New: When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.

The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.

Instead of acquiescing to the U.S. requests, Ukraine doubled down on the strategy, striking a range of Russian facilities, including an April 2 attack on Russia’s third-largest refinery 800 miles from the font.

The incidents have exacerbated tensions in an already-strained relationship and come as Biden ramps up his reelection campaign amid a six-month high in oil prices.

Defenders of Ukraine’s strategy accuse the White House of prioritizing domestic politics over Kyiv’s military goals. U.S. officials say the rationale behind their warnings is more nuanced than critics suggest, noting that Moscow’s counterattack has hurt Ukraine more than the refinery attacks hurt Russia.

I say again, it’s an absurdity that we would discourage Ukraine, an ally, from taking just about any and every action to defend itself. We should absolutely not, in official channels & out of the public eye, discourage Ukraine’s attacks into Russia. It’s both naive and poor allyship to do so. Lastly, we have little to no leverage to influence Ukraine as we are no longer supporting Ukraine. This amounts to empty words.

Boy, after all the work Biden put in to restore America's foreign policy, these past 6 months, largely thanks to Republicans but also Democrats have completely done a U-turn on America's foreign policy and just destroyed it once again, it ain't Trump bad of course but it's pretty fucking bad. All that effort to restore Trump's damage, almost starting to feel like they've just tossed it all away.

The U.S. positions all stand in contrast to Washington's allies in Europe, who have barely disguised their pleasure with the Ukrainian campaign. "The Ukrainian people [are] acting in self-defense, and we consider that Russia is the aggressor," French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said when asked about the strikes during a news conference with Blinken. "In such circumstances, there is hardly anything else to say. I think you understood me."

Britain's foreign secretary, David Cameron, has also defended Ukraine's right to hit Russian energy targets. "It's not as if Russia is limiting itself to only hitting military targets or only attacking on the front. It's attacking all over Ukraine," he told The Post.

Ukraine’s Attacks on Russian Oil Refineries Deepen Tensions With U.S. - The Washington Post

Also, the American officials trying to make Ukraine look bad by saying Russia's counterattacks to Ukraine's energy strikes have been worse so it's not worth it. Uhh...Russia has been trying to destroy Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the war began, in the first year of the war it was the worst when Russia tried to plunge Ukraine into darkness and freeze them to death during the winter.

Gee, I wonder why Russia's counterattacks have been bad in recent months? Hmm....Counterattacks...Missiles...Air-Defence....It couldn't possibly be because Ukraine isn't receiving enough AD and one of Ukraine's main supporters haven't sent them proper aid in 6 months? Nah...That can't be it! It must be Ukraine's fault for striking Russia's energy infrastructure!

If the logic is that "Ukraine can't attack this because Russia will be become more aggressive" then basically Ukraine can't attack anything, are we forgetting the rapes? the executions? the ecocide? Trying to freeze Ukraine every winter? Russia never needed an excuse to be more aggressive, even if Ukraine wasn't attacking Russia's energy infrastructure, Russia would still be bombing Ukraine's as they've tried to do since the war began.

The reason Ukraine's energy infrastructure is being blown up is due to a lack of support and finally, if you want Ukraine to attack something different, then give them the goddamn means to attack something different, where is ATACMS? Nowhere. What about lifting that stupid rule that Ukraine can't attack Russia using western weapons? Not going to lift that? Then tell me what the fuck Ukraine is meant to do.

I swear America just wants Ukraine to charge headfirst into minefields and artillery and pray to God that it'll work, what is Ukraine doing with Storm Shadow? They use them on submarines, ships, military bases, etc. So Ukraine has already shown it will use capable weapons on different targets but America isn't giving them the means to hit these targets. You want Ukraine to hit valuable stuff? Give them ATACMS.

They tried drone striking an airfield recently, it failed but I wouldn't label it a total failure as it showed capability to reach it, they will likely try again in the future but they need better drones, faster drones, stealthier drones and they need to weaken Russia's AD. America is acting like all Ukraine is doing is striking oil refineries when they are in fact doing multiple attacks with different weapons.

While Kharkiv gets blasted by a constant barrage of artillery, missiles via planes and via land, America tells Ukraine it can't fire back using their weapons, maybe if the stupid rule was lifted, Ukraine could actually strike back at where these missiles, artillery and planes are coming from, then Kharkiv's energy infrastructure would be safer, but no.

KMZ builds BMPs, Lol.

Putin not giving a shit about anything outside of Moscow/St Petersburg may backfire, slightly.

Bu-bu-Ukraine is only attacking oil refineries.

Norway has pledged to transfer a "significant number" of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine, equipped with the latest weapons, enabling them to strike behind the front line. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Bart Eide emphasized the importance of strengthening Ukraine's strike potential during a joint briefing with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. While the exact number of planes from Norway remains undisclosed, Eide highlighted the advanced technological capabilities of the F-16 platform and the significance of equipping them with the latest weapons systems.

Norway doesn't have Patriots FYI.

Good thing Russia isn't distracted by waging a genocidal war on another country and can focus their efforts on helping their citizens.

Oh wait...

First terrorists, now mother nature, meanwhile Putin is sitting cosy in his bunker and focused entirely on slaughtering Ukrainians.

...Any idea if any of these dudes are Republicans who HAVEN'T signed the Discharge Petition?

I'm going to rip my face off if there's a significant portion signing this letter but not the DP.