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submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Ukraine struck Russia's largest oil refinery, located in the city of Omsk, on Monday, marking what its forces say was its furthest-ever drone attack in the war.

The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil a year, is in Western Siberia and about 1,700 miles from Ukrainian territory — roughly the distance between Los Angeles and Houston.

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[-] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 113 points 4 days ago

And the greatest and second largest army of the world, didn't even notice a few foreign drones traveling 1700 miles across their land! I wonder who's gonna fall out of a window for this.

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 20 hours ago

Maybe. Or maybe they just drove them there in the back of a truck and are saying this to freak the Russians out even more.

[-] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 1 points 19 hours ago

Lol! I like that more

[-] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 81 points 3 days ago

Ukraine has been systematically destroying all air defense and radars. What remains is now around Moscow and Putin's home. Even if detected, stopping the drones without defense is hard.

[-] ghostnotes@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago

Oh, It turns out that what some friends in Russia reported was true. They said they had to queue for about two hours just to buy fuel.

[-] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 52 points 4 days ago

Im a little out of the loop, why are they suddenly able to do this now? What changed in their capabilities?

[-] TRBoom@lemmy.zip 120 points 4 days ago

From what I read a few days ago one of the conditions for US aid under biden was that Ukraine make no strikes on russian soil. When trump pulled all the aid to Ukraine it was a huge blow, but also took the leash off.

After that all they had in their way was developing the actual drones and techniques to make the strikes, as well as planning them.

[-] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 66 points 3 days ago

As far as I know, the condition was that US (nor NATO) weapons can't be used on attacks to Russian soil. That's one part why Ukraine has basically done a world record speedrun on native drone production. No one has (nor can) deny them from using their own weapons how they see fit.

Removing stupid limitations on how they can hit back has helped, but that was mostly for short(ish) range missiles.

[-] nyan_kas@piefed.social 82 points 3 days ago

Ukraine has developed very impressive drone technology in a very short time. It is expected that multiple nations will actually try to make deals to acquire Ukrainian drones at the current NATO summit because they are so good now. So Ukraine is no longer dependent on others to sell them drones. They‘re selling them now.

For example, these drones can use terrain as guidance, so GPS isn’t required for navigation. This also allows them to fly at a very low altitude, avoiding Russian air defense. They’re also very resistant to jamming and have advanced autonomous capabilities, so they can “finish the job” on their own if the link to their operator is severed. Also, they’re very cheap, so it’s possible to overwhelm Russian defenses by swarming them.

In summary, they‘ve developed incredible killing machines that are able to act autonomously, which is very good for them right now but probably not very good for humanity in the long run.

[-] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago

In summary, they‘ve developed incredible killing machines that are able to act autonomously, which is very good for them right now but probably not very good for humanity in the long run.

It's possible that this becomes the new "mutually assured destruction" we had back in the 20th. Basically, a cold war brought on by drones instead of nukes. It could mean a near-future of peace, however uneasy. I can't say that living with the looming propagandized threat of the USSR was good, but I think it was a far sight better than being in an active shooting war with them.

[-] group_hug@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

I think that is a crazily optimistic take. Even if countries were to stop outright drone warfare and keep things to cyber attacks and economic warfare there would be nothing to stop them from using the tech to attack their own citizens.

US constitution has already proven to be worth about as much as Lloyd and Harry's I.O.Us.

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[-] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 59 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

They've been specifically targeting Russian Air defenses for awhile now forcing them to spread what little they do have even more. Since NATO have been pussies about providing them long range precision munitions they've had to spend time to develop their own cruise missiles like the Neptune and Flamingo the latter of which has entered regular production and has a range of 3000km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-5_Flamingo

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[-] freebee@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago

They basically reinvented the Nazi V1 with their Flamingo, and although only small % get through, it's devastatingly accurate against refineries.

Meanwhile, Russia uses the old Nazi strategy of launching very expensive rockets at apartments with civilians in cities, doing 0 strategic damage to Ukraine war capabilities, just like the Nazi V1 and later V2 was used and was relatively useless despite its high price.

Oh, and Ukraine can shoot at almost all Russia's refineries and weapons factories, but Russia can't do it back because Ukrainian can always import from refineries and factories in France, Germany, etc, beyond the NATO border...

