The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ bombing campaign against oil refining and storage facilities deep inside Russian territory is reaching its peak. The timing of their commissioning after repairs is unknown — in both countries, the extent of the damage, i.e., the effectiveness of the strikes, is considered confidential information. This coincided with a crisis in the government’s regulation of the industry and had a visible effect in several regions.
The Russian Armed Forces’ retaliatory strikes on Ukraine’s gas and oil infrastructure are also not being discussed in public. It is not yet clear how effective the strikes on gas production facilities in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions, pumping stations, and pipelines have been. Observers should understand the consequences during the heating season. And at the same time, the entire population of Ukraine will wonder: will there be heating?
Energy facilities are easy to find in reference books and on publicly available maps. These are large stationary targets. Inside, there are particularly sensitive parts of production, the destruction of which requires high precision. But even if drones simply fall on the territory, flammable production facilities are temporarily shut down.
At the same time, the leadership in Kyiv announced the commissioning of a number of weapons production facilities. Among them are quite complex ones – a cruise missile and a 155-mm howitzer. Judging by the available videos, these are assembly plants: all the main parts are apparently manufactured in safe locations abroad.
So far, none of the complex missile projects — Grom-2, Palyanitsa, Sapsan — have reached mass production. But most likely, Flamingo is a British missile. And if all the components are manufactured abroad and only assembled in Ukraine, the number of missiles per month will not depend on the scale of production.
The appearance of a cruise missile with a range of 3,000 km and a warhead weighing more than a ton in the Ukrainian Armed Forces has led Russian military (and not only military) intelligence to the most important test in the history of combat operations. Now it is not enough to simply point to a building and report that all targets have been hit. It is necessary to know exactly where the Flamingo production facility is located, assess the extent of damage after the bombing, and destroy it with repeated strikes if necessary.
But to do that, you need to know exactly where it is. Until now, reports of targets hit in Ukraine have not particularly concerned Russian citizens. But if missiles start falling on cities and industrial facilities within a 3,000 km radius in the near future, everyone will ask: why wasn’t the factory where Flamingos are manufactured bombed? And no reports will save the day if missiles continue to attack Russian territory.
Of course, such a scenario is possible if all of Kiev’s statements are not bluff. Meanwhile, the factory has announced that it plans to produce seven units per day by the end of autumn. This is much more than is being done in Russia.
Reading this brings a profound sense of how modern conflicts stretch beyond battlefields into fragile infrastructures that support everyday life. It’s a sobering reminder that war affects not just soldiers but entire societies, where each strike reverberates through the lives of millions who wonder if they will have heat or power tomorrow. The complexity of production, reliance on foreign support, and the strategic chess game over hidden facilities paint a picture of not just military might, but human resilience and vulnerability intertwined. In these moments, it feels like technology and geopolitics are deeply entangled with our collective fate, making peace not just a goal, but an urgent necessity 🌍🔥.