By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced an immediate “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine on October 11, 2026, claiming both sides had agreed to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure.
There is no concrete evidence that a functional energy truce is in effect, and both official statements and field events contradict the claim.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the announcement “came as news” to him, though he noted Ukraine would be ready to comply if Russia officially agreed to a reciprocal halt and clarified the terms. Combatants have continued hitting energy-related targets on both sides despite the announcement. For instance, Russian forces launched large waves of drone and missile strikes into Ukraine, while Ukrainian forces have maintained long-range strikes against Russian oil infrastructure and refineries (such as facilities in Syzran).
While the Kremlin has previously expressed general openness to the concept of pausing energy strikes, Russian officials have tied any agreement to broader demands, including the lifting of Western sanctions on Russian seaborne energy exports. Independent think tanks and analysts describe the proposed arrangement as largely symbolic or non-existent in practice.
President Trump made a similar claim in September 2026 that both nations had agreed to halt energy attacks, which also broke down immediately as strikes persisted.
As for the diesel deal, there is a growing chorus of expert opinion in favor of the view that the deal will do relatively little to boost diesel production, and it is the shortage of production, not the hiccups of war distribution, that is the major factor behind rising prices.
See Matt Randolph on Forbes: The Art Of The Tiny Deal: Trump’s Diesel Deal With Putin Does Nothing (Randolph), and Larry Johnson on Sonar21: The Other Hormuz Shocks: LNG and Helium. Economic effects of the Persian Gulf cutoff, from first-order to tertiary (Johnson).
The main challenge to and opportunities for the US-Russia diesel agreement announced by President Trump yesterday center on: the reactions of Ukraine and Europe, damaged Russian refinery infrastructure, severe legislative and political backlash, and domestic market scale limitations.
Zelenskiy has already howled his disapproval, as one would expect, and he has confirmed that he will continue the renewed Ukrainian onslaught on Russian refineries that had picked up again from October 1 (unless Russia agrees to stop its strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure). This, of course, raises the question as to where all this Russian diesel that is destined for the US is going to come from in the event that there is insufficient Russian refining capacity. Russia recently halted diesel exports because it wanted to protect – to continue to be able to supply at reasonable prices – Russia’s domestic market. If Russia is unable to boost its refining capacity very significantly it runs the risk that it will not be able to supply the US, after all, or that it may have to allow domestic prices to rise significantly, or that it will have to send more crude to countries like India for refining there, and this too would likely have a negative impact on prices. If could also simply send crude oil to the US, since Russian oil is more favorable for refining into diesel and aviation fuel than much of US shale oil, but I understand that US refineries are already working close to capacity, fed from, among other things, more oil from Venezuela.
The total amount of diesel that the deal envisages being sent to the US is 4.8 million metric tons, according to CNBC. The Atlantic Council says this is not enough to resolve global fuel shortages. Bloomberg has issued a calculation that puts the total amount being talked about at 13.5 million metric tons.
Ukraine will likely find support for its intransigence from Europe, but that support will be increasingly insincere, given that Europe is also short of diesel and needs to see a boost to global diesel availability and is coming dangerously close to the end of the possibility of Europe continuing to shoot itself in the foot by adopting policies that merely increase its fuel difficulties (such as planning to terminate all imports of Russian fuel, even LNG, by January). Why has it been doing this? Because it thought that that was what the US wanted it to do, because it has desperately wanted to see the US return in a full-blooded way to the battlefields of Ukraine, because Europe has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars supporting Ukraine and buying its weapons from US arms manufacturers and because this generation of European leaders are phenomenally brainwashed, inexperienced and stupid.
If Ukraine and Europe together plan on continuing to destroy Russian oil refineries (and we have to remember that it has not just been Ukraine doing this by itself, but Ukraine aided and abetted, significantly, by NATO, including US satellite intelligence and navigational support), then that will likely force the US – incredibly – to reenter the war on Russia’s side (!) or, in another TACO, to give in, again, to Zelenskiy and the Europeans.
This thought is as striking as an idea proposed by Professor Geoffrey Roberts to the effect that Ukraine may now consider that it’s best future ally will be Russia! This view has some merit in as far as, in additon to Trump’s most recent turn against Zelenskiy, the road for Ukraine into NATO is now blocked – everyone agrees – and the prospects for its passage into the EU look very shaky, while emerging problems in the relationship that Ukraine has with some neighboring countries such as Poland and Romania may also begin to reignite cultural affinities between Ukraine and Russia. These latter were always there, of course, especially so far as eastern Ukraine is concerned. I have less confidence to think there could ever be a reconciliation between Russia and western Ukraine, given the neo-Nazi and monist nationalist conceptions (backed by the US in 2014, leading to the coup d’etat that year). But one has to recall that the population is only half the size it once was and that half of the remaining population is made up of pensioners or near-pensioners.
But, back to the US and Russia, perhaps the US doesn’t need to reenter the war on Russia’s side. Perhaps it just has to do nothing – or, rather, more “nothing” than the “nothing” it has recently been doing – given that under Russian general Surovikin’s leadership in charge of the bombing of Dnieper bridges, together with ever more sustain Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports, energy facilities, warehouse, weapons production facilities, etc., Russia will simply win the war. Benefitting from an additional $4 billion dollars of revenue from diesel sales to the US, Russia will have plenty of motivation to do whatever needs to be done.
There is the little matter of the temporary general license issued by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control directly clashes with the newly enacted Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which was designed to cut off revenue sustaining Russia’s war in Ukraine., My understanding is that this merely gives Trump the capability of imposing Graham’s “bone-crushing” sanctions, but does not require him so to do. But there will be backlash from neocon lawmakers from the substantial warmongering elements of both parties – including members of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus – that have condemned the pivot as a reversal of pressure on Moscow, though the administration relies on executive waiver and licensing authorities to bypass immediate statutory blocks. It appears that Russia has already been granted a six-month waiver from US sanctions. The Treasury Department confirms that the Office of Foreign Assets Control had issued General License 135, authorizing the purchasae, shipment, and importation of Russian-origin diesel into United States and global markets through April 7, 2027. Russia is lifting its own ban on diesel exports with immediate effect.
The main opportunities.
The immediate influx of 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tonnes in November, is aimed directly at reducing soaring global fuel prices. President Trump highlighted that bringing down diesel costs is an explicit priority to lower operating expenses for American farmers, truckers, and ranchers. The sudden deal is heavily leveraged by the Republican Party to ease voter frustration over the high cost of living just weeks before the critical November midterm elections.
Beyond energy flows, the Kremlin has noted that the phone call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin devoted “significant attention to the prospects of resolving the Ukrainian crisis”. The deal coincided with active talks involving U.S. envoys to negotiate an end to the war. The opening of energy dialogue acts as a doorway to address other highly sensitive international flashpoints, including the current situation surrounding Iran and broader bilateral state relations.
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Authorities in Irkutsk oblast claimed an “all-clear” after nearly 5,000 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogens following the death of lab employee
Russia Matters, 10/9/26
Authorities in Irkutsk oblast claimed an “all-clear” after nearly 5,000 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogens following the death of Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee of the Anti-Plague Institute in this Siberian province. Officials said she died from community-acquired pneumonia, was vaccinated against the infections she studied and was not involved in a laboratory accident. Monitoring of contacts has ended, after approximately 200 people were initially quarantined. Authorities said no plague cases or wider outbreak were identified, although the exact cause of death had not been definitively established. This follows from reporting by Bloomberg, Meduza and The Moscow Times.