China's top exports to Russia included smartphones, generator sets, excavators and containers, while imports from Russia also rose 55%.

Japanese PM Fumio Kishida said the two nations had been working to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific under "an increasingly severe strategic environment"

Australia and Japan are expected to update their security agreement, given China's aggressive posturing over Taiwan and the South China Sea. But Tokyo also wants help with its energy transition

Pakistan is looking to buy Russian oil at the same low rate that India is buying at, its finance minister Ishaq Dar said

Sri Lanka sourced more than half its crude from Russia since May, buying oil from Moscow for the first time since 2013, the FT said.

India will assess Moscow's revamp of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, adding 'we've never been told not to buy Russian oil'

Russia is now India's second largest supplier of crude oil, up from 10th place in 2021, Nikkei said.

The increased quotas include 13.25 million tonnes of refined products – gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel

US Treasury has imposed sanctions on an Indian petrochemical firm and groups in the UAE and Hong Kong for secret deals that funded the shipping of Iranian oil products to South and East Asia

Mashreq Bank in Dubai declined a request to take payments from at least Indian two refiners in Emirati dirhams, forcing the buyers to pay for crude in US dollars, sources say

The unit aims to capture and store 3 million tonnes annually of CO2 and utilise 2 million tonnes a year by 2025, Sinopec said

"We're raising runs next month in preparation for a possible opening in exports," a state-run refiner official said.