Commentary
The latest controversy over Ukraine is making some wonder: Are its “friends and allies” more concerned with their gas prices than with the future of the free world?
Apparently, countries as diverse as the United States, China, France, and
Austria are pressuring Kyiv to pull its punches so their companies can do business with Moscow, and we can all save a few pennies at the pump.
China, Austria, and France pressured Ukraine to censor its “
sponsors of war” list of foreign companies that do business with Russia. They fund the Russian war machine in a big way through, for example, paying large amounts via Russian corporate taxes or importing massive quantities of expensive Russian goods. However, the French, Chinese, and Austrians don’t like their companies to be named and shamed by Ukraine. They threatened repercussions if Ukraine didn’t remove them from the list. Under duress, Kyiv caved to its “friends.”
The Biden administration has also reportedly pressured Ukraine on a matter of self-interest. Washington wants Kyiv to stop using its drones to target Russian oil refineries. Ukraine’s longest-range weapons, at over 600 miles and counting, now fly past Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most of Russia’s economic production and industrial capacity, including its oil refineries, is now within range of Ukrainian explosives. They can target not just naval ships and airfields but Russia’s cash cow energy industry. Ukraine is bringing the war home to Russia.
As a result, Russian refinery production is now at a
10-month low, according to Bloomberg. That could increase Russian gas prices, decrease Russian gas exports, and force Russia to pay more for gas imports that could be subsidized to stabilize Russian consumer prices at the pump. That would help stop the loss of Russian public support for the war. Russians are increasingly upset by the disastrous direction Moscow is taking the country, and the last thing they want is to pay more for gas.
Some Russians already go so far as to risk their freedom to show support for Russian dissidents, for example, by laying flowers at the grave of
Alexei Navalny. Others engaged in
protests against the rubber-stamp candidacy of Vladimir Putin by showing up en masse at noon to form long lines at the polls. Some reportedly joined various
all-Russian battalions that attempted to liberate Russia by fighting for territory in Russia itself. At around the time of the presidential elections from March 15 to March 17, they did so to problematize Mr. Putin’s self-portrayal as a popular leader. They crossed over into Russia from their bases in Ukraine, blew up an ammunition depot, and raised flags in several Russian villages. Their battalions are rumored to have started as a Ukrainian psychological warfare campaign. But they look very real now.
Despite this little bit of momentum, bellyaching from Kyiv’s allies abroad about increasing gas costs raises questions about whether Kyiv will be able to hit Russia where it hurts and maintain support from its partners. In response to Washington pressuring Ukraine’s intelligence agencies to cease their attacks on refineries, Kyiv has rightly responded that it has a responsibility
to defend itself by targeting whatever enables the Russian war machine, inside or outside Russia.
That Beijing would complain about being on a list of Russia’s war sponsors is unsurprising, given that the Chinese Communist Party appears to at least tacitly support the war. However, it is unseemly for Kyiv’s democratic friends in Washington, Paris, and Vienna, who are not under daily threat from Russia, to tell Kyiv how not to defend itself to keep gas prices low abroad.
Here’s some truer-than-life fiction: “Volodymyr? This is Joe. I know the bombs are raining down on you just now, and Vlad the Bad has tried to assassinate you multiple times. But I had to pay a nickel more for gas last Saturday on my day off when tootling around Georgetown with Dr. Jill. Could you please ease up on Russia? [Silence.] Volodymyr? [Click.]”
Gas is not the only Russian export upon which the world depends for cheap prices. Russian
titanium, which the United States and France have used for our aerospace defense needs, is about the cheapest around. Perhaps, as a result, the United States shuttered its domestic titanium production capabilities in 2020. That seems to have been another penny-wise-pound-foolish move. Russia and China—which together produce approximately 66 percent of titanium sponge, the first step in producing the finished product—are not our friends.
Making our military dependent on these two rogues for titanium, gas, or anything else was a morally bankrupt option from the start. They are the world’s most dangerous dictatorships and the lead countries of the “Axis of Evil.” At this late date, depending on them is a strategic error of the highest degree.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
