Untethering Ukraine from US aid means the US has no leverage. Keep trying to save those midterms chief, you don't have the cards in that hole you dug yourself into. Even if the 1% of GDP is an...
Untethering Ukraine from US aid means the US has no leverage. Keep trying to save those midterms chief, you don't have the cards in that hole you dug yourself into.
Even if the 1% of GDP is an accurate statistic, and since it was said by Russia it isn't, it doesn't take into account knock on effects of severely damaging infrastructure related to the refinement. Parts that are difficult or impossible to source eventually run out. We're seeing it elsewhere too, the industry being disabled in the Gulf States will take a decent amount of time to replenish.. and those aren't even destroyed.
Ukraine is going for the "Our drones will blot out the sun" strategy. I don't see an exit ramp for Russia that doesn't end in defeat. Truthfully I haven't seen one since they couldn't take the capital in the first week but it's even murkier now.
Strategic bombing doesn't win wars, airpower most assuredly does. The NATO playbook is air supremacy through SEAD/DEAD for a good reason. Ukraine seems to bet on becoming the second Afghanistan...
Strategic bombing doesn't win wars, airpower most assuredly does. The NATO playbook is air supremacy through SEAD/DEAD for a good reason.
Ukraine seems to bet on becoming the second Afghanistan for Russia and I think there's a decent chance for victory through that method. The upside is that Ukraine doesn't need to win by pushing infantry to Moscow. Russia on the other hand does need to bring an occupation force to the claimed territories.
What made Afghanistan untenable for both Russia and the US isn't how the opposing forces were able to defend areas with soldiers, it's how they could endlessly increase the cost of occupation. Ukraine uses drones to do that instead of mountain raids or IEDs.
The strategic long range bombing campaign on Russia isn't what wins the war by itself, I agree with you on that, it's the complete and total saturation of the Russian air defenses in the short, medium, and long range while driving precision offensive campaigns into Russian weakpoints that does. Operation Vivaldi is one of those. I guess it'll end much like Afghanistan did.
What's also interesting is this bit... ...showing that drone warfare really is going to be a numbers game. Only 2-3% of drones getting through is enough to take out 50-66% of Russia's major...
Ukraine is going for the "Our drones will blot out the sun" strategy.
What's also interesting is this bit...
András Rácz, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations who has conducted research on drone operations in Ukraine, said that even if only 2 to 3 percent of the drones reach their target — a number he called “realistic” — they will inflict significant damage.
...showing that drone warfare really is going to be a numbers game. Only 2-3% of drones getting through is enough to take out 50-66% of Russia's major refineries.
...and... 66% of major refineries hit. Half of 54 strikes have damaged distillation units. Another third have hit secondary units. So 83% of strikes take out a refinery by some amount/for a period...
At least two-thirds of the 36 major Russian refineries tracked by market analysis firm S&P Global Energy were hit between April 1 and Aug. 31, some as many as five times, at a rate of one strike every three days, according to a Post analysis of a subset of Ukrainian strikes.
...and...
Of 54 strikes analyzed by The Post and reviewed by the experts, more than half appear to have damaged the desalting and distillation units, the examination found. More than one-third of the 54 appear to have hit nearby secondary processing units, which further refine the distilled materials into more valuable products like gasoline, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.
66% of major refineries hit.
Half of 54 strikes have damaged distillation units.
Another third have hit secondary units.
So 83% of strikes take out a refinery by some amount/for a period of time.
83% of 66% is 54.78% and that's a low end assumption since some sites are hit once, some hit multiple times, some get both units with one hit, etc. etc. in combinations.
So I mathed it in my head to 50-66%, I may be wrong though and welcome someone correcting me if they have better info.
Unfortunately, the US has many, many additional levels of "leverage" at their disposal ... block Ukraine access to Starlink, cut Ukraine off from US military sat intelligence ... then come the...
Untethering Ukraine from US aid means the US has no leverage.
Unfortunately, the US has many, many additional levels of "leverage" at their disposal ... block Ukraine access to Starlink, cut Ukraine off from US military sat intelligence ... then come the uglier options ... grant Russia access to Starlink, grant Russia access to US military sat intelligence, violate the sanctions and start (either openly or surreptitiously) supplying Russia with critical components to rebuild refineries and other infrastructure, supplying Russia with ballistic missile components, supplying Russia with weapons, pressuring/sanctioning EU countries for continuing to support Ukraine ... And on and on, all the way up to, potentially, launching US strikes on Ukraine right alongside Russian attacks.
If you think "cutting off PURL" is the worst Trump can do...
