Poor Donald Trump. For the last 21 months he had to do a great deal of lying. He had to pretend at times that he really cared about the people dying in the Russo-Ukraine War, that he really wanted a deal that was good for Ukraine, that he was getting frustrated with Vladimir Putin, and […]
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has placed an important qualification on Donald Trump’s proposed energy ceasefire: Ukraine will stop attacking Russian energy facilities only if Moscow stops targeting Ukraine’s electricity generation and distribution infrastructure. Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, 12 October, Zelenskyy confirmed Kyiv’s willingness to accept a reciprocal arrangement while pointing out that Russian attacks had continued after the American president announced that a ceasefire was already in effect.
The sequence of events has exposed a fundamental weakness in Washington’s initiative. On 11 October, Trump announced an immediate energy ceasefire, declaring that Russia and Ukraine had both agreed to suspend attacks on energy infrastructure. Yet Kyiv had not received the agreement’s terms, Moscow had offered no public confirmation, and Russian drones continued striking Ukrainian power facilities, including a combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv.
Zelenskyy’s response was deliberately restrained. Rather than reject Trump’s initiative, he welcomed the possibility of an agreement while insisting that Russia demonstrate its acceptance through its actions. His remarks also exposed the difference between announcing a diplomatic understanding and establishing an enforceable military arrangement.
The apparent symmetry of an agreement prohibiting attacks on energy facilities disguises substantial differences between the two countries.
Russia retains an extensive oil-refining industry, producing fuels for domestic consumption, military operations and export. Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries have consequently become an instrument of economic warfare, disrupting production, increasing operating costs and forcing Moscow to divert resources towards protecting strategically important industrial installations.
Ukraine occupies a different position. Its major oil-refining capacity was devastated early in the full-scale invasion, including the Kremenchuk refinery. Russia’s present campaign is concentrated heavily on electricity generation, substations, heating systems and other installations essential to maintaining civilian life and economic activity.
An agreement narrowly focused on oil refineries would therefore protect an important Russian asset while offering Ukraine comparatively little protection. A comprehensive energy ceasefire could be reciprocal, but only if it explicitly covered the infrastructure each side actually possesses and attacks.
Zelenskyy’s insistence on equivalent obligations is consequently more than a negotiating formula. It seeks to prevent Washington from treating attacks on Russian fuel production and the destruction of Ukraine’s electricity and heating networks as interchangeable military activities without examining their respective consequences.
The distinction becomes particularly consequential with winter approaching. A Ukrainian suspension of attacks on Russian refineries could allow Moscow to restore production and rebuild damaged facilities. Unless Russia simultaneously halted attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Kyiv would surrender an important means of pressure while remaining exposed to further disruption of electricity and heating supplies.
The concern in Kyiv is no longer confined to the proposed ceasefire’s wording. European officials have disclosed that Washington is threatening to restrict military assistance and intelligence sharing unless Ukraine suspends its strikes against Russian refineries.
According to accounts of the American pressure campaign, the threatened measures include suspending the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), the NATO-coordinated mechanism through which European countries finance purchases of American weapons for Ukraine. Reuters was unable to independently verify the reported threats, and the White House had not responded publicly.
If implemented, such restrictions would establish a direct connection between Ukraine’s willingness to accommodate Washington’s energy priorities and its access to essential military support.
This creates an imbalance in the negotiations. Moscow could continue military operations while Kyiv faced the possibility of losing American assistance for refusing an agreement whose Russian obligations remain undefined.
The ceasefire proposal also needs to be examined alongside Trump’s separate agreement with Putin, announced on 9 October, to increase Russian diesel supplies.
Trump stated that Russia would initially release more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by another 500,000 tonnes in November and one million tonnes thereafter. Further supplies were envisaged, depending on Russia’s refining capacity.
The US Treasury subsequently issued General Licence 135, authorising transactions involving Russian-origin diesel that would otherwise face sanctions restrictions.
The initial volumes are unlikely to transform international diesel markets. Nevertheless, the agreement gives Washington a commercial interest in maintaining Russian refinery output at precisely the moment Ukrainian attacks are disrupting it.
