The Treasury Secretary of the United States is laundering the Kremlin’s favorite talking point on Fox News, live from Asheville. Scott Bessent found the culprit for American energy prices, and it was not the country that started the largest land war in Europe since 1945. It is Ukraine, for having the audacity to hit the refineries that fuel the army burning its cities.
The Logic of the Blame Game
Let us walk through the logic. Ukraine strikes Russian energy assets, so global prices rise. Meanwhile the actual chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, moves three to four times the oil Russia exports. That route is now under blockade pressure because of the Iran conflict.
Bessent knows this. He mentioned Iran himself, then immediately promised prices will fall once that conflict ends. So the price shock is driven by the Gulf. Ukrainian drones are not the cause behind the visits to Russian refineries.
But the Gulf is a mess of this administration’s own making. Ukraine is the convenient punching bag that does not talk back.
The Systemic Refusal to See the Victim
The deeper problem is systemic, not isolated to any single interview. This administration keeps looking for someone to blame for the consequences of a war Moscovia started, and it keeps landing on the victim.
Ukraine did not choose to be invaded. Ukraine did not choose to have its energy grid bombed for three winters. Ukraine fights for survival against an oil-funded aggressor firing missiles at apartment blocks. When you hit the refineries that fund that missile supply, you are not creating an energy shock. You are shortening the war that created it.
The fastest way to bring prices down is to end the war. The fastest way to end the war is to let Ukraine finish the job.
What Ukrainian Strikes Actually Do
And spare me the line about good drones not visiting Russian ports lately. Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are not a provocation. Moscovia understands only this language. Sanctions never bit hard enough. Western appeasement kept the oil money flowing for years.
Every refinery that burns is less fuel for the Black Sea Fleet. It is less diesel for the logistics trains feeding the Kupiansk direction. It is less revenue for the imperial project that refuses to stop.
The Real Driver of American Prices
Bessent wants to talk about American cost of living. Fine. Then talk about the real driver: a decade of Western refusal to treat Russian energy as a strategic weapon. Moscovia’s economy is already in stagflation, with zero industrial growth and inflation back at six percent.
Washington now pretends Ukraine is disrupting the very oil trade that keeps it afloat. Instead we get a Treasury Secretary on Fox News telling Americans that the problem is the country fighting for its life. Analysis requires evidence and reasoning. This is appeasement delivered via teleprompter.