To those colleagues in Alternative Media who day after day tell their subscribers that Russia is doing just fine, that the Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries deep within European Russia are causing only brief inconvenience, since the damage is easily reparable, let me say here that those colleagues are deceitful disseminators of falsehoods. They stand ready to sing the praises of Russia’s sage leader Vladimir Putin whatever misfortune befalls the nation from his deliberate sacrifice of national deterrence [read – sovereignty] supposedly to avoid/prevent a big European war. As Paul Craig Roberts has rightly observed, the very restraint that the Kremlin has exercised these past 4 years has sent to NATO a message of weakness and so encouraged ever more brazen attacks on Russia, all of which cannot end well for any of us when the worm turns and Russia strikes back with a vengeance.
Proof of the extent of damage to the refineries came today. Not from the whispering of taxi drivers or the remarks of academics on talk shows. It came in an news bulletin disseminated on the dzen.ru website, which operates in close cooperation with Yandex, Russia’s equivalent of Google. And it is only quoting information released earlier in the day by the National Commodities Market Price Agency, namely that the Petersburg Bourse today recorded a deal for imported 92 grade diesel fuel. The lot sold came to 0.36 thousand tons. The source of supply is the Kola petroleum port in the Murmansk oblast, far to the northeast of Petersburg. This news follows upon a statement by Deputy Premier Alexander Novak that Russia has begun purchase of diesel abroad ‘to meet the needs of the domestic market.’ While the price at gas pumps will now be lower than in the recent days of high demand on short supplies, we can be certain that the price will be considerably higher than the entirely domestic fuel that Russians have been used to. When gasoline reappeared in Crimea recently after several week of empty gas stations, the officially agreed price was set at 100 rubles a liter, whereas the normal pre-drone attack price was 65 rubles.
These facts underline my insistence that either Russia acts now to utterly destroy Kiev and its political-military leadership or Russia will experience grave damage to its economy as the Western attacks via Ukraine grow in scope and frequency.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
Slavlander
https://slavlandchronicles.substack.com/p/the-spirit-of-anchorage-one-year
“The Spirit of Anchorage” One Year Later
The more things change, the more the Kremlin doubles down
A year ago, in August, Putin flew to Anchorage, Alaska. There, he met Trump and was told to take a hike, according to subsequent leaks from the American press. Trump refused to listen to a lecture on history like the one that was presented to Tucker, apparently.
The Pics of Putin Palling Around With Trump Are Surreal
The Alaska meeting went ahead and went well. Putin had a grand ol’ time, judging by the photos. He was making toddler-like faces at the cameras the whole time. I’ve never seen anything like it.
The meeting was a failure on the diplomatic front.
Lavrov: "I Think We Were Tricked Again By Washington!"
Thanks for the update ....but I wonder are there any serious grievances -or not - expressed by the population at large towards the government war strategy and Mr.Putin in counter acting these attacks...?
... as these foreign drone attacks uproot obvious seriously the production facilities of a commodity which normally is in abundance (as they have the the upstream exploration facilities + raw material and downstream production facilities) or in essence the population should not experience shortfall to this extent!
In a country like France raising gas prices has give a lot of grievances resulting in the government feeling obliged to support the so-called ''large distance drivers for employment'' in order to avoid impossibility of employment (ending up of workers on the dole) and therefore pay part fuel-oil bills to allow work, and then French population is not in a same situation but still subject to importing raw oil - thoroughly screwed up by our American friends (sic +/- 100 wars/regime changes in the period 1945 to date) and definitely not over yet!