The president offered Putin a major concession while the Kremlin refused to give an inch on Ukraine.
Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/Reuters
Donald Trump announced he was easing sanctions on Russia after a phone call with Vladimir Putin—even as the Russian leader refused to resume peace talks aimed at ending his war in Ukraine.
The stunning concession came Friday, when Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply the U.S. with more than 300,000 tons of diesel, with millions more tons to follow.
Trump boasts about a deal for the U.S. to get diesel from Russia as prices soar as his war in Iran drags on.
The move comes as Trump scrambles to bring down fuel prices ahead of November’s midterm elections.
But while Trump emerged from the call with a plan to boost fuel supplies, Putin offered no concessions on Ukraine. Instead, the 74-year-old Russian leader reportedly reiterated his hardline demands.
The Kremlin has portrayed the exchange as a sign that the diplomatic tide is turning in Moscow’s favor.
“Neither wanted to be the first to hang up,” Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters of the “friendly” phone call between the two world leaders. “They hung up simultaneously, literally at the same time,” he said, claiming that Trump had told Putin he was ready to keep talking for hours, even into the next day.
Trump and Putin last August in Alaska.
During the call, Putin reportedly told Trump the Kremlin was no longer ready to take part in peace talks, claiming Ukrainian drone strikes had derailed any prospect of negotiations.
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“Now, as the president said, we will consider when those negotiations can be resumed,” Ushakov said.
Smoke rises over Kyiv during a Russian jet-powered drone strike on Ukraine on Oct. 8, 2026.
Anna Voitenko/Anna Voitenko, Reuters
Putin’s gripes to Trump also reportedly factored into a disastrous meeting between Ukraine’s negotiating team and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in Miami on Friday.
Trump’s two envoys threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine unless Kyiv agreed to stop striking Russian oil refineries, the Financial Times revealed Saturday.
“It was a firm request from POTUS,” a member of the Ukrainian delegation told the Financial Times.
Kushner recently met with Putin.
Mikhail Metzel/via REUTERS
Meanwhile, a Russian glide bomb attack killed at least 33 Ukrainian civilians in the city of Kramatorsk just hours before Putin complained to Trump about Ukrainian drones.
At least 20 more Ukrainians were killed Saturday morning in another Russian attack, this time in Zaporizhzhia. At least three of them were children, underscoring the devastating civilian toll of Russia’s ongoing military campaign.
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