Trump's Diesel Deal and Starlink Retreat Hand Putin a Major Win Over Ukraine

Four weeks after signing a new round of sanctions on Russia's energy sector into law, Donald Trump has made a deal with Vladimir Putin for Russia to supply diesel to what he calls the "American and global marketplace." The reversal has stunned even some Republicans, and ABC's analysis describes it as Putin's biggest economic and propaganda victory since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The sanctions were signed in September. They were championed by the late senator Lindsey Graham and named in his honour. The diesel arrangement cuts against their purpose, which was to inflict enough economic pain on Russia to push Putin toward ending the war. The analysis notes the asymmetry: if Ukraine laid down its weapons now, it would lose the fifth of its territory Russia has taken and risk losing the whole country, whereas if Russia stopped, the fighting would stop.

The motive, the piece argues, is domestic politics. Diesel prices are high, largely because of the war in Iran, and that is one reason Republicans are fighting to hold both the House and the Senate at the midterm elections. "We have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine," Trump said this week. "We've got nothing back other than high diesel." Leading figures in both parties reject that framing. They argue that letting Putin conquer Ukraine would reward an illegal invasion and might encourage him to turn to other European countries. Republican senator Thom Tillis called it unconscionable that the administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians daily.

Other signals point the same direction. Trump has said he is interested in a Moscow proposal for a summit of the US, China and Russia, a meeting that would elevate Putin and discuss a war without the attacked country in the room. This week, Trump's Ukraine negotiator, Steve Witkoff, also called Putin a "humanitarian" after Russia released an American it had held in prison for four years. For families of the thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russian missiles, the article says, the word would be hard to hear.

Then there is Starlink. In recent days it emerged that either Elon Musk or the White House had ordered a slowdown of the military-grade version of the service that Ukraine relies on. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said people could die because of the change. Musk put the responsibility on Trump, writing on X that limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately the president. Trump said he did not know who was responsible but would "like to find out."

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that it was Musk who limited Ukraine's access. Some US officials told the paper Musk acted "unilaterally" and that Trump did not specifically order any retribution against Ukraine. But one person familiar with the matter said Musk spoke to multiple senior administration officials, including Trump, before imposing the speed cap. Republican congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, told CNN the US military would have to know about any change to a military-grade Starlink, and called the situation "heartbreaking." The analysis concludes that whoever gave the order, Ukraine was weakened, and that Musk, who appears to be back in regular contact with Trump, evidently felt sure Trump would not object.

The piece places this within Putin's long history with American presidents. It notes Russia 1, the country's most-watched network, "welcomed" Trump back two days after his re-election while showing nude photographs of Melania Trump, which the author reads as a mobster's mix of kind words and menace. Putin has played out a similar psychodrama with Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden, each of whom hoped for a good relationship and ended disappointed. Stephen Hadley, national security adviser from 2005 for four years, told PBS Frontline that Putin saw in Trump a "penchant for authoritarianism" and said: "What's not to like if you're Vladimir Putin?"

On terms, Trump wants Ukraine to accept that Russia keeps the land it has taken since 2022, and Zelenskyy has said he would consider a ceasefire along a frozen frontline. Russia wants the entire Donbas. Exact figures are unavailable, but Russian casualties, including dead, wounded and missing, are widely believed to run as high as 1 million. What to watch next is whether Trump pursues the three-way summit and how Republicans respond ahead of the midterms.