OPINION: A tanker of Russian diesel sails for New York, and Kyiv pays the bill

The fact

The tanker is called Agioi Fanendes. Maltese flag. Greek operator. It left Primorsk on the night of October 22 to 23.

In its tanks, nearly 300,000 barrels of diesel. Russian diesel. Its signal says “New York.” Expected arrival November 7. Four days after the election.

It is the first delivery of Russian diesel to the United States since July 2023.

Kpler checked. Three years of sanctions. One ship to end them.

The Kremlin announced the departure itself. With pride. No embarrassment. “Regular supplies will continue.”

My view

I back Trump when he strengthens the West. Here, he weakens it.

He buys fuel from the man who bombs Kyiv. It has to be said plainly.

This is not an ideological betrayal. It is a bad decision. It has a date.

It has a number. It has a signature. It is judged by its effects.

A president who promises to strangle the Russian economy by decree and opens New York to it two weeks later is not negotiating, he pays.

The effects are known. Moscow cashes in. Kyiv takes the hit too. In another way.

Russian diesel reaches New York four days after the vote.

Forty thousand tons

Alexander Novak gave the figure. 40,000 tons for this first cargo.

The Russian deputy prime minister talks to Interfax. He talks willingly. He talks often. He counts well.

Forty thousand tons. About 300,000 barrels. The United States burns four million a day.

The ship covers 7% of one day. A morning. Barely that.

Seven percent of a day. For three years of principle. The math is quick. It is bad.

Energy experts agree. No effect “at the pump or elsewhere.” The phrase is the Associated Press’s. Not mine. It is enough.

The Primorsk terminal

Primorsk is Russia’s big oil terminal on the Baltic. Diesel arrives there from the refineries. By pipeline. By rail.

The ones Kyiv has been striking for months. Night after night. With good reason.

On Friday, the ship was off Helsinki. In Finnish waters. Under a European flag. Bound for an American port. With Russian fuel.

Every country along the route has sanctioned Moscow. The ship passes anyway. With a license. Signed in Washington.

A Maltese tanker run by Greeks that loads at Primorsk and heads for New York tells the story of lifted sanctions better than any statement.

The law changed in one signature.

What Trump announced

On October 9, Trump calls Putin. Then he writes on Truth Social.

Putin agrees to supply more than 4 million tons of diesel. To the global market.

The schedule is precise. More than 300,000 tons right away.

Five hundred thousand in November. One million right after. Three million more, if the refineries hold.

If the refineries hold. The condition is Russian. It depends on Ukrainian drones. Trump knows it. So does Kyiv.

The same day, the Treasury signs the license. Same date. Same hour, or nearly. No delay.

What License 135 says

It is called General License 135. Signed by Bradley T. Smith, director of OFAC.

It authorizes the sale, delivery, offloading and importation of Russian diesel.

Through April 7, 2027. One minute past midnight, Eastern time. Six months of open door.

One single limit. No debit to accounts of the Russian Central Bank. Nor the sovereign wealth fund. Nor the finance ministry. Everything else passes.

A license that opens Russian diesel through April 2027 does not fix an autumn shortage, it funds a winter and a spring of war.

Six months. Not six weeks.

July 2023, the last time

The last cargo of Russian diesel reached the United States in July 2023. Kpler keeps the record. Since then, nothing. Not one barrel.

Three years. Three winters. Zero barrels. Sanctions held by two administrations. Democratic, then Republican. Until October 9.

The rule was simple. No Russian diesel on American docks. It held through the worst inflation. It gives way during a campaign.

Three years of sanctions held under two presidents give way in one call, and the first ship leaves before the senators’ letter is read.

What changed

Diesel is short everywhere. Middle East refineries have been struck. By Iran. By its Houthi allies. Global supply fell.

Russian refineries burned too. Under Kyiv’s drones. Moscow had to ban its exports. The market tightened further.

Two wars. Two shortages. One supplier offering to reopen. And a president who accepts.

It is not the market that changed. It is the will. The market, for its part, asked nothing of Primorsk. Nothing at all.

The ship does not fill a shortage. It fills a weakness.

What Congress voted

A few weeks earlier, Congress passes the Graham law. Sanctions on Russia and Iran. Massive votes. From both parties. Both chambers.

