This isn’t new and it isn’t a revelation. Russia has been using its ghost fleet of hundreds of ships to transport oil around the world.
Yes, it has been a huge windfall for the oil traders in India.
They are buying the oil at a huge discount to the Brent Sea Crude Spot price.
The most profitable thing to do is turn it into Diesel and sell that to Europe most likely.
They can also transload the oil into another tanker and change the BOL of its origin. They could “blend” the oil with other petroleum. Therefore, again trying to get around sanctions.
The other more risky thing is just change the BOL and state that they oil originated somewhere other than Russia.
I suspect that a combination of all these things are happening with this Russian oil. That is because there is a huge amount of profit to be made by doing this. It is similar to being a drug trafficker. High risk to reward ratio.
Of Course, India will also use this for their own domestic usage. All the other things are methods to sell it to some other buyer and get around the sanctions/duty/tariffs/illegal trade practices.
Shocking, but maybe to India, Ukraine isn’t all that important. To them, it’s like asking Sri Lanka to get really upset about the Mexican border or there Kuril Islands.