Trump-Putin agreement on diesel, overnight Ukrainian drones hit Rostov terminal

On the evening of October 9, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed by phone on a plan for supplies of Russian diesel to international markets. According to Trump, the deal involves more than three hundred thousand tons of diesel for immediate delivery, another five hundred thousand in November, and then one million, for a total of about 4.8 million tons. The U.S. Treasury Department concurrently granted a six-month suspension of sanctions on Russian diesel in world markets.

Trump described the call as “a very successful call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” From Moscow, Putin confirmed Russia’s willingness to supply oil and its derivatives to both the American market and the global market, adding that he was “confident this will have a positive impact on the entire global economy.” The Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing statements attributed to both presidents and to Russian government sources, confirmed the outlines of the agreement.

Hours later, overnight between October 9 and 10, drones struck the NZNP oil terminal in Russia’s Rostov region, causing a large fire. The region’s governor stated that more than fifty drones had been shot down since the previous evening. The facility hit has a design capacity of about 2.5 million tons per year. News of the attack was reported by Ukrainska Pravda, which cites the regional governor and the independent Russian outlet Astra together with independent monitoring materials.

The temporal proximity between the announcement of the energy deal and the attack on the terminal shows the dual track on which the conflict is moving: on one side, an economic diplomacy reopening trade channels between Moscow and Washington; on the other, a war that finds in Russian oil infrastructure one of its most active fronts. The diesel agreement does not directly concern the Ukrainian front, but it comes as separate talks continue in Miami between the Ukrainian delegation, U.S. envoys and European representatives on the hypothesis of a ceasefire limited to energy infrastructure and the Black Sea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly criticized the diesel deal, arguing that Russia will use it to finance new attacks. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. sanctions suspension will hold for the stated six months or whether new episodes such as the Rostov attack will push Washington to revise the terms agreed with Moscow. The number of drones involved in the attack and the extent of the damage to the facility have not been confirmed by independent sources beyond the regional governor and the media outlets cited.