Ukraine has succeeded in depriving Russia of much of the windfall profits it would have made from oil exports during March and April, as the war in the Gulf sent prices soaring to above $100 a barrel, a series of sources suggest.

Ukraine intensified a long-range strike campaign against Russian port and energy infrastructure on March 21 in a calculated bid to prevent Russia from offloading oil onto tankers and to counteract the suspension of US sanctions on Russian oil, which had been in place since 2022.

Nice to see some good news.

good news !

Coupled with Russian Economic challenges (GDP shrinking, deficit increasing sharply, unemployment at historic lows, high interest rates...) I am guessing that this is now more of Ukraine War to Lose, as mitigating the windfall puts Putin in a very tight spot. Maybe he can leverage the Arctic ports to ship more oil out, but not enough to make up the deficit by winter. He still has to spend a bunch on the Free Economic Zone they have captured, but it's entirely a white elephant.

Ukraine could still fall prey to Trump's whims, or Putin's influence (of other countries), or Putin could act rash an pull out the big weapons, but none of that "wins" this war. Conventional manpower is still the major constraint for both sides. I expect some sort of unconventional endgame here (armistice, long-term grey zone warfare, something other than negotiated peace), but one of those possibility is regime change... Not at 66% approval, but that rating will finish asymptotically if he doesn't figure the money out.

Slava Ukraini!