If they can force the question like that to the US, perhaps. But I don’t think they can do that. They would have already done so if they could instead of complain about being asked not to. They don’t seem ideologically predisposed to play hardball like Iran is. Or pehaps their material position to knock Russia’s oil prod is not as strong. Which is the other concern. If they knock a chunk of it offline, enough to trigger regime changes across Europe (through oilprice-triggered recession/depression), but not enough to win the war, then they’d be absolutely fucked and will def lose the war.
Not particularly, that would absolutely backfire if Zelensky tried that, most of why the war hasn’t spiralled seems to be that he hasn’t broken any rules of combat, and has decent relationships with most of the countries of the EU. In fact, that would probably give Trump a premise to help Russia, something he has clearly been looking for for a while.
And even then, I think the connotation between Trump and Europe’s Far right is enough to make them generally unpopular, given the far right caused the gas/oil shortages in the first place, so I double AfD, Le Pen, or Farage would gain enough leverage to parley that into power.
Ultimately, I think Ukraine needs to quickly shut down Russian oil production, as if they don’t Russia gets a foothold that makes their war last longer. It won’t be particularly popular in a lot of the EU (at least in the short term), but it’s better than giving Russia the means to continue their bullshit.
If they can force the question like that to the US, perhaps. But I don’t think they can do that. They would have already done so if they could instead of complain about being asked not to. They don’t seem ideologically predisposed to play hardball like Iran is. Or pehaps their material position to knock Russia’s oil prod is not as strong. Which is the other concern. If they knock a chunk of it offline, enough to trigger regime changes across Europe (through oilprice-triggered recession/depression), but not enough to win the war, then they’d be absolutely fucked and will def lose the war.
Not particularly, that would absolutely backfire if Zelensky tried that, most of why the war hasn’t spiralled seems to be that he hasn’t broken any rules of combat, and has decent relationships with most of the countries of the EU. In fact, that would probably give Trump a premise to help Russia, something he has clearly been looking for for a while.
And even then, I think the connotation between Trump and Europe’s Far right is enough to make them generally unpopular, given the far right caused the gas/oil shortages in the first place, so I double AfD, Le Pen, or Farage would gain enough leverage to parley that into power.
Ultimately, I think Ukraine needs to quickly shut down Russian oil production, as if they don’t Russia gets a foothold that makes their war last longer. It won’t be particularly popular in a lot of the EU (at least in the short term), but it’s better than giving Russia the means to continue their bullshit.