The United States is temporarily easing sanctions on Russian oil sales to India with a 30-day waiver aimed at preventing supply shortages and cushioning a sharp rise in crude prices after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, according to a Financial Times report.

The easing is intended to allow Indian refiners to resume purchases of sanctioned Russian oil for 30 days, in what the FT described as a significant policy shift after months of tension between New Delhi and the White House over India’s Russian crude imports.

India, which imports about 90 percent of its crude, became the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. During President Donald Trump’s second term, Washington accused New Delhi of helping finance Russia’s war effort through those purchases and imposed a 50-percent tariff on Indian imports, the FT said.

Trump later agreed to drop the tariffs after saying India had pledged to stop buying Russian oil, though New Delhi maintained that its sourcing decisions were based on market conditions and diversification, according to the report.

Indian refiners, including market leader Reliance, have nearly halved Russian oil purchases from a June peak to just over 1 million barrels per day, the FT said. They turned instead to suppliers such as Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, but those flows have been hit by the regional conflict.

Separately, around 140 million barrels of Russian crude and condensate may be stranded at sea after Washington recently tightened sanctions on Moscow in an effort to push it toward a peace deal with Ukraine, according to the report. 

Read more at the Financial Times