Donald Trump likes to think of foreign policy as a business. Allies should earn their keep and adversaries should be made to pay, unless they can make an offer that leaves America better off than it was before.
The man who brought you The Art Of The Deal and a few too many seasons of The Apprentice should really know when he’s the one being taken for a ride.
Vladimir Putin is currently waging a war on Ukraine and threatening Washington’s historical allies across the pond, while the Kremlin’s digital operatives spread fabricated news and attempt to manipulate the American political conversation via extensive disinformation campaigns.
This, according to the White House, should not discount the Russian president from consideration as Washington’s best partner to help resolve America’s fuel crisis.
Trump’s Russian diesel import deal, hashed out over the phone to Moscow last week, is likely to leave Putin better off, Ukraine worse off, and Americans with little to show for it. But Kyiv's recent strikes on Russian data centers suggest it might’ve found another way to make life hard for Putin, and demonstrate why Ukraine, not Russia, could be the more valuable partner for Washington.
Lose-Lose-Win
Trump’s answer to the fuel crisis is not an answer. It’s an act of desperation from which there is only one clear beneficiary.
Following a phone call with Putin on Friday, Trump announced that Russia would supply 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, another 500,000 in November and a million more shortly afterward. To get the diesel moving, the Treasury promptly relaxed sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027 and authorized imports directly into the United States.
There are, unsurprisingly, a few issues here. For starters, Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022, with provisions requiring Moscow to agree to end hostilities and withdraw its forces on terms acceptable to Ukraine before the U.S. president can terminate the ban.
Putin has done nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the Kremlin said he had not even committed to resuming peace negotiations during his phone call with Trump. The president did not consult Congress before striking his bargain, either, and senators from both parties have already demanded the deal be reversed on legal grounds. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the agreement as “a deal with the devil.”
Secondly, the deal makes a mockery of Trump’s own demands that European allies stop buying Russian oil, and his repeated threats to punish China and India for keeping the Kremlin’s coffers topped up.
Less than a month ago, Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, giving him the tools to further squeeze Russia’s energy profits and impose punitive tariffs on its biggest trading partners. Newsweek labeled this Trump’s latest TACO test, asking to what extent the president would actually use this sanctions sledgehammer. Trump has turned it around and offered Putin the handle to pull him out of a hole.
Of course, Washington might argue that a bit of hypocrisy is worth enduring if Americans can finally catch a break at the pump.
Unfortunately, the numbers are hardly encouraging. America consumes roughly 3.6 million barrels of diesel and other distillate fuels every day. Russia’s initial 300,000-ton delivery amounts to around 2.25 million barrels—barely 15 hours’ worth of American demand, even if every drop reaches the United States. That also assumes Putin can, and will, deliver what he promised.
Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked 3.1 million barrels per day of Russian refining capacity offline, according to S&P Global Energy research. Russia’s diesel exports have collapsed, and analysts expect supply constraints to persist well into 2027.
Ukraine, meanwhile, gets the short end of an already very short stick.
...
Volodymyr Zelensky previously said he would be willing to halt Kyiv’s deep-strike campaign against Russian refineries—one of Ukraine’s most effective strategies to complicate Putin’s war effort—provided Russia agreed in turn to stop bombing Ukrainian energy facilities.
But Russia’s attacks continued, as did Ukraine’s. And when Zelensky criticized Trump’s diesel deal, the American president lashed out, declaring that it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
Kyiv is therefore being forced to choose between sacrificing one of its most effective weapons to stay in the White House’s good graces, or defying a president who controls crucial military and intelligence support. Putin, meanwhile, enjoys sanctions relief and a potentially lucrative export opportunity, without making a meaningful concession in return.
But Ukraine may have just discovered another way to demonstrate its value to the United States—and remind Americans which country is really threatening their interests.
The (Dis)information Age
While Trump was negotiating with Putin, Ukrainian drones were busy making a nuisance of themselves beyond Russia’s refineries.
Between October 8 and 11, three data centers operated by Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google, were struck by drones. Yandex’s sprawling digital empire accounts for roughly 70 percent of Russian internet search, provides vital cloud computing and AI services for countless Russian businesses, and boasts 61.5 million monthly users across its taxi, shopping and delivery services.
Russian media published widespread reports of Yandex customers struggling to make payments, order taxis and use other Yandex services amid the strikes, while businesses using Yandex’s cloud computing experienced significant disruptions. The company's shares fell more than 8 percent between October 7 and 9, before the third strike, and it could not say when its damaged facilities would be restored.
Clearly, Ukraine has the capacity to inflict serious damage on the digital infrastructure underpinning Russia’s economy, just as it has done with the energy industry by targeting refineries and the consumer sector by striking the facilities of Russian e-commerce giants. Perhaps Kyiv could take this a step further.
For years, Moscow has invested enormous resources in online operations designed to manipulate political discourse, sow distrust and inflame divisions in Western societies, particularly the United States. American authorities have repeatedly uncovered networks of fake accounts, websites and coordinated propaganda campaigns connected to the Russian state.
In 2024, the U.S. Justice Department disrupted an AI-assisted Russian bot farm involving 968 fictitious social media accounts, which investigators linked to Russia’s FSB intelligence service and state broadcaster RT. That same year, authorities seized 32 internet domains allegedly connected to a Kremlin-directed influence operation targeting American voters and undermining support for Ukraine.
With midterm elections around the corner, Russia’s disinformation machinery is showing no signs of slowing.
In September, researchers at Graphika exposed another Russia-aligned campaign circulating fabricated news reports and manipulated videos attacking American politicians running for office in November, including Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. The operation even appropriated footage of celebrities including Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker, alongside fake CNN, BBC and Politico branding, to give its allegations an air of credibility.
Whether these campaigns meaningfully influenced American public opinion is hard to determine, but their purpose is unmistakable. Russia is attempting to manipulate America’s political conversation, including in the weeks before voters go to the polls.
Therein lies a tantalizing opportunity for Kyiv. If Ukrainian intelligence can identify the networks, operators and infrastructure behind Russia’s interference campaigns, and turn Kyiv’s drones on them, Zelensky could deliver exactly what the White House keeps demanding of its allies: a concrete contribution to American security and interests, rather than another request for assistance.
Putin is offering Washington diesel. Ukraine could offer something rather more valuable: a tangible defense of American society and democracy. Then again, perhaps Trump wouldn’t welcome the help; the latest Russia-aligned influence campaign exposed by Graphika was targeting Democrats, not Republicans.
Why would Putin want to do anything to undermine an American president willing to buy his diesel, relax his sanctions and give Ukraine a public telling-off?