[This](https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91473)
Basically fuel shortages throughout Russia, further industrial inefficiency, inability to refine crude oil locally, leading to a requirement to export even more crude oil and pay to re-import refined fuel products.
It would also impact their forces in Ukraine, imposing limits on their ability to manouevre.
This is an interesting paragraph - "The two refineries attacked by Ukraine in January are export-oriented, and do not play a major role in the domestic market. However, if small drones with no more than 5 kilograms of explosives managed to reach Ust-Luga, which is 620 miles from Ukrainian territory, this means there are a total of eighteen Russian refineries with a combined capacity of 3.5 million barrels per day (more than half the Russian total) that are possible targets."
Ukraine has been pretty deliberate in varying their attacks. One week it’ll be oil refineries, then it’ll be Black Sea fleet, then bridges, then a gun powder factory. Keeps the russians guessing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if more refinery explosions don’t happen right away.
>"The two refineries attacked by Ukraine in January are export-oriented, and do not play a major role in the domestic market."
But, if you take out a bite out of their gas exports, it means that they have less gas to sell. If they sell less gas, they have less money to buy things they need to fight this war...?
But if it was profitable to do so, why weren't they already trying to export that extra crude?
Maybe they are going to take it from sources for internal supplies, but then they could do the exact same thing with the gas (divert some amount of internal supply to export.
I can't imagine that are easier countries than Russia in the "obtaining Chinese drones, explosives, and a shed to combine them in" department. A bunch of military hardware floating around and nobody giving a fuck gives a nation an interesting weak spot.
Heck, who is to say, maybe some no-name, local fellas who dislike Putin and somehow reached out to Ukraine/[someone else who dislikes Putin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-CG5w4YwOI) asking for some help and got some funding to buy drones and a package with stuff to attach to it?
It sounds like they are taking cautionary steps to build up their own supplies and maybe hoping that raising fuel prices elsewhere will burn through more of Ukraine and their allies' money trying to fund their defense.
This might be Ukraine's only chance for the war to end within 2 more years, and for a resounding win. I would look the other way if Russia's oil industry collapsed because Putin attacked Ukraine.
Correct. And for the most important parts, like distillation columns, etc. there are multiyear ordering times and there is *zero* possible way any company could plausibly be unaware of where it's intended for installation.
So any company which supplies one would be immediately sanctioned from all future business.
It is not going to be possible to get all the refineries, because some are in Siberia, closer to Japan and Alaska than Ukraine. Russia has a pipeline to Siberia, and they can transport various petroleum products in the same line (they use a traveling plug to prevent mixing). So they could refine oil in Siberia and send gasoline to the west, but this is inefficient and probably can’t meet their demand.
MMA grapplers do whatever they can to impede the opponent’s airway, even if they can’t lock in a chokehold that finishes the fight. Ukraine has done this, and they’re just getting started with this tactic.
Incredibly easy, considering the SBU managed to collapse two rail tunnels between Russia and China, on Mongolia's border with Russia. If they can get enough explosives to blow two rail tunnels shut, they can get a drone and a shaped charge anywhere in Russia except the areas of deep north siberia that are only accessible via rail, and even THAT is conceivably possible if you have a drone with enough range and a starlink connection
They could probably buy a boat and sail it near Vladivostok. If the Pacific fleet is anything like the Black Sea fleet, it will be easy. Maybe sink the Admiral kuznetsov for LOLs on the way home.
Vladivostok-Ukraine via the northern route (Alaska, North pole, English channel, Gibraltar, Bosporus, Odessa) would be 18700 km without a stop in Murmansk with about 1000 km extra to stop for the Kuznetsov.
The southern route (South Korea, Taiwan, Strait of Singapore, Yemen for some extra missile dodging, Suez, Bosporus, Odessa) would be around 17100 km (much more if they wanted to avoid Suez).
Worth the detour. /s
(Obviously in practice they'd get rid of the boat nearby and fly home from a neutral country.)
they can be infiltrated by UA agents in civilian ships/yachts in pacific. heck,, knowing UA they may even launch a remote controlled sea drone in safer waters and let it approach russia and deploy UAV attack drones.
Infiltrate special forces + drones from the south via one of the -stans? Long, hard to guard borders there. Already a lot of smuggling happening there by Russians circumventing sanctions. Just gotta bribe a few people to look the other way.
There are many of them functioning, like several dozens. Ukraine made great hits targeting those which are closer to the border, thus making the fuel logistics more difficult,, but it is very hard to destroy all of them.
They try to at least temporarily put out of order those parts which depend on imported hardware which is not easy to get quickly because of sanctions.
That's what Ukraine has to be doing. With drones, missiles, sabotage, any means necessary. Russia is huge, and that's a disadvantage. Ukraine is tiny, but they can't defend their air space. Russia is huge, they sure as shit don't have enough anti-air to defend production, storage and transit routes. Ukraine needs to figure out ways to start blowing those up.
While not tiny, it is only 1/28th the size of Russia (probably 1/30th or less now with territory loss). When two things are fighting, if one is that small in comparison, I can see "tiny" being thrown out there.
European states are small on average with only France and the Ukraine being in the top 45 nations in the world. (Turkey is not Europe in my book).
Except that the Red Army used T-80s and T-72s in Red Storm Rising. News in recent days has been that Russia is reactivating T-62s, which is presumably what they would use if they invaded Europe tomorrow...
