Is the Putin/Trump Axis in a Death Spiral?
Wildberries and oil and the end of the axis of evil
Yesterday, another Wildberries warehouse in Russia went up in flames. It almost doesn’t matter when you read that sentence, because a Wildberries warehouse is getting blasted by Ukrainian drones almost every day.
“Wildberries” is Russian for “Amazon.” It’s their version of the Amazon retail empire. They’re getting hit by Ukraine ostensibly because they sell drones and drone parts. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a wily fellow and certainly knows that disrupting the Russian version of Amazon is going to draw the attention, and ire, of Russian citizens.
I take no joy in the knowledge that blowing up warehouses is likely to lead to civilian Russian deaths.
But the Russian people are out of excuses. They have been willfully blind to Putin’s brazen savagery against their neighbors (and, in many cases, friends and family) for more than four years, just as our own population of MAGA clowns and drug addicts and deviants have been supporting the blatant and growing authoritarianism of a sexual predator posing as a president in the ruins of the White House for a total of more than six years.
Russian citizens have access to the same information we do, just as MAGA insurrectionists and Epstein cheerleaders have access to the realities behind their hero’s gruesome exploits.
Russian citizens cower under the excuse that their versions of Fox News create a news monolith on behalf of Putin that they can’t escape. Truthful information about Ukraine and Putin, though, is available via the Telegram app, which is almost as pervasive in Russia as Facebook is in the United States.
Dylan Combellick, who basically monitors the Ukraine War for a living, also reports that Wildberries facilities in Penza, Russia, and Sarapul, Udmurtia, also in Russia, were hit last night.
Ukraine isn’t just hitting warehouses. It’s decimating the Russian oil infrastructure that has propped up the Putin regime since it first invaded its neighbor to the west.
Every major Russian oil refinery has been hit, per United24, a Ukrainian news service:
Omsk Oil Refinery: Russia’s largest refinery (22 million tons/year capacity); struck on July 6, 2026.
Kirishi Oil Refinery (KINEF): Leningrad region capacity of 20–21 million tons/year; repeatedly targeted.
Ryazan Oil Refinery: 17.1 million tons/year capacity; repeatedly struck, causing prolonged suspensions.
Kstovo Oil Refinery (NORSI): Lukoil plant near Nizhny Novgorod processing 16 million tons/year; hit multiple times including July 2026.
Yaroslavl Oil Refinery (Slavneft-YANOS): 15 million tons/year capacity; struck multiple times.
Volgograd Oil Refinery: Lukoil plant with 14.8 million tons/year capacity; targeted in drone operations.
Perm Oil Refinery (Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez): 13.1 million tons/year capacity; hit in late July 2026.
Moscow Oil Refinery: ~12 million tons/year capacity; hit in multiple waves of strikes during summer 2026.
Novokuibyshevsk Oil Refinery: 8.8 million tons/year capacity in the Samara region; damaged and partially halted.
Syzran Oil Refinery: 8.5 million tons/year capacity in the Samara region; struck by long-range drones.
Bashneft-Novoil (Novo-Ufimsky) / Ufa Refineries: Bashkortostan facilities processing over 7 million tons/year; hit in repeated operations.
These numbers and bullet points come directly from a Ukrainian news source, so it’s reasonable to expect a propaganda flourish behind them, but I fact-checked most of the incidents, and various other sources around the interwebs seem to confirm the numbers.
The reliable Combellick, who maintains a daily report on the Ukraine War on the Medium platform (with a decidedly Ukrainian slant), describes the most recent attack on Russian oil infrastructure:
The Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez (PNOS) was hit by Ukrainian drones.
PNOS, part of the Lukoil Group, processes over 13 million tons of oil annually, produces high-quality gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene, and lubricating oils. The refinery is a key industrial facility in the region and one of the most technologically advanced in the country, supplying fuel to both the domestic market and export markets.
He also reports that the port in Taman, Krasnodar, a Russian oil depot that is used to transport oil, is on fire, probably from Ukrainian drones.
The attacks have resulted in queues at Russian gas stations that would look familiar to Americans who tried filling up during the Yom Kippur War and OPEC Oil Embargo of the 1970s.
The average Russian is now feeling the effects of the war in ways they can no longer ignore. Some of them are even fighting each other for gas, according to Combellick and other sources, such as Nadin Brzezinski, another reliable source on the Medium platform (also very pro-Ukraine).
Another reporter, and apologies for not remembering who, described the situation in parts of Russia as something out of a Mad Max film.
During the years since the war began, Ukraine has become a drone superpower. Its drones can, and do, hit deep inside Russia to the point where the Russian oil infrastructure is in danger of collapse.
Russia is responding by killing women and children while targeting apartment buildings from Kyiv to Lviv in Ukraine.
Like our own madman, Russia’s is becoming increasingly desperate as the strength of internal dissent grows and the vultures begin to circle.
In the United States, where our own madman has handed the keys of the Strait of Hormuz to a belligerent, tyrannical authoritarian theocratic regime, his own allies, even the crazy ones, are turning against him.
Alex Jones, who for some reason is still able to broadcast his mindless rants even after having his income sucked dry by the courts punishing him for unforgivable lies toward the victims and parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School, has joined a growing “impeach him” chorus within MAGA.
Today, Republican Senators, for now, gave up on trying to confirm the Predator-in-Chief’s personal attorney, Todd Blanche, although I don’t expect any resilience in opposition there. The fiend in the Oval Office will rouse himself from his sleep long enough to spew methane out of his mouth and do some kind of horrible thing to take our mind off it, and then Republican Senators will confirm Blanche, because that’s what cowards do.
Still, there are a ton of cracks in the walls of MagaLand, and the reason for this is that no matter how firmly piles of excrement set, eventually a wall with that kind of foundation collapses upon itself.
I won’t reiterate the various signs of collapse here. Most of you are inundated with enough Substack articles to know what’s going on.
The man is dying, and the only question remaining is how many people he wants to bring down with him.
We are fortunate, ironically, that he is fooling himself into thinking he’s built a legacy worth protecting.
But I don’t know that Putin is crippled by that same weakness.
Ukraine is winning the war Putin started four years ago. Its drones are sought after by every military in the world. The phrase “economic collapse,” in the wake of at least a million dead soldiers, is a legitimate one in describing Russia’s imminent future.
So the fate of this most dangerous hour probably rests in the hands of Trump’s closest ally, a man thousands of miles away whose grip on power is unknown. We can be sure, though, that the vultures are circling there, too. An authoritarian’s worst enemy is almost always his friend.
Buckle up.
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