Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 23, 2024 19 tweets 6 min read Read on X
We are seeing a lot of posts and articles on X about Ukraine's OWA drone strategic bombing campaign against Russian refineries .

People, including Jake Sullivan over at the Biden Adm. NSC think this is about AFU cutting off Russian oil.

They're wrong. It's about explosives.
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The Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are less about POL than reduction of nitrogen,ammonia and methanol feed stocks for Russian explosives and propellants for it's artillery and missile production.

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Ukrainian OWA drones are engaged in strategic counter battery fire against the Russian artillery supply chain providing the explosive fillings & propellent for shells, rockets and missiles.

[This also has knock on effects for Russian fertilizer production.]

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Nitrogen, ammonia and methanol are the bell book and candle of chemical feedstocks that Russian refineries supply to it's war machine.

Fixing nitrogen is especially key in making high explosives.

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When the US EPA talks about crude oil refining, it mentions nitrogen thusly:

"Undesirable elements such as sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen are removed by hydrodesulfurization, hydrotreating, chemical sweetening, and acid gas removal."

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epa.gov/sites/default/…
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When you look up Russian Methanol production on Statistica, it reflects Russia's huge petrochemical refinery infrastructure.


6/statista.com/statistics/126…
The International Energy Agency's "Ammonia Technology Roadmap" says Russia is about 8% of the world Ammonia production capability.


7/iea.org/reports/ammoni…
When you look at modern explosives and artillery shell/rocket propellent on Wikipedia, a lot falls out that shows what Ukraine is up to with it's campaign against Russian refineries.

1. RDX and HMX are made from Formaldehyde that is made from Methanol and ammonia (both of

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1. Con't ...which are oil refinery products) via Hexamethylenetetramine.

2. TNT is made from Toluene, which is a refinery by product of gasoline.

3. Nitroglycerine is a made from Nitrogen, is a biodiesel by product, and is used to make #2 TNT.

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4. Ammonium perchlorate for rocket fuel comes from ammonia, for which see #1.

So, we have a lot of evidence here that Ukraine's anti-refinery campaign is more about removing oil refinery made chemical feedstocks for Russia's artillery supply chain than cutting off oil money

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...or fuel to the Russian Army. Yet, before I posted this, no one seems to have noticed any of that.

And everyone, especially the Jake Sullivan lead Biden Adm. National Security Council is screaming oil.

What's going on?

11/ft.com/content/98f15b…
Two things are happening here.

First, Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) is exactly right as to how Russian Reflexive Control Information Warfare has captured Jake Sullivan's crowd at the Biden Administration National Security Council.

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The second thing is US intelligence on Russia's artillery logistics and associated economic supply chain has sucked rocks for more than 80 years.

The CIA based all of it's Soviet artillery logistics projections on pilfered Warsaw Pact documents...

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...and mirror imaging pallets & forklifts on the Soviets without ever giving any collection priority to the problem or actually looking at chemical feedstocks.

The 80 year feedstock & forklift miss points to the intelligence validation step as a threat to career promotion

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...inside intelligence agencies.

It won't let senior intelligence analysts feed to senior politicians what they want to hear.

Their poor 1980's Iran-Iraq War intelligence product reflected this careertist patron-client defect.

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When the Lockheed Martin WARSIM software development team went to US Army TMs/FMs, the OPFOR World Equipment Guide and AMSAA for Russian log-data, it was INA (Item not Available) because "mirror imaging was good enough."


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What we are seeing with the combination of 80(+) years of intelligence dysfunction & the JD degree spin doctor run NSC is the ultimate American Government expression of the Dunning - Kruger Effect.


17/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E…
We have people running the US Russo-Ukrainian War security policy at the NSC that have absolute confidence in bad intelligence product, while knowing absolutely nothing.

And who are too lazy to do a flipping internet search on Russian refineries chemical feedstocks.

18/18 End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Jan 14
We really need to talk about the huge opportunity that Mullah financial corruption has given the Trump Administration to crash Iran's financial system with E-bombs, AKA non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse.

Wiping the financial records of failing Mullah banks in a revolution...

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...makes them very difficult to restore.

And surfacing those back up records makes them vulnerable to follow up E-bomb strikes.

