Trump explains Russia sanctions pause; Bessent: 'We're not on Russia's side'

What Trump wrote

US President Donald Trump used Truth Social to explain why he paused tariffs and sanctions on Russia mandated by legislation passed in September and named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham. “My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table,” he wrote.

Trump claimed “significant progress”, including in talks on hostages, and said he could sign the sanctions document later, “any time I want”. At the same time he blamed Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries for hurting the global diesel market, including in the US, and claimed without offering evidence that Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did”.

Elections and fuel

As DW reports, Trump signed an executive order late on Friday waiving broad new sanctions under the Graham law, and also temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel to bring down fuel prices before the US midterm elections on 3 November. Most economists, DW notes, believe these steps will do little to lower US fuel prices. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the suspension, saying Trump wanted to assess the impact of the sanctions on the global and US economies.

Bessent: “I’m not the secretary of state”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that claims Washington had switched to Moscow’s side were false. He said the US provides Ukraine with intelligence and Starlink support and allows NATO countries to buy American weapons for Ukraine. “We’re not on Russia’s side,” he said.

However, as NBC News points out, Bessent dodged three times when asked directly whether the US considers Ukraine an ally; the third time he said: “I’m not the secretary of state. I’m not the president.” He also pointed at Europe: “The European members of NATO — they have plenty of Patriots. Why aren’t they forthcoming with the Patriots?”

Bessent called it “very reckless” of Zelensky to say that the Starlink speed limits were a message from the US government and said nobody in the administration had done that. According to Bessent, Trump did not lift sanctions but took a 60-day pause “so we can examine what’s going on”; only the diesel embargo has been lifted.

Zelensky’s answer

On the same programme Zelensky said he wants to trust Trump and hopes he will change his decisions, because they “will help neither us nor the United States”. “If the United States will take the side of Russia, of course we will not prevail,” he said, calling such a scenario “a historic mistake and big tragedy”. He described the pause in Graham-law sanctions as regrettable, saying the late senator “dedicated his life and time to Ukraine”.

Why it matters

The Graham-law sanctions were meant to be one of the strongest levers on Moscow. Kyiv sees the pause and the diesel waiver as a concession to the Kremlin at a time when Russia is stepping up strikes on Ukraine’s energy system. Washington’s position remains contradictory: the administration insists it supports Ukraine but refuses to call it an ally outright.