00:00U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to
00:05pause strikes on energy targets, as he sought to shift the blame for rising fuel prices from
00:10his and Israel's war on Iran to the war on Ukraine. Trump claimed that global diesel price
00:15hikes are mostly caused by the war in Ukraine, and not disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz,
00:20a vital waterway responsible for 20% of global oil export. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
00:27suggested that no deal has officially been reached, but that Kiev had proposed that its
00:31partners secure an agreement with the Kremlin to stop attacks on its critical infrastructure
00:36in exchange for Ukraine halting theirs. While both conflicts have produced significant global
00:41energy shocks, experts have pointed to the war in Iran as having caused considerably larger
00:46disruption to the global oil supply. Oil prices soared after the U.S. and Israel launched the
00:52opening salvo of the war on the 28th of February. Brent crude, the international standard, hovered
00:58between 60 to 66 dollars per barrel in January prior to attacks on Iran, a figure which shot
01:05up to a peak surpassing 120 dollars at the height of the hostilities. And despite prices coming
01:10down occasionally with temporary ceasefires, the six-month average price remained substantially
01:15above baseline at roughly 98 dollars a barrel.
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