Plus, how are the IRGC & Basij going to get paid?

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No one in their right mind thinks the IRGC & Basij will work for free, fighting a revolution without pay.

Mullah controlled bank electronics are needed to meet payroll.

The old USAF ALCM cruise missile was outfitted with the "CHAMP" E-Bomb for zorching enemy electronics.

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Read 10 tweets
Jan 12
If you haven't read the substack article linked below, do so immediately and consider this:

When you stack secure & uninterrupted digital text communications to Mullah Regime corruption and currency hyperinflation...

...the Mullah Regime is doomed. It's a matter of when, not if.

1/
What jumped out for me about @shanaka86 substack article was the implications of secure digital text communications for the Maoist model of Revolutionary warfare.

See the @grok summary of Mao's 4-level revolutionary model below. ⬇️

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Maoist Level 1 & 2 warfare has never had the secure digital text communications Starlink provides.

This means a whole heck of a lot and shoots decades of counter-insurgency doctrine about controlling/blocking guerilla communications in the head.

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Read 14 tweets
Jan 10
Okay folks, we have to say at this point what is driving the uprising in Iran isn't the strength of the protests.

It is the WEAKNESS OF THE IRANIAN STATE. Basij commander Shoushtari's killing is the neon sign of Mullah-ocracy weakness. It had to be an inside job, reasons.

This means we need to talk about Russia's LAST PLANE OUT OF TEHRAN. 🧵
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Just as US military evacuations of Saigon and Kabul required securing the embassy & airport for evacuation.

Perhaps as soon as 48 hours from now, the Russian VDV will have to secure the Tehran airport to evacuate not only Iranian Mullah gold, but lots of Russian intel & technical experts.
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The Fall of Kabul made clear you not only need marines for ground security.

You also needed a USAF operation/maintenance squadron (-) for loading, refueling and operating air traffic control as you can't count on the locals to run the airport as the security situation collapses.
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Read 9 tweets
Jan 10
This:

>>Casualties are high on both sides

...argues that we are looking at a Regime Security Forces corruption-based THUG SHORTAGE.

In 2022 the IRGC & Basij had fire superiority & numbers to control situations when lethal force was used.

Now they are taking significant casualties.

1/
Where are the IRGC heavy weapons?

Where are the IRGC technicals with heavy machine guns to mow down crowds of protestors?

We should be seeing thousands of protestors shot, given the mobs seen on Tehran streets.

We are hearing numbers like ~217 in six Tehran hospitals.

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Just look how dense that protestor crowd is.

Just imagine the horror that one 12.7mm or 14.5 mm heavy machine gun technical could do to this crowd, given a willing IRGC crew.

3/
Read 12 tweets
Jan 8
A lot of people have been spouting off that the failure of Air Defense in Venezuela means Chinese air defense is 💩.

Just...no. S-300's arrived in the Fall of 2025.

That isn't enough time to train competent operators, be they Cuban, Venezuelan, Russian or Chinese.
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Job training for a PATRIOT fire control enhanced operator requires 10 weeks of Basic Combat Training and 20 weeks of Advanced Individual Training with on-the-job instruction.

Russian S-300 are far worse than Patriot in terms of human interface & "plug and play" maintenance.
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They were literally designed to be operated by drafted Ukrainian university educated STEM students.

The Maduro regime didn't trust anyone from the Venezuelan middle class to operate the oil industry, let alone Russian and Chinese air defense equipment.

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Read 7 tweets
Jan 6
P.M. Frederiksen of Denmark has a selective memory.

I remember Greece and Turkey fighting over Cyprus not destroying NATO.

Like Cyprus, non-Danish NATO members w/o nukes simply won't go to war with the USA over Greenland...

...nor will nuclear armed NATO states.

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This @vtchakarova suggestion would be the best possible outcome for Denmark. **

** This assumes Denmark's political elites have the wit to go there.



2/3
If P.M. Frederiksen of Denmark thinks NATO will save Greenland for Denmark.

Then Greenland as the USA's "Northern Cyprus issue" with Denmark inside of NATO is the most likely Thucydides-Esque power politics outcome.

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Read 4 tweets

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