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Russian Refineries Install Nets as Protection From Drone Attacks

Russian Refineries Install Nets as Protection From Drone Attacks

Russian oil company Bashneft, part of state-controlled giant Rosneft, has installed metal mesh at its refineries to protect them from drone attacks from Ukraine, Russian media reported on Friday, quoting Radiy Khabirov, the head of the Bashkortostan region where Bashneft is based.

“We don’t stop there. There are a number of solutions there, which I won’t talk about yet. They are classified. But believe me, we worry about this very much,” the Bashinform agency quoted Khabirov as saying.

This year, Ukraine has intensified attacks on oil refineries in Russia, which have reduced Russian refining capacity, and which, reportedly, have the White House concerned about rising international prices.

The United States has repeatedly urged Ukraine to halt its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries due to Washington’s assessment that the strikes could lead to Russian retaliation and push up global oil prices, the Financial Times reported last month, citing sources familiar with the exchange.

The drone attacks from Ukraine on Russian refineries could disrupt fuel markets globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last week, estimating that up to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Russia’s refinery capacity could be offline in the second quarter.

Russia has brought back online some oil refining units in recent weeks, reducing the capacity taken offline by Ukrainian drone hits to around 10%, from 14% at the end of March, calculations by Reuters showed earlier this week.

The refining capacity in Russia that is currently offline due to drone attacks is now estimated by Reuters at around 660,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared to 907,000 bpd offline at the end of March.

Still, maintenance and other outages at Russia’s refineries will actually raise the refining capacity that will be offline this month compared to March, according to Reuters’s data and calculations.

Russia said in early April it could repair all damaged units within two months. Russia’s Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov has said that all damaged refineries in the country would be restarted by the beginning of June.

The Drones are Coming! The Drones are Coming! The Twilight of the Global Empire?

The Drones are Coming! The Drones are Coming! The Twilight of the Global Empire?

This clip looks like a videogame, but it is not (caution, disturbing images). You are seeing Azeri drones destroying Armenian military units during the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Is this the harbinger of the collapse of the Global Empire?

Many things have been happening in 2020 that will reverberate for many years in the future. While the West is busy with its “great reset,” a small war was fought in a region of the world that you probably had never heard about before: the Nagorno-Karabakh. There, the army of Azerbaijan soundly defeated the Armenian army.

What made this campaign peculiar is that it was the first time in history that a military confrontation was decided by drones. After that the Azeris (the people of Azerbaijan) had gained control of the sky, their drones could pick the Armenian military units one by one and destroy them at ease. There are video clips all over the Web showing vehicles and other installations being destroyed, and people being shredded to pieces and tossed around like ragdolls.

No surprise: the writing was on the rotor blades. Already in 2012, I had started thinking about the consequences of the development of military robots in a chapter that I wrote for Jorgen Randers’ “2052” book. I returned to the subject in 2019, noting how cheap drones would change the rules of war because they could be managed by small organizations, possibly by private military contractors.

We don’t know exactly who managed the drones used by the Azerbaijan forces, but we know that they were made in Turkey, not a major player in the world’s power game. Azerbaijan, then, could afford to deploy a number of drones sufficient to overwhelm the Armenian forces even though it is a small country with a GDP of just about 44 billion dollars per year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Reportedly Shoots Down “Foreign Drone” Over Southern Port City Of Mahshahr

Iran Reportedly Shoots Down “Foreign Drone” Over Southern Port City Of Mahshahr

Moments ago, local Iranian news outlets confirmed the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have shot down a drone from a “foreign country.” 

  • IRANIAN OFFICIAL CONFIRMS DOWNING OF A DRONE BY ARMY, SAYS IT BELONGS TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY – YOUNG JOURNALISTS CLUB
  • COMMANDER OF IRAN ARMY AIR DEFENSE SABAHIFARD SAYS THE DRONE WAS SHOT DOWN “BEFORE REACHING SENSITIVE SITES” OF THE COUNTRY – IRAN FRONT PAGE

The unidentified drone was downed near the port of Bandar-e-Mahshahr on the Gulf coast, ISNA and Tasnim, reported. 


🇮🇷

#Iran : Iranian forces shot down a drone over the port of Mahshahr.
– It is not clear who the drone belonged to.

View image on Twitter

Iran Front Page’s Reza Khaasteh said, “Mahshahr is home to Iran’s Petrochemical Special Economic Zone (Petzone), where a major part of the country’s petchem plants are located.” 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Drone Iran Shot Down Is A Quarter Billion Dollar Surveillance Monster

The Drone Iran Shot Down Is A Quarter Billion Dollar Surveillance Monster

The US drone that Iran shot down over the Strait of Hormuz last week is an RQ-4A Global Hawk, a $220 million surveillance monster in the sky, Wired reported. According to Iran, the Northrup Grumman-made Global Hawk – which is part of a multibillion-dollar program that dates back to 2001 – entered their air space and crashed into Iranian waters. The U.S. insists that the drone was flying in international airspace. 

