Atheist Forum

After I posted, my boss called me and asked me to come in early tomorrow. ><

Hydra009 wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2026 12:51 am After I posted, my boss called me and asked me to come in early tomorrow. ><

I have a different boss who talks exactly like that with the same tone and everything. I hate it. (Yes, multiple bosses. Art imitates life)

Hydra009 wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2026 11:39 pm Russia's fuel crisis worsens. There are lots of videos of people waiting in line for 12+ hours, sometimes over a day.

Oh look. Putin's brought back the glory days of the Soviet Union.

Cassia wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2026 1:53 am

I actually did get called in early tomorrow. :'(

Ukrainian drones fly near Omsk refinery (largest refinery in Russia, one of the very few undamaged by Ukraine. If Russia were to lose this, it'd greatly exacerbate the current fuel crisis)

No joy. But Ukraine has proven that it can reach this refinery. And if at first you don't succeed...

The bridge destruction is *chef's kiss*. No holes. Nothing that can be patched or repaired. Just a complete collapse. It doesn't need to be repaired to work again, it needs to be rebuilt.

Russia struck Ukraine and this was expected. Russia had been striking less than usual for several days, accumulating drones and missiles to use all at once.

Meanwhile, Ukraine launches major drone strikes every night, hitting important strategic sites like war factories or refineries or aircraft (funny story, immediately after Operation Spiderweb, Russians on telegram demanded shelters for their aircraft. Wish granted. And Ukraine bagged one anyway)

Russia is causing terror and sadly, civilian deaths in Ukraine. What it isn't doing is changing the course of the war, which is what Ukraine is doing.

Gasoline prices are soaring in Russia (soaring like the roof of that oil storage in Moscow)

It depends on the region, but the hardest-squeezed areas like Russian-occupied Crimea, gasoline cost has increased by 30%, up to the equivalent of $9/gallon. (Wages in Russia are considerably less than the US, so that price jump is no joke) I've seen a photo on telegram where it's up to $12/gallon. In an oil-producing country, no less. This isn't a new development, gas prices also spiked last year. What is a new development is to be able to hit these targets so accuracy and so regularly that Russia has no chance to recover and no choice but to import gas.

The few Russians who aren't very adversely-affected by this are electric car owners, and sales are up.

I've gotta take a sip from a very tall glass of I-told-you-so on this topic, because for years, I've been saying how awful it is that almost every country is dependent on oilrich countries for power. All it takes is one crisis to take down a whole country's economy and crises are aplenty this decade. It's not just dirty, it's a liability. Ramping up renewable energy makes countries less dependent on oilrich countries, it's less polluting, costs less in the long term, and it's less centralized, which is great in case the grid is directly attacked in war. Or, just a hypothetical, some invading army takes over a nuclear power plant and threatens a meltdown.

When the war is finally over, Ukraine (and Russia as well, if they can afford it) are going to take a long, hard look at how they generate and consume power and are going to have to do things differently from now on. We're talking less reliance on cars and gasoline. More renewables. A more decentralized grid. We've already seen the new way of waging war. In a decade from now, we're also going to see the new way of powering a country. I don't expect cold fusion or anything, but I do expect to see some innovative ways to keep the lights on even in the most dire circumstances and ways to take people to and from their houses to the city center using less gas.

We would be much further along on alternative energy here if we didn't have 8 years of Mr. shit-for-brains.

Ukraine strikes Russian refinery, one of the main suppliers of fuel to Moscow

Ukraine has disabled the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region, one of the main suppliers of fuel to Moscow

Apparently, the drones just followed the biggest signs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ukraine also hit 12 electrical substations and one gas substation in occupied territory over the past 2 days

No problem, they can just run backup generators with...oh.

Ukraine's casualty ratio with Russia widens

Now it's about 8 Russian casualties for every Ukrainian casualty. Earlier, it was more like 2:1 or maybe 3:1. What changed?
Extensive use of drones and the creation of "kill zones" where large swathes of the frontline are essentially swarms of drones just waiting for targets. So most Russian casualties occur before they ever see their enemy in person (if you've seen the Dunkirk movie, it's a bit like that) and getting wounded in a kill zone...well, let's just say that it's out-of-network.

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians also have to deal with the same tactics when they go on the offensive to try to liberate territory. Russian drone forces aren't as skilled or as well-equipped, but they're still difficult to deal with. This is a big part of the reason Ukraine is conducting its "middle strike" campaign to deprive these units of supplies, reducing their effectiveness.

Speaking of deprivation, a Russian driver complains of a 35km queue for fuel. As someone who hates lines, that sounds like absolute torture. I'd rather sleep at work than commute and have to deal with that.

Some of these lines are getting so large that they're starting to be visible from space. And a lot of these are delivery trucks. So not only is it a fuel crisis, it's a transport crisis as well. I can't imagine most businesses doing well after missing a few deliveries.

But Russia is starting to try to deal with this crisis. They've authorized using a lower-quality gasoline, which doesn't exactly stop Ukrainian drones from hitting Russian refineries or fuel trucks, but it might damage the engines of Russian vehicles, so there's that. I suppose the logic is that Russians will no longer complain about a lack of fuel if they no longer have a working vehicle.

Russia will also be importing fuel from Kazakhstan. There's just two wrinkles - 1) Kazakhstan doesn't produce lots of fuel so we're looking at 50,000 tons of fuel, which significant but much less than what Russia would need to end this crisis. 2) Kazakhstan wants jet fuel, which Russia is using heavily right now. Afaik, Russia doesn't have much to spare.

And countries that import fuel from Russia are facing shortages of their own - especially Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. So asian countries that Russia would import fuel from already have other urgent requests for fuel from these countries. Only so much to go around.

Meanwhile, Georgia's only refinery will no longer process Russian crude. That's not good news for Russia, either.