Wars of attrition are won by whoever can keep paying for them, and Vladimir Putin has spent more than four and a half years betting that Ukraine’s Western partners would tire before Russia’s treasury did. In three days, Washington gave that bet its best return in months. On October 9, President Donald Trump announced a deal for diesel fuel with the Kremlin. The next day, he suggested that Ukrainians find themselves a new president.
The Kremlin secured sanctions relief and an open quarrel between Washington and Kyiv without making a single verifiable commitment.
On October 10, Trump told reporters that Zelensky had “better damn well stop.” He said so during a week in which Russia had carried out more than 200 strikes on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission facilities and 17 more on gas and oil sites, while its attacks killed more than 150 Ukrainians. It was Russia’s third major attack wave on Ukraine in four days.
A truce confined to refineries would shield Russia’s principal vulnerability and leave Ukraine’s electric grid open to further attacks as winter sets in. That suits Putin, who, according to sources familiar with his thinking, wants no energy truce before winter and is counting on Ukrainian suffering blackouts in the winter cold to extract concessions his army has failed to win.
An arrangement that protects Russian revenue while Ukrainians freeze in the dark would hand the Kremlin a victory dressed up as American diplomacy.
On October 11, Zelensky offered to hold elections if Russia accepted a 60-day ceasefire, thereby shifting the burden of proof onto Moscow. Moscow answered within a day. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the offer, repeating that Russia does not want a ceasefire…
Turning… against the country being invaded, while Russia faces no comparable demand — or apparently any demands whatsoever — reassures Putin that prolonging the war buys American restraints on Ukraine and the pathway to a Russian victory.
Trump claims that Zelensky “could have made many deals.” In fact he could not — at least not any that could assure Ukraine a shred of security, which is all he has ever asked for. If Russia gets to keep parts of eastern Ukraine, it would provide a fast track to Kiev, as well as tipping off other predators that invasions work. To Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping, half of Taiwan probably looks a lot better than no Taiwan.
Trump prides himself on recognizing a bad deal. This one supplies Putin with fresh revenue for a war he refuses to end and shields the Russian refineries that have become his weakest point, while the Ukrainian power grid remains a target as win ter approaches and Ukraine’s skies still remain open. Until Russia stops striking Ukrainian homes, hospitals, and the electric power grid, every American concession amounts to an advance payment on a war that only Putin wants.
Wars of attrition are won by whoever can keep paying for them, and Vladimir Putin has spent more than four and a half years betting that Ukraine’s Western partners would tire before Russia’s treasury did. In three days, Washington gave that bet its best return in months.
On October 9, President Donald Trump announced a deal for diesel fuel with the Kremlin. The next day, he suggested that Ukrainians find themselves a new president. On October 11, he proclaimed an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” that Kyiv had not been told about and that Moscow declined to confirm; within hours, Russian strikes hit the CHP-5 power plant in Ukraine’s Kharkiv.
The Kremlin secured sanctions relief and an open quarrel between Washington and Kyiv without making a single verifiable commitment.
The real horror in Trump’s jackpot to Putin, which will certainly be used toward further attacks on Ukraine, is that this bonanza will satisfy America’s diesel fuel usage for only nine days.
Russia is to supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel immediately and several million more over the coming months. The US Treasury Department issued a general license authorizing the sale and importation of Russian diesel until April 7, 2027; the first diesel waiver since the invasion to run beyond the customary 30 days. It arrived three weeks after Trump signed a sanctions law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, which requires him to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas by October 18. Diesel prices hit an all-time high in September, up 68 percent in a year, and Trump is right to worry about truckers and farmers weeks before the midterm elections.
Energy analysts doubt that the deal will lower prices for long: the cargoes would mostly be diverted from other buyers. The deal will, however, send money to Moscow, which banned diesel exports in July after airstrikes from Ukrainian drones cut its output by roughly a third. Russia and can now market the resumption of exports as a favor to Trump.
The airstrikes are Ukraine’s most effective instrument of economic pressure, and their success owes something to Washington. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries rose elevenfold in the first half of 2026, guided in part by American intelligence that helped Ukrainian drones slip past Russian air defenses.
On October 10, Trump told reporters that Zelensky had “better damn well stop.” He said so during a week in which Russia had carried out more than 200 strikes on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission facilities and 17 more on gas and oil sites, while its attacks killed more than 150 Ukrainians. It was Russia’s third major attack wave on Ukraine in four days.
Ukraine’s allies may fairly debate its target list, yet demanding that Kyiv spare Russian oil while Russian drones keep cutting power to Ukrainian cities tells Putin exactly whose losses Washington is prepared to tolerate. The ceasefire that followed had no published terms and no means of verification. Zelensky said it was news to him, and promised to honor it if Russia did. Moscow confirmed nothing, then struck Ukraine.
