War

This is a cool picture.

https://x.com/intermarium24/status/1753074058542059779?s=20

Another Russian oil refinery.

https://x.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/1753688981177270708?s=20

Nothing to see here folks.

Volgograd oil refinery operating as usual — Lukoil
The fire at a pipeline of Lukoil’s oil refinery in Volgograd has been extinguished, and the enterprise is operating as usual, the company’s press service said.

"<...> The Emergencies Ministry alongside a gas rescue team of the Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka company have finished the work to extinguish the fire at the ELOU-AVT-5 pipeline. There were no casualties. The Volgograd Refinery continues its operations as usual," the statement said.

Volgograd Region Governor Andrey Bocharov earlier said that on Saturday morning, air defenses repelled a drone attack on the Volgograd Region, but the fall of the downed drone caused a fire at the oil refinery.

Drunk at the wheel?

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1753594232911057053?s=20

Baking cookies in the basement for the war effort.

https://x.com/Tendar/status/1753565047866184027?s=20

Sure they will make use of these.

Russia loses a big one

cannabineer said:

Russia loses a big one

Top ally ditches Russian weapons in latest blow to Putin's arms sales

India is gradually pivoting away from Russia and shifting toward the West for its arms supplies.

www.newsweek.com

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Like China they smell a loser and it's not worth the trouble they would get from America and the allies. If Russia breaks up, China will take advantage of it and remove a European power from the Asia pacific. The Russians arms have been proven to suck on the battlefield and they are looking at other options including domestic production. Could Russia even supply the shitty systems it promised over 2 years ago? Seems they have a full plate in Ukraine, and they are having trouble selling oil to India for real cheap.

Ukraine has targeted a choke point for some of Russia's oil revenue and also its internal fuel supply too, but mostly to military, industries, supplies, and equipment. As in Ukraine the main targets are the equipment, logistics and C&C, they are more valuable than the meat, they just need to be stopped and in the end that can be done by drones and small arms fire. The more sophisticated the equipment they destroy the harder it is for the Russians to replace, even tanks are hard for them to build these days while under sanctions and they are resorting to the same means as Ukraine, cheap drones turned into weapons or observation posts.

I still think the overall idea here is to wear down the Russian military and try to destroy as much of their irreplaceable equipment as possible. Meanwhile their economy is crashing and burning as their revenue sources and trade are cut off, it is very hard rebuilding an army that has been almost completely destroyed while the economy is on the rocks and the country is under severe economic and technological sanctions. Add to that a kleptocratic government and an endemic culture of corruption then very little actual money gets to where the rubber meets the road.

Destroy them for as long as they are stupid and stubborn enough to stay in Ukraine, the place is a blackhole for men and equipment with plenty of losses including ships and aircraft of all types. The Ukrainians have been doing it on a shoestring, but at a high price and deserve better than they have been getting and it is putting tremendous strain on a stalwart people. It is doing a very though job of destroying Russian military and economic power in the span of 2 years from the time they started their ill prepared, planned and failed invasion, over 300,000 causalities ago, they lost their entire invading force and now just have untrained mobiks for the most part, mere meat to their leaders.

By the time Ukrainian air power gets there, there might not be much left because the missiles will arrive before them, and their AA missile defense will continue to be reduced or redeployed to defend targets in Russia. If Joe and the democrats win in November, the Russians are screwed if they are still in Ukraine. The Europeans, other allies and confiscated Russian money will keep them going if America can't come through with some aid before the election and there is some tricks Joe can use too, which he has. Even without congress, Joe can help them as much as Trump can screw them and the European allies. The Europeans are preparing for war for a reason, if Trump should come to power there will be war and they will finish off Russia on their own if they have to or prepare for them to rise from the grave again, while America goes to Hell and is consumed in internal civil strife and economic decline.

The scale of this stuff is getting to be enormous and that many drones likely mean better radios, no point if most of them are jammed and it would be a no brainer. I imagine the CIA and other intelligence agencies are helping to finance the drone effort, at even $500 a unit, a million would cost a half a billion bucks. There are drone part companies in China and southeast Asia working overtime to meet the demand and things are moving by the container load these days. The parts bought in bulk are cheap and the drones can be assembled by volunteers with nothing more than a nut driver, a screwdriver and a soldering pencil. There are training programs and videos, and it is not difficult to do, I've built a few from parts and kits.

That last video the Ukrainians released about sinking that ship with drone boats must have made an impression on the Russians and showed them how vulnerable they are to these weapons.

I suppose if anybody has to die or be fucked up by this war it might as well be these guys.

DIY-HP-LED said:

I suppose if anybody has to die or be fucked up by this war it might as well be these guys.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1753782521790181578

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Shit man,the Admiral on the right has enough "salad" on his chest you'd think he helped us out in a Dauntless at Midway,can't remember the Russian navy doing anything significant the last 50 yrs to warrant a couple lbs. of medals.

