11:40 – Johan No.1
To put UA attacks on refineries a bit into perspective – they have carried out a total of 21 attacks on Russian refineries since the turn of the year.
A couple are second overruns but most are one strike – one kill in the distillation tower.
11:44 – Johan No.1
I don’t really think it will happen but it would be appropriate if the West removed the geographical restrictions on their weapons to some extent like –
“May only be used against military targets and no further than 100km inside the country”
Because then Ukraine can cut all the army and air bases on the Russian side of the border as well as all fuel and ammunition depots.
Think of the army bases with parking areas for vehicles where there are 200-300. A suitable number of ATACMS spreading their tungsten would then damage all vehicles so they can’t go anywhere for a good while.
A campaign of a few weeks and Russia is crippled.
12:57 – MatsExtrude
It is really both lousy and cowardly if it is true that everyone has been waiting for the USA and only when they finally approve the support do the others follow. I hope it is just a coincidence.
Also hope it is just a coincidence that we haven’t seen so many raffs getting drone visits from Ukraine lately, regardless of what everyone else thinks…
13:25 – Johan No.1
Yes, I am a bit worried that the attacks on raff completely stopped after the whole world went out and demanded it.
It COULD be that upcoming support is offset against no attacks on raff?
13:26 – Johan No.1
What Ukraine probably does then is wait until they get the materiel or alternatively take out 1-2 and regret that a colonel got carried away but now they have fired him.
15:09 – Johan No.1
I had a link but it disappeared…
All the claims about Sullivan come from statements I tried to save but then some disappeared during the gap here.
There is never a ban, Ukraine can do as they please but then there will be no weapons or EU membership, I think?
This is about strategic communication and if the USA goes out and condemns attacks on raff together with IAE, UN and whoever else, then Ukraine surely feels they have heavy players against them?
We can’t guess what is said behind closed doors but looking at what happens, no more refineries have exploded in a few weeks and there have been several drone campaigns since then.
There is also no logic in the argument that it would raise world market prices.
At the risk of misunderstanding your last paragraph 😀
15:29 – MatsExtrude
It would be, in a way, quite good if that were actually the case…
When the arms deliveries start to slow down, it is just for Ukraine to crash a few raffs to get them going again! 🙂
15:31 – MatsExtrude
It will then be difficult for them to do the same thing next time if needed…
“Give us weapons, or else we attack the refineries and make the oil price rise!”
“You do that anyway…”
11:33 – Johan No.1
I had written a long tirade about the USA and then they go and vote through the proposal but I am still quite angry at Sullivan.
The process in the open is interesting in that it clarifies that the USA is a democracy – they cannot force through even this type of important measures and even if the process is a bit rough around the edges and the cunning manage to navigate it, it is a system superior to all other political systems, or other systems, to govern the world’s countries. Our political parties are voter-sensitive and have a watchdog in the form of the opposition that guarantees that over time one moves in some kind of middle lane even if it sometimes goes off track. Putin does as he pleases as long as his silovik pals are satisfied.
For delivery, I hope for all the long-range ATACMS with tungsten because they have been absolutely devastating for Russian airfields. Probably the ammunition with the best yield ever after the Molotov cocktail. About a dozen ATACMS against an airbase take out about 20 planes and helicopters, preferably without geographical restrictions as well – ATACMS must be every airbase commander’s worst nightmare right now…
I recall that the USA has already stated that their weapons no longer have geographical restrictions but everything can change and not until we see tungsten raining over airbases on the Russian side of the border do we know that this is the case.
Then top it off with the rest of the 155mm cluster shells, deliver the thermobaric shells and lots more JDAMS and it will be a pile of rubble of the Surovikin line.
LV will probably come too and then we hope for my hobbyhorse hard vehicles – the USA has obscene amounts of fragmentation-protected vehicles in a plethora of different models, it is absolutely insane how much they have produced.
One can always hope 😀
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kqrugb3zgk2x
It will be a good addition to the hard vehicles Europe has delivered by train in recent months.
While we are on the subject – the attack with ATACMS against the airbase in Crimea is highly interesting for the simple reason that it is a prioritized airbase which means a forest of Russian air defense that should be impenetrable.
There are many other prioritized airbases with forests of air defense and you saw how it went, all air defense knocked out and a large part of the air force knocked out.
This means to me that Russia is completely incapable of protecting their high-value targets from Storm Shadow and ATACMS sail through the air defense screen without a scratch.
It even means that this strategy of gathering a couple of air defense batteries around an airbase actually just becomes a big bull’s-eye for Ukraine, a grateful target simply.
Then all the successful drone attacks but there it is because Russia cannot have air defense everywhere, all Ukraine needs to do is find gaps in the air defense screen so they can get through deep which apparently seems quite easy.
I find this exciting because with no Russian planes left, no functioning refineries and no ammunition or fuel depots, there are only deliveries of ammunition and they have now begun, first from the EU and now coming from the USA – that is the reality regardless of how much Russian danger is dangled in front of us.
