“Moscow is waiting on a decision by the Government of India for a further nuclear plant, and sees new room in land-based and floating small modular reactors, the nuclear fuel cycle, and nuclear science and medicine” -  Vladimir Ladanov, Minister Counseller, Russian Embassy.


Energy cooperation is not a side file in the Russia–India relationship. It is one of the strong pillars of a growing special and privileged strategic partnership, built to answer India’s rising requirements in oil, gas, nuclear power and renewables.

The oil numbers make the claim concrete. By supplying around half of India’s oil imports, Russia presents itself as a reliable energy-security partner at a moment of geopolitical turbulence. Deliveries of crude to India exceeded $43 billion in 2025, and in the first six months of 2026 they grew by a further 25 per cent. Political alignment matters, but what keeps the trade moving is complementarity. India buys Russian crude, runs it through its refineries, meets domestic demand, and sells products abroad at a profit.

That logic is already embedded in investment. Russia’s largest direct investment in India is Nayara Energy, in which Rosneft holds a minority stake. Nayara sources crude from Russia, processes it at the Vadinar refinery in Gujarat — the second largest in the country — and sells petrol and diesel through more than 7,000 stations to Indian consumers. Beyond that single asset, the two sides are looking at city gasification, new oil, gas and petrochemical facilities, and the development of energy resources inside India. Each has invested around $15 billion in the other’s oil and gas enterprises, and both have signalled an interest in enlarging those portfolios.

Upstream, the map runs to the Arctic and the Far East. Indian partners have options in the Arctic LNG plant and related shipment projects. ONGC Videsh is in Sakhalin-1. Oil India, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat PetroResources hold stakes in Russian enterprises including Vankor and Taas-Yuryakh. Indian companies are also examining the Vostok oil cluster and new LNG projects on Russia’s Arctic shelf. Development of those Arctic deposits, and their shipment along the Northern Sea Route to the Asia-Pacific and beyond, is framed as a potential joint endeavour for Russia, India and China.

In nuclear power the claim is sharper still: Russia remains India’s most important international partner, and to date the only one. After the 1998 tests, when Western powers sanctioned India, Russia continued the Kudankulam project. Two 1,000-megawatt units are already operating; four more are under construction. The plant is presented as a material contribution to India’s zero-emissions capacity. Moscow is waiting on a site decision by the Government of India for a further nuclear plant, and sees new room in land-based and floating small modular reactors, the nuclear fuel cycle, and nuclear science and medicine. India’s SHANTI Act is read as opening the generation business to private-sector cooperation.

The institutional track is keeping pace with the commercial one. On 24 August 2026 in Moscow, energy was on the agenda of the 25th session of the Russia–India Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation. An early free-trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Russia is a member, and India is expected to widen the same field. At the G20, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the two countries use energy dialogues to match technologies to needs and to settle recommendations — with emphasis on digitalisation, training, institutional capacity, and student, academic and expert exchange. The sectoral list runs from coal and natural gas, including LNG, to renewables, biofuels, sustainable transport and smart grids.

The argument that closes the case is continuity. Decades of Russia–India energy cooperation are offered as the base for the next expansion, and companies on both sides are being urged to treat Arctic LNG, new nuclear builds, city gas and petrochemicals as open ground rather than as a finished ledger. Reliable supply, refinery economics and a nuclear partnership that outlasted sanctions are the three facts on which that invitation rests.