10:13 – Johan No.1
We are halfway through the month and there will be record losses in several weapon systems, that’s my best guess, and that is after 4-5 months of continuously increasing losses. Of course, the Russians cannot counter this because it is as far from a low-intensity war as they can get.
Their only game is to try to push in more than they lose in Ukraine for some kind of balance – does it feel like you win a war that way?
What we are now seeing unfold is first strategic bombing of high-value targets deep inside, in two days 10% of Russia’s refinery capacity was gone and it is still my opinion that UA is hitting the “single point of failure” and that refineries are hard to repair. Try to restore the below…
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1768033680054755335?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then there is a shortage of technicians and equipment – no country in the world has maintenance scaled to need to fix 50% of completely knocked-out refineries. So these are uncontrolled fires we are seeing, not increased burning from the towers as some claim.
Trying here 😀 – do you remember the MXT discussion about them only repairing the coatings on the refineries, I was of the opinion that they go for the single point of failure and now I think there is more supporting that than when the discussion took place?
Then comes GLDSB, ATACMS long-range and SS (if Scholz now releases Taurus) and they will go after rear depots, ammunition stores, airbases and army bases that have all been moved beyond the 100km line that applied earlier. All this has been delivered or is under delivery.
After that, we now have information that the US is sending cluster munitions and JDAMS and that France is sending their versions of JDAMS as well as proximity fuses for 155mm – here it is the front-near targets they are after, bunkers and defense systems. Same here, they have been delivered or are under delivery.
https://x.com/ukraine_map/status/1767657979870847303?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then we have the million artillery shells and lots of other fun stuff on the way, and one or a few countries have delivered quietly before the Czech shells arrive.
Above you have the whole palette until the mech offensive starts or what, some week before it moves forward clouds of drones will hunt around the poor dug-in Russians and we are not quite there yet even if a couple of units think life is boring.
At the same time, we see trains heading east with large numbers of splinter-protected vehicles – would be suitable for mech fall, right.
Putin is at least genuinely worried now because the nuclear threats have reached new heights.
https://x.com/maimunkanews/status/1767909477544497503?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
We have guessed that there would be a carpet of heavy bombing and other fun explosions until the election and Budanov does not disappoint.
We hear less about the invasion of Russia but it should rage on until at least the election and if there are openings they should go for it (unless they have gotten some kind of time window from the West, who knows…).
Putin of course wants to clear everything until election day so with a bit of luck Ukraine can set up kill zones and use indirect capabilities to decimate the units up there for a week or two.
I haven’t studied the training points enough yet but at least one looks quite promising.
Unrest in Belarus should not be far off either, there was an “anti-terrorist operation” there a few weeks ago and someone from the Khalinousky regiment was arrested in Russia near the border with Belarus.
Then there were lots of flights to and from Belarus recently too so quite a bit outside the normal but that is the new normal now that everything started at the same time.
If UA can keep up the pressure and bring liberation movements to Belarus, Kaliningrad and many provinces around Russia it will become very quickly unsustainable for Putin.
Remember that the only large oligarch they are really afraid of is popular revolution, they can handle everything else but when that starts the risk list goes out the window and anything can happen.
We have likened it to them not managing to get up the entrance stairs to the funhouse and hanging on the railing screaming.
I also want to emphasize that what we are seeing right now is UA’s attempt at popular revolution (whether it succeeds or not) and that Ukraine has no interest whatsoever in letting any other elite factions take over Russia. They want a decolonized Russia and above all good relations with the six oblasts closest to them.
At least Ukraine thinks it’s worth a try and Poland voices the same and they have the most to lose if it becomes armageddon of the whole thing.
Now Russia has had 3-4 more refineries knocked out after already losing over 30% of its refinery capacity. They lost so much that they cut off all exports of refined products.
One of the potential war winners is to deny RU refined products, we speculated at the start that this was the goal – to create the big fuel shortage 2.0.
Alongside all the knocked-out refinery capacity, Ukraine is now going after oil depots, presumably refined products?
It is the large depots for the war on the Russian side of the border that are being targeted now.
Then when that is done they will probably knock out front-near fuel depots and calm will spread along the fronts😀
We have all seen high-value UA targets knocked out and most recently three helicopters that were refueled, two of which were knocked out. The Russians have not overnight gained area-wide reconnaissance capability and it is my opinion that it has decreased rather than increased over time because it is one of UA’s prioritized functions to knock out.
