Russia has claimed it can supply even more diesel to the global market than the quantities agreed with United States President Donald Trump. President Vladimir Putin and Trump spoke on Friday on an agreement expected to bring 300,000 tonnes of diesel to global markets in October, half a million tonnes in November, and a million tonnes in December. But experts are sceptical, and the move has opened a rift between the US and Europe on the Ukraine war.
Kostis Stambolis, executive director of the Institute of Energy for South-East Europe (IENE), described the US move as “purely political” and designed to put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a corner. Trump wants to signal that the US has “no problem with Russia”, unlike Europe, he said. Two million are likely to be available for export,” he added.
Europe has reacted to the diesel deal by backing Ukraine, whose war funding will be “front and centre” of this week’s European Council summit, European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen said on Sunday. Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen on Monday called on Europeans to ban all tourist visas to Russians. Stambolis believes Trump was leveraging European weakness to shift its position on Ukraine.
Trump is showing the Europeans “he doesn’t want to deal with Europe and to hell with them … This is opening the rift between the US and the EU further,” said Stambolis. Ukraine says it has destroyed roughly half of Russia’s refining capacity, forcing Moscow to stop exporting lucrative petroleum products which help it to finance its war. It has also bombed Russian tankers carrying crude oil to global markets.
Zelenskyy said the strategy was effective, and Trump’s deal, which would suspend sanctions on Russian oil products until April 2027, undermined it. Europe supports Ukraine’s economic strategy against Russia’s war machine, but Trump has blamed it for raising petrol prices at the pump for Americans as he heads into Congressional midterm elections in early November. Trump has followed a seemingly self-contradictory policy towards Russia.
He cut US military aid to Ukraine when he assumed power in January 2025, but agreed to sell Europe weapons to help Ukraine. He had a public dispute with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February 2025, saying “You don’t have the cards,” but at the NATO summit this year said Zelenskyy had “done an amazing job” and “been very effective”. Last month, Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Act, which would allow him to punish countries buying Russian oil.
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