The incident comes after the U.S. accused Iran of attacking two fuel tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. also claims that Iran attempted to shoot down another drone, an MQ-9 Reaper, and failed. The U.S. has also linked Iran to an attack on a Reaper drone in Yemen two weeks ago that caused the drone to crash. 

However, last week’s attack was on a far more expensive and technologically advanced drone, indicating a “more definite escalation” according to the report. 

Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: “There’s a lot going on here, and we’re probably only seeing some of it. This is a more expensive, higher-altitude, more capable, long-range intelligence surveillance reconnaissance craft. If they’re shooting down aircraft in international airspace over international waters, that’s likely to elicit some kind of measured reprisal.”

Karako says that details on the airspace won’t be released until the U.S. releases more about the drone’s flight path: “Whether they want to release that is more of a policy decision. But thus far CentCom is insistent that it was in international airspace.”

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Who Survives the Iran Counter-Offensive?

Who Survives the Iran Counter-Offensive?

Iran has had enough. I think it’s fair to say that after 60+ years of U.S. aggression towards Iran that the decision to shoot down a U.S. drone represents an inflection point in world politics.

In the first few hours after the incident the fog of war was thick. But a day later much of it has cleared thanks to Iran’s purposeful poke at U.S. leadership by coming clean with their intentions.

Iran chose to shoot down this drone versus hitting the manned P-8 aircraft and then chose not to lie about it in public, but rather come forward removing any deniability they could have had.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

#Iran’s purpose by shooting down the drone was to warn the “#US terrorist forces”” as it could also target an #American P-8 military aircraft that was flying next to MQ-4C drone, but it didn’t: Brigadier General Hajizadeh

They did this after President Trump’s comments yesterday during a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau where Trump described the attack as “a big mistake” and “not intentional.”

But it was intentional. 

And the reason for this was that despite Trump’s assurances yesterday there is considerable debate as to where the drone actually was.  According to a report from the NY Times (and buried deep in a very long article):

Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official. The official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike — which could under international norms be viewed as an act of war. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Shoots Down US Drone, Says “Ready For War”

Iran Shoots Down US Drone, Says “Ready For War” 

Tensions between the US and Iran flared on Thursday when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard shot down an American drone that was said to have flown into Iranian airspace (the US claims the drone flew over international territory). The drone was reportedly flying over the Strait of Hormuz – that critical chokepoint for the global oil trade – not far from where two oil tankerswere recently attacked.

drone

“We will defend Iran’s airspace and maritime boundaries with all our might,” Ali Shamkhani, secretary-general for the Supreme National Security Council was quoted as saying by state-run Islamic Students’ News Agency. “It doesn’t matter which country’s aircraft cross our airspace.

IRGC Commander Hossein Salami said shooting down the drone had sent a clear and strong message for the US: Iran’s borders are ‘red lines’ and though Iran doesn’t seek war, Iran is ready for war. The US, meanwhile, denies that the drone crossed into Iran’s airspace, and says it was in international airspace the whole time.

The drone reportedly was shot down over a village called Kuhmobarak in Iran’s Hormozgan province.

Map

The news sent oil prices surging, with Brent up as much as 3%. President Trump has been briefed on the incident and the White House is “monitoring the situation.” The US military has branded the shooting “an unprovoked attack.”

The shooting follows attacks on six tankers in the region, which Iran has denied responsibility for (including the two from last week). On Wednesday, a news agency operated by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said that the rebels had hit a power station in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, with a cruise missile, though these reports weren’t independently verified.

Numerous geopolitical experts warned that Thursday’s incident “significantly raises” the prospects for international conflict.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Israel Shoots Down Syrian Recon Drone Over Golan Heights

Israel Shoots Down Syrian Recon Drone Over Golan Heights

Early this morning, Reuters reported that Israel has intercepted and downed a Syrian reconnaissance drone approaching its northern border over Golan Heights.

The drone was shot down by the US-MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) system…

Over the Golan demilitarized zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since the ceasefire after the 1973 war.

The official Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Twitter confirmed…


Moments ago, the IDF used a Patriot Missile to intercept a UAV that attempted to infiltrate Israeli airspace in the Golan Heights


In another report, the IDF initially told Reuters it was a ‘Russian-manufactured’ UAV, but offered no evidence.

The military initially told Reuters the UAV was Russian-manufactured but offered no evidence. A military source later said it was unclear whether the UAV was indeed Russian-made.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, told Reuters “it was a reconnaissance UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and not an attack UAV and we are checking whether there is any connection to Iran and Hezbollah”.

In response to the incident, “the State of Israel regards with utmost seriousness any violation of its sovereignty and will respond with force to any provocation,” made in a statement by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liebermam.

Sputnik provides the backdrop of why tensions are high in ‘disputed Golan Heights’ between Israel and Syria,

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Reaper Drone Shot Down Over Afghanistan

US Reaper Drone Shot Down Over Afghanistan

In a rare, successful attack on one of the most advanced US offensive weapons, a US drone has reportedly been shot down over Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Voice of Jihad) reports that Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) said to be operated by the United States. The rea

The UAV above is believed to be a MQ-9 Reaper with a price tag of $10.5 million. The aircraft can stay airborne up to 36 hours with 1.7 tons of missiles and bombs. The wreckage of the plane is said to have been seized by the Mujahideen. So far, there has been no comment from from the US military.