We know that part of the criticism against Zalizhny was that he kept everything secret, it was the parliament that was upset that he refused to give them the big campaign plan of the year, which they had leaked directly to the Russians the year before (shameless)…
I am of the opinion that there may be some truth in the speculation that someone is leaking information for a very simple reason – Sirsky fired the entire combat leadership and brought in those he trusted instead. These are many new people who get full insight into everything and shortly after Ukraine starts losing high-value targets – the Russians simply know in which geographic area to look.
No point speculating further but I don’t think it is a wunderwaffe from the Russians anyway but more towards HUMINT.
First negative for Sirsky.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1768034831269855549?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
We have speculated an entire war about why the West has “dragged its feet,” and now we can reasonably assume that the West has been worried about nuclear weapons and therefore held Ukraine back – at least I have decided that this is true.
To be absolutely clear – the West still has an escalation ladder that forces Ukraine to follow.
You saw, just like I did, that it was only volunteer ethnic Russians who invaded Russia, and the GUR press release was very clear – “not something we are interested in and they are all Russians, and all vehicles were previously captured from Russia.”
Then Budanov has not placed his Grom 2 in the Kremlin, and we probably all understand that today he could place a drone swarm in the Kremlin if he wanted to – but he is not allowed to.
The West has given the green light to attack the refineries, but oil exports seem to continue and especially no more liberation feats against export infrastructure for 3-4 weeks, right?
Ukraine has also not carried out liberation feats against the shadow fleet that transports war material or exports oil, and so on.
They have also not struck against Yamal Cross (🤩🤩🤩💥), which, if one may guess, is even higher on Budanov’s list than a Grom 2 in the Kremlin.
https://x.com/mykhailorohoza/status/1768093178890969404?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
This is unfortunately how it looks, and for me in my parents’ basement, the West accepts an unreasonably high risk. Who is the West to make these decisions for their citizens without being open about the motives? For example, the support among Swedish citizens for hitting the Russians hard is sky-high, and the government should act accordingly, like Denmark and Finland – send the Gripen now!
Putin has really spun up the West here, and his nuclear bluff worked, but now in 2024, all yellow cards should have been thrown, but of course, they have not because that is very clearly hidden among the information we receive.
The West believes they are managing the risk correctly and reducing it, but it is the opposite; the risk of a global conflict is increasing.
I have cried enough over this but just wanted to show that the West still has many red lines Ukraine is not allowed to cross after over two years of war 😐
There are positive pieces to the puzzle: France’s course change is genuine. Le Pen 😲
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3knndlvbie22z
And the Senate votes unanimously against Russia.
https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1768033873986765273?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Romania has committed to Moldova, and that country is now under protection.
https://x.com/realdaciandraco/status/1767986142081634500?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Finland, the country whose national sport was never to make Russia angry, has spoken out. We said early in the war to always do as Finland does because they are the country that truly understands this, so we should do as Finland.
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1768146384547385492?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Denmark is introducing general conscription with full equality and will heavily armor its first brigade.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1768006778837471247?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
In this conflict, nothing has ever been enough before the war is over, and second prize is always a global conflict – 2024 changed a lot for the better, but we still have a long way to go, and my concern is that Ukraine as a country cannot endure several more years of war, and the West should also be worried about this.
Because if that is the case, our time’s Chamberlain moment will land in Europe’s lap again, above all; the USA always manages.
Until now, we were to watch out for whether UA started to retreat, which they have done but now stabilized the situation, and Russian mobilization – which we have not yet seen even though signs are there that they are planning something a few notches below major mobilization – my guess is to scrape together 300,000 – 400,000 at once but try with occupied areas, recruit worldwide, and in provinces with minority populations.
The first point is cleared, so now we add the point about watching if the Russians start to retreat on any front section.
Then I am more than a little curious about how the election will go, actually. As I said, I am diagnosed positive but am of the opinion that a better opportunity to stir things up will not come again, and the week has started very well.
We are also looking forward to Macron’s speech today.
I understand that the West needed to take this in several steps to minimize the impact on ourselves and China, but the other side of the coin is that the longer the war continues, the higher the risk of global conflict, and I value that risk higher than it hitting our economies in the West.
Western soldiers in UA are not a good idea, but it is good leverage; however, the West should allow large-scale volunteer recruitment from all over Europe to broaden the personnel base for Ukraine, and all the covert functions in the country they have had so far (all of the West’s SOF) should continue.
