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. 1/
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.
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.]
3/
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.
4/
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."
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
8/
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.
9/
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
10/
...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.
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.
...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
14/
...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.
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."
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.
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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The first was the UK's Operation Outward. It was noticed after a windstorm during 1940's Battle of Britain that barrage balloons dragging severed cables under them caused shorts on power lines, damaging the power grid in occupied Europe.
This would be the 2nd reported downing of a Tu-22M by an S-200. The earlier Tu-22M being in December 2023.
It looks like these Tu-22M are still using Soviet era EW suites which were not geared against the S-200 C-Band, 100 KW, 5N62 Square Pair FMCW tracker/illuminator. 2/
Between ~1996 and 2005, most FMTV trucks accepted by DCMA for the US Army had my signature on the truck property forms along with my DSN phone number.
I got three or four calls in Sealy Texas from NCO's in Iraq trying to score ballistic composite glass armor because they stopped these EFP attacks⬇️
1/
DCMA Sealy was getting photos from contractor relatives of bombed FMTV's with sheet metal armor and receiving IED damaged trucks to get rebuilt.
You could tell the blast damage from how the windows were missing and the roofs were bowed at the top.
2/
When you pulled out the stowage boxes in the cabs there were usually spent 5.56mm or 7.62mm brass casings...
Or SAM hunters can use a weather balloons with a set of commercial off the shelf ELINT and thermal imaging sensors - connected via a smartphone - hanging underneath to listen for radars and look for SAM missile launches 24/7.
The world has changed.
(I wonder if the Houthi are doing this balloon surveillance trick to the Western merchantmen?🤔)