Trump has an evident domestic incentive to seek lower fuel prices before the American congressional elections on 3 November. Putin, meanwhile, has an interest in preserving Russia’s refining capacity and reopening sanctioned markets.
These interests need not prove the existence of a coordinated political strategy against Kyiv. They do, however, create conditions in which American economic priorities and Russian military objectives could converge.
The possibility becomes more significant when considered alongside Trump’s public criticism of Zelenskyy and his suggestion that Ukraine requires different leadership.
The most consequential scenario is one in which Washington demands immediate Ukrainian compliance while leaving Russia’s obligations subject to subsequent negotiation.
If Kyiv suspends refinery attacks without obtaining verifiable Russian commitments, Moscow gains relief from a costly Ukrainian campaign. If Kyiv refuses, Washington could present that refusal as an obstacle to peace and use it to justify restrictions on military assistance.
This is a possible negotiating outcome, not an established secret agreement between Trump and Putin. There is no publicly verified evidence that the two presidents arranged the ceasefire specifically to force Ukraine into such a position.
Nevertheless, the combination of the diesel agreement, American pressure over refinery strikes and the premature announcement of a ceasefire creates a credible risk that Ukraine could be required to make concessions before Russia demonstrates any corresponding restraint.
The implications extend beyond Ukraine. European governments financing American weapons through PURL would find their own assistance programmes vulnerable to Washington’s decisions over an energy arrangement negotiated separately with Moscow.
For Brussels, the immediate question is therefore whether European military support can remain dependable if American commercial interests increasingly influence the conditions attached to supplying Ukraine.
Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries cannot by themselves compel Moscow to end the war. They can, however, impose material economic costs and complicate Russia’s ability to maintain fuel production, exports and military logistics.
Abandoning those attacks without an enforceable agreement would remove pressure from Moscow without ensuring that Ukrainian civilians receive any corresponding protection.
Zelenskyy’s position preserves an alternative: simultaneous, reciprocal restrictions covering electricity generation, heating installations, oil refineries and other specified energy infrastructure, supported by clear verification procedures and consequences for violations.
Whether Washington is prepared to enforce such an arrangement against Russia remains unanswered.
The central danger for Kyiv is not an energy ceasefire itself. It is an arrangement in which Ukraine’s obligations are immediate and enforceable through the threat of lost American support, while Russia’s obligations remain uncertain.
Until that imbalance is resolved, Trump’s initiative risks delivering Moscow protection for its oil industry without securing protection for Ukraine’s energy system.
During a quarter-century in power, Vladimir Putin has led Russia into three wars, in part aimed at restoring his country’s status as a world power via violent conquest . Each war began in a blitzkrieg-style display of fearsome power meant to climax in a swift victory. Instead, each conflict, whether the 1999-2009 war on the […]
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The Russia-Ukraine War has become a real-time laboratory for the Chinese military, spurring rapid defensive modernization while exposing deep friction between its centralized command hierarchy and the decentralized demands of modern combat. This month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a report detailing how China is aggressively leveraging the Russia-Ukraine war as […]
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President Donald Trump’s announcement of an immediate ceasefire covering Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure was overtaken by events on Sunday evening when Russian forces struck a major thermal power station in Kharkiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Ukraine’s willingness to suspend attacks on Russian energy facilities, but said Moscow was continuing its bombardment even as Washington presented the arrangement as an accomplished diplomatic breakthrough.
The contradiction emerged within hours of Trump declaring that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy, responding in his evening address on 11 October, welcomed the proposal but reported that Russian attack drones remained active over Ukrainian territory and that Kharkiv’s CHP-5 thermal power station had just been struck.
The Ukrainian president made clear that Kyiv had not rejected the American initiative. Ukraine was prepared to refrain from attacking Russian energy installations and expected Moscow to accept the same restrictions. However, no corresponding commitment had been publicly confirmed by the Kremlin, and Washington had provided no explanation of how the supposed ceasefire would be implemented.
The timing was particularly significant because Ukraine had apparently not been informed that a binding agreement had been concluded. According to accounts of the announcement, Zelenskyy was unaware of Trump’s declaration before it became public, although he subsequently indicated his readiness to support the initiative.
His response therefore amounted to an acceptance of the proposed terms rather than confirmation that a negotiated ceasefire was already in force.
