&w=3840&q=100)
Zelenskyy warns oil price surge from Israel-Iran conflict could aid Russia's war chest
A sharp rise in global oil prices following Israeli strikes on Iran will benefit Russia and bolster its military capabilities in the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in comments that were under embargo until Saturday afternoon. read more
Zelensky also hoped the escalation between Israel and Iran would not result in a drop in military aid to Kyiv, according to remarks published on Saturday. "We would like to see aid to Ukraine not decrease because of this," he said. "Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine." Israel unleashed large-scale attacks on Iran Friday, targeting nuclear and military facilities as well as high-ranking generals and atomic scientists, sparking international calls to restraint as fears of broader conflict grow. Image- AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the recent spike in global oil prices, triggered by Israeli strikes on Iran, stands to benefit Russia and strengthen its military operations in Ukraine.
Addressing the media in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that the increase in oil prices poses a serious risk to Ukraine's defense capabilities, particularly as Western nations have failed to implement robust price caps on Russian oil exports. His statements were made on Friday but released under embargo until Saturday afternoon.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'The strikes led to a sharp increase in the price of oil, which is negative for us,' Zelenskyy said. 'The Russians are getting stronger due to greater income from oil exports.'
Global oil prices rose as much as 7% after Israel and Iran exchanged attacks over the past 48 hours, raising concerns that further escalation in the region could disrupt oil exports from the Middle East.
Zelenskyy said he planned to raise the issue in an upcoming conversation with US President Donald Trump and also expressed concern that US military aid could be diverted away from Ukraine toward Israel during renewed tensions in the West Asia.
'In the near future, I will be in contact with the American side, I think with the president, and we will raise this issue,' he said.
'We would like aid to Ukraine not to decrease because of this,' he said. 'Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine.'
Zelensky also hoped the escalation between Israel and Iran would not result in a drop in military aid to Kyiv, according to remarks published on Saturday.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'We would like to see aid to Ukraine not decrease because of this,' he said. 'Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine.'
Israel unleashed large-scale attacks on Iran Friday, targeting nuclear and military facilities as well as high-ranking generals and atomic scientists, sparking international calls to restraint as fears of broader conflict grow.
Ukraine's military needs have been sidelined by the United States in favor of supporting Israel, Zelenskyy said, citing a shipment of 20,000 interceptor missiles, designed to counter Iran-made Shahed drones, that had been intended for Ukraine but were redirected to Israel.
'And for us it was a blow,' he said. 'When you face 300 to 400 drones a day, most are shot down or go off course, but some get through. We were counting on those missiles.'
An air defense system, Barak-8, promised to Ukraine by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu was sent to the U.S. for repairs but never delivered to Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The Ukrainian president conceded that momentum for the Coalition of the Willing, a group of 31 countries which have pledged to strengthen support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, has slowed because of U.S. ambivalence over providing a backstop.
'This situation has shown that Europe has not yet decided for itself that it will be with Ukraine completely if America is not there,' he said.
The offer of a foreign troop 'reassurance force' pledged by the Coalition of the Willing was still on the table 'but they need a backstop, as they say, from America,' Zelenskyy said. 'This means that suddenly, if something happens, America will be with them and with Ukraine.'
The Ukrainian president also said the presence of foreign contingents in Ukraine would act as a security guarantee and allow Kyiv to make territorial compromises, which is the first time he has articulated a link between the reassurance force and concessions Kyiv is willing to make in negotiations with Russia.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'It is simply that their presence gives us the opportunity to compromise, when we can say that today our state does not have the strength to take our territories within the borders of 1991,' he said.
But Europe and Ukraine are still waiting on strong signals from Trump.
Without crushing US sanctions against Russia, 'I will tell you frankly, it will be very difficult for us,' Zelenskyy said, adding that it would then fall on Europe to step up military aid to Ukraine.
