By Putin’s own estimate, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have cost Russia 1% of GDP. But he says stopping them isn’t worth halting attacks on Ukrainian vessels.

Filed 46m ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Valdai Forum, rejected swapping a halt on attacks against Ukrainian vessels for an end to Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries. He put Russia's losses from those refinery strikes at 1 percent of GDP but argued sanctions would keep any freed-up diesel off world markets regardless, calling the proposed trade 'absurd.'

Putin said Russia has retaliated by hitting targets tied to Ukraine's economy, claiming the country now has 'virtually no metals industry.' U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressed Zelensky to stop the refinery strikes, tying them to rising diesel prices, and said Zelensky's latest response was 'Maybe we'll do that.'

Trump claimed in mid-September that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt strikes on energy facilities, a claim that was never confirmed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the idea 'good' without committing to it.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A man who volunteers his own country's losses down to the percentage point is not exactly negotiating from a position of secrecy, he's negotiating from a position of knowing the other side wants something he's not required to give. Calling a proposed trade 'absurd' while admitting the thing he's refusing to trade away is already costing him real money is a special kind of leverage talk. As for the announced ceasefire nobody can confirm, that's the diplomatic equivalent of a handshake deal where only one party remembers shaking.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Duet Musette · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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