The location of the downed drone is in Kunduz, a city in northern Afghanistan.

The attack may have been in retaliation for a US drone strike which yesterday killed 14 ISIS militants in the Kunar province, a northern boarder region in Afghanistan. According to The Guardian, “Abdul Ghani Musamim, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told the Associated Press that the drone had targeted a meeting of Isis commanders who were planning a terrorist attack.”

Apropos, on Thursday, we reported U.S. bombs dropped in Afghanistan surged to a 7-year high in the month of September, as it became clear that Trump’s Afghanistan war policy was simply to add to the local death toll by dropping more bombs.

As discussed before, we suspect that President Trump, gradually settling in into his role as the next “Warmonger-in-Chief” has reignited a trend that the military industrial complex is simply delighted about.

NATO Member Turkey Shoots Down Drone Of Unknown Origin On Border With Syria

NATO Member Turkey Shoots Down Drone Of Unknown Origin On Border With Syria

Over the course of Russia’s involvement in Syria, the tension between Moscow and Ankara has grown steadily.

In short, NATO-member Turkey has accused Russian fighter jets of violating its airspace as they buzz the border on the way to hitting anti-regime targets. The escalation of hostilities between the two countries now threatens to derail billions in trade and energy deals as Erdogan recently warned Putin that Ankara may go elsewhere for its natural gas needs.

Ultimately, it isn’t about Turkey’s airspace. It’s about Ankara wanting Assad gone and Moscow wanting Assad to remain in power and indeed, the US is already using a Turkish air base as a kind of forward operating center for bombing runs, meaning NATO may well use Turkey to float conflict trial balloons to see just what the West can get away with in terms of challenging the Russians in Syria (incidentally, Erdogan has an election coming up in two weeks and a key part of the push to restore AKP’s absolute majority in parliament is scaring the public into believing that Turkey is under attack and only a strong government can save it).

With that in mind, consider that just moments ago, Turkey shot down an unmanned drone that Ankara says violated its airspace:

  • TURKEY MILITARY SAYS SHOT DOWN AIRCRAFT AT SYRIA BORDER
  • TURKEY’S NTV SAYS SHOT-DOWN AIRCRAFT WAS UNMANNED DRONE

And here’s the official statement (Google translated):

Today nationalities in our country’s airspace at the border with Syria has been detected an unknown aircraft, although be warned three times on continuing to move our aircraft performing patrols on the border by the rules of engagement it has been reduced by fire in the frame. 

Turkish Armed Forces is implementing with determination in the framework of the duties assigned to rules of engagement. “

Meanwhile, it was determined that lowering the unmanned vehicle.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

THE U.S. MEDIA AND THE 13-YEAR-OLD YEMENI BOY BURNED TO DEATH LAST MONTH BY A U.S. DRONE

THE U.S. MEDIA AND THE 13-YEAR-OLD YEMENI BOY BURNED TO DEATH LAST MONTH BY A U.S. DRONE

On January 26, the New York Times claimed that “a CIA drone strike in Yemen. . . . killed three suspected Qaeda fighters on Monday.” How did they know the identity of the dead? As usual, it was in part because “American officials said.” There was not a whiff of skepticism about this claim despite the fact that “a senior American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declined to confirm the names of the victims” and “a C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.”

That NYT article did cite what it called “a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP), who provided the names of the three victims, one of whom was “Mohammed Toiman al-Jahmi, a Yemeni teenager whose father and brother were previously killed in American drone strikes.” The article added that “the Qaeda member did not know Mr. Jahmi’s age but said he was a member of the terrorist group.”

In fact, as the Guardian reported today, “Mr. Jahmi’s age” was 13 on the day the American drone ended his life. Just months earlier, the Yemeni teenager told that paper that “he lived in constant fear of the ‘death machines’ in the sky that had already killed his father and brother.” It was 2011 when “an unmanned combat drone killed his father and teenage brother as they were out herding the family’s camels.” In the strike two weeks ago, Mohammed was killed along with his brother-in-law and a third man.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Unleashes Reverse-Engineered US Drone In First Test Flight | Zero Hedge

Iran Unleashes Reverse-Engineered US Drone In First Test Flight | Zero Hedge.

Almost three years ago, Iran reportedly downed a US drone. The RQ-170 Sentinel recon drone that was reportedly captured has apparently been reverse-engineered, and now, asReuters reportsIran state news agency IRNA reports the drone-clone has taken its first flight. Iran’s Supreme Leader noted, “Today is a very sweet and unforgettable day for me.” Of course, this ‘news’ should be taken with a modest pinch of salt but, as with everything in foreign policy these days, Brigadier General Ali Hajizadeh states that “a film of the flight will be released soon.”

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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