Backlash grows against Russia diesel deal as Trump claims Ukraine energy ceasefire

President Trump’s deal with Russia to permit the country’s diesel into the U.S. and global marketplace saw growing backlash on Sunday, before the president announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.

The deal will have Russia “immediately release 300,000 tons of diesel to address concerns over rising energy costs due to the global fuel shortage,” Trump announced on Friday. The president added that the deal came into existence after “a highly successful discussion” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump added that along with the 300,000 tons of diesel, Russia will allow for “another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deal is a “birthday gift” to Putin to “kill us, kill our children.“

Trump’s announcement about an energy ceasefire, which would put a halt on Ukraine and Russia’s strikes on the other country’s energy grid, was “news for” Zelensky.

Hours later, after Zelensky said he spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, he said the energy ceasefire was good news for everyone but cautioned for Moscow’s response.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine have received all the appropriate orders,” the Ukrainian president wrote on the social platform X. “We are awaiting clear details of the dialogue between America and Russia –– and we expect Putin to follow through on what President Trump said.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle decried the deal, with the Treasury Department stating that it will lift sanctions on Russia to allow the fuel to be released weeks after Trump signed off on further sanctions on Russia with the passage of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), slammed the deal on Sunday. The lawmakers said the U.S. should not provide Putin with a “financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians.”

“Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine,” the statement reads. “Congress was clear: the U.S. should not import oil from Russia until it ends its aggression against Ukraine and ceases threats against our NATO Allies.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was one GOP voice against the deal, calling on Trump to use the law to increase sanctions and tariffs on Russia “instead of allowing Russia to export diesel, rake in revenues, and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine.”

“We need lower diesel prices for American farmers, ranchers and consumers, but buying Russian fuel is the wrong answer,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a co-sponsor of the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act, a bipartisan bill to block Trump from lifting sanctions on Russia authored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), wrote on X on Friday.

“Congress overwhelmingly passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act, and President Trump signed it into law,” Bacon wrote. “Now is the time to use those sanctions to squeeze Putin’s war machine, not reward a dictator by putting more money in his hands while he continues targeting and killing Ukrainian civilians.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Saturday said called it “outrageous for the president to purchase tons of diesel from Russia when he recently signed legislation that imposed the toughest sanctions on its oil and gas.”

“Congress must take action against this action to fuel the very war of aggression in Ukraine that our sanctions are meant to stop,” Hoyer wrote on X.

Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) called the deal “a disturbing capitulation” to Putin and the Kremlin by “rewarding” him as a result of the Iran war and its impact on oil prices.

“Trump started a stupid & illegal war in Iran that has driven up diesel prices. Now he wants to bankroll Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine by buying diesel from him,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote on Sunday on X. “One strategic disaster after the next.”

But some lawmakers agreed with Trump’s actions. Sen. Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” that he backed the diesel deal and pushed back on the notion that it “mocks” the bill named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“We passed that law to give the president the flexibility and the firepower to use another tool against Vladimir Putin,” Barrasso said. “We want to end this war. We want to get fuel prices down. The president wants that as well. This is just another point of leverage for the president to use against Putin in an effort to get a long-term solution in that part of the world.”

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week” that it was “another example of our president thinking out of the box.”

“You know, he’s listening to the American people. The American people are hurting,” Emmer said. “He is the president of peace.”