President at Texas campaign rally hails deal struck with post-Maduro government as ‘greatest oil victory in history’

Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “one million barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.

At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicolás Maduro.

The International Energy Agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, on Monday dismissed the prospect that markets will stabilize or recover by 2027, speaking during International Energy Week in Singapore.

Markets will take time to return to conditions prior to the outbreak of the U.S.-Isareli war against Iran, Birol considered.

“We must all prepare and make energy security the highest priority in our Governments and in the business world,” he said in a direct call to state administrations and the global corporate sector.

RELATED: Venezuela Oil Production Hits 1.25 Million Barrels Daily in Major Recovery

He assured that there is no viable path for markets to return in the short term to the operating conditions prior to the crisis, and urged governments and the business sector to prioritize global energy security for the coming years.

Oil prices currently stand near $120 per barrel, while the cost of derivative products is at considerably higher levels. Although the IEA leadership did not issue firm forecasts, it expressed concern about fuel demand ahead of the next winter period.

As a direct response to the current energy crisis, the agency anticipates a significant rebound in the nuclear sector. Its latest study indicates that nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of 90 gigawatts are currently under construction—the highest figure recorded in the last 40 years.

Jump fuelled by fears of further Middle East supply disruptions amid reports of US-Israeli plans to strike Iran

European gas prices have jumped to levels not seen since 2022 as fears continue to grow around the continent’s supply this winter and the conflict in the Middle East.

Wholesale gas prices hit €97 (£81) a megawatt-hour on Monday, as temperatures across Europe fell and traders priced in stronger demand for heating.

Netanyahu is telling Trump that he needs now to finish the job of destroying Iran

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The ‘Grand Design’ to “maintain [western civilisation’s] place at the head of the world” (as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it) requires the tools for ensuring compliance are two-fold: The creating of destructive revolutionary fervour from below (now termed ‘regime change’); and secondly, the use of what Theodore Herzl in a now famous phrase termed “the terrible power of the purse to exert irresistible pressure on international politics” in order to co-opt the ruling strata into a power network that would advance the Grand Design ‘project’.

This is what we are observing with Trump’s war on Iran. The June 2025 Israeli-American attack was primarily a decapitation attack designed to disable both Iran’s political and military leadership, whilst armed Mossad trained elements, the MEK and Baluchi separatists inter alia would be inserted into Iran to foment revolution from the street below. At that time, the former Shah’s son – implausibly – was being presented to the western media as the incoming leader of Iran.

It did not work. And now Netanyahu is touting that Israel has ‘fresh evidence’ that Iran is moving towards producing a weapon component to its nuclear programme. He is telling Trump that he needs now to finish the job of destroying Iran. And to motivate Trump further, leadingIsraeli daily Ma’ariv reports that Israel stove-piped Likud polling directly into the White House to the effect that Netanyahu might win the Israeli elections on 27 October. According to the report, this Likud information (that runs counter to most other Israeli polls) prompted Trump’s full-hearted election endorsement of Netanyahu.

At the same time, the pro-Zionist billionaire donors are wielding the ‘terrible power of the purse’ at Trump: ‘We will not accept anything less than the defeat of Iran. If you continue to seek a deal we will pull our financial support from you’.

Senior current and former security officials in Israel however, refute the need for an imminent attack on Iran and Netanyahu’s claim of new evidence of Iran moving toward a nuclear weapon –

IDF Chief of Staff Zamir told Israel’s Channel 13: “We don’t see a need to attack Iran before the elections”;

Leading Israeli military strategist Udi Evental has cautioned:

“A war to thwart the elections and democracy, not to thwart Iran’s nuclear programme. Netanyahu, who is suspected of being up to his neck in extraneous political and personal considerations, is unfit to make such a decision. He must not be allowed to”.

Whether or not there is such evidence really does not matter. Likely it doesn’t exist. The claim simply forms the peg on which the U.S. is beingtold to take action to ‘finish the job’ on Iran.

As ever, Netanyahu said in the last days:

“Iran is once again trying to develop its weapons of death … There is only one way to remove this threat once and for all – to topple the regime in Iran, and that is my directive to the IDF, the Mossad and the security agencies.”

A senior Iranian official told Drop Site that Tehran’s current internal intelligence assessment indicates a high likelihood that large-scale bombing may begin – even before Tuesday’s Israeli elections.

