What does this have to do with Ukraine? We'll get there. First - the failure of this idiotic price-relief plan was as predictable as the sunrise, but it's even worse than that. This clumsy "deal" is indicative of so much more. It was pure theatre and never meant to actually do anything to the supply or price of diesel.

1. The real goal was clearly to try and unilaterally remove Russian sanctions on oil exports. Get the money flowing again. Pretend this is so urgent and necessary that it was okay to ignore sanctions.

2. The secondary goal was a cheap political play to pretend there was relief coming for diesel prices. Way too little, done way too late, and to no practical effect.

It's execution was as absurd as the idea - but think about what the second point means. The Russians and the Trump admin CLEARLY collaborated to try and help the Republicans in the midterms. . TrumPutin openly declared that Russia would do a token gesture to help the GOP. They just did it poorly. I know we're all numb to the plain facts these days, but it's still shocking to just accept that the President of the U.S. works for Putin.

Not that his devotion to Russia is a surprise to anyone. But it shows the incredibly lazy state of desperation they're in right now. And this is the U.S. admin Ukraine is expected to negotiate peace and security guarantees with?

Ukraine would be better off to keep hurting the Russian army and economy and wait these black hearted mooks out. These are not geniuses in the TrumPutin conglomerate. They're ham-fisted gangsters, full stop.