Beyond "complete and total betrayal of all allies" as an option, Starlink is about the only leverage and has now been used with speed limits. It's a big one though, Ukraine is highly reliant on...
Beyond "complete and total betrayal of all allies" as an option, Starlink is about the only leverage and that is technically a private entity and not the US government and has now been used with speed limits. It's a big one though, Ukraine is highly reliant on the sat dishes.
Aside from that, US Intelligence has already been limited and since then NATO flies their own owned and operated AWACS to provide Ukraine with intel, separate from the US.
While I don't doubt the ability of the current US president to choose the worst option, I think even that is still a little ways off. Ok sure, complete and utter betrayal already happened when he threatened Canada and Denmark, but actually switching sides feels like a bridge too far even for this guy. Mostly because I think the optics are damaging and if anything, you can trust he at least tries to keep the optics positive, it's entirely why they keep on and on about the Nobel Peace Prize and why the US economy is hotter than it has ever been in history under any president ever.
Look if the US is actually ordering strikes on Ukraine we're already through the looking glass. It would mean everything else happening on the ground right now is moot. With the way it has been going for a while, any escalation is a pretty unlikely "what if" scenario. Not ruling it out, I thought Iran was an unlikely "what if", but unlikely still.
Edit to add: I was mistaken about Starlink and Starshield, the commercial and military versions respectively. The latter is indeed government controlled.
As the war grinds into its later stages, where front line battlefield successes don't matter nearly as much as economic wins and the will to continue fighting, Russia has always seemed a lot more...
As the war grinds into its later stages, where front line battlefield successes don't matter nearly as much as economic wins and the will to continue fighting, Russia has always seemed a lot more vulnerable than Ukraine does to me.
The russian economy rests almost entirely on petroleum. Petroleum is a famously fragile, centralized, and complex industry. A single refinery being taken offline can completely tank exports for months, as we've seen.
Comparatively, the Ukrainian economy is mostly dependent on agricultural and mining exports, both of which aren't nearly as centralized and vulnerable. Yes, Ukraine has major risks mostly consisting of actually getting those exports out of the country and out to sea, but there's no massive central wheat refinery. Wheat production happens in a much less centralized manner, so there just isn't nearly as much for Russia to hit that can do economic damage on the same scale as what Ukraine is doing.
I'm talking out of my ass though, so all of this may be wrong, but it does seem like a pretty key advantage to me.
And a buttload of their military expenditure is covered elsewhere or provided through very softball loans. They're covered by a lot of countries with economies far stronger than the Russian...
Comparatively, the Ukrainian economy is mostly dependent on agricultural and mining exports
And a buttload of their military expenditure is covered elsewhere or provided through very softball loans. They're covered by a lot of countries with economies far stronger than the Russian economy.
Despite having to relinquish the farmland in the East, Ukrainian agricultural exports are up year on year. I wouldn't call it strong though, they're valued at about half of prewar export levels and there is increased pressure on the Black Sea while also having massive stockpiles they can't sell.
Still, foodstuffs remain strong and will keep them in the game. Ukraine actually saw GDP growth this year. In that sense you're right that it's more robust than the Russian petroleum economy.
But Russia has a vast petroleum economy. Shortages have been local shortages and they have difficulties shipping, not so much difficulties producing it.
Glad this was included, was curious how they were getting strikes so deep into the country.
Ukraine is also able to mount attacks deep inside Russia by at times using high-altitude balloons to float drones before they deploy. This allows the drones to carry less fuel and more explosives, according to the European official and Deborah Fairlamb, founding partner of Green Flag Ventures, an American venture capital firm that invests in Ukrainian defense technology including drones.
Glad this was included, was curious how they were getting strikes so deep into the country.
From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]
From the article:
The military campaign has achieved such disruption in part by targeting critical refinery parts, notably the desalting and distillation units, that sanctions have made increasingly hard to repair, according to a Washington Post examination of satellite imagery and other visuals, as well as interviews with experts and Ukrainian military officials. The strikes on refineries have been aided by rapid advances in drone production and intelligence from allies that helps Ukraine plan and execute the attacks, the experts and officials said.
At least two-thirds of the 36 major Russian refineries tracked by market analysis firm S&P Global Energy were hit between April 1 and Aug. 31, some as many as five times, at a rate of one strike every three days, according to a Post analysis of a subset of Ukrainian strikes.
[...]
Of 54 strikes analyzed by The Post and reviewed by the experts, more than half appear to have damaged the desalting and distillation units, the examination found. More than one-third of the 54 appear to have hit nearby secondary processing units, which further refine the distilled materials into more valuable products like gasoline, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.
[...]