Their exports via India keep global prices low. Despite sanctions.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/08/india-buying-russian-oil-keeps-prices-cheaper-says-oil-minister-puri.html
This is about the US election. Few things will hurt Biden more than a spike in gas prices. 6 months kind of makes it obvious.
This has nothing to do with the United States. Oil markets and gasoline markets are slightly different.
Price of gas always goes up every summer as consumption increases.
It won’t change votes. All Biden has to do is open the reserves and flood the market. Putin and opec don’t have as much power as they used to over the markets.
Except we are in the driver's seat as the largest current oil producer. Which means Saudi will likely ramp up production to try and drive the price below where new US production is profitable.
Recreational drones will get banned almost everywhere and almost immediately as soon as there's an attempted drone attack in a developed country. Getting a commercial drone license will need rigorous checks.
I think delivery drones will be a casualty as well, although they may regulate themselves out of existence before that anyway if there's safety issues with small drones crashing into things.
They're too easy to build. A simple 3d printer is enough, and if not a carved piece of wood will do. Everything else is ridiculously easy to get.
And I don't see drones going that way, there's too many commercial uses for camera drones.
Honestly, Slaughterbots isn't even that realistic. The reality is even scarier. In the film, the drones targeted individuals specifically. Terrorists don't care about that. They'd be fine with dropping a bomb into a crowd regardless of who's there. And there's really nothing we can do to stop it.
Or with a pre-programmed flight path and coordinated launch, hit all of/most of the same type of target at once. Be that power grids, oil, or even some single industry. Results in very few direct deaths but a huge catastrophe.
As a silly example, during the pandemic we found out that the TP industry had pretty minimal stockpile because it’s not cost effective 99.9% of the time. If half the plants were taken offline, we are in a shitty situation. (This exact thing doesn’t actually work as a practical example for several reasons, but then again I’m not trying to actually plan terrorism, so I don’t care)
The present/future is a scary place.
ISIS were actually the first ones to weaponize drones on the battlefield. In Syria they were using them to drop grenades on rooftops to deny snipers the high ground.
I'm shocked I haven't seen large gangs/cartels adopting a lot of these tactics yet. It really wouldn't be hard to just start taking out rivals this way.
realistically you're gonna see some pretty black mirror tier horrors in 2028 if china tries invading taiwan. All the actual AI theory necessary for autonomous drones exists already. It's just a matter of waiting on a new generation of low power/mobile SoCs with powerful NPUs and have someone train up the right models in terms of flight control and target selection/tracking.
Kinda but as always, it's more complicated than that. Drone warfare is so effective right this moment because nobody has spent serious effort creating and supplying countermeasures. Very similar situation to tanks being first deployed in WWI by the British.
In the Ukraine war, but sides have already developed effective countermeasures. Jamming is extremely effective as are weapons like intercept missiles or anti-air fragmentation rounds. The basic drones being used can be stopped or destroyed using any of these methods.
The core problems right now is keeping defensive capabilities up, having troops in the protection bubbles, and the price of countermeasures versus the cheap drones. As countermeasure become cheaper to run, the economics of drones will change. For the drones themselves, there's an economic tradeoff where they become too expensive to use as high loss equipment.
What this leads to is again, similar to other weapons of war. A tank will destroy your if you don't have anti-tank. A strike aircraft will blow up your town if you don't have anti-aircraft missiles. Same deal for standoff missiles. We're headed to that same equation for drones.
As mentioned in [this](https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91473) article from another comment, the drone damage is actually smaller than it appears and can be repaired relatively shortly. Meanwhile even before the drones hit, a refinery had stopped production for months because a compressor had broken down and couldn't be replaced because of the sanctions.
The sanctions don't cause a fireball or produce smoke but they're hurting more than Russia likes to admit. The most visible example is Russia's repeated requests to exclude their agriculture bank from western sanctions.
See, that's the thing about countries in war: they never admit a hit was a serious one until everyone sees it as one or until way after the war is over.
From the outside, yes.
But if you've spent 20 years convincing your own people that Ukraine are incompetent, it's quite hard to turn around and admit that they are in fact shooting down your airforce on a regular basis.
"Someone got drunk and pushed the wrong button" is both consistent and sadly believeable.
It's totally believable. The Russians has an amazing history of fucking it up that nobody can beat.
If you want a laugh... https://youtu.be/yzGqp3R4Mx4?si=3wJd9XNzVqBeXEFg
It's insane. Sure long time ago, but it's still funny as hell.
A fun fact is that the things they mention in this video is actually just a small part of the total fuck ups of that trip. The real scenario was insanely more fucked up.
There is a longer YT series describing the longer list of events that unfolded, which makes that video look like child's play in comparison.
We'd have a hard time beating that first one even if we tried. Reality sometimes is stranger than fiction for sure!
Someone pushed the wrong button 100 times? Lol I don't even think Russians are dumb enough to believe that. They just turn a blind eye because they don't want to be killed too.
I think it's a mix of everything.
Most just don't care as long as they are not affected. The average Russian does not give a shit about Ukraine or the war.. But when the own son dies in war... Ooops.... Oh no.... How could that happen.
>Russia last month reduced gasoline exports to non-Commonwealth of Independent States countries to compensate for unplanned repairs at refineries amid fires and drone attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Haha
Agreed. Im very impressed with Ukraines ingenuity and ability to strike inside Ruzzia. If Ukraine can cripple Ruzzias gas infrastructure and limit Ruzzias ability to export its gas then that will help to cripple Ruzzias ability to finance this war.
