What he says: “I just concluded a very fruitful discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which it was agreed that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to the U.S. and global market, an additional 500,000 tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 tons immediately thereafter,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
- Trump added that Russia would deliver “in a short period of time 3,000,000 tons of diesel fuel.”
- Add to that the oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump wrote: “Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will FALL IN RECORD NUMBERS AND RAPIDLY!” »
- “Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is immediately issuing a temporary general license to permit the supply of Russian diesel to the global market,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.
Point of friction: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted angrily to Trump’s announcement, writing on
- “Gifts to Putin will bring neither peace nor any benefit to the civilized world. Russia will repay diesel with more terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell oil products is an investment in a war that must end, not prolong. What is needed is genuine de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis,” Zelensky wrote.
- Zelensky added that Ukraine had told Trump envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff that it was “ready to take symmetrical de-escalation steps” with Russia.
- “Ukraine will not set fire to Russian oil refineries if Russia does not destroy our energy infrastructure. This is the kind of deal we are offering America, and we believe the United States has enough power to reach such a compromise,” he said.
The other side: The Kremlin said in a statement that during the meeting between Putin and Trump, “significant attention was paid to the prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis.”
- The Kremlin said the two leaders discussed the situation in global energy markets. “The Russian side confirmed its readiness to supply oil and oil products to the United States and world markets. I am convinced that this will have a positive impact on the world economy as a whole,” Putin said during the call, according to the Kremlin.
- Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who worked on the deal, wrote on X that “energy and economic cooperation between Russia and the United States will continue and benefit global markets and the world.”
In figures: Ukrainian strikes reduced available refining capacity in Russia by as much as 60% over the summer, although the effect varied from month to month, according to an analysis this week by two Dallas Fed researchers.
- Thanks to a combination of refinery outages in the Middle East, shipping constraints, damaged Russian refineries and reduced Chinese refining, the global fuels market has seen a reduction of 6 to 8 million barrels per day of capacity since late spring, or as much as 10% of global refining.
What they say: “Putin and others are trying to opportunistically blame high diesel prices on Ukraine, rather than the war between the United States, Israel and Iran that is devastating global supply chains,” said Joseph Webster, an energy and geopolitics analyst at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.
- “It is not only uncertain whether these purported Russian export volumes will materialize, but they are small in volume and would not address the global diesel shortage,” he said by email.
Ben Geman contributed to this report.
Gn headline
