The first is expected in New York in two days: Moscow denies any change of route and assures that tankers carrying Russian fuel are still heading towards the United States

Tankers loaded with Russian fuel for the American market are still heading to the United States, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev assured Thursday, denying a change of route for two out of three ships mentioned by the Financial Times and maritime monitoring data. "False. Tankers destined for the United States continue their journey," he wrote on X in reaction to an article in the British daily according to which two tankers stopped listing the East Coast of the United States as their destination.

According to the newspaper, one of them, the Leruo, flying the Sierra Leonean flag and under British, European and Canadian sanctions, now lists Brazil as its destination. Another, the Talisman, a 20-year-old Russian tanker under American, British and European sanctions, is heading towards the Mediterranean Sea. A third, the Agioi Fanendes, is still heading towards the United States, according to this media.

Asked about these press reports on Thursday, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, hit the ground running by explaining that these were “commercial expeditions, the details of which cannot be made public”. “All diesel will find its buyers,” he added. Several hundred thousand barrels of diesel According to data from the maritime monitoring site MarineTraffic consulted Thursday afternoon, the Talisman, which left the Russian port of Primorsk on October 20 and was initially due to dock in the United States, is currently sailing off the Tunisian coast.

Initially scheduled to arrive in the United States on November 9, this ship, carrying some 324,000 barrels of diesel, no longer has a final destination, according to maritime tracking data from the company Kpler. The Leruo, carrying some 300.

000 barrels of diesel, is heading towards Brazil according to Kpler. The Agioi Fanendes is expected on November 7 in New York, according to this tracking site. Moscow announced on October 27 that three tankers carrying Russian fuel were heading to the United States, after an agreement with Washington which sparked strong rejection in Ukraine and Europe.

Donald Trump reached an agreement last month with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin aimed at easing sanctions against Moscow in exchange for putting Russian diesel on the global market. This measure was taken to lower fuel prices for American consumers before the mid-term legislative elections on November 3, which were largely lost by the Republican camp.

Machine-translated from French