Ship with Russian diesel signals US port after Trump-Putin deal

Bloomberg News on Oct 23, 2026

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A tanker carrying diesel left the Russian port of Primorsk and intermittently signaled New York, potentially marking the first such shipment following a fuel-supply agreement between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

The vessel, hauling almost 43,000 metric tons of ultralow-sulfur diesel, left the Baltic Sea port on Thursday and would arrive in the U.S. on Nov. 7, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. That equates to just under 320,000 barrels.

Trump and Putin struck a deal earlier this month to release Russian diesel into global markets as the White House seeks to tame soaring prices ahead of midterm elections on Nov. 3. The agreement prompted a backlash from some U.S. and European lawmakers, who said it would boost the Kremlin’s coffers for its war in Ukraine and would be too limited to move prices meaningfully anyway.

Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak flagged Thursday as the start of diesel shipments, providing no details of the buyer or the seller.

It would be the first Russian cargo of refined fuel to reach the U.S. since imports dried up after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Following Trump’s phone call with Putin earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury issued a waiver allowing flows of Russian diesel to the country until next April.

—With assistance from Prejula Prem.