western sanctions for decades, have put in place imaginative mechanisms to handle the EU's coercive diplomacy. As a rising global power, New Delhi needs to stand firm to handle this hypocrisy.