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Ukraine War Thread Part 2

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Ukraine War Thread Part 2

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Old 14th March 2024 | 09:19
  #9261 (permalink)  
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From: Europe
Originally Posted by Tartiflette Fan
Have to say- albeit as someone with no knowledge of the oil-industry - I can't believe that they have destroyed 12% of Russia's refining capacity.in 2 days as Bloomberg claims. Believable for me would be " have hit refineries responsible for 12% of ......" which might then mean destruction of 1-2% ( pure guess ) refining capacity..
Your scepticism is justified. To put things in context Russian oil & condensate production (i.e. "liquids") is about 10-million barrel per day, which represents approximately 10% of global production that is close to 100-million barrels per day.

This Yahoo news item repeats all the key facts in the Bloomberg ones that are paywalled, and icludes a useful map:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/major...075404268.html


The refineries hit recently seem to have typical throughputs of 100,000 - 300,000 barrels per day. So one can get to the 12% number just from forcing a shutdown of three refineries, but the issue is how quick can they do a restart, and how much damage is caused.

One of those attacks seemingly targeted a cracker in the refinery. If they got that (if) and if they penetrated it (if) whilst hot (if) in such a way as to cause a product explosion (if) then that might do long term damage that is not easy to repair. The larger the warheads get, the longer the drone ranges get, the better the targetting knowledge becomes, the more accurate the final strike becomes, the greater the likelihood of doing substantial lasting damage.

This has consequences for civilian fuels use in Russia, military fuels use in Russia, Russian exports of both crude and refined product (in different ways, complex), and Russian economy. Global economy will barely notice it.

They are also going after significant metals production facilities, again striking at particular bits of kit. I expect that other energy/power assets will be on their targetting list.

Cumulatively this will all have an effect. Whether it is sufficient in the current context remains to be seen.


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Old 14th March 2024 | 09:22
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From: PLanet Earth
Originally Posted by NutLoose
Russian reports are that General Geronimo could have been fired from the army and his replacement has been announced..
I seem to remember rumours of him having been among a group hit by a strike on a command post on crimea about a month ago or two, has he been ever seen since?
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Old 14th March 2024 | 09:47
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From: UK
Originally Posted by konstantin
That`s not even an A-50 parts boneyard, more an embarrassing scrapyard.
For the whole world to see, looks pretty bad even on google maps sat view...
They look in even worse nick than the Nimrod AEWs at Abingdon in the 80s... and that's saying something!
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Old 14th March 2024 | 10:30
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From: Slovakia
Originally Posted by Tartiflette Fan
Have to say- albeit as someone with no knowledge of the oil-industry - I can't believe that they have destroyed 12% of Russia's refining capacity.in 2 days as Bloomberg claims. Believable for me would be " have hit refineries responsible for 12% of ......" which might then mean destruction of 1-2% ( pure guess ) refining capacity.
Good news is that ZSU is able to hit the very core of refineries = distillation columns. If this is destroyed the whole refinery will halt. It is not known how quickly they can replace them (e.g. in Ploiesti during WW2 Germans were able to get them on line within weeks after the first raid) but with lack of workforce and sanctioned import of technologies it may be a problem either due to added time or it will become very expensive.

Russia had over 40 operational refineries before the war but some of them stopped production due the fact that refined oil products couldn't be exported due the sanctions. On other hand less operational refineries caused outages during harvest in September 2023 and surprisingly Putin forbid export of diesel for quite a long time. Attacks on refineries seem to have visible effects as outages of petrol at fuel stations are widely reported since the beginning of the year and even gasoline export was forbidden. All this cause logistics nightmare, overstretching forces which must protect infrastructure and can't be stationed on the front line, it also hurts the Russia's income. With current trend we may expect that Russia's funds will run out sometimes in the beginning of 2025. We may hope that Putin will try to continue fight but there will be a complete break down at a certain point.

Good analysis by Joe Blogs:


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Old 14th March 2024 | 10:33
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From: Rhone-Alpes
Originally Posted by henra
I seem to remember rumours of him having been among a group hit by a strike on a command post on crimea about a month ago or two, has he been ever seen since?
Fairly certain that he has not. There could be a trend here. Several months ago the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice-Admiral Viktor Sokolov, was rumoured to have been killed in an attack on Sevastopol HQ and has not been seen since * and he was removed from this position this week. Much less embarrassing to say nothing about deaths and then just replace them months later.

* Believe there was a supposed appearance just after attack, but lots of speculation it was manipulated images.
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Old 14th March 2024 | 11:22
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From: Bolton UK
Frontline report:

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Old 14th March 2024 | 11:33
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From: Falling off the end of the thread
Another Russian ship attacked that slipped under the radar.

The Ukrainian Navy reported on the destruction of the tanker Mekhanik Pogodin, which the Russians converted into a command post, according to the Ukrainian Navy's Facebook page.

"On March 11, 2024, as a result of a successful airstrike by the Ukrainian Air Force in the area of the Kinburn Spit, the tanker under the Russian flag Mekhanik Pogodin, which the Russians used as a command post, was destroyed," the Ukrainian Navy reported.

On May 2, 2018, VEB-Leasing OJSC (St. Petersburg), the owner of the tanker, was included in the sanctions list and arrested. After the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station was blown up in 2023, the tanker was washed ashore in the territory temporarily controlled by the occupiers.

"The tanker Mekhanik Pogodin was arrested and was located in the territory of the Kherson seaport until the summer of 2023. After the Russians blew up the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station, the tanker was washed ashore on the Kinburn Spit, which is temporarily controlled by the Russians," the Ukrainian Navy reported.

The Russians set up an observation post for reconnaissance on the ship. The vessel was used to launch drone strikes on the Kherson region.

