A tanker loaded with 40,000 tons of Russian diesel is sailing towards New York, the first shipment under a fuel deal between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that has angered Ukraine and drawn criticism in Washington.
The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that the first vessel had set sail. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the tanker was on its way to its buyers and that further shipments would continue at a steady pace from here on.
Ship tracking data from LSEG showed a Malta-flagged tanker carrying the cargo across the Atlantic. Marine intelligence firm Kpler said the vessel was signalling New York as its destination, with an arrival expected on November 7. It would be the first delivery of Russian diesel to the United States since July 2023.
A deal aimed at fuel prices
Trump announced the agreement two weeks ago, presenting it as a way to tackle high fuel prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Under the deal, Russia lifted a self-imposed ban on diesel exports and agreed to supply the fuel to global markets, including the US.
Trump has said the arrangement could see millions more tons of Russian diesel reach the US in the coming months. Diesel powers trucks, trains, farm machinery and much of the freight system, so its price feeds into the cost of almost everything on shop shelves.
Energy experts, though, doubt the shipments will move prices much. Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said the first shipment would amount to 40,000 tons, or around 300,000 barrels. That is roughly 7 percent of the nearly 4 million barrels of diesel the US economy consumes in a single day.
Anger in Kyiv and Washington
Ukraine reacted with dismay. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the agreement a weak decision by strong partners. Kyiv has spent years asking other countries to tighten sanctions on Moscow and to cut off the energy income that helps fund the invasion Russia launched in February 2022.
The deal was also criticised inside the US, by members of both parties in Congress, who said it violated American laws and pulled the country closer to Russia. It joins a growing list of steps in which the president has sided with Putin, often at Ukraine’s expense.
The agreement marks a sharp reversal in policy. Only weeks earlier, Trump signed into law a sweeping sanctions package that called for tariffs of up to 100 percent on the top five importers of Russian oil and natural gas. He later put those measures on hold.
Russia finds a buyer again
The shipment also suits Moscow. Russia’s diesel production has been strained by repeated Ukrainian drone strikes on its oil refineries, which caused fuel shortages at home. Officials in Moscow say those shortages have now eased.
Trump last month asked Kyiv to stop the attacks on Russian refineries. That request added to the friction between Washington and Kyiv, where relations with the Trump administration have sunk in recent weeks.
The fuel deal also lands in the middle of delicate diplomacy. Zelenskyy said on Friday that he had spoken with Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and that a three-way meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the United States may take place next month.
Kyiv’s most urgent needs, he said, are protecting its power grid from Russian attacks ahead of winter and getting more air defence missiles from its partners. A fuel deal that puts money into Moscow’s budget cuts across that effort, which is why the reaction in Kyiv was so sharp.
Why it matters
One tanker will not change US fuel prices, and few expect it to. The shipment matters because of what it signals. Russian fuel is flowing directly to the United States again, more than two years after such deliveries stopped, in the middle of a war that America’s partners are still trying to end by squeezing Moscow’s income.
More tankers are promised in the months ahead. Whether they keep coming, and how Congress and Ukraine respond, will show whether this was a one-off attempt to cool prices before an election or a lasting change in how Washington deals with Russia.