The point here is that Iran does not care who wins in the midterms, nor who will win the U.S. Presidency in 2028. For the Iranian leadership it is all the same. They well understand the concept of the ‘Grand Design’ (how could they not?).

It is well understood in Iran that they are engaged in a long war confronting the entire Atlanticist bloc – Israel, its intelligence services, its arsenals, its satellites, its military industry, and its media machine. It does not matter whether it is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. Senior Iranian officials see both parties to have been bought by the Zionist terrible power of the purse.

Understanding the ‘Design’ is to understand that the Zionist donor class will never be satisfied by some ‘deal or trade-off’. They claim it to be certain that Iran ultimately would renege on any mooted acquiescence to U.S. demands. Israelis and their donor class auxiliaries simply do not believe (and repeat incessantly) that Iran would ever accept compliance to Israel, or to accept U.S. political and cultural dominance.

They may be right. Why?

Simply because Iran has a deep civilisation, stretching back to a specifically Persian-Iranian complex of beliefs and practices of the second millennium BCE – Mazdaism, a cosmology of divine drama, represented by the continuing struggle between Light and Darkness.

The renown scholar, Professor Henri Corbin, has argued that “Iran was situated at a centre … it being not only a nation or an empire, but a spiritual universe”. He understood Iran therefore, as a mediating force, both geographically and metaphysically.

For millenia, Iranians have experienced the world as having a clear metaphysical dimension – and history. It is therefore unlikely that they would be attracted to a western nihilistic material posture. Civilisational states, whether Iran or Russia, that embrace contrarian values would never succumb to the ‘Grand Design’. Hence, they must be destroyed.

What does this metaphysical history mean? It means that Iran is preparing for war, not for a ‘deal’. Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and personal representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, stated that,

“If the question is whether Iran still has the ability to continue missile and drone operations [in the event of an attack], the answer is ‘yes’ … The United States has valuable assets in the region. In the event of war, cables, data centres and artificial intelligence facilities could also come within range. If the conflict begins again, we will have a broader plan”.

      “Everyone must understand that action against Iran carries a cost”.

Senior Iranian officials believe that war is coming. Iran has extensive plans (in the event of an attack) that encompasses Saudi Arabia and its leadership, too, a senior Iranian hinted. Karl Miller (from the field) states that in this respect, already a quarter of Saudi oil production has been destroyed and that the damage as a result of AnsarAllah’s retaliatory attacks runs through the whole Saudi production chain – ‘from wellhead to the gas station’ – and that Saudi Arabia has been covering the gap by draining their tanks.

Miller’s report, quoted by Larry Johnson, warns that,

“if Saudi Arabia’s export outlets close, its oil has nowhere to go but to its own refineries, its own power plants and its storage tanks. Once the storage is full, that is roughly the ceiling on what Saudi Arabia could keep producing. Close Ras Tanura and Yanbu at the same time, and the Kingdom would have to shut in most of its oil fields. That is exactly the scenario Ansar Allah’s campaign against the pipeline, the Red Sea and the Gulf terminals, is built to produce”.

“Any new American or Israeli campaign against Iran will land on a Saudi energy system that has no slack left to absorb it”, Larry Johnson observes.

Any new attack on Iran, by extension, will mean the end to the Gulf as we know it, an end to the petrodollar, and an end to the Gulf as the primary supplier of hard cash to Wall Street and the Tech world.

Nonetheless, Trump reportedly has said that the U.S. is not currently negotiating with Iran, and something will happen “fairly soon”.

Maybe. (But with Trump everything distils into speculation). But if he is bluffing, it won’t work, and his humiliation will be all the deeper.

One man who knows Trump better than most (having authored four books on him), Michael Wolff, opines that if the Democrats win in the 3 November midterms –

“They will be trying to impress upon the world that it is ‘a new day’. Trump, for his part, will be trying to impress upon the world that he still controls the stage. There will be a series of these kinds of things (such as a putative invasion of Cuba, for example) greater than anything we may have imagined. He will not be humbled. The idea of humility does not exist in Donald Trump’s soul. Therefore he will do – the opposite”.

“Not retreat but attack”.

Green blobbers want us to stop drilling because the North Sea is running dry – so why the panic about oil and gas extraction? The answer is that it’s as much about politics and punitive taxes as geology, says Ben Pile.

