The White House has told Ukraine to knock off attacking Russian oil refineries for fear that the attacks may raise the price of oil and that Russia may retaliate by damaging oil and gas infrastructure needed by the West.
The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
The repeated warnings from Washington were delivered to senior officials at Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, and its military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR, the people told the Financial Times.
Both intelligence units have steadily expanded their own drone programmes to strike Russian targets on land, sea and in the air since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
One person said that the White House had grown increasingly frustrated by brazen Ukrainian drone attacks that have struck oil refineries, terminals, depots and storage facilities across western Russia, hurting its oil production capacity.
They are also worried about the effect of higher oil prices on Joe Biden's struggling presidential bid.
So far this year, the Ukrainians have hit 13 major refineries and two smaller plants, with between 480,000 and 900,000 barrels a day. This is about 10 percent of Russia's refining capacity, but most of Russia's refineries operate at about 80 percent of capacity, so the decrease will probably be closer to 5 percent.
Keep in mind that 13 is a flexible number. Over the weekend, Ukrainian drones hit the Kuybyshev oil refinery in Samara Oblast, Russia, about 550 miles from the front lines. You'll note that the drone carrying a 110-lb warhead struck a distillation tower. This is a critical hit because it stops production, and all the tower's components are bought from Western countries.
Given that the oil refinery strikes are the best strategic tool the Ukrainians have for forcing an end to the war, one has to wonder why the White House wants them to stop, given that the reasons are so patently bogus.
Russia primarily exports oil. The refineries use oil to create other products for domestic use, and the value of these exports has declined substantially. If Russia had no refineries, it would be like Venezuela, Iraq, and much of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, exporting oil and importing refined products. If the White House is worried:
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.
They should be cheering on Ukraine. Destroying refineries makes more oil available for export. But they aren't. Russia has announced it is cutting oil production. The White House should be cheering on the Ukrainians if their concern is rising oil prices.
The concern about Russian "retaliation" is also cute. The White House should use this war as a way to decouple some of our weak-kneed NATO allies (looking at you, Germany and Hungary) from Russia's oil and gas supplies.
From the earliest days of the war, the Biden White House and national security apparatus have been concerned about one thing: giving Russia an "off-ramp." There was a fear among the Foreign Policy SmartSet® that a Russian loss in Ukraine could result in the Russian Federation breaking up and that the next ruler "might" be worse.
Early in the war, Poland came up with the idea of transferring the Russian aircraft still used by several Eastern European NATO allies to Ukraine. The Biden White House stepped in and stopped it.
Blinken Put Poland Outside NATO Protection if It Transfers Fighter Aircraft to Ukraine?
Transfer of NATO Aircraft to Ukraine Falls Through as Zelensky Asks for a No-Fly Zone
Biden Junta Duplicity Revealed After Poland Declares MiGs for Ukraine Are Ready to Go
The Biden White House has had the opportunity to deliver hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition and thousands of ATACMS missiles scheduled for demilitarization to Ukraine and sat on its hands.
Biden White House Poised to Send ATACMS Tactical Ballistic Missile to Ukraine
US Releases Cluster Munitions to Ukraine in Stopgap Effort to Aid Ukraine's Offensive
The White House has slow-rolled the transfer of F-16 fighters and the training of Ukrainian pilots.
Each of these decisions has one thing in common: they are calculated to minimize Russian losses and stave off a catastrophic loss of territory by the Russian Army.
It is no surprise that a strategic campaign targeting Russia's ability to produce gasoline, diesel, and lubricants for its war machine is upsetting Jake Sullivan and the midwits at the National Security Council. That Biden would prop up Russia and throw Israel under the bus is just about as shocking as George H. W. Bush trying to keep the Soviet Union from imploding. These decisions are made by small men with inflated egos who are desperately afraid to do what is right because the new security paradigm will render their experience useless.