WASHINGTON — The United States has granted Ukraine full freedom of military action against Russia, delivered with one exception pre-attached. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday that he had instructed President Volodymyr Zelensky to "do what you want" against Russia, but "don't hit refineries." "He better damn well stop," he added of the strikes at issue — Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries that have, by the President's account, contributed to high diesel prices ahead of the US midterm elections.
The intercepts desk took its measurements. Declared: freedom of action. Printed: freedom of action, refineries excepted. As printed, the grant preceded its prohibition by three words — "against Russia, but" — the shortest distance between a liberty and its removal yet logged at this desk; the previous record stood at a full sentence. "He better damn well stop" then converted the liberty into a conditional at zero additional distance. "The permission was never withdrawn," said Gerald Pruitt, Deputy Undersecretary for Optics. "It was refined. Ukraine remains free to strike whatever it wants. What it wants is being updated to exclude what it may not."
The exception has an address. The midterms are the scheduled halfway inspection at which the legislature's personnel are renewed and the executive's numbers are read aloud; the next falls in November. Diesel prices are recorded in the institutions licensed to store numbers and displayed at pumps. Pumps stand nearer the voter than refineries do. "Every refinery strike reaches our pumps within weeks," said Charlene Boyd, director of fuel messaging for a national campaign committee. "The war is far away. The pump is at arm's length. Voters have arms."
The remedy for a permission exercised too well is personnel. The President urged Ukraine to replace Volodymyr Zelensky, saying it is "time for Ukraine to get a new president" — one who would agree to end the war. The species keeps a standard procedure for disappointing numbers: replace the troop's CEO, the dominant primate of a corporate troop. The procedure has here been applied across a border, to a troop under bombardment, by the dominant primate of a troop that is not. "The permission arrived complete," said Oksana Melnyk, an adviser to the Ukrainian president's office. "It came with its exception included. We have stopped waiting for the version without one."
The desk closes the file with the row itself: FREEDOM: issued Saturday. EXCEPTIONS: 1 (refineries). MOTIVE: diesel prices. NEXT REVIEW: November. PENALTY FOR USE: replacement of user.