With inputs from agencies
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
35 minutes ago
- Time of India
Israel warns 'Tehran will burn' after Iran retaliates with drones, missiles
DUBAI: Israel's defence minister warned Saturday that "Tehran will burn" if Iran continues firing missiles, as the countries traded blows a day after Israel launched a blistering surprise attack on Iranian nuclear and military sites, killing several top generals. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The attacks have left Iran's surviving leadership with the difficult decision of plunging deeper into conflict with Israel's more powerful forces or seeking a diplomatic route. Israel - which is widely believed to have a nuclear weapons programme - said its hundreds of strikes on Iran over the past two days also killed nine senior scientists and experts involved in Iran's nuclear programme. Iran's UN ambassador said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded. Iran retaliated by launching waves of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, where explosions lit the night skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook buildings. The Israeli military urged civilians, already rattled by the war in Gaza sparked by Hamas' Oct 7 attack, to head to shelter for hours. Health officials said three people were killed and dozens wounded. Defence minister Israel Katz said Iran will pay a heavy price for harming Israeli citizens. "If (Iran Supreme leader) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front - Tehran will burn," Katz said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that his objective was to eliminate any Iranian threat to Israel, but he also urged Iranians to rise up against their leaders. The US and Iran were scheduled to be in Oman on Sunday for their sixth round of indirect talks over Iran's nuclear programme. Iran's top diplomat said Saturday the talks were "unjustifiable" after the Israeli strikes, likely signalling no negotiations this weekend. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now But he stopped short of saying the talks were cancelled. Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel late Friday and early Saturday, and Iranians awoke to state television airing repeated clips of strikes on Israel, as well as videos of people cheering and handing out sweets. The Iranian attacks killed at least three people and wounded 76, mostly in and around Tel Aviv, according to two local hospitals. One missile severely damaged at least four homes in the nearby city of Rishon Lezion, according to first Israeli military said seven soldiers were lightly wounded when a missile hit central Israel, without specifying where. It was the first report of Israeli military casualties since the initial Israeli strikes. US ground-based air defence systems in the region were helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, an Associated Press journalist saw burned-out cars and at least three damaged houses, including one whose front was nearly entirely torn away. Residents of a central Israeli city that was hit Friday night told the AP the explosion was so powerful it shook their shelter door open. Israeli police said debris from the interception of drones and missiles fell in dozens of locations in northern Israel, causing damage and fires but no injuries. Israel's main international airport said Saturday it will remain closed until further notice.
The Print
36 minutes ago
- The Print
Israel crushed Ayatollah's regime, but stopping Iran's nuke programme will need total overthrow
As the Americans and British did in 1953, Israel will likely need to go further and dismantle the regime for its strategy to succeed. The reason is simple: Israel has acted to ensure that no rival power in the Middle East can threaten its undisclosed nuclear arsenal. Nuclear experts like David Albright say there is so far little sign that deeply buried uranium enrichment facilities, such as those at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz, have suffered severe damage . This week, precision Israeli air strikes blew apart the ferocious imperial façade of the theocracy that governs Iran, a system long sustained by bluff. Iran's doddering Cold War-era air force and much-hyped homegrown air defences failed to protect critical military facilities, and the country's highest-ranking officials were scythed through in precession attacks. Iran's retaliatory strikes, launched with a fleet of low-cost, homemade ballistic missiles, proved largely ineffective . When the assassins' knives had done their work, scholar, journalist, and diplomat Lawrence Paul Elwell-Sutton ruminated about why it had to be done : 'Really, it seemed hardly fair that dignified and correct Western statesmanship should be defeated by the antics of incomprehensible orientals.' In the summer of 1951, the radical Iranian politician Mohammad Mossadeq had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Britain's prized oil concession. Furious, the West began quietly plotting his downfall, fearing that Iran was sliding towards communism. Ending the war with the regime intact, then, could lead Iran to make the fateful decision to produce and test a nuclear weapon. That process could take far less time than most imagine. As physicist Hui Zhang points out, China could assemble a testable nuclear device in just three weeks in 1964, even without advanced equipment. Israel hopes its assault will open the door for Iranians fed up with their regime to bring down the Ayatollahs—or, alternatively, for groups like the Islamic State or ethnic Baloch insurgents to turn the regime's gaze inward. It's a high-stakes gamble—and one that could prove to be the undoing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also read: Attacking Iran's nuclear programme won't bolster Israel's national security A triumph foretold Even though Iran's missile capabilities have been talked up by experts across the world, the truth is the Ayatollah's military core is rusted through. Last year, a rare leak of radar-screen images aired on Iranian news channels revealed that Natanz was being defended by radar systems made by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and homemade missiles lacked the capacity to effectively coordinate. Even