The sabotage against the railway network continues relentlessly and for everything that is knocked out new supplies must be delivered.
Much of the criticism of the USA below is actually against Sullivan so I wonder if anyone has heard anything from him on Ukraine issues lately?
At the beginning of April he was everywhere but now I think it is very quiet from him, almost as if he took his big fight and lost?
To be able to de-escalate this era’s global conflict, Russia needs to be defeated in one way or another and then China needs to be persuaded not to join the conflict on the Russian side – so giving Ukraine all the weapons they point to and stroking China at least until Russia is defeated is thus the winning strategy even I understand from my parents’ basement room.
China has shown great restraint if you consider what the West sends to Ukraine, they smuggle or at least try to hide what they send but they do not send tanks, artillery, air defense or advanced aircraft – and they could have sent that. Putin is surely desperate for AWACS right now but they do not send that.
The USA does exactly the opposite of this winning strategy, right,
They sent nothing to Ukraine for six months (before the package was voted through) but are starting to raise the tone against China sharply. The EU should therefore be very careful about playing along in the USA’s geopolitical game here because they seem to be doing what is best for them right now.
Since X is X, one receives far too much pro-Russian information and the consistent message is that Ukraine is just a step on the way to breaking Europe’s back – this thread has understood this for over two years but strikingly many leaders in the West seem to believe there is any way out of this other than a Russian crushing defeat.
There are many examples of dominant “empires” (for lack of a better word) that have fallen, it has often been a combination of domestic and foreign influence where subversive activity has often been decisive. I will try to make another post about domestic influence that is a bit better written as the last attempt drew some criticism, it will come when I have polished it.
It is often discussed that you do not win wars through “terror bombings” but that is only true when it is countries where the citizens feel a belonging and are engaged in the issue.
There are countless examples of how guerrillas in different countries have made regimes fall or otherwise gained autonomy with bombing campaigns and by driving up opinion, for example in Africa it was used very successfully to free themselves from the chains of colonization.
The last two colonial powers are Russia and China who probably got a free pass because they were communists as the decolonization movement in recent years has completely forgotten them while at the same time being clear that they are Marxist revolutionary movements. The fact is that very many movements that drive all the issues the majority population in Sweden have been made much worse off by sooner or later come out as revolutionary Marxist movements.
On April 2nd it got lively with heavily bombed refineries and before the USA voted through its package I was of the opinion that the USA had completely lost it.
https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1775031501446357325?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1775049763932479541?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
When Iran unleashed a missile rain over I..el we saw what the West can do if they want. That Ukraine gets nothing is a bad excuse stacked on a bad excuse. Now this is pushing it to the extreme but as a Swede if I have to choose I would rather see Ukraine win than I..el, but luckily we do not have to choose.
The fact is that the West, just like in Ukraine, can shoot down over 90% of the missiles as long as they have air defense systems. Russia already knows how that feels, and now Iran has a lump in its stomach – expect another humiliating but less painful retaliation from I…el, 20 missiles against military targets where none are shot down – that would probably have a cooling effect on Iran.
Ukraine heavily bombed two refineries with the desired result on April 2nd, and the USA, more specifically Sullivan, came out and stated that the USA believed Ukraine should refrain from attacking Russian territory.
https://x.com/azovsouth/status/1775173634329366910?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then the US Ambassador to the UN came out and said the same thing.
And the IEA
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1778748677990879744?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And the UN chief Guterres does not want any attacks on civilian targets, where he reasonably referred to the refineries in time. Where is Guterres every time Russia kills civilians, my friend asks anxiously?
https://x.com/azovsouth/status/1775209247032201505?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Do you know what NONE of the above criticized?
Yes, when RU started dropping its new PDAB-1500 aerial bombs over civilian Ukraine.
https://x.com/spanaren/status/1775222958685913496?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And then the USA recently lifted sanctions from a Russian bank.
https://x.com/gicariana/status/1775408629350314306?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then it is interesting that Jake Sullivan was an advisor to Obama and opposed sending NLAW to Ukraine.
https://x.com/officejjsmart/status/1777457947443921191?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Since the USA had already stated this a few weeks earlier as we mentioned in the thread, Ukraine has demonstrably chosen to go against the USA’s expressed will here – that is real integrity!
However, it stopped at these two (or they bombed another refinery in Rostov on April 12) up to date, and surely no one seriously believes that Budanov has run out of drones or targets?
The fact is that Budanov has carried out a couple of larger drone campaigns since this attack on the refinery but then on oil depots, substations, and some other fun stuff.
-April 17, the factory that manufactures S200 and S300 missiles in Moscow is on fire
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1780343524963086481?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
-April 17, an airbase in Crimea is attacked with devastating results
https://x.com/friaukraina/status/1780446838576812047?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
https://x.com/ukraine_map/status/1780489403934113946?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
-April 6, an oil pipeline in Rostov leading to an export port was taken out.
https://x.com/tendar/status/1776534299413504146?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The question one can then ask is – are there more refineries to take out or have all the above acted as a deterrent on Budanov?
