The Kremlin announced that the first tanker carrying Russian diesel to the United States under a new import agreement has set sail, just two weeks after President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin finalized the deal.
The Malta-flagged tanker Agioi Fanendes was loaded with 40,000 metric tons of ultra-low sulphur diesel at the Russian Baltic port of Primorsk on October 22, with the shipment expected to arrive in the United States around November 7.
Trump announced the surprise arrangement to import Russian diesel as part of a broader effort to bring down soaring domestic diesel prices ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections, and separately waived parts of a new US sanctions law targeting Russia to facilitate the move.
The shipment marks the first imported Russian oil or petroleum product to enter the United States since 2022, when then-President Biden announced a ban on US imports of Russian oil and petroleum products following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The decision has caused significant alarm and dismay in Ukraine, which has spent the intervening years pressing foreign governments to tighten sanctions on Moscow rather than ease them, making the resumption of US purchases a particularly pointed reversal.
With the tanker now at sea and a mid-November arrival date set, the shipment is likely to intensify debate over whether domestic price relief at the pump justifies reopening a sanctions pathway that had been closed for nearly four years amid the ongoing war.
