The West is truly asleep. The Russian economy has been on a war footing for months, the Russian leader, and others, say they see themselves as at war with the West, and Ukraine, in an existential conflict, are criticised for effective strikes on their enemy's energy infrastrucure.

Bloody shortsighted, insular cretins.

I think its all a big show conducted by western leaders against their own population.

They don't want this war. It's too close and too big for comfort. It might escalate into a real war with real consequences for USA and Western Europe.

They do want to make it costly and painfull for Russia, with Ukraine as proxy, but without risking much themselves.

Russia knows this so tries to make western involvement seem bigger than it is. Not to fight the west, but to scare it in backing off.

The west wants to help more, but without too much effort, and needs to deal with its own people pushing both more and less involvement.

So here we see the USA trying to cool things down. I presume they see the Israel thing cool down enough to start delivering to Ukraine again, and are preparing for it.

in this increasingly bizarro world, Ukraine would seem to have some leverage over the US...by striking Russia energy infrastructure.

exactly...send us some ammunition and well stop blowing up oil refineries

Must be an election coming.