If Ukraine had no intention of going on the offensive this year, we would not have seen trains with armored vehicles, and they would not have carried out the dynamic defensive battle they are doing right now where they retake terrain if they can. They would probably have prepared defense lines in depth to which they retreated.
Why hold a bridgehead over the Dnieper, why hold the Robotyne bulge, why hold… etc. for quite a long time.
The Belgorod raids are a neat election disruptor, and I think the purpose of the raid right now was that.
UA had no chance to carry out its own offensive when ammunition ran out, so yet another opportunity sabotaged by the West where they could have retaken something just before the election.
As said, this builds up to an eventful spring and summer again this year; it will definitely not be calm, that we can be sure of. I wonder when Putin will get that uncomfortable feeling that he has lost control and the realization strikes like lightning and he swallows the whole map with omeprazole.
Ending with a -positive-positive, here an unmodified T72 with a cracked gun barrel is delivered to the front. The feeling that they are short on armor, as someone usually writes, was just exponentially reinforced.
https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1767940327413846294?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then the Russians have frostbite all the way into March, guess how it looked December – February 😀
Last year, 30% of all hospital admissions were non-combat-related injuries during the winter.
https://x.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1768040296372187168?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
We get very little information from the Russian side right now except small flashes, but the condition of quite a few units at the fronts is absolutely terrible, which is very positive.
12:26 – Johan No.1
I was watching the burning distillation tower on film yesterday and decided – for a very long time.
I don’t know if you can bypass or otherwise get production started, but this is built by a specialist contractor with all the equipment and quality controls over X number of months.
First, the fire must be extinguished, then the pick-up sticks must be taken apart, and finally, new construction must begin from a point where it is undamaged – no techniques with a few spare parts here, but rather a specialist contractor who reasonably builds such things?
Or do we think an ivan-fix works?
14:16 – MatsExtrude
Thanks!
Now you’re dragging me into the refinery issue! 🙂
Regarding the refineries, I agree with you that it doesn’t seem so simple to repair if the fire really takes hold. There was a major fire in one of them already at the end of 2022.
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/one-of-the-largest-oil-refineries-in-siberia-is-on-fire-in-russia/
Looking at Google Maps where the photos are from 2024, you can still see black burnt areas:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/h4Vhc5fJZuBNLqWt7
(Feel free to zoom out to get a sense of how enormous the entire facility is! Completely insane!)
So it’s been just over a year and they don’t even seem to have excavated the remains (if they even care about that).
Regardless, it was good that the accident happened there, so far away that Ukraine can’t reach it with drones.. 🙂
Regarding the “single point of failure,” I don’t really think such a thing exists. The distillation columns that the AFU seem to have targeted are of course an important part since it’s the first step, BUT it’s not like the large refineries have one huge distillation facility. They have several.
The refineries are almost modularly built in a grid, and within each square certain functions are gathered, such as distillation. Then they vary a bit in size, both the squares themselves and what is inside them.
I guess one reason for the division is to have firebreaks between them and it also makes it easier to reroute the oil if something happens.
Here is an example showing how it can look:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3QNC6UFnkeFcdVLP7
Now not all squares are for distillation (red and white chimney and 1-3 distillation towers), some are probably for various forms of post-processing. By the way, notice that some squares’ contents look almost rusted away.
I wonder if they just keep running until it breaks down and then build new in another square..
I think they are used to accidents and that it is built so they can afford to lose one square, or several, without the rest of the production being affected too much. (If you google a bit, it seems there is a fire about once a year in their refineries)..
They might have to shut everything down while it burns and maybe redo some connections, but then it probably only affects the share that the lost square accounts for. Sure, some post-processing might also stand still if they no longer have anything to work with.
In the example above, I guess at least about 10 of the “squares” are used for distillation.
