Dec 8 — Day 288 — Let’s talk oil, Backfires fly the coop, Falling ratings

Hi FB!

The lead video is from the very pro-RF Telegram platform WarGonzo: Now you too can upgrade your RPG rounds!

We haven’t had a colorful map for a while, and it’s been two days since the major sanctions nations agreed among themselves that they weren’t going to allow the insurance of Russian oil shipments by sea, unless the contract price was $60 or less. The idea was to punish Russia for attacking Ukraine by reducing Russia’s income from oil exports to countries that say they hate aggression, but not so much that they won’t by Russian oil, particularly India, Turkey and China. No one really knew what that would do to the world oil markets.

Well, today we have a clear indicator thanks to Bloomberg and a pretty map (attached), showing us, the report says, a whole bunch of tankers carrying “Kazakh” oil. I use the quotation marks out of respect to world oil traders who are clever enough to fix origin of production documents to keep the money train going. The point is, the Turks appear to be checking the insurance of every loaded tanker transitioning the Bosporus, and I have no doubt there are clever Turkish oil traders who will, for a fee, turn a tanker of Russian oil into something less touchy and more insurable. Sometimes it’s a paper drill, sometimes its cross-loading in international waters to a second tanker, and sometimes it’s probably just a lot of bribes, but no matter how it’s done getting Russian oil to market masquerading as oil not from Russia, isn’t going to be free. Stock image of tanker in Bosporus attached.

According to a Reuters article, doing that faking will cost Russian oil traders around around $20 a barrel, and THAT, according a Wednesday Reuters article, will make Russian oil masquerading as some other country’s oil too expensive to export, and Russian oil contracted for $60 or less a barrel, practically too expensive to export. If this is true, and Russian oil can’t be sold profitably, then that is bad for Russia in ways so severe, I have to wonder why this wasn’t the sanction put into effect on February 25th.

How important are oil exports to Russia? Oil, with gas, whose price is tied directly to oil, is 21 percent of the entire Russian GDP wiped out. Oil exports account for fully half of the Russian state’s annual revenues. The country’s best-paid industry is energy. Formerly relatively well-paid industrial workers suddenly made redundant and without a future are, in Russia, not just anyone but the proletariat, and there is a lot of history of social unrest when those people’s living standards are demolished by Kremlin policy.

Over the last 48 hours I have read dire multiple predictions from both the Go Ukraine! and the Rah Rah Russia crowd about how the Soviet Union imploded because the Americans and the Saudis decided to dump a lot of cheap oil on the world market starting in 1985, and by the 1989 the Soviet state was so starved for hard currency it collapsed.

Not sure that’s the case or even a possible trend here, but, again, there are bunch of tankers in the Bosporus going nowhere at the moment, and Putin just announced it will probably be a long war, and it is a reasonable question to ask about how sustainable a Russian war effort would be if its oil industry and overwhelming top foreign income earner went something close to belly up. What’s the Kremlin’s solution? Draft newly-unemployed oil field workers?

I would add, Wednesday saw the Germans ink a15-year agreement with the Americans and Qataris to deliver liquified gas to Germany, in part by a LNG gas station yet to be built, to replace the Russian gas that is also under sanction. Parallel with that, the boss of Uzbekistan yesterday said that Tashkent will not, repeat not, join a proposed natural gas export consortium with Russia.

Why should they, when the Russians on the way to quitting the European market. And with people as varied as the Quataris, Uzbeks, and Americans all conspiring to grab market share in Europe, how is the Kremlin going to recover that lost income? Image attached to give you an idea of who the big oil exporters are in the world and what Russia opting out might look like, however, it’s from 2016. The real Russia export is smaller, their production has been falling for about five years I think.

One thing is absolutely for sure: the more Russia’s energy export troubles go on, the more Russia will become frantic about calling for negotiations and talks with Ukraine. I’m not exactly sure how that would play out on the battlefield, but if these energy sanctions bite like the experts predict, then Ukrainian leverage over any future negotiating process becomes huge, and without question time is absolutely on the Ukrainian side. This is yet another argument for no quick Ukrainian winter offensive.

However, the same people sanctioning Russian oil and gas have been predicting the downfall of Iran under sanctions for more than 30 years, so jury out for now.

The fighting

Svatove-Kreminne

In general, fighting appears to be concentrating here over control of the R-66 highway and crossings over the Krasne River. The operational thing to bear in mind here is that the highway and the river, and the villages along it, are a natural defense line the Russians hold and the Ukrainians are trying to break into. If the Ukrainians push enough forces across the River, then the terrain opens up for a good 30–40 km moving east. Were the Ukrainians to get beyond this defense line, then Russia supply to the key towns Sevrodonetsk and Lysychansk would be cut.

According to the RF information platforms the Russians are generally holding the line but the Ukrainians are picking their way forward in the vicinity of Chervonpopovka area and is launching attacks from a bastion of fortifications built around Balka Zhuravka, and a UAF “bridgehead” running from Ternov to Makeivka. The UAF is suffering many losses and Russian forces, led by an LPR police unit called BARS, are fighting bravely and repelling all attacks, those sources say.

