Strikes on the Russian oil system. What's wrong with that?

At the time the VKS is bombing the ZSU along the frontline with over 100 glide bombs a day, causing an average of 20 deaths and 50 wounded – every single day – and that almost at will, I cannot but question the value of this campaign.

By all accounts it is meanwhile obvious: the Ukrainian armed forces (ZSU) have fought another ‘biiiiiiiiiiiig’ Russian winter offensive to a literal standstill. Caused them so many losses that the Russians cannot continue feeding similar amounts of troops and equipment into the battlefield like they did since October. Sure, the Russians are still assaulting ‘here and there’, but nowhere near as ferociously as the last five months.

Thus, think… well, as far as one has the opportunity to do so… it’s about the time to lean back, take a deep breath, perhaps drink some cappuccino and have a smoke, and think about the ‘big picture’.

….and, I think, this is urgently necessary, because diverse of ‘news’ one can monitor over the last few weeks are, at least for me, strongly reminiscent of the times at least back in around 1979-1982… or 1991-1995, or 2001-2004….if not of more recent times.

Say, 2011-2015…’or so’.

What am I talking about?

Just for example: back in June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon…and both its intelligence services and thus the politics had no trace of clue that except for the local Christian minority (and Israeli allies), the population consisted (and still consists) of followers of at least three different sects of Islam. Each of which had its own ideas about how it wanted (and still wants) to live its life. Even about how do they thought about Israel. Well, until that day Israel invaded. Yes, back then, the Israelis didn’t know there are Sunny Muslims, Shi’a Muslims and different other Muslims.

But, hey, why care? The USA didn’t know about this fact even 20 years later, when invading Afghanistan of 2001 or Iraq of 2003. And, hand on heart: the mass of westerners can’t give donkey’s d..k about such facts until this very day.

Like… hey, why should one care there are Catholic Christians, and then there are Protestants, and then the Orthodox Christians… right?

Even less so had either (whether Israel of 1982, or USA in so many other cases ever since) had something like a ‘plan’ for what to do once they are in control of the countries in question.

Indeed, except for ‘destroy Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan’, the USA haven’t had a plan even for that country, when invading it in late 2001. Nominally: ‘in reaction to 9/11’… So, why make anything different in Iraq? Or elsewhere?

And so, if the Administration of the US President George Bush Jr. was as incompetent in 2001-2004, why should then that of the US President Barack Obama have been any more competent during the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011-2012? Or in reaction to the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbass, in 2014-2015…?

But…why am I discussing such examples?

Because by now it’s obvious even to the sparrows in my garden: the USA…but not only the USA: Germany, Great Britain, France…. – nominally the ‘major powers’ in NATO – are its weakest links. All are dominated and run by idiotic amounts of greed, systemic incompetence, complete inability to face, accept, and understand realities of modern-day World, and by hesitancy. So much so, yes, I cannot but agree with those who say that these are threatening everybody else in this alliance. Indeed: threatening the very existence of something called democracy and pluralism. And the essence of the reason is that the politics in all these countries is run the same way like their economies: it’s a fraudulent business model.

To make sure: after monitoring this for some 42-45 years, meanwhile, I’m not even surprised. At most, I’ve stopped monitoring the genocide on Palestinians run ‘live on TV’ by the hordes of (West-supported) crazed Zionist fanatics in the Gaza Strip, because the ‘daily dose’ of photos and videos of disgusting atrocities committed by members of the Israeli Defence Forces against Palestinian civilians are only making me sick.

‘Instead’… well, what is making me worried amid all of this… indeed, what is surprising me very much, is the fact that meanwhile I can monitor clear indications of similar behaviour - see: strategic miscalculations, based on lack of farsight and planning - in Kyiv.

Yes, that city also known as the capital of Ukraine.

From there… and from some place named Khartoum  (some say that’s the capital of the Sudan, on the ‘troubled African continent’, some 5,000km away from Kyiv… but who can say….), there are only ever more news about deployment of Ukrainian SBU and this ‘combating Russian Wagner mercenaries’. Apparently because, you know, Ukraine, Ukrainian military intelligence and security service (SBU), and Ukrainian special forces have no more urgent things to do but to fight the Russians in the Sudan.

I’m sure: I’m missing something important here. There must be some relation like, ‘Kyiv’s going to fall if Wagner and RFS bring all of Omdurman under control’…

…erm, what is Omdurman?

Ah, never mind. That’s just the subplot.

…What is important is that – and that must be pure, distilled accident, of course – that it’s the very same Ukrainian SBU that’s involved in something I actually intend to discuss in this feature.