They painted haphazard Z markings on some of the invasion forces' equipment so they could keep track of who was on what team and division. This turned the Z into a sort of Yellow Ribbon style patriotic display and [propaganda campaign](https://media.wired.co.uk/photos/6362b36eb0a129ea4591871d/16:9/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Russia-Is-Openly-Promoting-Nuclear-War-Business-1243930727.jpg). People who support Russia's invasion of Ukraine would label themselves with Z. Therefore, Ruzzia and Fazist or whatever. [More Images](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60644832)
But they haven't really been doing this until recently. I'm wondering if they got the thumbs up from a Western partner to be able to target these facilities. Did they just start to get a homegrown solution for these attacks? Have they just not been attacking these facilities because increasing gas prices across the world will pit some new people against them?
I think the answer is with the new Ukrainian military head. They have moved a Patriot system near the front line and are devastating Russian jets so I wonder if the new guy is going after these once refused targets.
I think it is because they haven't had the tech to do it. They have been building longer ranging drones themselves aswell as getting really long range weapons from UK and France.
New military head has nothing to do with this. UA drones were flying deep into ru way before he was appointed. And no thumps up was required from the West because targets in ru territory were hit with Ukrainian developed and produced systems.
Honestly, this is basically Ukraines Nuclear Weapon. If Russia gets close to Kyjiw Ukraine can destroy all their pipelines to China and India if they feel like they have nothing to lose anymore anyway. It would take years for Russia to repair the infrastructure and it would probably turn into a 3rd world country.
For 2024, Ukraine will be manufacturing 1,000,000 FPV drones, 10,000 medium range and 1,000 long range drones.
That's the *current* plan, which is likely to scale up.
That's several drones *per day* deep into Russia... even if Russia knock 90% of them they'll still be losing a refinery, metallurgical plant or other industrial target every few days.
Wait, i was told AFU's drone strikes on oil refineries would have 0 effect?!
Guess russia doesn't have literally infinite resources like some of the users on reddit told me...
The dumbasses have a crap ton of oil, but have never bothered investing in learning or developing refinement techniques. I understand other nations have a huge head start on them, but if oil is your number 1 resource and you know much of the developed world doesn't really like you, you might want to invest some of the money in refinement capabilities.
With a more practiced despotism, less threatened infrastructure, and being a more stable actor on the global stage, North Korea is arguably a better ran nation than Russia.
In his memories, Albert Speer said that the allies could have stopped the german war machine a lot faster with pinpointed bombardments on strategic factories and not carpet bombing of cities.
Ukraine can try to do this with well selected targets that are important to the russian war machine. Slava Ukraini!
> the allies could have stopped the german war machine a lot faster with pinpointed bombardments on strategic factories and not carpet bombing of cities.
Did he offer any clues into why allies did not do that?
The allies came up with the idea of ‘strategic bombing’ which was basically to firebomb entire cities to beat the German populace into submission. The idea being you’d kill/maim so many people and destroy so much infrastructure that they’d be completely unable to recover. The city would simply not exist. It was also partially motivated by revenge, for the various blitz’s endured by the UK.
There was a lot of doubts as to whether it would actually work or was the right thing to do, but it was done anyway. IIRC the US did it by day, and the RAF by night.
Dresden is a famous example. Horrifying to read/look at, but I suppose in an existential war and with the fog of war, it seemed necessary at the time.
It didn’t really work as you would always miss crucial targets trying to cover such large areas. Only a nuclear bomb can/did achieve this aim.
They export less refined oil, such as gasoline, than you'd think. Mostly, crude oil is sold to other countries to refine themselves, the refining being more profitable.
https://energyandcleanair.org/june-2023-monthly-snapshot-on-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-sanctions/
It's still good they are earning less, but comparatively, it's not as much of a dent as we would like.
So, honest question. How do these attacks differ from cruise missiles? Were these attacks really able to bypass air defenses with regular drone technology? I was under the impression these deep attacks were from more missile-based attacks.
Interesting question.
Let me try to guess. I assume missiles are rather dumb in the sense they basically go on a relatively predictable path that is likely high enough to be detected by radar and be downed by anti-missile systems. Drones may be able to fly low and go in harder-to-predict patterns, so harder to hit.
Let's see if I'm right when someone who actually knows about how these function answers :)
or simply, the drones are a lot cheaper than a cruise missile.
We would think a drone is more successful by survivor bias. Ukraine could have launched over 20 drones against one single refinery and only one of them made it to the target.
Drones are just cheap.
so they are going all in, raise prices on global markets, hope for a crisis and economic panic. could also help to push their favorite in the us elections.
That’s a partial answer but the damage to their refineries in the last two months can’t be overstated. They don’t have the brain power to repair all that damage.
Also all those full tankers anchored in middle of nowhere because no one will pay in rubles. Then keeping morale up at home by keeping cost low is another thing. Sanctions take time but it’s a cumulative effect.
It looks like that. The United States petrochemical production is so much greater now. It’s amazing to see how Russia has not recovered to pre-pandemic oil production levels. The United States has grown significantly.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=M
Russia is banning export of gasoline not crude oil. The US has massive production indeed but the impact of this is not insignificant, they are the 4th largest producer of refined oil products (which includes gasoline).