CCGNZ said:

Shit man,the Admiral on the right has enough "salad" on his chest you'd think he helped us out in a Dauntless at Midway,can't remember the Russian navy doing anything significant the last 50 yrs to warrant a couple lbs. of medals.

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maybe it’s for all the subs (and their crews) he *didn’t* lose to technical issues

A different sort of nuclear showdown

cannabineer said:

maybe it’s for all the subs (and their crews) he *didn’t* lose to technical issues

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Probably right,the Russian "silent service" is one of the few arms of Russia's military that still garners some level of respect and hasn't had it's rep destroyed in Ukraine.

CCGNZ said:

Probably right,the Russian "silent service" is one of the few arms of Russia's military that still garners some level of respect and hasn't had it's rep destroyed in Ukraine.

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The Kursk sinking did that decades ago...

DIY-HP-LED said:

The Kursk sinking did that decades ago...

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They’ve had incidents before and since. The submarine service remains a prestige arm of their military, and their latest subs are pretty capable.

We also have not seen the strategic air arm used in the war. I’m guessing for the same reasons: they and their weapons are less replaceable than the ground and tactical air units being poured into the grinder. The air is not safe enough to risk their Tu-160s or their latest fighters. I don’t recall a Su-57 being mentioned in the contested space.

cannabineer said:

They’ve had incident before and since. The submarine service remains a prestige arm of their military, and their latest subs are pretty capable.

We also have not seen the strategic air arm used in the war. I’m guessing for the same reasons: they and their weapons are less replaceable than the ground and tactical air units being poured into the grinder. The air is not safe enough to risk their Tu-160s or their latest fighters. I don’t recall a Su-57 being mentioned in the contested space.

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I keep thinking about the age of those systems, corruption, sanctions, the size of the country's industrial base and the size of their shrinking economy which was smaller than Italy's before the war began and is now a Helluva lot smaller. Nukes aren't likely to be used and if they are, those in charge of them are fucked anyway, so the logic is to steal it! Look what happened in China FFS with their missiles filled with water in some cases and generals executed. Xi saw what corruption did for the Russian military and decided to have a look himself and what he found must have caused him to nearly shit a brick, from all reports.

DIY-HP-LED said:

I keep thinking about the age of those systems, corruption, sanctions, the size of the country's industrial base and the size of their shrinking economy which was smaller than Italy's before the war began and is now a Helluva lot smaller. Nukes aren't likely to be used and if they are, those in charge of them are fucked anyway, so the logic is to steal it! Look what happened in China FFS with their missiles filled with water in some cases and generals executed. Xi saw what corruption did for the Russian military and decided to have a look himself and what he found must have caused him to nearly shit a brick, from all reports.

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I am suggesting that what we are seeing in Ukraine is an incomplete cross section of their total military capability.

cannabineer said:

They’ve had incident before and since. The submarine service remains a prestige arm of their military, and their latest subs are pretty capable.

We also have not seen the strategic air arm used in the war. I’m guessing for the same reasons: they and their weapons are less replaceable than the ground and tactical air units being poured into the grinder. The air is not safe enough to risk their Tu-160s or their latest fighters. I don’t recall a Su-57 being mentioned in the contested space.

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As for the Russian subs, NATO and America has had the world's oceans wired for sound with undersea cables that have hydrophones attached to wires that float up thousands of feet to where the listening is good, since the sixties. It has been upgraded over the decades and can hear a fish fart a thousand miles away and triangulate its location! Every Russian sub that makes it to the ocean is shadowed by a NATO attack sub, their boomers are likely shadowed by two attack subs who can kill them pretty quick if required.

cannabineer said:

I am suggesting that what we are seeing in Ukraine is an incomplete cross section of their total military capability.

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One must be conservative in such matters, but the CIA probably has a pretty good idea of how much Russia has left in the bank. It is almost all legacy shit inherited from the demise of the evil empire and a lot of it is irreplaceable and gone already. Considering how many enemies they have both externally and internally by some accounts and their huge border, they will need to drain the national treasury and let old people starve and freeze.

Whatever they have left in terms of equipment (meat doesn't count), they are losing a lot of it every week and if Ukraine gets aid, they will lose a lot more. It might be a while before they are driven from Ukraine, but every week takes its toll in guns, ammo, equipment, aircraft and even an occasion warship. Russia might be in Ukraine for a while longer, trapped there now, and the longer they stay, the more they lose. If Europe wants to defend itself from Russian aggression, then supporting Ukraine is the means to do it while they prepare to go it alone, if required. Many European countries have economies larger than Russia's and they want an end to the bastards threatening them.