The day after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the European Union banned the export of atmospheric-vacuum distillation and secondary processing equipment to Russia as part of a sweeping sanctions package. The United States followed days later and restricted export licenses for the same components, effectively banning their sale to Russia.
Those sanctions make it difficult for Moscow to obtain the parts necessary to repair units struck by Ukraine, said Alexander Kolyandr, the Europe director at the Eurasia Group and an expert on the Russian economy. “I don’t think that anything that’s been hit cannot be mended, the problem is the frequency of attacks is shorter than the time needed for repair,” he said.
[...]
On Saturday, Trump lit into Zelensky for refusing to stop attacking Russian refineries. “He’d better damn well stop,” Trump told reporters. “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged in an October public appearance that Ukraine had targeted Russian oil refineries in an attempt to damage the economy. “Did they achieve their goal? Partially, because, by our estimates, we lost about 1 percent of GDP,” Putin said.
He has pledged to improve the country’s air defenses, and his administration issued a decree allowing the state to take over privately owned critical infrastructure, including refineries, if owners can’t protect such properties or refuse to repair them. For the first time, the government has also begun to allow private companies to purchase and install their own air defenses.
[...]
One person involved in the deep-strike drone campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to discuss sensitive security matters, said that since last year Ukrainian forces have doubled the number of drones and decoys in each wave. Decoys, which carry no explosives, help confuse Russian air defenses and force them to waste ammunition.
“The ratio of success of drones is based on the decoys,” the person said. “If you don’t do this you will just lose quite expensive systems.” The person declined to comment on whether Ukraine is specifically targeting desalting and distillation units but said Ukrainian forces were generally targeting hard-to-repair parts of refineries.
[...]
Intelligence assistance from Western allies has helped Ukraine exploit gaps in Russia’s air defenses, according to experts and Tango, the drone commander. U.S. intelligence about the specific locations of Russian air defense systems and radars has been crucial in allowing planners to map routes that evade detection, according to a European security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss sensitive security issues. Such U.S. assistance has been previously reported.
[...]
Ukraine is also able to mount attacks deep inside Russia by at times using high-altitude balloons to float drones before they deploy. This allows the drones to carry less fuel and more explosives, according to the European official and Deborah Fairlamb, founding partner of Green Flag Ventures, an American venture capital firm that invests in Ukrainian defense technology including drones. Artificial intelligence has helped improve Ukraine’s targeting, Fairlamb and Tango said.
In addition to targeting refineries, scores of other Ukrainian strikes this year have damaged fuel storage tanks and pumping and pipeline infrastructure across the country, making the transportation of fuel more difficult even as it becomes more limited, said Christina Harwood, a Russia researcher at the Institute for the Study of War.
Kinda weird (and unfortunate, obv) to think that now that we are buying some diesel from Russia, that some of these Ukranian strikes may technically be impacting US resources in an antagonistic...
Kinda weird (and unfortunate, obv) to think that now that we are buying some diesel from Russia, that some of these Ukranian strikes may technically be impacting US resources in an antagonistic way, one way or another.
Untethering Ukraine from US aid means the US has no leverage. Keep trying to save those midterms chief, you don't have the cards in that hole you dug yourself into.
Even if the 1% of GDP is an accurate statistic, and since it was said by Russia it isn't, it doesn't take into account knock on effects of severely damaging infrastructure related to the refinement. Parts that are difficult or impossible to source eventually run out. We're seeing it elsewhere too, the industry being disabled in the Gulf States will take a decent amount of time to replenish.. and those aren't even destroyed.
Ukraine is going for the "Our drones will blot out the sun" strategy. I don't see an exit ramp for Russia that doesn't end in defeat. Truthfully I haven't seen one since they couldn't take the capital in the first week but it's even murkier now.
Ukraine is using drones very effectively, but airpower alone doesn't win wars. Russia will suffer, but I don't see how this war ends.
Strategic bombing doesn't win wars, airpower most assuredly does. The NATO playbook is air supremacy through SEAD/DEAD for a good reason.
Ukraine seems to bet on becoming the second Afghanistan for Russia and I think there's a decent chance for victory through that method. The upside is that Ukraine doesn't need to win by pushing infantry to Moscow. Russia on the other hand does need to bring an occupation force to the claimed territories.
What made Afghanistan untenable for both Russia and the US isn't how the opposing forces were able to defend areas with soldiers, it's how they could endlessly increase the cost of occupation. Ukraine uses drones to do that instead of mountain raids or IEDs.
