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Trump asks Ukraine to stop striking Russian diesel, saying the attacks are causing a shortage

The president's public request ties a Ukrainian war aim directly to the price of refined fuel.

Assembled by Claude from 6 sources at 6 outlets · Sunday, September 13, 2026, Evening edition, 5:12 PM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian oil infrastructure pbs.orgapnews.com. The Associated Press account, carried by PBS under a Kyiv dateline, reported the request as a call to stop attacks that are causing a shortage pbs.org. Al Jazeera reported the same appeal and described the target of the strikes as Russian diesel infrastructure aljazeera.com. CNN reported that Trump had urged his Ukrainian counterpart to stop targeting Russia's diesel fuel in its aerial campaign cnn.com. The Washington Times ran the wire account under the same headline washingtontimes.com.

The reports differ slightly on how narrowly the request was drawn. The wire copy refers to strikes on Russian oil infrastructure and on diesel fuel infrastructure pbs.orgapnews.com. Fox News reported the president as saying that Ukraine's strikes are causing a global diesel shortage, and framed the appeal as asking Kyiv to stop one specific kind of attack rather than to stop attacking Russia foxnews.com. None of these reports records a reply from Zelenskyy, a deadline, or any consequence attached to the request pbs.orgapnews.comaljazeera.comfoxnews.comcnn.com.

Why it matters to investors

The appeal makes explicit a link that had so far been left to analysts: Washington is now treating Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining and fuel infrastructure as a driver of fuel prices, not only as a matter of war policy foxnews.comcnn.com. The distinction between crude and refined product is the substance of it. As reported, the request is aimed at the refining and distribution end of the Russian energy chain rather than at crude exports aljazeera.comfoxnews.com.

That places a marker on how the administration weighs the war's second-order costs. The president is asking a partner to give up strikes that degrade an adversary's war economy because of the price effect those strikes are said to be having foxnews.com. For investors the signal is about tolerance: which pressure points Washington is prepared to trade away to relieve fuel costs, and how it will describe the causes of a tight diesel market pbs.orgcnn.com.

What to watch

The first test is whether Kyiv changes its targeting. Nothing in these reports says it has agreed to do so apnews.comaljazeera.com. The second is whether the request is followed by anything more formal than a public statement, since the accounts describe a call made in public with no stated mechanism behind it pbs.orgcnn.com.

The framing itself is the third thing to follow. If US officials keep attributing diesel tightness to Ukrainian strikes, the political cost of those strikes rises for Kyiv foxnews.com. These reports do not quantify the shortage, do not attribute a share of it to any single cause, and do not say whether the administration has raised the matter with Russia as well pbs.orgapnews.comfoxnews.com. The Washington Times page carrying the report also lists the president urging Iran and Cuba to make deals, which places the diesel appeal inside a wider round of public bargaining rather than a single negotiation washingtontimes.com.

Sources

  1. pbs.org: Trump calls on Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian diesel, saying attacks are causing a shortage - PBS (2026-09-13)
  2. apnews.com: Trump calls on Zelenskyy to halt Ukraine strikes on Russian diesel fuel - AP News (2026-09-13)
  3. aljazeera.com: Trump tells Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian diesel supplies - Al Jazeera (2026-09-13)
  4. foxnews.com: Trump tells Zelenskyy to stop doing 'one thing' during attacks on Russia - Fox News (2026-09-13)
  5. cnn.com: Trump tells Ukraine to stop targeting Russia's diesel fuel - CNN (2026-09-13)
  6. washingtontimes.com: Trump calls on Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian diesel, saying attacks are causing a shortage (2026-09-13)