The Kremlin is burning?

[Stuart Galbraith]

3 hours ago, JWB said:

What happens when Putin runs out of gold?

 

Not to worry, plenty of gold teeth in reserve.

 

Polish ambassador to Poland attacked in St Petersburg.

 

[Mike1158]

Waiting for pro putin's to chime in with something like "Not attacking him, welcoming him overwarmly to mother Russia".  Or something like.

[JWB]

Several massive explosions have occurred at the Shatura Thermal Power Station in the Moscow Oblast of Western Russia, one of the largest power plants in the Russian Federation, following a large-scale drone strike tonight against Moscow by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1992458132849877018

 

[JWB]

3 minutes ago, JWB said:

Several massive explosions have occurred at the Shatura Thermal Power Station in the Moscow Oblast of Western Russia, one of the largest power plants in the Russian Federation, following a large-scale drone strike tonight against Moscow by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1992458132849877018

 

[Josh]

The attacks against electrical production seem like a waste of resources. I cannot imagine enough damage can be done to impose significant civilian or military hardship. The refinery campaign seems like a more productive use of missiles.

[Ssnake]

If you have to experience power outages often enough, I guess it counts as "objectively wasteful but emotionally supporting". AKA, tit for tat. As long as it isn't becoming a focus of the long range fires program, I guess it's tolerable waste. It might even serve as a useful diversion forcing Russia to protect at least the bigger ones of the powerplants.

[Stuart Galbraith]

14 hours ago, Josh said:

The attacks against electrical production seem like a waste of resources. I cannot imagine enough damage can be done to impose significant civilian or military hardship. The refinery campaign seems like a more productive use of missiles.

Broadly, though the electricity going down in the middle of a Russian winter, to me sounds an absolute horror story. And as the Russian rail network is increasingly electrified, it has a knock on effect upon Russian logistic movement.

Broadly though, yes, the priority should by far be the refineries. Im getting the impression though that they have hit over 2/3s. The ones that remain might be currently beyond their reach.

[JWB]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-oil-gas-revenue-may-fall-november-by-35-reuters-calculations-show-2025-11-24/

[JWB]

Over the weekend, Ukrainian attack drones repeatedly hit the Brom chemical plant in Russian-occupied Crimea. 

The plant, one of the few controlled by Russia capable of producing bromine, a key chemical in the fire-retardant and oil and gas industries, was heavily damaged.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1992928634257203470

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

For a strange moment I read that as bromide...

[JWB]

Major Ukrainian drone attack underway on Russia’s Black Sea coast near Novorossiysk tonight. 

Seen here, a Russian surface to air missile intercepts a Russian apartment building.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1993077097204416824

 

[Roman Alymov]

Now even some (rare) reasonable members of "Russian liberal opposition" acknowlege RF was (and, to great extent, still is) controlled by comprador pro-Western elite

https://www.youtube.com/live/FFcwsdOlWx8?si=DZGxeUqaoq_fs3qH

[Mike1158]

Considering what Roman has said, why are Russians not in the streets taking down put in and his cabal, put ting them inside a jail cell?  Possibly a short wait for the next available window or glow in the dark tea service.

[Roman Alymov]

11 hours ago, Mike1158 said:

Considering what Roman has said, why are Russians not in the streets taking down put in and his cabal, put ting them inside a jail cell?  Possibly a short wait for the next available window or glow in the dark tea service.

  As i have explained here, "the cabal" are not idiots (at least, not to the extent of Western politicians level) and are adapting - including moving most hated (or just unlucky to loose undercover struggle) figures to jail, changing retorics (for example, the wery word "Russian" that was unofficially banned since Yeltsin time is now in wide official use). On another side of the spectrum, grassroots Russians are also not idiots and are well aware that weakness caused by massive unrest will be used by West, and West is hated MORE then local servants of it. So the situation is staying in shaky balance.

[Stuart Galbraith]

These are the Western Politicians that despite being idiots, turned out to be smarter than Russias own leaders in turning a 3 day special military operation into what is rapidly becoming a 4 year war. Clearly Eastern and Western perceptions of stupidity vary markedly.

 

[Roman Alymov]

51 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

These are the Western Politicians that despite being idiots, turned out to be smarter than Russias own leaders in turning a 3 day special military operation into what is rapidly becoming a 4 year war. Clearly Eastern and Western perceptions of stupidity vary markedly.

   It was exactly the stupidity. As i have explained many times, the very idea of "special military operation" was to return to "business as usual" with West (the status of "colonial administration" looting Russian resources for the sake of West and for relatively small kickbask/share). But Western politicians have turned it in majior war, forcing their RF cronies to flee Russia or to standup and fight (even despite of own will). It is like owner beating his own dog. 

     Just imagine "collective Putin" in its 2022 composition achieving their goals in Feb 2022 - pushing Donbass back into Ukraine (and suppression of all pro-Russian forces there, as it was done in 2014 in other regions), putting some person like Medvedchuk into power (meaning: another intermidiary who will assist in looting RF budjet and taking money away to London and other corruption-friendly locations), cleanup of anti-Western opposition inside RF and so on. Germany & Co would continue prospering from free Rus NG, more assets stored in London and Spain, more cruiser-size yaghts, more children of "Russian elite" in expencive Western schools, Anatoly Chubais &Co staying in RF Gov and so on....   Luckuly, Western politicians in their arrogance and incompetence have killed all this - now Chubais is in exile in Israel (it turned out he was Israel citizen), the same with many others, those who stayed are locked inside RF and can't flee, state is investing heavily into industry, qualified workforce and hightech education (and even reducing the number of students who are learning useless professions like "tourism managerment"). And while West is busy fighting Russia, China is growing..... Probably we here in Russia owe a memorial to Boris Johnson, as do the Chinese.

