🧵🇷🇺 A Russian general just leaked a devastating trade-off: the Kremlin is prioritizing taking Donbas over protecting the sky above its own occupied land.
Putin is spending Russia to buy ground. Ukraine is making him pay for the choice. 1/🧵
2/ The fuel crisis is so acute that Sber, Russia's largest state bank, built a map tracking 100 million clients just so drivers could hunt for gas.
Another bank found six Russian regions with almost zero publicly listed fuel left at all.
3/ To hit Putin's goal of seizing Donbas by the end of 2026, Russia must recruit up to 60,000 men every single month.
The general called this unrealistic. The Kremlin can buy ground, but it has completely run out of air cover to protect it.
4/ Refineries cannot lie. Analysts estimate that 20%-40% of Russian refining capacity is currently offline.
Ukraine's long-range drones are punching deep, hitting the massive Omsk refinery 2,500 kilometers away from the front line.
5/ With land routes to Crimea blown, Russia shifted fuel to the sea. Ukraine followed them.
Commander Madyar logged 21 shadow-fleet tankers hit in the Sea of Azov in 72 hours. Even Russian drone developers are calling the fleet useless.
6/ The petrostate is running dry. In June, Russia imported 141,000 tons of gasoline from Belarus: a 141x spike over last year.
To keep cars moving, Moscow officially lowered its standards to allow obsolete, toxic Euro-2 and Euro-3 fuel.
7/ The war has entered Russia's southern grain belt. Across Rostov and Krasnodar, filling stations are capping diesel purchases for combines at 100 liters.
Farms have two weeks of fuel left. A ripening harvest does not wait for Moscow.
8/ Moscow cannot cover every roof. Russian courts are fining factories for failing to draft their own workers into reserve militias to fight drones.
If you run a plant, the state officially expects you to build your own air defense.
9/ The occupation is losing power. Recent strikes knocked out electricity across 18 districts in Crimea, forcing networks into emergency roaming.
In Sevastopol, stores are closed, ATMs are dead, and public buses have barely run for days.
10/ The Financial Times estimates that fuel shortages have touched 50 million Russians.
In Zabaykalsky Krai, police are managing four-kilometer-long fuel lines. In Saratov, drivers must use the secret password "Government" to get gasoline.
11/ Putin wanted to command history, but his empire is entirely overbooked.
He is fighting a war where Donbas is the only priority left, leaving everything else exposed. Every mile he moves forward asks what he is sacrificing behind him.
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