After Andy Burnham’s meeting with President Zelensky on Wednesday, Downing Street declared, via the PM’s official account on X, that the UK would be standing with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. This was, as students of the matter will recognise, exactly the formulation used by the previous US administration under Joe Biden. He, or those drafting his statements, always said Washington would be on Ukraine’s side against the Russian invader “for as long as it takes”. To which the obvious response is, or should be: what is “it”? No answer has ever been given.

Perhaps we are supposed to believe that “it” means Russian defeat. But that is not borne out by the facts. As for the current notional leader of the Free World: he has had a grudge against Zelensky ever since 2019, when during the first Trump administration, the Ukrainian refused to give him any dirt on Biden’s son’s dealings with a Kyiv-based energy company called Burisma; and, for even longer, Trump has had a disgusting man-crush on Vladimir Putin.

Yet Trump’s demand that Ukraine abandon its policy of blowing up Russia’s oil refineries is a repeat of what happened under Biden, and for a similar reason. It seems to have been forgotten that, in April 2024, the Biden administration (with similar lack of success) urged Ukraine to desist from its new campaign of drone attacks on Russia’s refineries. The then US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, publicly criticised them: “Those attacks could have a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation.”

The Kremlin was delighted to hear this, and promoted his remarks heavily. As the American military historian Phillips O’Brien then observed: “It is hard to think of a weirder thing for a US defence secretary to say.”Targeting the enemy’s oil facilities is an absolutely standard and vital military strategy, as the US itself demonstrated in the Second World War.

I wrote then that “there is something especially absurd in complaining about Ukraine’s targeting of Russia’s oil industry, when Kyiv is doing the sort of thing the West’s sanctions policy was meant to achieve, but largely failed”. This was nothing to do with “standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes” and everything to do with being seen to protect the wallets of US domestic consumers. It was the year of the presidential election, and the main theme of Trump’s campaign (when Biden was still insisting he would stand for re-election) was that he would bring down the cost of living.

As Bob McNally, a former White House energy advisor, told the FT in the wake of Austin’s cease and desist message to Zelensky: “Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year.”During that election Trump repeatedly promised to bring down the gasoline price to “below $2 a gallon”. It was then $3. It is now well over $4. This is the result of Trump’s characteristically reckless war on Iran (itself a confounding of his other election pledge to end wars rather than start ones). Now we are in the season of the midterm elections, in which the Republicans are threatened with the loss of both Houses.

So Trump announced, following a lovely chat on the phone with the poisoner in the Kremlin (“I want to thank President Putin, to be honest”), a sanctions waiver to facilitate the export of Russian diesel; and proclaimed on Truth Social: “Diesel prices for Americans and indeed the world will be coming down in RECORD NUMBERS AND FAST!”Also: “Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my greatest priority.”

As numerous energy analysts have pointed out, the initial shipment of 300,000 tons Vladimir promised Donald is significantly less than the US consumes in a single day. It’s not even clear Russia has that additional capacity, given the success of Ukraine’s drone attacks on those refineries. Trump, a moral rather than a numerical idiot, must know that. His purpose is only to be able to blame Zelensky for the soaring price of diesel – and to convince American voters that it’s Ukraine’s fault.

Apart from those still suffering from true TDS (Trump Deification Syndrome), it’s hard to imagine many electors in the midterms falling for it.

Besides, there is also sufficient awareness among voters of what the effect is of giving financial support to Putin via the sanctions waiver: more money for the Kremlin to spend on the ballistic missiles used to terrorise and murder Ukrainian families. The latest intensification of that campaign began on Putin’s 74th birthday, October 7th, when one such missile killed at least 22 people, including five children, in the city of Pryluky. Or as Vera, our Ukrainian house guest of the past four years (along with her young son) put it to me: “Putin’s slaves did a great terroristic present for him today.”

In the wake of the previous US administration’s alarm at the actual success of Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s most vital industry and only significant source of export income, Zelensky had remarked in exasperation: “Ukraine’s partners are afraid of Russia losing the war and would like Ukraine to win in a way that Russia does not lose.”Trump, however, is straightforward in his preference: he has seen Russia for many decades as an unrealised source of profits for his family business, and has long sought to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

It was Russian funds which helped keep his enterprise afloat, after American and European banks stopped lending to it. Even after the annexation of Crimea, Trump proclaimed his delight that he had wonderful Russian contacts “with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top-of-the-government people”.

Trump’s proclaimed desire for an end to the war in Ukraine is not principally about the American national interest, or even saving lives; it is mostly business. Putin well understands this; so in the most recent talks with Trump’s negotiating team (his friend Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner) the Russian president proposed a deal in which the vast Russian oil company Lukoil would be given sanctions relief via a sale of assets to executives with ties to those negotiators, including Todd Boehly, who has donated millions to Trump’s political causes. Any thoughts on that, Mr Burnham?