Czech President Says Trump's Russian Diesel Deal Gave Moscow 'New Hope' Amid Ukraine Peace Push

Czech President Petr Pavel has a blunt assessment of what the United States did earlier this month: it handed Russia a reprieve at the moment pressure was working. In an interview conducted Tuesday with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, a group that includes POLITICO, Pavel said a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine had been "quite close" until President Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel.

The deal at the center of it was announced by Trump earlier this month. Under it, Russia would supply the United States with hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel. Pavel argued that coordinated American and European sanctions on Russian oil, oligarchs and other industries had been putting Moscow under strain, and that the diesel arrangement gave it time to breathe. "It will be much harder now," he said, adding that Russia was using the moment to get out from under pressure and that it amounted to a moral boost for the Kremlin.

The White House defended the arrangement on Wednesday. It said Trump had "successfully negotiated" the deal to supply the global market with massive amounts of diesel and bring prices down.

The deal drew backlash quickly. At one point a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged Trump to rescind it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went further in a social media post, saying the arrangement plays into Russia's hands and lets it kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict greater losses and damage on the world. He also accused Trump of using peace talks in Florida as a smokescreen while the administration pursued its deal with Russia.

Zelenskyy's criticism was the latest sign of rising tension between Kyiv and Washington. Trump has repeatedly voiced frustration with the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of prolonging the war. Of late he has spoken warmly of Vladimir Putin, and this week said that "Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine."

Pavel, for his part, offered Zelenskyy support on Wednesday. He called Zelenskyy and Ukraine as a whole a victim of the conflict and said he would be probably the last to blame Ukraine for it. It was not Ukraine that attacked Russia, he said, and not Ukraine that threatened it.

His read of Trump was more measured. Pavel said Trump shows a more open approach to Russia than any European leader. He suggested Trump may be drawn to Putin as a leader with authority, but doubted Trump sees the war as a struggle between democracy and autocracy. In Pavel's view, Trump looks at it purely through the lens of economic prosperity for the United States.

Pavel stopped short of calling the diesel deal a betrayal of Ukraine or of Europe. "I don't know yet if we can call it betrayal, but I would call it a mistake," he said. His reasoning was that it gives Russia new hope that it can disregard Europe and Ukraine, focus on a deal with the United States and potentially China, and arrange matters according to its own priorities. That, he said, is clearly against Europe's interest.

He also left the door open on Russian energy in the long run. European countries buying Russian oil again is not ruled out, he said, but it "will take time." If Russia one day respects other countries' sovereignty and borders, he said, there is no reason not to do regular business with it, but Russia is not there yet. What to watch now is whether Washington revisits the deal under pressure from senators and allies, and how Europe responds as the gap between Kyiv and the White House widens.