The post The North Sea Green Paradox appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Andy Burnham looks set to defy Ed Miliband and give the go-ahead for drilling in the North Sea's Rosebank oil field, as the Treasury's money troubles threaten to trump Labour's Net Zero ambitions.

The post Burnham and Healey Set to Defy Miliband Over Rosebank Oil Field appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

• Trump said on Saturday that American oil companies are making a "fortune" on the Iran war.
• Americans, however, are paying record prices at the pump, according to AAA.
• Trump made the comments less than two weeks from the midterm elections.

Though regular Americans are paying more at the pump, US oil companies are striking it rich, President Donald Trump said on Saturday.

Speaking at a rally in Georgia, Trump said that oil prices are "temporarily high," but added that the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed oil buyers to American companies with operations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

"The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars," Trump said. "I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it — we're making a freaking fortune."

Indeed, a Q2 report this year from the Oil & Gas Journal, a trade publication, noted that "surging crude prices tied to ongoing Strait of Hormuz disruptions" fueled massive windfalls for North American oil companies.

Year over year, a sample of 38 US producers and refiners collectively grew revenues by about $140 billion, the Oil & Gas Journal reported.

Those profits, however, are not exactly shared by the American public.

AAA reported that the average price of regular gas in the United States is now at $4.29 a gallon. In February, one day before the US and Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran, gas prices were at $2.98.

Diesel prices have also increased precipitously since the American war on Iran began. On Sunday, AAA reported that they sat at $6.35, up from $3.75 a day before the conflict began. Shipping companies rely on diesel to power their boats and trucks. Higher diesel costs are often passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices.

Trump's comments are unlikely to curry goodwill among an American electorate reckoning with an affordability crisis less than two weeks out from midterm elections. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Sunday.

As the midterms approach, Trump has taken steps to lower gas prices.

On October 9, Trump said he reached a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel, which had been heavily sanctioned since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Analysts warned the move could provide a lifeline to the Russian economy as the country seeks to bombard Ukraine into submission this winter.

"I can see just the fake headlines — 'President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump,'" Trump said at the Georgia rally. "That'll be the headline."

A country with a population of 1.3 million announces that it can strangle the commercial lifeline of the world’s leading nuclear power in a matter of hours.

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A string of provocations, but it’s all just cheap jewelry

Certain statements should be read twice – the second time aloud – to be sure you didn’t dream them. The one that Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna gave to The Times on October 7 falls into this category. Estonia, the minister informs us, would be able to assemble a force of 50,000 experienced soldiers “in a matter of hours” and, again within a few hours, block Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea, which he describes as a vital artery of the Russian economy. For Moscow, that sea is a matter of survival, he added, especially since the Black Sea, he claims, is already closed off. Then, with a sense of timing that no playwright would have dared to imagine, Tsahkna called it “absurd” to describe NATO as an offensive organization.

The minister’s outburst did not come out of the blue. It comes at the end of an autumn that Tallinn has methodically shaped. In mid-September, the government announced it was ready to seal the border if a general mobilization were declared in Russia; on October 1, it banned the transit of Russian and Belarusian wheat; around the same time, the Financial Times reported on elite units being deployed to the border and the purchase of weapons capable of striking deep into Russian territory. The defense budget for 2026 stands at 2.4 billion euros, or 5.4% of gross domestic product. We are looking at a country of 1.3 million people that has chosen to live in a state of constant readiness and to let the world know, every week, just how prepared it is to fight.

The minister was careful to specify that the blockade would be triggered only after a Russian attack capable of invoking Article 5. The clause is about as reassuring as a “friendly dog” sign hanging on the gate of a kennel. Publicly announcing a plan to choke off a nuclear power’s main energy export route remains a deliberate political act, regardless of any qualifying conditions attached to it. Under customary international law, a naval blockade is an act of war; and in the age of severed cables, stateless drones, and oil tankers in the so-called “shadow fleet,” the threshold for what constitutes an “attack” has become elastic. Who decides when it has been crossed? The very same government that denounces a new provocation every morning?

