Trump Waives Russia Sanctions as Zelenskyy Warns of Harm

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday waiving sanctions, tariffs and oil-and-gas purchase penalties on Russia that were due to take effect this week under the Graham Act. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the decision “will hurt Ukraine.”

The order eases pressure on India, one of the five largest importers of Russian oil, which would have faced tariffs of up to 100% on its goods. It also gives Moscow relief as Russian and Ukrainian forces continue trading strikes on each other’s energy sites. Trump called the waiver “in the U.S. national interest.”

A Waiver Over Allied Objections

The sanctions package aimed to squeeze the Kremlin. It would have placed tariffs on top buyers of Russian energy and on those helping Russia evade existing restrictions, with the goal of pushing Moscow to end its military operations against Ukraine. Zelenskyy recently said the legislative package “could have helped enormously.”

Now he says the opposite is happening. On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Zelenskyy argued the waiver would strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war effort. “We can’t compare me and Putin. He’s [an] aggressor. He occupied us. He killed adults and children, his soldiers. He’s a terrorist, and that’s why I hope that President Trump will be very clear with this position,” he said. He added that it would be “unbelievable” for the United States to support Putin over him.

Kyiv isn’t alone. Trump’s embrace of Russian energy has angered European partners and many U.S. officials, who say it rewards Moscow as it presses a war now in its fifth year, according to the reporting.

The fighting hasn’t paused. Russian strikes left thousands without power. Ukraine, meanwhile, carried out its largest drone attack on Russia, in St. Petersburg, since the war began.

The President’s Defense

Trump defended the move on Truth Social Sunday, saying he didn’t want to do anything that would “drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” He wrote that “great progress is being made, and that includes current hostage negotiations!” He also said Russia was doing “very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing,” and that he wanted it kept that way “unless stupid people get in the way.”

He aimed sharp words at Zelenskyy. Trump accused him of not wanting to end the war, writing that he “probably never did,” and said Ukrainian attacks on Russian diesel refineries were “seriously hurting the world diesel markets,” including in the United States. He said Zelenskyy “could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now” and described Ukraine as “in shambles.” In an interview with Newsmax’s Finnerty, he called Zelenskyy “not a good guy for us to deal with.”

Zelenskyy didn’t trade insults. On X, he wrote that he’d spoken with U.S. presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as part of “virtually non-stop communication” on “next steps in diplomacy.” He called for “peace that everyone, except Russia, has been waiting for over the past four and a half years.”

Energy Prices and the India Angle

The waiver follows an October 9 announcement that Russia would supply more than 300,000 metric tonnes of diesel to U.S. and global markets. The supply was meant to ease fuel prices, which have climbed since the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran in late February—a conflict now in its eighth month. Tehran responded by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global energy exports had passed before the war.

India sits at the center of the trade fallout. It’s the world’s third-largest oil importer and consumer, and Russia supplied nearly half its oil imports earlier this year, though purchases fell in August and kept declining. Cutting them further to avoid U.S. tariffs could push up fuel prices ahead of regional elections or strain government finances.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, due in India Tuesday, linked the decision to trade talks. “We are trying to finalise a trade deal with India right now and we are very close to doing that. So, that’s one of the things we take into consideration when the President makes a decision about national security waivers,” he told reporters in Uzbekistan. He added, “For some countries it is very difficult to acquire energy from alternative sources.”

Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the pause “could be the confidence-building measure that gives the two sides the negotiating space to get over the final hump.” He said renewed tensions over the sanctions bill and new U.S. visa policies had left the relationship “in danger of falling into even harder times.”

Why This Matters:

The waiver puts two goals in direct tension: lower fuel prices and a trade deal with India on one side, pressure on Moscow on the other. Zelenskyy and many U.S. officials argue Ukrainians bear the cost as strikes continue to leave thousands without power. Sanctions are one of the few collective tools allies have to constrain an aggressor. Setting them aside by executive order over European and Ukrainian objections raises questions about whether allies are being consulted or simply informed. It also shows how an energy shock tied to the Iran war is reshaping the leverage of a country that invaded its neighbor. Whether diplomacy yields a durable peace remains unproven. The human toll of the war is not.