Czech president says Trump's Russian diesel deal derailed ceasefire progress

Czech President Petr Pavel says a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was "quite close" until President Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel, in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

Coordinated US-European sanctions on Russian oil, oligarchs and other industries were putting Russia "under strain," Pavel said. The deal Trump announced earlier this month, in which Russia would supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel to the United States, gave Russia "time to breathe."

"It will be much harder now," Pavel said. According to Pavel, Russia uses this momentum to escape pressure, which provides them a moral boost.

The White House said Trump "successfully negotiated" the deal to supply the global market with "massive amounts of diesel and bring prices down." A bipartisan group of US senators urged Trump to rescind it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the deal "plays into Russia's hands" and accused Trump of using peace talks as a "smokescreen" while pursuing the arrangement. Zelenskyy said it allows Russia "to kill more, wage war for longer."

Pavel stopped short of calling the move a betrayal. He said he could not yet call it "betrayal, but I would call it a mistake," warning that Russia now has "new hope" to disregard Europe and Ukraine and focus on a bilateral deal with the United States.