Three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, President Trump has sought to place most of the blame for record-high diesel fuel prices and at least $4 a gallon at the pump for American consumers on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for retaliating against escalating Russian missile attacks on Ukraine by launching precision drone attacks targeting vulnerable oil refineries across Russia. Reducing Russia’s ability to export gasoline and diesel fuel has eliminated a major source of international income that Putin had been using to finance Russia’s war budget. The Ukrainian drone attacks have not only created serious problems for Russian civilians seeking gas for their cars, but also for many countries that have long relied upon exports of Russian diesel fuel to power the trucks, trains, agricultural equipment and cargo ships which are vital to their internal commerce and economies.

Ukraine’s elimination of Russian diesel oil exports in recent months is combined with Iran’s disruption of shipments of Persian Gulf crude oil and refined petroleum products through the Strait of Hormuz, and from the Red Sea due to the Houthi war against Saudi Arabia. Together, they have created an ongoing global energy shortage and stubbornly high energy prices with no end in sight.

This is especially problematic and politically dangerous for President Donald Trump and the Republican candidates who support him running in the upcoming November 3rd midterm elections. Bringing down the cost of energy and promoting America’s energy independence was one of Trump’s key campaign promises to voters in the 2024 presidential campaign. Many of the working-class voters who supported Trump now say they believe that by starting a war against Iran, regardless of his justification for it, he has broken that promise to them.

Gas prices at the pump were even higher during the Biden administration than they are now because of Biden’s undeclared war against the American fossil fuel industry. However, voters are painfully aware that the cost of gas at the pump was more than $1 a gallon cheaper one year ago, before Trump started the war against Iran, than it is today, straining the budgets of most of Trump’s voter base, made up primarily of traditional and working-class American households.

Trump Missed His Best Opportunity To Beat Iran Earlier This Year

Trump had an opportunity to finish off the radical Islamic regime running Iran by allowing the combined forces and the Israeli military to complete Iran’s destruction, forcing its remaining leaders to capitulate to Trump’s demands. But instead, he succumbed to Iranian’s negotiating tactics by agreeing to a ceasefire. Instead of peace, the ceasefire only gave the new, even more radical Islamic leaders of Iran enough time to recover from the shock of the initial attacks sufficiently to make the global economy a hostage to energy blackmail by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

The suspension of most energy shipments from the Persian Gulf combined with Ukraine’s successful retaliatory drone attacks on Russian oil refineries led to record-high prices for diesel fuel. It is now, on average, more than $6 a gallon in the U.S., almost double the cost from a year ago. The high price of diesel fuel has also become a major factor driving up the cost of nearly everything that American consumers buy that has to be delivered to local stores or homes by diesel truck, ranging from groceries to household goods.

American voters in recent polls have consistently named the continued increase in the cost of living as a major concern, with the increased prices of gas at the pump, as well as food at the supermarket and other essentials, as a constant reminder. It is also the main reason why Democrats candidates, based upon the most recent polls, are increasingly confident of winning back majority control over both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate during the midterm. If that happens, the Democrats have promised to cripple Trump’s ability to govern the country effectively during the last two years of his presidency.

When Trump launched the U.S. air war against Iran on February 28, in conjunction with Israel, he initially predicted that it would last for four to six weeks at most, before the overwhelming attacks would force the remnants of Iran’s decapitated Islamic regime to surrender to Trump’s demands that Iran give up its nuclear weapons program. When Trump launched the war, he believed the assurances that he had received from Pentagon officials that the U.S. arsenal was well-stocked with the precision weapons and air defense missiles it needed to crush Iran, and that the U.S. warships and warplanes deployed to the region would be easily able to foil Iranian attempts to harass Persian Gulf energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

But to his sorrow and growing frustration, Trump has now learned that these assurances were false. Before he started the conflict with Iran, the Persian Gulf oil states were the world’s top exporters of diesel fuel. That ended when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and the additional disruption of the global supply of diesel fuel due to the successful Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries has made that shortage worse. Even with U.S. and other worldwide refineries now running at near 100% of capacity, there is simply not enough global refining capacity now available to meet current demands for diesel fuel.

Why Ukraine Is Bombing Russian Refineries

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, Russian forces have attempted to undermine the morale and quality of life of Ukrainian civilians by repeatedly attacking Ukraine’s vulnerable national electrical grid, especially during the winter months, when electricity is vital to stave off the bitter cold. As another winter approaches, the annual Russian attack on Ukraine’s electrical grid has already reached a new record high level of intensity. But for the first time since the war started four years ago, Ukraine has been able to respond with its own systematic campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure.

