American companies are watching Ukraine blow up their oil at sea while U.S. taxpayers write the checks funding Kyiv's war machine — and Secretary of State Marco Rubio says enough is enough.
Rubio revealed Sunday that Ukraine has struck energy vessels in the Black Sea carrying American-owned oil, telling Breitbart that U.S. companies have been calling with complaints. "That was our oil on that ship that was hit by Ukraine," Rubio recounted the companies saying. He added that while he doesn't believe Ukraine intentionally targeted American assets, the ships were hit regardless — and working Americans are the ones who pay when energy markets get rattled.
"We already have a world that is facing an energy crisis," Rubio said. "We don't need any exacerbating situations."
The New York Post highlighted Rubio's demand that Zelensky focus on "bringing an end to this war" and the mounting friction between Washington and Kyiv. Al-Monitor, by contrast, framed Rubio's comments as a general call for both sides to end the conflict and buried the American-owned oil angle entirely — instead emphasizing the risk of escalation and a fresh Russian strike on Kyiv that killed a woman and damaged a residential building.
Here's the picture the establishment press doesn't want to connect: Trump announced October 9 that the U.S. would import hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel to bring down pump prices. That same day, Putin floated a three-way sit-down with Trump and Xi to negotiate peace. Trump then halted sanctions on Moscow under a bipartisan bill named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — the kind of bipartisan deal where the public gets sold out, except this time the pause serves a negotiation. Al-Monitor noted Trump "clinched a diesel import deal with Russia and waived some sanctions" to keep the Kremlin at the table.
Meanwhile, Zelensky is complaining about two things: that U.S. intelligence on Russian ballistic missiles has dried up, and that the military-grade Starlink system known as Starshield was throttled last week, keeping Ukrainian air defenses from intercepting Iranian-made Shahed drones. Rubio flatly denied any intelligence pause. "There's been no pause," he told reporters in Uzbekistan. "Zelensky should be focused on bringing an end to this war." Both Musk and the Trump administration denied ordering the Starshield slowdown.
Zelensky insists the U.S. intelligence is irreplaceable. "Only the United States has this unique intelligence to tell our side when Russia uses ballistic missiles," he told NBC News. Translation: the gravy train must keep rolling.
Rubio's assessment was blunt: "No one's winning that war." He warned of real escalation risk — drones knocked off course by electronic warfare drifting into neighboring countries, sabotage operations spiraling outward.
The question neither outlet presses hard enough: how long does Washington keep bankrolling a government that strikes American energy assets — accidentally or not — while demanding ever more aid, intelligence, and tech support? The American people are paying for diesel relief with one hand and funding the war driving the diesel crisis with the other. That's not a strategy. That's a racket.
