{"id":8435,"date":"2026-10-13T13:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8435"},"modified":"2026-10-13T13:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:23:35","slug":"trumps-diesel-deal-opens-a-new-rift-with-europe-over-ukraine-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8435","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s diesel deal opens a new rift with Europe over Ukraine | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>5 Minute, 24 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Russia has claimed it can supply even more diesel to the global market than the quantities agreed with United States President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of the year, we could reach supply volumes of 3.5 million tonnes per month to global markets, just as was the case before the crisis,\u201d Alexander Novak, Russian deputy prime minister, told the news programme Vesti on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n

Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

President Vladimir Putin and Trump spoke on Friday on an agreement\u00a0expected to bring 300,000 tonnes of diesel to global markets in October, half a million tonnes in November, and a million tonnes in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!\u201d Trump posted.<\/p>\n

But experts are sceptical, and the move has opened a rift between the US and Europe on the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

Kostis Stambolis, executive director of the Institute of Energy for South-East Europe (IENE), described the US move as \u201cpurely political\u201d and designed to put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a corner.<\/p>\n

Trump wants to signal that the US has \u201cno problem with Russia\u201d, unlike Europe, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia produces 5.8 million tonnes of diesel a month. Two million are likely to be available for export,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Europe has reacted to the diesel deal by backing Ukraine, whose war funding will be \u201cfront and centre\u201d of this week\u2019s European Council summit, European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen on Monday called on Europeans to ban all tourist visas to Russians.<\/p>\n

Stambolis believes Trump was leveraging European weakness to shift its position on Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 30 European refineries have closed in the past 15 years for environmental reasons, because they have to pay to emit greenhouse gases,\u201d he said, referring to Europe\u2019s Emissions Trading Scheme, \u201cso now Europe is not self-sufficient in products\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump is showing the Europeans \u201che doesn\u2019t want to deal with Europe and to hell with them \u2026 This is opening the rift between the US and the EU further,\u201d said Stambolis.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE
(Al Jazeera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ukraine says it has destroyed roughly half of Russia\u2019s refining capacity, forcing Moscow to stop exporting lucrative petroleum products which help it to finance its war.<\/p>\n

It has also bombed Russian tankers carrying crude oil to global markets.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said the strategy was effective, and Trump\u2019s deal, which would suspend sanctions on Russian oil products until April 2027, undermined it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGifts to Putin will not lead to peace,\u201d Zelenskyy said Saturday. \u201cAny weakening of sanctions against Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious sign of weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, leading Ukraine to suspend its attacks on refineries, Russian strikes pounded Kyiv\u2019s energy grid and killed 12 people in Dnipropetrovsk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not think he has earned a respite,\u201d Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said of Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

Europe supports Ukraine\u2019s economic strategy against Russia\u2019s war machine, but Trump has blamed it for raising petrol prices at the pump for Americans as he heads into Congressional midterm elections<\/a> in early November.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Zelenskyy] wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world,\u201d Trump told reporters in the White House after Zelenskyy\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s time for Ukraine to get a new president<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Politics over economics<\/h2>\n

Trump has followed a seemingly self-contradictory policy towards Russia.<\/p>\n

He cut US military aid to Ukraine when he assumed power in January 2025, but agreed to sell Europe weapons to help Ukraine.<\/p>\n

He had a public dispute with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February 2025, saying \u201cYou don\u2019t have the cards,\u201d but at the NATO summit this year said Zelenskyy had \u201cdone an amazing job\u201d and \u201cbeen very effective\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last month, Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Act, which would allow him to punish countries buying Russian oil. Eleven days later, he reversed policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment the pendulum comes to one side, Trump tries to balance it with a completely different and opposite tool,\u201d said Victoria Vdovychenko, an expert on European security at Cambridge University\u2019s Centre for Geopolitics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this way he sees how he controls the narrative, but also negotiations of any kind,\u201d she told Al Jazeera. \u201cSo this pendulum will continue to prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n

How expensive is diesel in the US?<\/h2>\n

According to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), average US diesel and petrol prices briefly spiked but ultimately changed little on account of the Ukraine war, yet they have risen a great deal on account of the US-Israel war on Iran.<\/p>\n

US diesel was priced at $4.10 a gallon on the day of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, February 24, 2022. It had fallen to $3.81 on the eve of Trump\u2019s Gulf war, February 28, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"FILE
A worker fills his truck with diesel fuel at a corporate filling station in San Diego, California, US, May 18, 2026 [Mike Blake\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It has since risen by 78 percent, to $6.19 in early October.<\/p>\n

It is a similar story for US regular unleaded gasoline, priced at $3.48 a gallon before the Russian invasion. It stood at $2.79 before Trump\u2019s Gulf war, but has since risen by half, to $4.15 a gallon.<\/p>\n

The US government has little room to reduce taxes, which constitute just 11 or 12 percent of retail price, so it can only manipulate prices through supply.<\/p>\n

Will the diesel deal bring down prices?<\/h2>\n

\u201cIf the market knows that there will be much more diesel in the coming weeks, it factors this into today\u2019s prices and discounts it now,\u201d Stambolis told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

But much more important in bringing down oil prices than the Trump-Putin deal will be an October 2 announcement by the G7 to release 100 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, he said.<\/p>\n

A remainder of 80 million barrels from a previous, 400-million-tonne release in March will also be released.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis release will start happening in the next two weeks,\u201d Stambolis said. \u201cThe world is 5 million barrels a day short of crude compared to before the Gulf war. It\u2019s a very significant percentage on 100 million. All prices vary on this margin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia has claimed it can supply even more diesel to the global market than the quantities agreed with United States President Donald Trump. \u201cBy the end of the year, we could reach supply volumes of 3.5 million tonnes per month to global markets, just as was the case before the crisis,\u201d Alexander Novak, Russian deputy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t