#добей путина

[tomorrowusa]

« If Trump wins, I’m sure he will cut off aid and sell out Ukraine. If Biden wins, and if two-thirds of Congress remains supportive of Ukraine, the aid can keep flowing — and Vladimir Putin will gradually realize that he can’t prevail. That, in turn, might galvanize Russia into serious peace negotiations. »

— Columnist Max Boot at the Washington Post.

Max Boot was born in Russia and came to the United States at an early age with his family. He understands the mindset of authoritarians and oligarchs there.

Right now Putin isn't interested in negotiation – just surrender or crippling concessions from Ukraine. Sadly, the only way to end the war is to raise the price for Russia continuing it.

And the only way to push back against Russia is to continue the flow of Western aid – a plurality of it coming from the US.

A vote for Trump or for Congressional Republicans is a vote for Russia.

Liberal democracy cannot survive in the US if it is under assault around the world. Voting Democratic helps protect both.

[tomorrowusa]

"MAGA Mike" Johnson needs a ride (to Mar-a-Lago) not ammo.

Vicariously, Vladimir Putin is House Speaker these days. 😡

Why do MAGA Republicans hate freedom?

[tomorrowusa]

« In 1999, exactly a quarter of a century ago, Poland was invited to join NATO and the transatlantic family.

Twenty-five years later, not least because of the security guarantees that NATO provided us, we have become the fifth largest economy of the European Union, and the main buyer of US military equipment as I’ve already mentioned.

Victorious Ukraine may follow a similar path.

[ … ]

Ladies and gentlemen, whether we want it or not, Putin’s decision to start the biggest war in Europe since the defeat of Nazi Germany has already changed the course of history. It is up to us to decide if we want to shape that course ourselves, or let it be shaped by others—in Moscow, Tehran, or Beijing.

Helping Ukraine by defeating Putin is the right thing to do in the broadest sense of the word.

It is morally sound, strategically wise, militarily justified, and economically beneficial.

It outweighs politics. It transcends partisanship.

Now is the moment to act. Let’s get this done. »

— Foreign Minister Radosław "Radek" Sikorski of Poland speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council.

You can see his address and the following discussion in this vid.

In response to a question from the audience, Pan Sikorski gave this insight on Putin's thinking regarding the war:

[T]he trouble is that Putin doesn’t have an incentive to make peace. He’s already indicted at the Hague for stealing Ukrainian children. And he probably thinks that he—that it’s better for him to have a bad war than an unsatisfactory peace.

The only way to end the war is to make it way bad for Putin to continue it.

Putin is counting on the notoriously short American attention span while manipulating US politics through his vassal Donald Trump. We need to understand that wars don't go away just because Americans get bored with them.

A defeat in Ukraine for ethno-nationalist Putin and his mafia fascist régime is a victory for international liberal democracy.

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine just put two key Russian military aircraft out of commission. It will now be more difficult for Russia to direct operations against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Air Force shot down a Russian A-50M/U intelligence gathering plane – somewhat similar to US Air Force E-3 Sentry (AWACS) aircraft. And it severely damaged an Il-22M11 command and control aircraft which was able to land but is beyond repair.

It’s official. Russian and Ukrainian sources have confirmed that Ukrainian air-defenses on Sunday hit, over southern Ukraine and the Sea of Azov, two of Russia’s rarest and most valuable support planes: a Beriev A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post. “Who did this?” the Ukrainian air force quipped. The answer, it seems, is the air arm’s 90-mile-range Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missiles. The jet-propelled A-50—one of nine A-50M/Us in service—fell into the Sea of Azov in flames, likely killing everyone on board: potentially 15 people including high-ranking officers and highly-trained radar specialists. The propeller-driven Il-22, with up to 10 people aboard, managed to land in Anapa on the Russian side of the Sea of Azov’s southern coast. “Urgently requesting ambulance and fire crew,” the crew radioed as they wrestled their shrapnel-holed plane toward the air base. Photos of the damaged Il-22, snapped after it landed, illustrate the extent of the damage—a mangled tail fin and fuselage—and also reveal the plane’s exact variant. It’s an Il-22M11, and it might be a total write-off. This version of the 1950s-vintage Ilyushin turboprop is rare. The Russian air force has maybe 12 Il-22Ms after mutinous Wagner Group mercenaries shot down one of the planes over western Russia back in June. While the Russians could modify an old Ilyushin airframe into a replacement Il-22M, they probably can’t do so quickly—or cheaply. An A-50 or Il-22M might cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Russia had only about ten of the A-50 planes. One was blown up by Belarusian partisans 11 months ago south of Minsk. And now one is sleeping with the fishes in the Sea of Azov.

