The White House certainly has such concerns, but experts have a broader view of the situation.
The United States is warning Ukraine against attacks on Russian oil refining infrastructure, fearing chaos in the global fuel market that would harm Joe Biden’s election campaign. Newsweek writes about this.
The publication notes that prices at gas stations in the United States have been rising over the past few months, and the cost of a tank of gasoline is a sensitive indicator for a highly automotivated America: many American voters take this into account when they go to the ballot box.
In February, analysts from the authoritative agency Moody’s even made a forecast according to which it turned out that Joe Biden would lose the election if the price of a gallon (a standard US unit of volume equal to approximately 3.8 liters) of gasoline exceeded $4.
At the same time, analysts note that Ukrainian attacks on refineries in Russia do not have a significant impact on world oil prices: gasoline production in Russia falls, but this does not reduce the amount of oil itself – it is exported. It will be another matter if Ukraine begins to attack the infrastructure for oil production and export from Russia.
“If Ukraine also begins to target crude oil facilities, it could threaten Russia’s overall production and exports, and, more significantly, global oil prices would rise, increasing inflation and pressure on the cost of living in the US and other countries,” explains the senior lawyer. Department of Geopolitics and Cybernetics of the consulting company S-RM Markus Korhonen.
It is not surprising that after the Ukrainian attacks on refineries, oil exports from Russia only increased.
At the same time, Berlin-based energy and geopolitical analyst Tom O’Donnell admits that Western oil sanctions do almost no harm to Russia, so sooner or later the Ukrainians will begin to attack the Russian oil export infrastructure, in particular the ports where oil is loaded onto tankers.
“If they hit them now, it would be a shock to the market, and I don’t know if the market is ready. I’m sure the White House is very nervous about it. They probably want to wait until after the election. After the election, if Trump wins.” , they will have no reason not to hit these oil ports,” O’Donnell said.
The analyst notes that America should prepare for such a development and stock up on additional oil to soften the blow to its economy.
USA against Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries in Russia
As UNIAN wrote, during the first three months of this year, Ukraine carried out a series of attacks on Russian oil refineries using long-range drones. As a result, the aggressor lost about 15% of its oil refining capacity.
At the end of March, Western media, citing their own sources, began to write that the White House was dissatisfied with Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries. After this, American officials began making statements similar in meaning, but more streamlined in wording.
