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 on Friday, when Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply the United States with more than 300,000 tons of diesel, with millions more tons to follow.
Trump boasts of a deal where the U.S. could get diesel from Russia as prices soar as his war in Iran drags on.
The move comes as Trump pushes to lower fuel prices ahead of the November midterm elections.
But while Trump emerged from the call with a plan to increase fuel supplies, Putin offered no concessions to Ukraine. Instead, the 74-year-old Russian leader reportedly reiterated his strong demands.
The Kremlin presented this exchange as a sign that the diplomatic tide is turning in favor of Moscow.
“Neither wanted to be the first to hang up,” Kremlin adviser Yuri 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 told Putin he was prepared to continue talking for hours, even the next day.
Trump and Putin last August in Alaska.
During that call, Putin reportedly told Trump that the Kremlin was no longer prepared to participate in peace talks, saying Ukrainian drone strikes had derailed any prospect of negotiations.
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“Now, as the president said, we will think about when these negotiations can resume,” Ushakov said.
Smoke rises over kyiv during a Russian jet drone strike on Ukraine, October 8, 2026.
Anna Voitenko/Anna Voitenko, Reuters
Putin’s criticism of 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 have threatened to end intelligence sharing with Ukraine unless kyiv agrees to stop its strikes on Russian oil refineries, the Financial Times revealed on Saturday.
“This 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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