Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ As Russian refineries continue to explode on a virtually daily basis, Russian warbloggers are furious at their government's failure to protect vital infrastructure. They blame government incompetence and call for a drastic overhaul of air defences. ⬇️

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1960870664619118767

2/ The success of the Ukrainian drone campaign is undermining morale at the front, writes 'Brothers in Arms', who complains: "Seriously, do you know what it looks like from the outside?"

3/ "We've been half-dead here for months, digging mud in the trenches, under drones every day, counting bullets, while back home, oil refineries are burning down in batches. Novoshakhtinsk has been completely burned down. Ust-Luga has also been hit pretty hard.

4/ "And every time it's the same old story, “hit by debris”. What debris, have you completely lost your minds over there?

5/ "These fart-mobiles, as Vysokiy aptly puts it, fly slowly, low, and make a loud racket. You could even take them down with an automatic rifle if you had your head screwed on right.

6/ "But no, we have ‘the system.’ And while all these reports are coming in, the enemy is already attacking the next target. There are a lot of bosses, but what good are they...

The funniest thing is that we're fighting here, but the country can't even defend its own factories.

7/ "Seriously, what's the point of all this if there's such chaos in the rear? We're washing ourselves with blood here, and the result is nothing. Oil refineries are burning, there's no fuel, and they're still sending us into battle."

8/ Alexander Kharchenko has a similarly dismayed reaction to the drone campaign:

"I am watching the Ukrainian slow-moving UAVs strike our oil refineries. There are no c̶e̶n̶s̶o̶r̶e̶d̶ words in my vocabulary to describe the situation."

9/ "But what amazes me most is that even after dozens of such "falls of debris" no one has been publicly arrested and sent to prison for complete professional incompetence in wartime conditions.

10/ "We have all the means to counter Ukrainian UAVs. However, there is no system and no fear of failure of the task."

Sergei Kostyasnikov laments:

11/ "As for me personally, I think that too many of our people are living in hope that the war will end soon, that it is ‘just around the corner’ and ‘will be as it was before’. And if it is already "soon", then why do anything, right?

12/ "Therefore, in the fourth year of the war, Ukrainian "debris" is hitting the distillation columns again and again with rare shots.

With the help of Ukraine, the collective West is systematically knocking out our oil refining.

13/ "And the strikes on Ust-Luga are already a blow to exports. And this is an order of magnitude more effective than sanctions ... Oil refineries are much more expensive than slow-moving drones with a motor.

14/ "And it’s better not to think about how much a simple oil refinery costs."

'Older than Edda' calls for an entirely new system to take on the Ukrainian drone threat, as the current one clearly is not working. On the one hand, he suggests sarcastically:

15/ "[We could] leave everything as is, prohibit publishing reports of fires at oil refineries and pretend that everything is fine.

16/ "A law-abiding citizen will sleep peacefully, and consider the column of fire from the burning oil refinery to be a festive salute, since there were no reports of an emergency in the best messenger [app], which only gets a connection in the parking lot."

17/ Alternatively, he says, a systematic approach could be taken to unify and properly equip mobile fire teams, anti-drone helicopters and radar units, under a single command and with a working communications system that isn't cut off by Internet shutdowns.

18/ "As has already been said hundreds of times, the problem is not in the means of destruction, the problem is laziness, lack of initiative, fear of "what if something happens" and [lack of] competence...

19/ "Someone will have to give up some of their authority, but firstly, this will pay off a hundredfold, the oil refinery is worth much more than this entire organisation, and secondly, we will avoid the shame of watching on foreign channels footage of the destruction of…

20/ …our oil and gas, and any other infrastructure, by an enemy that is many times inferior to us in long-range weapons."

'Russian Engineer' points to bureaucratic disputes between Russian government agencies as a contributing factor:

21/ "Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence does not take responsibility for the depth of the territory, saying that this is actually the responsibility of the Russian Guard, which is generally true.

22/ "However, the Russian Guard does not have its own combat helicopters, only a few Mi-8s. And they are not eager to acquire these systems, because heavy weapons systems require personnel, training and supplies.

23/ "Arguing that this is not their ‘calibre’, they are waiting for everything to blow over."

Rybar calls for mothballed Mi-24 helicopters to be refurbished with thermal imagers and assigned to protect refineries, and likewise blames the state security bodies:

24/ "Yes, it will be necessary to find flight crews, remove the aircraft from storage, and prepare take-off areas.

25/ "However, this is entirely feasible and certainly less expensive than decommissioned oil refineries, given the rising cost of fuel and its potential shortage in the economy.

26/ "❗️Everything depends solely on the decision of the defence ministry and other law enforcement agencies. It is pure nonsense to shift all the blame onto the bureaucracy, civil authorities, oil companies and others who are not involved in this situation." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/bratyapooruzhi…
🔹 t.me/SergeyKolyasni…
🔹 t.me/bayraktar1070/…
🔹 t.me/vysokygovorit/…
🔹 t.me/rusengineer/79…
🔹 t.me/rybar/73157