Trump Waives Russia Fuel Sanctions and Calls Ukraine's Refinery Strikes a 'Disgrace' as Moscow Reports 644 Drones

President Donald Trump waived a new round of sanctions on Russian fossil fuel sales on Friday, Oct. 16, days before they were set to take effect under a bill he signed into law last month. The same day, he told Newsmax that Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries are "a disgrace."

The two moves landed on one of the heaviest days of the war's energy campaign on both sides.

The waiver

The measures were part of the Graham Act, named for Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Russia hawk who died in July. The law would have imposed tariffs of up to 100% on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas.

In the executive order, Trump said he had sent Congress a certification that the waiver "at this time is in the national interests of the United States." The order does not say why. It remains in effect until the administration determines "further action is appropriate."

The reaction was bipartisan. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the decision, including Trump allies who backed the sanctions bill.

Zelensky was blunt. "A decision was unfortunately made in America to completely disregard the Lindsey Graham Act, which was supposed to impose truly effective pressure on Russia to bring this war to an end," he said. "This Act could have helped enormously, and still can!"

The Moscow side has noted the relief too. Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, commented on the decision, according to CNN.

What Trump said about the refineries

In the Newsmax interview, Trump was asked about Thursday's drone strike on a refinery in Russia's Ryazan region, about 300 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Ryazan Gov. Pavel Malkov said the strike started a fire.

"If you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at refineries, all he's doing is making the world oil price higher," Trump said. "I think that's a disgrace. There's plenty of other targets."

He added that "Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with" and that he finds the Ukrainian leader "more difficult to deal with than Putin." He also said, "I'm not a big fan of Zelensky," and blamed the Biden administration for sending Kyiv "billions and billions of dollars."

Trump offered no figures on how much Ukraine's strikes have moved global oil prices. Newsweek and the Moscow Times both report that he is trying to ease fuel costs before the November midterms.

Truce collapse

Trump announced Sunday, Oct. 11, that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop hitting each other's energy facilities. Zelensky has said Ukraine honored the pause while Russia kept bombarding its grid.

He also said Kyiv was denied usual Western intelligence on Russian ballistic missile strikes and that limits were placed on Ukraine's use of Starlink terminals. In an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, he said the pause on refinery strikes was over. "We're done," he was quoted as saying.

Zelensky has also criticized a deal Trump made with Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he said he felt betrayed "between us," while adding that Ukraine counts on the United States and Trump as strategic partners. The White House has not been quoted in these accounts responding to the intelligence and Starlink complaints.

The overnight numbers

Russia's Defense Ministry said Friday that 644 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over 26 Russian regions and Crimea. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 94 drones approaching the capital between Thursday evening and Friday morning. Nearly 160 flights were delayed or canceled across Moscow's four main airports.

Vladimir region Gov. Alexander Avdeyev said air defenses repelled an attack aimed at municipal heating infrastructure serving the regional capital, with "minor" damage. Unverified monitoring channels claimed the target was a Yandex data center in Vladimir that was damaged in a strike last weekend. Newsweek reports that other Yandex data centers in the Ryazan and Kaluga regions were hit in the past week, causing outages.

Putin has played down the refinery campaign, saying it caused "nothing particularly significant."

Ukraine took heavy fire too. Zelensky said more than 15 major power generation and transmission sites were attacked on Oct. 16, with Lutsk, Rovno, Zhitomir, Vinnitsa, Shepetovka, Slavuta and Neteshin hit hardest. About 370,000 residents of the northwestern Volyn region lost power, and Polish and NATO fighter jets were scrambled to protect Polish airspace. DTEK said rolling blackouts were introduced in Kyiv. A Russian strike on Kharkiv killed three people and injured five.

Is the refinery campaign working?

The Washington Post's analysis of satellite imagery, interviews with experts and Ukrainian military officials found that at least two-thirds of the 36 major Russian refineries tracked by S&P Global Energy were hit between April 1 and Aug. 31, some as many as five times. Of 54 strikes it analyzed, more than half appeared to damage desalting and distillation units, parts that sanctions have made hard to repair.

A Moscow-area refinery hit in June remained offline as of September, according to the commodities firm Kpler. The Post reports that Russian gasoline and diesel prices have risen about 20% since the start of the year, amid what it called the country's worst fuel crisis since the Soviet collapse.

Zelensky says the strategy is meant to bring the war closer to an end. Trump's argument is that diesel is needed worldwide and that Ukraine should pick other targets.

What comes next

Despite the public feud, Zelensky said negotiators from the two countries spoke Friday and could meet next week. In a WhatsApp chat with reporters on Saturday, Oct. 17, he said details of a possible meeting were still being worked out. The sanctions waiver has no end date, and the administration has not said what would trigger the "further action" its order mentions.