Here are pictures of the Il-22M11 which was able to make an emergency landing at Anapa in Russia.

Just to rub it in to Putin, here's a graphic from Ukraine's military announcing its hits on the two Russian planes.

ЗНИЩЕНО = destroyed Повітряні Сили = Air Force

The two planes together would cost Russia over half a billion dollars to replace. 😁😎

[tomorrowusa]

The thinking of tankies as well as Putinistas, bothsiderists, and Tucker Carlson fans is illustrated in that meme.

Those are the sort of people who would have sought "compromise" with Hitler.

Speaking of Schicklgruber, France and Britain attempted to compromise with Germany in 1938. The result was the infamous Munich Agreement of September 30th when Czechoslovakia was forced to give up the Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany.

Hitler observed his side of the agreement for just 166 days; on 15 March 1939 German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia without warning. And 11 months and 1 day after Munich, Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began.

You can never sate an imperialist dictator's appetite for more land and power. Defeat of some sort is the only way to stop Putin once and for all.

[tomorrowusa]

Britain has been developing a laser air defense system called DragonFire. Originally it hadn't been scheduled for deployment until 2027 but the war in Ukraine may offer the UK an opportunity to test its capabilities by seeing how well DragonFire takes out Russian drones fired at Ukraine.

The DragonFire weapon, which is expected to be in service by 2027 at the latest, can hit a target the size of a £1 coin from a kilometre away. Reforms aimed at speeding up procurement mean that DragonFire will now be operational five years earlier than planned. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps travelled down to the Porton Down military research base in Salisbury in an attempt to speed development up even further "in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it". "I've come down to speed up the production of the DragonFire laser system because I think given that there's two big conflicts on, one sea-based, one in Europe, this could have huge ramifications to have a weapon capable particularly of taking down drones," Mr Shapps told journalists. "And so what I want to do is speed up what would usually be a very lengthy development procurement process, possibly up to ten years, based on my conversations this morning, to a much shorter timeframe to get it deployed, potentially on ships, incoming drones, and potentially on land. "Again, incoming drones, but it doesn't take much imagination see how that could be helpful in Ukraine for example." Laser-directed energy weapons can strike at the speed of light, using an intense light beam to cut through their target. They are a lower-cost alternative to using missiles to strike down drones, costing only about £10 per shot.

You can't argue with cheap, fast, and accurate. Ukrainians are quick learners, highly motivated, and amazing innovators. DragonFire and Ukraine would be a great match.

The new procurement model, which comes into effect this week, is aimed at speeding up the process of getting cutting-edge developments in military capability like DragonFire out on to the field. "It's designed to not wait until we have this at 99.9% perfection before it goes into the field, but get it to sort of 70% and then get it out there and then... develop it from there," Mr Shapps said. Asked whether the system might be ready earlier than 2027, he said: "Because I'm here, I've taken the opportunity to arrange additional conversations with colleagues about whether we could speed it up even faster, very much using the integrated procurement model of saying there's a war on - let's say that it didn't have to be 100% perfect in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it, can we do any better - but 2027 is still the date as of this moment. "But of course I'll look to see what we can do to speed up."

Ukraine may be the equivalent of a beta tester for DragonFire. Experience in Ukraine would be used for improvements to the weapons system.

So far, laser defense systems are being developed particularly in connection with naval uses. Here's a vid from late 2021 which outlines the potential uses for and challenges to use of such systems.

It makes me grin to recall that the High Valyrian word for DragonFire is Dracarys.

[tomorrowusa]

Hitler observed the Munich agreement for less than 24 weeks. And the invasion of Poland began just over 11 months after Munich. Appeasement is not the road to peace.

Ethnonationalist dictators are not interested in the rule of law – including international law. That's usually how they got to be dictators in the first place.

Putin violated a host of international agreements and treaties when he invaded Ukraine. That includes the United Nations Charter, the 1975 Helsinki agreement, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. And all through this war, Putin has been violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which went into effect in 1951.

Anybody who believes that Putin would adhere to any future agreements on Ukraine has to score in the top 1% of the population for gullibility.

[tomorrowusa]

Two years ago on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainians that he and other high ranking officials would remain in Kyiv and defend the country against Putin's illegal invasion.

The video above, made less than 48 hours after the start of the invasion, was intentionally filmed outside recognizable buildings in Kyiv. At the time, Russian assassination squads were out looking for Zelenskyy. Invading Russian troops committing war crimes got within 22 km of the government district.

This video was one of the most audacious uses of the internet to date. If top government officials were willing to stand and fight, Ukrainians felt more confident they could do the same. 730 days after the start of Putin's planned three-day "special operation", Ukraine still stands.

