On October 9, as his envoys met Ukrainian negotiators in Miami, Trump announced that Russia would supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel in October, another 500,000 in November, and a further 3 million “within a short period,” with no clear timetable. The Kremlin has not officially confirmed those volumes. Following Trump’s deal, Moscow partly lifted its diesel export ban. And the U.S. Department of the Treasury has since issued General License 135, authorizing transactions related to the sale, delivery, and importation of Russian-origin diesel through April 7, 2027. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Washington of using Kyiv’s delegation as a cynical smokescreen. Zelenskyy was right to feel deceived.
Trump’s envoys sold the deal to Kyiv as a way to soften Putin and restart talks, even as they acknowledged that he would not negotiate an end to the war. Washington has offered a cash reward to a leader who refuses peace, then asked the country he invaded to trust that the gesture might somehow change his mind. That is appeasement dressed as diplomacy, an advance payment to a leader the International Criminal Court has accused of war crimes.
The potentially unlawful deal is also unlikely to lower U.S. diesel prices as the administration suggests. Its first 300,000-ton release amounts to less than a day of demand from the U.S. transportation sector. Roughly half of Russia’s refining capacity remains offline, and S&P Global analysts say the volumes Russia plans to ship under the deal would do little to increase supply beyond its current shipments. Goldman Sachs estimates that the diesel Russia plans to release this fall would shave just $1–$2 per barrel off wholesale diesel prices—about 2–5 cents per gallon.
The Trump administration is counting on public amnesia. The current global energy shock began with the war Trump chose to launch against Iran. Now, the president blames Ukraine’s refinery strikes for the current price spike, shifting responsibility from his own terrible mistake. On the margins of the G7, the Trump administration effectively coerced energy-starved allies by threatening a U.S. diesel export ban unless countries promised to release 100 million barrels from their strategic reserves. And on Friday, Trump invoked the Graham Act’s national interest waiver to suspend its new sanctions and tariff provisions. The sweeping package would have targeted Russian financial institutions, energy interests, and the shadow fleet. Trump offered no public explanation for how waiving those measures served U.S. interests. The administration’s latest concession represents yet another giveaway in a long list of rewards for the Kremlin.
Through the summer and early fall, Ukraine had degraded Russian refinery output, helping trigger the country’s worst fuel crisis in decades. In the earlier days of the war, Russia exported more than 3 million tons of diesel monthly; this outflow has since come to a near complete halt. In recent months, gasoline shortages have prompted rationing in Moscow and fuel queues in St. Petersburg, and they have driven Russia to import energy from Belarus and India. Putin himself says the strikes cost Russia roughly 1 percent of gross domestic product, about $26.6 billion using IMF estimates. Moscow has little capacity to export more, even if it wanted to.
Ukraine has succeeded in taking the war directly to Moscow, regaining the initiative by squeezing Russia’s war economy. Despite––or perhaps because of––their remarkable success, the Trump administration now insists that Kyiv drop what little leverage it has while refusing to demand concurrent concessions from Moscow.
President Zelenskyy had publicly affirmed that he would end Kyiv’s refinery strikes should Moscow pause its own daily attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but Putin continued his relentless assault, plunging thousands into darkness. When Kyiv resumed its energy strikes on Thursday, the Trump administration threatened to suspend vital intelligence sharing.
That threat may now be reality on the battlefield. Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, supports Ukrainian vital communications and interceptor drones; a sudden bandwidth limit disrupted both last week, with news reports suggesting the restriction order may have come from the White House. Ukraine is heavily dependent on U.S. satellite systems and missile-launch detection technology to defend its skies. Zelenskyy maintains that Kyiv failed to receive any advanced warning from partners, including the U.S., before an October 13 missile strike fatally maimed two people and injured some 21 others. Should Washington put conditions on future intelligence sharing with Kyiv, it will be innocent Ukrainian civilians who pay the steepest price.
The diesel deal is part of a larger series of schemes that have come to light. Earlier this month, U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner, who represents the White House in ongoing negotiations with Russia, reportedly met Kremlin aid Kirill Dmitriev to discuss a possible U.S. investor for the Nord Stream pipeline. Dmitriev, who is charged with managing Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, had made overtures to members of Germany’s far-right AfD to discuss options for restoring Russian gas ties that were suspended following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Separate reporting alleges that Trump administration envoys have discussed a multibillion-dollar sale of Lukoil’s foreign assets. Both deals would require U.S. sanctions relief.
European partners, including Germany, can be forgiven for their confusion. For years, U.S. administrations––including the first Trump administration––had warned policymakers in Berlin of the serious economic and security implications of an overreliance on cheap Russian gas. That the second Trump administration is now working to bring that energy supply back online represents a self-defeating U-turn, one that will only alienate core NATO allies and likely prolong Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The Trump administration continues to offer concessions to Vladimir Putin with nothing to show for it in return. All the while, Ukrainians are preparing for yet another winter where Russian missiles rain down on their cities and leave vulnerable populations in sustained and bitter cold. There is a way to bring a just end to this war: Apply the same pressure on Moscow that President Trump insists on applying to the victim. Only then will Europe know real peace.