Russia seems headed towards a February 1917 moment.
1. A kilogram of potatoes in Nov 2024 is 73% more expensive than in Jan 2024. 2. Interest rates reached 21% in Oct 2024 3. Mortgage rates have risen to 28%
The war has lasted 2 years ~9 months with 100% usage since 3rd qtr 2021
Things have gotten so clogged on the east-west pats of the Russian railway system that Russian companies are _Trucking_ railway rolling stock just to have the ability to move 6/
...life & require lubrication that Western bearings do not.
The Moscow Times article makes clear that lubricated Chinese bearings are not a real option for Russia as there is also a huge labor shortage for locomotive crews as well as for rolling stock.
Clip H/T @Prune602 8/
The Russian rail system collapse sequence is as follows:
1st trains on remote Russian rail lines derail.
2nd more Russian trains on lines closer to Moscow derail.
3rd the Russian repair trains derail on the way to open derailments.
"According to Terekh, the design process for the Flamingo was the same as for other products: the rocket went through filters — can we mass-produce it? Will it be cost-effective? Will it be effective on the battlefield?
2/
"You can use anything. The main thing is that it works well on the battlefield, and not that it looks beautiful on paper or in advertising booklets. This is the main criterion."
3/
They can no longer be used on aircraft, but their operating time is sufficient for the necessary tests after repair and the real flight phase – 3.5 hours.
The purchased engines are being repaired and modified:
2/4
...some of the structural elements are being simplified, and cheaper and easier-to-produce alternatives are being used instead of titanium parts that are resistant to wear. All this is necessary to reduce the cost and speed up the restoration work."
3/4
What most people miss about the Ukrainian oil campaign is that each Russian refinery was built to support certain local & international markets with certain types of crude oil.
This makes the entire Russian energy market "logistically brittle."
Russia's oil refinery's locations and local/international markets were built by the Soviet Union.
They each were fed specific grades of crude oil, and the Soviet/Russian state railways fuel tank car fleets were scaled for just-in-time deliveries to & from those refineries.
2/
Ukraine's One Way Attack drone strategic bombing campaign hasn't been aimed to simply reduce Russian refinery output.
It was aimed to DESTABILIZE THE ENTIRE RUSSIAN ENERGY SUPPLY CHAIN for export, civilian economic and Russian military operations.
Remember all the professionally incompetent yo-yo naval officers & hangers on claiming FPV drones were not a threat to naval warships in 2023 WHEN I TOLD THEM THEY WOULD BE?
Reality just kicked them one and all in the 'nads...
I told these professionally incompetent US navalists accounts on X/Twitter in 2023 that both containerized drones and FPV drones were a deadly threat to every naval vessel on the water they were ignoring to their crew's peril.
We need to have a talk about Russian military corruption and its effects on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
It's kind of like these sun-rotted missile truck tires that make my reputation on Twitter.
Corruption happens slowly, then all at once.
Corruption🧵 1/
The Russian Army issued a "live off the land" order in early March 2022 resulted in lots of Russian enlisted stealing outside the line of sight of Russian junior officers.
This hollowed out discipline the RuAF "Professional Volunteers" in early 2022.