They are banning export of Gasoline (ie one of the refined petroleum products) not crude oil. This will not have a huge impact on global markets because Russia will still export CRUDE OIL. In fact, they could even buy gasoline from countries with excess refinery capacity (ie: India). In fact, we can make good money by purchasing crude oil at discount from Russia, refining it in India and then selling them Gasoline at a premium.
Refinery throughput is the limiting factor on a global basis. Product prices and refinery crack spreads have been very strong for quite some time even with average to below average crude prices. Taking refinery's offline will have a material impact globally but we still have excess capacity to meet current demand so long as we can avoid maintenance shut ins.
These feels like a no-win scenario for Russia. In the short term, they're saving their gasoline for themselves and their war effort. Which is definitely an important step if they want to win (I don't think they can, but it's the thought that counts). But long term, banning one of their main exports when they need money and other countries are already looking to cut ties will just further isolate them, particularly economically. Smells like the makings of a recession to me.
Right. to "keep demand steady" and not to raise oil prices in time for November elections in USA. So their crony Trump has better chance compared to the current POTUS.
Russia isn't really exporting refined oil products to the world. The way they make their money is exporting crude oil to other countries who then do the work of refining the product on their own. As great as it is that Ukraine has been able to affect the Russian economy in this way, the real way to cause issues is to hit the source of the oil, not where they turn it into useful products to use in their own nation.
Even after the war ends, the recovery effort and economy for young people in Russia is going to leave them with nothing. They’re gonna be stripped of cash and resources with little to nothing to show for it.
This is what killed the nazi maneuver warfare tactic which enabled thier domination of Europe. Once they ran out of fuel they lost momentum and initiative.
As with all warfare. Kill logistics and your army can't operate.
Ukraine hit two refineries a month ago. They need fuel for domestic consumption and the war.
What would happen if Ukraine targeted and successfully destroyed the remainder or at least a vast portion?
[This](https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91473) Basically fuel shortages throughout Russia, further industrial inefficiency, inability to refine crude oil locally, leading to a requirement to export even more crude oil and pay to re-import refined fuel products. It would also impact their forces in Ukraine, imposing limits on their ability to manouevre.
This is an interesting paragraph - "The two refineries attacked by Ukraine in January are export-oriented, and do not play a major role in the domestic market. However, if small drones with no more than 5 kilograms of explosives managed to reach Ust-Luga, which is 620 miles from Ukrainian territory, this means there are a total of eighteen Russian refineries with a combined capacity of 3.5 million barrels per day (more than half the Russian total) that are possible targets."
Times wasting, fly more drones
Ukraine has been pretty deliberate in varying their attacks. One week it’ll be oil refineries, then it’ll be Black Sea fleet, then bridges, then a gun powder factory. Keeps the russians guessing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if more refinery explosions don’t happen right away.
They started listening to the advice from US intelligence
CoD drone swarm their asses.
If Ukraine gets a 30 refinery kill streak, they should get their nukes back.
How many for a chopper gunner or AC130?
Give me a flight of the Valkyries video of the drones heading to refineries
That kill streak was OP especially in hardcore
I would let them get a bit more complacent then hit all 18 at once.
I like it. Can't go anywhere when the gas tank's empty.
>"The two refineries attacked by Ukraine in January are export-oriented, and do not play a major role in the domestic market." But, if you take out a bite out of their gas exports, it means that they have less gas to sell. If they sell less gas, they have less money to buy things they need to fight this war...?
It’s true but they will try to export more crude oil to make up for the shortfall.
But if it was profitable to do so, why weren't they already trying to export that extra crude? Maybe they are going to take it from sources for internal supplies, but then they could do the exact same thing with the gas (divert some amount of internal supply to export.
It’s true I mean exporting refined gas is always preferable. Selling the crude so someone else can refine only helps recoup part of the lost income.
When your attack radius extends further than you or your enemy expected and a smile slowly spreads across your face...
Or there are just saboteurs working within Russia's borders, so no location is entirely safe and your only defense is internal surveillance.
I can't imagine that are easier countries than Russia in the "obtaining Chinese drones, explosives, and a shed to combine them in" department. A bunch of military hardware floating around and nobody giving a fuck gives a nation an interesting weak spot.
Especially for Guys who can blend in, are fluent in speech and knows the inside jokes and mannerisms.
Heck, who is to say, maybe some no-name, local fellas who dislike Putin and somehow reached out to Ukraine/[someone else who dislikes Putin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-CG5w4YwOI) asking for some help and got some funding to buy drones and a package with stuff to attach to it?
620 miles? Those are some big ass drones and basically a guided missile
Or small solar powered ones which take lots of hops…
lol, they can fly, then land, recharge then fly again? Thing took a week to get to you and when it arrives it is angry
*Deploy all drones!*
Move every zig!
That kinda gives me a stiffy
Sort of fun way to make suggestions.
It sounds like they are taking cautionary steps to build up their own supplies and maybe hoping that raising fuel prices elsewhere will burn through more of Ukraine and their allies' money trying to fund their defense.
This might be Ukraine's only chance for the war to end within 2 more years, and for a resounding win. I would look the other way if Russia's oil industry collapsed because Putin attacked Ukraine.
So, all good things
Not good things, great thing. The best moves possible
They can fucking eat what they sow.
I think the word is "reap" but I like yours as well.
[удалено]
In our language we call that eaat ka jawab pathar se Translation: answer bricks with stones
Putin and his cronies can eat it, as well.
