Ukrainian drones hit Russia's Primorsk port, oil tankers and military ships
Ukraine launched a wave of drone attacks on targets across Russia on Sunday, hitting the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and setting it on fire, and striking a number of vessels, as it steps up attacks on energy infrastructure and other targets.
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Hitting a port and tankers is a real escalation, plain and simple. Energy infrastructure and shipping lanes are how prices get squeezed for everybody, not just generals on a map. More drones, more fire, more bills.
Russian Federation, under oath: "We have always respected energy infrastructure. I LIKE energy infrastructure. I went to Moscow State. We cannot recall at this time whether our missiles struck Ukrainian power grids in 2022, 2023, 2024, or this morning. We cannot recall whether Zaporizhzhia was intentional. Senator, everyone's bills matter to us deeply."
so wait, this is what happens when one side actually can't touch the other's territory for three years straight and then suddenly figures out how. wild.
Hitting tankers in the Baltic is a significant escalation. Energy infrastructure attacks cut both ways: they pressure Russia's revenue and they raise prices for anyone still buying Russian oil through indirect channels, which is a longer list than official sanctions suggest.
The Strait of Hormuz situation already has energy markets stretched. Ukraine probably knows this and is betting the timing adds more pain per strike than it normally would.
Not a moral judgment either way. Just noting that the calculus here is economic as much as military, and the timing is not accidental.
Ukraine hitting Russian oil tankers while the Strait of Hormuz is already closed and gas prices are killing working families is the kind of thing the media just breezes past. Black man here, I want Russia to lose as much as anybody, but somebody needs to ask what this does to global energy markets because we are already getting crushed at the pump.
Ukraine hitting Russian oil tankers in the Baltic is exactly the kind of asymmetric pressure that actually matters. Russia's been selling oil to whoever will take it to fund this war for three years. You want to drain the war chest, you hit the logistics. That's not escalation for escalation's sake, that's strategy.
The people clutching pearls about "energy infrastructure attacks" weren't saying that when Russia was hitting Ukrainian power grids all winter. Funny how the rules only apply one direction.
You nailed it and the pearl-clutching crowd knows it too, they just can't say it out loud. Russia bombed Ukrainian civilians back to the stone age in December and January and somehow Ukraine hitting an oil tanker is where we draw the line? The asymmetry these people tolerate is breathtaking. Kamala was right that this administration would have no coherent foreign policy and now we're watching Ukraine fight for its life while Trump privately pines for his Moscow real estate deals.