In response to Trump’s public complaints about the attacks on the Russian refineries, President Zelensky has defended them as a necessity. He argues that the drone strikes are a response in kind to the renewed Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. They also aim to increase the internal political pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring the war to a negotiated end that would not require unacceptable concessions to Putin’s demands for some Ukrainian territory that is not yet under Russian military control.

Zelensky sharply condemned the deal that Trump announced last Friday to temporarily waive U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel fuel, in the hope of lowering the record high cost of diesel fuel before the midterm elections. Zelensky called the resulting relaxation of the pressure on Russia’s energy-dependent economy a “birthday gift to Putin.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, also slammed Trump’s deal to waive sanctions on exports of Russian diesel fuel for providing Putin with “more revenues to wage war” against Ukraine.

Trump Angrily Suggests Regime Change In Ukraine

Trump’s reaction to Ukraine’s protests against his deal with Putin to resume the export of Russian diesel fuel was to angrily tell reporters that, “Zelensky could have settled this war many times, and he chooses not to. [So] it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

Trump repeated his familiar claim that if he had been president instead of Joe Biden in 2022, he would have been able to convince Putin not to invade Ukraine and “that war would have never started.”

He went on to complain that Zelensky “wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers … because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world.”

Trump said that because Russian refineries provide a “large portion of the diesel fuel used throughout the world. . . we told him [Zelensky], ‘Do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel fuel because there’s a big problem, big shortage.’ And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”

Trump also said that because of the stubbornness of both Putin and Zelensky, their two countries have lost “over 2 million people” since the war started four years ago, with no end to the killing yet in sight.

Trump has previously argued that any serious peace negotiations with Putin must reflect the current reality on the battlefields of Ukraine, which is that Russia is in firm military control of about 20% of Ukraine’s territory. That includes all of the strategically important Crimean Peninsula, which Putin invaded and annexed to Russia in 2014, and most of the eastern industrial region known as the Donbas. It consists of the oblasts [provinces] of Donetsk and Luhansk, in which the majority of the population is Russian-speaking. Over the past two years, it is estimated that since the start of the war, more than a million troops have been killed and wounded, most of them suffered in the Russian army’s “human wave” attacks on the remaining Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbas region.

Why Ukraine Is No Longer Winning Its War Against Russia

In fierce, grinding battles, Ukraine’s superior home-grown drone technology had, until recently, enabled the outnumbered Ukrainian ground forces to hold their defensive positions on that front. But the recent introduction of a new generation of jet-powered Russian drones, which fly too fast and too high to be easily shot down by Ukraine’s existing air defenses, now threatens to change the balance of power and end the bloody stalemate on the Donbas front in Russia’s favor.

Zelensky responded to Trump’s unprecedented call for him to step aside as Ukraine’s president by issuing another direct challenge to the American president. In a televised interview with ABC News, Zelensky said that, “If President Trump really wants to have some changes during the election [season]… please tell Putin [to] give us two months, 60 days of a total ceasefire… and we will organize elections [in Ukraine].”

National elections in Ukraine have been suspended since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 because Ukrainian law explicitly prohibits holding a vote while the country is under wartime martial law. Zelensky also argued that organizing a national election while all of Ukraine is under active Russian bombardment by drones, cruise missiles, glide bombs, and ballistic missiles would be unsafe and logistically very difficult due to the millions of displaced citizens across the country who have fled their homes to escape the fighting.

Zelensky insisted that the decision to appoint a new national leader must be made exclusively by the people of Ukraine, not a foreign head of state like Trump. He also said that he would readily accept any new leadership choice made by a majority of Ukraine’s citizens, but only after the security of the electoral process has been guaranteed by a ceasefire so that the results of the election will be both democratic and fair.

He also said that if a new presidential election is held in Ukraine, with the required permission from Ukraine’s parliament, “Of course, we will be ready [to accept] any choice of our people.” However, the Ukrainian president also said in his interview with ABC News that, “It’s more difficult to stop Putin than to pressure other” world leaders because he is determined to restore the Soviet-era Russian empire over Eastern Europe, including current members of the NATO alliance which share a border with Russia, such as Poland and the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Ukraine’s Friends In Europe Back Zelensky In His Feud With Trump

Therefore, it was not surprising that leaders of the European Union, the NATO alliance, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Finland and Norway, all of whom have good reason to fear Putin’s appetite for additional Russian territorial conquests, were quick to call Zelensky and give him expressions of their support for his continued fight against Russian aggression.

Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote in a post on X following a phone call with Zelensky, “I am absolutely certain that nothing and no one will break Ukraine and its president in their fight against Russian aggression.” Tusk also said that, “I assured him that he can count on the full solidarity of Poland and Europe with the Ukrainian people.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, also reiterated his public support for Zelensky, who “leads our nation in a time of war — a war for independence, freedom, and dignity. He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the [sole] right to decide,” who their leader should be, adding that, “Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well [and] deserves support.”

To protest the relaxation of the U.S. sanctions on the sale of Russian diesel fuel, Ukrainian negotiators cut short their talks in Miami, Florida, with Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. According to a report by the British Financial Times newspaper, Kushner and Witkoff reminded their counterparts that Ukraine remains heavily dependent on a continued supply of American-made munitions and armaments [purchased by Ukraine’s European allies], as well as real-time American satellite intelligence which provides the Ukrainians with precise targeting information for their attacks on Russia’s oil refineries.

Behind Trump’s Controversial Diesel Deal With Putin

Trump was clearly scrambling to salvage Republican hopes for retaining their current razor-thin majority in the House, and their vulnerable 53-to-47 margin in the Senate in the midterm election by making a public effort to provide relief for farmers and truckers who usually vote Republican, but who have been angered by the current record-high prices for diesel. Trump’s Russian diesel deal with Putin was also meant to send a positive signal to millions of other working-class voter households which are now struggling with the $4-plus cost of a gallon of gas at the pump for their cars. However, industry and financial experts who follow the energy market warn that the extra Russian diesel oil will not bolster global supplies enough to materially lower its price by Election Day.

The deal with Putin also unleashed a strong geopolitical backlash among Ukraine’s supporters, including a bipartisan group of four Republican and three Democrat senators. They released a statement claiming that the deal was illegal because Congress had banned all imports of Russian energy when Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Republicans Attacking Trump’s Suspension Of Sanctions On Russia

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said in a televised NBC News interview that “The president [Trump] needs to realize that tens of thousands of people have died over this [Russia’s] illegal invasion [of Ukraine], and I get it that he may be frustrated, but he needs to understand who the good guys are in this agreement and who the bad guys are, and it’s not even close.”

Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, said that after he returns from Congress’ current midterm election recess, he would try to force a vote in the House on bipartisan legislation to block the purchase of any Russian oil.

Mike Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president during his first term in office, but has since become one of his most outspoken Republican critics, said that “President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham,” who was a strong public advocate for the continuation of strong U.S. military support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of “doing a deal with the devil [Putin] to help his flailing political fortunes.

“This filthy deal will only aid and abet the same Putin who is helping the Iranians to target and try to kill American troops in the Middle East and who illegally and viciously invaded our ally Ukraine,” Schumer continued.

Some Doubt That Putin Will Keep His Diesel Fuel Promises To Trump

There is also some question about whether Russia currently has enough diesel fuel on hand in storage to fulfill Putin’s promise to release 2.25 million barrels of diesel fuel to the global market immediately, another 3.7 million barrels in November, and yet another 7.4 million barrels before the end of the year, provided that Russian refineries are able to resume full operation. But in response to these promises from Putin, Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury Department to issue a temporary license allowing Russia to export its diesel fuel and waiving the threat of sanctions on its foreign customers through April 2027.

Over the weekend, Trump also made the surprise announcement that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire under which Ukraine supposedly agreed to suspend its attacks on Russian oil refineries in return for a suspension of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid and generators. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social media account.

Trump Announced A Ukraine Ceasefire That Was News To Zelensky

After Trump posted his announcement of the ceasefire on social media, Zelensky’s initial reaction, in a brief interview with the Axios news service, was that word of the agreement “was news for me.” However, he then added that, “If President Trump negotiated it with Putin, [then he should] please tell us when the ceasefire begins. We are ready, and we will accept it.”

In a later statement, Zelensky qualified his position by saying that he is willing to accept the ceasefire, but only if Russia does too. “Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia support it as well,” Zelensky commented on social media, and added that he is “awaiting details from the U.S. side” on the deal.

