Donald Trump said Monday that Russia had “lost control” of its diesel industry following an intensive Ukrainian assault, even as his own war with Iran pushed US diesel prices to a record high.
“A large number of their diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission,” Trump wrote in a Monday morning post on Truth Social.
“This ridiculous and never-ending war with Ukraine must be ended,” he added, claiming that 25,000 people, “mostly soldiers,” were being killed each month. “What a shame!”
Trump’s comments came just hours after he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop Kyiv’s attacks on Russian refineries during a Sunday phone call, according to the Financial Times.
The President’s message was “diesel, diesel . . . diesel,” a senior Ukrainian official who took part in the call told the newspaper. A second official said Trump wanted Russian fuel returned to global markets to help drive prices lower.
Trump said a week earlier that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to stop attacking one another’s energy facilities. He blamed the global diesel surge on the war in Ukraine rather than his conflict with Iran, although Ukrainian officials said no such truce had been reached.
Strikes by the US and Israel on Iran in February effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passage normally carrying about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. US diesel reached a record $6.51 on Monday, according to AAA, up from roughly $3.76 before the war. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was trading above $100 a barrel.
The fuel-price squeeze has created a political challenge for Republicans just weeks before the midterm elections. Diesel is especially important to the broader economy because it powers the trucks, trains and farm equipment used to transport food and other goods.
President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Gastonia Municipal Airport in North Carolina
Flames and smoke rise from Moscow’s southeastern oil refinery after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday
Smoke and fire billow from Moscow’s southeastern refinery following Sunday’s major Ukrainian drone strike
Trump’s conversation with Zelensky followed Ukraine’s largest reported drone assault on Moscow. Russian officials said the attack set a major oil refinery ablaze and killed at least two people.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian forces had shot down 450 drones.
Ukrainian drone units have increasingly focused on the complex distillation towers at Russian refineries, which are among the most difficult and time-consuming structures to repair.
About one-third of Russia’s refining capacity has been knocked offline, prompting Moscow to restrict exports of refined fuel and import supplies from India.
The strain has intensified as the conflict with Iran spreads toward Yemen, where Saudi Arabia urged Trump over the weekend to attack Iran-backed Houthi targets.
Trump ultimately called off the operation at the last moment Sunday, as US commanders prepared targets and troops stood ready with missiles, the New York Times reported.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured territory in Yemen during weekend clashes with Saudi-backed forces. The fighting has added to concerns over shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital route for global energy supplies.
The passage has become even more significant as the conflict disrupts other energy routes, including Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which transports Aramco oil around the Strait of Hormuz.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Russian Federal Customs Service chief Valery Pikalev in Moscow on Monday
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) attends a ceremony of the National flag rising in the reclaimed city of Izyum in Kharkiv’s area, Ukraine, 2022
Putin said this month he had ordered his forces to prepare a mass air strike campaign in retaliation for Kyiv’s attacks on Russian energy sites.
‘They are hitting ours. They’ll get an answer. That’s basically how it is,’ he said.
Putin is unlikely to agree to an energy truce before winter, when his forces are expected to resume attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, people briefed on his thinking told the FT.
One senior Ukrainian official told the FT that Trump may be holding the sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last week as leverage to get Kyiv to stop the refinery strikes.
Zelensky, who meets Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, defended the campaign Monday, calling the strikes ‘part of the pressure that is actually working and the world can feel it.’
