Ukraine carried out a large-scale drone strike against the partially US-owned Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region early Monday morning. Few were hitherto aware of this project, let alone that it continued operating without any problems amidst the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine and the West’s anti-Russian sanctions, but it’s one of America’s most significant regional investments. This audacious attack therefore risks provoking Trump’s wrath.
Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev published a lengthy Telegram post on Tuesday where he argued that Zelensky knew about the US’ connection to the CPC but still went through with this large-scale drone strike regardless. According to him, it was meant to be “a triple blow to American companies, the oil market and Trump personally”, which was done in response to fears that the US leader will force Ukraine into making peace with Russia.
He might be onto something since The Telegraph revealed that Zelensky is angry at Trump’s attempt to impose demands onto Ukraine that “would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty” if it agrees to the US’ ownership of its resources. Russian MP Dmitry Belik speculated the day before Medvedev’s post that adversarial elements within the US’ “deep state” might have also cooked this provocation up with the UK to “get under (Trump’s) skin”.
Regardless of whether or not that’s the case, the orchestrators of this attack likely also didn’t know that the CPC is integral to the energy security of America’s top ally Israel, which received a significant amount of oil from this megaproject over the course of its last regional war against the Iran-led Resistance Axis. Readers can learn more about that here, which analyzed data about Kazakhstan’s and even Russia’s oil exports to Israel during that 15-month-long conflict, which few were also hitherto aware of.
Seeing as how a Continuation War with Hamas and/or Hezbollah could erupt at any time given the fragility of Israel’s ceasefires with both of them, there’s little doubt that Bibi will do whatever is needed to get Trump to ensure the security of the CPC just in case the region spirals back into conflict. This could take the form of Trump at the very least threatening behind the scenes to withhold financial and/or military aid to Ukraine unless it unilaterally abandons its policy of attacking Russian oil infrastructure.
The larger context of ongoing Russian-US peace talks over Ukraine could even lead to Moscow following suit by eschewing its own such attacks against that country’s energy infrastructure as the first step towards a possible ceasefire for facilitating the elections that could then lead to Zelensky’s replacement. It of course remains to be seen exactly how Trump responds to Zelensky’s egregious provocation, but it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll ignore it, especially considering how this also indirectly harms Israel.
Ukraine’s large-scale drone attack against the partially US-owned CPC will therefore probably end up being something that it comes to regret. It would be premature to describe it as a game-changer, but it couldn’t have occurred as a worse time for Ukraine given the ongoing Russian-US talks over that country. Whoever orchestrated and approved of this attack might even lose their jobs or worse considering how detrimental it’ll foreseeably end up being for Ukraine’s interests at this pivotal moment in the conflict.
