Trump is blaming Volodymyr Zelensky for high energy prices and said, “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.” And he is demanding that Ukraine stop bombing Russian refineries while making no demands on Russia. This is outrageous on several levels:
First, as Forbes reports, energy prices have surged primarily because of Trump’s war in Iran, intermittently closing the Strait of Hormuz, not Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries. Ukraine’s attacks, designed to cut Russia’s war-fighting income, have reduced Russia’s gasoline production by 20 percent and its diesel production by 30 percent.
Second, Trump says he is buying Russian diesel in order to reduce US prices (now above $6.50 a gallon) before the midterm elections, but his deal with Putin provides for the US to import 36 million barrels, which is less than two weeks of US demand. Goldman Sachs estimated the price reduction would be just two to five cents a gallon. Trump seems to think that farmers and truckers won’t notice that his deal with Putin will benefit them not at all.
Meantime Russia, the aggressor in this war, has been mercilessly bombing Ukrainian ports, energy plants, heating facilities, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and work places—sometimes with hundreds of missiles and drones in a single day and often thousands in a month. Russia has swiftly built a launching ground near the Ukraine border for jet powered drones that fly faster than Ukraine’s slower defensive drones can fly. The new Russian weapons add to Ukraine’s vulnerability as it faces the prospect of massive strikes against civilian targets this winter.
In addition, the US suddenly curtailed Ukraine’s access to Starshield, the Pentagon-controlled military version of the Elon Musk’s satellite network that Ukraine depended on to track incoming Russian missiles. The administration also is threatening to stop providing battlefield intelligence to Ukraine.
On Sunday, Trump proposed an “energy ceasefire,” which Zelensky said he was honoring. But on Tuesday Russia launched 39 missiles and 128 drones, mainly at Ukrainian energy plants, which Zelensky said showed “ostentatious disrespect toward the United States.” Ukraine was able to down just 39 missiles and 115 drones. Trump had insisted Monday that the ceasefire was in place. “They agreed because I said ‘you agree.’ That’s why they agreed. Because I said they agree.”
One purpose of the Russian attacks is to starve Ukraine of export income from selling grain to the world. It also aims to depopulate Ukrainian cities (Kviv and Kharkiv have been major Russian targets), demoralize Ukraine’s population, use winter as a weapon (in 2025 millions of Ukrainians were forced to endure sub-zero temperatures with no heat or running water and this year’s forecast shows that the 2026-2027 winter will be even colder). According to a Polish report, Russia’s aim is to make Ukraine “unlivable.”
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Russia’s initial aim was to quickly decimate Ukrainian forces and absorb the country as part of Russia. Ukraine has so far held its own against far-larger Russia, but Russia’s attacks and its refusal to accept a peace plan that does not include Russia’s permanent occupation of areas of Eastern Ukraine it has not won in battle suggests that Russia still has a long-term goal of erasing Ukraine as an independent country.
There’s no comparison of the humanitarian results of the two nations’ military attacks: Russia has killed far more Ukrainian civilians (17,500 is the United Nations estimate, but it admits the toll is undoubtedly higher.) The UN does not have access to reliable Russian civilian casualty figures, but all experts say that because Ukraine is not purposely targeting civilian sites, the Russian toll is undoubtedly a small fraction of what it has inflicted on Ukraine.
So Trump wants to deprive Ukraine of its heroic leader. He is ignoring the moral claim Ukraine has on democratic nations, which is all the stronger if one recalls Russian torturing and butchering of Ukrainian civilians early in the war, which caused Putin to be charged with war crimes.
European nations recognize the strategic importance of aiding Ukraine. They calculate that if Russia defeats Ukraine, it will move on to attack another former Soviet captive country, probably a Baltic state (all now NATO members.) Trump, who has been siding with Putin from the beginning of the war, leaves in doubt whether the US will honor the US commitment to go to the aid of a member country. And continued European support is in doubt owing to the prospect that France and Germany will be ruled soon by right-wing parties aligned with Russia.
Ukraine desperately needs air defense weapons capable of shooting down Russian missiles, but the US has used up all but 827 of its Patriot missiles in Iran(out of a pre-war 2200) and 278 of its THAAD missiles (out of 452) and says it now has too few to sell to Europeans for transfer to Ukraine. Without those weapons, Ukraine is virtually naked in the face of Russian missile attacks.
A final outrage of Trump’s deal is that in providing roughly $4.5 billion to Russia, Trump is violating several laws, which has aroused significant bipartisan opposition in Congress. One law is the 2022 Ending importation of Russian Oil Act, which passed the House 413-9 and the Senate unanimously and is specific about what it takes for the President to bypass the law, none of which Trump has invoked.
Also, Section 216 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which requires Congressional review of licensing activity that significantly alters US policy toward Russia, which has not happened.
And the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which requires prior certification and reporting, which the administration has not secured.
The Trump/Putin diesel deal was denounced by at least 17 bipartisan Members of Congress. A group of 14 Senators, including former GOP leader Mitch McConnell, signed a letter describing the deal as a “betrayal of the people of Ukraine” and “a gift to our adversary.”
The diesel deal, the cutoff of Starlink, stoppage of military aid to Ukraine and threats to stop giving Ukraine battlefield intelligence constitute proof positive that Trump is an ally of the brutal dictator of Russia and is supporting his effort to kill Ukrainian civilians and subjugate their country. Why? Is it Trump’s admiration of Putin as the kind of strong man Trump aspires to be? Or does Putin “have something” on Trump? Or both?
Regardless, Trump’s repeated domestic assertions of unconstitutional powers (given protection by the US Supreme Court’s gift of immunity) and foreign alignment with dictators—and his blatant corruption—are all reasons for Americans to decisively grant power to Democrats in the midterms to investigate him broadly and, if they sufficient evidence, impeach him for a third time and possibly convict him and oust him from the presidency.
Discover more from Post Alley
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