Here's the Ukrainian text of that vid:

Zelenskyy: «Всім добрий вечір. Лідер фракції тут, голова Офісу президента тут, прем’єр-міністр Шмигаль тут, Подоляк тут, президент тут. Всі ми тут. Наші військові тут. Громадяни, суспільство тут. Всі ми тут. Захищаємо нашу незалежність, нашу державу. І так буде й далі. Слава нашим захисникам! Слава нашим захисницям! Слава Україні» Others: «Героям слава!»

[tomorrowusa]

Executing your own troops must do wonders for morale. No wonder Russia is losing.

Those comparisons of Putin to Stalin and Hitler are not really hyperbole.

“We have information that the Russian military has been actually executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing in Washington on Thursday. “We also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire,” he added. “It’s reprehensible to think … that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn’t want to follow orders,” Kirby said. “And now threatening to execute entire units. It’s barbaric.” [ ... ]

Kirby said Moscow appears to have resumed the “human wave tactics” of throwing hundreds of poorly trained soldiers at the Ukrainian lines, which the Kremlin first used in the winter offensive last year. “Russia’s renewed offensive is a sobering reminder that President Putin has not given up his aspirations to take all of Ukraine. As long as Russia continues its brutal assault, we have to support Ukraine,” Kirby said.

If Russian troops know that Putin's Mafia-style enforcers are probably going to shoot them, they have plenty of incentive to shoot the pro-régime henchmen first. 💡

It's Day 614 of Putin's 3-day "special operation" in Ukraine. It's getting increasingly difficult for Russia's dictator to find people who will voluntarily fight for his cherished goal of restoring the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name. Just yesterday you may have seen a post here about how kids in Russia are being militarized.

The best advice we can give to Russian males of military age is GET OUT.

Neighboring Mongolia and Kazakhstan are supposed to be beautiful in the autumn. It's the perfect time for a vacation.

Putin has ruined Russia for at least a generation; it's gradually turning into a large version of North Korea. Even if the war ends tomorrow there is little future for anybody in Russia – except maybe in Putin's secret police.

Leaving Russia may be difficult but staying there could become catastrophic.

[tomorrowusa]

Sadly, it's no joke. Commentators on Russia's state-run TV really are delighted with Republicans.

This is from journalist Julia Davis's Russia Media Monitor. Ms. Davis watches and translates Russian media so that we don't have to.

Ronald Reagan would be sad that his party has become the biggest cheerleader of the Evil Empire in the US.

Republicans hate freedom and they see a friend in Putin.

Republicans helping Russia by denying Ukraine aid, Biden says

One thing Putin's TV marionettes aren't reporting is the price that Russia is paying so that he can think of himself as the 21st century Peter the Great.

Russia has lost 87% of troops it had prior to start of Ukraine war, according to US intelligence assessment

If you don't have a VPN or even an old shortwave radio in Russia than all the news you get is from Putin's lickspittles on state TV and internet.

The bottom line is that Putin's four day (or was it three day?) "special operation" is now in Day 659. Russia has lost more troops in Ukraine than in all its wars from 1946 to 2021. Snowflake Republicans want to betray Ukraine and throw Putin a lifeline when we should be throwing him a large anchor.

[tomorrowusa]

« Today's Republican Party has embraced American weakness. »

— Former Rep. David Jolly of Florida, who has quit the GOP, commenting on Republican office holders obsequiously groveling to Donald Trump and not calling out his pro-Putin and anti-NATO diatribes. At MSNBC (see video below).

Make it stick to them like gum on a sidewalk...

"Republicans are the party of American weakness."

The hidden slogan of MAGA is AMERICA WORST.

[tomorrowusa]

What Putin is doing in Ukraine is not just reckless, not just a war of choice, not just an invasion in a class of its own for overreach, mendacity, immorality and incompetence, all wrapped in a farrago of lies. What he is doing is evil. He has trumped up any number of shifting justifications — one day it was removing a Nazi regime in power in Kyiv, the next it was preventing NATO expansion, the next it was fending off a Western cultural invasion of Russia — for what ultimately was a personal flight of fancy that now requires his superpower army turning to North Korea for help. It’s like the biggest bank in town having to ask the local pawnshop for a loan. So much for Putin’s bare-chested virility.

[ ... ]

Putin lately has stopped even bothering to justify the war — maybe because even he is too embarrassed to utter aloud the nihilism that his actions scream: If I can’t have Ukraine, I’ll make sure Ukrainians can’t have it, either.

[ … ]

This is as obvious a case of right versus wrong, good versus evil, as you find in international relations since World War II.

