The Financial Times reported on Friday:
“The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warming that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions. …
Washington is also concerned that if Ukraine keeps hitting Russian facilities, including many that are hundreds of miles from the border, Russia could retaliate by lashing out at infrastructure relied on by the west. …
The US objections come as Biden faces a tough re-election battle this year with petrol prices on the rise, increasing almost 15 per cent this year to around $3.50 a gallon.”1
This is appalling. Russia is bombing Kyiv and Ukraine’s energy system, and Ukraine is supposed to stop attacking’s Russia’s oil refineries because Russia might retaliate? What more could Russia attack? Are there more Ukrainian power plants to try to destroy? Are there more civilians to bomb?
But then I realized that the retaliation the United States is worrying about isn’t Russian attacks on Ukraine. It’s Russian attacks on infrastructure that delivers energy to the West. Because that might increase oil prices – and gasoline prices – in the United States during the campaign. And that could hurt President Biden’s chances of getting re-elected in November. Which is way more important than what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
Of course, we have no idea what Donald Trump might do with respect to Ukraine if he were President. He could easily be as bad, if not worse.
And so, we are left, in November, with a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. It’s the advantage of living in Illinois.
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1 Christoper Miller, Ben Hall, Felicia Schwartz, and Myles McCormick, “US urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries,” Financial Times, March 22, 2024.
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