Latest: Russia is ready to supply the United States with as much diesel as it needs under the diesel deal, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in comments to Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin, reported by TASS on Sunday. Asked what volume Russia is ready to supply, Novak said, in translation: “As much as our partners want, frankly, from the volume that we will be supplying for export. We can supply it all.” TASS gave no fixed volume, tonnage or cap in Novak’s answer. The agency’s account of the October 9 call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump said the two discussed supplies of petroleum products and that Putin confirmed Moscow’s readiness to supply oil and petroleum products to the American and world markets.
President Donald Trump has defended his decision to waive sweeping sanctions planned against Russia as an effort to keep Moscow at the negotiating table, amid criticism from Kyiv and some United States lawmakers, OilPrice reported. Trump signed an executive order late on October 16 waiving new sanctions mandated by legislation named for the late senator Lindsey Graham, which he had signed the previous month at the urging of lawmakers seeking to pressure Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. “I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table,” he wrote on Truth Social on October 18.
The waiver sits on top of the energy measures that came first. Angered by Ukraine’s refusal to stop striking Russian diesel infrastructure, Trump on October 9 announced a deal to buy diesel from Moscow, issuing a temporary general licence that allows Russian diesel to reach the global market, and also waived sanctions on Russia authorised by the September bill, Reuters reported in an explainer published today. On September 13 Trump had begun publicly calling on Ukraine to stop targeting diesel infrastructure, and the following week Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was also concerned that Ukraine had hit United States linked oil shipments. Moscow had been forced in July to ban diesel exports to address domestic fuel shortages.
Ukraine has refused to halt the strikes, saying its long range drone campaign is its only viable response to nearly five years of Russian bombardment. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukrainian military officials were threatened by United States counterparts with a cut off of intelligence sharing if the energy strikes continued; a United States official familiar with the situation disputed Kyiv’s account and said there has been no increase in pressure on Ukraine. Suriya Jayanti, a former United States official who runs a power sector company in Ukraine and is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid have increased despite Trump unilaterally announcing an energy ceasefire on October 11.
The practical consequence is already on the water: the first Russian diesel cargoes under the new arrangements are sailing to Norfolk, due November 2, and New York, due November 7, as covered in this site’s earlier reporting, with diesel prices having hit record highs during the war with Iran that began in February.