New: When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine. The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March. Instead of acquiescing to the U.S. requests, Ukraine doubled down on the strategy, striking a range of Russian facilities, including an April 2 attack on Russia’s third-largest refinery 800 miles from the font. The incidents have exacerbated tensions in an already-strained relationship and come as Biden ramps up his reelection campaign amid a six-month high in oil prices. Defenders of Ukraine’s strategy accuse the White House of prioritizing domestic politics over Kyiv’s military goals. U.S. officials say the rationale behind their warnings is more nuanced than critics suggest, noting that Moscow’s counterattack has hurt Ukraine more than the refinery attacks hurt Russia. More details here: washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
Russian attacks on energy infrastructure are not a situational response to the destruction of russian oil refineries or any other attacks by Ukrainians. The russian attacks had been in preparation for months. The main reason why the russians arrange such loud terror in Ukraine is because we do not want to surrender and be killed quietly in russian concentration camps. The second reason is the West's passivity and reluctance to respond to Russian terrorism. “This strategy was clearly a long time in the making, they spent a lot of time developing it, they clearly gathered intelligence and prepared very carefully for these attacks,”
@OstanniyCap @John_Hudson «The russian attacks had been in preparation for months» well, that’s speculation. You simply cannot know that
@OstanniyCap @John_Hudson Not sure this needed to be prepared for month, it seems Ukraine lacking of anti missile defense enable Russia to pick its targets more freely than ever. It also probably doesn’t mean Russia is escalating, they just couldn’t do it that easily before