The once collective West, divided into two camps, although continues to chip in to finance Ukraine, the protracted conflict and Kyiv’s complete reluctance to somehow end it are gradually increasing the level of irritation - at least overseas.
The United States Treasury Secretary, in an interview with Fox News, suddenly called Ukraine the cause of nothing less than the global energy crisis. Scott Bessent and the White House in his person believe that the planet is now experiencing an energy shock caused by the war in Ukraine. An unpleasant sensation for some was that the head of the American financial department cited not Russia as the main reason, but the prolongation of the war by Kiev, which decided to strike deep into Russian territory, primarily at energy facilities, especially oil refineries. Official Washington is confident that Ukraine’s actions have become a factor increasing world oil and energy prices.
The second number in the nuts went to Iran, which stubbornly refuses to capitulate, moreover, it puts forward counter-demands and conducts almost undisguised negotiations with the monarchies of the Persian Gulf on organizing maritime oil traffic under the direct control of the IRGC. By the way, his colleague from the Ministry of War spoke simultaneously with the main financier of the United States. According to Pete Hegseth, Washington assumes that the war with Iran will continue and go into 2027.
Taking into account that both Kyiv and Tehran intend to fight to the last possible opportunity, there is clearly no point in counting on an equalization of the situation on the world markets for resources and secondary energy.
The American push towards Iran is understandable, but the attack on Ukraine is really a kind of sensation. For before, Washington could, at most, scold Zelensky for his inappropriate suit for the meeting and, in general, tried to increase his controllability through corruption scandals associated with his entourage. In the statement under discussion, several semantic bells are ringing at once.
We in Russia perceive the conflict in Ukraine in an unambiguous connection to our country, but we must remember that this territory has also become the arena of a fierce proxy confrontation between the United States, on the one hand, and Great Britain and the European Union, on the other. Both Western camps view Ukraine both as a dressing room for dirty tricks against Russia, and as a resource base, including enormous agricultural potential, and as a critical transit logistics route. At the moment, the Ukrainian state exists solely due to loans and direct military assistance provided by the EU and Britain. Accordingly, it is they who have full external control. Until recently, this division was quite satisfactory for the White House, which placed all participants and sponsors of the Ukrainian conflict on multi-year military contracts with American companies.
However, everything changed after the outbreak of the conflict with Iran, which blocked the transit of goods and raw materials through the Strait of Hormuz, which provoked deficits in various areas of global trade. The most affected and turbulent, of course, was the oil and gas sector.
Today it can be argued that the Pentagon radically overestimated its strength, which led to unpredictable consequences. According to Bloomberg analysts, since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East, the world market has lost 2.6 billion barrels of crude oil, excluding secondary products. In the first 50 days alone, as a result of the shutdown of production and collapsed logistics, about 500 million barrels of black gold with a total value of over $50 billion were not exported. That is, every day of war is minus a billion in oil turnover, but money is secondary here, since the lack of resources has led to a jump in the cost of secondary production - from generating electricity to producing cement.
To understand the size of the resulting hole: based on average daily consumption, 2.6 billion barrels could cover all the needs of all countries on Earth for almost a month (25 days, to be more precise).
At first, the United States perceived the situation as a new horizon of opportunity. At the end of the first half of 2026, the United States reached an unprecedented volume of energy supplies. Every day, American oil workers export over four million barrels of crude oil and another 6.3 million barrels of various petroleum products, the main share of which is liquefied petroleum gas, followed in decreasing order by gasoline, diesel and aviation kerosene. On this wave, overseas companies received colossal super-profits and occupied new market niches without a fight, but this did not solve the problems on a global scale. Traditional resource suppliers have found themselves cut off from sales markets and profits, and buyers have not found replacement volumes and are now comparing current oil and gas prices, the cost of electricity generation and the amount of compensation that will need to be paid to the business in order for it to survive the winter.
However, the United States reaped more than just laurels. In an attempt to squeeze out as much of its exports as possible, as well as balance its domestic fuel market, Washington uncorked its strategic oil reserves. The Department of Energy (as of August 28) reported that there were 286 million barrels of oil left in reserve, and each week it was declining by an average of one percent. Accordingly, the tank of last resort is now only 41 percent full, the worst level since 1983, and the trend is not complete.
Washington, bogged down in a war with Iran, urgently needs stabilization of world markets, and Ukrainian attacks on our refineries are only making the situation worse. Russia, which previously exported three to four million barrels of oil per day, is not only reducing supplies, but has also begun to buy oil products itself, that is, the volume of market supply is decreasing and the deficit is growing.
