The dramatic increase in India’s purchases of Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine is “opportunistic and deeply corrosive” of a global effort to isolate the Kremlin and curb Vladimir Putin’s war machine,

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, a former economics professor, was key in driving US retaliatory tariffs on trading partners.

The Modi government will hope that Washington and Moscow will arrive at a final agreement on how to deal with Ukraine and Trump will discard the 25 per cent additional tariff. At the minimum, Delhi would want Trump to postpone the deadline of August 27 for implementing the additional tariffs against India.