By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Khoroshe — Having failed to break through the Pokrovsk front and surrounded at least three points near Dobropillia and one in Sumy, the Russian Armed Forces have shifted their focus to the Kupiansk and Lyptsi fronts in Kharkiv oblast’.
They are doing so because, being able to continue selling large amounts of their raw materials abroad more or less freely, Moscow can afford to support them by financing its war effort. However, they have performed poorly, as every attempt to penetrate those two fronts has so far resulted only in a high number of casualties, serious injuries, and prisoners among their own troops.
At Lyptsi, they encountered mines and booby traps, and at Kupiansk, they suffered a severe defeat while attempting to repeat the same sabotage operation they performed at Avdiivka and then Sudzha, which involved infiltrating gas pipelines. Despite three out of four entrances to those pipelines being completely flooded and out of service, and facing Ukrainian Armed Forces waiting for them at the fourth, the Russians tried again in the past few hours, only to be overwhelmed.
According to the testimony of a Russian prisoner who surrendered to the Ukrainians in recent hours, entering the gas pipes was the only option other than being shot in the head that the Russian commanders had threatened their men with.
«If you don’t get in, I’ll shoot you.»
And so it was.
In those pipelines, however, the Russian soldiers encountered an inferno even worse than a shot to the head, made up of kamikaze drones, explosives scattered everywhere, incendiary rounds, flooding, and booby traps designed to collapse entire sections, ultimately tearing to pieces, suffocating, burning, and burying alive the at least 70 Russian occupants who had entered from Lyman Pershyj, pushed by the barrel of a rifle from the 122nd Motorized Rifle Regiment.
Some other moskaliah — as the Ukrainians call these expendables — were forced to wander into the surrounding forests, eventually being captured or killed after four days of walking. Others were forced to swim across the Oskil River by jumping from rafts and boats. Still others were forced to crawl into an underground pipeline that runs several meters beneath the riverbed, using carts and electric scooters to get around, but were promptly rounded up.
The Kremlin’s order remains to keep pushing, trying to breach the Kupiansk wall after the major defeat at the Pokrovsk wall.
«Despite having already been driven out of there in October 2022, the occupiers have orders to stubbornly persist and infiltrate the center of Kupiansk in small groups, donning civilian clothes and killing all locals between the ages of 18 and 60 to use the remaining children and elderly people as human shields» — a Ukrainian defender on that front we are in contact with observed.
The capture of Kupiansk is crucial for the Russians because, as explained on these pages on Thursday, it is one of the railway hubs vital to their logistics. It would also open the door for new attack operations on both Lyman and Kramatorsk, directly linking those parts of Ukrainian Donbas to Bilhorod.
Showcasing the conquest (of the ashes) of Kupiansk would also let Vladimir Putin soothe a Russian public that clearly perceives the defeats suffered on those fronts through the images spread by his own milbloggers.
Russian terror flows through gas pipelines in every sense because those fueling that madness are precisely the ones who yesterday launched the 19th package of secondary sanctions, leaving Putin’s main war business untouched.
CREA monthly reports show that during the 43rd month of full-scale war and after eight more years of Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU remains the main buyer of Russian gas and LNG, paying €9.6 billion annually to Moscow for pipeline flows, €7 billion for LNG, and €4 billion for crude oil via Druzhba.
Ukraine bombs those pipelines and Russian refineries because that’s where much bloodshed occurs, totaling €1.7 billion net per month.
And we’re only focusing on direct revenues, because another parallel business still considers the EU at the center of indirect trade with Moscow. The documented petroleum products arriving at Turkish ports rely on Russian feedstock for at least $3 billion annually.
Over the past 12 months tracked, the price-cap countries imported around €18 billion worth of products from six refineries in India and Turkey, with half of that coming from Russian crude, generating about €4 billion in additional revenue for Moscow.
The EU is also a major player in that indirect trade, having purchased, according to the most conservative estimates, between $3 and $6 billion annually in ‘washed’ Russian fuel by taking the long route and being able to do so until the 18th sanctions package closes that loophole (we’re talking “six months, with implementation details unclear,” according to S&P analysts).
This doesn’t violate any agreement because, up to now, the sanctions packages enacted so far have targeted transshipment and new LNG investments, not the import of LNG.
Reading from Ukraine that the EU plans to end this macabre trade by 2027 (iter underway) sounds like a terrible mockery of those who pay for it with their blood.
It means that, with Brussels’ blessing, for another two years, Russian terror will continue to infiltrate the very same pipelines from which Ukraine is trying to flush it out.