What am I talking about now?

It’s this SBU-run ‘campaign of strategic bombardment of the Russian POL-system’. In military jargon, POL stands for ‘petrol, oil & lubricants’. See: refineries, storage depots and similar.

By now there is no doubt that the SBU is meanwhile operating a wide range of UAVs: several types have a range of at least 1,000km, and they are regularly used to strike POL-facilities and other kind of targets deep inside Russia. No doubt, the results of such operations are widely publicised and many – really: many – people in the social media are not only delighted, they are crazed into happiness whenever there’s another video of ‘some place in Russia going up in flames’. And, no doubt, except for numerous refineries in western Russia, between targets hit by SBU’s UAVs so far are also such important military facilities like Taganrog Air Base: according to the Russian social media, the last week, in one of hangars there, the Ukrainians have managed to destroy another of A-50 AEW-aircraft of the Russian Air-Space Force (VKS).

Moreover, there are reports according to which in the first two months of this year, the SBU’s campaign against the Russian POL-system has managed to reduce the Russia’s export of fuels by up to 18-20%.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

No doubt it does.

However, as a nerd, a ‘black sheep on duty’ here (if not the ‘Devil’s advocate’), at the time the VKS is bombing the ZSU along the frontline with over 100 glide bombs a day, causing an average of 20 deaths and 50 wounded – every single day – and that almost at will, I cannot but question the value of this campaign.

Why that?

Let me offer you one example: remember the war between USA and allies against Iraq of 1991? The one fought for liberation of Kuwait?

Now, ‘imagine, if you like’, the US and allied armed forces bombing Iraqi oil industry for five weeks, not the Iraqi armed forces. And then wondering how comes the Iraqi armed forces are still fiercely resisting…

(…or, imagine yourself breaking your right leg, and the doc then treating the resulting pains, or amputating your left arm - but not paying attention at the broken bone in your right leg)

In 1991, instead of doing such a strategic mistake, the US and allies have focused on bombing the Iraqi armed forces. Yes, it is a gross oversimplification but: following the ‘theory of five circles’ by some unknown professional strategist of the US Air Force….some Colonel Warden…. they first hit the Iraqi command nodes, then they hit the Iraqi air defences (including air bases), and then began targeting Iraqi army units in the field. So much so, the Iraqi integrated air defence system was dysfunctional already after the first week of war. Sure, local air defences were still ‘working’, but in grand total, the US and allies became capable of roaming all over Iraq (and Kuwait) and striking whatever target they wanted to hit. Foremost, after five weeks of massive bombardment the mass of Iraqi ground forces was finished: weakened by losses, shaken, dazzled and frustrated to a level where they were unwilling to continue resisting.

Ah, you’ve been born only after 1991, so this example doesn’t count?

Oh yes: that’s the way not only the decision-makers in the West, but also those in Kyiv are behaving these days. Perhaps they’re just too busy posting cool selfies in the social media: that’s so much more important when fighting a war, nowadays…

But, let me try to be serious.

No doubt, Ukraine has no means to run such a campaign like the USA and allies run in 1991. Me thinks: Ukraine hasn’t even got the time for that. It cannot run a massive campaign of destroying the Russian command nodes, then run a wholesale destruction of the Russian air defence system, and then re-focus on the Russian ground forces. It hasn’t got enough long-range UAVs, just for the start. At least not yet.

However, it – obviously – has the means to strike Russian air bases. Yet, it’s not doing that. Instead, we still get to see satellite photographs of major Russian air bases around Ukraine, all nicely decorated with long rows of Su-24s, Su-30s, Su-34s and Su-35s. At last many of which are in the process of being loaded by UMPKs to go bombing ZSU troops.

Meanwhile: the VKS is hitting the ZSU by 111 UMPKs a day (like on 11 March).

But hey: why should SBU care?

It’s not on the receiving end of the Russian UMPKs. And, scoring propaganda points in the social media is ah so very much more important when one is fighting a war, you know.

Bottom line: that the US political- and military decision-makers, the ‘US strategists’, are hopelessly incompetent – is nothing new. This should have been obvious to everybody from so many examples of the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years… after all the ‘brilliant’ examples in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, to name just a few. That the German political- and military decision-makers are only excelling in following the US example, and thus completely incompetent, is nothing new, either. The same is valid for such like Sunak and Macron, and that would still be ‘just for the start’: both are products of the very same, fraudulent business model dominating the Western economies, and thus the politics for decades already.

But, do the Ukrainian leaders have to follow in fashion? Is anybody forcing them to do so – perhaps at a gun point?