Ukraine struck Russia’s largest oil refinery, located in the city of Omsk, on Monday, marking what its forces say was its furthest-ever drone attack in the war.
The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil a year, is in Western Siberia and about 1,700 miles from Ukrainian territory — roughly the distance between Los Angeles and Houston.
I imagine a huge game of whack-a-mole between Russia and Ukraine. Russia moving air defenses trying to anticipate Ukrainian strikes, and increasingly failing.
You can move air defenses but you can’t move the refineries, bridges and other infrastructure
Quick cover the refineries! Oh shit they but Moscow, redirect the defenses to cover Moscow! Oh fuck they hit Moscow, redirect the defenses to reinforce Putin’s bunker! Oh blyat, they hit the refineries…
There’s accusations that they’re mostly kept around Moscow and Putin’s compound, and stay there.
Which is pretty stupid IMO, as I imagine killing Putin is a Pandora’s Box Ukraine does not want to open. And shelling civilians in Moscow is just cruel, and makes no tactical sense in lieu of other targets…
You’re probably right. It’s never wise to make a martyr out of your enemy, and Zelensky is vastly more wise than Putin. And Trump.
Well, Putin is actually a “moderate” of sorts in Russian politics. There are some scary, more nationalist and extremist, figures he keeps in line that would be happy to fill the power vacuum.
It’s not even predicable anymore, as Putin’s already killed the most “obvious” popular ones, like Prigozhin.
That’s what I meant.
Maybe they could kill Putin, without him becoming a martyr. But Ukraine doesn’t know what comes after Putin.
In a country with so many nukes, that could be a literally catastrophic gamble.
That’s a good point. I didn’t know there were hardliners with that much power.
If you’re interested in further reading, ISW sometimes covers this figures in their Ukraine updates.
You might be particularly interested in the nearly successful Wagner rebellion, where a Russian mercenary company drove a convoy to Moscow and almost made it, largely unopposed by the Russian military. Some joined him:
https://www.understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/assessing-prigozhins-wagner-group-rebellion/
Putin was always paranoid, but this is the reason for the extra recent paranoia, FYI.
I remember the Wagner accident and can’t understand why he stopped. He could have literally had a successful coup and then just… Didn’t?