Profits were expected to be halved from the 2022 1.2 tn Rubles, but instead they made a loss in 2023 of 629bn Rubles or £5.5bn.
I cannot imagine that having drones guided by US intelligence blowing up all your refineries and oil depots is good for business.
Most people don’t run a prospering cafe if someone throws an incendiary device into the walk-in freezer once or twice a week.
Quite sure Ukraine started doing this without US. They began doing it while the us was unable to give aid.
So I’m quite sure this is something us didn’t want Ukraine to do, but when there was no aid, Ukraine did what they wanted to do.
I’m just glad they did this, and they should continue 🚀
Material aid != Intelligence and coordination
For the last 6 months the US hasn’t been able to give weapons, but there’s nothing stopping us from lending satellite and human intelligence to the targeting effort, and giving strategic recommendations based on centuries of experience of being continuously at war. It would be weird if that all didn’t produce a positive impact on how effectively Ukraine can fight the strategic war.
In terms of fighting courage and tactical knowledge they’ve been doing it all on their own, yes, and I’m sure they’re better than the US at this point which is saying quite a bit. But I think on things like where to bomb the refineries, the US already has lots of footnoted maps and diagrams drawn up that saved some time and increased the impact.
(And the happy synergy of “Hey you know what would help this war effort? If you did a bunch of long term damage to Russia’s economy in ways they can’t sanction-dodge their way around” “Hey that’s a really good point” is a fun thing from the US’s perspective, I’m sure.)
