President Deals has been at it again. And by “at it” we mean fucking things up for no reason other than his brain at this point is basically Li’l Lisa’s Patented Animal Slurry infused with poisonous-to-all-living-creatures levels of insecticide.
Last week, as is his wont for some reason that wingnuts will get very mad about if you bring it up, Donald Trump made a deal that handed Vladimir Putin and Russia a victory. He did this via one of his patented splashy, braggy announcements that always turn out to be premature, or not what everyone else thought was agreed to, or pure and uncut bullshit. Or all three.
On Friday, Trump announced he had made a deal with Putin for the United States to buy 300,000 metric tons of diesel gas, which comes to about 2.25 million barrels. This is to be followed, allegedly, by another 500,000 tons in November and one million tons “immediately thereafter,” presumably just in case Santa is switching from reindeer to a diesel-powered sleigh for Christmas. Then there will be another three million tons “within a short period of time,” whatever that even means to what’s left of Trump’s mind.
So, about 4.8 million tons of diesel fuel, which translates to roughly 36 million barrels, give or take. This is contingent on “the condition of their Diesel Refineries,” which are currently not in very good condition, which we’ll get to in a minute.
To be clear, this is not a huge amount of diesel relative to America’s needs. The US overall uses somewhere around 4.1 million barrels of diesel a day. So this huge deal will, by whenever “within a short period of time” happens, provide around nine days’ worth of diesel for the entire US. It is so little diesel that the deal will likely not provide the pre-election drop in the price of gas at the pump that was Trump’s sweaty and obvious reason for calling his good friend Vlad Putin and making the stupid deal in the first place.
It does not seem worth it, given that the emissions from burning 36 million barrels of diesel will linger in the atmosphere for decades and continue turning the planet into a climatological nightmare inhospitable to human life, but we lack the long-term investment genius that Donald Trump possesses.
It’s okay, though, because everyone loves this deal. Except for Ukraine. And the entire European Union. And a large bipartisan number of members of Congress. Even the editorial page of longtime banking pamphlet The Wall Street Journal thinks Trump hate-fucked the pooch here.
Ukraine hates the deal for the simple reason that it helps the Russian economy, which means it helps produce more soldiers and equipment to kill Ukrainians, which Russia is still doing in large numbers. Ukraine has been attacking Russian diesel refineries, sharply reducing its production capacity and hurting its economy. No one is sure where Russia is even going to find these 36 million spare barrels, given how many of its refineries have gone splodey-splodey thanks to Ukrainian drones.
In fact, Ukraine responded to the deal by bombing a few more Russian oil refineries. This made Trump and the rest of MAGAland very mad:
Did no one tell Volodymyr Zelenskyy that his focus right now should be America’s midterm elections, not all the bombs Russia keeps using to kill his citizens?
Trump was mad enough to suggest that Ukraine should call elections and get itself a new president, and we’re sure that for Ukraine, the feeling about America is mutual. He followed that up on Sunday by claiming that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” which came as a surprise to both Ukraine and Russia.
We have no idea where that idea came from. Trump seems to have gotten it from whatever goblins he hallucinates running around the White House. Or maybe he thought he could manifest a truce like some YouTube influencer manifesting abundance or inner peace or something.
Nevertheless, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would call a presidential election if Russia agreed to not bomb any of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 60 days. He knows Putin is never going to agree to such a ceasefire because it would delay his plan to make winter so unbearable for Ukraine that they finally surrender. It hasn’t worked when Russia has tried this every past winter since the war started, but maybe the fifth time will be the charm.
Meanwhile, Europe hates the deal because it would like Russia to leave Ukraine and not invade any more of the continent. (For what that might look like in the Baltic states, click here.) Giving Putin money to buy more weapons to keep blowing up Ukrainian cities and trying to force the nation’s surrender is a step in the opposite direction.
And a bipartisan group of American lawmakers hates this deal because they just passed a law sanctioning Russia and its oil industry. Specifically, in September Congress passed the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which banned Russian energy imports to America. Congress technically needs to repeal this law before Trump can act on this deal, but since when has something being illegal ever stopped Trump? Or, for that matter, when has something being illegal ever goaded a Republican Congress to stand up to him?
Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Act into law 24 days ago and has already forgotten about it, because he has the memory of a dead squirrel crushed under the wheels of a diesel-powered 18-wheeler. Not that it would matter if he did remember it, because he and Putin got on the phone and had a nice chat.
All of Trump’s whining completely ignores something he will never admit, which is that his stupid war on Iran is much more responsible for the spiking price of diesel than anything Ukraine is doing to Russian refineries. But that would require him to take responsibility for his actions in starting that war in the first place, which is a bit like trying to get mud to take responsibility for sliding downhill in a rainstorm and blocking a freeway.
Not only that, but Russia has been siding with Iran in its war with America. Which means that any money we pay Russia for diesel exports goes not just to Putin’s own military. It also goes to Iran to continue building the drones and missiles it is using to blow up all of America’s bases in the Middle East, wiping out several decades of work to establish a presence in the area in support of our allies there. And Putin would love if America abandoned the Middle East, as it fits within his “Great powers should control spheres of influence in their own neighborhoods” view of global power.
In short, Trump is getting suckered, possibly with the carrot of lucrative business deals for himself and his cronies getting dangled in front of his eyes. Only he can’t see it, because he’s such a fucking idiot.
The result of all this, as best we can tell, is that as of Monday we’re all right back where we started. Russia likely won’t be able to provide the diesel unless it can fix the refineries that Ukraine has bombed to smithereens, at which point Ukraine will bomb them again. Trump will continue to be on Putin’s side until someone talks him out of it, at which point he’ll be on Ukraine’s side until Putin talks him out of it. Hakuna matata, circle of life, and so on and so forth.
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Slava Ukraini
Did Ukrainian strikes on Yandex data centres cause Russian bot activity to plummet?
https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/12/did-ukrainian-strikes-on-yandex-data-centres-cause-russian-bot-activity-to-plummet
Ukrainian strikes on Russian technology giant Yandex's data centres have been followed by a dramatic decline in automated online activity, raising questions about whether the attacks may also have disrupted Moscow's influence operations abroad.
The sudden drop fuelled speculation in Europe and the United States about just how much of the political debate on social media might have been driven by Russian bots.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in on Monday, saying social media platforms had become noticeably less hostile.
"When we started responding to Russia's operation against our data centres and when our strikes reached Yandex data centres, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms," Zelenskyy said addressing the Warsaw Security Forum.
"A lot of people, a lot of people noticed it, and there was less hate, less division and fewer provocations because there were fewer bots."
US at war with Iran
Russia backs Iran
US buys oil from Russia
US is funding a war on itself
It just keeps getting more stupid every minute of every day