Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned the world of looming risks from the diesel deal struck by President Donald Trump with Russia, saying it paves the way for further sanctions relief for an aggressor that shows no desire to end its war.
Ukrainians struggling with a fifth year of Russian attacks on their power grid and other civilian infrastructure have said they are appalled by Trump’s decision to open the US market for Russian diesel. They have also condemned his attempts to blame fuel shortages caused by the Iran war on Kyiv’s military strikes on Russian refineries.
“In my view, we cannot accept these diesel deals, these agreements, because gas deals will follow. I am absolutely certain of this. Sanctions will be lifted on other things as well after gas,” Zelenskiy told reporters in Brussels.
“It will all come down to the banking system, individuals and the chemical industry,” he added.
Russian fossil fuels have been gradually put under sanctions since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Kyiv has repeatedly urged allies to end their dependence on such supplies.
While analysts said the diesel agreement was unlikely to lead to sustained lower fuel prices, officials in Ukraine and Europe said that it was appeasing Russian leader Vladimir Putin, providing him with more funds to wage war.
Trump and his envoys for talks with Russia and Ukraine have explored possibilities of economic cooperation with Moscow, and Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on Friday that countries will soon announce new joint initiatives.
Following a report in the Financial Times that the US had proposed European countries transfer some frozen Russian assets to a vehicle overseen by Washington to try to revive stalled peace talks, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine could not risk any deal being struck to return the assets to Moscow.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa, additional reporting Lina Golovnia; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Philippa Fletcher)