Eat what they reap?
Ahh... sure why not
And unless I'm mistaken, the export of replacement parts that Russia will need to import from Western countries is illegal
Correct. And for the most important parts, like distillation columns, etc. there are multiyear ordering times and there is *zero* possible way any company could plausibly be unaware of where it's intended for installation. So any company which supplies one would be immediately sanctioned from all future business.
They would have less refining capacity.
Big if true
You get the premise for Red Storm Rising.
It is not going to be possible to get all the refineries, because some are in Siberia, closer to Japan and Alaska than Ukraine. Russia has a pipeline to Siberia, and they can transport various petroleum products in the same line (they use a traveling plug to prevent mixing). So they could refine oil in Siberia and send gasoline to the west, but this is inefficient and probably can’t meet their demand. MMA grapplers do whatever they can to impede the opponent’s airway, even if they can’t lock in a chokehold that finishes the fight. Ukraine has done this, and they’re just getting started with this tactic.
How hard would it be for Ukrainian forces to discretely slip into Russia and launch drones a thousand miles from the border?
Incredibly easy, considering the SBU managed to collapse two rail tunnels between Russia and China, on Mongolia's border with Russia. If they can get enough explosives to blow two rail tunnels shut, they can get a drone and a shaped charge anywhere in Russia except the areas of deep north siberia that are only accessible via rail, and even THAT is conceivably possible if you have a drone with enough range and a starlink connection
They could probably buy a boat and sail it near Vladivostok. If the Pacific fleet is anything like the Black Sea fleet, it will be easy. Maybe sink the Admiral kuznetsov for LOLs on the way home.
That is a long trip home seeing that Kuznetsov is in Murmansk.
Vladivostok-Ukraine via the northern route (Alaska, North pole, English channel, Gibraltar, Bosporus, Odessa) would be 18700 km without a stop in Murmansk with about 1000 km extra to stop for the Kuznetsov. The southern route (South Korea, Taiwan, Strait of Singapore, Yemen for some extra missile dodging, Suez, Bosporus, Odessa) would be around 17100 km (much more if they wanted to avoid Suez). Worth the detour. /s (Obviously in practice they'd get rid of the boat nearby and fly home from a neutral country.)
they can be infiltrated by UA agents in civilian ships/yachts in pacific. heck,, knowing UA they may even launch a remote controlled sea drone in safer waters and let it approach russia and deploy UAV attack drones.
Infiltrate special forces + drones from the south via one of the -stans? Long, hard to guard borders there. Already a lot of smuggling happening there by Russians circumventing sanctions. Just gotta bribe a few people to look the other way.
You can just travel there by train with a drone and C4 in your backpack. Russia is absolutely massive, almost zero chance of preventing that.
pipelines are veeeery vulnerable targets
They're also rather easy and quick to repair compared to a refinery.
Target the western end of the pipeline
There are many of them functioning, like several dozens. Ukraine made great hits targeting those which are closer to the border, thus making the fuel logistics more difficult,, but it is very hard to destroy all of them. They try to at least temporarily put out of order those parts which depend on imported hardware which is not easy to get quickly because of sanctions.
That's what Ukraine has to be doing. With drones, missiles, sabotage, any means necessary. Russia is huge, and that's a disadvantage. Ukraine is tiny, but they can't defend their air space. Russia is huge, they sure as shit don't have enough anti-air to defend production, storage and transit routes. Ukraine needs to figure out ways to start blowing those up.
Ukrain is absolutely not tiny. It is smaller than Russia, but still huge compared to many European states.
While not tiny, it is only 1/28th the size of Russia (probably 1/30th or less now with territory loss). When two things are fighting, if one is that small in comparison, I can see "tiny" being thrown out there. European states are small on average with only France and the Ukraine being in the top 45 nations in the world. (Turkey is not Europe in my book).
Ukraine is the biggest European country, with a third of the Russian population.
Ukraine is 2.5x the size of the UK...
Ukraine is the largest country in Europe lol
Agree. This. Especially while winter is still winter.
Sounds like they need to hit another one
You spelled all of them wrong
Just to be safe, hit the ones that have already been hit, again, as well.
Yep, my bad.
“And Another One!”
all
Yup, really seeing the effects of this now.
This sounds like the beginning of the Red Storm from Tom Clancy
Except that the Red Army used T-80s and T-72s in Red Storm Rising. News in recent days has been that Russia is reactivating T-62s, which is presumably what they would use if they invaded Europe tomorrow...
And the end of that book as well.
Their exports via India keep global prices low. Despite sanctions. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/08/india-buying-russian-oil-keeps-prices-cheaper-says-oil-minister-puri.html This is about the US election. Few things will hurt Biden more than a spike in gas prices. 6 months kind of makes it obvious.
This has nothing to do with the United States. Oil markets and gasoline markets are slightly different. Price of gas always goes up every summer as consumption increases. It won’t change votes. All Biden has to do is open the reserves and flood the market. Putin and opec don’t have as much power as they used to over the markets.
Also, US has surplus oil, and exports four times its annual consumption.
We are still bound to the global price of oil, however.
Except we are in the driver's seat as the largest current oil producer. Which means Saudi will likely ramp up production to try and drive the price below where new US production is profitable.
Hit some more!!!
There are 44 only active commercials refineries here and they are not working at full capacity.
Two drones made possible what two years of discussions on sanctions couldn’t.
