Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on 10 October that Russia would begin easing its diesel export restrictions early, with the home market "fully supplied"1. He outlined planned exports of 300,000 tonnes in October, up to 500,000 in November and up to 1 million in December, then up to 3 million tonnes a month.
The government's official information portal reported on 11 October that a partial easing took effect on 10 October, allowing 500,000 tonnes at that stage.
Eleven days earlier the government had done the opposite. On 29 September it rolled the ban on diesel exports by producers on to 31 October, citing a stable domestic fuel market and the autumn harvest2. That roll-over followed an August extension to the end of September, and Novak himself had ordered a study in July into cutting the mandatory domestic exchange-sale quota for diesel.
Putin said in late September, Interfax reported, that diesel would not return to world markets while Western sanctions stood. Within a fortnight Moscow had partially eased the ban, in effect supplying its half of the 9 October Trump-Putin call. Trump's own account on Truth Social, as paraphrased by Reuters, set out the same monthly steps and tied the top volume to the state of Russian refineries3. That condition hands the schedule to the plants Ukraine's drones have spent the year hitting.
