patrick.net

It started as Ukraine war because it was only Ukraine being invaded and bombed. But now Ukie bombard Soviet ports, refineries, power stations, strategic nuclear installations and such as far north as Murmansk and beyond Urals mountains to the west and ZSU regulars are holding former Soviet territory of Kursk for half a year already, lampshading Pukin's subjects and making soap out of their fat, and there is nothing Pukin can do about it. Not even with NoKo troops thrown in. Why? Because Pukin don't have enough men. Why? Because Red Army is losing men 5 to 1. Not my number, mind you, but Trump's adviser's - Lt. Gen. Kellogg. So it's Russia war now and the fuckup on their side is getting bigger and bigger every day.

Defying all political calculus, President Trump issued an “immediate, widespread pause on foreign aid.” Meaning, or especially, Ukraine. Only Israel and Egypt were exempt.

Without even explaining himself.

How could we forget how urgently the progressives and even many hawkish Republicans felt about “supporting Ukraine.” Slava Ukraini! We stand with Ukraine! Welp, yesterday President Trump cut Ukraine’s money and weapons spigot off at the tap, and you probably never even heard about it.

Had any other President cut off aid to Ukraine like this, without first lobbying for support, all amidst contentious hearings over his Cabinet nominations, a war would have broken out in Congress. Had Trump miscalculated, the Senate could have locked down his Cabinet nominees tighter than the velcro on Zelensky’s wallet, until Trump agreed to free up Ukraine’s aid.

Consider the same dynamic, but more broadly. Trump is making all of these controversial moves right when he needs Congress the most. Not just on Ukraine aid, but all of it, Fauci, California, DEI, the works.

In other words, these last 100 hours would have been far too risky, if not politically impossible, for any president besides President Trump. Any other president would have prudently taken the minimum possible political risk before — at least until his nominees were confirmed.

But Trump is a rare type of muscular President, in total command of his team.

Clearly, Republicans in Congress are willing to follow where Trump is leading them despite the shared political risk—which is the best evidence of real leadership.

Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.

MOSCOW, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Russia's Ryazan oil refinery has suspended operations after an attack by Ukrainian drones late last week, two industry sources told Reuters on Monday.
They said oil storage at the refinery had been set ablaze. Among damaged equipment were a railway loading rack and a hydrotreater unit used to remove impurities from refined products.
"The railway loading equipment has been damaged. There have been no railways loadings, they stopped oil processing," one person said.
Another source said the loadings have been suspended since Friday, also confirming that the plant has been stopped due to inability to dispatch oil products.
Rosneft (ROSN.MM), opens new tab, which owns the plant, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ryazan oil refinery processed 13.1 million metric tons (262,000 barrels per day), or almost 5% of Russia's total refining throughput in 2024.
It produced 2.2 million tons of gasoline, 3.4 million tons of diesel, 4.3 million tons of fuel oil and 1 million of jet fuel, according to a source-based data.

Jan 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine ... struck a big Russian oil refinery in an overnight drone attack, and a Russian official said an attempted Ukrainian drone strike on a nuclear power plant had been thwarted.
The Ukrainian military said the strike on the refinery in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region had caused a large fire. Reuters was able to verify a video posted on social media that showed orange flames lighting up the night sky in the city of Kstovo...

Lukoil's NORSI refinery, Russia's fourth largest, is based in Kstovo, which lies east of Moscow and about 800 km (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur said it had temporarily suspended operations at its plant, also in Kstovo, on Wednesday morning after debris from a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire. It said the blaze was later contained, and there were no casualties.
Ukraine has carried out frequent air attacks on Russian refineries, oil depots and industrial sites in an attempt to cripple key infrastructure underpinning Russia's war effort.
Russia is currently feeding more crude oil through its refineries in the hope of boosting fuel exports after new U.S. sanctions on Russian tankers and traders made exports of unprocessed crude more difficult, sources told Reuters this week. A Ukrainian drone attack last week forced a refinery in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, to suspend operations.

