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By Shane Croucher
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The first Russian diesel tanker bound for America under the deal President Donald Trump struck with Russia’s Vladimir Putin was reported idling off Skagen, Denmark, early last week. Its declared destination of New York was swapped for the noncommittal "for orders."
By Greenpeace Ukraine’s latest count, this vessel, the Malta-flagged Agioi Fanendes, is one of five tankers carrying Russian diesel stemming from the October 9 agreement between the White House and the Kremlin that sparked outrage in the U.S. and Europe.
European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had warned the deal hands Moscow more money for the war in Ukraine: "This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t."
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Robust words as Putin’s tiny diesel armada slips past the EU to deliver the goods for Trump, a friend in need as energy prices soared ahead of what is primed to be a punishing set of midterm elections for his Republican Party.
Indeed, Trump had only recently signed into law a punishing Russia sanctions bill spearheaded by his late friend, the hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham. Now, he was pausing it. What’s more, America had banned Russian oil imports by statute in 2022.
But the deal itself and Europe’s self-satisfied reaction belie two inconvenient truths.
Firstly, Putin’s armada of tankers is more of a flotilla, far too small to matter much to American hard-pressed drivers, whose pain is mostly caused by Trump’s Iran war. Secondly, the customer Putin’s tankers sailed past is still paying him far more than Trump.
The diesel deal makes more sense as diplomacy than fuel policy—and Europe’s haughty objections, however justified, come from a continent that can’t even fully close its own door to Russia.
Thirteen-and-a-Half Hours
Trump’s opening tranche is just over 300,000 metric tons, roughly 2.25 million barrels.
For context, the U.S. burns around 4 million barrels of distillate a day, federal data show, so the first installment from Putin covers about 13½ hours of demand. Add the 500,000 tons promised for November and the million after that, and the total covers under three-and-a-half days—not all of it bound for America.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, hardly neutral, of course, made the point globally. Russia can export 300,000 to 500,000 tons a month, against world consumption of about 120 million.
"I don’t believe the volume of diesel Russia will export will affect the price," he said.
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Trump and the White House say the extra supply will help lower prices, and futures did dip on the news. But independent analysts are unpersuaded.
Masha Kotkin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies called Russia’s possible supply "a drop in the bucket compared to global demand," adding: "If you are asking about U.S. diesel prices, I don't think it's going to make a difference."
Kpler’s Michelle Brouhard told Reuters it would take an extra 400,000 barrels a day to materially ease prices. Trump’s schedule works out to under 150,000—roughly what S&P Global analysts say Russia was already exporting.
Nor has the pump noticed any difference. Trump promised diesel prices would be "COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST." Yet the national average was $6.18 a gallon on October 12, the first federal reading after the deal, and $6.35 by October 26.
That doesn’t prove failure—diesel has many drivers, not least the war-disrupted Strait of Hormuz—but there is clearly no relief to point to. Some diplomatic and political relief for the Kremlin, perhaps. But nothing for American drivers.
The Customer They Sailed Past
Still, for all the noise created by European allies about the deal—and not without good reason, to be fair to them, given the state of play with Ukraine—you’d be forgiven for thinking they had abandoned all reliance on Russian energy.
But the EU bought roughly €1.7 billion of Russian fossil fuels in September 2026 alone, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, overtaking Turkey as Moscow’s third-largest customer after China and India.
Since late 2022, Europe has taken almost half Russia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Hungary spent €475 million in September, five months after voters ousted Viktor Orbán. France spent €446 million on Russian LNG.
Price Trump’s opening tranche at Northwest Europe’s diesel benchmark—$1,479 a ton on October 22, per Platts—and it is worth a little over $440 million.
Europe’s September bill was more than four times that. Russia’s fossil-fuel exports out-earned the whole tranche on an average September day.
It is a comparison of magnitudes, not invoices—and the magnitudes aren’t close.
Europe Is Trying
Europe can point to a reasonable defense of itself. The EU inherited deep dependence and has dismantled most of it, at real cost.
Russia’s share of its gas imports fell from 45 percent in 2021 to 13 percent in 2025; oil from 27 percent to below 3 percent; coal to zero. A law in force since February bans Russian LNG under long-term contracts from January 1 and pipeline gas by autumn 2027.
Europe is steadily leaving its energy relationship with Russia. But Trump reopened a door to America that Washington had already shut.
On October 29, with gas prices climbing, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen insisted the ban "stands." If Brussels blinks this winter, as it might if things get truly bad, then Europe’s defense collapses.
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Putin’s Real Dividend
Still, the arithmetic doesn’t lie: Europe sends Putin more in a month than this little flotilla to Trump could earn him.
And where the diesel lands barely matters. A European trader told S&P Global that U.S.-bound cargoes would merely displace volume from Brazil. Putin gets paid either way.
Putin’s real dividend is precedent and symbolism. Treasury’s General License 135 signals that Russian energy is again a bargaining chip with Washington, one that divides it with allies—spent on volumes too small to change what Americans pay at the pump.
So Europe is right that Trump has reopened a door to Putin that NATO allies and Ukraine say should be kept firmly shut and double-bolted.
But its problem is that, more than four-and-a-half years into the full-scale war, its own door is still ajar, help open by Putin’s foot.
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