Kremlin: Energy Truce Alone Won't Fix Global Diesel Shortage
Dmitry Peskov said a Russia-Ukraine energy truce would saturate Russia's domestic market but not resolve the global diesel shortage.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that a possible agreement between Russia and Ukraine to stop striking each other's energy infrastructure would not be enough to ease the global diesel shortage.
His remarks came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's statement that Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to target each other's energy facilities.
Peskov said that if such a truce were put in place, Russia would be able to fully meet domestic demand, since its oil refineries would operate without threat. He added that the country had already been able to stabilise its home market, which he said was nearing full saturation, through measures taken to protect refineries and other energy facilities.
Turning to global supplies, Peskov said the central problem was not production capacity but the ability to move Russian petroleum products to world markets without obstruction. He said this depended on ensuring the safety of commercial shipping and navigation for oil tankers, and accused Kyiv of showing no willingness to guarantee such security.
He also called for the lifting of sanctions affecting Russian energy exports, describing them as illegal restrictions on global energy supplies. Only then, he said, would the world be adequately supplied with petroleum products and global market prices come down.