Trump calls on Zelensky to stop attacking Russian energy targets
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
President Donald Trump is currently attempting to conduct American foreign policy from a golf course in County Clare, Ireland, and his primary metric for success appears to be the…
The GasBuddy Doctrine of Statecraft
President Donald Trump is currently attempting to conduct American foreign policy from a golf course in County Clare, Ireland, and his primary metric for success appears to be the national average price of diesel. Speaking to reporters during the Irish Open, as reported by Ukrinform and SBS News, the President issued a blunt directive to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: stop the drone and missile strikes on Russian diesel refineries. "Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing," Trump stated. "He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he's causing a shortage of diesel."
The timing is not a coincidence. With the November 3 midterm elections looming, the administration is staring at a record diesel price—which GasBuddy reported rose over US$6 a gallon, hitting $8.37 in some metrics—and a public that feels the pinch at the pump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has termed this an "energy shock," while Energy Secretary Chris Wright has explicitly linked the price spike to Ukrainian strikes. Trump is attempting to decouple this inflation from the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, insisting that "this isn't done by the Middle East," but by Ukraine.
It is a clumsy maneuver. To suggest that a sovereign nation fighting an existential war should curate its target list to protect the profit margins of the aggressor’s energy sector—simply to soothe an American electorate—is not strategy. It is a political gambit masquerading as diplomacy.
The Brutal Logic of the Oil War
The administration's argument is that the United States, as the primary provider of military aid, has a legitimate interest in preventing global economic instability. The most capable advocate for this position would argue that energy security is national security; if diesel prices trigger a domestic recession or a Federal Reserve interest rate hike before the midterms, the political will to support Ukraine may evaporate entirely. From this view, the U.S. is not infringing on Ukrainian sovereignty but is managing a global systemic risk that transcends the immediate tactical gains of a few destroyed refineries.
But this reasoning fails because it ignores the historical mechanism of energy warfare. We have seen this blueprint before, most notably during the Iran-Iraq War. In that conflict, both sides engaged in the systematic targeting of oil infrastructure not as a side effect of battle, but as a primary tool of economic leverage intended to break the opponent's will and capacity to fight. Ukraine is employing that same logic. By targeting the Primorsk terminal and other refineries, Kyiv is attempting to starve the Russian war machine of the very fuel that moves its tanks and the revenue that pays for its missiles.
When you enter a war of attrition, you do not leave the enemy's wallet untouched because the neighborhood finds the resulting inflation inconvenient. The attempt to bifurcate "acceptable" targets from "unacceptable" ones—specifically sparing diesel—is a distinction without a strategic difference. If the goal is to weaken Russia, you hit the refineries. To ask Zelenskyy to stop is to ask him to subsidize the Russian military's logistics for the sake of a few cents per gallon in Georgia or Ohio.
The Price of Political Scapegoating
This is not the first time the U.S. has tried to play the role of the global energy thermostat. In 2022, the Russian oil price cap was a superpower's attempt to starve a war chest while pretending the market remained stable. We saw a similar impulse during the Arab Spring, where the U.S. intervened in the strategic direction of allies to prevent broader geopolitical instability. But there is a difference between strategic guidance and the current demand.
A senior European official told Politico that the administration is merely seeking scapegoats for its own struggles with the war in Iran. The absurdity of the claim is highlighted by the President's own prior rhetoric; Donald Trump has frequently asserted that America can supply as much oil as anyone wants. If the U.S. is truly energy independent, the marginal loss of Russian diesel exports should not be causing a domestic "energy shock" unless the administration is fundamentally mistaken about its own capacity.
The trajectory here is clear: the administration will likely attempt to leverage upcoming military aid packages to force Zelenskyy’s hand. They will treat the delivery of munitions as a quid pro quo for the preservation of Russian diesel infrastructure.
You cannot run a foreign policy based on the GasBuddy app. To treat a strategic military alliance as a tool for midterm price management is to spend the capital of American legitimacy for a short-term political dividend. When we tell an ally to stop winning a specific part of their war because it makes our voters grumpy, we are not leading; we are hedging. The result will not be lower prices, but a diminished ally and a Russian energy sector that knows exactly how much the American presidency is willing to sell for a dip in the inflation index.