There is a sense of geopolitical urgency in the air this week and it is not beyond the realms of speculation that any heightened tension or positioning might just be being used to influence what could be discussed at the United Nations this week, a little of which is pondered on below. 

In the continued meat grinder occurring on the European border, Ukraine and Russia are jointly upping the ante. Moscow’s mayor described the wave of drones as the “largest ever” attack on the Russian capital over the weekend. Coming the other way, Moscow’s plan now seems to involve the evisceration of the Ukraine cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro by not only attacking infrastructure but the very essence of everyday life including power grids, petrol stations, supermarkets and even civilian housing. 

The success of Ukraine drone attacks is evident as the Moscow refinery targeted has now been shut down cutting another 4 percent of Russia’s refinery capacity leading to a phone call from the US President to Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging a halting of attacks on processing plants which Trump blamed for excessive diesel prices in the United States. Indeed, the cost of diesel in the US has prompted Republican party members to call for a ban on international exports of the industrial fuel. Such a consequence would have dire repercussions for the entire world, particularly Europe, as the US is now the acting swing exporter of both crude and finished fuels. The forever war in the Ukraine, which has borne the indignity of going unnoticed for days, months and years has just suddenly screamed for attention, and the world would do well to listen.

Not to be outdone and emboldened by an apparent decision by the United States, according to the ‘New York Times’, not to carry out airstrikes in Yemen, rebel Houthis are now pushing to take the strategic Kahboub Mountains of their country and by doing so increase their capabilities in striking shipping in the Red Sea. Being a strategic proxy for Iran, the Houthi success is increasing Iran’s negotiating currency if Donald Trump does in fact meet Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, in New York this week. As a side bar of consideration, the United Kingdom has agreed to offer limited air-to-air refuelling assistance for Saudi jets as they strive to thwart Houthi advances, something also being considered by France, as Europe once again considers a winter in which vital fuel supply options are becoming more limited.

Bloviate and exert pressure all he will, there is a dose of reality being served up in the coexistent wars by their protagonists for Mr Trump, and whether the heightened state of warfare is to attract attention or is another leg up into something more worrying remains to be seen. Either way, the words used to keep oil prices contained will need action, not additional subtexts and press bait.

The U.N. is all about the U.S.

There is going to be a breathless pace of meetings and headlines emerging from the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly this week. Nearly every one of them will be oil-price sensitive (when is it not these days?) and whether meetings are formal or done in the dark recesses of negotiations which us mere mortals can only speculate over, there will be great seams and tiny nuggets of information ore for all of us to mine. Short of a global war, although some might argue we are already in one, representatives of countries will gather in New York under a cloud of anxiety arguably matching the momentous geopolitical upheavals seen since the end of the Second World War. Pick a conflict of the late 20th century or early 21st, from the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Yum Kippur War or 9/11 as examples; the current stakes are as exceptionally high. 

As seen on ‘NPR’, there were 65 active conflicts in 2025, according to researchers at the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Sweden’s Uppsala University, regarded as a leading source of information on violence worldwide. Out of that total, the number of direct conflicts between individual states doubled from the previous year to eight in 2025; the highest number of such conflicts since UCDP began collecting data in 1946. Grappling with overlapping wars and diplomatic polarisation, there is a heady mix of deep uncertainty. Stir in existential threats of runaway A.I. developments and global climate change then the concoction of chaos is complete. 

The U.N. might have been established in the United States because its land mass remained unscathed after WWII with a strong undamaged economy and infrastructure, but what it also had was reputational clout. Without the U.S. the Second World War would never have ended so quickly or indeed with the same result. We will leave it to our readers in judging whether or not the U.S. remains a reliable international actor but will only add that home advantage may not be as significant going into this incredibly important assembly as it once was. Credibility aside, Uncle Sam is still the most powerful economy and military and whatever troublesome current affairs issues keeping billions from their nightly slumber, the incumbent Administration has the power and probably the last word on whether turmoil is cooled or fuelled. Will it be open to overtures from Ukraine to be more of an ally? Will the US President make good on his intimation that he might meet the Iranian President? Will it flounder through another touchy-feely trade agreement with China? Will it promise tighter controls on A.I. and will it stop denouncing climate issues as deranged idealogue of jibbering left-wing fanatics?

The examples listed are not by chance, they are the cures or accelerators for rising oil prices with the common denominator being the so-called “Land of the Free.” If there was a Venn diagram of circles representing every question raised above and, without listing the inexhaustible, the many more pressing geopolitics of our time, the United States would be the only country with overlaps (intersections) in every economic, political and diplomatic set.  At the ending of a letter published in the ‘Financial Times’ yesterday, the president of Brazil, president of the European Council, president of Kenya and prime minister of Canada called “on other international leaders to join us in choosing co-operation over fragmentation, law over power and shared responsibility over division.”

These leaders point out that, “the real choice is not between preserving the international order established after the second world war or abandoning it. It is between renewing multilateral co-operation in a changing world or allowing polarisation and power politics to define the next era.” Noble and fine words indeed, but it really will come down to how receptive an ear Donald Trump is prepared to deploy. The last two years has seen the mercurial U.S. President game the international system and diplomatic norms and while most of us see precariousness in many of Trump’s policies and actions, he apparently does not. Well, at least not publicly. We are now too wise to make guesses, for that is all they are, on what deals will be done US/China, US/Russia, US/Ukraine, US/Iran and US/the rest of the field, but we are preparing ourselves for meaty headlines and meaty moves in oil prices or, and in some ways more damaging, an alternative kicking of the geopolitical can down the street, and suggest our fraternity does the same. 

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