NEW DELHI — When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on-air last month and said “some of the richest families in India” were profiting off the war in Ukraine, he mentioned no names. But there was little doubt here about who he was alluding to: the billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
russian crude oil purchase
India’s richest man buys $33 billion in Russian oil — risking Trump’s ire
As Trump punishes India for purchasing Russian oil, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries finds itself at the center of a diplomatic firestorm.
By Pranshu Verma and Khadija Sharife
He is Asia’s richest man, with an estimated net worth exceeding $100 billion, and his conglomerate, Reliance Industries, touches nearly every part of Indian life. The crown jewel of Ambani’s empire is a division that refines crude oil into fuel products, which feed India’s rising energy demands and are shipped around the world. In recent years, Reliance has bought much of its crude from Russia at discounted prices, a boon for Ambani and a lifeline for Moscow at a time of growing international isolation.
Now, as President Donald Trump punishes India for purchasing Russian oil, and demands that New Delhi diversify its energy supply, the country’s most powerful mogul finds himself at the center of a diplomatic crisis.
Reliance has purchased about $33 billion in oil from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a previously unreported sum that accounts for roughly 8 percent of Moscow’s crude sales over that period, according to internal government data obtained by The Washington Post.
“That’s $33 billion that goes to the Kremlin,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. “You are funding war.”
In a statement to The Post, Reliance Industries said its “purchases of Russian oil do not reflect a political position on the conflict,” adding that the purchases “have always been fully compliant with international regulations.”
Since November, at least 17 oil tankers sanctioned by the European Union or Britain for ties to the Russian energy sector have docked at a Reliance-owned port in Sikka, in western Gujarat state, private maritime data and open-source ship information reviewed by The Post showed.
“The UK and E.U. sanctions do not have extraterritorial application, and they explicitly do not apply to non-UK and non-EU entities,” Reliance said in its statement. “For this reason, Reliance can accept such vessels for the delivery of oil.”
TANIKO Madagascar 