Data center deal hides behind Trump’s Russian diesel plan

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US President Donald Trump attempted to reduce the cost of diesel in the United States by reaching a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for new supplies of the fuel. However, it failed to change prices, and news of the deal has sparked a furious reaction from both sides of the aisle. To compound the damage, another hot-button election issue has now emerged: the rise of data centers, among the deals Trump has been striking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia deal adds fuel to data center dumpster fire

Trump announced his diesel deal with Russia on October 9, shortly after a long phone call with Putin. The news was quickly revealed as a thinly veiled attempt to distract from a waiver Trump also granted to Russia, freeing the country from a new round of sanctions in a bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump himself. Imagine.

The diesel deal also served to distract public attention from other deals with Russia, some of which involve investments in Russian oil assets around the world. Evidently, a collaborative agreement on data centers is also part of the mix, and therein lies a problem for Republican candidates in this year’s elections.

Data centers are nothing new under the sun. They have existed since the 1940s. However, in previous years they were relatively modest facilities concentrated in cities. They were integrated into the urban landscape and took advantage of existing energy, water and transportation networks. Now they have expanded their scale and reached suburban and rural areas as well, demanding more energy and more water, disrupting bucolic landscapes and sparking angry protests in communities across the United States.

The backlash has become so fierce that the rise of AI data centers has become a political race-ending factor during the 2026 midterm election cycle. Much of the ire has fallen on Republican candidates, and it comes at a time when polls show the GOP is on the verge of losing control of the US Congress, and the data center issue is also being fueled by voter concerns about government corruption and the data crisis. affordability.

Into this seething atmosphere enters Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev to drop another data center bomb into the lap of the Republican Party. As Ukrainian state news organization United24 Media reported, Dmitriev told attendees at an energy event in Moscow on October 16 that the United States and Russia will soon announce a deal on data center infrastructure.

The source of the United24 story was the Russian news agency Interfax. In April, Interfax reported that Dmitriev was indeed in the United States, holding the title of “Special Presidential Representative of Russia for Investments and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries.”

On October 14, Interfax again noted that “Russia and the United States are discussing other areas of economic cooperation” in addition to the ill-fated diesel deal.

“Dmitriev noted that the scope of discussions between the two countries covers a broad portfolio of initiatives,” Interfax reported, adding that Dmitriev expects to announce “several other important initiatives in the near future” based on the perceived success of the diesel deal.

“According to the Kremlin envoy, a concrete list of projects has already been drawn up, and several Russian companies are actively involved in the preliminary stages,” Interfax also reported.

It’s the data centers, stupid

Dmitriev did not give a date to announce the upcoming data center collaboration, but don’t be surprised if Trump takes the opportunity to boast about the deal before Election Day 2026, which is just around the corner on Tuesday, November 3.

If you do, take out the popcorn. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Trump views himself as the propellant by which Republican candidates can propel themselves into office on November 3. At this point, though, most Republican candidates wish he would just shut up and go away. Trump, however, has spent considerable energy pontificating about the benefits of data centers, turning up the volume to 11 on the dial during a widely circulated interview with Time magazine on Sept. 28, shortly before the early voting period began in some states.

During the interview, Time reminded the president that 71% of Americans oppose building data centers and 57% say AI will do more harm than good. However, Trump avoided the topic of community impact and redoubled his support:

“Data centers… make a fortune. They’re going to reduce your taxes,” the President said, adding, “I’d like to have data centers. It doesn’t mean I want them right next to my house, but I certainly like them in my county. They show a data center, and I go up right next to some guy’s house, and I wouldn’t necessarily like that. Although his house is probably a hell of a lot more valuable.”

In what appears to be a harbinger of his collaboration with Russia on data center infrastructure, Trump also indicated during the interview that he is envious of the deals other countries have struck with U.S. data center stakeholders. Citing Google’s recent deal with Finland as an example, Trump emphasized that data centers make money. “[If] “If you want to be poor, you don’t want to have money, if you don’t want to have a job and if you want to live in an area infested with crime, squalor and all the things that come with that, you shouldn’t have a data center,” he said.

“If we don’t build them, they will be built somewhere else,” he emphasized again for good measure.

It’s also the environment!

Maybe Trump should have laid down a sleeping dog. Google’s project in Finland consists of two data centers. They are part of an investment of 13,000 million euros in Finland announced in September, described by Reuters as the company’s “largest single investment in Europe” to date. However, the work went on hiatus just two weeks after Trump attended the Time interview.

“Finnish authorities have ordered work to stop at two sites planned for Google’s data center due to concerns about the clearing of more than 300 hectares of forest,” Reuters reported on October 12. Substantial work was carried out at one of the two sites despite the absence of a mandatory environmental review.

A similar scenario is playing out here in the United States, where data center projects have been halted or suspended, while others have become political headaches for their supporters.

In New Jersey, for example, Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew is running for reelection as he fends off criticism over his support for the hotly contested DataOne data center in the city of Vineland. His Democratic opponent, Bayley Winder, has not missed the opportunity.

“If the Vineland Data Center isn’t the perfect example of how large corporations manipulate the system to their advantage over our residents, I don’t know what is.” Winder wrote in an op-ed published last March.

“Congressman Van Drew defended this data center while taking money from the CEO of one of the non-union construction companies involved,” Winder continued.

So far, DataOne has received two stop-work orders from the city of Vineland, which the developer reportedly ignored. In September, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection also fined the developer for operating 62 natural gas generators on the site without required permits.

What is this Nebius you speak of?

In an interesting twist, DataOne’s facilities are under the umbrella of Nebius Group, a Dutch company that describes itself as an “AI cloud company.”

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe Yandex does. Yandex is the Russian company that owns a trio of data centers bombed by Ukraine on October 8 and 9. Yandex is also the former name of the Nebius Group. After Russia launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine in 2022, Yandex Group, the Dutch company, was among the global corporations that sold their stakes in Russia. An investment group took over the data centers in Russia under the name Yandex and the Dutch company changed its name to Nebius.

“As announced in November, the board of directors of Yandex’s Dutch parent company has initiated a restructuring process. We are advancing plans for the divestment of ownership and control of several of our core businesses, including all businesses based in Russia, and have received proposals from several potential investors,” Yandex NV announced in 2023.

“The Board also intends to allow international divisions of certain services (autonomous driving, cloud computing, data labeling and educational technology) to develop independently of Russian-based companies,” Yandex NV added.

Apparently that includes DataOne facilities. In September 2025, CNBC reported that Nebius shares rose after the company announced a five-year, $17.4 billion deal to connect Microsoft to its Vineland data center. Microsoft also has an option for another $2 billion in services.

Meanwhile, whatever deal Trump makes with Putin, Ukraine is fighting for its existence. In a calculated act of defiance against both dictators, Ukrainian drones over the weekend attacked targets in St. Petersburg, including a data center supporting the Russian social media platform VK. An oil terminal and related bridge were also attacked, along with a logistics center owned by Russian e-commerce company Ozon.

“The attack comes after US President Donald Trump’s attempt at an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine failed to prevent attacks on energy infrastructure,” The Kyiv Independed added somewhat dryly.

Photo: The data centers have emerged as part of the plan for a new era of collaboration between the United States and Russia under an agreement drawn up between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin (the data center’s cooling system has been cut, courtesy of the US Department of Energy).