He added that, “For our part, Ukraine always FULLY supports steps toward de-escalation, the protection of lives, and the decisions needed to end the war and guarantee lasting peace.”

Is Trump’s Energy Ceasefire Deal With Putin Real?

However, Zelensky also made it clear that he was very doubtful, based upon bitter experience with previous attempts by Trump to broker a peace deal with Putin, that the Russian leader would actually suspend the attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Since Trump made the ceasefire announcement, the Kremlin has not officially confirmed any such agreement. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stated only that contacts with the U.S. on the issue were ongoing. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities and power plants in the cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv continued without interruption following Trump’s ceasefire statement.

The History Of Zelensky’s Up And Down Relationship With Trump

Trump has had bitter public disputes with Zelensky before, largely because the Ukrainian president has rejected numerous attempts by Trump to get him to agree to a negotiated settlement of the war with Russia on terms that would require major strategic and territorial concessions by Ukraine to Putin’s demands.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that he would put an immediate end to both the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza and the war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump was successful in getting both sides to agree to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza shortly after he took office, and he eventually helped to secure the return of all 251 Israeli hostages, both alive and dead, that Hamas kidnapped during its October 7, 2023 attack and then held prisoner in Gaza, some of them for more than two years.

However, while Trump had several friendly phone conversations and a face-to-face meeting with Putin in Alaska to discuss conditions for ending the war in Ukraine, Zelensky remained adamant in refusing Trump’s demands during their first, very contentious face-to-face meeting in the White House Oval Office on February 28, 2025, that he agree to negotiate Putin’s demands. The meeting was originally arranged to discuss continued U.S. military and economic support for Ukraine in the war against Russia. In return, Zelensky was expected to agree to finalize a framework agreement under which Ukraine would provide the U.S. with strategically vital rare-earth minerals for which China has been the major global supplier.

A Bitter Confrontation With Zelensky In Trump’s Oval Office

The discussion quickly devolved into an internationally televised shouting match as Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, criticized Zelensky’s handling of the war and his stubborn refusal to even consider Putin’s demands for major territorial concessions from Ukraine.

Trump accused Zelensky of “gambling with World War III” by provoking Russia to increase its attacks, being unwilling to negotiate a peace agreement with Putin due to his personal animosity, and publicly disrespecting both the president and the vice president of the United States in the Oval Office.

Vice President Vance, with Trump’s tacit approval, then challenged Zelensky on whether Ukraine had shown sufficient gratitude for the generous amount of American aid to Ukraine since the war started and accused Zelensky of being unwilling to compromise at all with Putin on his territorial demands.

Zelensky then pushed back strongly at the criticism from both Trump and Vance. He emphasized Ukraine’s need for real security guarantees from the U.S. and its Western allies, and questioned the nature of Trump’s proposed diplomatic initiative with Russia, implying that it would involve a sellout of Ukraine’s vital interests.

The Oval Office meeting was ended abruptly by an angry President Trump. A planned post-meeting joint press conference and the formal signing of the rare earth mineral agreement were both cancelled. Zelensky was then forced to depart from the White House unescorted and earlier than expected at Trump’s request. Later that day, he posted a statement on social media saying that Zelensky was not ready for a peace agreement with Russia while U.S. support gave him a negotiating advantage.

Trump also made it clear that after delivering the last shipment of arms and munitions that the Biden administration had promised to Ukraine, there would be no further U.S. military or economic aid for Ukraine at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

Europe Takes Responsibility For Supporting Ukraine Against Russia

However, at that point, several of America’s European NATO allies agreed to take over responsibility for supporting Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion both militarily and economically. They realized that as long as Russia was militarily fully engaged in Ukraine, Putin would not have enough spare capacity to attack them in order to satisfy his expressed desire to reconstruct the Cold War-era Soviet empire in Eastern Europe.

The abrupt rupture in U.S.-Ukrainian relations proved to be short-lived. Zelensky made several attempts to mend fences with Trump, in recognition of the fact that Ukraine’s armed forces depend heavily on U.S.-supplied military intelligence. Ukraine also uses the satellite-based Starlink telephone communications technology for its battlefield operations, which the American company’s owner, Elon Musk, has denied to the Russians.

