It may have been a couple of days late, but Vladimir Putin, who turned 74 on Wednesday, could hardly have anticipated a better birthday present than Friday’s announcement by Donald Trump of a deal on diesel exports. Even if, in practice, not a single barrel of Russian fuel is shipped, it’s a massive win for the Kremlin.
Of course, it was not intended as such. Rather, the announcement was a product of Trump’s desperate need for something he could hype as good news to voters back home, as well as Kyiv’s mishandling of this situation.
Hours later, Ukraine struck a major Russian oil terminal with a drone and Trump said that it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, one “who can make a deal”.
The Russian President has so far been unable to win his war, but in Trump he has a secret weapon. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky labelled the deal a “happy birthday present for Putin”.
As the prospect of a Republican Party collapse in next month’s US midterm elections loom – not least because fuel prices have skyrocketed since Trump launched his ill-judged war with Iran – the US President needs to show voters he’s doing something, anything, to try to bring down prices.
To this end, he has been pressuring Kyiv to stop its long-range strikes against Russian refineries. Ukraine – which, in truth, could have found other economic targets to hit – has refused, unless it’s part of a mutual energy ceasefire, with Moscow curtailing attacks on its critical infrastructure.
This was never going to happen. Strikes against Ukraine’s power grid are set to be a central part of Russia’s winter air war, and Putin feels he can cope with Kyiv’s attacks. He does not need to sell Trump diesel, and has had no qualms in rejecting Zelensky’s tit-for-tat offer.
That gamble seems to have paid off handsomely.
As one US Department of State insider told The i Paper: “Zelensky could have parlayed this into something. More Patriot missiles, money, whatever. But he was stuck on the idea of an energy ceasefire or nothing. And he got nothing.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, which was damaged in a Russian drone strike (Photo: Volodymyr Tarasov/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty)Meanwhile, Putin got a lot. Whether the promises of millions of tonnes of diesel heading out of Russia ever materialise is open to doubt. Its domestic fuel crisis has been such that Moscow actually introduced a ban on diesel exports in July, which was recently extended.
Some have suggested that the ban was in part a political gambit to put extra pressure on global prices, and that Russia had been able to use it to build up some stockpiles. Even if that’s not the case, he would happily see Russians suffer if it meant an advantage for him on the international stage. This is especially truly now that parliamentary elections, which were held last month, are out of the way.
Russia may, therefore, find itself able to export more fuel to the US or, indeed, the rest of the world. This would earn it useful revenue for its war chest, to spend on attacking Ukraine. Even if it doesn’t, the greatest dividend for Putin is international.
By provoking Zelensky into open criticism of Trump, it could reverse months of seemingly better relations between the two leaders. Zelensky criticised the diesel deal as “weak” – something of a red line for the notoriously thin-skinned Trump – and “not honest”.
Now, if Ukraine does continue its campaign against Russia’s refineries and oil terminals, Trump could see it as it trying to undermine his deal.
One unnamed Ukrainian official told Axios that Trump’s negotiators threatened to cut off access to key intelligence if they continued to balk. The Americans have denied this, but if true it would be a serious blow – not least because many of Ukraine’s deep strikes on Russia rely on targeting and other data provided by the US.
Plumes of smoke rise from fires at an oil refinery after a Ukrainian drone strike, near Moscow (Photo: Stringer/Reuters)While European intelligence agencies would presumably try to make up for its absence, even together they cannot match the US’s capabilities, especially when it comes to early warning of incoming missiles.
At the same time, the deal further alienates and embarrasses Europe. A week earlier, European countries in the G7 bowed to US pressure and agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil from their emergency reserves. In part, the rationale was precisely to avoid giving Putin more market leverage.
The Trump announcement also poses some potentially knotty dilemmas for Europe’s efforts to crack down on “shadow fleet” tankers carrying sanctions-busting Russian oil around the world. Would European navies dare seize a ship potentially heading to a US port?
For Putin, one of the biggest wins – even before any diesel has been shipped – is that the deal is being reported around the world as a triumph of Russian diplomacy. For a country still trying to project itself as a superpower, this is not just a source of satisfaction, it reinforces Putin’s authority at home and abroad.
The irony is that even with this deal in place, Moscow seems to be working on the assumption that Trump’s Republican Party will suffer serious losses in the midterms, and that his final years in office will see him weakened and resentful.
Moscow ultimately hopes Trump will try to impose some ugly peace deal on Kyiv before he leaves office, but it is not counting on it. Chaos and paralysis in the US after the midterms will be good enough for Putin. But in the meantime, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.
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