Seems like he holds some cards after all
With battle tested drone technology? Yes, of course.
Writing from Estonia, Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk (on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea), whereby they export at least 30% of their oil, but perhaps even 40% in recent times - have indeed been very intense during the past week.
Day after day, large swarms go and many hit their targets despite heavy-handed air defense. The smoke of burning oil is visible to 70 km distance and some confused “birds” end up landing here (one hit a concrete smokestack, another fell in an empty field). The traffic jam of cargo ships and oil / gas tankers on the Gulf of Finland is considerable, sailors describe it “like a new city appearing on water”.
If this is what it takes to force Putin to end his war, I have no complaints.
But we should be aware that due to Trump’s simultaneous adventure in the Persian Gulf, which was entirely avoidable, and has entirely predictable results, a global economic recession is currently a realistic outcome.
If I were in the shoes of Zelensky, I would advise Trump: “please, do save the global economy by ending your adventure in the Persian Gulf, we cannot have a pillow fight with Russia, they are extremely serious and not easily dissuaded (have been attacking 4 years)”.
Meanwhile, his statemement does offer a pathway to somewhere…
“If Russia is ready not to strike Ukraine’s energy, then we’ll respond by not attacking theirs.”
…it’s merely that Russia has shown willingness to cause a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine by destroying their energy infrastructure in the winter that passed, and Ukrainians now have very little reason to believe mere words that it won’t repeat next winter. There will have to be at least ink on paper to assure it won’t happen again.
“a global
economic recessionfamine is currently a realistic outcome.”This is what I think a lot of folks are missing about the current situation. This won’t be a run-of-the-mill recession. It would be physical, material disruptions in a whole lotta systems in transportation, food, manufacturing, energy, you name it. This means a lot of unemployment. The pandemic and 2008 are gonna look funny conpared to it. It’s not merely a crisis in the metadata (finance) which can be corrected via adjustments. It’s actual lack of a thing we use for everything. Increasing the price of it, which will absolutely occur, won’t make significantly more of it available. It would just change who gets more of the much smaller amount available. And when something gets expensive, the poorer people and countries get less of it than than the richer ones. Which means the crisis gonna get em that much harder. The only reason we haven’t experienced disruption yet is because we’re burning buffers and reserves at the moment.
Name and shame them. We need to know which of our elected leaders do not represent us.
Well now I hope he attacks them even harder
Sounds like Zelensky has a lot more leverage in that region than I realized.
Fuck it. Destroy all oil production facilities worldwide.
Accelerate the transition.
Makes sense on today of all days.
Accelerate the transition.
transition
trans
REEEEEEEEEEEE
Maybemaybemaybe
I call myself an ally of Ukraine. Hit them more! Make them hurt!
If gulf oil supply was still flowing, that would’ve probably made a positive difference.
But with gulf oil supply dried up, if he doesn’t win the war by blowing it all up, where’s the fuel gonna come from for fueling his army, the energy that the European economy needs to supports the war materially and financially? Or the energy fueling China’s production of the electronics and motors Ukraine uses for drone producrion.
If Russian oil production is knocked offline while the gulf’s is dead, we’re entering revolutionary economic conditions and I think the support for Ukraine under such conditions would evaporate.
If russia doesn’t want to have their stuff blown up, they can stop at any time by not occupying Ukraine anymore. It’s literally their choice.
So you’re saying there are two countries in Europe at war, and the defender can’t strike back in this war because of another war in middle east that the US started?
Trump only needs to lift Russian oil sanctions at this point to make it clear they’re doing everything to save Russia and doom allies.
Didn’t he already partially do that? He also appears to be letting Russia (and no one else) through the blockade to sell oil to Cuba.
Or, and hear me out, Trump could stop his temper tantrum he calls a war and then the Strait of Hormuz would be unblocked. Don’t make Ukraine responsible for everyone else’s mistakes.
Or alternatively, if he doesn’t knock out Russian oil quickly, the US might say, how about we end this war on your behalf as long as you keep the oil flowing. Russia is generally losing currently, but if they get enough funds from oil Ukraine could lose the war (or more likely keep it going much longer).
If they can force the question like that to the US, perhaps. But I don’t think they can do that. They would have already done so if they could instead of complain about being asked not to. They don’t seem ideologically predisposed to play hardball like Iran is. Or pehaps their material position to knock Russia’s oil prod is not as strong. Which is the other concern. If they knock a chunk of it offline, enough to trigger regime changes across Europe (through oilprice-triggered recession/depression), but not enough to win the war, then they’d be absolutely fucked and will def lose the war.
E: In fact now that the gulf is closed, if Zelensky can plausibly threaten he can knock a lot of Russian oil prod offline, that could create leverage he did not have while the gulf was open. He could do even more than threaten the US. He could say to the EU: “Hey pussies, give me all the weapons or I bring the AfD, Le Pen and Farage in power. Actually fuck that, give me air cover too.”
Not particularly, that would absolutely backfire if Zelensky tried that. Most of why the war hasn’t spiralled seems to be that he hasn’t broken any rules of combat, and has decent relationships with most of the countries of the EU. In fact, that would probably give Trump a premise to help Russia, something he has clearly been looking for for a while.
And even then, I think the connotation between Trump and Europe’s Far right is enough to make them generally unpopular, given the far right caused the gas/oil shortages in the first place, so I doubt AfD, Le Pen, or Farage would gain enough leverage to parley that into power.
Ultimately, I think Ukraine needs to quickly shut down Russian oil production, as if they don’t Russia gets a foothold that makes their war last longer. It won’t be particularly popular in a lot of the EU (at least in the short term), but it’s better than giving Russia the means to continue their bullshit.
Russia can stop the attacks on their energy infrastructure at any time by withdrawing from Ukraine.
“allies”
Sounds like zelensky has the upper hand. I blow up Russian oil and gas or you give me more weapons to blow up Russian positions and tanks
Blow it all up
… [strikes] would only end if Russia stopped targeting Ukraine’s first.
Why would any nation expect otherwise?
Asinine.
Absolutely not! Zelenskyy should absolutely go after Russia more. It’s WAR ffs!
I can think of something Russia could do to scale back attacks on Russian energy…
Which allies…
You know which one