The math of fifty thousand

Let’s focus on the numbers, which are the most entertaining part. According to public data from the Estonian armed forces, the wartime strength is just over 43,000. Of these, only 4,200 are on permanent standby; the rest are reservists and volunteers from the Defense League – brave people who train in the woods on weekends. So, there are no 50,000 “experienced” soldiers in a matter of hours. Unless you count those from other countries.

And that is exactly how the figure should be interpreted. Tsahkna’s 50,000 do not speak Estonian. They are the British contingent stationed in Tapa with its French reinforcements, the navies of Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark, the aircraft of a few allies on rotation, and the Americans when they have time. A dozen or so flags, each with its own chain of command, its own parliament, its own public opinion, and its own election calendar. The Estonian minister disposes of that army the way a condominium manager disposes of the residents’ savings: in words, with great nonchalance. Could some assistant please explain to him how to do his job?

Let’s try to imagine the first missile. In London, the cabinet meets and seeks a legal opinion. Paris launches a strategic review, which requires a document and a conference. Berlin awaits the Bundestag’s vote and the blessing of its less-than-convinced coalition partner. Rome seeks clarification at the Atlantic Council; Budapest puts its reservations on record; Washington is busy elsewhere. Article 5, after all, doesn’t force anyone to fire a shot: it obligates each ally to take the action it deems necessary, and “necessary” can mean anything from an aircraft carrier to a note of protest. The oldest debate in any coalition would immediately begin: who steps in first, who withdraws last, who covers whose flank, and who pays for the fuel. Meanwhile, the Estonians would be there counting down the minutes.

European history is all too familiar with this scenario. In September 1939, France and Great Britain had guaranteed Poland’s security with the same solemnity with which Tallinn is guaranteed today. They declared war, and then spent eight months behind the Maginot Line simply watching: the French called it the drôle de guerre, the “phoney war.” Warsaw, meanwhile, had long since stopped laughing.

Let’s now set aside arithmetic for geography, which isn’t swayed by interviews – someone should tell the Minister that! About eighty kilometers of sea lie between Tallinn and Helsinki: it is along this narrow passage that the minister would like to close off the Gulf of Finland. From the Estonian capital to the Russian border at Narva, there are just over two hundred kilometers. Russia’s GDP, in nominal terms, is more than fifty times that of Estonia. The Baltic Fleet is based in Kronstadt, at the far end of the Gulf, and in Baltiysk, in the Kaliningrad exclave; which means, incidentally, that a substantial portion of that fleet is already outside the “plug” that Tallinn dreams of inserting.

Strategists carefully distinguish between three things that Estonian politicians happily confuse: guarding a passage, making its use risky for the adversary, and maintaining stable control over it. The first is possible; the second is costly; the third, against Russia, has never succeeded for anyone. Those who lay mines may fall victim to them; those who deploy coastal anti-ship batteries become, in turn, fixed targets, surveyed down to the meter.

And this is where physics comes in. Russia’s conventional arsenal includes Iskander missiles deployed just a few dozen minutes’ flight away, ship-launched Kalibr missiles, TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launchers, and high-yield glide bombs. There’s no need to bring up nuclear warheads, which remain the favorite bogeyman of Western talk shows. The coastal batteries, depots, command centers, and docks from which our dear friends in Tallinn intend to block the Gulf would go from a solid to a gaseous state in the time between launch and impact. And with them, the solidity of Estonia’s political stance would evaporate, long before an agreement on the statement is reached in Brussels. We’re not writing this to be smug. We’re writing this because, in that scenario, ordinary Estonians would be the first to pay the price, used as pawns by a ruling class that’s playing with fire in its own living room.

Creative accounting for oil

There remains the issue of the “lifeline.” Tsahkna attributes about 60% of Russian oil exports by sea to the Baltic route. Estimates from the Polish think tank OSW – which cannot be suspected of sympathizing with Moscow – put the figure at about one-third of crude oil and nearly half of refined products; and Reuters data from February show that oil continued to ship out from Russian ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, despite the sea being “already closed.” Inflating figures is an age-old rhetorical technique: it serves to make the threat seem more deadly than it is and one’s own position stronger than it actually is.

Moreover, a blockade would not affect only Moscow. Neutral shipowners, insurance companies, freight rates, refineries, and energy prices would all suffer the consequences, and Europe – which in recent years has already paid dearly for its economic war against Russia – would once again bear the cost. There’s even a grotesque detail: in 2025, Estonia sold goods worth approximately 252 million euros to Russia. They’re threatening to cut off their neighbor’s lifeline, but in the meantime, business as usual continues.

