The fake Russia cease-fire explained

Brian Lehrer (0:05)

From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast. It's Thursday, October 15th.

Now, how US inconsistency toward Russia's war in Ukraine is affecting the cost of living in the United States and the ability to live at all in Ukraine itself. A few days ago, President Trump said, sanctions relief for Russia will be put into place to allow Russian diesel to reach the US market, arguing that the deal will help bring down fuel prices. That's obviously election related, as so many Americans are blaming Trump's Iran war for inflation, which by the way, galloped ahead again last month, if you heard those new stats from Trump's own government yesterday. He's also been pressuring Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, bombing that has hurt Russia's energy industry and reduced its oil and gas tax revenue. But in return for these concessions, Putin has shown little sign of backing down on his end. The Kremlin has reiterated that it is not ready to negotiate, despite Trump announcing an energy ceasefire in the war last week. Now, that announcement looks like it was made up, maybe because fewer people will notice the correction than notice the announcement. I'm not sure, but here's a clip of NPR's Joanna Kokissis, who spoke with Vladimir Zelensky, and this aired Joanna Kokissis with a few little Zelensky clips in this on Morning Edition yesterday.

Joanna Kokissis (1:40)

Well, I did ask Zelensky how he found out about this quote-unquote energy truce.

SPEAKER_3 (1:46)

Through social, like you.

Joanna Kokissis (1:47)

Truth social?

SPEAKER_3 (1:48)

We are together ordinary people.

Joanna Kokissis (1:51)

President didn't call us.

SPEAKER_3 (1:52)

Yeah, but it's okay.

Joanna Kokissis (1:54)

I mean, it doesn't matter what way between us.

Brian Lehrer (1:58)

But meanwhile, to the point, Russia attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure continue with dire consequences for Ukrainians in Kiev and elsewhere. Also, you may have heard that Ukraine this week suddenly lost access to parts of Starshield, the military version of SpaceX's satellite communication system, Elon Musk's system, which in this case is funded by the Pentagon. So there's a lot to unpack. With us now is Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent of PUC, and the author of Motherland, A History of Modern Russia from Revolution to Autocracy. Julia, thanks so much for joining us. It's always good to have you on.

Julia Ioffe (2:40)

Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer (2:42)

Let's start with the announcement that there was a Russia-Ukraine energy ceasefire. Was there?

Julia Ioffe (2:50)

No, there wasn't. It was apparently not discussed by the negotiating team in the room in Florida last week. Trump just announced it without getting buy-in from the two sides, Kiev and Moscow. Kiev, out of an effort to stay in the good graces of Trump and his administration, tried to abide by it for a couple of days, but within two hours of that announcement, Russia was striking civilian targets in Ukraine, and killing Ukrainians, and cutting off power to hundreds of thousands of people because it's cutting off.

It's striking energy facilities and critical civilian infrastructure, so clearly showing no interest in any kind of ceasefire.

Brian Lehrer (3:44)

Do you have anything to suggest from your reporting that Trump either made that up out of whole cloth, maybe to look like he was tackling diesel prices, or if he thought he had a deal and Putin or Zelensky betrayed him? Here's a clip of Trump kind of blaming Zelensky for there being no deal. Listen.

SPEAKER_3 (4:05)

I think you heard about the oil deal with Russia. That is a big deal. That is massive amounts of oil coming into our country. I want to thank President Putin, to be honest with you. We have massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and it's diesel, which is what we want.

Brian Lehrer (4:22)

But he also said this.

SPEAKER_3 (4:24)

And you know what I suggest?

I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal, because he could have made many deals that for some reason he never does. And let me go a step further. If I were president, you wouldn't have ever had that war. That war would have never started.

Brian Lehrer (4:41)

So to be clear, that was Zelensky he was criticizing as never making a deal when he could and suggesting that they get a new leader, meaning Ukraine get a new leader. So do you have any reporting on whether Trump made up the deal in the first place, or whether he thought he had a deal in one side or the other backed out?

Julia Ioffe (5:04)

I mean, he had a deal on the diesel with Russia, but he, I think, just announced the ceasefire to, I am speculating here, but to cover for the fact that he just gave Putin a win without having to get anything from Putin in return, which the president sells himself as a master deal maker, but it's not exactly difficult to make a deal where you just give one side everything it wants and give the other side nothing. That's just called a gift. We can all do that.