“India’s adherence to all international norms prevented a catastrophic $200 per barrel shock,” Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri wrote in a column for The Hindu on Monday. “Some critics allege that India has become a ‘laundromat’ for Russian oil. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

In a new rant against India for its purchases of Russian oil, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has said that “Brahmins” are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people and it needs to “stop”.

“Look (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi is a great leader,” Navarro said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.

The trade adviser said that he doesn’t understand how the Indian leader is cooperating with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping “when he’s the biggest democracy in the world”.

“So I would just simply say, the Indian people, please understand what’s going on here. You got Brahmins profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop,” Navarro said.

India’s Russian oil imports

Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused the country’s wealthiest families of profiteering, and Navarro said the nation was fueling “the Russian war machine” and “nothing but a laundromat” for the Kremlin.

“India has not broken rules,” Puri wrote, adding that New Delhi’s Russian oil imports were compliant with a G-7 price-cap mechanism that was designed to limit Moscow’s revenues yet also keep crude flowing. “India has stabilized markets and kept global prices from spiraling.”

Puri’s commentary came as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a regional summit in China on Monday. Conversations with Putin “are always insightful,” Modi said in a post on X on Monday as the pair exchanged views.

Russia, which previously held a negligible share of India’s oil imports, has accounted for 37% of the world’s third largest oil consumer buys this year, according to Kpler data. India took advantage of a $20 a barrel discount on delivered basis after Europe halted purchases in the wake of the Ukraine war. However the discounts have narrowed to a tenth of that as sanctions tightened.

India is unlikely to stop Russian imports unless a global ban is imposed, as the issue is morphing into a political decision on the nation’s freedom to choose rather than a purely economic one, analysts at CLSA including Vikash Kumar Jain said in a note last week.

“The truth is that there is no substitute for the world’s second-largest producer supplying nearly 10% of global oil. Those who are pointing fingers ignore this fact,” Puri said.