Ukraine v Russia II

The sanctions are already slowing down the war, why wouldn't reducing Russia's primary source of revenue slow it down further. Russia is already struggling to maintain its economy and cutting into the price they can get for their oil is absolutely going to have an impact on that. Again, that doesn't mean every country is going to comply with the cap, but they also know that Russia will not want to completely neuter themselves economically and will demand price reductions below market rate.

 

It should in theory but we don't know if it will reduce their energy revenue in practice. That's what we've been saying for months and on the contrary, they made more money while Europe's energy crisis is getting worse

"I can't deny that," Hochstein told the Senate Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation in response to a question about whether Moscow was making more money now off its crude oil and gas sales than a couple of months before the war started.

-U.S. energy security envoy Amos Hochstein

 

The main problem for the would be sanction dodgers is that transportation of the oil is a huge problem. You can sell to India and China to the hilt, but transportation volumes for a huge part is western owned. So you transport Russian oil, but you can't insure your ship and your cargo. Given these dodgers are targets for the Ukrain, you really think twice to do such a dumb thing.

 

Yes.. Do you know WHY Russia was making more money after the war started despite selling less oil and natural gas and WHY that isn't true now?

 

One of the links Robert included said that Russia had purchased 100 used oil tankers, so I would assume this means they will be insuring the ship and cargo themselves.

 

I think 100 is a drop in the ocean. There are around 4000 tankers operating in the world, of which 20% are supertankers and half of those are supersupertankers.
So, given the amount of oil Russia has to move, they need more than a hundred.

 

I don't disagree with any of your points. Just noting that Russia is purchasing used oil tankers on the open market. I would assume that they will continue to do so now that the EU is locking their prices and they don't have enough pipeline capacity to feed China's and India's demand for their oil.

It absolutely won't replace their lost capacity from the pipelines to the EU, but its something?

 

Russia is also running out of storage capability. Buying tankers won't solve that but it is a quick way to do something about the problem.

 

I did mention that their storage was mostly/all full in a previous post, but you may have skipped it due to who I was responding to.

That being said, 100 tankers will "help" in that this is 100 tankers they didn't have before. So their ability to deliver oil by ship has, in theory, increased by whatever size those tankers are.

HOWEVER, just because they added 100 tankers, it does not mean they actually increase Russia's ability to ship oil by 100 tankers. There are a ton of factors that impact how much oil an oil export port can... export. How much of an increase will be determined by things like the capacity of the pipeline(s) feeding the port, how many slips they have to dock ships, etc.

 

Increased storage capacity at least.

 

Ukraine hit two of the airfields that Russia is using for the bombers they are using to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine. Ukraine is claiming they damaged 2 of the bombers and there are pictures confirming damage to at least one of the bombers. Russia, on the other hand, is claiming that they shot down the drones and that any damage was caused by "debris".

There were explosions at 2 Russian Long-Range Aviation air bases today: Dyagilevo and Engels, which houses Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bomber squadrons. https://t.co/25mta4IoOMhttps://t.co/eouYYLDW1Bhttps://t.co/EYCM0QZ5HWhttps://t.co/3gDZMtXtmwhttps://t.co/R5u8sIespq pic.twitter.com/E3NNigyBOD

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) December 5, 2022

These airfields are hundreds of kilometers inside of Russia, so, again, we are brought to the old meme of "What air defenses doing??"

 

It's the same issue. If the export ports are already at capacity, adding 100 oil tankers just to have them float out at sea as storage doesn't help them. Also, I doubt 100 oil tankers is a significant increase to their existing storage capacity. It's certainly an increase, but significant?

 

Couple of updates on the Bakhmut front.

1. Russia is actually making advances in the area. Bakhmut still stands, but Russia has claimed (and geo-locators have confirmed) that they have pushed Ukrainian forces out of several villages south of Bakhmut. However, that does not mean Russia occupies those villages, they've just advanced the "Grey zone" between Russian and Ukrainian defensive lines around those villages.

