Russia invades and murders civilians in a democratic ally and supplies arms and intel to a theocratic dictatorship with whom we are at war. How does Donald Trump respond? By buying Russian fuel:
President Donald Trump said he has struck a deal to obtain diesel from Russia, a stunning reversal of years of U.S. pressure on Moscow over its war with Ukraine and an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
Trump said on social media on Friday that he struck the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in which he was expected to discuss a suspected case of plague in Russia. Instead, Trump announced that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “within a short period of time” after that, he wrote.
Trump’s shocking announcement was in stark contrast to a sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month that aimed at clamping down on the oil and gas revenues that fuel Russia’s war against Ukraine [Michelle L. Price and Collin Binkley, “Trump Strikes Deal with Putin to Get Diesel in Sharp Reversal of US Policy Weeks Before Midterms,” AP, 2026.10.09].
To celebrate U.S. support for its war machine, Russia terrorized more civilians in Ukraine:
Russian strikes killed at least 17 people in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel that Kyiv warned would help bankroll Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Three children were among those killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. At least 18 people were wounded in the attack.
Missiles also struck Kyiv in a daytime attack Saturday. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said four people were wounded.
“Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote Saturday on X.
He said the attacks show Moscow understands “any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities.”
“Russia’s choice is war,” Zelenskyy said in a later Telegram post, after drone attacks on energy facilities and a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. He said every additional billion dollars Russia earns from exports would help pay for weapons components, drone upgrades, missile production and the recruitment of mercenaries, and that Moscow would only be ready to stop when its ability to fight diminished.
Moscow received from diesel deal “signals that it is apparently permissible to continue attacking. And this needs to be corrected,” he said, urging the U.S., Europe and other partners to limit Russia’s capacity to wage war [Susan Blanin and Elise Morton, “Russian Attacks Kill 17 in Ukraine After Trump Strikes Diesel Deal with Putin,” AP via Yahoo, 2026.10.10].
America may be capitulating to Putin, but Ukraine isn’t:
The loading terminal of Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery caught fire overnight following reports of a Ukrainian drone strike just hours after President Trump announced a deal to supply millions of tons of Russian diesel fuel to the global market.
The incident suggests Kyiv will continue targeting Russian energy infrastructure despite pressure from the United States, with the Trump administration hoping energy costs will come down ahead of the November midterm elections [James Bickerton, “Ukraine Strikes Major Russian Oil Hub Hours After Trump’s Deal with Putin,” Newsweek, 2026.10.10].
Trump is blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for fighting an unnecessary war and raising American energy prices, but Trump’s deal with Putin is gaslighting on a geopolitical scale. Trump’s war in the Middle East, not Ukraine’s defense of itself against the Russian invader, is the primary cause of record-high diesel prices in the United States. And thanks to Ukraine’s successful military operations, Russia may not be able to supply us the diesel it has promised:
Neil Atkinson, former head of the International Energy Agency’s oil industry and markets division, told Al Jazeera that… “In the very short term, it’s very hard to see how Russia can deliver the volumes that are talked about in the deal other than at the expense of its domestic market”….
Russia was previously the world’s second-largest diesel exporter after the US. But Russian diesel and gas exports in the third quarter of this year were at 190,000 barrels per day compared with 690,000 barrels per day in the second quarter and 850,000 barrels per day in the first quarter, explained Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime intelligence analyst with the shipping analytics company Windward, citing data from the commodities tracker Vortexa.
Russia, therefore, banned diesel exports in July in a bid to meet domestic demand and in late September expanded the ban until the end of October.
Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy facilities have also contributed to the fuel crisis in Russia. Putin has admitted that 1 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product has been affected by Ukrainian attacks.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said its air strikes have destroyed more than half of Russia’s oil refining capacity. In July, it also struck hundreds of Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, affecting the delivery of gas to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Bockmann told Al Jazeera that Russian domestic shortages were “so acute that over the third quarter for the first time we saw Russia import gasoline and diesel and gas oil”.
She added that “as recently as this week”, a ship carrying diesel and gas oil arrived in the port of Vysotsk [Christine Maguire, “Why Is US Turning to Russia for Diesel Despite Sanctions?” Aljazeera, 2026.10.10].
Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine and the spirit of Lindsey Graham, like pretty much every other Trump policy, is unlikely to produce the results he promises:
“The barrels could help, but they may not fully materialize, and what does arrive could still be too little, too late,” CIBC Private Wealth Group senior energy trader Rebecca Babin said. “The headline may move prices initially, but this is hardly a straightforward solution.”
“I cannot overstate how much of a nothing burger this is,” as the amount of diesel to be delivered – if it is delivered at all – is not enough to lead to sustained lower prices, Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of CommodityContext.com, said on X.
“It’s unclear to me how much additional supplies the world is actually going to get,” due to the poor state of Russia’s refineries after Ukrainian strikes and its own export restrictions, Lipow Oil Associates president Andy Lipow told The Wall Street Journal [Carl Surran, “Trump Turns to Russia in Bid to Lower Diesel Prices, But Analysts See Minimal Impact,” Seeking Alpha, 2026.10.09].
…and…
Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, said the political benefits of the deal may not arrive on the timetable the White House hopes for.
“If everything goes smoothly, the U.S. consumer will not get relief at the pump until well after the election,” Hirs previously told Newsweek.
…Tom Kloza, senior energy and market adviser at Gulf Oil, recently told Newsweek that Russia currently lacks the ability to contribute meaningful diesel volumes to global markets because Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged a significant portion of Russian refining capacity.
“The market reacted with a 7-8cts/gal drop after the news broke, but nearly all traders I talk to doubt whether this will effect a trend change,” Kloza said. “Diesel molecules are scarce and promise to be scarce through October, into November and perhaps beyond” [Steve Mollman, “Republicans Move to Block Trump’s Putin Diesel Deal,” Newsweek, updated 2026.10.11].
This deal with dictator Putin violates not only the new sanctions law that Trump signed just three weeks ago but a law Congress passed at the start of Russia’s war against in Ukraine in 2022, which then-Senator Marco Rubio thought was a great idea and which Dusty Johnson, Mike Rounds, and John Thune all voted for. I’d like to think the proper response to a President breaking the law is impeachment, but instead we may just get another law that Republicans will let Trump flout:
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) announced on Saturday he would be introducing a bipartisan bill aimed at stopping President Trump from lifting sanctions on Russian oil amid global fuel shortages.
“We will be introducing bipartisan legislation to block any and all purchases of Russian oil. It will be called the ‘Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act,’” Fitzpatrick wrote on social media, although it is currently unclear who the Democratic sponsors for the legislation are.
He added that he will force a vote on the bill through a discharge petition and that he believes “it will overwhelmingly” pass.
“I’ve already agreed to be an original cosponsor,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) wrote on social media. “Congress must make a stand.”
…[Trump’s] deal drew criticism from both sides of the aisle, including Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“After signing a law to ramp up sanctions on Russia, Trump is paying Putin for oil to deal with the high gas prices caused by his choice of war with Iran? That’s not punishing Putin, that’s profit,” Amo wrote on social media, adding, “Make it make sense” [Mira Bhakta, “Bipartisan Bill Barring U.S. Purchase of Russian Oil on the Horizon,” The Hill, 2026.10.10].
The United States of America should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine and the democracies of Europe, throttling the Russian war machine, and using policies like fuel-efficiency standards to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and insulate ourselves from the influence of petro-dictators. Instead, to our detriment and shame, the Trump Administration is doing the opposite.