US warned Ukraine’s ambassador over strikes on Black Sea oil target

By Jim Sciutto, Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration took the unusual step of warning the Ukrainian government that its strikes on a Russian Black Sea oil facility late last year had impacted US investments in Kazakhstan, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US revealed Tuesday.

“We have been hearing that Ukrainian attacks to Novorossiysk affected some of the American investments which are being performed through Kazakhstan. And we have heard from Department of State that we should refrain from, from, you know, attacking American interests,” Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna said at a briefing.

Stefanishyna said she had received a demarche, which is a formal diplomatic notice, from the US State Department over the matter. CNN has reached out to the State Department for comment.

The news comes on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion with no end to the brutal war in site. US-brokered peace talks have shown little sign of a breakthrough. The unusual move to issue the demarche appears to speak to the administration’s priorities and follows Trump’s decision to halt new military aid to Kyiv last year.

The Ukrainian ambassador said the US did not suggest Kyiv should refrain from attacking Russian military and energy infrastructure.

“It was related to the very fact that American economic interest was affected there,” she said. “We have taken the note on that.”

In late November, Ukrainian drones struck the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, damaging not just Russian interests but also a key pipeline, which led to a significant drop in Kazakh oil exports. Chevron is a major shareholder in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which carries oil from Kazakh oil fields to the Black Sea for export.

Still, the communication came as Russia was vastly expanding its own missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure in the midst of Ukraine’s coldest winter in a decade – attacks described by Ukrainian and European officials as a deliberate effort to inflict suffering on civilians.

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