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

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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.”

Trump says Ukraine and Russia agreed to stop targeting energy sites, but Kyiv calls it a ‘proposal for a mutual halt’

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?

安娜·莫尼梅克/盖蒂图片社

面对创纪录的柴油价格，距离中期选举仅剩不到两个月，唐纳德·特朗普再次祭出了他那场动荡且徒劳的结束乌克兰战争行动中的惯用伎俩：指责受害者。对乌克兰而言，他选择的时机再糟糕不过了；而对俄罗斯来说，这却再有利不过了。

“泽连斯基先生必须做一件事：他必须停止在俄罗斯切断柴油供应，”美国总统周日对记者说，他指的是乌克兰总统泽连斯基。“这正在损害全世界的利益。”

特朗普的态度充其量是前后矛盾的。不到一年前，有消息人士告诉 CNN，美国加强了与乌克兰的情报共享，以便打击俄罗斯的能源设施（当时油价很低）；而仅仅一周前，他还声称伊朗战争结束后汽油价格将会下降（却只字未提乌克兰战争）。

分析人士指出，认为如果乌克兰停止袭击俄罗斯炼油厂，价格问题就能得到解决的说法也是不正确的。总部位于德克萨斯州的利波石油咨询公司（Lipow Oil Associates）的安迪·利波估计，俄罗斯为回应乌克兰的袭击而禁止出口柴油的决定，导致每天有80万桶柴油退出市场。与此同时，霍尔木兹海峡的关闭也影响了每天120万桶的柴油供应。

往最坏了说，这又是基辅的一次背叛。基辅防空能力严重不足，如今只能孤注一掷，打出仅剩的几张牌之一——打击俄罗斯本土的军事机器及其能源供应。更令人痛心的是，在俄罗斯无人机和导弹袭击几乎持续不断的背景下，以及莫斯科公开计划将冬季武器化的背景下，这种背叛显得尤为令人愤慨。

周一，特朗​​普在“真相社交”（Truth Social）节目中声称，俄罗斯和乌克兰已同意停止对对方能源设施的攻击（剧透：他们并没有）。克里姆林宫随后的回应堪称歪曲事实的教科书式表演，他们竭尽全力地从中榨取了公关利益。

首先，简单来说，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫发表了一番可能旨在安抚特朗普的评论，称该提议“非常好”，并补充说：“我们正在与美方联系。”他还抛出了惯用的谎言，试图抹黑乌克兰：“我们始终支持和平解决。”

接下来，需要采取更微妙的策略：如何在不暴露炼油厂袭击对俄罗斯实际上并没有那么糟糕这一事实的情况下，继续将乌克兰描绘成侵略者。

佩斯科夫声称：“虽然这样的停火协议能让我们充分满足国内市场需求……但目前国内市场已接近饱和。问题不在于产量，而在于确保这些石油产品能够畅通无阻地进入全球市场。” 这让他得以将话题从炼油厂转移到近期乌克兰对俄罗斯油轮袭击事件激增上。而俄罗斯对商船和乌克兰港口的袭击则只字未提。

佩斯科夫最后说道：“当然，第二个必要步骤是解除制裁。只有这样，世界才能获得充足的石油产品供应。”

特朗普称乌克兰和俄罗斯已同意停止袭击能源设施，但基辅方面称之为“相互停止袭击的提议”。

克里姆林宫或许看到了机会。今年早些时候，由于伊朗战争威胁到石油供应，美国暂时解除了对俄罗斯的部分制裁。这或许也是为了避免出现相反的结果。本周，特朗普政府以俄罗斯一家大型银行与伊朗的关系为由，对其实施了制裁。与此同时，美国众议院也即将就一项由参议员林赛·格雷厄姆（Lindsey Graham）共同起草的全面俄罗斯制裁法案进行投票表决，格雷厄姆于今年7月去世。

对泽连斯基来说，这无疑是晴天霹雳。就在一周多前，特朗普的外交政策特使们在基辅市中心与他拥抱，闪光灯此起彼伏，这是他们期待已久的首次乌克兰之行，曾一度让人燃起外交新动力的希望。然而，种种迹象早已显露端倪。他们首先去了俄罗斯。特朗普随后致电普京，却没有联系泽连斯基。尽管“爱国者”导弹拦截系统的供应仍在考虑之中，但特朗普本周表示，他们正在考虑为基辅提供“一种技术含量较低的版本”。

即使撇开特朗普对普京明显的个人偏爱以及他将柴油价格上涨归咎于乌克兰这一决定中存在的诸多事实矛盾，我们最终还是会回到这场冲突从一开始就围绕的核心问题：如何在不牵连自身的情况下惩罚俄罗斯这个具有重要系统性意义的石油生产国？而一旦油价上涨，任何惩罚俄罗斯的决心是否会烟消云散？