Trump signs it at once. It orders him to impose tariffs of up to 100%.

On the five biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas. China first.

Then he shelves it. The measures are “on hold.” His word. He signed the weapon. He refuses to fire it. It rusts.

The same month, he signs the opposite. A license. To buy it himself.

What that says about the method

A president may change his mind. He cannot change direction twice in a month without Moscow noticing.

Putin read both texts. The law and the license. He understood which one counts. The one that sends him ships.

Maximum pressure became negotiable pressure. Then an order. The Kremlin waited. It was right to wait.

I prefer the Trump of the Graham law. That one strengthens the West. The other fills his adversary’s tanks.

Two signatures. Only one has sailed.

The letter of October 13

Twelve senators write to the president. On October 13. Six Republicans. Six Democrats. Tillis, Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Cornyn, Armstrong. Blumenthal, Shaheen, Durbin, Whitehouse, Reed, Coons.

They ask for three things. Withdraw from the agreement. Rescind License 135. Enforce the Graham law.

Their sentence is sharp. The deal is “a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies.” It should be rescinded.

McConnell and Cornyn are not enemies of the president. They sign anyway. That weighs.

What they obtained

Ten days later, the ship leaves. The letter changed nothing. The license holds. The Kremlin applauds.

The senators recall the price. Hundreds of thousands of lives in four and a half years. Because Russia chose to invade.

They recall the law. It “requires” economic pressure on Russia and its enablers. China first. It is not enforced.

Twelve senators from both parties who ask to rescind a decree signed four days earlier are not playing politics, they are stating a fact.

Six Republicans signed against the ship, and the ship left.

October 9

Zelenskyy reacts the same day.

“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world.” He posts it. He does not soften it. Not one word.

He adds a forecast. Russia will “repay” the diesel another way. With perfidy.

Allowing Moscow to sell petroleum products is “an investment in a war.”

A war to be ended. Not prolonged. He says this to his main ally. In front of everyone. On the day of the announcement.

Two weeks later, Kyiv received 21 ballistic missiles. The repayment has begun. On time.

October 23

On Friday, before the Hudson Institute, Zelenskyy sums up. “A weak decision by strong partners.” Six words. Everything is there. Nothing missing.

He moves on to his emergencies. The power grid before winter. Patriot interceptors. Money to hold on. Starlink still throttled.

He speaks of diplomacy. “We need diplomacy to move forward.” A three-way meeting, perhaps next month. The venue remains to be set.

An ally who calls your decision weak in public while asking for your missiles is not insulting you, he is reminding you of the contract.

The contract still holds. By a thread.

Refineries under the drones

Russia ran short of diesel. At home. Ukrainian long-range drones were hitting the refineries. One by one. For months.

Moscow had to ban its exports. To keep its fuel. Shortages appeared. So did lines.

Those shortages have eased. Only recently. Conveniently. Just in time to load a ship. The coincidence has a name. It has a date.

Last month, Trump asked Kyiv to stop those strikes. The next month, he buys the refineries’ product. The loop is closed.

What Kyiv loses

The refinery strikes were Kyiv’s lever. Its only economic lever. It hurt. Russian figures showed it.

Washington asks to stop the lever. Then it buys the diesel. Moscow recovers its revenue. And its customer. A big customer.

A country that strikes its aggressor’s refineries to weaken him is asked to stop by the ally who, the following month, buys that diesel.

That is the heart of my disagreement. Not the principle. The sequence.

Kyiv had found the weak point. Washington filled it. For free.

The real motive

The motive is domestic. Diesel is expensive. Across the country.

The midterm elections are on November 3. Republicans are shaking in their strongholds.

Iowa, for example. Farmers pay top dollar for diesel. They vote. Trump knows it better than anyone.

He considered banning American diesel exports. Industry said no. Gasoline would rise. He backed off.

He signed an order on off-road diesel. For truckers. The tax is not removed. It is deferred. The confusion is total. So is the bill.

The math that does not work

So Moscow remains. Four million tons promised. One ship gone. Seven percent of a day. On November 7.

The vote is on the 3rd. The ship arrives on the 7th. Even in politics, the delivery misses the date.

The experts repeat it. No effect on prices. So the electoral motive fails too. The gift remains.

A ship that docks four days after the vote to cover seven percent of one day lowers no price, it lowers a principle.