Macropoleon immediately came out and said that France supports UA attacks on the Russian refinery industry – he also goes against the USA, the other one with integrity in this war.
https://x.com/azovsouth/status/1775216702390669554?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
I am absolutely sure that this stings enormously for Russia because they have not touched on this with a word, not a single word, but half the West is in a state of dissolution over JUST the refinery attacks.
No one has cared about “operation turn off the lights” the least bit.
Then it gets interesting because Blinken says Ukraine should join NATO and Sullivan is directly out trying to downplay that statement. And then Sullivan says that if the USA sends large deliveries to UA, they will be attacked by Russia with nuclear weapons (which nuclear weapons then?). Consider here that the support package has now passed in the first instance, so Sullivan’s statement is kryptonite.
We have speculated a bit about whether Biden has bad advisors and I sound the gong that Sullivan is if not a Russian asset then at least the worst expert advisor ever who has worked in the US administration.
Just like with Scholz, he only looks for reasons not to help or support.
The same as what Mike Johnsson was doing until Sullivan disappeared and Mike Johnsson reversed course.
And we should be clear that the Ukraine war is in the EU’s backyard and the USA considers itself an ally with Europe so they should act differently.
Sullivan pushed a hard line – now he thinks the NATO proposal to support UA with a special deal is not good, he wants that gone too.
https://x.com/jefffisch/status/1775958636793111006?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
It is quite clear when we have come this far that the red line in what Sullivan does is to find reasons not to support Ukraine.
The EU should also be very careful not to fall for the USA’s baits when it comes to China, the USA has an agenda. Sometimes they are right but their self-interest is not necessarily good for the EU and it is very clear that the USA does what is best for the USA in this conflict.
https://x.com/SamRamani2/status/1776277366584574211
And then on top of everything, Lavrov winks and calls the war a “stalemate”.
https://x.com/darthputinkgb/status/1775964826340090019?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
It is so incredibly clear to me that Russia really wants an end to this war but that they do not know how. Of course, they want their cheat win and had some kind of consensus with Germany and the USA on the matter and then they had Hungary and Slovakia with them who slowed everything down in the EU.
In many parliaments in the EU, including the EU Parliament, they have moles who slow things down and their international distractors have worked well, for example I….el.
But suddenly Macron finds his elan and crashes the party and Ukraine has the enormous audacity to defend itself and refuse to give up when everything is rigged.
Not even when the West completely stopped delivering weapons during the autumn did Zelensky go to the negotiating table, not even then. If you remember a persistent rumor that the lines would be frozen last autumn when UA’s spring offensive was over and then Ukraine would be forced to peace. We did not believe that.
But it coincided with Orban, Scholz, Slovakia, and China thinking it should be negotiated.
And the West completely stopped sending weapons and ammunition.
And Russia proved reasonable and came out saying they did want to negotiate.
And Zelensky said – yep, follow my ten-point program and then we’ll talk, 1991 borders first.
JEF has probably been annoying but France completely breaks the script and Putin probably feels no direct security that this will end in a way advantageous to him right now.
The USA has failed much more – in the Red Sea they completely lost control and I..el has also broken the script badly. I don’t know what the motive for the embassy bombing was at all but they raised the temperature in MENA.
I am of the opinion that they have lost control in G…a and that their own little three-day operation capsized. It is hard to justify paving over the entire G…a as they actually do. Proportional retaliation applies to them as well and I believe the failure largely lay with the politicians because the security services warned about the attack as much as they could.
Now the USA has also blinked in its I..el support and backed down when Iran stood up, the same Iran that China asked to sit down and keep quiet. It went so far that Iran felt secure enough to retaliate.
As mentioned, I..el’s motive for placing a JDAM in the embassy in Syria is highly unclear, but I..el has withdrawn from G..a and left the entire southern area untouched where H..as has now retreated.
Guess if that was the purpose of all these organizations in the West’s enormous protests, to ensure that the hard core of H..as survived… – the demonstrations thus have a military purpose even if not everyone participating understands it.
Above all, the USA’s allies in MENA are in a precarious position; they have a difficult-to-control population as it is without having to take a clear stance in the USA/I..el – others, and that is what Russia is forcing – a traveling merchant of death and chaos.
The USA is making many diplomatic and geopolitical mistakes right now, and it is probably up to the EU to counter this going forward.
We can thank Zelensky and his advisors, commanders, and government that we still have a chance to stamp out our time’s global conflict. With hindsight, it is very clear that Zelensky was subjected to very tough attempts to get him to negotiate, and the West has understood nothing; the elected officials and experts still have completely wrong data on which they make wrong decisions.
Probably the USA’s line has been hard to deviate from for the leaders in the West, and they have played along until now when Macron broke away.
Then a thought about neutrality which has been so important for Sweden. If all of Europe remains neutral, Russia just takes country after country, right? You come to a point where the country is at war even if the enemy is not on its own territory – Sweden is de facto at war!