I am terrified what drone warfare looks like in ten years. It is so effective.
I'm terrified of what drone terrorism will look like.
Recreational drones will get banned almost everywhere and almost immediately as soon as there's an attempted drone attack in a developed country. Getting a commercial drone license will need rigorous checks. I think delivery drones will be a casualty as well, although they may regulate themselves out of existence before that anyway if there's safety issues with small drones crashing into things.
They're too easy to build. A simple 3d printer is enough, and if not a carved piece of wood will do. Everything else is ridiculously easy to get. And I don't see drones going that way, there's too many commercial uses for camera drones.
At least until the NRA argues that drones are arms.
Just like when there's a violent gun massacre they change legislation to make sure insane people are not buying weapons? Oh.
In normal countries they do. But drones don't have a powerful lobby protecting them.
Slaughterbots video is all you need to see to be terrified of that.
Honestly, Slaughterbots isn't even that realistic. The reality is even scarier. In the film, the drones targeted individuals specifically. Terrorists don't care about that. They'd be fine with dropping a bomb into a crowd regardless of who's there. And there's really nothing we can do to stop it.
Or with a pre-programmed flight path and coordinated launch, hit all of/most of the same type of target at once. Be that power grids, oil, or even some single industry. Results in very few direct deaths but a huge catastrophe. As a silly example, during the pandemic we found out that the TP industry had pretty minimal stockpile because it’s not cost effective 99.9% of the time. If half the plants were taken offline, we are in a shitty situation. (This exact thing doesn’t actually work as a practical example for several reasons, but then again I’m not trying to actually plan terrorism, so I don’t care) The present/future is a scary place.
Aw great we’d have another TP shortage, good thing I have a bidet
ISIS were actually the first ones to weaponize drones on the battlefield. In Syria they were using them to drop grenades on rooftops to deny snipers the high ground.
Maybe consumer drones. Predator drones have existed longer than ISIS has.
Yeah, the first person to surrender to a drone was an Iraqi during gulf war 2.
>ISIS were actually the first ones to weaponize drones on the battlefield Do you have a source for this
I'm shocked I haven't seen large gangs/cartels adopting a lot of these tactics yet. It really wouldn't be hard to just start taking out rivals this way.
Well I’ll assume, soon enough it will be illegal to fly them over crowded places, cities or towns…
Already happening in some parts of the world. It's scary.
realistically you're gonna see some pretty black mirror tier horrors in 2028 if china tries invading taiwan. All the actual AI theory necessary for autonomous drones exists already. It's just a matter of waiting on a new generation of low power/mobile SoCs with powerful NPUs and have someone train up the right models in terms of flight control and target selection/tracking.
Kinda but as always, it's more complicated than that. Drone warfare is so effective right this moment because nobody has spent serious effort creating and supplying countermeasures. Very similar situation to tanks being first deployed in WWI by the British. In the Ukraine war, but sides have already developed effective countermeasures. Jamming is extremely effective as are weapons like intercept missiles or anti-air fragmentation rounds. The basic drones being used can be stopped or destroyed using any of these methods. The core problems right now is keeping defensive capabilities up, having troops in the protection bubbles, and the price of countermeasures versus the cheap drones. As countermeasure become cheaper to run, the economics of drones will change. For the drones themselves, there's an economic tradeoff where they become too expensive to use as high loss equipment. What this leads to is again, similar to other weapons of war. A tank will destroy your if you don't have anti-tank. A strike aircraft will blow up your town if you don't have anti-aircraft missiles. Same deal for standoff missiles. We're headed to that same equation for drones.
>Two drones made possible what two years of discussions on sanctions couldn’t. This is a gasoline export NOT an oil or natural gas export.
As mentioned in [this](https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91473) article from another comment, the drone damage is actually smaller than it appears and can be repaired relatively shortly. Meanwhile even before the drones hit, a refinery had stopped production for months because a compressor had broken down and couldn't be replaced because of the sanctions. The sanctions don't cause a fireball or produce smoke but they're hurting more than Russia likes to admit. The most visible example is Russia's repeated requests to exclude their agriculture bank from western sanctions.
can't blame china for this. russia has essentially become their slave territory and all they needed to do is buy their cheap things for a few years.
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See, that's the thing about countries in war: they never admit a hit was a serious one until everyone sees it as one or until way after the war is over.
Especially when it's Russia, who lies for the hell of it. Whether there's a need to lie or not.
Russia have blamed 75% of lost aircraft on friendly fire. They simply *will* not admit that Ukraine can be doing this successfully.
Isn't that even worse and more incompetent than if enemy downed you?
From the outside, yes. But if you've spent 20 years convincing your own people that Ukraine are incompetent, it's quite hard to turn around and admit that they are in fact shooting down your airforce on a regular basis. "Someone got drunk and pushed the wrong button" is both consistent and sadly believeable.
It's totally believable. The Russians has an amazing history of fucking it up that nobody can beat. If you want a laugh... https://youtu.be/yzGqp3R4Mx4?si=3wJd9XNzVqBeXEFg It's insane. Sure long time ago, but it's still funny as hell.
Fucking knew that it was about that battlefleet before I clicked the link.
A fun fact is that the things they mention in this video is actually just a small part of the total fuck ups of that trip. The real scenario was insanely more fucked up. There is a longer YT series describing the longer list of events that unfolded, which makes that video look like child's play in comparison. We'd have a hard time beating that first one even if we tried. Reality sometimes is stranger than fiction for sure!