The reported strike on Kharkiv came at the end of a particularly destructive week for Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Zelenskyy said Russian forces had carried out more than 200 attacks against electricity generation and transmission facilities over seven days, alongside 17 strikes targeting gas and oil installations.
He also reported that more than 150 Ukrainians had been killed and over 700 wounded during the week. These figures, supplied by the Ukrainian authorities, have not been independently verified.
The continuing bombardment places additional pressure on Ukraine’s power network as winter approaches. Thermal power stations and substations remain particularly vulnerable, while damage to generating capacity can disrupt electricity, heating and water supplies across entire urban districts.
Trump’s ceasefire announcement follows an increasingly bitter dispute over Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries, which have damaged Moscow’s fuel production and distribution infrastructure.
The American president has blamed Ukrainian strikes for worsening international diesel shortages and rising fuel prices. His administration has also threatened restrictions on military assistance and intelligence sharing if Kyiv refuses to suspend its campaign against Russian refineries.
Meanwhile, Washington has reached an arrangement with Moscow permitting substantial Russian diesel exports under a temporary easing of sanctions. Zelenskyy has criticised the decision, arguing that additional energy revenues could strengthen Russia’s capacity to continue its invasion.
For Ukraine, refinery attacks have become an important means of disrupting Russian military logistics and imposing economic costs on Moscow. Agreeing to suspend them without guarantees that Russian strikes will also cease would remove one of Kyiv’s principal instruments of pressure.
The diplomatic sequence has consequently raised questions about whether Trump’s initiative offers equivalent obligations to both countries, or primarily serves Washington’s immediate objective of stabilising fuel supplies.
By Sunday evening, Moscow had issued no public confirmation that Putin had accepted the arrangement. Washington had provided no details of its duration, the installations covered or any mechanism for verifying compliance.
An agreement confined to energy infrastructure would also leave both armies free to continue other military operations, including attacks on cities, industrial installations and military positions.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had received the necessary orders, while Kyiv awaited clarification of Washington’s discussions with Moscow. He maintained that Ukraine supported credible measures to end the fighting but expected Russia to demonstrate a corresponding commitment.
The immediate question is whether Trump obtained an undertaking from Putin that Moscow is prepared to honour. Until Russia confirms the terms and its attacks cease, the announced energy truce remains a presidential declaration rather than an established cessation of hostilities.
President Donald Trump’s decision to reopen trade in Russian diesel has implications extending well beyond American fuel prices. The agreement, announced ahead of November’s congressional elections, coincides with negotiations over Russian energy assets and mounting American pressure on Ukraine to suspend attacks against Moscow’s oil infrastructure.
The US Treasury’s General Licence 135, issued on 9 October, authorises transactions involving Russian-origin diesel until 7 April 2027. Unlike Trump’s public announcement, which referred to specific quantities destined for the American market, the licence establishes no corresponding volume ceiling or restriction confining authorised trade to the United States.
Its provisions permit American businesses to participate in eligible international transactions involving Russian diesel, including associated financial and commercial services. Existing sanctions remain formally in force, but an important category of Russian petroleum trade has been reopened.
The arrangement potentially benefits not only Russian producers but also American commodity traders, financial institutions and intermediaries capable of purchasing Russian fuel and distributing it internationally.
The legal mechanism offers Washington considerable flexibility. Rather than formally abandoning restrictions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the administration can authorise selected transactions while maintaining the broader sanctions framework.
Congress’s Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 strengthened the legislative basis for economic pressure on Moscow but also provided presidential waiver powers.
General Licence 135 was issued under existing Treasury sanctions authorities, rather than necessarily through those waiver provisions. Nevertheless, the combined framework leaves the administration substantial discretion over the practical application of economic restrictions.
Washington can consequently maintain its declared sanctions policy while selectively restoring commercial relations with Russia. European governments, which have maintained extensive restrictions on Russian energy, have little influence over such unilateral American exemptions.
The timing becomes more revealing when considered alongside negotiations over Lukoil’s international assets.
American investors have been exploring the acquisition of the Russian company’s overseas operations, including oilfields, refineries, storage facilities and retail distribution networks. The portfolio has been valued at approximately $20–22 billion.