Why The Latest Trump Confrontation With Zelensky Is More Serious

However, Trump’s latest public criticism of Zelensky includes, for the first time, an open call for his replacement as Ukraine’s president. This prompted Fiona Hill, who served as a top adviser on Russian policy for the U.S. National Security Council during President Trump’s first term and who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, to tell the Washington Post that if Trump “starts to actively play a role in Ukrainian politics, in this way essentially engaging in political subversion, he can do a lot more damage.”

While Zelensky has previously shown an ability to push back successfully against public criticism by Trump and to withstand the immediate fallout, Ukraine needs a significant amount of continued American support as it enters the fifth winter of its war with Russia because it does not have enough U.S.-made interceptors for its Patriot air defense systems, which are its only effective defense against Russian ballistic missiles. Furthermore, even though Ukraine’s European allies are now shouldering most of the financial cost of fighting against the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s military remains highly dependent on a constant flow of American weapons and munitions, as well as American satellite intelligence.

Furthermore, the Russian military has shown no signs of easing the intensity of its attacks in Ukraine, despite having suffered more than a million casualties since the war began, and having had to convert much of Russia’s industrial base to the production of weapons and munitions in order to intensify its efforts to defeat Ukraine.

Russia Is Still Stepping Up Its Attacks On Ukraine

President Zelensky posted a report on his X social media account saying that last week alone, Russia attacked Ukraine with 1,450 precision-guided aerial bombs, 75 missiles of various types and more than 1,640 attack drones, about 60% of which were the latest jet-powered models. As a result, Zelensky said, Ukraine has redoubled its efforts to acquire more interceptor missiles for its Patriot air defense systems, as well as increased efforts to keep more of the old, second-hand F-16s available to shoot down the dangerous Russian jet-powered drones.

As part of their commitment to help Ukraine push back against Russia’s aggression, the European countries agreed to buy up to $100 billion worth of U.S.-made weaponry for Ukraine’s use. Four NATO allies, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium, also got permission from the United States to give Ukraine a total of 87 used American-made F-16 warplanes as they are being replaced by deliveries of new, American-made state-of-the-art F-35 stealth multi-purpose warplanes.

Earlier in the war, the former Eastern European Warsaw Pact member countries of Poland and Slovakia, now members of NATO, agreed to transfer a total of 27 obsolete Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to replace its own MiG-29s lost in combat against the Russians. It was not until May 19, 2023, 15 months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that President Joe Biden announced at a G-7 summit meeting that he would allow the four European nations to transfer their old F-16s to Ukraine, as well as a hurried international effort to retrain veteran Ukrainian air force pilots on how to fly them in combat missions against the Russians.

Why Used American F-16 Fighters Are More Important To Ukraine Now

At the start of the war in 2022, Ukraine requested replacements for its fleet of obsolete Soviet-era MiG-29s primarily to provide close ground support for Ukraine’s troops in conventional infantry battles and later as the conflict evolved into classic World War I-style trench warfare. But as the use of cheap but effective drones again changed the nature of the ground war in Ukraine, the obsolete Cold War-era recycled jet fighters have turned out to be Ukraine’s most effective answer to the threat from the new generation of jet-powered, faster and higher-flying Russian drones.

The main problem with many of the recently arrived second-hand F-16s is that they are well past their normal life expectancy as first-line warplanes, and they now need more extensive maintenance support in order to remain safely flyable and effective in a combat environment. Furthermore, the necessary maintenance support has been outsourced to a Belgian company which has previous experience with Belgium’s F-16s, but which has recently encountered problems acquiring the spare parts needed to complete the work in a timely manner.

Zelensky’s government in Kyiv is also facing a new financial crisis because Russian attacks have disrupted its large shipments of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, threatening an important source of government revenue. Because of these attacks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Ukraine will face a funding gap of more than $30 billion in 2027. As a result, Ukraine’s parliament is urgently considering a broad package of new legislation needed to close major loopholes in the country’s tax code and weed out corruption that is bound to be unpopular with both the general population and members of Ukraine’s wealthy elites.

Trump’s History Of Opposition To U.S. Support For Ukraine

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump also harshly criticized the Biden administration for providing more than $175 billion worth of American economic and military aid to Ukraine. That included sending Ukraine over $45 billion worth of weapons and munitions drawn down from existing Pentagon stockpiles, and additional billions of dollars worth of arms produced by U.S. defense industries for Ukraine under U.S. government contracts.

