In July, Vice President JD Vance explicitly warned President Zelensky against attacking tankers loading at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal, citing the significant disruption such attacks had caused in the sensitive oil market. The attacks then ceased for about three weeks. On August 16, however, Ukraine launched another attack on a Greek oil tanker in the Black Sea after it had loaded at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal near Novorossiysk. The vessel had allegedly loaded Russian oil rather than Kazakh oil at the port.
Pavel Danilin, director of the Center for Political Analysis, warned in an interview with the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty that this could create problems for Zelensky. “The attitude toward Ukraine has changed among a number of NATO countries,” he said. “The anti-Ukrainian coalition is growing. It’s still weak, but it’s represented by the United States, Italy, and Greece. Turkey is extremely uninterested in any escalation on the part of Ukraine. And it’s safe to say that the main initiators of such an escalation are Germany, France, and Britain.”
