Russian envoy says diesel deal with US to take effect Friday
- Moscow ready to supply diesel to Europe as well if relevant requests are made, says special envoy Kirill Dmitriev
By Elena Teslova
MOSCOW (AA) - A deal between Russia and the US on Russian diesel supplies will be effective from Friday, Russia's special envoy said Thursday.
Speaking in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum, Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, said Russia was also open to diesel supply deals with European nations if requests were made.
“We all know about the diesel deal, it will begin to be implemented literally tomorrow,” he said.
The official added that Moscow and Washington were discussing potential Russian fertilizer supplies to the US market, other energy projects and technological cooperation, including the possible creation of joint artificial intelligence data centers.
Dmitriev said economic cooperation between Russia and the US would continue to expand despite opposition from some European officials, adding that European countries themselves purchased significantly more Russian energy resources than the US.
- Europe's fuel crisis to 'intensify'
He also predicted that Europe’s fuel crisis would worsen, attributing it to attempts to abandon Russian energy supplies.
“We see a fuel crisis in Europe, and it will only intensify,” he said.
“I have no doubt that the more deals we have with the US, the more European companies will want to join. They will not want to be left out,” he said.
Dmitriev also said European businesses were suffering from high energy prices as a result of the EU’s policies and the shift away from Russian energy supplies.
According to him, European business representatives had approached the Russian delegation at the forum to express support for maintaining dialogue with Moscow.
The Russian envoy also predicted that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines would eventually resume operations.
“There is absolutely no doubt that Nord Stream 1 and 2 will operate again at some point. It is inevitable,” he said.
Nord Stream 1 and 2 were designed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea.
Nord Stream 1 operated from 2011, while Nord Stream 2 was completed in 2021 but never entered service.
Explosions damaged three of the four pipeline lines in September 2022. Germany’s investigation into the sabotage remains ongoing, with a Ukrainian national suspected of coordinating the attack arrested in 2025.