By Maria Popova

October 11, 2026

Last month, Donald Trump signed into law a sweeping Russia sanctions bill — championed by and then named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham — that authorizes him to slap 100 per cent tariffs on any goods that come into the U.S. from countries that are top buyers of Russian energy. This week, the United States announced it would be buying Russian energy.

It takes some effort to out-parody this sequence of events, but the Trump administration managed it. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license lifting sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027.

In the social media post announcing it, Treasury explicitly underscored that the decision was taken “at President Trump’s direction”. Then, following a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump himself announced to journalists that Russia would supply the American and global markets with hundreds of thousands of tons immediately and millions more soon after.

Trump told journalists: “I want to thank President Putin, to be honest … thank you.” A president who had just been handed a legal cudgel for punishing buyers of Russian fuel was now trolling the illegally invaded democracy whose interests that cudgel was supposed to serve, and anyone else in the world who still happened to take him seriously.

The absurdity is real, but it is not the most important thing about this decision.

Worse than Abandoning Ukraine

Since Trump’s second inauguration, the question about American policy has been how far Washington would retreat from Ukraine. The Trump administration quickly halted military aid and eventually stopped it entirely. Trump floated, then abandoned, one pressure measure after another against Moscow.

He occasionally raised hopes he might aid Ukraine in indirect ways, whether through a mutually beneficial minerals agreement or through a license to Ukraine to produce Patriot missiles domestically. The US continued helping Ukraine with intelligence. Analysts frequently debated whether Trump might surprisingly defy expectations and help Ukraine in important ways.

That debate is over — to the extent that it still existed after last month’s performative Kushner-Witkoff shuttle diplomacy. Lifting sanctions to open a revenue stream for Russia’s war economy is not simply abandonment of the victim, Ukraine. It is active support for the aggressor, Putin. Diesel exports earn the Kremlin money, and that money pays for the drones and missiles that target Ukrainian cities and kill Ukrainian civilians in their beds.

Among all the ways in which Trump has indicated that the United States under his presidency is now on the side of the autocracies in the global order “rupture”, reviving the chances of the tyrannical Goliath in a war that the ingenious, resilient democratic David was winning may be the most contemptuous of humanity.

The administration is now explicitly trying to help Putin reduce Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Kyiv stop hitting Russian refineries. According to recent reports, Washington has threatened to withhold the intelligence that helps Ukrainian forces find and strike them. In other words,  the United States wants Ukraine to stop damaging Russia’s fuel industry while Washington helps Russia sell fuel. Moscow gets relief from both directions, and the same America that, as recently as 2024, was still defending democracy worldwide, is now actively undermining it.

And what has Moscow offered in return? Absolutely nothing. No ceasefire, no pause in the bombardment of Ukrainian infrastructure, no movement on any of the demands that have made “negotiation” with Putin a farce. As I wrote last month, Putin’s pattern is to perform graciousness while conceding nothing. Here Trump skipped even the performance. He simply handed over the benefit, underscoring the long-unthinkable status update that the democratic superpower whose leverage once acted as a check on authoritarian overreach is now flagrantly enabling it.

Why not Canada?

If the goal were really to secure diesel for American truckers and farmers, as Trump has claimed, the obvious place to look was north. Canada is a close neighbour, long-term partner, integrated energy market and reliable supplier. But Trump has been hypercritical of Canada and even called us “one of the worst countries in the world to deal with”.

Which rationalizes the fact that instead of working with Ottawa, Trump went to the Kremlin. The choice tells us where his loyalties lie and what his priority seems to be — helping Russia rather than lowering the price of diesel, and sending a signal to the world that Trump’s America is suddenly becoming more predictable; it is on the side of the autocrats.

All in the Deliverables

There is a further twist. Russia may be unable to deliver what Trump promised so confidently. Ukrainian drones have knocked out a large share of Russian refining capacity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates Russian diesel output is down roughly 30 per cent. Moscow has banned diesel exports since July because it fears that it cannot meet the demand of the domestic market. Rationing, long lines, and brawls at the gas pumps are not signs of a country with millions of tons to spare.

Moreover, the details of Russia’s supposed promise undercut Trump’s stated rationale. The justification he gave is that imports from Russia would lower diesel prices before the November midterm elections.

However, the volumes he cited would be a rounding error for the American market. The initial 300,000 tons is less than a single day of US diesel consumption. Even the promised 3 million would only cover about a week. And given the state of Russian refineries, the barrels may never arrive. Earlier this year, Trump eased oil sanctions on Russia to bring down prices, but that strategy largely failed to produce the desired results. The price relief is thus probably a pretext. The favour to Putin is the substance.

Nobody’s Proxy

Kyiv’s response has been to confirm, once again, that Ukraine is nobody’s proxy. President Zelensky has made clear that Ukraine remains open to an immediate ceasefire. However, until there is one, Ukraine will keep striking Russian refineries, regardless of what Trump and Putin say or want.

Ukrainians are now declining to bend to two much larger powers at once, both of which want them to surrender quietly and suffer what they must. Overnight after Trump’s announcement, Ukrainian drones delivered the Ukraine government’s message even more clearly as they set ablaze an oil terminal in Russia’s Rostov region.

Trump was, predictably, furious. He has again threatened Ukraine and attacked Zelensky. No one should be surprised. Trump has often demonstrated his disrespect for Ukraine and its president, and he has consistently praised and preferred Putin’s company.

What has restrained him so far from throwing Washington’s lot decisively in with Russia is worth considering. American public opinion is overwhelmingly on Ukraine’s side. Behind the scenes, parts of the American political establishment appear to be blocking the president from the foolish step of a full alliance with Russia against Ukraine and against America’s European allies.

The continued success of these restraints is not guaranteed. The pull of the Russian dictator on this administration looks almost magnetic, and it has to be met with constant pressure from Congress, from the press, from allies, and probably soon from organized protest.

Where this Leaves Us

Today, many are probably reminded of the aftermath of the Oval Office fiasco in February 2025, when Trump and JD Vance berated Zelensky on camera. In the spring of 2025 like today, the Trump administration floated the idea that Zelensky needs to be removed from the Ukrainian presidency.  This latest stunt is less shocking and the moment is actually less precarious. By now, everyone knows Trump is anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia. And everyone can see that Zelensky holds a lot of cards.

Ukraine has replaced American aid with European support and its own production. Its own weapons are destroying Russian refineries. Europe and Canada have absorbed the shock of an American ally that is unreliable at best and hostile at worst, and we have adjusted by strengthening and deepening our alliance.

A few loud European populist politicians in Germany’s AfD wish-casting a Russo-American alliance notwithstanding, there is little danger that European decision makers will now follow Trump’s example and start buying Russian energy. Meanwhile, Russia is in worse economic shape than it was, and its position on the front in Ukraine is also less advantageous than it was when Trump’s second presidency began.

So, the right response to Trump’s big diesel deal is to treat it as propaganda noise. The serious questions lie elsewhere.

How will Europe and Ukraine make sure Russia is deterred from widening its war on the continent? How can the defence of Ukrainian cities be strengthened before winter, when Russia will again try to weaponize the cold against civilians? How will Europe and Ukraine tighten economic and military pressure on Russia to reduce its war-making capacity?

Those are the questions that will decide the war, and Washington’s diesel deal, as outrageous as it is, has no bearing on them.

Policy Columnist Maria Popova is the Hiram Mills Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University and Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal.