Thirteen hours of diesel: Mark Stone weighs Trump's Russian fuel deal
Sky's Washington correspondent sets the size of the shipment against American demand, while Zelenskyy and the Kremlin answer from opposite sides.
Sky News
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 728,715 views a day, 30 times a normal first day on this channel (24,187).
Shock as Trump announces deal that will see Russia supply the US with diesel
"There are times when doing this job you truly feel like you've gone through the looking glass," Mark Stone told the studio, live from Washington, before reading out the post that prompted the remark. In it, Donald Trump said he had just concluded "a highly successful discussion" with Vladimir Putin, who had agreed to supply the United States "immediately" with 300,000 tons of diesel, with millions more tons to follow.
Stone then did the arithmetic. That first shipment, he said, "would satisfy about 13 to 14 hours worth of total US demand." His reading of the motive is the one in the video's description: diesel prices are soaring in the US, and the midterm elections are next month. As we reported here, Sky's Ed Conway had already explained why the fuel matters so much to this president. Now there is an actual deal to talk about.
The segment collects the reactions as they arrive. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's response comes up on screen as breaking news, "Peace never comes through weakness," with his warning that Russia will repay the diesel with further terror. The Kremlin's own statement predicts a positive impact on the whole global economy, a claim Stone calls tiny in practical terms. He closes by recalling Trump's demand, only a year earlier, that Europe stop buying Russian energy altogether. He also notes that Ukrainian officials are in Florida meeting Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
That contrast with Europe is what fills the comments, along with India, which many viewers bring up over its own purchases of Russian oil. The report passed 330,000 views in its first seven hours, on a day when the rest of the channel was running quieter than usual.
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- Channel
- Sky News
- Subscribers
- 9,380,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 14,875,572
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,432,157 (on a normal day: 2,416,937)
- Video published
- October 9, 2026
- Video views so far
- 328,134 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 728,715
The numbers
One breaking-news segment far outpaced Sky News' usual start for a regular video, even as the channel's overall day ran below normal.
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