Among the prospective investors is billionaire Todd Boehly, while discussions concerning Russian-American economic cooperation have involved Trump’s representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
An American-controlled acquisition of Lukoil’s international network could complement the commercial opportunities created by the diesel authorisation.
Russian petroleum products could potentially be purchased and marketed through American-controlled businesses, allowing Russian suppliers to retain export revenues while intermediaries earn profits from financing, distribution and resale.
No evidence establishes that General Licence 135 was specifically designed for the prospective Lukoil purchasers, or that Trump personally holds an interest in the proposed transactions. Nevertheless, the parallel negotiations suggest the possibility of an emerging commercial arrangement under which American intermediaries assume a greater role in Russian energy exports.
The consequences for Ukraine could be considerable.
Kyiv has expanded attacks against Russian refineries, fuel depots and petroleum infrastructure, seeking to reduce Moscow’s export earnings and disrupt supplies supporting its armed forces.
Trump has repeatedly criticised these strikes, linking them to higher international fuel prices. His administration now has an additional commercial reason to seek their suspension.
On 11 October, Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, although President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated that Kyiv had not agreed to such an arrangement.
Ukraine has maintained that any suspension of attacks against Russian energy facilities must be matched by an end to Moscow’s strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure.
An agreement protecting Russian refineries without equivalent Russian concessions would preserve an important source of Kremlin revenue while depriving Kyiv of military and economic leverage.
The immediate political advantage for Trump is apparent. Rising diesel prices have become a concern ahead of the 3 November midterm elections, particularly among farmers and transport businesses. Additional Russian supplies offer the administration an opportunity to demonstrate action on domestic fuel costs.
Yet the six-month Treasury authorisation extends considerably beyond the election, suggesting commercial objectives that cannot be explained exclusively by short-term electoral considerations.
The emerging pattern is one of bilateral economic engagement with Moscow proceeding independently of a settlement in Ukraine. Russian energy trade is being selectively reopened, American investors are pursuing Russian-owned assets, and Washington is seeking restrictions on Ukrainian operations against the infrastructure underpinning those commercial interests.
For European governments, this threatens the cohesion of the sanctions regime. Brussels may continue restricting Russian energy revenues while Washington authorises transactions that restore access to international markets.
The larger prospect is a system in which Russia retains export earnings, American intermediaries acquire profitable commercial positions, and sanctions become instruments of bilateral negotiation rather than coordinated Western pressure.
Trump’s diesel agreement may therefore represent the opening stage of a wider economic accommodation with Putin, negotiated while Russia continues its war against Ukraine and without any corresponding Russian commitment to withdraw from occupied territory.
Germany’s Bundestag has formally recognised the country’s particular historical responsibility towards Ukraine for atrocities committed during the Nazi occupation, adopting parliamentary resolutions commemorating the 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre near Kyiv.
The decision, taken on 9 October, has implications beyond historical remembrance. For decades, Germany’s responsibility for the destruction inflicted on the Soviet Union during the Second World War was frequently interpreted through its relationship with Russia. Moscow occupied a privileged position in German efforts at reconciliation, although some of the Nazi occupation’s worst atrocities took place in territories belonging to present-day Ukraine and Belarus.
The Bundestag’s parliamentary debate and resolutions reflect a different emphasis. Germany’s historical obligations are now being connected explicitly to Ukraine’s sovereignty and its defence against Russia’s invasion, challenging an interpretation of the past that had long influenced Berlin’s approach towards Moscow.
Following German reunification, reconciliation with Russia became a central element of Berlin’s eastern policy. The Soviet Union’s immense wartime losses, officially estimated at approximately 27 million people, were frequently invoked to explain Germany’s special obligation to maintain constructive relations with Moscow.
That historical argument became intertwined with political and economic considerations, contributing to the belief that Russia should remain closely integrated into Europe’s security and economic arrangements, even as relations with its neighbours deteriorated.
The difficulty lay in the frequent conflation of Russia with the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany invaded a multinational state, not the present-day Russian Federation. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Jews and numerous other peoples suffered under an occupation whose policies included mass murder, starvation, deportation and the systematic destruction of communities.
