Does anyone have the tally on total # of oil refineries that have been hit in the last, say, 30 days? And what percentage of total production that has wiped out?
Does anyone have the tally on total # of oil refineries that have been hit in the last, say, 30 days? And what percentage of total production that has wiped out?
It's Newsweek so take it with a grain of salt and one of their sources looks like a russian source. Too lazy to compile all the recent announcements the past few months but there is a map on the newsweek page:
Looks like if they can sneak into Kazakhstan they can really put their boot on the neck. Although the two western ones already seem within the range of where they've attacked so far. Not even sure if these attacks are originating in Ukraine or Russia though.
More examples of how there's very little boom in Russia's trade.
Russia now controls only 4% of the global weapons trade. Iran now makes up 60% of Russias international arms exports (and you can bet that in a situation like that Teheran is taking advantage of it's negotiating position), and the mighty Kyrgytzstan is now a top 3 customer for Russia. Even India, worlds largest arms importer and traditionally Russia's biggest customer, has basically just stopped buying Russian weapons altogether.
Whatever you think the reasons are (and there are more reasons than the war in Ukraine, as this is an ongoing trend that started before the war), it's obvious that when serious military people in neutral countries are looking at Russia and the Russo-Ukrainian war and considering how to vote with their hard-earned taxpayer money, they have no faith in Russia.
Whether it's the seemingly poor performance of the Russian weapons systems, lack of trust in Russia as a reliable trading partner, worry about the impact of sanctions, lack of trust in Russia's ability to win the war in anytime soon (which would allow them to produce more weapons for export), or even a general lack of trust in Russia's stability as a country, the end result is that no one wants to make long term, big money commitments with Russia right now.
It's worth noting that this lack of exports is much more of a problem for Russia than it would be for the United States (for example). In the Russian model, the weapons industry makes it's profits almost exclusively out of exports, while selling to the Russian government was quite often done at a loss. Essentially, the Indian military was subsidizing the Russian military and their industry. Those subsidies are now gone, and Russia has to pay for everything out of pocket.
Additionally: No, the West is not short on weapons or the ability to produce weapons. Exports to Ukraine have been only a small percentage of all weapons delivered during this war. It's just that the other are paying customers, while Ukraine is getting handouts. Although in some cases, the West has delivered new systems to countries which have then sent their old system to Ukraine, and there are other good reasons why stuff that was sent elsewhere wouldn't have made sense for Ukraine. Yet the point remains, it's not about production capability.
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Electronic warfare systems in Kaliningrad continue to operate at full capacity and cover more areas - OSINT analyst Markus Jonsson At least 873 airplanes had navigation equipment malfunctioning. Every one of them is a passenger flight filled with civilians. https://twitter.com/user/status/1769318487736881440
“114 of us left, we were thrown into a meat grinder. Maybe 20 of us returned from there,” ex-commander of the assault company of the “Sarmat” battalion. https://twitter.com/user/status/1769349836346720525
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Here's yet another example of how Russia is getting absolutely screwed in it's international trade, because it's negotiating position is so incredibly weak.
Even since Russia was cut off from the US dollar-dominated global payments systems following sweeping sanctions off the Ukraine war, the two countries have used the Indian rupee for trade.
However, Russia's now having issues with trading in the rupee because there's more Indian demand for Russian goods than the other way around — meaning Russia has been saddled up to $1 billion worth of rupees each month that's stuck in Indian banks, according to Bloomberg calculations on Thursday.
And it's not like Russia can send the rupees back home either because India has restrictions over capital flows by foreign investors — the country is looking at $2 to $3 billion worth of rupees stuck in India every quarter.
So Russia is "getting paid" with rupees that it can only spend in India, that are kept in Indian banks, and which are piling up because Russia can't find enough things to buy from India with that money, because the sanctions block so much trade.
But yeah, if you look at a lot of news outlets, they seem to think that somehow the growth of the Russo-Indian trade is proof that the sanctions don't work, even though when actually looking at the details of the Russo-Indian trade, it's mostly just a lot of evidence of how weak Russia is currently. But people who actually understand business or finance usually get hired in business or finance, not media, and it really shows.
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Romanian volunteers fighting in Ukraine "visited" Russia alongside their colleagues from Freedom of Russia legion and the rest of good Russians from Siberia. Once they got back they told us what they found on the territory of the "mighty empire" https://twitter.com/user/status/1770007177358393345
When discussing strategies for achieving victory, I believe one of the most pragmatic approaches for Ukraine lies in destabilizing Russia's power base, thereby prompting a shift by making this war unprofitable.
If there ever were numbers from the Ukrainian side to be taken with a grain of salt it'd be those guerrillas self-reporting on the level of their success across the border.
That said, the basic storyline is probably true, that Kremlin has trouble getting troops to cover their rear end, which is extremely embarrassing, and that the attacks were generally successful.
Last edited by Itse; 03-19-2024 at 01:40 PM.
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A Canadian-born commander of the so-called Norman Brigade(opens in a new tab) – a volunteer fighting group in Ukraine – has died.
The news was first circulated through online chatrooms and social media posts and later shared by Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik.
Jean-Francois Ratelle, 36, was also known by the call sign "Hrulf."
According to Reddit, dude had a PhD in social studies and literally studied and taught university classes on conflict and terrorism in Eurasia. Balls of steel to go over and defend freedom and for what you believe in. Rest in peace.
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Anders Puck Nielsen (a Danish expert on the Russo-Ukrainian war) argues that the problem of modern marine drones are currently "an impossible problem to solve". Meaning Russia is likely to keep losing ships.
...but also that this might become a real problem for other navies too.
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