The price at the pump will not move. The price in Kyiv will.

Revenue, and words

Peskov speaks of customers. In the plural.

“The first oil tanker has sailed off to customers.” Then: “regular supplies will continue.” Regular, he says. The word is chosen.

Every ton gets paid. In dollars. In cash. Central Bank accounts are excluded.

The others are not. The money finds its way. It always does. Toward the front.

Novak announces the cargoes in advance. He has a schedule. He speaks like the minister of a normal country.

The normal country fired 21 missiles at Kyiv this week. Three with cluster warheads.

A regime that announces its deliveries to New York in the morning and targets monasteries at night has not changed, its customer has.

What the same Friday showed

On the day the ship left, all four Moscow airports closed. Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky. For security reasons. Ukrainian drones.

Mayor Sobyanin counts 21 shot down. Passengers at Sheremetyevo were told to take shelter. The war is in Moscow too. It stays there.

The same day, 270 prisoners on each side came home. The first exchange since August. Most held since 2022.

One ship, four airports closed, 270 prisoners. A single day. That is the Russia one signs licenses with.

The diesel leaves. The drones arrive. The prisoners come home.

No written counterpart

The license asks for nothing. No truce. No freeze on strikes.

No return of the children. No date. Diesel for dollars. That is all. Nothing else.

Zelenskyy had said it on the 9th. Lifting sanctions without a Russian commitment to de-escalate prolongs the war.

The night of October 21 to 22 confirmed it. Twenty-one missiles. Two dead.

A negotiator lifts a sanction in exchange for something. Here, he lifts it for nothing. For a call.

Then he says peace is close. Closer than ever.

No market pays a supplier in advance while he fires on your friends. Not one. Nowhere.

What Moscow obtained

A door onto the American market. Six months of license. A four-million-ton schedule.

And a deputy prime minister who talks to the press as he did before 2022.

He also obtained the Graham law on hold. And an American request to Kyiv to stop striking his refineries.

Four gains for Moscow. Zero for Washington. Zero for Kyiv. The table is simple. It is public.

A negotiation where one gets a license, a schedule and a reprieve for his refineries while the other gets a ship is not a negotiation.

It is a sale. In the wrong direction.

For Trump, act by act

Nothing is taken from what Trump has done well.

The Graham law signed. The Oleshky truce through Melania. The pressure on NATO to pay. Three good moves. With dates. On record.

Everything is taken from License 135. It serves Moscow. It contradicts the law he signed. It hides a cost. A human cost. In Kyiv.

An act that serves Moscow is a bad act. Whatever the signature.

Whatever the party. That is my rule. It does not move. Not for a ship.

The good Trump and the bad Trump signed in the same month. Both columns stay open. Side by side.

For Kyiv, without condition

Kyiv struck the refineries to weaken its aggressor. It was legitimate. It was effective. Too effective. That is why it was asked to stop.

Kyiv asked for Patriots and satellite speed.

It got a ship of Russian diesel in New York. And cluster munitions in Pechersk. The same month.

You are on the customer’s side or on the supplier’s side.

There is no third chair on this dock. Not in Kyiv. Not in Moscow.

An allied country that watches a Russian tanker dock at its protector’s port while it lacks interceptors learns something it will not forget.

Kyiv strikes the refineries, Washington buys the diesel.

What will dock

A Maltese tanker. Three hundred thousand barrels. A license valid through April.

And a message read in Moscow. Sanctions are negotiable. They are even for sale.

It will dock in a city that has seen millions of refugees arrive.

It will unload diesel paid for in dollars. American dollars. Headed to Moscow.

On November 8, prices will be the same. The experts said so.

The only thing that will have changed is the precedent. That one will remain.

You will pay the same for diesel. You will have lost a principle. Yours. The West’s. For one ship.

What it would take

Rescind License 135. Enforce the Graham law. Return the Patriots. Three moves. Twelve senators have already written them. All that is left is to sign.

The president can still make them. The ship is off Helsinki. It has not docked. Fifteen days remain. Fifteen days to choose.

A ship can still turn around, and so can a law.

A tanker of Russian diesel sails for New York, and Kyiv pays the bill.

And you, would you let this tanker dock on November 7, or would you send it back to Primorsk?

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.