Ukraine disputes Trump's claim of energy ceasefire as Russian diesel deal draws fire

Geoff Bennett:

Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine continue tonight a day after President Trump declared a cease-fire on attacks against energy infrastructure, an agreement neither country has confirmed.

Mr. Trump is blaming Ukraine for rising energy prices, rather than the war in Iran, and has moved to ease sanctions on Russian diesel imports.

Our William Brangham brings us up to date.

William Brangham:

Despite statements from Washington, in Ukraine today, a supposed cease-fire seemed as far away as ever. Burnt-out buildings and charred memories are familiar sites to people here.

Yana Kusik's baby granddaughter has known nothing but war her entire life.

Yana Kusik, Kharkiv Resident (through interpretor):

We ran out in whatever we were wearing. They attacked civilians, not soldiers. There were no vehicles here at all. There was nothing. And they attacked civilians. So what sort of cease-fire can there be?

William Brangham:

That cease-fire was announced not by Vladimir Putin or Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but by President Trump. He wrote on his social media platform: "There is now an energy cease-fire agreed to by the two countries, where they pledge not to attack each other's energy infrastructure."

The president reiterated that point a short time ago outside the White House.

President Donald Trump:

Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said, you agree. That's why.

William Brangham:

And he again blamed Zelenskyy for the continued fighting, even though the Ukrainian president has said he's prepared to meet Putin at the negotiating table.

Question:

How are you going to make Putin abide by the cease-fire?

President Donald Trump:

Well, I think -- I think what's happening is, he wants to make a deal. And we have to get Zelenskyy to want to make a deal.

William Brangham:

For his part, Zelenskyy said he hadn't heard about the cease-fire before Trump's post, but is ready to comply if Russia reciprocates.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

It's a bit typical. They always -- I mean, they will find any kind of reasons not to stop this war. If Russia will not attack our energy, we will not attack their energy.

William Brangham:

But just hours after Trump's declaration, Russian drones exploded in Kharkiv, including at an energy facility on the outskirts of the city. More than a dozen people were injured.

Today, the Kremlin offered a different proposal. If Ukraine holds elections to replace Zelenskyy, they'd hold their fire on voting day. Separately, on Friday, President Trump announced a controversial agreement to lift America's wartime sanctions on Russian diesel fuel in an effort to lower U.S. domestic prices.

And then, this weekend, President Trump's negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly told Ukrainian officials to stop targeting Russian gas facilities and threatened to cut off intelligence sharing and weapons sales if they didn't.

In response, European leaders doubled down on their defense of Ukraine and the need for a united front against Russia.

Kaja Kallas, Foreign Affairs High Representative, European Commission:

There is a clear understanding that now is not the time to ease pressure on Moscow. And that's why today ministers adopted nearly 1,006 new sanctions listings targeting Russia's military industrial complex. This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia's war started.

William Brangham:

Even as President Trump's diesel deal alarmed European allies, America's top general in NATO, Supreme Allied Commander Alexus Grynkewich, says this war will not undo the transatlantic alliance.

Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe:

No one should question the commitment of the United States to this alliance. I mean, I'm right here. I'm an American officer that was sent here by President Trump.

William Brangham:

So, for more on the Ukraine-Russia war and on President Trump's recent moves, we return again to Andrew Weiss.

He's the former State Department official in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, and he's now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Andrew, always good to have you back on the program.

President Trump surprised a lot of people on Friday with this move where, contrary to American sanctions on Russia, he announced unilaterally that he will allow Russia to sell millions of gallons of diesel onto the world market. What do you make of that move?

Andrew Weiss, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: President Trump seems to thrive on throwing out surprises, and, clearly, he is scrambling, with the U.S. midterm election just two weeks out, and American voters focused on affordability and the surge in diesel prices.

So the idea, though, that Russia is going to swoop in and make a meaningful impact on diesel prices is a fantasy. And if you start to pick at the numbers that President Trump announced on Friday, this is a drop in the bucket. And let's just be very specific about that.

At first month, Donald Trump is telling us the Russians will deliver about 2.1 -- sorry -- 2.2 million barrels of diesel to the United States. That's less than 75 percent of a single day of U.S. transport demand for diesel fuel. It's peanuts.

William Brangham:

So, Ukraine -- I'd like to ask you about the war effort here. Ukraine argues that this is a betrayal and that this is money that is simply going to go right back into Russian coffers and fund their war effort. Is that a fair accusation?

Andrew Weiss:

The Ukrainians were totally blindsided. They sent their senior negotiating team to Miami to meet with the two main people at the White House, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, the president's longtime friend and golfing partner.

And they were in meetings with them when suddenly they heard about a phone call between Trump and Putin and the announcement of this purchase of Russian barrels of diesel. This is -- if you peel back what's going on, there's a series of important diplomatic encounters that are going to be unfolding over the course of the next three months, culminating in a meeting that Donald Trump is hosting at his golf club in Miami of G20 leaders in December.

And Donald Trump, who thrives on sort of bully tactics, keeping people off-balance, really wants a peace agreement to be hammered out by December. And given that Donald Trump sees that there's no real point in his mind in pressuring Vladimir Putin, he's going to pressure Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And that's where he thinks he has the greatest leverage.

It's really unfortunate, given that the Ukrainians are the victims in this unprovoked war of aggression.

William Brangham:

What do you make of that strategy? Do you think that the president doesn't have a lever to press Putin and does to press Zelenskyy?

Andrew Weiss:

So the U.S. has more leverage over the Ukrainians simply by virtue of the fact that the United States is a crucial supplier of special types of weapons that Ukraine can't get anywhere else, that Europe is currently paying for, and then, perhaps even more importantly, due to the kinds of intelligence support and targeting support that the United States provides to Ukraine on a daily basis.

And now you have the administration for the second time -- the first time was after that horrible meeting in the Oval Office in February of 2025. You have the administration threatening to cut off both of those things to the Ukrainians.

It's a way to sort of shock the Ukrainians, Donald Trump, I think, hopes into making some kind of sweeping concessions. The problem, of course, is that Vladimir Putin isn't interested in a deal on reasonable terms. His goal here is to destroy Ukraine's very survival and existence as an independent country.

And the idea that the U.S. president is now doing things that will give Vladimir Putin extra confidence that he can possibly wait out the West, that he can sort of split apart the U.S. from our European allies and destroy the U.S.-Ukraine partnership that's been built up over the past nearly five years of war is, again, very unfortunate.

And it's bad strategy, to boot.

William Brangham:

I mean, you have also seen the president echoing what the Russians have been saying, the president this weekend saying that -- basically calling for Zelenskyy to be kicked out of office or voted out of office, something that the Russians have also asked for.

Given all of these developments, this seeming shift in American policy, how do you see this playing out?

Andrew Weiss:

It's a really dynamic moment in what has been a roller coaster. And I think, for a lot of us who've been watching the war, we have been sort of, I think, pleasantly surprised by the way the administration's policy had unfolded, particularly the persistence of the intelligence support and the continued provision of advanced U.S. weapons to Ukraine.

So a lot of us have been breathing a very audible sigh of relief. That's been now thrown into question after the developments on Friday and over the weekend. The hope, of course, is this will be another tempest in a teapot, and the European partners of Ukraine, key U.S. allies such as France, Germany, and the U.K., will somehow manage to kind of calm things down and bring the administration back into some kind of a reasonable alignment with both Ukraine and Europe.

The risk, of course, is that Donald Trump, who has had his popularity hit badly by the war in Iran and the clear inability to end the war in Iran, is now looking elsewhere in the hope that he can distract the American people and put some points on the board.

That, again, is a really, I think, misplaced hope. There is no quick solution to the war in Ukraine. The only hope here is for the United States, the Europeans, and the Ukrainians to persuade Vladimir Putin that the war is futile and that he is not going to get what he wants, and that the longer this war drags on, the more the Russians are going to bleed out.

And, so far, there's some signs that that strategy is persuasive.

William Brangham:

Right.

Andrew Weiss:

Just in the past month alone, NATO estimates that Ukraine killed upwards of 50,000 Russian soldiers in one month alone. Those are staggering losses.

William Brangham:

Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment, always good to hear from you. Thank you.

Andrew Weiss:

Thank you.