As I post this, I am thinking this is not ONLY about US elections, as Trump et al have been claiming during the past couple weeks that Russia wants to talk – though there is no public evidence. And they are also engaged in other, similar maneuvers:
- Trying to cajole Moscow by offering to reopen Nord Stream pipelines under ownership of a US firm. This is an old idea they had dropped ca. by April 2025, when it became obvious that Trump’s enticing Putin with big deals and investments was not going to sway him to end his war in Ukraine. It also has the German AfD all excited, but they are not significant players here.
- Trump’s negotiators in Moscow have also offered a deal for some western firm(s) to purchase Russia’s sanctioned Lukoil oil-and-gas infrastructure located mainly in Europe which cannot be used by Lukoil due to US sanctions,
- Plus, there is this unrealistic diesel deal – which Trump also wants so as to make US voters think he is getting fuel prices down before November elections. I say “unrealistic” because if Russia actually had significant extra diesel, it would not have banned exports of diesel for the past several months as its refineries burn from Ukrainian drone hits.
So, this diesel deal with Putin, I assume, is not only to hoodwink US voters.
The Trump administration obviously has a new, broader effort underway (ref.) to kick start negotiations to end the Ukraine war. It precedes also talks in Miami, in the US (ref.). While the diesel deal, undermines hard won sanctions involving Europe, the USA, as well as allies Turkey, India and others, it might also be the usual Trump pattern of offering Putin enticement just before he intends to escalate vs. Putin and Russia.
Trump has previously followed a pattern of using a threat, a “stick”, of upcoming escalations he communicates to Putin, and at the same time the “carrot” of various economic and business enticements (as I’ve described ref.). The idea is, all in all, to see what he can get out of Putin before going to a new level of sanctions or military efforts via Ukraine.
It is hard to tell if this is, once again, what all this is about, … which is exactly what Trump always wants given his negotiating and conflict management style.
Nevertheless, using the diesel sanctions in this manner, whatever Trump’s game is, is a big blow to the hard won allied and Ukrainian efforts to cut off Russian oil, natural gas, LNG and diesel exports so as to undermine the Russian petrostate’s capacity to wage war.
In this video interview, recorded at about 9:00 AM CET on 10 October 2026, I comment briefly to Al Jazeera (English service, Doha) on the false promise and hyperbole Trump is using to portray his deal with Putin as if it will slash USA diesel prices – which are primarily high due to Hormuz.
Also I discuss the fact Russia simply cannot produce this much diesel as Ukraine has so severely damaged its refineries with drones and missiles that Russia had to stop exporting diesel months ago and still has domestic shortages nonetheless.
I said that Putin know how to pull Trump’s strings.
Actually, Trump knows full well that this deal won’t end high prices in the US. Rather it is pure hype to convince US voters that prices will soon fall and they should vote for his Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections in November, elections where his candidates are slated to do terribly according to polls.
In turn, he has sacrificed the struggle of the past years to sanction effectively Russian oil and diesel exports. He is undermining even his own accomplishments of the past two years vs. the Russian petrostate’s war against Ukraine and the in the war against the Iranian regime.
Best, Tom O’Donnell — I am available for talks and consults for your civil society group, business/industry organization, executive consults, or commissioned analyses. Write: tomod.com(at)gmail.com