Ukraine was among the principal territories where the German war of annihilation unfolded. The Holocaust by bullets, the destruction of entire settlements, the exploitation of occupied agricultural regions and the deportation of civilians for forced labour were central features of Nazi rule there.
Nevertheless, German political discourse often approached this history primarily through the framework of German-Russian reconciliation. The suffering of Ukraine and Belarus was acknowledged, but neither country occupied a comparable position in Berlin’s strategic thinking.
This imbalance has been examined by German scholars of foreign policy, who have argued that the historical justification for rapprochement with Russia sometimes obscured the distinct wartime experiences of other former Soviet republics.
The anniversary of Babyn Yar provides a particularly direct illustration of the historical problem.
On 29 and 30 September 1941, German SS and police units, with assistance from local collaborators, murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children in a ravine outside Kyiv. The massacre was among the largest single mass shootings of the Holocaust.
Killings continued at the site throughout the German occupation. Approximately 100,000 people were murdered there, including Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and other civilians persecuted by the Nazi authorities.
Babyn Yar was not an isolated atrocity. Similar mass executions occurred across occupied Ukraine, while millions of people suffered under German military occupation. The country’s experience formed a substantial part of the wider catastrophe conventionally remembered in Germany as the war against the Soviet Union.
The geographical distinction matters because the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 did not transfer the historical experiences of its constituent peoples exclusively to Russia. Nor did Moscow’s position as the principal diplomatic successor to the USSR confer ownership of their wartime suffering.
Recognition of Ukraine’s separate experience therefore requires more than acknowledging the location of Nazi crimes. It involves reconsidering the political assumptions that allowed Russia to become Germany’s principal partner in commemorating a history shared by several nations.
In its resolution on the Babyn Yar anniversary, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU and its Social Democratic coalition partner explicitly connected remembrance of Nazi crimes with Germany’s present obligations towards Ukraine.
The document declares that responsibility for German atrocities does not end with commemorating their victims. It requires opposition to antisemitism, racism, historical revisionism and imperialist violence.
The parliamentary motion calls for continued political, economic, financial, humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine, together with support for its European integration and efforts to secure the return of children transferred to Russia.
The opposition Greens separately submitted a resolution centred on Germany’s historical responsibility towards Ukraine, advocating greater attention to the German occupation in historical education, research and cooperation between memorial institutions.
The development does not mean that Germany has only now recognised Ukrainian victims of Nazi persecution. German officials have previously acknowledged responsibility towards Ukraine alongside Russia and Belarus. In 2016, then foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier explicitly referred to the suffering of all three countries in an address marking the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
What has changed is the political weight attached to that recognition. The historical relationship with Moscow can no longer be treated as the principal expression of Germany’s obligations arising from the war, particularly when Russia is conducting a war of territorial conquest against another country devastated by Nazi aggression.
The reassessment also exposes a contradiction in Germany’s earlier Russia policy.
Historical responsibility was among the arguments used to defend engagement with Moscow, including economic cooperation and efforts to accommodate Russian security concerns. Such reasoning remained influential even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The Nord Stream pipeline projects exemplified the wider policy of maintaining substantial economic ties with Russia despite objections from Ukraine and several Central and Eastern European governments. Those projects had commercial and geopolitical motivations, but they developed within a political culture in which reconciliation with Moscow carried particular historical significance.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 fundamentally undermined that approach. Germany subsequently expanded military assistance to Ukraine, while President Steinmeier acknowledged serious errors in his previous assessment of relations with Moscow.
The Bundestag’s latest resolution adds a historical dimension to that policy correction. Rather than regarding restraint towards Russia as the principal lesson of Germany’s wartime conduct, parliament has articulated a responsibility to assist Ukraine in preserving its independence.
The two positions are not necessarily incompatible as matters of historical remembrance. Germany retains an obligation to commemorate Russian victims of Nazism, just as it does Ukrainian, Belarusian and other victims. The distinction concerns whether responsibility for past atrocities should influence contemporary policy towards the Russian state when that state itself is violating another nation’s sovereignty.
That question has become increasingly important as German political parties debate the duration and extent of military assistance to Kyiv. Calls for renewed accommodation with Moscow continue to feature in domestic politics, including among those opposed to further weapons deliveries.