Here are the larger refineries I have been able to find (paste the coordinates into Google Maps search box if you want to see how they look):
Ryazan Oil Refinery Company 54.56461490173343, 39.7450389136927
Angarsk Petrochemical Corporation 52.561883051189554, 103.92843440116829
Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim 54.87511660631176, 56.11245215311845
Gazprom Neft Omsk Refinery 55.648387614221654, 37.801893790882005
Lukoil-Nizhny Novgorod Refinery 56.09973728666893, 44.16412078176588
Rosneft-Komsomolsk Refinery 50.621286940774795, 137.07228124107735
Rosneft-Kuibyshev Refinery 53.10528732665887, 50.05153908251477
Rosneft-Tuapse Refinery 44.103261085027114, 39.0930820403269
Transneft 53.22704316923303, 34.45709597652026
Slavneft Refinery 57.5543711231458, 39.800851992269095
Khabarovsk 48.49984420461843, 135.0478629571578
Chernigov 55.612599461887044, 86.14524669084203
Afipskyi 44.88477583946302, 38.82986156454484
Saratov 51.45240745268067, 45.942214319504416
Kinef 59.48649170554975, 32.06314062008576
Nznp 47.83429269383465, 39.855689675772865
Nzp 44.88381518827691, 38.82482028008696
Mariyskyi 56.98158409869363, 47.72432227289869
Yayskiynpz 56.12342076089738, 86.14213934194777
Achinskiy 56.438594612496026, 90.54387878101865
Novokuybyshevskiy 53.10776794210867, 49.92589666387571
Mazyr 51.89555816886779, 29.323415058767015
Lukoyl-Permnefteorgsintez 57.913789329678444, 56.135831585744164
Odoptu Production Facility 53.14927869180665, 143.2604987884159
Npz Kuzbaz 56.15433197538655, 86.05035240760533
Banner U Angk 56.16056465246012, 86.06496591825751
I would like 50, or well preferably, 100% to be knocked out but unfortunately I don’t think it’s more than 5-10%.
If a hit takes out one square.. And a refinery consists of between 10-100 squares..
Maybe I’m pessimistic, please convince me I’m wrong!
Still, 5-10% is a significant disruption. These are probably not cheap facilities to rebuild and with poor profit margins it surely hits hard.
Besides, Ukraine probably has no plans to stop harassing the refineries 🙂
14:29 – Johan No.1
Yes, this was a bit hard to argue against, to say the least 😀
I’ll try another approach – if only 5%-10% of refinery capacity is knocked out, why do they have a 6-month export stop?
When I googled around, it said that 9 accounted for almost all refinery capacity and the rest very little, so that’s not correct?
Yes, I based my assumption on all on that list of largest refineries having been visited.
I’ll get back to the question when I find a new angle because this was too difficult 🧐
15:00 – MatsExtrude
The 9 largest certainly account for a large part. Some have over 100 “squares” while the smaller ones on my list are down to around 20. But say one of the big ones gets visited by drones and 3 squares are knocked out, that’s still less than 3% of that facility (but maybe 4-6% of just the distillation capacity if that’s what they hit).
But there are big ones that haven’t been visited yet and the largest facility is probably the one I linked to (the one that burned in 2022, by the way, it also burned there in 2014, six people died) and it is out of reach.
18:40 – Johan No.1
Hard to know exactly how the invasion of Russia is progressing but if it’s true that they infiltrate SOF, air-drop units, and generally move northward, that’s quite interesting. Especially since it’s three days until the presidential election and all kinds of minority units are calling for popular revolution.
18:45 – Johan No.1
I’m really whisky-happy that the West finally lifted the restrictions because this is an excellent attack vector for all sorts of reasons. Belarus is also an excellent attack vector and so is Crimea.
I suspect all non-Ukrainian units are involved in this invasion except the international legion and maybe the Poles, but they were involved last time it happened, so maybe?
18:45 – Johan No.1
Then surely all with dual nationality in Ukraine have been asked as well.
20:08 – Johan No.1
Heavy gunfire from the invasion of Russia.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1768345174844047758?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
21:36 – Johan No.1
Maybe the whisky speaking but I can’t stop laughing-crying
https://x.com/markhamill/status/1768366222947885157?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
21:43 – Johan No.1
Bacterium Putin
https://x.com/juliapod_art/status/1768221779267391924?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
06:55 – MatsExtrude
🤣
09:56 – Johan No.1
The 10% of knocked-out Russian refinery capacity was what I understood over the last two days?
I haven’t read any information about whether those knocked out during the earlier campaign in January and February have been restarted or not. Back then, figures were circulating that 30% had been knocked out.
Personally, I believe it takes many months to get a refinery up and running again after a major uncontrolled fire where the single point of failure has been heavily bombed with violent clouds of drones.
There were some comments that it was the towers where controlled burning was increased by some knowledgeable people in the thread, but I’m pretty sure we are past that now?
Also, no country in the world has the capacity to repair 50% of its refinery operations within a two-month time window – there is a lack of both technicians and equipment. And in Russia, the shortage is probably even greater and it is even harder for them?
Now that they have halted all exports of refined products, that can no longer be used as a benchmark. Is it possible to figure out how much the production of refined products has decreased in Russia?