Russian air strikes destroy 80% of Ukrainian power supply, threatening Kiev’s combat capabilities
Russia started conducting massive daily retaliatory air strikes on Mar 22, the date of the Crocus City Hall terror attacks. Ukraine’s ability to prosecute its war can no longer be taken for granted.
Here’s your daily air strike update for Mar 31, 2024.
These strikes are unprecedentedly massive and causing a catastrophic loss of electric power throughout the country. This will affect the Ukrainian army’s ability to conduct the war. The enormous costs of replacing damaged equipment all over the country will be a heavy burden on the finances of the countries foolishly underwriting the war.
The next 4 reports relate to the Russian air strikes on the Ukrainian power system
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
Use this map to locate the oblasts mentioned in these reports
https://ria.ru/20240331/spetsoperatsiya-1936938734.html
31.03.2024
Aerospace Forces launched a group strike on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine
Moscow Region: Aerospace Forces launched a group strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities
MOSCOW, March 31 – RIA Novosti. The armed forces hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure, the Ministry of Defense reported.
“Russian Aerospace Forces launched a group strike with high-precision long-range air-launched weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles against energy infrastructure facilities and the gas production industry of Ukraine,” the publication says.
The objectives of the strike were achieved, all objects were hit, the ministry pointed out.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the work of defense industry enterprises producing and repairing weapons, military equipment and ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been disrupted.
In addition, the Russian army attacked the Voznesensk airfield in the Nikolaev region, destroying three Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force.
The military department reported a previous massive strike on enemy energy facilities and air defenses on Friday. The national energy company Ukrenergo reported that power plants in central and western Ukraine were damaged after explosions.
In response to attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on civilian targets, the Russian military regularly attacks Ukrainian infrastructure: energy facilities, defense industry, military command and communications. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov emphasized that the army does not attack residential buildings or social facilities.
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Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
https://ria.ru/20240331/sbu-1936959202.html
31.03.2024
Russian military destroyed the location of the SBU in the Kherson region
Balance: The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the location of the SBU in the suburbs of Kherson
SIMFEROPOL, March 31 – RIA Novosti. Russian troops destroyed the location of the SBU [Ukrainian Security Service, headed by Vasyl Malyuk, who confessed to terror attack on Crimean bridge, also suspect in Crocus attack] in the suburbs of Kherson, regional governor Vladimir Saldo reported on his Telegram channel.
“In the suburbs of Kherson, a building used to house the terrorist organization SBU was bombed,” he wrote.
In addition, within a week, the Russian military hit the positions of the 35th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and several territorial defense brigades in the areas of the villages of Ivanovka, Mikhailovka, Gavrilovka, Tyaginka, the head of the region specified.
“Our fighters successfully smoked out Ukrainian militants from basements in Krynki, hit enemy watercraft on the Dnieper River, disrupting attempts at rotation and delivery of military cargo,” added Saldo.
At the same time, the enemy continued terrorist attacks on the Kherson region. According to the governor, on average, Ukrainian troops fired 40 artillery shells per day and carried out FPV drone attacks on energy infrastructure facilities, hospitals, public buildings and cars in Aleshkinsky, Kakhovsky, Golopristansky, Novokakhovsky and other districts.
At the beginning of the week, Saldo noted that the Ukrainian military had changed tactics in the Kherson direction, focusing on shelling civilian infrastructure. According to him, they are using artillery, including cluster munitions, and mortars.
“The enemy used (editor’s note) missiles to shell populated areas far to the rear of the front line. Unfortunately, <...> a 6-year-old girl died and five people were wounded,” he said.
The Kherson region became part of Russia following a referendum in September 2022. The Ukrainian side does not recognize its legitimacy and continues shelling. Now Moscow controls 75 percent of the region, and the right bank of the Dnieper, including Kherson, is still held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
https://smotrim.ru/article/3879101?ysclid=lufhv179wf892501539
30 Mar 2024
DTEK: about 80% of energy capacities are damaged or destroyed
AP
The Ukrainian energy holding DTEK has lost about 80 percent of its generating capacity. As the company's executive director Dmitry Sakharuk said in an interview with the Rada TV channel, over the two weeks of March, five out of six thermal power plants received very severe damage during Russian attacks.
“Some units were almost completely destroyed, some were partially destroyed. Energy distribution facilities throughout the country also suffered very serious damage,” Sakharuk explained.
The Russian army has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure and air defense forces. High-precision weapons are used, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported. In many regions of Ukraine, residents are faced with rolling blackouts, TASS writes.
[Back in 2022 already, a Ukraine ministry had said that the country had lost 30% of its power distribution capacity due to Russian strikes. Now it is 80%!]
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Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
What remains of the Ukrainian energy system after massive attacks by the Russian Armed Forces
March 31, 2024
Author: Ivan Smirnov
“Currently, Kyiv retains control over three operational nuclear power plants (total capacity up to 7.4 GW), six hydroelectric power plants (total capacity up to 4.5 GW) and from five to three thermal power plants (total capacity up to 7.8 GW). However, the values for hydroelectric and thermal power plants are most likely the upper limit of the estimate: some operational power plants were also hit, and some power units were shut down due to malfunctions, so the real numbers will be significantly lower,” the publication says.
The authors of the channel explained that now in Ukraine there is a critical situation in terms of generating capacity, and all equipment is under high load.
