Asia Times: Trump aligns with Putin yet again, squeezing Ukraine and Europe

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, Aug. 15.
Photo: AFP

The deal struck by Donald Trump with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on October 9 to allow Russia to sell millions of tonnes of diesel is a major departure from US policy and runs counter to Ukrainian and European interests, Asia Times stresses.

It also directly contradicts a law signed by the US president in September to authorize fresh US sanctions and tariffs on nations that import Russian oil and gas.

The timing of this deal was unfortunate. A senior Ukrainian and European delegation was in Miami for talks with Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. On the table were apparently new US proposals that included a pre-winter de-escalation in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Once in the room, the US envoys reportedly signaled that sanctions relief on Russia was coming. But this still left Ukrainian and European officials blindsided by the announcement. Unsurprisingly, the talks ended the same day without any agreement and a day earlier than planned.

If the diesel deal between the US and Russia was just about fuel, it would be modest at best. The amounts mentioned in Trump’s announcement amount to just under six million barrels. This is roughly a day and a half of US diesel demand based on data from the US Energy Information Administration.

The deal will hardly have any significant impact on global diesel prices, even if Russia can provide the volumes in Trump’s announcement. And this is already in doubt, given that the lack of Russian diesel exports is primarily due to a Kremlin-imposed export ban.

Meanwhile, the rise of diesel prices began with, and is primarily a result of, Trump’s war against Iran. So if the deal is about bringing the price of diesel down ahead of the crucial midterm election in the US in early November, it’s unlikely to have a major impact.

But its effect on the Ukraine war is likely to be considerably larger and more damaging.

Since returning to power in January 2025, Trump’s approach to ending the Russian war against Ukraine has often been to try and bully Kyiv into concessions. These attempts have largely failed. Ukraine – and its European allies – have consistently rejected the idea of ceding any territory to Russia.

In recent weeks, Trump has been trying to force Zelensky to stop targeting Russian refineries, blaming Ukraine – rather than the war against Iran – for high diesel prices. Kyiv’s position in this regard has been consistent.

Meanwhile, it emerged from the talks in Miami at the weekend that Washington has threatened to cut intelligence sharing and block weapons sales to Ukraine if the strikes continue, although the US has declined to comment on the claims.

A pathway to a comprehensive settlement remains just as hard to envisage as it was before the diesel deal. The lifting of US sanctions on Russian diesel means that even a partial energy truce will now be harder to reach – adding more pain and suffering for Ukraine as winter approaches.

Most worrying in the long term, all the signs are that under Trump the US is closer to Moscow’s position than at any point since the full-scale invasion.

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