Why, then, all the fuss? The answer lies in the role the Estonian ruling class has carved out for itself within the Alliance: that of the permanent vanguard, the most zealous member of the eastern flank, the top student who raises their hand before the teacher finishes the question. It’s a source of privilege. It guarantees attention, funds, allied troops on its territory, and invitations to summits. And it becomes all the more valuable as the possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine draws nearer – a prospect feared in many Atlantic capitals as the end of the emergency that justifies everything. So the fever must be kept high: a statement every week, a ban every month, a threat of a blockade every fall.

In 1955, Leonard Wibberley published a satirical novel, *The Mouse That Roared*, in which the tiny Grand Duchy of Fenwick declared war on the United States with the sole purpose of losing it and collecting reconstruction aid. The difference with Tallinn lies in the ending. The Grand Duchy counted on losing to a generous power, an ocean away. Estonia is threatening a neighboring power – one that has forgotten nothing since 1991 – and is entrusting its fate to a coalition that has never fought a real war together against an opponent of equal strength.

From apotheosis to casus belli?

Let’s recap. A country with a population of 1.3 million announces that it can strangle the commercial lifeline of the world’s leading nuclear power in a matter of hours. To do so, it relies on soldiers it doesn’t have – lent by allies it hasn’t consulted – based on oil figures that Western sources themselves downplay. It ties all of this to a war that its rhetoric makes a little more likely every day, and in the same breath accuses those who see NATO as something offensive of absurdity. If there is such a thing as the apotheosis of the absurd, it can be found at the Foreign Ministry in Tallinn.

Moscow, to tell the truth, doesn’t even need to respond. Geography does it, the balance of power does it, and the history of European coalitions – which have always found it easier to make promises than to keep them – does it. Deterrence that turns into permanent provocation ceases to dissuade and begins to seek its own casus belli. The Baltic Sea deserves mature diplomacy among the coastal states that will have to share it anyway. For now, it must settle for – a minister who roars – and an audience of allies who, at the first real blow, will look around wondering who should answer the phone.

The first Russian diesel tanker under the new deal between Russia and the United States is now heading for New York with a 40,000-metric-ton cargo, enough to cover barely two hours of American demand.

The deal began with a phone call, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to

Washington is offering Moscow sanctions relief, commercial opportunities and a possible return to European energy markets. Yet the Kremlin’s objectives in Ukraine extend far beyond economic interests, raising questions about whether Vladimir Putin has any intention of accepting a settlement that preserves Ukraine as an independent European state.

The Kremlin has announced plans for renewed negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the United States in Abu Dhabi during the first half of November, reviving a diplomatic process that has repeatedly failed to produce a settlement to Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, 23 October, that the discussions would concentrate on post-war security arrangements. He also left open the possibility of eventual European participation, although the initial meeting is intended to remain trilateral.

The announcement follows talks in St Petersburg between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Yet the emerging American proposals reveal a fundamental problem: Washington appears increasingly prepared to offer Russia substantial economic incentives, while Moscow has provided little indication that its political objectives in Ukraine have changed.

The economic bargain taking shape

According to details reported on 23 October, citing The Economist, the American proposals involve Ukraine abandoning its ambition to join NATO in exchange for investment, security arrangements and the prospect of European Union membership.

Russia would receive sanctions relief, renewed commercial relations with American companies and potentially the restoration of natural gas exports to Europe. A demilitarised zone in Donbas is also reportedly under consideration.

The commercial dimension extends beyond theoretical proposals.

American and Russian representatives have discussed investment in the Nord Stream pipeline system and possible arrangements involving Lukoil’s international assets. The negotiations surrounding Russian energy infrastructure suggest that Washington regards commercial cooperation as a potential instrument for securing Moscow’s agreement.

There is no established evidence that Witkoff, Jared Kushner or members of Trump’s family would personally benefit from these arrangements. Nevertheless, the involvement of investors in strategically important Russian assets raises questions about whether economic agreements might advance independently of a settlement acceptable to Ukraine.

The Trump administration has already demonstrated its willingness to relax economic pressure. On 16 October, the president waived major provisions of the Graham sanctions legislation, which he had signed into law only four weeks earlier.

