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.
管線地獄
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
來自烏克蘭的現場報道
霍羅謝（Khoroshe）— 由於未能突破波克羅夫斯克前線，且在多布羅皮利亞附近至少三個地點和蘇梅的一個地點遭到包圍，俄軍已將重點轉移到哈爾科夫州的庫皮揚斯克和利普齊前線。
他們這樣做是為了，莫斯科能夠或多或少地自由地繼續在國外出售大量原材料，因此可以通過資助其戰爭努力來支持俄軍。然而，俄軍的表現不佳，因為迄今為止，每次試圖突破這兩個前線的嚐試，都隻導致其部隊中出現大量傷亡、重傷和被俘人員。
（圖：未在網上找到任何更好或更新的地圖，我已根據 Deep State 的資料，在這張地圖上手繪了庫皮揚斯克前線的真實情況。）
在利普齊，俄軍遭遇了地雷和詭雷；而在庫皮揚斯克，他們在試圖重複他們在阿夫迪夫卡和隨後在蘇紮所犯的相同破壞行動時遭受了嚴重失敗，該行動涉及鑽進天然氣管道。盡管這些管道的四個入口中有三個完全被淹沒且無法使用，並且烏克蘭武裝部隊在第四個入口處等候他們，但俄羅斯人在過去的幾個小時內再次嚐試，結果卻被擊潰。
（圖：投降烏克蘭人的俄羅斯士兵證實了本文中描述的俄軍地獄般的手段）
根據一名最近幾小時向烏軍投降的俄羅斯戰俘的證詞，進入天然氣管道是他們唯一的選擇，俄羅斯指揮官威脅他們，不從的話會被爆頭。
“如果你不進去，我就開槍打你。”
事實就是如此。
然而，在這些管道中，俄羅斯士兵經曆了比爆頭更糟糕的地獄，它由神風無人機、散落在各處的炸藥、燃燒彈、洪水和旨在使整個區域崩潰的詭雷組成，最終至少70名從萊曼佩爾希進入的俄軍被撕成碎片、窒息、燒傷和活埋了，他們是被第122摩托化步兵團用步槍槍管推進來的。
（圖：我在烏克蘭防線上 - 版權所有圖片Giorgio Provinciali）
一些其他的莫斯科利亞赫（moskaliah）— 烏克蘭人如此稱呼這些消耗品 — 被迫在周圍的森林中徘徊，最終在走了四天後被俘或被殺。其他人則被迫從木筏和船隻上跳下，遊過奧斯基爾河。還有些人被迫爬進一條位於河床下數米的地下管道中，使用手推車和電動滑板車四處走動，但很快就被圍捕了。
克裏姆林宮的命令仍然是繼續推進，在波克羅夫斯克牆遭受重大失敗後，試圖突破庫皮揚斯克牆。
“盡管早在2022年10月就被趕出那裏，但侵略者奉命頑固地堅持並以小團隊形式滲透到庫皮揚斯克市中心，穿著便服並殺死所有18至60歲的當地人，利用剩餘的兒童和老年人作為人肉盾牌” —一位我們認識的在該前線的烏克蘭戰士觀察到的。
占領庫皮揚斯克對俄羅斯人至關重要，因為正如周四的報道解釋的那樣，它是對他們的後勤至關重要的鐵路樞紐之一。它還將為對萊曼和克拉馬托爾斯克的新攻擊行動打開大門，直接將烏克蘭頓巴斯的那些地區與別爾哥羅德連接起來。
展示占領庫皮揚斯克（即使是一片灰燼）也可以讓弗拉基米爾·普京安撫到俄羅斯公眾，他們通過在軍事博客上傳播的圖片清楚地看到了俄軍在這些前線遭受的失敗。
（圖：我記錄了這段在烏克蘭頓涅茨克州多布羅皮利亞郊區所有村莊解放後立即拍攝的影片 — 版權所有媒體內容Giorgio Provinciali）
俄羅斯恐怖主義以各種方式通過天然氣管道傳播，因為那些助長這種瘋狂行為的人，恰恰是昨天發布第19項二級製裁方案的人，製裁卻沒有觸及普京的主要戰爭業務。
CREA月度報告顯示，在全麵戰爭的第43個月以及俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭的八年後，歐盟仍然是俄羅斯天然氣和液化天然氣的主要買家，每年向莫斯科支付96億歐元用於管道運輸，70億歐元用於購買液化天然氣，以及40億歐元用於通過德魯日巴的原油。
烏克蘭轟炸了這些管道和俄羅斯煉油廠，因為後者是俄戰爭的血槽，每月總計淨額為17億歐元。
（圖片來源和鳴謝：CREA）
我們隻關注直接收入，因為另一個平行的業務仍然認為歐盟是與莫斯科間接貿易的中心。每年至少有30億美元的抵達土耳其港口的石油產品是依賴俄羅斯原料的。
在過去12個月中，價格上限國家從印度和土耳其的六家煉油廠進口了約180億歐元的產品，其中一半來自俄羅斯原油，為莫斯科貢獻了約40億歐元的額外收入。
（圖片來源和鳴謝：歐盟理事會）
歐盟也是這種間接貿易的主要參與者，根據最保守的估計，歐盟每年購買價值30億至60億美元“洗白過的”俄羅斯燃料，這種情況持續很久直到第18項製裁方案關閉該漏洞（根據標準普爾分析師的說法，我們說的是“六個月，實施細節尚不清楚”）。
（圖片來源和鳴謝：標準普爾）
這並沒有違反任何協議，因為到目前為止，頒布的製裁方案隻針對轉運和新的液化天然氣投資，而不是液化天然氣的進口。
（數據來源：Rystad Energy — 圖片由《衛報》提供）
從烏克蘭讀到歐盟計劃在2027年之前結束這種可怕的貿易（正在進行中），聽起來像是對那些以鮮血為代價付出的人的可怕嘲弄。
這意味著，在布魯塞爾的祝福下，未來兩年，俄羅斯恐怖主義將繼續滲透到烏克蘭正試圖將其清除的同一管道中。
（圖：Alla在烏克蘭頓涅茨克州克拉馬托爾斯克中心廣場報道 – 版權所有圖片Giorgio Provinciali）