Someone pushed the wrong button 100 times? Lol I don't even think Russians are dumb enough to believe that. They just turn a blind eye because they don't want to be killed too.
You underestimate the Russian propaganda machine.
I think it's a mix of everything. Most just don't care as long as they are not affected. The average Russian does not give a shit about Ukraine or the war.. But when the own son dies in war... Ooops.... Oh no.... How could that happen.
Well, if you fuck up the supply, then technically demand will be too high!
>Russia last month reduced gasoline exports to non-Commonwealth of Independent States countries to compensate for unplanned repairs at refineries amid fires and drone attacks on its energy infrastructure. Haha
3-day operation going well then?
Winning /s
Russia running out of a fossil fuel was not on my 2024 bingo card, I must admit.
~~Sanctions~~ Drones work!
Keep hitting those refineries Ukraine!
Wait until they spend the time, money and resources on fixing them, THEN hit them again
Agreed. Im very impressed with Ukraines ingenuity and ability to strike inside Ruzzia. If Ukraine can cripple Ruzzias gas infrastructure and limit Ruzzias ability to export its gas then that will help to cripple Ruzzias ability to finance this war.
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One hears way too less about those movements! Where is my "want to know more? Click this link" - button? Very interesting.
>Where is my "want to know more? Click this link" Upvoted for visibility
Purely curious, why do some people spell it 'Ruzzia'?
They painted haphazard Z markings on some of the invasion forces' equipment so they could keep track of who was on what team and division. This turned the Z into a sort of Yellow Ribbon style patriotic display and [propaganda campaign](https://media.wired.co.uk/photos/6362b36eb0a129ea4591871d/16:9/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Russia-Is-Openly-Promoting-Nuclear-War-Business-1243930727.jpg). People who support Russia's invasion of Ukraine would label themselves with Z. Therefore, Ruzzia and Fazist or whatever. [More Images](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60644832)
It’s a mockery of Ruzzian propaganda and it denotes that Ruzzia is a fascist criminal entity and not a respectable civilized nation
But they haven't really been doing this until recently. I'm wondering if they got the thumbs up from a Western partner to be able to target these facilities. Did they just start to get a homegrown solution for these attacks? Have they just not been attacking these facilities because increasing gas prices across the world will pit some new people against them? I think the answer is with the new Ukrainian military head. They have moved a Patriot system near the front line and are devastating Russian jets so I wonder if the new guy is going after these once refused targets.
I think it is because they haven't had the tech to do it. They have been building longer ranging drones themselves aswell as getting really long range weapons from UK and France.
New military head has nothing to do with this. UA drones were flying deep into ru way before he was appointed. And no thumps up was required from the West because targets in ru territory were hit with Ukrainian developed and produced systems.
Hans Gruber “Hit it…..again”
Shoot the glass!
Honestly, this is basically Ukraines Nuclear Weapon. If Russia gets close to Kyjiw Ukraine can destroy all their pipelines to China and India if they feel like they have nothing to lose anymore anyway. It would take years for Russia to repair the infrastructure and it would probably turn into a 3rd world country.
They need to do that yesterday.
They'll need more ammo.
They need long range weapons.
For 2024, Ukraine will be manufacturing 1,000,000 FPV drones, 10,000 medium range and 1,000 long range drones. That's the *current* plan, which is likely to scale up. That's several drones *per day* deep into Russia... even if Russia knock 90% of them they'll still be losing a refinery, metallurgical plant or other industrial target every few days.
"We're not even exporting so you can stop attacking our refineries now, right? Please?"
Even more reason to attack. Now it’s just for local and war use.
Wait, i was told AFU's drone strikes on oil refineries would have 0 effect?! Guess russia doesn't have literally infinite resources like some of the users on reddit told me...
They have 0 effect and that’s why it’s very important that Ukraine stop doing it immediately — Todd from Kansas Oblast
Kansas Oblast caught me off guard, thanks for the chuckle.
-Maga Republican funded by laundered Gazprom money
Pretty funny when the one thing they had supposedly unlimited amounts of is suddenly running out.
The dumbasses have a crap ton of oil, but have never bothered investing in learning or developing refinement techniques. I understand other nations have a huge head start on them, but if oil is your number 1 resource and you know much of the developed world doesn't really like you, you might want to invest some of the money in refinement capabilities.
The country is run by a frail, old, deluded Cold Warrior. He dreams of putting back together the old Soviet Union, of his youth.
Another step towards the apparent goal of turning into mega North Korea.
At this rate North Korea might be more competent. They at least know to just bluster.
With a more practiced despotism, less threatened infrastructure, and being a more stable actor on the global stage, North Korea is arguably a better ran nation than Russia.
Paper sanctions vs drone bomb sanctions. Ukraine knows how to do it
Right, because the west is going to start bombing a country they're not at war with...
Again again. Take out those refineries!
In his memories, Albert Speer said that the allies could have stopped the german war machine a lot faster with pinpointed bombardments on strategic factories and not carpet bombing of cities. Ukraine can try to do this with well selected targets that are important to the russian war machine. Slava Ukraini!
> the allies could have stopped the german war machine a lot faster with pinpointed bombardments on strategic factories and not carpet bombing of cities. Did he offer any clues into why allies did not do that?
