# U.S. official: Trump wants proposal ‘good enough’ for Putin as refinery strikes strain Ukraine ties

*Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 2:07 AM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Published**: 2026-10-10T02:07:24.782Z (2h ago)
**Category**: geopolitics | **Region**: Eastern Europe
**Importance**: 9/10
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/articles/20128.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

---

**Deck**: A U.S. official tells Axios that Donald Trump believes Vladimir Putin is “open to a discussion on ending the war” and wants a proposal “good enough for him” to stop. The same official says Zelensky’s strikes on Russian oil refineries are weakening his standing with Trump by pushing up U.S. fuel prices.

A U.S. official has described a Ukraine peace approach built around what Vladimir Putin would accept, while warning that Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries are damaging President Volodymyr Zelensky’s relationship with Donald Trump.

Speaking to Axios, the official said that “Putin is hitting [Ukraine] hard,” but that Washington thinks he “is open to a discussion on ending the war.” The goal, according to this account, is to “work on a new proposal that will be good enough for him in order to get him to stop.”

The same official linked that effort directly to energy and price politics. Trump reached a diesel fuel deal with Putin after Zelensky ignored at least six U.S. requests to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, the official told Axios. Trump wanted Ukraine to halt those strikes because they were driving up U.S. fuel prices.

Ukraine has been using long‑range drones against Russian oil infrastructure. Zelenskyy confirmed strikes on two Russian oil refineries and said upgraded drones were used. Separately, a large fire broke out at the Novoshakhtinsk oil terminal in Russia’s Rostov region after Ukrainian drone attacks.

According to the U.S. official, Zelensky had offered to stop hitting refineries if Russia ended its attacks on Ukrainian power plants. Trump rejected that linkage. The official said that by continuing refinery strikes, Zelensky was “misreading the room.” In the official’s words, he was eroding the good will he had built with Trump over the last six months.

The official argued that the refinery attacks “cause pain in Russia, but it causes pain for the U.S., too,” by contributing to higher fuel prices. That framing ties Ukrainian targeting decisions to U.S. domestic economic concerns and to Trump’s stated desire to cut fuel costs through a diesel deal with Russia.

On the Russian side, the official’s comments portray Putin as both intensifying his assault on Ukraine and potentially receptive to talks if he is presented with terms he finds acceptable. The idea of a proposal “good enough for him” suggests a negotiation calibrated to Putin’s bottom line, though the Axios account does not spell out what that would include.

How Ukraine adjusts its strike patterns against Russian refineries, how Russia handles its attacks on Ukrainian power plants, and whether any concrete ceasefire or settlement terms emerge around the U.S. proposal described to Axios will show whether this oil‑linked diplomatic track gains traction.