{"id":13986,"date":"2025-03-09T02:03:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T07:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=13986"},"modified":"2025-03-09T02:03:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T07:03:04","slug":"the-fossil-fuel-shakedown-of-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/03\/09\/the-fossil-fuel-shakedown-of-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"The fossil-fuel shakedown of Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I highly recommend Antonia Juhasz’s Rolling Stone <\/em>cover story “Is Trump’s ‘Minerals Deal’ a Fossil Fuel Shakedown?<\/a>” In a Facebook post, Juhasz notes that Ukrainian president Zelensky “is on his way to Saudi Arabia next week, being forced into a corner by the unholy alliance of Putin and Trump and to sign an ‘extortionist’ ‘neocolonial plundering’ of Ukraine’s vast natural resource riches, giving Trump and Putin unprecedented control of fossil fuels and minerals.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The winners of the war, it turns out, are intended to be none other than Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Big Oil. Juhasz writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n

The deal would cut open Ukraine\u2019s natural resource veins, and could leave the majority of its key resources \u2014 including fossil fuels \u2014 under Russian control. Fifty percent of Ukraine\u2019s future earnings from its remaining natural resource wealth would go into a new fund under U.S. direction into which the United States would contribute nothing. The deal could benefit American and other Western companies but would provide few economic and no security guarantees to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a steep price to pay for peace, but Ukraine may be forced to accept the deal given how closely aligned the Trump regime has become with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump is also laying the groundwork for the full reentry of Russia into the global economy, opening the door to a return of U.S. fossil fuel giants into one of the largest pools of oil and gas in the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The article is paywalled, but she urges us to share and read it, so I’ve done that with significant chunks of it here, in UKR-TAZ<\/a>. That said, Rolling Stone<\/em> has been publishing some excellent material recently (as I noted in my recent piece on critical media in the era of Trump 2.0<\/a>), so they are worth following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I highly recommend Antonia Juhasz’s Rolling Stone cover story “Is Trump’s ‘Minerals Deal’ a Fossil Fuel Shakedown?” In a Facebook post, Juhasz notes that Ukrainian president Zelensky “is on his way to Saudi Arabia next week, being forced into a corner by the unholy alliance of Putin and Trump and to sign an ‘extortionist’ ‘neocolonial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691215],"tags":[711220,58955,711221,711071,16902,711222],"class_list":["post-13986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-big-oil","tag-donald-trump","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-russo-ukrainian-war","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-3DA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14203,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/08\/19\/the-axis-of-oil\/","url_meta":{"origin":13986,"position":0},"title":"The axis of oil","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"There are three main hypotheses explaining Donald Trump's eagerness to please Vladimir Putin. The first is \"conspiratorial\": that Putin has something over Trump, related perhaps to the Steele dossier, Trump's real estate shenanigans, the KGB's long-term efforts to cultivate Trump as a \"Russian asset,\" or maybe even the Epstein files\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/files\/2025\/08\/image-17-868x1024.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/files\/2025\/08\/image-17-868x1024.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/files\/2025\/08\/image-17-868x1024.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/files\/2025\/08\/image-17-868x1024.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12459,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/03\/27\/this-is-a-fossil-fuel-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":13986,"position":1},"title":"“This is a fossil fuel war”","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The invasion of Ukraine has shifted media attention away from many other things, Covid and climate among them. But the climate implications of the war have not gone unnoticed. To start with the obvious: Russia is a petrostate. 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Among them: Like Ukrainians in general, whose resistance to the Russian onslaught has been remarkable, President Volodymyr Zelensky has done wonders in so many ways. But one thing neither he nor his western supporters have succeeded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14412,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2026\/01\/03\/venezuela-and-the-new-world-order\/","url_meta":{"origin":13986,"position":3},"title":"Venezuela and the new (old) world order","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Cross-posting from Terrestri(e)alism. These cross-posts will end, so please subscribe there if you want to make sure you won't miss any. No, taking over Venezuela is neither about democracy nor about drugs. It\u2019s about four closely related things: oil, which means maintaining the fossil-fuel industrialism that is running the world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-11.43.07%E2%80%AFAM.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9548,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/12\/14\/rant-for-the-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":13986,"position":4},"title":"Rant for the day","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Let\u2019s face facts: Life in such cold climates as the one I live in (it was 8\u00b0F\/-14\u00b0C here this morning) would hardly be possible, for us in such numbers as we are, without fossil fuels. The harnessing of fossil fuel energy has enabled tremendous innovation -- innovation that, if managed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/godsofadvertising.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/04\/homer_angry2.png?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13919,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/02\/16\/we-are-all-dispensable-for-a-revolution-of-the-means-of-information\/","url_meta":{"origin":13986,"position":5},"title":"We are all dispensable: For a revolution of the means of information","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 16, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s a clear lesson for us in the mass firings of federal employees, carried out as part of an administrative coup led by the world\u2019s wealthiest tech oligarch, in the country that had up till recently been seen as the paragon of stability and prosperity. That lesson is that we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Manifestos & auguries"","block_context":{"text":"Manifestos & auguries","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/manifestos-and-auguries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/02\/image-4.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13986"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13989,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions\/13989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}