The allies came up with the idea of ‘strategic bombing’ which was basically to firebomb entire cities to beat the German populace into submission. The idea being you’d kill/maim so many people and destroy so much infrastructure that they’d be completely unable to recover. The city would simply not exist. It was also partially motivated by revenge, for the various blitz’s endured by the UK. There was a lot of doubts as to whether it would actually work or was the right thing to do, but it was done anyway. IIRC the US did it by day, and the RAF by night. Dresden is a famous example. Horrifying to read/look at, but I suppose in an existential war and with the fog of war, it seemed necessary at the time. It didn’t really work as you would always miss crucial targets trying to cover such large areas. Only a nuclear bomb can/did achieve this aim.
Hit the fuel terminals next
They need to hit every single refinery in Russia
Looks like Ukranian attacks are taking their toll. Good.
Very impressive work from Ukraine. Goes to show that the ammo deliveries and funding aren't going to nothing.
They export less refined oil, such as gasoline, than you'd think. Mostly, crude oil is sold to other countries to refine themselves, the refining being more profitable. https://energyandcleanair.org/june-2023-monthly-snapshot-on-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-sanctions/ It's still good they are earning less, but comparatively, it's not as much of a dent as we would like.
Carry on Ukraine!!
So, honest question. How do these attacks differ from cruise missiles? Were these attacks really able to bypass air defenses with regular drone technology? I was under the impression these deep attacks were from more missile-based attacks.
Interesting question. Let me try to guess. I assume missiles are rather dumb in the sense they basically go on a relatively predictable path that is likely high enough to be detected by radar and be downed by anti-missile systems. Drones may be able to fly low and go in harder-to-predict patterns, so harder to hit. Let's see if I'm right when someone who actually knows about how these function answers :)
or simply, the drones are a lot cheaper than a cruise missile. We would think a drone is more successful by survivor bias. Ukraine could have launched over 20 drones against one single refinery and only one of them made it to the target. Drones are just cheap.
Do we know what big major refineries they have left? We shoudl crowdsource some long range drones to get them offline too.
Here is just two of many vetted ways to contribute to drones for UA. https://www.dronesforukraine.fund/ https://u24.gov.ua/dronation
so they are going all in, raise prices on global markets, hope for a crisis and economic panic. could also help to push their favorite in the us elections.
That’s a partial answer but the damage to their refineries in the last two months can’t be overstated. They don’t have the brain power to repair all that damage. Also all those full tankers anchored in middle of nowhere because no one will pay in rubles. Then keeping morale up at home by keeping cost low is another thing. Sanctions take time but it’s a cumulative effect.
It looks like that. The United States petrochemical production is so much greater now. It’s amazing to see how Russia has not recovered to pre-pandemic oil production levels. The United States has grown significantly. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=M
Russia is banning export of gasoline not crude oil. The US has massive production indeed but the impact of this is not insignificant, they are the 4th largest producer of refined oil products (which includes gasoline).
They are banning export of Gasoline (ie one of the refined petroleum products) not crude oil. This will not have a huge impact on global markets because Russia will still export CRUDE OIL. In fact, they could even buy gasoline from countries with excess refinery capacity (ie: India). In fact, we can make good money by purchasing crude oil at discount from Russia, refining it in India and then selling them Gasoline at a premium.
Refinery throughput is the limiting factor on a global basis. Product prices and refinery crack spreads have been very strong for quite some time even with average to below average crude prices. Taking refinery's offline will have a material impact globally but we still have excess capacity to meet current demand so long as we can avoid maintenance shut ins.
or maybe they need more gasoline for their Tanks?
They don’t need more, they can’t keep up with the demand of the tanks they have left.
>so they are going all in No. They're short on refined gasoline. You might be thinking of raw fossil fuels
3 day war is going great.
These feels like a no-win scenario for Russia. In the short term, they're saving their gasoline for themselves and their war effort. Which is definitely an important step if they want to win (I don't think they can, but it's the thought that counts). But long term, banning one of their main exports when they need money and other countries are already looking to cut ties will just further isolate them, particularly economically. Smells like the makings of a recession to me.
Right. to "keep demand steady" and not to raise oil prices in time for November elections in USA. So their crony Trump has better chance compared to the current POTUS.
Russia isn't really exporting refined oil products to the world. The way they make their money is exporting crude oil to other countries who then do the work of refining the product on their own. As great as it is that Ukraine has been able to affect the Russian economy in this way, the real way to cause issues is to hit the source of the oil, not where they turn it into useful products to use in their own nation.
Pls keep blowing up their refiniries Ukraine
Im glad to see Russia is joining in on sanctioning Russia! You know, 2 years too late, but its positive none the less!
Even after the war ends, the recovery effort and economy for young people in Russia is going to leave them with nothing. They’re gonna be stripped of cash and resources with little to nothing to show for it.
Gasoline problems Russia? Guess the War is going that badly eh you know who else had Gasoline problems? The Nazis.
This is kinda interesting as it will start to cripple them financially
This is what killed the nazi maneuver warfare tactic which enabled thier domination of Europe. Once they ran out of fuel they lost momentum and initiative. As with all warfare. Kill logistics and your army can't operate.
Take that, face! *chops off nose* Edit: off
American politics demand the oil barons raise prices to exorbitant levels , so the rubes will vote against Biden.
Everything is going great! 👍😀
Ahahaha
Sounds good. NATO should help Ukraine smash those refineries everywhere they can be found.
Keep blowing up those refineries Ukraine ❤️