Those U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine were a major contributing factor to the Pentagon’s current critical shortages of certain types of precision weapons, long-range ground rockets, and air defense interceptor missiles, which have forced Trump to cut back on U.S. military strikes against Iran in retaliation for its attacks on civilian shipping in the Persian Gulf.

The Biden administration, through the U.S. Treasury, also provided the Ukrainian government with between $30 billion and $57 billion in direct economic aid to help pay the salaries of its public employees and the cost of providing basic government services.

Why U.S. Support For Ukraine Remains Critical To War Against Russia

Even though the U.S. is no longer supplying Ukraine’s military needs by drawing down weapons and munitions from War Department stockpiles, the dangerous shortage persists for a variety of key American weapons, such as Patriot anti-missile interceptors, long-range ground rockets and Tomahawk cruise missiles, because the once formidable U.S. military-industrial base no longer has enough production capacity to keep pace with demand from several active battlefields. These include the U.S. military buildup around the Persian Gulf, European orders for U.S.-made weapons to be sent to Ukraine to be used against the Russians, as well as orders from the Pentagon to restock its badly depleted stockpiles of munitions and weapons, so that the U.S. military will be able to respond effectively to any new threat to American national interests that may emerge in other parts of the world.

Concerns About China Limit The U.S. Buildup In The Middle East

There is great concern about China, which has become increasingly belligerent in clashes with its Asia-Pacific neighbors regarding claims of sovereignty over islands in the adjacent South China Sea. U.S. military strategists have long worried about repeated threats by China’s communist leaders to attack the pro-Western renegade island province of Taiwan, whose advanced semiconductor factories are essential to the high-tech economies of the U.S. and its allies. Trump’s determination to continue selling U.S. weapons to Taiwan to deter China from carrying out its threat to take control of the island by force has been a major point of contention in the otherwise mostly cooperative but competitive relationship between Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping.

Concerns about U.S. military readiness have recently been magnified by the need of the Trump administration to reassign many of the U.S. warships and warplanes, which had been stationed to protect important U.S. allies, such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, in the Asia-Pacific region, to the Middle East. They are required to support the U.S. air strikes on Iran, and then to counter Iran’s efforts to control all international shipping traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ukraine’s Attack On Russian Energy Has Been Highly Successful

Meanwhile, after years of suffering from devastating Russian aerial barrages using drones, missiles and glide bombs that have not distinguished between civilian and legitimate targets, Ukraine has developed an increasingly effective retaliatory strategy. It has attacked the most sensitive parts of Russia’s energy export-based economy using its own long-range drones and cruise missiles in an effort to undermine Putin’s ability to continue financing the war. The increasingly effective Ukrainian attacks have forced the Russian government to pay steep subsidies to its national oil companies to keep gasoline available to the domestic market and to impose a ban on the export of Russian-produced diesel fuel, which has now been rescinded with Trump’s announcement of the deal with Putin.

Growing Fuel Shortages Inside Russia

Nevertheless, Russian consumers today face growing difficulties in finding gas stations that will sell them enough to fill their car’s gas tank. Hundreds of gas stations have suspended their operations, while others limit purchases to as little as five gallons. In many regions across Russia, drivers are served by gas stations only on certain days, depending on their license plate number, in a throwback to one of the strategies used across America when it was hit with an Arab oil embargo in the 1970s. In addition to these government efforts to ration and reduce Russian domestic energy usage, retail prices across Russia for both gasoline and diesel fuel have typically risen by about 20% since the start of this year, contributing to the Russian economy’s already serious inflation problem. But some independent Russian energy distributors have taken advantage of the widespread spot gas shortages by raising their prices by 50 percent or more.

But in general, instead of letting energy prices soar even higher, as other countries have done, the Russian government has generally chosen to restrict consumer access instead. The result is another throwback, this time to the long lines of Russian consumers during the Soviet era, waiting for hours and hoping to buy essential goods from state-run stores before their shelves are completely emptied.

“If it takes you half an hour to fill your tank in any Russian region, you have been extremely lucky,” Sergey Kanaev of the Federation of Car Owners of Russia told the Washington Post.

But it does not appear that Putin is under much political pressure from long-suffering Russian consumers to bring his war effort in Ukraine to a close. As has always been the case in Russia, the military is first in line for available Russian fuel supplies and has not yet been forced to cut back on its energy usage. Russia has also been importing some gasoline from refineries operating in India, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and the ban on diesel fuel exports before Trump announced his deal with Putin last has kept delivery trucks rolling across Russia. Also, because global prices for crude oil are now so high, despite the European and American export sanctions they are under, Russian revenues from its crude sales in the month of September were the highest since the war with Ukraine started four years ago.