NUCLEAR PLANT

The governor of Russia's western Smolensk region said on Wednesday that air defence systems had destroyed a drone attempting to strike a nuclear power plant there. The plant was working normally, the RIA state news agency reported, citing its press service.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
The governor of Belgorod, another western region, said a mother and her two-year-old child had been killed when a drone struck a family home there. He said the child's father and another child had been wounded and taken to hospital.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks in the war that Russia launched in February 2022. But thousands of civilians, mostly Ukrainians, have been killed.
Russia's Defence Ministry said on Telegram that 104 Ukrainian drones had been involved in raids across western Russia, 11 of which were destroyed over the Smolensk region.
In total, Russian air defences destroyed drones over nine regions, nearly half of them over Kursk, where Russian forces are fighting to drive out Ukrainian troops who fought their way across the border last August.

KYIV, Jan 29 (Reuters) - An overnight Ukrainian drone attack hit Russia's Andreapol oil pumping station, part of the oil export route via the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, causing a fire and oil products to leak, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said on Wednesday.

The attack also hit a Russian missile storage facility in Russia's Tver region, causing a string of explosions...

The source said the filtration pump site and tanks with additives were damaged in the attack and that supplies via the main pipeline to the Ust-Luga terminal had temporarily been suspended.

Ukrainian forces have stepped up drone strikes on Russian military and energy facilities in recent weeks to raise the cost of the war for Moscow as the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches next month.
Its military said earlier on Wednesday that it had struck an oil refinery in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region in an overnight drone attack and caused a large fire.

The source said the attack on the oil pumping station and missile storage facility was a joint operation conducted by the SBU security agency and Ukraine's Special Operations Forces

Russia takes five days to put out fire at 'industrial plant' hit by Ukrainian drone

MOSCOW, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Russian firefighters have put out the flames at an "industrial plant" in the Volga region, a local official said on Monday, five days after Ukraine said it had struck an oil depot there supplying an air base for Russian nuclear bomber planes.
Regional governor Roman Busargin said the "open burning" at the site, which he did not identify, had been extinguished overnight, but emergency workers remained in place around the clock.

"The work continues," he said, without specifying what further actions were needed.

The Jan. 8 Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Engels ignited a huge blaze in which two firefighters died, and prompted Busargin to declare a state of emergency.

Russia takes five days to put out fire at 'industrial plant' hit by Ukrainian drone

In terms of Ukraine’s strikes on Russian territory, January 2025 was the month that the gloves finally came off. With Ukraine’s homegrown defense sector now rivaling any western nation and seemingly no US, German or French politician willing to risk uttering the long-standard and nonsensical call for “de-escalation”, Russia’s most important cash-generating assets are now vanishing at an almost daily rate.

A summary of Ukraine’s January strikes on Russian territory paint the picture of efforts primarily focused on Russia’s vast, nationwide petroleum industry, the very heart of the economy and it’s war machine.

▪️ On January 4, drones covered a distance of over 900 kilometers, successfully striking Russia’s largest seaport, Ust-Luga, in the Leningrad region.

▪️ On January 8, drones traveled approximately 1,000 kilometers to hit an oil depot in Engels, a key fuel supplier for a military airfield.

▪️ On January 10, several areas of Russia’s Rostov region fell victim to a combination of missiles and drones targeting a plant for the production of propellant for ballistic missiles as well as weapons warehouses and a military training base.

▪️ On January 11, multiple locations, including Russian-occupied Crimea and several Russian cities, came under attack. A fire erupted in the port area of Novorossiysk, located 500 kilometers from the border.

▪️ On January 14, drones struck an oil depot in Engels, the Orgsintez plant in Kazan, the Saratov Oil Refinery, and the Bryansk Chemical Plant.

▪️ On January 15, an oil depot in the Voronezh region, about 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, caught fire.

▪️ On January 16, drones traveled more than 400 kilometers to reach the Tambov Gunpowder Plant.

