Trump thanks Putin as a diesel deal undoes his own Russia sanctions
Ramy Inocencio's report moves from the waiver to a night of strikes on Ukraine, a throttled Starlink service and a smiling, almost wordless answer from Zelenskyy.
CBS Evening News
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 297,985 views a day, 38 times a normal first day on this channel (7,779).
Ukraine hit with more strikes hours after Trump blocks his own Russia sanctions
A short clip from the CBS weekend broadcast usually collects a few thousand views on its first day. Ramy Inocencio's two-minute report on the Russia sanctions drew about 300,000, and its comment section filled up far faster than usual.
The subject is a reversal. President Trump has waived virtually all of the new sanctions on Russia that he signed only last month, a decision that drew criticism from both parties. Reporting from London, Inocencio says Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the waiver helpful only to Russia. Within hours, more than 320 Russian drones and missiles struck across Ukraine, raising the threat of blackouts as winter approaches. Inocencio also reports that Elon Musk's Starlink service was throttled in Ukraine, hampering communications and air defense.
At the center of it is diesel. In a clip outside the White House, Trump describes an energy deal that lets millions of tons of Russian diesel into American and world markets ahead of the midterms: "And I want to thank President Putin to be honest with you." He blames high diesel prices on Ukrainian strikes against Russian refineries. Asked whether he is being made a scapegoat, Zelenskyy smiles and says, "This is my answer."
Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Giorgia Meloni appear calling the deal inappropriate and pointing to other causes of fuel prices. Vladimir Putin, in military fatigues, is shown at an undisclosed post discussing a security zone stretching more than 400 miles inside Ukraine. The report closes with Ukraine still negotiating with Washington while Moscow talks of joint projects with the United States.
The comments mostly argue over what the waiver says about Washington's ties to Moscow and what it means for the midterms. For the channel, it is the next chapter of a thread it has followed for a week: a Kharkiv power plant struck hours after Trump's energy ceasefire, as we reported here.
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- Channel
- CBS Evening News
- Subscribers
- 2,420,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 7,085,241
- Channel views, pace per day
- 829,443 (on a normal day: 1,002,129)
- Video published
- October 18, 2026
- Video views so far
- 317,780 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 307,717
The numbers
A weekend news clip that started far beyond this channel's usual pace, with the comment section moving even faster than the views.
💡 Test your knowledge
From which city does Ramy Inocencio file this CBS report on the sanctions waiver?
The report identifies Inocencio as reporting from London, where he describes the reactions from Kyiv and European capitals.