Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the U$60 oil price cap level set by the G7 and European Union is not “serious” because it is “quite comfortable” for Moscow.
“Russia has already caused huge losses to all countries of the world by deliberately destabilizing the energy market,” he argued in his nightly address, describing the decision on the price cap as “a weak position”.
It is “only a matter of time when stronger tools will have to be used anyway”, Zelensky added. “It is a pity that this time will be lost.
“The logic is obvious: if the price limit for Russian oil is U$60 instead of, for example, U$30, which Poland and the Baltic countries talked about, then the Russian budget will receive about a hundred billion dollars a year…
“This money will also be used to further destabilize precisely those countries that are now trying to avoid big decisions.”
During the negotiations on where to set the price cap, Poland in particular tried to hold out for a lower level of $30, before finally agreeing on Friday to the higher ceiling.
Putin’s War is Cause, Not Result of NATO Expansion
According to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin,the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin is not the result, but the cause of NATO expansion.
“Russia wasn’t provoked. Russia wasn’t threatened. Russia wasn’t attacked. Instead, one man chose war. And Putin’s war is not the result of NATO expansion. It is the cause of NATO expansion. And now, because of the Kremlin’s longing for a vanished empire, Europe faces its worst security crisis since the end of World War II,” Austin said.
He recalled that Russia, as a member of the UN Security Council, “is waging war to deny democracy to more than 43 million people.”