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US let Russian oil waiver expire. Why is it bad news for India?
The Trump administration allowed the sanction waiver on Russian seaborne oil to lapse, ushering in trouble for several countries, including India.
India is the top consumer of Russian seaborne crude, and its purchases have been near record highs in April and May following previous sanctions waivers. AP
The Trump administration allowed the sanction waiver on Russian seaborne oil to lapse, ushering in trouble for several countries, including India. The expiration would halt a mechanism that had previously permitted nations, including India, to legally purchase Russian seaborne crude oil, Reuters reported.
The expiration followed a month-long temporary extension, originally implemented to ease the global oil crisis, triggered by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz amid war in India. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had previously stated he would not renew the general license authorising the purchase of Russian oil stored on tankers.
As of Saturday afternoon in Washington, there has been no announcement of renewal by the US Treasury Department. Meanwhile, the Treasury spokesperson has declined to offer further comment.
Interestingly, the expiration came a day after the US Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren publicly urged the administration against extending the waiver. They argued that the waiver has been providing critical revenue to fund Russia’s military operations in Ukraine while failing to lower fuel costs for American consumers.
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Why is it concerning for India?
It is pertinent to note that the initial waiver extension was part of a broader White House strategy to control global energy markets, which have seen both domestic and international benchmarks hover at or above $100 per barrel since the outbreak of the Iran war on February 28.
The move would worry India since New Delhi is the top consumer of Russian seaborne crude, and its purchases have been near record highs in April and May following previous sanctions waivers.
India shipped in a record 2.25 million barrels per day of oil from Russia in March, nearly double February’s volumes, making Russian oil 50 per cent of its imports. Russian crude arrivals at Indian ports are set to reach 2.1 million bpd for the week of April 20 to 27, up from 1.67 million bpd the previous week, data from shipping analytics firm Kpler showed.
The mid-April dip in Russian oil supplies was likely caused by export disruptions resulting from Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ports at the end of March, two sources said. However, Indian imports remain at a record high during the waiver.
This is an AI-generated image depicting four species of aliens purportedly in the US custody.
The US government has recovered four species of aliens from UFOs that have crashed on Earth, a former CIA researcher has claimed.
“People who have been involved in recoveries have said there are at least four types. Now I have not had direct access to that but I believe the people who I talked to — four separate types of life,” CIA researcher Hal Puthoff claimed on ‘The Diary of a CEO’ podcast.
While Puthoff did not go into specifics, his longtime collaborator Eric Davis said last year that the four species are Grays, Nordics, Insectoids, and Reptilians.
In the same podcast, filmmaker Dan Farah said that “there have been dozens of recoveries of crashed craft in the US alone, dozens of craft of non-human origin that either crashed organically or caused a crash and then recovered”.
The development comes days after the Donald Trump administration released the first tranche of ‘Alien Files’.
In recent days, discussions around aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have surged in the United States as many alien theorists and UFO enthusiasts believe that ‘Disclosure Day’ is near. The term refers to the eventual release of evidence that governments have held for decades confirming the presence of aliens. The disclosure movement has gained popularity in recent years as discussions around UFOs and aliens have increasingly entered the mainstream.
Trump ordered the disclosure earlier this year after former president Barack Obama said that aliens were real.
Trump has set up an inter-agency committee headed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to oversee the release of alien files.
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Meet four alien species
Davis said last year that two of the alien species purportedly recovered by the United States are called reptilian and insectoid not because they are insects or reptiles but because “they resemble, to the perception, reptile-like or insect-like humanoid” as “they have this a head and four limbs and torso”.
Davis said that the Grays were recovered in the famous ‘Roswell UFO crash’ in June-July 1947, according to Davis.
Davis said the Grays are about four feet tall whereas the Nordics are typically human-sized at around five to six feet in height. He added that Reptilians and Insectoids are of similar height, according to Davis.
The New York Post reported subject experts as saying that Grays are believed to be small, large-eyed, hairless creatures, comparable to depictions in films such as ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ while Reptilians are believed to be scaly, lizard-like creatures with human limbs and long tails that walk upright.