According to Serhiy Haidai, head of the Ukraine’s Luhansk regional defense command, the UAF attacks are gaining ground, the Russians are suffering losses, and the towns Svatove and Kreminne are both under heavy UAF pressure, and will be captured by the UAF in due course. He said a big fight also is in progress around the town Belogorovka, with the RF using a lot of artillery in almost continuing attacks.

Donbass

Grinding fighting up and down the line here, with the Russians pushing. RF attacks reported at Soledar, Bakhmut (again) by the Wagner troops, and according to several RF reports the Wagnerites captured the village Yakovlevka “ the most important bridgehead located north of Soledar”. Reportedly a UAF counterattack vicintiy Opytne was thrown back, while some reports say street fighting is going on there.

Further south, RF artillery hit villages around Vuhledar and the town of Kurahove. In general, the RF intent here seems to be to push the UAF away from shelling range of Donetsk, which is getting hit repeatedly, and civilian structures inside the city too, according to RF reports.

Strike Zone

This section starts out with a short video of a smashed substation, just so we understand what exactly the Russians are shooting at.

Follow-up on the Tuesday missile strikes: up to 10 Russian Tu-22M bombers which were at Dyagilevo airport prior to the UAF pre-emptive drone strikes, have disappeared. The general opinion of the Ukrainian blogosphere is that they went back to their airfield near Murmansk.

Satellite imagery seems to back it up, and hence we have a new General Zaluzhny meme, in which he asks the Russians where their bombers got to?

Countering that, attached is a video from RF propaganda TV. The new threat to mighty Russia? That’s right, the eight million (reportedly) Ukrainian citizens that fled to Russia when the war began. According to RF propaganda TV, many of them are Kyiv supporters.

Defense Minister Reznikov today fed the UAF-associated blogosphere a bone today, and told reporters last month along the UAF adopted for operation seven different types of UAVs, all of which were developed by private industry. We have to guess how many and what types of home-grown UAVs were operational before, but, at minimum this is a broad hint that at least some of the mystery strikes we’ve been seeing for months, deep inside Russian territory, were indeed drones and that more are likely coming. Unlike Russia, I expect the Ukrainian drone industry has zero problems finding microchips.

Possibly linked with that, on Wednesday once again power substation in Russian Belgorod region blew up and there was a big fire. Map attached, Video attached.

Also on Wednesday, air raid sirens and air defense systems got going in Sevastopol region, and regional official later said there was an explosion near the town Razvozhaev and a drone was shot down.

Finally on Wednesday evening, according to the Ukraine-associated mayor-in-exile, in southern Berdyansk there were three big explosions followed by several small explosions, in proximity to the local airport. This is a good 100 km from the closest UAF firing site so whatever it is that the UAF has that shoots further than a HIMARS, clearly, they haven not run out of ammunition. Image attached.

People for Ukraine

This pulled from the web from an army announcement: For the first time since the war began Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces will run qualification course for about 600 men, of whom maybe 60 will wind up becoming sneaky deaky SOF troopers. This is an indicator of some stabilization in the UAF overall, because if the personnel replacements are in chaos and losses are out of control, the last thing a military can afford to do is cull the most motivated and skilled soldiers it has out of units to pick a few of them for special operations.

Mobilization and motivation.

Attached is a video of a Russian soldier and a priest explaining to viewers why it’s a fine idea to die for the Motherland. I suspect this was made just to show some boss that motivational content is being produced, but nonetheless, this is part of the RF media spectrum.

Speaking of propaganda, Vladimir Solovyev’s “Vecher” talk show program, one of the most vicious and warmongering programs on Russian state TV, dropped out of the top 100 most popular shows. Last month it fell out of the top 10 to 46th place. In the television business, this is called ratings dropping through the floor. Image attached.

Stuff for Ukraine

Several items here so I’ll do bullets

• According to a study by the Kiel Institute of World Economy (IfW), EU countries and institutions have committed more assistance to Ukraine — Eur 52 billion — than any other agency. Germany has become the largest donor, overtaking Great Britain for the first time, and now ponied up with 12.6 billion promised support.
• Among the German support is eighteen 155-mm RCH 155 self-propelled artillery systems, this is a high end weapon capable of firing advanced munitions. We’ll see about its barrel’s ability to stand up to sustained firing. (image)

• The first photos of France’s MO120RT mortar system in Ukraine appeared (images). It’s not clear yet where exactly the weapons came from.

• The USA has approved another military package for Ukraine worth 400 million dollar including 250 vehicles M1117 (image of part of a 40-vehicle train attached), 1100 Phoenix Ghost drones (still not clear on how big the warhead is on these guys), anti-aircraft defense systems MIM-23 Hawk (no number given), 40 armored boats (Monitor?, Virginia? New Ironsides?) and 45 tanks T-72

• Norway will double the number of instructors from 75 to 150 training the Ukrainian military