“That is, the upper estimate of Ukraine’s generating capacity at the moment is 19.7 GW. But it is more realistic to talk about 14–15 GW. At the same time, in Kyiv they can still count on transfers from the EU - this is up to 2 GW. At the same time, Ukraine's average consumption ranges from 10 GW to 14 GW. It would seem that this would be enough, but in reality the situation is critical: power engineers have no room for maneuver and are forced to supply the affected regions with electricity from remote power plants. There are losses (significant) during transportation, and simply an extremely high load on the equipment used to route the network,” the source added.
…
The authors of the WarGonzo project believe that the lack of energy infrastructure will seriously complicate the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ attempts to attack the border territories of Russia.
“The enemy has long been using the Kharkov region as a springboard and base for terrorist attacks on the border regions of our country. The lack of energy infrastructure will seriously complicate this task for him,” the channel’s publication says.
[I suspect it’s lots worse than that. Kiev will be hard put to prosecute the war anywhere in the country now. And bear in mind that Russia has no reason to stop these attacks on the power supply. Ukraine could use over 90% of its supply – although Russia has so far avoided hitting nuclear power plants for fear of causing an environmental disaster.]
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Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
https://ria.ru/20240331/ekonomika-1936905854.html
Russia entered the top five fastest growing G20 economies
Excerpt
MOSCOW, March 31 – RIA Novosti. Russia in 2023 became the fifth-fastest economy in the G20, according to RIA Novosti analysis of data from national statistical services.
The Russian economy grew by 3.6 percent, fully compensating for the 2022 decline of 1.2 percent.
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Michael Hudson (smartest US economist): America’s goal in Ukraine is NOT to weaken Russia. It’s to keep control of Europe
A few years before the withdrawal of Britain from EU in 2016, I was part of an email group that pushed for Brexit. I was kind of the American cheerleader of the group.
My motivation was due to the fact that the globalists that created the EU were basically authoritarians, who had used the global elites’ traditional tactic of deceiving the Europeans in the individual countries into thinking they would retain their sovereignty if they joined this group.
I was always in favor of freedom, and sovereignty is part of freedom. Europe slowly lost its sovereignty to the EU bosses. In fact, the European Council is unelected, so that tells us something.
It was a tough slog but we finally succeeded in breaking away.
Afterwards, the members of our group began doing PR for their newfound freedom. For example, they attempted to show that Brexit was good for the economy, or at least not bad for it.
But I soon realized that the newly “independent” UK was even more dependent on the US and NATO than before, and these entities were no better than the EU itself.
It occurred to me that NATO, US-controlled, was pursuing consistently anti-Europe policies, exemplified by the bombing of Serbian civilians.
But when I tried to point out to the others that this new dependence on the US was even worse than the former dependence on the EU, I was surprised when the ring leaders of the Brexiteers disagreed with me on this. They argued that, as members of NATO, they were more secure as a group against their enemies. I retorted that NATO insisted that their main “enemy” was Russia, but that Russia was NOT an enemy, just a scarecrow set up by the elites as an excuse to keep up the US’ eternal war policy.
As the years passed, most of them eventually realized I was right.
Sadly, Brexit did not make for a better, more secure and prosperous Britain.
Michael Hudson explains that the main goal of the US Establishment has always been to make Europe a kind of US colony that would be a captive client of US goods and services, which would be good for the US economy but would impoverish Europe.
The destruction of the Nord Stream by the Biden team illustrates perfectly how this works. Almost immediately after the 2 gas lines were blown up, the German economy – the strongest in Europe, said to be the locomotive pulling the EU – began to collapse for lack of the cheap Russian pipeline gas. As expected, the US began to try to sell its 2 x more-expensive LNG to Europe, but of course, Europe did manage to find other sources. However, ALL LNG is about twice the price of the Russian pipelined gas, so Europe is now essentially doomed economically. Doomed to become a US satrapy. And that has been the goal all along. It also happens to be the main goal of the Ukraine war that was provoked by the Obama-Biden-Nuland regime in 2014.
NATO’s first secretary general, Lord Ismay, had said in 1954 that the purpose of the alliance was to “keep Russia out, America in and Germany down.”
Thus, from the start, it should have been recognized by all that this alliance had nothing at all to do with defense. It was all about ideology, and that was not a far cry from the ideology we thought we had defeated with the conclusion of WW II. After all, an irrational hatred of Russia was a main pillar of German Nazism.
In fact, Neoconservatism is no stranger to Neo-Nazism.
Let Michael Hudson explain:
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I urge you to read as much of the coverage in this Al Jazeera issue as possible
https://www.aljazeera.com/
Two killed in Israeli strike on journalists’ tent at Al-Aqsa Hospital
list 1 of 6
Published 9 minutes ago9m ago
Israeli attack hit Al-Aqsa Hospital’s courtyard
list 2 of 6
Published 24 minutes ago24m ago
Two air strikes targeted journalists, displaced people in Al-Aqsa Hospital
list 3 of 6
Published 39 minutes ago39m ago
Israeli army claims it struck an Islamic Jihad command centre at Al-Aqsa Hospital
list 4 of 6
Published 54 minutes ago54m ago
Israeli army says jets carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets
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Two bijoux by China Writers' Group philosopher-sage Dr. T.P. Wilkinson, for your Easter contemplation.
JEFF J BROWN
MAR 31
Unbecoming American: Who must go? Permanent government vs. the People – SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS FOUNDATION
Unbecoming American: How good are you really? Experience, Expertise and Exaggeration in the US “meritocracy” – SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS FOUNDATION
LOL they should be happy about this. They hate communists and their energy structure was all built by the Soviet Union. I am certain US and western companies are dying to come in and rebuild and put Ukraine in huge debt to the IMF.
Thanks for sharing Seek Truth From Facts, Don!
Jeff