Who is really to blame for $6 diesel?
What happened
On Friday, after a 90 min call with Putin, DJT announced that Russia would supply "over 300,000 Tons" of diesel immediately, with 500,000 tonnes in November and more to follow. The US Treasury suspended sanctions on Russian diesel until April. Those quantities are announced commitments, not confirmed deliveries. By Saturday the deal had turned into a row.
Trump said Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian refineries were driving up American fuel prices, adding: "He wants to make problems for the world… So he better damn well stop. I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal." Talks between US and Ukrainian delegations in Miami were cut short, and overnight Russian strikes killed at least 15 people in Zaporizhzhia.
Europe closed ranks. Andy Burnham called Zelensky to reiterate the UK's "complete solidarity", and Downing Street made clear Britain won't follow the US in buying Russian diesel. The EU's Kaja Kallas said: "This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won't."
The irony
The argument has a kernel of truth. Russia is one of the world's biggest diesel exporters, Ukraine has hit more than 100 Russian oil sites over the past year, and Russia banned diesel exports earlier this year. Take that much fuel off the market and prices rise.
But that isn't where this crisis began. The energy shock of 2026 started in late February, when the US and Israel went to war with Iran. Iranian missile and drone attacks, and a US naval blockade of Iranian ports, effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world's oil and gas usually passes.
Iranian strikes in March damaged two of Qatar's giant LNG trains, which will take around three years to repair. A preliminary deal to reopen the strait in June collapsed within weeks. US diesel has gone from around $4 a gallon before the war to a record weekly average of $6.53 in the week of 21 Sept and is still above $6 despite easing since.
In Britain, the official average for diesel hit a record 199.52p a litre in the week of 5 October, and on the RAC's measure it has already passed £2.
The chronology matters. Ukraine's refinery strikes may have aggravated the shortage, but the wider energy shock was already under way. President Trump is blaming Kyiv's drones for a fire that was already burning because of his own crusade in Iran. Even some Republicans seem to know it. Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, was secretly recorded saying of his party's midterm problems: "It's not tariffs… it's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel."
The numbers don't add up either
Even on its own terms, the deal is unlikely to fix the problem. The first tranche of Russian diesel is about 2.2m barrels. The US uses around 3.6m barrels of diesel a day. Tim Armitage of Quilter Cheviot says it "won't make a material difference to pump prices", and analysts doubt Russia, short of fuel itself after Ukraine's strikes, can deliver the volumes at all.
The real bottleneck is refining. Paul Sankey, the independent oil analyst, points out that around 6m barrels a day of refining capacity is stranded behind Hormuz, with only 1m to 2m barrels a day of fuel getting out, and that shipping through the strait now adds $30 or more to the cost of a barrel. Crude flows through Hormuz have recovered to about 80% of pre-war levels with US naval escorts, according to Kpler. But fuel hasn't.
Getting crude moving again doesn't automatically restore the diesel and jet fuel that refineries produce, and announcing a supply deal doesn't guarantee the fuel arrives where and when it's needed. That's a Gulf problem, not a Ukrainian one.
The counterargument
To be fair to the White House, both things can be true. Ukraine's refinery campaign has removed real supply at a time when the market has no slack, and the US says it warned Kyiv repeatedly. A US official told Axios that Zelensky "is misreading the room" by continuing the strikes. Supporters of the Iran war would argue it was a security decision, not an energy one, and that energy markets were always going to pay a price. A secondary cause can still matter when supply is this tight: Ukraine's strikes didn't need to start the crisis to make it worse.
But the criticism isn't that Ukraine's strikes have no effect. It's the selective blame. Ukraine is hitting the refineries of the country that invaded it. Bill Browder put it bluntly: the refineries were "Putin's Achilles' heel. Ukraine found it and was hammering away on it." The real question is whether those consequences justify the pressure Washington is now putting on Kyiv, and whether a Russian deal fixes the underlying shortage. On the numbers, the second looks unlikely.
My read
Diesel is a midterm issue, the midterms are fast approaching, and the president needs someone else to own the price at the pump. That doesn't prove his motive, but it is the political effect of the argument, intended or not. Ukraine is a convenient candidate: it can't easily say no to Washington, and blaming it plays well with parts of the president's base that are sceptical about supporting Kyiv.
The cost is bigger than diesel. The deal hands Moscow revenue, piles pressure on what Browder calls Ukraine's "one major point of leverage” and widens the gap between Washington and its allies at exactly the moment peace talks needed it to narrow. It is also unlikely to move the price much.
The psychology here is a familiar one: voters blame whoever is in charge for prices they can see every day, regardless of the cause. That gives every incumbent an incentive to find a cause somewhere else.
The Comms Read
This reads like a case of blame displacement: when the problem traces back to your own decision, shift the story to someone with less power to answer back. It can work in the short term, because it's simple and it gives supporters a villain. But it has two weaknesses. It only holds as long as the facts don't contradict it, which the timeline here does. It's also vulnerable when your own side going off-message, as Paxton's recording shows.
Contrast Europe's response: co-ordinated, consistent and fast. The UK, the EU, Germany and others all said the same thing within hours, and Burnham followed up with a direct call to Zelensky. In a crisis, alignment is itself a message.
For corporate comms, the lesson is, if you're tempted to blame a supplier, a regulator or a competitor for a problem that started with your own strategy, assume someone will check the timeline. They usually do.
What to watch
How oil and diesel open on Monday; whether any Russian diesel actually ships; whether Ukraine keeps hitting refineries, and how Washington responds; whether the Miami talks resume; and Burnham's planned meeting with Zelensky in the coming days. The key test is whether the deal delivers meaningful extra fuel, or mainly a political narrative.
Time will tell. GLA & DYOR.
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