the limited number of Russian-made S-400 systems supplied to Iran proved incapable of shielding against Israel's advanced F-22 and F-35 jets. To make things worse, Iran's air force still relies largely on the Cold War-era F-4 Phantom II and locally built derivatives of the Northrop F-5, both originally supplied by the United States. The air force also has a small number of MiG29 jets from the Soviet era. But neither China nor Russia has been willing to provide the Islamic Republic with modern fighter platforms or advanced missile systems. Iran's retaliatory missile strikes on Israel in 2024 exposed the limitations in its 'Atmanirbhar' missile programme. Many missiles failed to launch, were intercepted, or struck far off their intended targets. These shortcomings are largely because Iran has been denied access by sanctions to technologies needed for precision guidance. The Iranian response to Israel's strikes this week further demonstrated these weaknesses. While drones like the HESA Shahed 136 have seen some success in Ukraine, that success comes in a vastly different battlespace—where adversaries are in close contact and not protected by air defences. Israel, in contrast, has been able to provide its thinly inhabited territories with a layered air defence network, helped by the vast distances that slow-moving drones have to travel from Iran. Iran's top leadership, The New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi noted, also miscalculated the risk of an Israeli strike, assuming Israel would not act just days before scheduled negotiations with the United States. This allowed Israeli special forces to target top officials using agents already stationed on the ground. What remains unclear, though, is the strategic question: Can Israel's strikes actually prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and what might happen if they do not? Also read: New round of Iran nuclear negotiations begins. Time to talk about Israel's atomic bombs too The Iran-Israel nuclear dyad Twin flashes of light over a remote island in the Indian Ocean, captured by an American spy satellite in September 1979, established to the world that Israel had become the sixth nuclear power, following the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China. French assistance, historian Avner Cohen writes, helped Israel overcome the substantial technical and financial barriers to developing nuclear weapons. France, ironically, also helped lay the foundation for Iran's nuclear programme. Faced with the threat of the Soviet Union and unpersuaded by Western security guarantees, Iran's monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi, authorised a civilian nuclear programme that ran alongside a secret weapons project. In 1974, Iran signed contracts with the French company Framatome to build two pressurised water reactors, followed by a deal with Germany to construct six more. Throughout the 1970s, commercial competition among France, Germany, and the United States, scholar Mustafa Kibaroglu writes, enabled countries like Pakistan, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Iran, and Libya to access sensitive nuclear technologies with relative ease. Ironically again, scholar Trita Parsi records, Israel itself built the missile production facility that laid the foundation for Iran's modern guided missile programme. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah, Iran also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Pakistan in 1987. This agreement gave Tehran access to blueprints and equipment from the black-market network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, as political scientist Molly MacCalman's authoritative work shows. These developments were driven by the regime's lessons from the savage war with Saddam Husain's Iraq, where it found itself facing a brutal conflict supported by the West. In response, then-Parliament Speaker and military chief Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani declared, 'We should fully equip ourselves both in the offensive and defensive use of chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons.' For Iran's clerical regime, these existential concerns made nuclear capabilities a necessity. For Israel, they created a rising threat that the country's leaders could not, and would not, tolerate. Also read: Analysis—Israel's attacks on Iran hint at a bigger ambition: regime change The endgame in Iran Stolen documents acquired by Israeli intelligence make it clear that Iran made a firm political decision in the late 1990s to pursue nuclear weapons capability. Likely, multiple circumstances shaped the decision of Iran's clerical leadership. First, the Gulf war in 1990 had demonstrated that the United States could rapidly dismantle Saddam Husain's military—forces that were far superior to Iran's. Then, despite the war's end, Iran continued to face a threat from Iraq. The Iranian leadership ordered scientists to develop five 10-kiloton nuclear bombs as an initial deterrent. The events of 9/11, though, and the discovery of the Khan nuclear smuggling network changed the world. In an effort to seek a rapprochement with the West, Iran partially halted its nuclear weapons work and opened its nuclear facilities and uranium stockpiles to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In 2015, Iran finally hammered out a deal with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. In exchange for an end to sanctions, Iran committed to capping its uranium enrichment at 3.67 per cent—well below the 20 per cent threshold that allows for rapid refinement to weapons-grade levels. But in 2019, under pressure from Israel, President Donald Trump resiled on the agreement. Israel argued that Iran's missile programme gave it the capability to deliver a nuclear bomb, which—as its own experience showed—could be secretly assembled. Learning from that experience that sanctions didn't stop the development of an Iranian bomb, Trump's second term saw him reach out to reinstate the nuclear deal. Trump's public statements suggest he tried to delay an Israeli strike while using it as a tool to extract new concessions from Iran's leadership. Khalid Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's defence minister and the son of its monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, is also reported to have delivered a secret message to Iran in April, warning of Israeli military action if a deal was not made. Israel and the United States are now betting that Iran's leadership will acknowledge their military and economic weakness and return to the negotiating table. Trump, in particular, has held out an olive branch after Israel's strikes, promising Iran 'a second chance.' But like all gambles, the outcome of this one is impossible to predict. Iran's leaders may conclude that they're better off rapidly producing a nuclear weapon and then using it to secure a better bargain. And that could lead Israel to escalate its military campaign, with unpredictable consequences not just for Iran, but for global energy markets and Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Even if Iran's regime were to collapse, the new dispensation will be driven by the same existential anxieties that led the Ayatollahs to seek a nuclear weapon. The CIA-facilitated coup that overthrew Mossadeq might have beaten back the Left in Iran, but it also laid the groundwork for the very missile and nuclear programmes that now threaten Israel. The dangerous truth is that the breakdown of the world order—whether through Russia's war in Ukraine, or China's threats to countries like South Korea and Japan—is leading more and more states to wonder whether the nuclear weapons are worth the price. That is leading all into a new kind of world, with hazards we can now only dimly conceive. Praveen Swami is contributing editor at ThePrint. His X handle is @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prashant)
Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
Putin tells Trump Russia is ready for next round of Ukraine talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his US counterpart Donald Trump Saturday that Moscow was ready to hold a fresh round of peace talks with Kyiv after June 22, once the sides complete exchanging prisoners and soldiers' bodies. Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile did not mention whether Ukraine would agree to the next round of talks, only saying that "the exchanges will be completed and the parties will discuss the next step." Putin and Trump held a call for the fifth time since the Republican took office and sought to reset relations with Moscow, in a stark pivot from the approach of his predecessor Joe Biden's administration. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Roteirizador Pathfind - O planejador de rotas mais completo do mercado Sistema TMS embarcador Saiba Mais Undo Trump's approach has stunned Washington's allies, raising doubts about the future of US aid to Kyiv and leaving Europe scrambling to work out how it can fill any gap in supplies if Trump decides to pull US military, financial and intelligence support. "Both leaders expressed satisfaction with their personal relations" during the call, in which they also discussed the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel, the Kremlin said. Live Events It added that the presidents "communicate in a businesslike manner and seek solutions to pressing issues on the bilateral and international agenda, no matter how complex these issues may be". 'Happy birthday' call Trump posted on Truth Social to say Putin had called "to very nicely wish me a Happy Birthday" on the day he turned 79, but that "more importantly" the two discussed the Iran-Israel crisis. "He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end," Trump said, referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Zelensky urged the United States to "shift tone" in its dialogue with Russia, saying it was "too warm" and would not help to end the fighting. "Any signals of reduced aid, or of treating Ukraine and Russia as equals, are deeply unfair. Russia is the aggressor. They started this war. They do not want to end it," the Ukrainian President said on X. The recent escalation sparked fears Washington might relocate resources at its expense, to beef up the defence of its close ally Israel which unleashed a large-scale attack on Iran Friday. "We would like to see aid to Ukraine not decrease because of this," he said. "Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine." More soldiers exchanged Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine and Russia swapped prisoners in the fourth such exchange this week, part of a large-scale plan to bring back 1,000 wounded prisoners from each side and return bodies of killed soldiers. The prisoner agreement was the only visible result of two recent rounds of talks in Istanbul. Photos published by Zelensky on Telegram showed men of various ages, mostly with shaved heads, wearing camouflage and draped in Ukrainian flags. Some were injured, others disembarked from buses and hugged those welcoming them, or were seen calling someone by phone, sometimes covering their faces or smiling. Moscow's defence ministry released its own video showing men in uniforms holding Russian flags, clapping and chanting "Glory to Russia" and "hooray", some raising their fists in the air. As part of the Istanbul agreements, Kyiv also said it had received another 1,200 unidentified bodies from Russia. It said Moscow had said they were those of "Ukrainian citizens, including military personnel." Ukraine did not say whether it returned any bodies to Russia. Russia has rejected calls to halt its three-year offensive. It has demanded Ukraine cede territory and renounce Western military support if it wants peace. Since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, the assault has forced millions of people to flee their homes as towns and cities across eastern Ukraine have been flattened by heavy bombardments. Meanwhile, Russia intensified its advances along the front line, especially on the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy, where it seeks to establish a "buffer zone". By doing it, Moscow seeks to protect its bordering region of Kursk, previously partly occupied by Ukraine. Zelensky said Russia's advance on Sumy was stopped and that Kyiv's forces had managed to retake one village. He also denied Moscow's earlier claims that its troops entered the Dnipropetrovsk region. He said 53,000 Russian soldiers were involved in the Sumy operation.