Furthermore, last month’s nationwide Russian elections for its parliament, called the Duma, produced a predictably large pro-Putin majority, suggesting that any discontent among Russian voters with Putin’s Ukraine war policies has not yet resulted in the rise of any serious political opposition.

A Detailed Analysis Of The War Damage To Russian Refineries

The Washington Post has published a detailed analysis of the Ukrainian drone and cruise missile attacks aimed specifically at Russian oil refineries, which finds them to be both precise and highly effective. At least two-thirds of Russia’s 36 major oil refineries, including some that are more than 1,000 miles from the Ukrainian border, were hit between April 1 and August 31, some as many as five times, averaging about one strike every three days. By the end of August, half of Russia’s total nationwide oil refining capacity was offline due to the damage caused by the Ukrainian attacks. As a result, the volume of refined Russian petroleum products exported to its foreign customers so far this year has been cut in half compared to last year.

Three oil refinery experts who analyzed Ukraine’s air campaign for the Washington Post found that the long-range attacks using large numbers of cheap drones that Ukraine now mass-produces in its own factories have been especially effective. More than half of them have been aimed at the specialized desalting and distillation equipment at the heart of the refining process that is hardest for the Russians to replace. That is because both the European Union and the United States specifically banned exports of such equipment to Russia shortly after Putin launched the initial invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.

According to the Washington Post report, on June 16, Ukraine staged a devastating major drone attack against “one of the most well-defended oil refineries in Russia, on the southeastern edge of Moscow…Videos of the aftermath show a cluster of tightly packed towers engulfed in flames.”

One of the flaming towers was part of a specialized unit that electrically removes water and salt from crude oil, which is a necessary first step before the crude oil enters the distillation units to be separated into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and other valuable petroleum-based compounds.

The same Ukrainian drone strike also damaged one of the refinery’s main distillation units, putting the refining plant offline and out of commission well into September, according to the Kpler global commodities data and tracking firm.

Ukraine Attacking Russia’s Most Vulnerable Energy Targets

According to financial analyst Alexander Kolyandr, director of the Eurasia Group at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), “The problem [for Russia] is the frequency of attacks is shorter than the time needed for repair.” The Ukrainian drone commander who goes by the call sign Tango explained the strategy to a Washington Post reporter bluntly. He said: “We know where to hit so that it [the Russian oil refinery] stops [working] and does not recover.”

In order to make its mass drone attacks more effective, Ukraine also launches decoy drones that carry no explosives. Their mission is to confuse and waste the ammunition and resources of the Russian air defenses, which are already deployed too thinly to fully protect Russia’s vast airspace. However, Russia’s troops manning its air defenses have no choice. They must launch against every suspected decoy, because if they fail to do so, they risk losing too many of their expensive military installations.

Ukraine also uses lighter-than-air balloons which can lift small drones to very high altitudes before they are launched, extending their range and enabling them to carry less fuel and more explosives to their targets. Ukraine is also effectively using precise intelligence on potential targets in Russia provided by the U.S. and Ukraine’s other Western allies, and augmented with further analysis by artificial intelligence.

While Putin has remained defiant in the face of the increasingly effective Ukrainian drone campaign, he was forced to publicly acknowledge earlier this month that Ukraine’s attacks have “partially” succeeded by costing Russia about 1 percent of its annual economic output (GDP) for this year.

How Ukraine’s Drone War Crippled Russia’s Energy Infrastructure

The mass Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries began in earnest in August of 2025, but the pace of the attacks dropped over the winter months, only to accelerate this April again and then reach a new high this August, according to data compiled by Tochnyi, an independent Ukrainian open-source research group.

According to Christina Harwood, a Russia researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, in addition to targeting Russia’s refineries, many other Ukrainian drone strikes this year have inflicted considerable damage on fuel storage tanks, pumping stations and pipeline infrastructure across Russia, making the transportation of refined petroleum fuels and other products more difficult even as the supply of them is reduced due to the growing damage from drone strikes on Russia’s refineries.

One unnamed Ukrainian source told the Washington Post that a crash program launched by Ukraine’s government to build up its military-industrial base has resulted in a growing ability to mass-produce the components of cheap drones. That effort has effectively doubled the number of drones in current strikes against Russian targets in each wave, compared to last year.