As EU Today previously examined, the decision suspended measures designed to increase the economic costs of Russia’s continuing aggression. Washington justified the waiver on the grounds that sanctions could interfere with negotiations.

Why Putin’s objectives are not primarily economic

The central weakness in a settlement built around commercial incentives is the assumption that Putin’s territorial and political demands can ultimately be exchanged for economic advantages.

Russia’s objectives have never been confined to Donetsk, Luhansk or access to Western markets.

In his July 2021 essay on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, Putin advanced a conception of the two nations as belonging to a single historical and cultural space. His interpretation, examined by the Centre for Eastern Studies, challenged the legitimacy of Ukraine’s development outside Moscow’s political influence.

These ideas preceded the full-scale invasion of February 2022. They also followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Putin’s demands therefore concern more than military geography. They involve the extent to which Ukraine can exercise independent political authority, determine its international alliances and integrate with Western institutions.

Even a settlement granting Moscow substantial territory could leave this larger objective unresolved.

An independent Ukraine, increasingly integrated into the European economy and protected by Western security commitments, would remain outside Russia’s political control. For a Kremlin leadership that has repeatedly questioned Ukraine’s separate historical identity, such an outcome would represent a limitation on its wider ambitions.

Putin reinforced this position on 22 October when he again described Ukrainian territory in Donbas as historically Russian.

The advantages of negotiations without compromise

This creates an apparent contradiction. Why would Moscow return to negotiations if its broader objectives remain incompatible with the proposed settlement?

One explanation is that participation itself offers Russia strategic advantages.

Negotiations can preserve diplomatic engagement with Washington, complicate attempts to introduce additional sanctions and maintain American pressure on Kyiv to accept territorial concessions.

They also provide opportunities to negotiate economic arrangements before fundamental security questions have been resolved.

For Putin, the political timetable in Washington is relevant. Trump’s presidency is constitutionally limited to January 2029. Moscow can seek to exploit the present administration’s interest in a diplomatic agreement while continuing military operations.

None of this establishes that Putin has definitively rejected compromise. However, the Kremlin’s willingness to attend negotiations is not equivalent to a willingness to abandon its demands.

Russia continues attacking Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. As EU Today reported on 22 October, Russian forces launched 21 ballistic missiles against Kyiv shortly after Witkoff’s discussions with Putin.

The simultaneous pursuit of diplomatic engagement and military pressure allows Moscow to negotiate while attempting to alter conditions on the battlefield.

Europe cannot be treated as an economic bargaining chip

The proposed return of Russian gas exposes another contradiction in Washington’s approach.

The European Union has already adopted binding legislation to phase out Russian gas imports, with full restrictions taking effect during 2027.

The European Commission reiterated on 19 October that it had no plans to reverse its position. Reopening Nord Stream would also face sanctions, infrastructure and political obstacles, particularly in Germany.

Consequently, Washington cannot independently promise Moscow renewed access to European energy markets.

Nor can it guarantee Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Membership requires agreement among the existing member states, completion of accession negotiations and ratification of the relevant treaty.

A settlement negotiated primarily between Washington and Moscow would therefore depend on European decisions over which neither government has unilateral authority.

This helps explain the significance of Peskov’s remarks about possible European participation. Moscow needs European cooperation to secure meaningful sanctions relief and access to markets, even while seeking to negotiate Europe’s security arrangements principally with Washington.

The unresolved question

Trump’s approach rests on the proposition that economic incentives can make a settlement more attractive to Moscow than continued warfare.

Putin’s position presents a different calculation. The Russian president must weigh the benefits of restored commercial relations against the political implications of recognising Ukraine’s durable independence and Western orientation.

Those objectives may prove incompatible.

A settlement that restores Russian energy revenues without credible guarantees against renewed aggression could reduce Moscow’s economic constraints while leaving the causes of the war unresolved.

The decisive test in Abu Dhabi will therefore not be whether negotiators can agree on investment, pipelines or sanctions relief. It will be whether Russia is prepared to accept a Ukrainian state whose sovereignty, political direction and future European integration remain beyond Moscow’s control.

Until that question is answered, renewed negotiations may offer Washington the prospect of a diplomatic achievement while allowing the Kremlin to pursue objectives it has not publicly abandoned.