those oil facilities on fire are storage containers for oil pipeline going through belarus. rut roh, whoever was responsible may have been trying to hurry up the embargo
Not sure what that map means
It is a map of Russian oil pipelines. They were constructed during the cold war and lead to most former Warsaw pact nations. That is why they are called “Friendship” (Дружба) pipelines.
My Russian is not good enough to translate what the different colors mean. The yellow one says something “Baltic …System 2”.
2 Likes
the last dot to the east is Bryansk. it feeds all of those pipelines that europe is getting oil from right now. that’s where the oil depot burned yesterday. a couple more accidental explositions, and no more pipeline druzhba for a few months
1 Like
2 Likes
Ukraine could shut off the flow of oil through those pipelines any time it wants to, though. Right? I assumed it hadn’t so as not to piss off Europe. So the point of this attack in Russia must not be quite that.
Eta If false flag, Putin could use it as an excuse to shut off the flow at his end to fuck with European economies. There were some guesses about Russia doing something at that location after they evacuated people last week.
Only the southern branch crosses Ukrainian territory. The central one is in Belarus (but very close to the border).
For natural gas there are two parallel systems - one through each of those countries (+ Nord Stream in the Baltic Sea)
1 Like
you already got your answer. oil pipeline is different from the gas pipeline going through ukraine. shutting off the pipe might have military value, but overall i think ukraine is unlikely to blow it up on their own territory
flat corkscrew, back in russia they told us that’s the worst thing that can happen to a plane, almost impossible to recover from by a human pilot. modern fighters are supposed to have automatic systems that bring the plane out of such a condition.
Scholz will answer questions in front of parliament on May 11th. Right now it looks like he is playing for time hoping that weapon deliveries become moot one way or another.
https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518545733242212356
https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518547319322460162
https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518596830661066752
I know whenever I’m on an undercover assassination mission deep in enemy territory, I like to bring along a brand new, never-been-worn bright red swastika t-shirt.
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1518621429041971200
3 Likes
Plus 8 Molotov cocktails. A very practical weapon choice for clandestine operations.
1 Like
Oil or gas, they can shut down a pipeline without blowing it up; just close some valves. They can also mess with pumps and compressors if they choose, but they haven’t afaik.
The advantage of blowing stuff up and doing it on the Russian side is there’s less available for troops in the region, maybe. It also pisses off Putin, which ok, but maybe he then shuts down pipelines himself, which then pisses off Europe. Maybe the Ukrainians are past caring. That’s understandable.
I was thinking similarly, if Russia used a pipeline going through Ukraine, couldn’t Ukraine just tap into the pipeline and take the oil as it flows through into their own storage tanks or rail cars or something? Maybe they could then ship the oil via rail to the same end customer in Europe and sell it if they don’t need it or have the refining capacity.
Ha, it sounds funny under the circumstances, but that would be stealing.
The Russians have accused the Ukrainians of something like that before but it was kind of a technical argument about who was supposed to pay for the gas that runs the compressors that maintain the pressure in the lines. Or something like that. The Europeans, ofc, were unhappy bc Putin shut stuff down then, too.
one does not simply tap into a pipeline and siphon into some storage tanks and rail cars. those projects took decades to build. building a new oil depot is a multimonth effort, while avoiding rockets being launched at it.