The increase in the number of drones in each Ukrainian wave attack is significant because, according to András Rácz, a researcher into drone operations in Ukraine for the German Council on Foreign Relations, even if only 2 to 3 percent of the drones reach their target, a number he called “realistic,” they will inflict significant damage.

In short, he said, “The [current Ukrainian drone] strike packages are just too large [for Russia] to defend.”

Russian Air Defenses Are Too Small To Protect All Of Its Territory

The mass waves of attacking Ukrainian drones have turned Russia’s vast size, which historically has been one of its great strategic advantages, into a liability, because Russian air defenses are spread so thin that it is impossible for them to defend every refinery across the country all of the time. According to a Ukrainian drone commander who is identified by the Washington Post by his code name, Tango, the locations of the Russian air defense systems and radars provided by the U.S. and other Western allies have been crucial. This has allowed Ukrainian military planners to map out routes across Russia for drone and cruise missile attacks that can often evade or delay their detection until they have reached their targets.

Trump Frustrated By Persian Gulf And The Red Sea Shipping Closures

Trying to end the Ukraine war matters so much to Trump in large part because of the simultaneous Iranian efforts to shut down Persian Gulf energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The result is that there is not enough spare capacity to make up for the gasoline and diesel fuel shortages through increased crude oil production and refinery operations in the U.S. and other global energy producers. U.S. Navy efforts to restore the free flow of Persian Gulf oil through the Strait of Hormuz are being hampered by continuing attacks on shipping by Iran’s IRGC. Even the alternative route for shipping Saudi Arabian oil through its East-West pipeline to a Red Sea port and from there through Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Indian Ocean is now under fire from Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen.

Trump Realizes He Has No Good Options Left

The combination of stubborn ongoing wars in Ukraine and across the Middle East has left President Trump with no good options for ending the global energy shortages that those conflicts have triggered. Even his last-minute measures to relieve the political pressure from the upcoming midterm elections, involving his dubious and desperate deal with Vladimir Putin to boost diesel fuel supplies at Ukraine’s expense, and his announcement of an energy ceasefire agreement with Putin that might not exist, are coming far too late to help Trump and the Republican candidates running in the midterm election. It increasingly looks like there may be an easy Democrat victory based largely on the high price of a gallon of gas at the pump and at the supermarket, which is actually largely the fault of the Democrats during the Biden administration.

Over the past weekend, Houthi missiles hit two passenger terminals at Saudi Arabia’s main airport, killing at least 12 people and injuring hundreds more. Saudi Arabia has asked the U.S. for military help against the Houthis, and President Trump has responded by saying that he is seriously considering the request. But Trump also knows that joining the Saudi air strikes against the Houthis would probably be counterproductive, because it would give the Houthis the ability to extend their attacks to all of the ships using the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, further worsening global energy shortages and price rises rather than reducing them.

Trump’s High Energy Price Predicament

All of these interlocking circumstances mean that President Trump and his Republican supporters are left with no short-term strategic or domestic political solutions available for their current high energy price predicament as well as the now painfully obvious limitations on the application of America’s military power to its problems in the Middle East.

Ukraine’s effective drone strikes on Russian refineries have only further squeezed a global fuel market already badly strained by the consequences of the U.S. war on Iran that Trump started this past February, and the counterproductive recent Saudi revival of its air war against Iran’s Houthi proxies.

Easing sanctions against Russia in a feeble attempt to relieve the global diesel fuel shortage has only angered some of Trump’s allies in his own political party at home, and his public feud with Ukraine’s President Zelensky has infuriated America’s NATO allies, especially those in Eastern Europe, who are justifiably afraid of attacks against their own countries by Putin.

Meanwhile, Russia’s new generation of jet-powered drones have been getting through Ukraine’s air defenses about 45 percent of the time, meaning that the people of Ukraine are now facing the prospect of a very tough, cold and dark winter.

Trump And The Gop Widely Expected To Suffer A Midterm Defeat

At this point, there is not much that Trump, or anyone else, can do to save Ukraine, or the many Republican candidates who now seem doomed to go down to defeat at the hands of socialism-crazed Democrat candidates.

Those Democrats are now confidently expecting to regain control of Congress as a result of their victory in the November 3rd election, so that they can undo everything that President Trump has accomplished for the American people so far in his second term as president.