President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is in the process of negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine and does not want to do anything that would foolishly drive Russia away from the bargaining table, adding that great progress is being made.
In remarks carried by Clash Report, an account with 895,000 followers, and Aaron Rupar, an account with 1.1 million followers, the president framed his decision on Russia as a simple one centered on keeping Moscow engaged in talks. First Squawk, an account with 567,000 followers, reported that Trump said signing a Russia document now could drive Moscow from the negotiations, and added that Russia must stay away from Iran support.
The comments came as the administration faces mounting anger in Congress over its approach to Moscow, according to coverage of the same subject, and as Trump defended his decision to ease sanctions on Russia as part of the peace effort. The New York Times reported that the president on Sunday justified his reversal of almost five years of sanctions against Russia as part of peace negotiations, and that he did not name any hostage despite hinting at a hostage deal.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, asked why the deal was made before Russia agreed to tone down or end the war against Ukraine, said what President Trump is trying to do is find what different way will lead to peace, calling it quite innovative, according to First Squawk.
Rapid Response 47, an account with 2.3 million followers, posted a clip of Wright explaining the diesel provision. In the transcript of that video, Wright said Russia today exports zero diesel and that the move was done for diesel fuel, which he said the world is short on right now. He described it as an incentive to Russia: if Russia can reduce the conflict with Ukraine, if it can get an energy ceasefire or reduce the conflict such that it has diesel to export, the United States will allow it to flow to world markets.
Wright pushed back on the suggestion that the move is an economic lifeline for Russia. He said Russia today exports a lot of oil, that is what they want to export, and that very tight sanctions remain on Russian oil, the tightest ever put on last fall, meaning their large companies and all their Russian exporters cannot export oil. He said only sanctioned Asian oil, which goes almost all to China, is affected differently. He argued that the only way Russia gets benefit from this move is if it exports diesel, which means it has to either consume less diesel internally, reduce the war effort, or have an ability to repair its refineries, which he said Russia only can get to through a peace agreement with Ukraine, an energy ceasefire or a step towards peace. This, he said, is a carrot to try to end a war, not an economic lifeline for Russia.
The reaction has spread across ideological lines. The Atlantic, an account with 1.9 million followers, posted that the United States should stand unequivocally with Ukraine against Russia, citing the argument of David J. Kramer, John Herbst, and William Taylor. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News' Meet the Press that U.S. taking Putin's side would be a historic mistake, and said Ukrainian officials believe the decision to limit Starlink, imposed by Elon Musk's SpaceX, came from the U.S. government, according to coverage of the same subject.
Fox News Digital reported that Trump warned Russia could join forces with Iran as Tehran dares the U.S. to strike again, with the president saying try your luck. The report said Trump warned that aggressive action against Moscow could push Russia into a closer alliance with Iran, potentially jeopardizing Ukraine peace talks, while Iran's foreign minister issued a direct challenge to Washington.
CNN reported that Trump excoriated Zelensky after Ukraine defied the U.S. president with a major attack on Russia, launching one of its biggest drone attacks this year overnight on Saturday and hitting a key oil terminal in defiance of Trump's demand that it stop hitting Russian energy infrastructure.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claims and accounts described in the posts and coverage reviewed for this report.
Our Take
The president's critics in Congress and in the press are treating the easing of Russian sanctions as a concession to Vladimir Putin, but the administration's own energy secretary has laid out a different theory of the case: that diesel exports are a lever, not a gift, and that Russia can only pull that lever by reducing the war effort or repairing refineries that require a peace agreement to reach. Whether that theory holds depends entirely on whether Moscow actually moves toward an energy ceasefire, and the burden of proof belongs to the Kremlin, not to the White House. What is clear is that Trump is negotiating from a position that keeps the pressure of the tightest oil sanctions in place while offering a narrow opening on a fuel the world is short of, and that he is doing so while warning Russia to stay away from Iran. That is not the profile of a president taking Putin's side. It is the profile of a president trying to split two adversaries apart, and the critics who call it a historic mistake should say plainly what they would offer Moscow to get it to the table instead.
