Kamala Harris irritated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides with a request to stop attacking oil refineries in Russia, which he then proceeded to ignore, according to a report. Officials familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that the U.S. vice president made the plea at the Munich Security Conference in February, with Washington, D.C., viewing the strikes on oil facilities as being likely to increase global energy prices and encourage more aggressive reprisal attacks from Moscow in Ukraine. Zelensky and his advisers were annoyed because they were happy with the success of their drone attacks, the officials said, with Zelensky ignoring the request because he wasn’t sure if it reflected the consensus view of President Joe Biden’s administration. Kyiv reportedly doubled down even after subsequent warnings from other U.S. officials—including from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan—by attacking more Russian refineries, with one strike at Russia’s third-biggest refinery taking place on April 2.
