Key takeaways:
- Officials said strikes in Zaporizhzhia killed at least 11 people, including three children, and wounded at least 16.
- Trump announced Russian diesel supplies of more than 300,000 tons immediately, 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons afterward, with a further 3 million tons planned.
- Zelenskyy condemned the deal, while the U.S. Treasury Department said it would temporarily waive sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.
Russian strikes killed at least 11 people, including three children, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, officials said Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the agreement, saying it would help Moscow prolong its war.
Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, regional military administration head Mykhailo Semikin said, according to CBS News. At least 16 people were wounded, regional defense council co-chair Ivan Fedorov said. CBS News reported that Russian bombardments had killed more than 60 people in Ukraine over the preceding four days. The invasion is now more than four and a half years old.
Trump said Friday that he reached the diesel agreement in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the American and global market, followed by another 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons afterward, he wrote on Truth Social. He said Russia would then deliver 3 million more tons within a short period, depending on the condition of its diesel refineries.
“Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” Trump wrote. He said lower prices for farmers, ranchers and truckers were his priority.
The Treasury Department said Friday it would temporarily waive sanctions on Russia’s energy sector to “allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market,” CBS News reported. Trump signed a law last month aimed at curbing Russian oil and gas revenue. According to The Guardian, the law permits sanctions on Russian banks, officials and tankers and calls for steep tariffs on major importers of Russian oil or gas, while giving the president broad discretion to make exceptions.
The Guardian reported that fuel prices have surged amid Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz during its war with the United States. It put the average price of a gallon of fuel at $4.20 and said diesel reached a record $6.52 last month. Rising diesel costs affect freight and farming and can feed into consumer prices.
Zelenskyy called the agreement “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged” and said Russia would repay it with “further terror and perfidy.” He told Axios that it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin. It looks absolutely terrible,” The Guardian reported.
“It plays into Russia’s hands — allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world,” Zelenskyy said. In remarks released by Ukraine’s embassy in Washington, he called it “a weak decision by strong partners.”
Trump announced the deal as his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner met Ukrainian officials in Miami to discuss proposals to end the war. The Guardian reported that European officials also attended. Zelenskyy said his negotiators had been used as a “smokescreen” for the deal.
Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren said the agreement undermined Congress’s effort to cut revenue for Russia’s war. Republican Representative Don Bacon also objected. “Propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong as he uses that money to bomb cities,” he wrote on X.
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