Russia had an absolute massive stockpile of air defense assets at the beginning of the war. Ukraine has steadily worked at degrading these assets over time. The more they destroyed the easier it was to destroy the next asset.

At the same time Ukraine has massively increased it’s drone capabilities and numbers at every range. So the remaining Russian air defense has to work harder with less numbers against more drones.

The longer ranges of Ukraines drones also means that Russia has to defend more area with less equipment. Russia is forced to prioritize assets to protect.

Today Moscow has a robust air defense system but whole sections of the front have close to zero. Ukraine has total freedom to hit any target they can find in many regions.

Russia is seeking to figure out a cheap effective way to defend their airspace. At the same time Ukraine is relentlessly damaging the infrastructure Russia needs to build the new anti-air capabilities.

For the past 10 years it’s been $2-$4/gallon or less. The Russian government subsidizes the price of gasoline with revenues from the sale of crude oil.

"Ukraine is too far away and weak for them to fly a drone thousands of km to bomb them. So the only explanation is Russian traitors. "

The downside of extensive propaganda claiming that Ukraine is weak and about to collapse.

A little piece of black electrical tape does wonders for these systems.

I think the Russian stock market is going to have a tough few decades at this rate.

That’s quite the picture.

$52 oil plus Ukraine’s effective sanctions on the storage and transport infrastructure…

The market is massively overvalued.

Ever left some 15% ethanol blend in a container for a year without stabalizer? Oopsy on my part but it formed small chunks. Also turned a bright yellow.

I would guess they are pushing the ethanol percentage combined with higher contaminates in the fuel.

Active AA for the tankers would require the Russian Navy to leave their hiding spots… and get sunk.

Ritolia estimates Russian gasoline production is currently running at around 20% below domestic demand because of the Ukrainian strikes, with refinery runs (the amount of crude oil refineries are processing) at multi-year lows.

Looks like rationing fuel is going to be a theme for months.

Hard decisions have to be made on air defense.

A critical refinery providing 10% of the nations fuel during a nationwide shortage due to ongoing attacks, VERSUS the dictators vacation home (currently torn down and being rebuilt).

Obviously the dictators vacation home is more important.

Unfortunately they have to decrease the warhead size on the long distance strikes. So takes more drones to create significant damage. They don’t have the boom.

The good news is it looks like enough of them got through to fuck things up a bit.

The likely only reason they were in the air was to prevent them from being hit out in the open on the tarmac.

Since they were in the air anyway, they might as well attempt (and fail) to hit the drones.

Ukraine might already have a effective counter-measure. Some of their intercepter drones with an initial speed boost from a model rocket motor. These can get going fast enough to catch them.

What’s interesting is that jet powered shaheds can go up to 600km/hr but they consume too much fuel at those speeds. This limits their range significantly. So they are being intercepted at slower speeds to conserve fuel.

https://thedefender.media/en/2026/07/jet-powered-shaheds-intercept/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ukraine-unveils-estonian-drone-interceptor-built-to-destroy-shahed-drones/ar-AA24eTiu

The more likely issue is that people will steal the fuel from the farmers. This happens every time the prices on fuel goes up globally.

At this point every strike hurts them deeper and delays their recovery. The economic cost of theses strikes will last for years.

Soon there will be shortages in the stores.

Harvest season is also coming. Russia will have dedicate massive amount of fuel to agriculture and getting the harvest in.

I stole it of course.

I don’t imagine the locals will be too pleased with gas being shipped from the untouched refineries in Siberia to Moscow.

Then again they haven’t been too happy with Moscow for a while now.

https://lansinginstitute.org/2020/10/27/siberian-separatism-whether-federal-center-can-hold-remote-regions/

I also believe that that region has suffered the most from the invasion of Ukraine due to heavy recruiting in the destitute regions.

Towed artillery is notoriously difficult to completely destroy. Russia had a massive stockpile of rusty heaps to pull spare parts from at the start of the war. One damaged artillery plus spare parts from a few scrapped ones = a new refurbished gun.

Reportedly this is changing with Ukraine able to destroy the barrels with specialized drones or just a larger overall payload to cause more damage.

Aw that’s too bad. I am sure Ukraine could not hit a convoy of slowly moving extremely expensive and irreplaceable assets at a scheduled place and time.