Another month of war and humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East has come to an end. The preliminary outcome? Thousands dead and wounded in the conflict zone, as well as billions of people around the world feeling the effects of rising prices, writes fuel market expert Alexey Shvedov.
But there is another outcome.
For example, the energy company TotalEnergies reported nearly a third increase in net profit in the first quarter. A significant contribution to this result came from additional income received after the start of the military operation by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. The company simply took the right position in the financial market at the right moment, earning more than a billion dollars for its shareholders.
At the same time, employees of the gas stations of the same company in France protested, demanding a pay raise and compensation for the use of personal transport. This is not surprising. The net salary of gas station operators in France, including overtime and bonuses, averages 1200–1500 euros per month, while the cost of living, especially rent, often exceeds the level of the Baltic states. In southern Italy, people often earn only 750–1200 euros per month for the same job.
Meanwhile, the combined wealth of French billionaires grew by more than $30 billion in 2026, while the wealth of Italian billionaires increased by more than $50 billion.
However, neither France nor Italy are direct participants in the conflict in the Middle East. The situation is different in Israel, where the billionaire club has shown record results. While residents hid from drones and rockets, the combined wealth of wealthy owners increased by almost $60 billion.
But even these tens of billions pale in comparison to the American Forbes list. In just one year, the richest people in the U.S. became richer by more than one trillion dollars.
On the other side of this impressive plus is a minus that almost every resident of the planet feels in everyday life. Local conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East cause global economic consequences — rising prices, increasing national debt, and a higher cost of living.
Changes in military doctrines have led to explosive growth in drone production. This trend is often presented as an economic success — new jobs, investments, innovations, and development. However, the reality is much more complex. Huge financial resources are directed not at creating public wealth but at technologies whose main task is destruction.
This process is financed not by abstract money but by the budgets of specific states, whose capacity to provide social services is becoming increasingly limited.
Decisions about starting or ending wars, opening or closing strategically important sea routes, and billions of dollars in financial markets are not made by gas station operators or drone pilots. They are made by people whose economic interests are often closely tied to the very existence of conflicts.
As long as such a system remains profitable, conflicts will continue.
Perhaps another ceasefire will follow. Perhaps fuel prices will drop, and mortgage and utility expenses will stabilize for a time. However, in the context of growing inequality and capital concentration, the economic motivation to profit from geopolitical upheavals will not disappear.
It is particularly sad to write about this on International Children's Day.
This day is not just a holiday with drawings on the pavement and sweets. It emerged after World War II as a reminder of the need to protect children from hunger, devastation, and exploitation. Millions of children lost their parents, homes, and the opportunity to live a normal life back then.
Yet even today, more than seventy years later, child exploitation has not disappeared.
Children work on cocoa plantations in West Africa, cotton fields in Asia, and coffee and tobacco plantations in South America. They toil in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, extracting raw materials for the batteries of our smartphones and electric cars. They sew clothes in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, working long hours for meager pay.
But economic exploitation is only part of the problem.
Millions of children live in conditions of chronic malnutrition and grow up in war zones, where childhood is replaced by violence. In some places, teenagers are used as human shields or forced to take up arms.
What becomes of a child who is given a rifle instead of a textbook at the age of ten?
The answer is frightening. Such a child grows up in a world where the value of human life is distorted. And it is precisely this child who becomes fuel for the next conflict.
While global capital turns geopolitical crises into records on Forbes lists, millions of children begin their lives in a global survival game, where the odds are unequal from the moment of birth.
If society cannot oppose this system with solidarity, responsibility, and resistance, Children's Day will remain merely a symbolic gesture in a world where childhood is too often viewed as cheap labor or a disposable resource.
A person who is given a weapon or a machete instead of a textbook in childhood grows up without ever knowing the value of life. This is one of the heaviest debts that the modern world leaves for future generations.
Corporate profits will continue to grow. But if these profit records are written against the backdrop of destroyed childhoods, hunger, war, and human suffering, then this is no longer a story of progress.
This is the capitulation of civilization to greed.
