this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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I’d love to see some of the worse ones volunteer as sunflower fertiliser in Donetsk.
Beats the poor minorities Russia is sending as cannon foder to silence them and entrench Moscovite dominance.
Ie. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/07/26/russian-student-who-planned-to-fight-for-ukraine-faces-terror-charges-after-returning-home-in-prisoner-swap-en-news
russia has finally run out of petroleum reserves to buffer the destruction ukraine has been putting on their pipelines and pump stations. and they're scraping the bottom of the barrel on manpower, sending people on crutches into attacks.
I just hope they can keep it up until vladdy gets pushed out of a fucking window
Sorry, I hate Russia with the heat of a thousand suns, but they are no where near being out of oil. Sanctions have done very little about and have instead created the "dark fleet" of tankers (crude mostly but some products). The dark fleet also includes tankers in the Iranian and Venezuelan trades, but it's up to 10% of all tankers by dwt now. People make very serious money transporting Russian crude and products.
I didn't say that. I said they're out of storage reserves. They've been tapping them to keep the flow of unleaded to their populace. If they had any other option, they wouldn't be letting this happen:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2097894/vladimir-putin-russia-fuel-crisis-petrol-stations
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/08/20/fuel-shortages-hit-russias-far-east-as-ukrainian-strikes-take-refineries-offline-a90300
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/23/europe/ukraine-russia-energy-attacks-intl
I'm sure there are strategic reserves set aside for military operations - but for the average ivan driving around the kajillions of sq km's that russia occupies are literally watching the prices climb as they wait in line for a tank of fuel.
they've had to lean really hard on the petroleum industrial complex for exports and to feed the war machine, it's frankly surprising it's taken this long to see it hit the populace.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-orders-government-stabilise-retail-fuel-prices-2023-09-27/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/8/23/2339902/-Ukraine-Invasion-Day-1-278-UKR-long-range-strikes-campaign-targets-RU-oil-refineries?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNdDDDQ7C1E&ab_channel=Suchomimus
I appreciate the sourcing, but meaning no offense, you are not using industry sources, and this is very much "inside baseball" unless you are in the industry and read the industry sources (or encounter it yourself). To a lesser extent you can trawl OFAC for some public numbers.
It's true that Iran has refined products shortages all the time due to both their limited refining capability and the higher value cargoes (such as gasoil) being sold via the dark fleet.
The dark fleet itself is a massive source of storage for crude, and to a lesser extent, various products. These ships are mostly anchored East of Johor and are Suexmazes or VLCCs, ships like a small mountain.
Iran does re-import some refined products from India and the so-called "teapot refiners" along the Chinese coast, but this is not always enough to meet domestic need. The Iranian government does not give two shits about this due to the fuck ton of money they make off the dark fleet (which then goes to Quds, etc.)
if you have better sources of information, share the sources instead of pontificating to us about your interpretation of them.
This is soooo one of those time I wish I could pull the whole "do you have any idea who I am?" bullshit. Below find some good public sources; I don't have time to get Archive versions of the paywalled stuff at Lloyd's List, Tradewinds, or Shippingwatch, but if the below official sources are not sufficient, let me know and I will.
You could also go straight to the horse's mouth: https://www.eia.gov/international/overview/country/rus If you click through on the full analysis section you'll find a more detailed picture: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/RUS
You could consult another official horse: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/933506/download?inline (PDF warning). This one isn't exactly about production like the EIA stuff is, but it will show you the extent to which the Americans have been forced to take extreme measures to try, mostly unsuccessful, to curtail Russian exports. Wikipedia will give you something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_fleet It's a long read; scroll down to the section on Russia.
don't worry, I don't care.
cool chart. how's that jive with the miles-long lines for gas?
Best Practices in Response to Recent Developments in the Maritime Oil Trade October 21, 2024
10 months later, I still posit: they've drained the reserves they used to keep civilian petrol flowing.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/parts-russia-face-gasoline-shortages-after-ukraine-struck-refineries-2025-08-21/
think, for a moment: if they had the ability, wouldn't they still be exporting?
"Russia imposed a gasoline exports ban for oil producers on July 28 in a bid to prevent shortages at a time of peak demand because of summer travel and grain harvesting. But some market participants said this will not be enough to avert a fuel crunch."
I make no assumptions on who you are, I only judge based on the reality we're seeing on the ground and the halting of exports when they desperately need the funds. I know this does not necessarily discount shadow fleet economics but it cannot be helping the situation either. I think, in this case, it's more important to judge the reality on the ground than the reality 10 months ago.
I doubt they would even get that far.
They would probably be interned and tortured to death by some fucked up russian goons for being "American Spies".
Shouting "Lemmygrad! I support russia!!!!" (in english) is not going to be much help to them.
yeah but it'd be funny as fuck
A while back it was shown that while most of the the fediverse was clear for access in places like russia and china, the triad were not. Which became a meme for a bit. Don't know if this is still true though.
that is quite chortleworthy
Yeah, like they could at least try to learn how to communicate in the native tongue of the average Russian soldier, it's not hard. "cyka blyat" covers about 50% of the necessary vocabulary on its own, although granted it is true that for true fluency some of the resulting grammatical constructs can get fascinatingly complex.
Sunflower fertilizer?
An old Ukrainian woman gave a bunch of the Russian occupiers sunflower seeds early in the war, telling them to put it in their pocket so that when the Russians inevitably got killed, sunflowers would grow from their corpse. A way of saying that all they'll be good for is being fertilizer for Ukraine's many beautiful sunflowers.
This is a very famous video in Ukraine.
Ukraine is the largest producer of sunflowers in the world. This is important due to the oils, livestock feed, and seed grains, they produce.
It's a term to refer to soldiers who die in Ukraine