"Subsequently, an observation post for reconnaissance and electronic warfare means was deployed on the mentioned vessel. The ship was periodically used as a platform for launching FPV drones to strike the territory of the Kherson region," the Ukrainian Navy reported.

Therefore, the destruction of the Russian tanker Mekhanik Pogodin not only thwarted the invaders in their plans but was also carried out in full compliance with the norms of International Humanitarian Law.
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukra...710202684.html










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Old 14th March 2024 | 11:52
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From: Falling off the end of the thread
That's service for you.


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Old 14th March 2024 | 11:55
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From: Falling off the end of the thread
And you thought the Grenfell coating was bad.

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Old 14th March 2024 | 12:07
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From: east ESSEX
#9273;That small supply boat really went for a ride; almost as good as `turret-tossing`....
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Old 14th March 2024 | 12:18
  #9271 (permalink)  
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From: Oop Norf
Originally Posted by sycamore
#9273;That small supply boat really went for a ride; almost as good as `turret-tossing`....
I think that's the ship's bridge superstructure being tossed, rather than a supply boat.
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Old 14th March 2024 | 12:58
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From: aus
Originally Posted by sycamore
#9273;That small supply boat really went for a ride; almost as good as `turret-tossing`....
claims it was lifeboat but we wont really ever know
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Old 14th March 2024 | 13:09
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From: Falling off the end of the thread
There are some on the back of the superstructure.



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Old 14th March 2024 | 16:20
  #9274 (permalink)  
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From: Central UK
Originally Posted by NutLoose
And you thought the Grenfell coating was bad.



https://twitter.com/UaCoins/status/1768238638909767793
That's mighty strange conflagration. No way is that normal building materials, it burns out like a firework in 30 seconds or so.
All the yellow bits being projected up in the fire makes me wonder if that isn't a huge pressurised container of something like liquid builder's bodge foam intended to be injected for insulation going up.
Boy, the Ruzzians know how to do fires in style, don't they?

Last edited by meleagertoo; 14th March 2024 at 23:23.
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Old 14th March 2024 | 16:38
  #9275 (permalink)  
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From: The Alps
jamming Grant Shapps

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2512675.html

cheers
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Old 14th March 2024 | 19:38
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From: Glorious Devon
Surely such a possibility was allowed for and factored into the plan.
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Old 14th March 2024 | 20:19
  #9277 (permalink)  
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From: The sky
GPS jamming and spoofing is a daily occurrence for commercial traffic and has been for years. This is nothing new.
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Old 14th March 2024 | 21:26
  #9278 (permalink)  
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From: Frensham
France 24 News posted this earlier on X (Twitter), after which it was subsequently pulled.

"French regiments are reportedly on their way to Romania, in preparation for deployment in Ukraine against the Russian army, particularly in Odessa. Among them, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment of Nîmes is mentioned."

Macron appears to be in trouble:

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Old 14th March 2024 | 21:29
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From: Frensham
Macron warns Europe's security 'at stake' after uproar over Ukraine ground troops comment

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the Europe's security was "at stake" in Ukraine, warning that a Russian victory against Kyiv "would reduce Europe's credibility to zero".

"The French president also said Thursday that his country stood ready to ensure that Russia does not win the war in Ukraine, urging allies not to impose limits on assistance.

"If the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war," Macron said during an interview on French TV, warning that anybody advocating "limits" on aid to Ukraine "chooses defeat".

He said it was important for Europe not to draw red lines, which would signal weakness to the Kremlin and encourage it topush on with its invasion of Ukraine. He refused to give detail on what a deployment to Ukraine might look like.

"I have reasons not to be precise," he said. "I'm not going to give (Putin) visibility."

Macron said France would never initiate an offensive against Russia, and that Paris was not at war with Moscow, despite the fact that Russia had launched aggressive attacks against French interests in and outside France.

"Russia is an adversary," he said, declining to call it an enemy.

He also said he hoped that the time would come one day to negotiate peace with a Russian president "whoever it might be", for the first envisaging the possibility of Putin no longer being in charge in Russia.

Polarised politics

In late February, Macron caused an uproar by refusing to rule out the dispatch of Western ground troops to Ukraine. French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu later said that while the deployment of Western combat troops to fight in Ukraine was not on the table, a greater military presence could include mine clearance and training Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian soil.

In France's polarised political landscape, Russia's war against Ukraine has emerged as a major hot-button topic.

The French president has been seeking to hammer home the importance of greater support for Ukraine while trying to cast the country’s far-right Rassemblement National as an ally of the Kremlin. Members of both right-wing and left-wing opposition parties have accused the president of using the conflict to boost his centrist coalition's standing ahead of the European elections in June.

The European elections are seen as a key milestone ahead of France's next presidential election in 2027, when Le Pen is expected to mount a fourth bid for the top job and Macron cannot stand again due to term limits.

Macron planned to meet on Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Berlin in a summit meant to show unity."

https://www.france24.com/en/france/2..._medium=social

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Old 15th March 2024 | 07:38
  #9280 (permalink)  
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From: Biffins Bridge
Originally Posted by Pali
Attacks on refineries seem to have visible effects as outages of petrol at fuel stations are widely reported since the beginning of the year and even gasoline export was forbidden. All this cause logistics nightmare, overstretching forces which must protect infrastructure and can't be stationed on the front line, it also hurts the Russia's income.
You don't have to hit the refinery. Fuel is useless unless you can transport it. The rail and signalling infrastructure plus key bridges are easy to sabotage at multiple points. Furthermore, you can't fix rail infrastructure if the ballast and tamping machinery is out of action. Rail systems tend to have "just enough" of that.
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