The strategic long range bombing campaign on Russia isn't what wins the war by itself, I agree with you on that, it's the complete and total saturation of the Russian air defenses in the short, medium, and long range while driving precision offensive campaigns into Russian weakpoints that does. Operation Vivaldi is one of those. I guess it'll end much like Afghanistan did.
But honestly... who knows.
What's also interesting is this bit...
...showing that drone warfare really is going to be a numbers game. Only 2-3% of drones getting through is enough to take out 50-66% of Russia's major refineries.
The 50-66% number isn't in the article, is that your interpretation of "significant damage" or is that from somewhere else?
...and...
66% of major refineries hit.
Half of 54 strikes have damaged distillation units.
Another third have hit secondary units.
So 83% of strikes take out a refinery by some amount/for a period of time.
83% of 66% is 54.78% and that's a low end assumption since some sites are hit once, some hit multiple times, some get both units with one hit, etc. etc. in combinations.
So I mathed it in my head to 50-66%, I may be wrong though and welcome someone correcting me if they have better info.
Appreciate it, thanks!
Unfortunately, the US has many, many additional levels of "leverage" at their disposal ... block Ukraine access to Starlink, cut Ukraine off from US military sat intelligence ... then come the uglier options ... grant Russia access to Starlink, grant Russia access to US military sat intelligence, violate the sanctions and start (either openly or surreptitiously) supplying Russia with critical components to rebuild refineries and other infrastructure, supplying Russia with ballistic missile components, supplying Russia with weapons, pressuring/sanctioning EU countries for continuing to support Ukraine ... And on and on, all the way up to, potentially, launching US strikes on Ukraine right alongside Russian attacks.
If you think "cutting off PURL" is the worst Trump can do...
Beyond "complete and total betrayal of all allies" as an option, Starlink is about the only leverage
and that is technically a private entity and not the US governmentand has now been used with speed limits. It's a big one though, Ukraine is highly reliant on the sat dishes.Aside from that, US Intelligence has already been limited and since then NATO flies their own owned and operated AWACS to provide Ukraine with intel, separate from the US.
While I don't doubt the ability of the current US president to choose the worst option, I think even that is still a little ways off. Ok sure, complete and utter betrayal already happened when he threatened Canada and Denmark, but actually switching sides feels like a bridge too far even for this guy. Mostly because I think the optics are damaging and if anything, you can trust he at least tries to keep the optics positive, it's entirely why they keep on and on about the Nobel Peace Prize and why the US economy is hotter than it has ever been in history under any president ever.
Look if the US is actually ordering strikes on Ukraine we're already through the looking glass. It would mean everything else happening on the ground right now is moot. With the way it has been going for a while, any escalation is a pretty unlikely "what if" scenario. Not ruling it out, I thought Iran was an unlikely "what if", but unlikely still.
Edit to add: I was mistaken about Starlink and Starshield, the commercial and military versions respectively. The latter is indeed government controlled.
As the war grinds into its later stages, where front line battlefield successes don't matter nearly as much as economic wins and the will to continue fighting, Russia has always seemed a lot more vulnerable than Ukraine does to me.
The russian economy rests almost entirely on petroleum. Petroleum is a famously fragile, centralized, and complex industry. A single refinery being taken offline can completely tank exports for months, as we've seen.
Comparatively, the Ukrainian economy is mostly dependent on agricultural and mining exports, both of which aren't nearly as centralized and vulnerable. Yes, Ukraine has major risks mostly consisting of actually getting those exports out of the country and out to sea, but there's no massive central wheat refinery. Wheat production happens in a much less centralized manner, so there just isn't nearly as much for Russia to hit that can do economic damage on the same scale as what Ukraine is doing.
I'm talking out of my ass though, so all of this may be wrong, but it does seem like a pretty key advantage to me.
And a buttload of their military expenditure is covered elsewhere or provided through very softball loans. They're covered by a lot of countries with economies far stronger than the Russian economy.
Despite having to relinquish the farmland in the East, Ukrainian agricultural exports are up year on year. I wouldn't call it strong though, they're valued at about half of prewar export levels and there is increased pressure on the Black Sea while also having massive stockpiles they can't sell.
Still, foodstuffs remain strong and will keep them in the game. Ukraine actually saw GDP growth this year. In that sense you're right that it's more robust than the Russian petroleum economy.
But Russia has a vast petroleum economy. Shortages have been local shortages and they have difficulties shipping, not so much difficulties producing it.
Glad this was included, was curious how they were getting strikes so deep into the country.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
Kinda weird (and unfortunate, obv) to think that now that we are buying some diesel from Russia, that some of these Ukranian strikes may technically be impacting US resources in an antagonistic way, one way or another.