[ … ]

Ukraine needs to inflict as much damage on Putin’s army as fast as possible. That means we need to massively and rapidly deliver the weaponry Ukraine needs to break Putin’s lines in the country’s southeast. I’m talking the kitchen sink: F-16s; mine-clearing equipment; more Patriot antimissile systems; MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, which could strike deep behind Russian lines — whatever the Ukrainians can use effectively and fast.

— New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, just back from a visit to Kyiv. (archived)

If you're in the US, contact your representative in the House and urge him/her to support the proposed $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Representatives | house.gov

If you have the misfortune to be represented by a dumb-ass MAGA zombie like Matt Gaetz and they say no, write back and ask: "Why do you hate freedom?"

Wars don't end just because people in third countries get bored with them.

[tomorrowusa]

It's not exactly news that Republicans are regurgitating Russian propaganda. The leader of the GOP is himself a Russian asset.

The new twist is that at least a few Republicans are starting to bring this up in public.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even "being uttered on the House floor." "We see directly coming from Russia ... communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor," Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not," he added.

Yes, Republicans are spreading Russian propaganda on the floor of the House. And Rep. Turner is not the only one who has called this out.

His comments come on the heels of remarks House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul made this week about how Russian propaganda has taken root among the GOP. McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks "Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base." Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. "[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is," Turner told CNN, adding, "President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such." McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries. "I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest," he said. "By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it."

It's all good of Michael McCaul and Mike Turner to call this out. But what are they doing to get badly needed aid to Ukraine? They need to show that they are more than just do-nothing passive observers.

Last week, Rep. Don Bacon said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that he had commitments from Johnson and McCaul that they would allow a bipartisan Ukraine military aid package to advance to a vote. Rep. French Hill echoed this point on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, saying he believes Johnson will bring Ukraine aid to the floor "immediately after completing the work on [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] and FISA's extension — that deadline of April 19 makes it a priority for the first few days we're back." "I believe he's fully committed to bringing it up to the floor immediately thereafter," Hill added. But Bacon, R-Neb., also warned that Johnson could face a vote to oust him from the speakership if he moves forward with Ukraine aid.

With a tiny majority and Marjorie Taylor Greene nipping at his heels, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson is in a weak position. House members not wanting to make the US a vassal state of Vladimir Putin need to take advantage of this weakness.

If you live in the districts of these representatives, contact them and urge them to back uo their words with some action on aid for Ukraine.

Mike Turner (OH-10) Michael McCaul (TX-10) French Hill (AR-02) Don Bacon (NE-02)

[tomorrowusa]

Thursday was Independence Day in Ukraine. On 24 August 1991 Ukraine wisely severed its ties with the decaying Soviet Union.

This year the day was marked by Ukraine's first amphibious raid on occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian forces marked the country’s independence day with a naval raid into occupied Crimea, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukrainians for the defiance and courage that has won them global support in the fight with Russia. The national holiday celebrates Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, but this year it also marks 18 months since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion plunged the country into a war for survival.

Yes, it's exactly 18 months since Putin's unprovoked and illegal invasion began. The three-day "special operation" has now gone on for 1.5 years.

Ukrainian troops landed on the western tip of Crimea, near the village of Olenivka, in the early hours of Thursday, defence intelligence said in a statement. They fought Russian troops and raised a Ukrainian flag, before all returned safely home. It was the first time Ukrainian forces are known to have landed in Crimea since Putin ordered his forces over the border last year. They had to evade Russian defences on a long journey across the Black Sea, and then escape again after a skirmish.

Crimea was occupied (illegally, of course) by Russia in 2014.

With a counteroffensive against Russian troops occupying southern and eastern Ukraine only creeping forward, Kyiv appears to be looking for other ways to put pressure on Putin and his military. This week drones destroyed a supersonic bomber jet at an airbase deep inside Russia and twice stopped flights in and out of Moscow, though Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for these operations. A Russian helicopter also recently landed in Ukraine, after the pilot was lured to defect.

Here's President Zelenskyy's Independence Day address. He delivered it outside in Kyiv. That's in contrast to Putin who spends most of his time cowering in one of his luxury bunkers.

EDIT: Here's the location of the amphibious raid. This was not just a jaunt across a creek.

[tomorrowusa]

Another day, another Russian war crime. This time Putin killed a two-month old baby and injured his mother.

