Ukraine, in an unlikely attack on an iconic cultural mainstay, sends drones to Russia to blow up its vodka distilleries

In a blow to Russia, Ukraine used the cover of night yesterday to blow up four major vodka distilleries. Video clips posted online allegedly show alcohol tanks burning heavily in Tula and Tambov, two Russian regions some 300 miles from eastern Ukraine.

In the biggest attack yet on Russia’s alcohol industry, drones flew from Ukraine and started the pre-dawn fires. In President Putin’s war economy, alcohol distilleries produce vodka for drinking and ethanol for the military machine.

Russia is the world’s largest consumer of vodka: about 21 shots per adult per month, according to the World Population Review. This is about 70 percent more than Ukrainian consumption per capita and almost five times American consumption.

In a country where vodka sales average 600 million liters a year, it is unclear whether yesterday’s pyrotechnics will seriously affect Russia’s vodka industry. However, it is a psychological blow to an industry revered by the average Russian man.

In 988, Prince Volodomyr the Great rejected Islam because of the Islamic prohibition on drinking alcohol. Instead, he Christianized the Kievan Rus. He is quoted as saying: “Drinking is the joy of all Russia. We cannot exist without the pleasure of it.”

Vodka was to Tsarist Russia what oil is to modern Russia. In the mid-19th century, vodka taxes represented up to 40 percent of government revenues. In 1911, 89 percent of all alcohol sold in Russia was vodka.

In the early days of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the Luftwaffe sought out and severely damaged the Kristall in Moscow, the Soviet Union’s largest distillery. During World War II, Red Army soldiers roamed Eastern Europe, fueled in part by daily rations of two shots of vodka.

This week, Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s iconic cultural product is unlikely to prompt Russians to back their president’s war against Ukraine. More likely, it will simply be the latest humiliation the Russians must endure as they try to avoid being drawn into its war.

Two years ago, a national draft decision prompted about 1 million Russian men to leave the country. To avoid a repeat this fall, Putin is burning oil revenues to buy soldiers. First-signing bonuses have increased to $25,000, the equivalent of two annual salaries for employees outside major cities. Recruitment bonuses rise as chilling news from the war front filters back home.

For Russian soldiers, last month was the bloodiest of the 31-month war, American and British officials say. Daily Russian casualties averaged 1,200 killed or seriously injured per day. The Ukrainian invasion of part of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6 has not led to an increase in the number of conscripts.

“This unprecedented Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory” has exposed what Atlantic Council Ukrainian editor Peter Dickinson calls “the limitations of the Kremlin war machine.” Mr. Dickinson made this observation two weeks ago in an essay titled “Putin Doesn’t Have Enough Troops to Defeat Ukraine and Defend Russia.”

Mr Dickinson argued that “while many continue to view the Russian military as an irresistible force with virtually unlimited supplies of men and machinery, it is now becoming increasingly clear that Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine has in reality left his military dangerously overstretched and unable to to defend Russia.”

In response to this fighter shortage, Russia is training and equipping as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers to fight against Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say these units will go to Russia’s Kursk region to take part in the battle to expel Ukrainian soldiers from Kursk, the first invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II. In plain English, this means that the Kremlin pays foreign mercenaries to liberate Russian territory because the Russians don’t want to fight for it.