管线地狱
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
来自乌克兰的现场报道
霍罗谢（Khoroshe）— 由于未能突破波克罗夫斯克前线，且在多布罗皮利亚附近至少三个地点和苏梅的一个地点遭到包围，俄军已将重点转移到哈尔科夫州的库皮扬斯克和利普齐前线。
他们这样做是为了，莫斯科能够或多或少地自由地继续在国外出售大量原材料，因此可以通过资助其战争努力来支持俄军。然而，俄军的表现不佳，因为迄今为止，每次试图突破这两个前线的尝试，都只导致其部队中出现大量伤亡、重伤和被俘人员。
（图：未在网上找到任何更好或更新的地图，我已根据 Deep State 的资料，在这张地图上手绘了库皮扬斯克前线的真实情况。）
在利普齐，俄军遭遇了地雷和诡雷；而在库皮扬斯克，他们在试图重复他们在阿夫迪夫卡和随后在苏扎所犯的相同破坏行动时遭受了严重失败，该行动涉及钻进天然气管道。尽管这些管道的四个入口中有三个完全被淹没且无法使用，并且乌克兰武装部队在第四个入口处等候他们，但俄罗斯人在过去的几个小时内再次尝试，结果却被击溃。
（图：投降乌克兰人的俄罗斯士兵证实了本文中描述的俄军地狱般的手段）
根据一名最近几小时向乌军投降的俄罗斯战俘的证词，进入天然气管道是他们唯一的选择，俄罗斯指挥官威胁他们，不从的话会被爆头。
“如果你不进去，我就开枪打你。”
事实就是如此。
然而，在这些管道中，俄罗斯士兵经历了比爆头更糟糕的地狱，它由神风无人机、散落在各处的炸药、燃烧弹、洪水和旨在使整个区域崩溃的诡雷组成，最终至少70名从莱曼佩尔希进入的俄军被撕成碎片、窒息、烧伤和活埋了，他们是被第122摩托化步兵团用步枪枪管推进来的。
（图：我在乌克兰防线上 - 版权所有图片Giorgio Provinciali）
一些其他的莫斯科利亞赫（moskaliah）— 乌克兰人如此称呼这些消耗品 — 被迫在周围的森林中徘徊，最终在走了四天后被俘或被杀。其他人则被迫从木筏和船只上跳下，游过奥斯基尔河。还有些人被迫爬进一条位于河床下数米的地下管道中，使用手推车和电动滑板车四处走动，但很快就被围捕了。
克里姆林宫的命令仍然是继续推进，在波克罗夫斯克墙遭受重大失败后，试图突破库皮扬斯克墙。
“尽管早在2022年10月就被赶出那里，但侵略者奉命顽固地坚持并以小团队形式渗透到库皮扬斯克市中心，穿着便服并杀死所有18至60岁的当地人，利用剩余的儿童和老年人作为人肉盾牌” —一位我们认识的在该前线的乌克兰战士观察到的。
占领库皮扬斯克对俄罗斯人至关重要，因为正如周四的报道解释的那样，它是对他们的后勤至关重要的铁路枢纽之一。它还将为对莱曼和克拉马托尔斯克的新攻击行动打开大门，直接将乌克兰顿巴斯的那些地区与别尔哥罗德连接起来。
展示占领库皮扬斯克（即使是一片灰烬）也可以让弗拉基米尔·普京安抚到俄罗斯公众，他们通过在军事博客上传播的图片清楚地看到了俄军在这些前线遭受的失败。
（图：我记录了这段在乌克兰顿涅茨克州多布罗皮利亚郊区所有村庄解放后立即拍摄的影片 — 版权所有媒体内容Giorgio Provinciali）
俄罗斯恐怖主义以各种方式通过天然气管道传播，因为那些助长这种疯狂行为的人，恰恰是昨天发布第19项二级制裁方案的人，制裁却没有触及普京的主要战争业务。
CREA月度报告显示，在全面战争的第43个月以及俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的八年后，欧盟仍然是俄罗斯天然气和液化天然气的主要买家，每年向莫斯科支付96亿欧元用于管道运输，70亿欧元用于购买液化天然气，以及40亿欧元用于通过德鲁日巴的原油。
乌克兰轰炸了这些管道和俄罗斯炼油厂，因为后者是俄战争的血槽，每月总计净额为17亿欧元。
（图片来源和鸣谢：CREA）
我们只关注直接收入，因为另一个平行的业务仍然认为欧盟是与莫斯科间接贸易的中心。每年至少有30亿美元的抵达土耳其港口的石油产品是依赖俄罗斯原料的。
在过去12个月中，价格上限国家从印度和土耳其的六家炼油厂进口了约180亿欧元的产品，其中一半来自俄罗斯原油，为莫斯科贡献了约40亿欧元的额外收入。
（图片来源和鸣谢：欧盟理事会）
欧盟也是这种间接贸易的主要参与者，根据最保守的估计，欧盟每年购买价值30亿至60亿美元“洗白过的”俄罗斯燃料，这种情况持续很久直到第18项制裁方案关闭该漏洞（根据标准普尔分析师的说法，我们说的是“六个月，实施细节尚不清楚”）。
（图片来源和鸣谢：标准普尔）
这并没有违反任何协议，因为到目前为止，颁布的制裁方案只针对转运和新的液化天然气投资，而不是液化天然气的进口。
（数据来源：Rystad Energy — 图片由《卫报》提供）
从乌克兰读到欧盟计划在2027年之前结束这种可怕的贸易（正在进行中），听起来像是对那些以鲜血为代价付出的人的可怕嘲弄。
这意味着，在布鲁塞尔的祝福下，未来两年，俄罗斯恐怖主义将继续渗透到乌克兰正试图将其清除的同一管道中。
（图：Alla在乌克兰顿涅茨克州克拉马托尔斯克中心广场报道 – 版权所有图片Giorgio Provinciali）
