Summary
A massive Ukrainian drone strike targeted Russian oil refineries and infrastructure, including Moscow’s largest refinery, which supplies 50% of the city’s fuel.
The attack also hit the Druzhba pipeline control station, halting Russian oil exports to Hungary. With over 337 drones striking multiple regions, the operation exploited gaps in Russia’s air defenses.
Hungary, heavily reliant on Russian energy, called the pipeline attack a threat to its sovereignty.
Analysts suggest continued strikes could pressure Russia’s economy and energy dominance, potentially influencing ceasefire negotiations.
Why would it? Finland has a total army strength of quite precisely one million if you count in the reserve.
Ukraine has fielded about that many soldiers altogether, perhaps a little less.
Finland has a population of 5.6 million, Ukraine has a population of 40 million. Per capita they have about one seventh of the amount of soldiers compared to Finland. Meaning, they should be, by all logic, able to find another seven times as many soldiers as they have found now. It’s weird that the do not!
While Ukrainians’ will to go to front is far greater than that of Germans’ or the French, the size of Ukraine’s army tells of a big problem with motivation. It is super weird, but even under the current circumstances, most Ukrainians don’t bother joining to help protect their country. (And because they don’t, the current soldiers almost never get relieved for holidays, and that’s a reason why people don’t want to join the army…)
That is a self-correcting problem. If it happens that Ukraine runs out of soldiers so badly that the Russia will start advancing at a speed of five percent of Ukraine’s total territory per year instead of the current 0.7 %, then Ukrainians will get scared and more people will be motivated to move their butts. And then there are enough soldiers again.
The Russia does not have such a self-correcting mechanism with its army size. Actually the opposite: While Ukraine doing badly will motivate more Ukrainians to come for help, the Russia doing badly means their economy is doing badly, and therefore their ability to pay good salaries for their soldiers will be doing badly. Their soldiers are in it for the money. No money --> extremely difficult to find enough Russian soldiers.
You’re being overly optimistic. Ukrainians are already tired of the war effort and as you said many of them aren’t interested in joining the war in the front lines.
Russia advancing faster will only make more people want to stop the massacre, or more people flee abroad.
Of course they want to stop the massacre. Like I said: if the Russia gets too close to winning, and therefore dramatically increasing the scale of the massacre, more people will join to help at the front. You know, it’s almost as if people didn’t want to die?!
That’s right, people don’t want to die, so it’s not likely they will join the front when the chances of dying are even higher than they are today.
They are Ukrainians. The Russia will do in all of Ukraine what it has been doing in the occupied areas. A Ukrainian has thus a far higher chance to die if he ends up under Russian occupation than if he tries to stop the Russia from occupying his country.
For Ukrainians it’s a no-brainer. “If my country will probably stay independent without my help, I will do nothing. But if it looks like my country might lose its independence, of course I want to decrease my risk of dying, so I will go to the front to defend this country.”
There are terror attacks against Ukrainian civilians every day. They are still torturing people who are not pro-Putin enough, like they have been doing for 11 years already. All of Ukraine will be one big Mariupol/Bucha/Kherson/Irpin, if the Russia manages to take over it. Why would anybody choose that?