Breaking Down The News: Ukraine Runs on Russian Crude, But Indian Refineries Get the Blame
Ukraine today finds itself in an extraordinary irony. On the battlefield and in civilian life, diesel is the fuel that keeps the country running. Yet with its own refineries crippled by Russian missile strikes, Kyiv has become almost entirely dependent on imports to meet its needs. In July 2025, India suddenly emerged as Ukraine’s largest diesel supplier, accounting for 15.5% of total imports. On paper, it looked like a straightforward success story of India stepping up. In reality, much of that diesel was refined from Russian crude that India bought at steep discounts. The world knows this, and yet chooses to stay silent—except when it comes to blaming India.
Ukraine itself is far from unaware. Ukrainian authorities are painfully conscious that without steady flows of fuel, both their military operations and their fragile civilian economy could grind to a halt. After Russian strikes destroyed the Kremenchuk refinery and other key facilities, Kyiv had little choice but to look abroad. From Poland to Slovakia and now India, diesel imports have become lifelines. Indian refiners, processing crude oil largely sourced from Russia, have become crucial suppliers. But Kyiv’s calculus is simple: survival matters more than the technical origin of every fuel molecule. When a tank needs to move, it hardly matters whether its diesel was once labeled “Urals crude.”
In Washington, however, the story is told differently. For U.S. officials, India’s continued appetite for Russian crude has become a convenient political talking point. They claim New Delhi is funding Moscow’s war by keeping Russian oil revenue flowing. Yet the hypocrisy is staggering. European Union members, still dependent on various energy imports, have not been called out with the same vigor, even though European companies also end up consuming diesel refined from Russian crude via India, Turkey, or the Middle East. The numbers tell the story: from January to July 2025, India’s share of Ukraine’s diesel imports surged to 10.2%, up from just 1.9% in the same period in 2024. Everyone in the West knows this, yet only India is dragged into the dock of international opinion.
Meanwhile in Moscow, there is little surprise and even less regret. Russia’s reorientation toward Asian buyers was a deliberate strategy after sanctions were imposed in 2022. By 2023, Russia already supplied nearly 39% of India’s crude imports, up from a negligible 2.5% in 2021. The discounts made Russian oil irresistible to Indian refiners. And Moscow understood that the crude would not stay in India—it would be refined and re-exported. The moment it passes through Indian refineries, it stops being “Russian oil” and becomes “Indian diesel.” This sleight of hand has been the loophole through which Russia keeps its hydrocarbons flowing to global markets. For the Kremlin, the ultimate irony is clear: Ukrainian tanks, supported by NATO aid, may very well be running on fuel ultimately derived from Russian oil. One can imagine the smirk in Moscow.
The truth is that this entire supply chain operates on shared complicity. Russia sells its crude at a discount. India buys and refines it, securing both cheap energy for its domestic needs and lucrative margins on exports. Ukraine and parts of Europe consume it, knowing that their own sanctions frameworks allow them to look away once the oil has been laundered through another refinery. The United States pretends to be shocked, yet quietly tolerates the arrangement because cutting it off would send fuel prices soaring and cripple Ukraine’s war effort. Everyone plays their role in this global theater of convenience, but only India is handed the script of the villain.
This is where the narrative breaks down. India is not the hidden hand funding Moscow’s war—it is simply operating in the open, taking advantage of market realities created by Western sanctions. Ukraine knows this. Europe knows this. The United States knows this. And Russia certainly knows this. The only real question is: why does the blame stop at New Delhi’s door? The answer lies in politics. It is easier to scold India than to confront the structural hypocrisy of the West’s sanctions regime. It is easier to point fingers at Indian refiners than to admit that Ukrainian tanks run on diesel with a Russian past. The fuel is global, but the lectures are selectively local.
In the end, the irony is impossible to ignore. Russia smiles, Ukraine fights on, Europe keeps its lights on, the U.S. avoids a price shock—and India gets the blame. Everyone runs on Russian crude, but only India gets the lecture.
