someone needs to pay trump a visit.

After some digging and a helpful TLDR video linked below, $64 is what is needed for shale oil companies to make a profit. For Russia, this is much lower however, at around $20, si they're still making a lot of profit from the oil... but just enough to finance the war. Now that Saudi-Arabia has opened the floodgates, new oil fields in South America have started pumping and the risks of a recession are growing bigger and bigger, the oil price will most certainly drop even lower, making it harder and harder for the Kremlin to finance the war.

It's also devastating for Trump, as instead of "Drill, baby drill!" there will be foreclosures as the oil price is now too low for shale oil production (even after the recovery yesterday it still only got up to $62 and is already back down to $60 when 10 days ago it sat at almost $72.50), making the US now MORE energy dependent than before.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - Less than 48 hours after dining with a negotiator sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington last week, Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy leading talks with Moscow, sat down with President Donald Trump in the White House and delivered a clear message.

The fastest way to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, said Witkoff, was to support a strategy that would give Russia ownership of four eastern Ukrainian regions it attempted to annex illegally in 2022, two U.S. officials and five people familiar with the situation told Reuters.

It was a point Witkoff had made previously – and publicly in a podcast interview with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson last month – but one that Kyiv has repeatedly rejected and that some U.S. and European officials have dismissed as a maximalist Russian demand.

In the meeting with Trump, General Keith Kellogg, the president’s Ukraine envoy, pushed back against Witkoff, saying Ukraine, though willing to negotiate some terms related to disputed land, would never agree to unilaterally cede total ownership of the territories to Russia, said two of the sources.

The meeting ended without Trump making a decision to change the U.S. strategy. Witkoff traveled to Russia Friday to meet Putin.

Trump administration officials are increasingly at odds over how to break the deadlock between Ukraine and Russia, with Witkoff and Kellogg - who favors more direct support for Ukraine - disagreeing on the best course forward, according to the U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter and four Western diplomats who are in touch with administration officials.

In a break with normal security procedures, Witkoff had invited Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions following Russia's invasion, to his personal residence for dinner before the White House meeting.

That set off alarms inside the White House and the State Department, according to two people familiar with the situation. U.S. officials avoid hosting officials from Russia – which has sophisticated intelligence capabilities – to their homes.

The dinner was rescheduled and took place at the White House instead.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill were so concerned about Witkoff's apparent pro-Russia stance in the Carlson interview that several called National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio afterward to complain, according to a person familiar with the calls.

"Witkoff must go, and Rubio must take his place," read a March 26 letter from Eric Levine, a major Republican donor. The letter, sent to a group including Republican donors and seen by Reuters, was written after the Carlson interview and a Fox News appearance, and criticized Witkoff for praising Putin.

Trump envoy's embrace of Russian demands worries Republicans, U.S. allies | Reuters

The crazy thing is if a Democratic President and his band of men acted this way the republican would be up in arms. I am sure many republicans think Trump has lost the plot but they do nothing.

...

Palm Sunday

Russia won't be free of the disease it has until every single government official, military leader and all collaborators with Putin have a bullet through their skull. Russia is a sick country. The only way it will ever change is a post-WW2 Germany/Japan style occupation by the allied countries. Impossible in the times of nukes existing, so it should be morally impossible to ever allow Russia back into our circle, during war and post war, it is a fucking disease on the world. It will not change. It will never be forced to change.

They probably think that since he's term-limited that they can take on the party at the next elections and for now profit from the fact that they are in power. But with someone like Trump, that's a pretty dangerous game to play.