The Kremlin says a first tanker of Russian diesel sets sail for the US despite Ukraine's protests

A first tanker carrying Russian diesel to the United States under a new import agreement has set sail, the Kremlin said Friday, two weeks after President Donald Trump said he struck a deal with President Vladimir Putin despite Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

“The first oil tanker has sailed off to customers, and regular supplies will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said without elaborating.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said earlier this week that the first shipment would amount to 40,000 tons of diesel, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Marine intelligence firm Kpler said the vessel was signaling it was headed to New York to arrive Nov. 7 and would be the first Russian diesel delivery to the United States since July 2023.

The abrupt reversal of U.S. sanctions policy on Russia over its invasion of its neighbor was seen as an attempt by Trump to address high fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections.

The diesel shipment of 40,000 tons amounts to around 300,000 barrels, or about 7% of the roughly 4 million barrels of diesel the U.S. economy consumes in a single day.

The import agreement, which Trump says foresees millions more tons of Russian diesel reaching the U.S. in coming months, is unlikely to make a dent in painfully high prices at the pump or elsewhere, energy policy experts say.

Russia’s diesel production has come under strain from repeated Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on its oil refineries. The attacks caused fuel shortages, which now have eased. Trump last month asked Kyiv to stop the attacks.

The U.S. diesel decision caused alarm and dismay in Ukraine, which has pleaded with foreign countries to tighten sanctions on Moscow and deny it revenue for its invasion launched in February 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Trump’s decision “a weak decision by strong partners.”

The diesel agreement was a sudden policy reversal, coming just weeks after Trump signed into law a sweeping sanctions package that directed him to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas. He later put the measures on hold.

The development is the latest twist in the at times volatile relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy, which in recent weeks has reached a new low.

Zelenskyy said he spoke Friday with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, after they consulted with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. They also spoke with the Ukrainian leader earlier this week in Norway.

Kyiv is keen to add momentum to peace efforts in a planned three-way meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the United States that may take place next month at a venue to be decided, Zelenskyy said in comments via video link to the Hudson Institute research organization in Washington.

"We need diplomacy to move forward,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine's pressing issues are protecting its power grid from Russian attacks ahead of winter, getting more U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors to counter Russia's ballistic missiles, and finding more financial support from foreign countries, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine is still experiencing Starlink and Starshield speed limits that are choking its drone operations, Zelenskyy said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the service would be fully restored within 72 hours, according to the Ukrainian leader.

Meanwhile, Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said Friday afternoon that all four Moscow airports — Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky — stopped flights arriving and departing for security reasons. The disruption continued through the afternoon.

At Sheremetyevo airport, passengers were told to take shelter, Russian news agency Interfax reported. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that air defenses downed 21 Ukrainian drones targeting the Russian capital.

Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war for the first time since August.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said each side released 270 prisoners. Ukraine said 270 of its soldiers and civilians were freed, most of them held in captivity since 2022.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

People pass by a fragment of a Russian jet drone after a Russian air attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Rescuers work on the roof of the damaged building following Russia's air attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

In this image taken from video provided by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Russian servicemen sit in a bus after returning from captivity during a POW exchange between Russia and Ukraine, in Belarus, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answers media questions before his meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former FBI intelligence officials who specialized in foreign election interference were charged on Friday with making false statements to Congress about their roles in investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides surrendered Friday and made their first appearance in federal court in Washington, where their lawyers pressed for a speedy hearing at which they could contest the allegations against them.

The Department of Justice says Floris and Benavides lied to Congress in 2023 about the involvement of a specialized foreign-influence task force in investigations into Biden as well as their knowledge of the laptop.

Floris' attorneys called her “a patriot” and said she has “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.”

"Yet today, the DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts," her attorneys said in a statement. “It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”

The case was filed 10 days before the Nov. 3 elections and marks the latest in a series of splashy and politically charged investigative actions the Department of Justice has undertaken in the run-up to the midterm contests.

The prosecution, a rare Department of Justice criminal case against a former employee, revisits a tangled and peculiar saga that roiled the final weeks of the 2020 race. It also comes amid a broader, backward-looking effort by FBI Director Kash Patel, who before taking over the nation’s premier law enforcement agency was a harsh critic of it, to scrutinize high-profile episodes from the bureau’s recent past that for years have animated President Donald Trump’s conservative base.

“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said in a statement posted on X.

The revelation of the laptop’s existence in October 2020 injected a thorny storyline in the race between Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Hunter Biden's father, Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic challenger, who went on to win the race.

The laptop’s contents were publicized by the New York Post, which said it had obtained from Trump ally Rudy Giuliani a hard drive of a computer dropped off by Hunter Biden at a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop. The laptop contained emails that appeared to show discussions of the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings.

The peculiar circumstances of the laptop’s discovery raised concerns among Democrats and former intelligence officials about the possibility of Russian disinformation, particularly when the Trump administration’s own intelligence community was assessing that Russia was attempting to interfere on Trump’s behalf in the election and as Giuliani had traveled abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens.

Hunter Biden was subsequently charged with, and convicted of, gun and tax offenses during his father’s administration. Joe Biden pardoned him in his final weeks in office.

The Justice Department historically looks to avoid public and overt investigative acts in the direct lead-up to an election that involve candidates or that risk influencing an outcome. But officials in the last two weeks have made a series of bold moves in cases with political undertones, including a search of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house in an immigration fraud investigation and a corruption indictment unsealed Thursday against powerful Democratic Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas.

Floris and Benavides, two experienced intelligence officials, led the FBI's since-disbanded Foreign Intelligence Task Force, or FITF, when the laptop was discovered. They are accused by the Justice Department of making false statements in Congress in 2023 by saying that the FITF was not involved in investigations related to Hunter Biden when contemporaneous messages proved otherwise, according to a criminal complaint filed against them.

The case brings renewed attention to the work of the task force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation. The task force became a magnet of congressional Republican criticism during the Biden investigation and was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in one of her first acts on the job.

FILE - Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI Nikki Floris, testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - An FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the field office in Portland, Ore., Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)