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What the Deaths of Countless Ukrainian Civilians Means for You at the Pump

At The Hard Times we want to make sure we give both sides of every story. In that spirit, we invited one of our right-wing relatives to write about the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Well, Russia invaded Ukraine so you know what that means. The carnage, the screaming, the mothers holding their children for dear life, and of course, rapidly changing gas prices. The only thing more volatile than the gas prices is that region! But seriously folks, here’s what countless Ukrainian deaths mean for you at the pump.

The current relationship between Russia and Ukraine is complicated and dates back to at least 2014 according to a brief Google search I did before writing this. But I’m not going to get into that here because, honestly, no one seems to really care. You know what other relationship goes all the way back to 2014? Me and my sweet 2010 Honda Accord and putting gas in that puppy is one issue I do care about.

I’m not a selfish person. For instance, I care about my neighbors. That’s why every time I hear screaming from the house next door, I take great care to invent a story in my head to justify not intervening.

Let’s go with a hypothetical. Let’s say one of Russia’s missiles mistakes a school for a bioweapons lab. That means more and more sanctions and that means money out of your pocket.  The old saying “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of 10,000 men fucks me over every time I need to stop at an Arco” has never been more true.

If I had a genie in a bottle and he granted me three wishes I’d ask for crude oil prices to stay consistent, all refineries to operate in the most efficient way possible, and, of course, to not have any more obstructions on oil pipelines. You might be asking “why don’t you wish for world peace?” and that’s because war can be good for the economy and that might knock gas prices down a few cents.

Putin is a power-hungry mad man, but he’s clearly not thinking about the human cost of his war. And by “human cost” I mean the price I as a human pay for the cost of gas each week.