One of the tankers has already suffered real damage in spite of its icebreaker escort.
The incident resulted in an insurance payout of 53 million rubles, roughly $650,000, according to Russian insurer AlfaStrakhovanie, which did not disclose the name of the vessel.... The insurer said the tanker sustained hull deformation while navigating through ice and stressed that icebreaker assistance does not eliminate the physical risks associated with Arctic navigation.“Even with icebreaker assistance, navigation in Arctic waters is associated with increased hull stress and the risk of damage,” AlfaStrakhovanie said in a company statement (in Russian).... AlfaStrakhovanie said its specialists investigated the incident, assessed the damage and calculated the insurance compensation before paying the shipowner the full amount.... an icebreaker can open a navigable channel but does not eliminate the stresses imposed on vessels following behind.
Another of the vessels, the sanctioned Suezmax tanker Latur, is attempting the passage without insurance -- or an icebreaker escort.
Russia is also forced to import refined fuel, The Moscow Times reports. They are buying mass amounts of gasoline that have to be ground-shipped from Kazakhstan and Belarus (thus avoiding the strong successes of Ukrainian naval efforts at sea interdiction, all the more impressive given that Ukraine has no navy), as well as an even larger amount being sea-shipped from India. The reason, India Today explains to its confused readership who wonder why the Russians are buying up their gasoline, is that Ukraine has crippled Russia's refineries.
An additional effect has been that Russia has banned diesel exports to keep its own internal fleets running. Thus, exports are way down and increasingly perilous; imports are way up; and whole sectors of their energy income are closed.
* Lit. "the circle where the bears are," árktos being 'bear' in Greek; note "Ursus arctos," which they translate as "brown bear," is actually the Latin for bear followed by the Greek for bear, thus, "bear bear."
The chunks of ice left in the ice breaker's wake are still quite large, and diffusion "forces" apply to big objects as much as they do to atoms. Ships not stressed for ice chunk impact would need to be close behind, indeed, the ice breaker in order to mitigate (not eliminate) the risk.
ReplyDeleteThe pipelines and railroads carrying Belarussan oil and natural gas are within easy range of Ukraine's drones. Those coming out of Kazakhstan are within longer range as the repeated strikes on Omsk, just above eastern Kazakhstan, demonstrate.
What Ukraine might think about is putting together thousand-drone raids per target, or perhaps with today's weapons and accuracies, hundred-drone raids and completely destroy the target, not just do reparable damage. Such raids would have the added side effect of flexing Ukraine's war materiel productivity compared with the barbarian's.
Eric Hines
Sounds like a pipeline is the preferred choice.
ReplyDeleteSabotage, in this case, comes from Mother Nature.
I am reminded of the Commie trope, which I believe began in the 1930s, of "sabotage" being blamed for poor production which was actually a consequence of Commie economic policies.
Gringo