this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Ukraine struck Russia's largest oil refinery, located in the city of Omsk, on Monday, marking what its forces say was its furthest-ever drone attack in the war.

The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil a year, is in Western Siberia and about 1,700 miles from Ukrainian territory — roughly the distance between Los Angeles and Houston.

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[–] ghostnotes@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

Oh, It turns out that what some friends in Russia reported was true. They said they had to queue for about two hours just to buy fuel.

[–] anarchy79@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

NICE SHOT BROS!!!

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 112 points 2 days ago (4 children)

And the greatest and second largest army of the world, didn't even notice a few foreign drones traveling 1700 miles across their land! I wonder who's gonna fall out of a window for this.

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 80 points 2 days ago

Ukraine has been systematically destroying all air defense and radars. What remains is now around Moscow and Putin's home. Even if detected, stopping the drones without defense is hard.

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[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Personally, I say California should be controlled by Australia.

[–] boywar3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Well, they both might benefit from eachother's expertise in fighting wildfires...

[–] tacoplease@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Australia is a bad choice cause they've been low-key screwing up their country quite badly.

[–] anarchy79@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Their economy and social policies are great under Labor, it's only when the grift fascists are in power that all the money goes to oligarchs.

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[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 45 points 2 days ago (10 children)

We need some research into how effective drone strikes against refineries are to stop climate change. Are they a net gain in carbon emissions, considering the cost of manufacture and the prevented emissions?

[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 30 points 2 days ago (12 children)

You need to cut demand. If the price goes up, refineries are just build elsewhere.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You need to cut demand. If the price goes up

Prices going up does help cut demand.

Back in the '70s when oil prices spiked, people started buying more fuel efficient cars, and drove less.

Today, after the Hormuz related price increases, demand for EVs has abruptly increased.

If the price of oil continues to increase, that trend will also continue.

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[–] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Im a little out of the loop, why are they suddenly able to do this now? What changed in their capabilities?

[–] nyan_kas@piefed.social 80 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Ukraine has developed very impressive drone technology in a very short time. It is expected that multiple nations will actually try to make deals to acquire Ukrainian drones at the current NATO summit because they are so good now. So Ukraine is no longer dependent on others to sell them drones. They‘re selling them now.

For example, these drones can use terrain as guidance, so GPS isn’t required for navigation. This also allows them to fly at a very low altitude, avoiding Russian air defense. They’re also very resistant to jamming and have advanced autonomous capabilities, so they can “finish the job” on their own if the link to their operator is severed. Also, they’re very cheap, so it’s possible to overwhelm Russian defenses by swarming them.

In summary, they‘ve developed incredible killing machines that are able to act autonomously, which is very good for them right now but probably not very good for humanity in the long run.

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (7 children)

In summary, they‘ve developed incredible killing machines that are able to act autonomously, which is very good for them right now but probably not very good for humanity in the long run.

It's possible that this becomes the new "mutually assured destruction" we had back in the 20th. Basically, a cold war brought on by drones instead of nukes. It could mean a near-future of peace, however uneasy. I can't say that living with the looming propagandized threat of the USSR was good, but I think it was a far sight better than being in an active shooting war with them.

[–] group_hug@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

I think that is a crazily optimistic take. Even if countries were to stop outright drone warfare and keep things to cyber attacks and economic warfare there would be nothing to stop them from using the tech to attack their own citizens.

US constitution has already proven to be worth about as much as Lloyd and Harry's I.O.Us.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The difference is nobody ever felt comfortable nuking their own civilians. I think chemical weapons are a better comparison. Autonomous drones will become illegal and unacceptable in warfare, but for riot control less lethal ones will be common and occasionally an authoritarian leader will use the military grade ones on minority groups or dissidents.

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[–] TRBoom@lemmy.zip 120 points 2 days ago (1 children)

From what I read a few days ago one of the conditions for US aid under biden was that Ukraine make no strikes on russian soil. When trump pulled all the aid to Ukraine it was a huge blow, but also took the leash off.

After that all they had in their way was developing the actual drones and techniques to make the strikes, as well as planning them.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 66 points 2 days ago

As far as I know, the condition was that US (nor NATO) weapons can't be used on attacks to Russian soil. That's one part why Ukraine has basically done a world record speedrun on native drone production. No one has (nor can) deny them from using their own weapons how they see fit.

Removing stupid limitations on how they can hit back has helped, but that was mostly for short(ish) range missiles.

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They basically reinvented the Nazi V1 with their Flamingo, and although only small % get through, it's devastatingly accurate against refineries.

Meanwhile, Russia uses the old Nazi strategy of launching very expensive rockets at apartments with civilians in cities, doing 0 strategic damage to Ukraine war capabilities, just like the Nazi V1 and later V2 was used and was relatively useless despite its high price.

Oh, and Ukraine can shoot at almost all Russia's refineries and weapons factories, but Russia can't do it back because Ukrainian can always import from refineries and factories in France, Germany, etc, beyond the NATO border...

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Why are all your call backs to nazis?

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Look at the v1. Then look at the flamingo. It's almost like they pulled an 80 year old drawing out of a drawer for their design! And the Russian tactic of causing panic and terror is exactly what Nazi's did with bombing London! I do it because it makes sense. This special military operation got so out of hand the world wars are almost the only historic wars worth comparing it too. Just hope he gets hanged by a mob like Mussolini or shoots himself in his bunker soon...

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[–] Phantaloons@piefed.zip 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Comparing fascist Russia with fascist Germany seems pretty par for the course.

"If the boot fits" ~ Woody the Cowboy

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[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 59 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

They've been specifically targeting Russian Air defenses for awhile now forcing them to spread what little they do have even more. Since NATO have been pussies about providing them long range precision munitions they've had to spend time to develop their own cruise missiles like the Neptune and Flamingo the latter of which has entered regular production and has a range of 3000km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-5_Flamingo

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I wonder if Ukraine got the idea from Iran?

I don’t mean that as an accusation, but… well, Iran basically has the world economy’s throat. And I know Ukraine’s drones just got the capability, but Iran had to be a fantastic reminder of how fragile an oil economy is.

[–] Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ukraine started their "long range sanctions" program years before Trump attacked Iran. It's getting more attention now because the years of consistent damage are starting to add up, but it's certainly not new. People who pay attention have always known the economic vulnerability of the oil market.

[–] amgine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

That and their drone production ramped up so much that they can “sanction” Russia far more often now

[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

They've been occasionally attacking oil infrastructure since the beginning of the war. Used to be their "allies" asked them to please tone that down a bit. I guess Ukrainians finally stopped giving a shit.

[–] amgine@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

NATO is all in on supporting Ukraine despite the Orange dickhead’s threats.

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Backing Trump and MAGA has really backfired for Russia.

[–] anarchy79@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Trump cut American aid. Russian win? Nope what Russia really wanted was for Trump to make Ukraine agree to a peace that included ceding territory to Russia. Trump could only do that by leveraging American aid. Which is gone now because Trump is stupid and easily angered.

And what Russia REALLY didn't want was for it's delicate rusting oil industry to be dismantled by a Ukraine who is no longer being held back by American aid conditions.

[–] Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

They saw how quickly nations fell to their knees when you disrupted the flow of oil.

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