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00:03 Report | Marta Grudzinska 
00:15 Shashwat Kumar | Center for Strategic and International Studies
00:56 Jacopo Maria Pepe | German Institute for International and Security Affairs

TEXT 

00:02 VO 
Western sanctions were designed to isolate Russia. But for some countries, that's meant more trade with Moscow, not less. 
 
00:12-00:26 +++SOT Shashwat Kumar, Center for Strategic and International Studies, eng.+++
If you look at the last for years the relationship between India and Russia, it has grown because the trade volume has also grown five times. Before 2022, India and Russia, primarily it was a defense relationship. 
 
00: 26-00:44 GFX 1  
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India-Russia trade has surged from €12 billion to €63 billion. Now, both countries aim to raise bilateral trade to €92 billion by 2030. 

00:45 VO  
But it's not just the volume of trade that's changing. The composition of that trade is changing too. 
 
00:54 –01:20 +++SOT Jacopo Maria Pepe, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, eng.+++
Since Indian companies are jumping in into the "Western companies gap" left due to the sanctions on the Russian market. So we see both an increase in general trade but also a slow but clear rebalancing in the trade relations with India started exporting more diversified products. 
 
01:22 VO:  
 That shift is still heavily overshadowed by one commodity: oil. 
 
01:27 – 01:45 GFX 2 
Last year India exported goods  worth 3.85 billion euros to Russia, including machinery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. But imports, dominated by crude oil, were far higher at 53.9 billion euros. 

01:47 VO:  
So oil accounts for more than 80 percent of trade volume between India and Russia. And the flow keeps growing, hitting high after high. 
 
01:58 –02:15 GFX 3 
In July, tankers carried 2.8 million barrels of Russian crude oil to India every day. ((2:08)) Then in August ships loaded with refined fuel began sailing that route in reverse.
 
02:16 VO 
The reason is Russia’s growing fuel shortage. Ukrainian drone strikes have increasingly targeted its refineries, disrupting fuel supplies and causing shortages.   
 
02:30 VO  
The relationship is changing. It's not just the goods they trade, it's also how they pay for them.
 
02:37- 03:02 +++SOT Jacopo Maria Pepe, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, eng.+++
We also have, at a financial level, the increasing desire to de-dollarize bilateral trade relations and integrate the banking system beyond the European or, better to say, Western, American-dominated banking and financial institution. So even trade is also increasingly settled in national currencies, the ruble and the rupee, just like the Russians are doing with the Chinese. 
 
03:03 VO 
The war in Ukraine sped up this trend. And growing instability in the Middle East has also accelerated the process.  
 
03:13-03:33 +++SOT Shashwat Kumar, Center for Strategic and International Studies, eng.+++
At this point the trade is slightly in favor of Russia, so India would like to balance it out. We did see in the past a big delegation from India going to Russia, looking at what are the business opportunities. So, both sides will try to find a way to balance the trade out.  But it will be on a growing trajectory, it may not be exponential. 
 
03:34 VO  
What was once centered on defense is becoming a broad economic partnership. And despite global uncertainty, both countries appear determined to keep that relationship growing.  

ENDE