▪️ On January 17, another drone strike targeted the Engels oil depot, where Russian authorities had just extinguished a six-day fire. This marked the third attack in two weeks.

▪️ On January 18, drones hit oil depots in Russia’s Tula and Kaluga regions.

▪️ On January 20, drones targeted aircraft manufacturing facilities in Kazan, 1,000 kilometers from the border, while also revisiting a familiar oil depot in the Voronezh region.

▪️ On January 21, drone strikes reached military-industrial sites in Smolensk, located 300 kilometers from the border.

▪️ On January 24, drones conducted successful strikes in Ryazan and Bryansk—over 500 and 110 kilometers from the border, respectively. In Ryazan, an oil refinery was illuminated by explosions, while in Bryansk, the Kremniy El plant was also hit.

▪️ On January 26, UAVs once again struck the Ryazan Oil Refinery, more than 500 kilometers from the border.

▪️ On January 29, drones successfully hit one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, located in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, approximately 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

The Russian military blogosphere is now rife with panicked comments, citing the embarrassingly incompetent lack of air defenses, lamenting the almost nightly losses of key oil refineries, such as the Ryazan Refinery that was completely taken out of commission in only two nights of strikes earlier this week, the third largest refinery in the country. Last night the fourth largest refinery, in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod was also targeted. These two refineries alone represent over 11% of Russia’s total refining capacity, producing the diesel, jet fuel, gasoline and variety of petroleum derivatives that make an economy go.

In whats becoming an integral part of the morning coffee experience for millions of Ukrainians, the videos of exploding multi-million dollar Russian oil storage, transport and refinery capacity that fill the news feeds are giving hope, while the Ukrainian government assures that things are only getting started.

Oil pumping through the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga has been suspended. This happened after an attack on the Andreapol oil pumping station, Bloomberg informs.

"It would present a significant new supply threat for the global oil market if it were to be confirmed that Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged the pipeline system feeding Ust-Luga, halting oil shipments from the port for a prolonged period," the media outlet writes.

According to journalists, flows to Ust-Luga dropped to zero on January 29. Shipping data obtained by Bloomberg indicates that the last tanker departed on Wednesday morning, although there is a gap in the vessel's signals after that.

...
According to data collected by Bloomberg, the port of Ust-Luga processed about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day last year, accounting for approximately 20% of Russia's total seaborne oil flow. It is considered the second largest port after Novorossiysk.

Zelensky Says $100 Billion in US Aid is Missing

Now that Trump is in office and the charade is over, Zelensky admits he did not receive over $100 billion of our tax dollars.

He says he “does not know where all the money is”.

Meaning Ukraine was a massive money laundering operation, and the Biden regime never actually cared about defending Ukraine or preserving democracy. All of the pro-Ukraine propaganda was a psyop to garner American support, so the People would willingly send our tax dollars to “defend democracy”, and it worked on millions.

All of it was a lie, just so Western oligarchs could use Ukraine as a laundry mat. They sacrificed the lives of millions of soldiers, because of their greed. They stole our money from our labor, then used it to start and fund a war on the other side of the globe, and then lied about it. They bankrupt the American People, and stuffed their pockets, while millions suffered.

It was all a scam. Many of us said this from the beginning and we were labeled as “Russian assets”.

One of the world largest plants of this kind, processing up to 12 billions cubic meters of gas annually (not anymore).

Ukraine Reselling ‘Half’ of U.S-Supplied Weapons to America’s Enemies

... The shocking allegations were made during the latest episode of Tucker Carlson’s show.

Carlson was interviewing Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a retired United States Army officer who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in Afghanistan.

The two discussed the U.S. aid that has been sent to Ukraine and revealed that “half” of the weapons are now in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other criminal organizations.

Carlson asserted that the information they revealed is “fact” and “not speculation.”

The black market arms trade in Ukraine during the war has long been documented, including in mainstream media sources.