The baby's body was pulled out of the rubble of the three-storey building in the village of Zolochiv, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Two other women were hurt when Russia fired two S-300 missiles, he said, hitting the hotel and nearby buildings. Attacks on the Kharkiv region have intensified since the end of 2023. Zolochiv is only 20km (12 miles) from the Russian border and too close for Ukraine's air defences to offer sufficient cover. The S-300s that hit the hotel in the early hours of Tuesday were originally produced as surface-to-air missiles for Russia's air defences, but they have been adapted to hit Ukrainian targets on the ground. They are seen as cheaper than more accurate cruise missiles.

So Russia is running low on cruise missiles and is forced to substitute S-300s which were originally meant to his targets in the air.

Putin may be low on cruise missiles but one of his top US cheerleaders is in Moscow to pay homage to him.

Tucker Carlson reminds me of those US pro-Hitler commentators who would use their radio shows in the 1930s to extol the virtues of fascism.

Tucker is supposed to interview Putin but he isn't waiting for the interview to spread lies about the US news media. CNN's Abby Phillip does an effortless debunking of Tucker Carlson's Kremlin bullshit and then speaks with Russia specialist Julia Ioffe.

There's an entire ecosystem of far right mendacity which includes Putin, sex offender Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson, and various Congressional toadies like Marjorie Traitor Greene. They are united in their hatred of democracy and will tell any lie to damage it.

[tomorrowusa]

Russia makes money primarily off of fossil fuels. It does have decent agricultural exports but those alone could not pay for Putin's war machine. So disrupting Russia's oil and gas industry is a way of reducing the country's revenue which allows it to conduct an illegal war of aggression.

Hostile drones have been winding their way across the Russian landscape this winter, striking refineries and related oil and gas infrastructure all the way from the Baltic Sea in the northwest to the Black Sea in the southwest. Drones attacked both the Ilsky and Afipsky refineries in Russia's Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, on Feb. 9, less than a week after another refinery in Volgograd, the largest in southern Russia, was hit. Further attacks have struck other refineries and oil depots near the Ukrainian border, as well as much deeper into Russian territory. Though Ukraine does not typically confirm its actions outside its borders and Russia has not officially acknowledged drones were the cause of these incidents, media reports have identified Kyiv's hand in the attacks occurring with regularity as Moscow's invasion of Ukraine nears the two-year mark. Analysts say the drone attacks are demonstrating that oil and gas targets of economic significance are not out of reach, even far from the front lines of the war. 

The late Sen. John McCain nailed it.

Late U.S. Senator John McCain once derisively described Russia as being "a gas station masquerading as a country" — a jibe underlining the critical importance of oil and gas products to Moscow. Indeed, Russia draws heavily on its resource reserves to support the state. The International Energy Agency says Russia's oil and gas export revenues accounted for 45 per cent of its federal budget in 2021.

Of course a lot of that fossil fuel money gets siphoned off by corrupt oligarchs who use it to purchase superyachts and expensive real estate in Western countries.

A January attack on a Novatek facility in Ust-Luga halted gas processing operations there for several weeks. The plant processes gas condensate into various fuel products that are exported to customers in Turkey and Asia, according to Reuters. Sergey Vakulenko, a former strategy executive at Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary of the larger Russian energy firm, believes the Ust-Luga episode may illustrate a bigger problem for Russia than a temporary disruption to production at a single facility. In a recent analysis published online, Vakulenko reasoned that if small drones can get all the way to Ust-Luga, which is hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border, there are some 18 Russian refineries at risk of being targeted, and they account for more than half the country's refinery production. He's not the only analyst noticing this concern for Russia's refineries.

And because hundreds of thousands of competent Russians have (wisely) fled the country and others are being used as cannon fodder for Putin's war, it takes longer to repair facilities damaged by Ukraine.

And the fossil fuel industry mostly has to fend for itself.

Maxim Starchak, an independent expert on the Russian defence and nuclear industry, says regulations have been put in place to restrict drones from flying close to "the most significant fuel and energy sector facilities" and operators are using electronic warfare systems to defend against drone threats. But Starchak said Russian energy firms must foot the bill for expenses related to defence of their facilities. "Moscow will not specifically help," he said, noting Russian authorities may hold firms accountable for not putting measures in place to protect their facilities.

So that burden cuts down on revenue as it adds to the cost of doing business.

One thing Ukraine has been innovative at is drone technology. It's become one of the world's leaders at that.

As Ukraine continues to fight to repel Russian forces from its lands, its military leaders have signalled drones and related technology will be needed to win the war that seems to have no end in sight.

And Western countries find it easier to provide additional drones to Ukraine than to send tanks and cruise missiles.

So Russian convict troops can luxuriate in the ruins of Avdiivka while their oil refineries back home get blown up by Ukraine.

EDIT: Speaking of fuel, just saw this at NPR.

Putin's regime is 'running out of fuel,' a Russian opposition activist tells NPR