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[-] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 44 points 4 days ago

We need some research into how effective drone strikes against refineries are to stop climate change. Are they a net gain in carbon emissions, considering the cost of manufacture and the prevented emissions?

[-] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 31 points 3 days ago

You need to cut demand. If the price goes up, refineries are just build elsewhere.

[-] Nautalax@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago

There can be demand destruction from high prices

[-] zbyte64@awful.systems 25 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This. See how the hormuz crisis has caused many to pivot to renewables.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You need to cut demand. If the price goes up

Prices going up does help cut demand.

Back in the '70s when oil prices spiked, people started buying more fuel efficient cars, and drove less.

Today, after the Hormuz related price increases, demand for EVs has abruptly increased.

If the price of oil continues to increase, that trend will also continue.

[-] Photonic@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

Perhaps, but you can’t tell me Russia can build them faster than Ukraine can destroy them. And in the meantime it means millions of fewer barrels worth of greenhouse gas emissions.

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[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 3 days ago

Gotta make it worse.

There's the emissions from while it's on fire plus some of the chemicals in it are worse after being burned like that then in regular emissions. Or become other environmental issues on their own once released/burned.

Then the emissions from building a new one.

It's so much better to just shut it down because no one needs it than blow them up

[-] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 days ago

Then the emissions from building a new one.

In Russia's case, depending on how things go, that many not apply all that much.

If things go far enough it might lead to Ukraine striking construction sites of oil refineries. Still not great, but much less worse than an actual running refinery.

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[-] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Also on the comparison of "on fire" vs used as fuel - IDK about the emissions during the refining process, but when gas or diesel is burnt as fuel in a car, there are typically several emissions control systems reducing the pollution produced

[-] nlgranger@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I doubt the majority of engines consuming oil are euro-5 compliant: cargo ships, airplanes, military vehicles, electricity generators, water heaters, tractors, none of these typically use catalytic converters.

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[-] ms_lane@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

Personally, I say California should be controlled by Australia.

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 20 hours ago

I'd prefer someone less racist than the current California locals, not more.

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[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I wonder if Ukraine got the idea from Iran?

I don’t mean that as an accusation, but… well, Iran basically has the world economy’s throat. And I know Ukraine’s drones just got the capability, but Iran had to be a fantastic reminder of how fragile an oil economy is.

[-] Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 3 days ago

Ukraine started their "long range sanctions" program years before Trump attacked Iran. It's getting more attention now because the years of consistent damage are starting to add up, but it's certainly not new. People who pay attention have always known the economic vulnerability of the oil market.

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[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 13 points 3 days ago

They've been occasionally attacking oil infrastructure since the beginning of the war. Used to be their "allies" asked them to please tone that down a bit. I guess Ukrainians finally stopped giving a shit.

[-] Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago

They saw how quickly nations fell to their knees when you disrupted the flow of oil.

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[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 26 points 4 days ago

TIL Siberia is way bigger than I expected. I knew it was big, but it looks like it’s more than half of Russian landmass. It can’t all be the climate I’m picturing, right? Like it borders Kazakhstan, so I figure at least part of it has to have hot summers

[-] Klear@piefed.world 37 points 4 days ago

Siberia is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to Siberia.

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[-] Kirp123@lemmy.world 34 points 4 days ago

Siberia is actually 3/4ths of Russia's landmass. The northern parts are taiga, which are giant uninterrupted forests. The shores of the Arctic Ocean are mostly tundra. In the southern parts the taiga gives way to steppes.

In the northern parts the climate has warm but quite short summers and long cold winters. In the southern part, where most of the population lives, they have the same climate as southern Canada/New England just less humid. The Western parts are also covered by warm winds that originate from the Middle East and hence have higher temperatures than their more Eastern areas. For reference in Novosibirsk, which is the largest city the average yearly summer temperatures reach 25 degrees Celsius but temperatures can also spike to as high as 38 degrees.

So yeah Siberia is not all some barren tundra as most people imagine.

[-] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

most of it is icy forest where it's too cold to do agriculture (in the north). there's a thin latitude where the weather is good for agriculture. south of that it's not the heat but the drought that's the problem. up north you have shortage of sunlight, south you have shortage of water. that's why the fertile area is narrow.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
611 points (99.0% liked)

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