    That outcome was predicted by some of pro-Russians long before the actual events. 

[ink]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

   It was exactly the stupidity. As i have explained many times, the very idea of "special military operation" was to return to "business as usual" with West (the status of "colonial administration" looting Russian resources for the sake of West and for relatively small kickbask/share). But Western politicians have turned it in majior war, forcing their RF cronies to flee Russia or to standup and fight (even despite of own will). It is like owner beating his own dog. 

   

I remember a wise young Russian poster on here explaining that "special military operation" was used to avoid the word "war", which would have legal implications - i.e. it would mean the economy would have to be out on a war footing and conscription and recruitment would have to be conducted according to wartime regulations. I liked that explanation much more than this one 😎

[Roman Alymov]

7 minutes ago, ink said:

I remember a wise young Russian poster on here explaining that "special military operation" was used to avoid the word "war", which would have legal implications - i.e. it would mean the economy would have to be out on a war footing and conscription and recruitment would have to be conducted according to wartime regulations. I liked that explanation much more than this one 😎

 I mean not the world itself ("war" or "operation") but the idea of rapid operation with very limited (and obviously not sufficient for big war) forces, with direct ban on removing Ukraine flags, on replacement of pro-Ukrainian officials with pro-Russian ones, on strikes on UkrArmy barracks, careful avoidance of any mentioning of UkrArmy personnel losses in official RusMoD reports etc. This was ment to be operation (de-facto raid) to force pro-Ukrainians (and their Western masters) into negotiations on Minsk agreements terms or simmilar.

[urbanoid]

So basically we're supposed to believe that the invasion of Ukraine was an essentially 'pro-Western special military operation'.

[seahawk]

Or maybe - just maybe - Russian intelligence sources expected the Ukrainians to simply fold, when the mighty Russian Army comes rolling into the country. After all they are just little Russians yearning to be re-united with the Motherland and freed from the pro-Western cabal that is exploiting them. 

The idea that a not tiny part of people living there, actually simply do not want to be part of Russia seems still impossible to consider for you. They might hate the West, they might hate their government, but they hate Russia more. Kind of like the Poles today. 

[Roman Alymov]

3 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

So basically we're supposed to believe that the invasion of Ukraine was an essentially 'pro-Western special military operation'.

    No idea what is you supposed to believe (it is up to you), but the fact is "collective Putin" team back in 2022 were people striving to restore relations with West on "junior parthner" basis (ideally, as they were before mid-2000th).

[Stefan Kotsch]

16 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

the idea of rapid operation with very limited forces

Yes yes, right. Putin said in an interview in 2014 that if he wanted to, he could conquer Kyiv in two weeks.

Putin: I was misinterpreted. It was meant quite differently. 🥳

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/05/09/2014/570421bc9a794760d3d413ef 
https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2014/09/02/putin-zayavil-glave-evrokomissii-chto-pri-zhelanii-on-mog-by

Edited December 1, 2025 by Stefan Kotsch

[Roman Alymov]

1 minute ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Yes yes, right. Putin said in an interview years ago that if he wanted to, he could conquer Kyiv in two weeks.

Putin: I was misinterpreted. It was meant quite differently. 🥳

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/05/09/2014/570421bc9a794760d3d413ef 
https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2014/09/02/putin-zayavil-glave-evrokomissii-chto-pri-zhelanii-on-mog-by

Back in 2014 two weeks was even overstatement. But between 2014 when it was said and 2022 when big war started 8 years passed  - and during this years people whom he have appointed into their positions did their best to assist pro-Ukrainians and West in destroying all more or less active and organised pro-Rus forces on Kiev-occupied territories, reducing combat strength of Donbass Militia (including some of most popular commanders killed), promoting highly unpopular local figures into top positions in the regions (to make them more manipulatable when time will come to push Donbass back into Ukraine), played "Army Games" instead of really preparing the Army and so on.

    So in late 2021/early 2022 Rus Gov discovered they are facing the prospect of West, instead of new tour of negotiations, crushing Donbass the same style AZ crushed NK - and since unavoidable cionsequence was massive internal political fallout, they decided to restore negotiation positions by quick limited operation. No surprise it failed and, as it was predicted, instead of quick deal we have long war for reunification of Russia, something Russian elite was not only not planning for, but what they were directly oppose for.

[urbanoid]

20 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

    No idea what is you supposed to believe (it is up to you), but the fact is "collective Putin" team back in 2022 were people striving to restore relations with West on "junior parthner" basis (ideally, as they were before mid-2000th).

They lost most of those relations due to the annexation of Crimea and creation of Donbabwe and Luganda. 

Doubling down on that, i.e. invading Ukraine directly and openly in 2022 was supposed to restore them and make the West... more accepting and eager to let them be junior partners again?

Ffs...

[Stefan Kotsch]

I wonder what kind of stuff the guy smokes.