Moscow is yet to see a single U.S. dollar arrive in its bank account under President Donald Trump’s diesel deal, but Russian leader Vladimir Putin is already enjoying a different kind of profit.
Trump on Friday announced he had hashed out an agreement with his Kremlin counterpart to offer sanctions relief in return for Russian diesel. The deal was rightly criticized by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington, as well as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. But Trump’s response made for even worse news.
"I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal," Trump said Saturday, blaming Zelensky for failing to end the war and for America’s soaring diesel prices. "It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president."
For Putin, no amount of diesel revenue could easily match that kind of political capital. And the Kremlin has wasted little time putting it to work.
Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth
Elections are prohibited under Ukraine’s martial law, and voters, soldiers, candidates and election workers would need something more substantial than a temporary break in bombardment to organize a credible contest.
Ukrainians are hardly desperate to hold them either. The September poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that 71 percent of Ukrainians oppose holding elections now, versus 24 percent in favor of a wartime ballot.
Nevertheless, Zelensky appears willing to let democracy take its course under the right conditions. On Sunday, the Ukrainian president told ABC News that, if Trump really wanted Ukraine to vote, he should persuade Putin to agree to "two months, 60 days" of a complete ceasefire.
The Kremlin couldn’t wait to chime in.
Press secretary Dmitry Peskov, emboldened by Trump’s dismissal of Zelensky, gleefully rejected the notion of a 60-day ceasefire as a mere ploy for Kyiv to lick its wounds and regroup. He added: "I can say on (Putin’s) behalf with full responsibility that if they really want to hold elections there in Kyiv, then the Russian president, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, will be prepared to give orders not to strike Ukraine on election day."
Peskov wasn’t improvising—Putin himself floated virtually the same offer in December 2025. Moscow’s position has always remained the same; what has changed is the authority it can invoke without fear of reprisals, because the White House has effectively sponsored its longstanding claim that Ukraine, not Russia, is standing in the way of peace.
"As I've already said, this problem could have been resolved many times before. However, for some reason, Zelensky doesn't want to make a deal," the U.S. president told reporters over the weekend.
In a separate statement Monday, Peskov sought to further advance that narrative. He eagerly embraced Trump’s call for a new Ukrainian leader, claiming that Zelensky was unwilling to take the difficult political decisions necessary to end the war.
Snakes and Ladders
In addition to his disparagement of Zelensky, Trump is insistent that both Russia and Ukraine are adhering to a truce over energy infrastructure, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Trump first announced that Moscow and Kyiv had come to such an arrangement almost exactly a month ago, but the prospect never got off the ground. Within hours of Trump’s initial claim, Russian missiles were battering Ukrainian power stations as Kyiv drones rained down over Russian refineries.
A month later, Trump is trying the same tactic again. On Sunday, he declared the energy truce was holding. "They agreed because I said they agreed," he told reporters. Within hours of his announcement, Russian strikes hit a power plant in Kharkiv, a gas-production facility and a civilian gas station, according to Zelensky. Images and videos that emerged Monday morning also showed an apartment block ablaze in Kharkiv.
When asked about the violations of the supposed truce at the White House on Monday, Trump said he would have to look into them. He said there had been "violations on both sides," but refused to hold Putin to the same standard as his opposite number in Kyiv. "I think, actually, Putin wants to make a deal more than Zelensky," Trump added.
While the Kremlin basks in the rays of Trump’s good graces, the Ukrainian president seems to be locked in a Sisyphean battle with the White House.
In February 2025, the Ukrainian president endured his infamous humiliation at the Oval Office, when Trump and JD Vance set about berating him before the world and threatened to abandon Kyiv unless it made a deal.
Ever since, Kyiv has worked painstakingly to repair the relationship, engage Trump’s envoys and persuade Washington that pressure on Moscow, not Kyiv alone, was the way to unlock negotiations.
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In July 2025, Trump condemned Putin's attacks on Ukrainian towns as "disgraceful" and threatened fresh sanctions on Russia. That September, he told senior U.S. military officers he was "so disappointed in President Putin," mocking Russia's inability to win a war he said should have taken a week. And, at the G7 summit in June 2026, Trump declared: "Russia should make a deal."
This slow but seemingly steady progress for Kyiv in convincing Trump that Russia was not interested in peace came to a head on September 18, when Trump signed into law the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. That legislation, which won broad bipartisan support from Congress, was designed to inflict more pain on the Russian economy through enhanced sanctions and a mechanism to increase punitive tariffs on Moscow’s top trading partners.
Days later, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trump described his relationship with Zelensky as "very strong" and praised the Ukrainian president’s "very capable leadership."
Now, much of that painstaking diplomatic progress is at risk of being undone in the space of a weekend.
The diesel deal itself may yet run aground. Seven Democratic and Republican senators have challenged its legality, arguing that it contravenes the 2022 Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act. That law requires, among other conditions, Russia to recognize Ukrainians' right to choose their own government before the president can terminate the import ban.
But Putin has already pocketed something potentially far more valuable than fuel payments: a fresh opportunity to cultivate Moscow's narrative and push Ukraine further into a corner.