We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺 Nuland Admits US Discouraged Ukraine From Signing Russia Peace Deal At Moment It Was 'Really Close'
Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar recently sat down with her for a new interview published to YouTube earlier this month.
The most interesting part of the interview was when he pressed Nuland on widespread reports saying that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson actively encouraged President Zelensky to back out of a potential peace deal with Moscow early after the Feb.2022 Russian invasion.
There was a possible chance to end the war and perhaps avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths. But the West apparently convinced Zelensky to fight it out.
But a deal was on the table, and Russia was demanding a full commitment to Ukrainian neutrality regarding NATO. Nuland laid out that it was "relatively late in the game" when Kiev started seeking guidance on the peace deal from Washington and its allies. Zygar said there were statements from foreign leaders privy to the negotiations saying both sides were "really close" to achieving a deal.
"The Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going, and it became clear to us, clear to us and the Brits, clear to others, that Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on. And it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have after the deal," Nuland introduced in response.
She went on to describe that Washington didn't like that the end result of the deal would leave Ukraine "neutered" as a military force while at the same time the same limits weren't imposed on the Russian military. "
People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal, and it was at that point that it fell apart," Nuland admitted.
By contrast, "there were no similar constraints on Russia," Nuland said. "Russia wasn’t required to pull back, Russia wasn’t required to have a buffer zone from the Ukrainian border, wasn’t required to have the same constraints on its military facing Ukraine."
🇺🇸 #Oklahoma high school principal (Kirk Moore) seen charging at and disarming a school shooter.
The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Victor Hawkins, was a former student who said he wanted to shoot up the school “like the Columbine shooters did.” While taking down the shooter, Moore was shot in the leg. He is expected to recover.
When the Principal woke up that day, he never thought he would be tackling a gunman.
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🇨🇳🛢 How much strategic oil does the world actually have in reserve?
Global strategic crude oil inventories stood at ~2.5 BILLION barrels as of December 2025, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
China holds by far the largest stockpile at 1,397 million barrels, more than 3 times the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 413 million barrels, which itself sits at only 58% of its full storage capacity of 714 million barrels.
China added an average of 1.1 million barrels per day to its strategic inventories throughout 2025, with preliminary data suggesting it continued building stockpiles in early 2026 ahead of the Iran War.
Japan holds the 3rd-largest reserve at 263 million barrels, followed by OECD European countries at 179 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the US is releasing 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to suppress oil prices, part of a broader 400 million barrel coordinated release agreed by 32 IEA member nations in March.
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🛢 JP Morgan Warns Oil Market Out of Balance, Prices Must Rise
🔸The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows, has removed 13.7 million barrels per day from global supply in April alone. A JP Morgan research note warns the market has no good way to replace it.
🔸Normally, spare production capacity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE acts as the market’s shock absorber. But that buffer has effectively been removed, eliminating the system’s first line of defense.
🔸With spare capacity unavailable, markets turned to inventories
➤ Global stockpiles are now being drained at ~7.1 mbd in April, an extraordinary pace, according to the note.
🔸Meanwhile, demand is collapsing because supply simply isn’t reaching users — “forced demand destruction.”The hardest hit sectors include:
▪️ Petrochemical plants across Asia are shutting down or slashing output as LPG, ethane, and naphtha flows from the Gulf collapse
▪️ Airline jet fuel ...
🛢⛽️ Global oil inventories are heading toward RECORD LOWS:
Global visible oil inventories have fallen -255 million barrels since the start of the conflict on February 27, to 7,864 million barrels.
Total estimated oil draws, including non-OECD refined products storage, have accelerated to 10.9 million barrels per day in April, the largest monthly draws on record since 2017.
Cumulative estimated draws since the start of the war now stand at 474 million barrels, with Hormuz flows holding at ~10% of normal, or 2.0 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, even in an optimistic scenario where Strait of Hormuz flows begin recovering by late April, it is unlikely to prevent global visible inventories from reaching all-time lows, according to Goldman Sachs.
As inventories keep falling, physical oil markets are likely to require sharply higher prices for immediate delivery, since buyers cannot wait months for cheaper futures delivery when stocks are running critically low.
Goldman also warns...