Updates:

🇷🇺 forces have captured the settlement of Ozarianivka. The settlements of Kurdyumivka and Andriivka are now contested. pic.twitter.com/tnokbvlAO0

— War Mapper (@War_Mapper) November 29, 2022

2. Russia's assaults on Bakhmut do continue, but the "assaults" are being carried out by one or two squads of infantry. I'm not sure if you can even call them squads. The videos Ukraine is releasing of the "assaults" can have as few as 2 soldiers probing Ukrainian lines and rarely exceed 10.

A group of Russian soldiers unsuccessfully assault a Ukrainian trench south of Opytne, Donetsk Oblast (South of Bakhmut). pic.twitter.com/om75aYEL7y

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) December 1, 2022

3. Now that Kherson has fallen, Ukraine has relocated a majority of they howitzers and HIMARS to the eastern front. This has resulted, on some days, that Ukraine is hitting Russians on the Bakhmut front more than Russia is. Scary

Ukrainian HIMARS continue precision strikes on Russian accumulation points on the eastern frontline.

— WarMonitor🇺🇦 (@WarMonitor3) December 5, 2022

Ukrainian HIMARS have been engaging Russian positions near Bakhmut.

I counted 15 GMLRS. This means, 15 Russian positions had a very bad night. #Ukraine #Bakhmut #Donetsk pic.twitter.com/xyOn1UsGKD

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) December 5, 2022

 

@Belgian guy

In the Ukrain a Flemish oldie song, of which the Ukranian understand not one single word, has become a top hit song.
The reason?
One word repeated constantly sounds like a Ukranian word.
https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/vlaams...e-muzikale-middelvinger-naar-poetin~a0782214/
This weekend the Dutch television reported from Ukrain the song "Goeiemorgen" is used as a stick up finger to Pootin, just after the moment the 75 yo singer of it told he would never sing it again. Tiktok is innundated with takes with it.
View attachment 228112

 

Every little bit helps. You can't turn off a oil field like a faucet. It's an expensive proposition to stop and to restart pumping, and the latter requires expertise that Russia does not have. And doing this might damage the field, reducing the total oil you get out.

This isn't a solution, it's a delay tactic. But Russia has to try, because the alternative is disaster.

 

Another drone strike on a Russian airbase Deep inside Russia.

Smoke can be seen rising from what appears to be a Russian Airbase near the Western City of Kursk. pic.twitter.com/Am9KE0Ul8T

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) December 6, 2022

also, an interesting thread on the Ukrainian drone. The poster also speculates that Ukraine may be using transponders from Russian aircraft to fool Russian air defenses into thinking the drones are friendly.

Small 🧵 about the attack probably by a suicide drone @ engels AFB, near Saratov, Russia. Facts we know are an attack on the AFB happend at 12-05 @ 06.00, which is exactly the right time to strike such a target, between 6 & 7 in the morning, AD crews would normally be changing pic.twitter.com/rQMDVe1VwQ

— NLwartracker (@NLwartracker) December 6, 2022

 

Eh.. a better way those ships would help Russia’s storage problem would be for them to be used to deliver oil to other countries. Russia is years away from building new pipelines to China and India and there isn’t enough storage anywhere for Russia to keep from having to slow/stop extraction if they wait until then..

 

Saw that earlier this weekend.

Nicole of the Nicole & Hugo duo just died as well.

 

The problem is Russia has an infrastructure designed to get large amounts of oil and gas to Europe. The amounts India and China are able to buy isn't enough. So they need a place to stick it, just until they win the war, lose the war, or send the world to nuclear armageddon.

In any case, the project is already in trouble. Turkey won't let any of the tankers into the Black Sea because they are not insured.

 

A Ukrainian farmer fixed his wheelbarrow... with one of the front wheels from a crashed Russian KA-52 helicopter.

 

"You guys are wrong"...says the Canadian monitor!

 

I just saw it. She died at 76 after a hip fracture, which odly kills so many old people. My late father's last living sibling end of november celebrated her 90iest birthday and unfortunately a week later after a fall fractured her pelvis. We fear it's soon the end.

 

How many times do we have to tell Canadian Monitor that the sanctions are designed to keep Russia from importing things, not to keep them from exporting things.

It doesn't matter how much revenue Russia has if they cannot buy anything.

Seriously. How many more times do we have to explain this? Someone give me a number.

 

It doesn't matter the number of times you tell him, it's that none of you type slowly enough for him