The Bundestag’s recognition of Ukraine’s particular historical experience does not resolve those disputes or establish a new military commitment. It does, however, challenge one of the historical arguments that shaped Germany’s previous relationship with Russia.
The significance of the Babyn Yar anniversary therefore extends beyond the commemoration of crimes committed in 1941. It concerns a belated adjustment in Germany’s understanding of where its wartime responsibilities lie, and the extent to which those responsibilities should inform its conduct towards Ukraine today.
On October 4, the US pulled its 12 B-1 strategic bombers out of Fairford, UK and returned them to the United States. Reports say the planes returned to Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. The bombers were pulled out when intelligence reported that an attack by armed drones against Fairford was imminent. […]
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More than 50 Russian companies could default on their bonds this year, the most since 2009, a rating-agency analyst told Russian newspaper Izvestia, which reported it on 6 October.
Russia's wartime economy is straining under high interest rates, and the budget is too: the 2026 deficit has nearly doubled from the earlier forecast to a record $88 billion, with more deficits planned for the next three years as Moscow raises taxes to fund the war and plans its biggest defense budget since the full-scale invasion began.
A default is a situation in which a company cannot make promised interest payments to investors on time or repay borrowed money. If a payment is not made by the agreed deadline, the company becomes delinquent, which under certain conditions is recognized as a default.
So far this year, 20 companies have defaulted for the first time, compared with 24 in all of 2025, said Mikhail Nikonov of the Expert RA rating agency. Most of the companies that missed payments are small issuers of high-yield bonds, Izvestia reported.
In 2026, Russian companies have missed payments totaling 41 billion rubles (about $490 million), compared with 34 billion rubles (about $410 million) the previous year, according to investment bank Sinara.
By the end of 2026, the number of Russian companies unable to service their ruble-denominated debt on time could reach 40–50, the highest level since 2010, said Pavel Zholobov, junior managing director at the NRA rating agency.
The number of bond defaults in 2026 has already reached its highest level in a decade, Zholobov said. Similar figures were recorded in the mid-2010s: in 2014, 35 companies missed payments; in 2015, 52 did so; and in 2016, there were 44 issuers. This occurred in part after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and its war in Donbas, as well as amid a halving of oil prices and a sharp weakening of the ruble.
There were more defaults only in 2009. At the time, amid the fallout from the global financial crisis, more than 100 issuers faced payment problems, while the volume of distressed debt reached nearly 200 billion rubles, Zholobov noted.
This time, the main reason for companies' difficulties in making bond payments has been the prolonged period of high interest rates, which has continued since 2023. Companies are raising financing at high interest rates but are unable to refinance their debt on more favorable terms, explained Ekaterina Sidorova, head of the Foreign Exchange, Commodities and Debt Markets Department at SberCIB Investment Research.
At the same time, the situation does not yet resemble a systemic debt crisis: defaults are primarily being recorded among companies with low credit ratings and high debt burdens, Sidorova said.
If a company fails to repay bond debt, it is given 10 business days to meet its obligations. If it fails to do so, the company may offer investors a restructuring—for example, by postponing payments in exchange for a higher interest rate.
The number of defaults will remain high in 2027, Sidorova believes.
High interest rates were a response to accelerating inflation in Russia. Domestic demand was outpacing production, Russia's Central Bank said in October 2023. Sanctions over the war and rising defense spending had also hit the economy and the ruble, which had lost about 25% against the dollar that year. The bank raised its key rate from 7.5% in the first half of 2023 to 15% by the fall.
Ukraine is also seeking to weaken Russia's economy as part of efforts to reduce its ability to finance the war. In particular, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said strikes on oil refineries are aimed at "bleeding the Russian war machine" and destroying its military and economic potential. According to the ministry, the attacks have knocked out more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity.
In the first half of July, Russian oil refineries processed about 3.9 million barrels of oil per day—the lowest level since March 2005. Due to the production cuts, Moscow was also forced to restrict fuel exports.
The Russians are struggling on land and at sea, and are having real difficulty protecting themselves from Ukrainian long-range attack. That has left them with one real strategic “advantage” and that is what we will see the next few months. As reports this week made clear, the Russian strategy is now to make Ukraine unlivable, […]
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