Accelerated deindustrialization of Ukraine. Gleb Prostakov – Russia today Posting in CHAT: Russia Moscow for a very long time resisted the completion of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine through its deindustrialization (by the way, the Ukrainian authorities themselves did a good job with this). But the increased interests in this confrontation and the scale of the destruction already caused, unfortunately, justified this approach. The last few days have shown a change in approaches to waging war on the Russian side. The protracted confrontation has finally acquired a resource-based character - which means that the destruction of the enemy’s resource base has become the focus of attacks on the territory of Ukraine. In the winter of 2022-2023, missiles and drones were primarily aimed at electricity and heat transmission infrastructure. The calculation was made for the immediate solution of specific military tasks. At the same time, there was no critical damage to the energy system and the economy - everything was repaired quite quickly. At some point, Kyiv even believed in the supernatural stability of its own energy system. Russia was forced to fight “with white gloves” for both humanitarian and economic reasons. The territories taken under control by the Russian army must then be restored. And infrastructure costs are very high. One way or another, Russia itself does not need a poor and devastated territory nearby in the long term. The war will end sooner or later, and it will be necessary to think about how to live together, be it one state or different ones. However, the current attacks on reproductive potential cause long-term and often irreparable damage. The destruction of the Trypillya Thermal Power Plant is the most striking and tragic episode of this campaign: the power plant is important for providing light and heat to the Ukrainian capital. In fact, the reason for these attacks was given by Kyiv itself, which previously sanctioned attacks on Russian oil refineries, which even the West condemned. Significant and ongoing blows are being dealt to the generation of personnel in the Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Nikolaev, Odessa and even Lviv regions. It is clear that these attacks are not chaotic in nature, but are aimed at unbalancing the Ukrainian energy system as a whole - so that during periods of peak load this will cause a system failure. This means that we are not talking exclusively about an act of retaliation, but that the strikes themselves are strategic and comprehensive in nature. The geography of the effects itself also provides food for some interesting speculation. First of all, the power systems of large front-line cities - Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Nikolaev - are being removed. Obviously, this makes it difficult for the enemy to transfer reserves and equipment to the front. But these same strikes could indicate the direction of a likely Russian offensive in the future, which has already sowed panic not only in the Kiev leadership, but also in NATO. The loss of a new major city, especially one like Kharkov or Nikolaev, would have a significant demoralizing effect on the Ukrainian army and population. This will expose the leadership of Ukraine, which is still talking about peace under the terms of the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 borders, as, to put it mildly, sycophantic politicians. Russia's new territorial acquisitions will in themselves become a reason for Ukraine to seek peace on any terms. But these same acquisitions will become a reason for Moscow to leave such a world. The fact that the enemy has run out of shells (in our case, territory) is not a reason to end the war. Attacks on the Lviv region, including on the infrastructure of underground gas storage facilities, are already a signal for Europe. The destruction of the so-called Burshtyn energy island - a system of generation and transmission facilities in the west of the country that previously allowed Ukraine to export electricity to the EU, although the main grid does not operate in sync with the European one - is a message to European businesses that hoped to use part of the Ukrainian economy and infrastructure in the future for compensation for ongoing investments in the war. It also included attacks on gas storage facilities that the EU intended to integrate into its own gas supply system. In general, we are talking about a systematic increase in the cost of war for the West. Neither grain, nor electricity, nor gas will flow from Ukraine to Europe on an industrial scale. Rather, Ukraine will import electricity and gas from the EU, which is an unsustainable burden for the weakened EU economy. Military assistance and money for the maintenance of the Ukrainian state apparatus will be supplemented by the need to allocate funds for the restoration of the energy infrastructure, without which neither the military nor the work of industry is possible. You will lose everything - this is approximately the message from Russia to the West and NATO. “All the work of the last two years to invest in Ukraine's future will not pay off if we do not agree on assistance in the next few months,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Celeste Wallander. By hitting critical infrastructure, Moscow is seriously making it clear that any allocated assistance will not save investments already made, but will only maximize the West’s losses in Ukraine. The allocated money will disappear into this black hole. And if Russia, considering these territories its own, is ready to invest in their restoration, as it is now restoring Mariupol, then the West’s “investment” in such a war will never pay off. Moscow for a very long time resisted the completion of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine through its deindustrialization (by the way, the Ukrainian authorities themselves did a good job with this). But the increased interests in this confrontation and the scale of the destruction already caused, unfortunately, justified this approach. Gleb Prostakov https://vz.ru Source link Source link