A White House official later explained that Trump had in mind a “refinery for refinery” bargain, with a halt to strikes on power plants and grids possibly to follow. That asymmetry is grotesque. Ukraine has a single refinery, badly damaged long ago by Russian strikes, and the country imports the fuel it needs, whereas Russia’s sprawling refining network has become the most exposed flank of its economy. A truce confined to refineries would shield Russia’s principal vulnerability and leave Ukraine’s electric grid open to further attacks as winter sets in. That suits Putin, who, according to sources familiar with his thinking, wants no energy truce before winter and is counting on Ukrainian suffering blackouts in the winter cold to extract concessions his army has failed to win.
The script is familiar. In March 2025, Putin declined the comprehensive 30-day truce Washington had proposed and agreed only to pause strikes on energy infrastructure, and within hours both sides were launching drones at each other. On September 14, Trump announced another energy truce that neither belligerent confirmed. The Kremlin called it a “very good idea” and demanded the lifting of sanctions, and the next day Russian strikes hit fuel stations in Kyiv while Ukraine hit a Russian refinery. Each partial pause lets Moscow bank diplomatic credit and press for economic relief as the bombing goes on. An arrangement that protects Russian revenue while Ukrainians freeze in the dark would hand the Kremlin a victory dressed up as American diplomacy.
The pressure, meanwhile, has fallen almost entirely on Kyiv. Two Ukrainian officials say that their American counterparts threatened to cut off intelligence sharing and PURL (the NATO-financed channel for US weapons) if Russian energy sites were hit during the supposed truce. A senior aide to Zelensky has confirmed receiving such threats, while a US official has denied them. With direct American military aid suspended, intelligence and PURL, which delivered $6.7 billion in weapons in its first year, are Washington’s last real levers on the battlefield. Turning them against the country being invaded, while Russia faces no comparable demand — or apparently any demands whatsoever — reassures Putin that prolonging the war buys American restraints on Ukraine and the pathway to a Russian victory.
Trump claims that Zelensky “could have made many deals.” In fact he could not — at least not any that could assure Ukraine a shred of security, which is all he has ever asked for. If Russia gets to keep parts of eastern Ukraine, it would provide a fast track to Kiev, as well as tipping off other predators that invasions work. To Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping, half of Taiwan probably looks a lot better than no Taiwan.
Washington has better tools. It can make further relief conditional on written, reciprocal terms that bar attacks on power grids as well as refineries. It can revoke the diesel export license the moment Russian strikes resume, and the US can buy diesel fuel from non-Russian suppliers. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in fact, declared that it his country has plenty of diesel to sell.
Moscow has spent years disputing Zelensky’s legitimacy, and Trump has now joined in. Zelensky’s five-year term of office began in 2019 and would ordinarily have ended in May 2024, so the matter is a fair subject for debate. Article 19 of Ukraine’s martial law statute, however, bars presidential and parliamentary elections while martial law is in force, and a parliamentary working group that includes the Central Election Commission has concluded that a vote under martial law is not possible. The commission wants six months of preparation once martial law ends, partly to reach 6.5 million Ukrainians abroad.
On October 11, Zelensky offered to hold elections if Russia accepted a 60-day ceasefire, thereby shifting the burden of proof onto Moscow. Moscow answered within a day. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the offer, repeating that Russia does not want a ceasefire and proposing only that Putin hold fire on election day itself, since 60 days would merely allow Ukrainians to “regroup, heal their wounds, and continue the war.” According to Zelensky, Russia had offered the same single day in February.
Putin’s interest in Ukrainian democracy extends as far as an election held under fire, with Russian missiles free to shape the campaign.
Trump is entitled to his frustrations with Zelensky. By calling for a new Ukrainian leader, however, he hands Moscow a say over a question that belongs to Ukrainian voters.
Seven US Senators (four of them Republicans) have demanded that the administration reverse course. They argue that the diesel deal runs directly counter to the 2022 law banning Russian energy imports. In addition, Putin started the war, in violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed that if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, Russia would not invade. The US was also a signatory. Ukraine honored its commitments under the Memorandum.
Trump prides himself on recognizing a bad deal. This one supplies Putin with fresh revenue for a war he refuses to end and shields the Russian refineries that have become his weakest point, while the Ukrainian power grid remains a target as win ter approaches and Ukraine’s skies still remain open. Until Russia stops striking Ukrainian homes, hospitals, and the electric power grid, every American concession amounts to an advance payment on a war that only Putin wants.
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