Why Trump’s diesel woes are playing right into Moscow’s hands

Faced with record diesel prices and less than two months to go until the midterm elections, Donald Trump has reverted to a default setting in his turbulent and abortive campaign to end the Ukraine war: blaming the victim. His timing could not be worse for Ukraine, or more beneficial to Russia. “Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing: He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” the US president told reporters Sunday, referring to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. “It’s hurting the world.” Trump’s attitude is at best inconsistent, coming less than a year after sources told CNN the US had increased intelligence-sharing with Ukraine so it could hit Russian energy sites (back when oil prices were low), and barely a week after he claimed gas prices would come down when the Iran war ends (without mentioning the Ukraine war). It’s also incorrect, according to analysts, to claim that if Ukraine stopped attacking Russian refineries, the price problem would be solved. Andy Lipow, from Texas-based Lipow Oil Associates, estimates that Russia’s decision to ban exports in response to Ukrainian attacks has taken 800,000 barrels per day of diesel off the market. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, has affected 1.2 million barrels a day. At worst, this is another betrayal of Kyiv, which, faced with a critical lack of air defenses, is playing one of the few cards it has left — hitting Russia’s military machine and the energy resources that power it on Russian soil. The betrayal is all the more painful, coming amid almost constant Russian drone and missile attacks and ahead of a winter that Moscow openly plans to weaponize. On Monday, Trump claimed on Truth Social that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt attacks on each other’s energy sites (spoiler: they hadn’t). What followed in the Kremlin’s response was a master class in truth-twisting, as it extracted every last drop of PR gold. First, simple tactics. In a comment likely designed to placate Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the proposal “a very good idea,” adding: “We are in contact with the American side.” He also offered up the usual fiction designed to make Ukraine look bad: “We always favor peaceful solutions.” Then, a more delicate maneuver: how to continue painting Ukraine as the aggressor without letting slip the facade that the refinery strikes are not actually that bad for Russia. “While such a truce would allow us to fully saturate our domestic market… it is currently nearing full saturation,” Peskov claimed. “The issue is not production; it is about ensuring unhindered access for these petroleum products to global markets.” That allowed him to deflect from refineries to a recent surge in Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil tankers. No mention of Russia’s attacks on commercial shipping and Ukrainian ports. And then the final salvo from Peskov: “The second necessary step is, of course, to lift the sanctions. Only then will the world be adequately supplied with these petroleum products.” The Kremlin may see an opening here. The US temporarily lifted some sanctions on Russia earlier this year as the Iran war threatened oil supplies. It could also be an attempt to avert the opposite outcome. This week, the Trump administration slapped sanctions on one of Russia’s biggest banks over its ties to Iran, at the same time as the US House moved closer to a vote on a sweeping Russian sanctions bill co-authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham before his death in July. For Zelensky, this must feel like whiplash. It was just over a week ago that Trump’s foreign policy envoys hugged him, cameras flashing, in the middle of Kyiv on their long-promised first trip to Ukraine, offering up hope of new momentum for diplomacy. The warning signs were there. They had gone to Russia first. Trump followed up with a call to Putin, but not Zelensky. And while Patriot interceptor supplies are still on the table, Trump remarked this week they were considering “a less sophisticated version” for Kyiv. Even if you strip out Trump’s apparent personal preference for Putin and the factual inconsistencies in his decision to blame Ukraine for diesel prices, we’re back to the central debate that has shaped this conflict from the start. How to punish Russia, a systemically important oil producer, without punishing yourself in the process? And will any resolve to do so go out the window when oil prices rise?