India cuts Russian oil imports by 38% in October 2025, sharpest fall so far

India cuts its oil imports from Russia by 38% in value terms and 31% in volume terms in October 2025 as compared to last year, with the cuts driven by a high base effect as well as an overall reduction in India’s oil imports. 

The latest official data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry shows India imported $3.55 billion worth of crude oil from Russia in October 2025, down from a historically high $5.8 billion in October 2024. This is the sharpest single-month drop in the value of oil imports from Russia.

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In volume terms, India imported 71.6 lakh tonnes of Russian oil, down from 103.8 lakh tonnes in October 2024, which too was among the highest oil imports India had made from Russia. 

This follows up on a 29% reduction in value terms and 17% reduction in volume terms in September 2025. That said, Russia still accounts for about 32% of India’s total oil imports by value and volume.   

The data shows that this cut in oil imports from Russia comes at a time when India’s total oil import bill was also down 15.4% in October 2025. However, it also shows that, during this month, oil imports from the U.S. jumped nearly 40% in volume terms, and 18.3% in value terms as compared to October last year. 

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A previous analysis by The Hindu had shown that India’s strategy to pull back on its Russian oil imports had been playing out for a longer period, beginning well before the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff penalty on India in August for importing Russian oil.

Over the last 12 months up to the end of October 2025, India had seen a year-on-year fall in Russian oil imports in nine months. Most of these cuts were in double digits, and six were by more than 20% each. 

Notably, on a month-on-month basis, India’s imports from Russia have actually grown. That is, oil imports from Russia in October 2025 were 7.3% and 7.8% higher than in September 2025, by value and volume, respectively.