How would Ukraine reach ONG and industrial hubs like Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, or Omsk?
They can try and leverage deep sabotage such as the truck drone attack from a couple months ago but such operations aren't scalable, and would draw ire from Asian countries if it hit their investments - especially given that China is one of Ukraine's largest trade partners and has control over vast swathes of Ukraine's industrial capacity from pre-2022 FDI via OBOR.
> They can try and leverage deep sabotage such as the truck drone attack
Container ships. Hell, hide the system in a bail of weed. (We could almost certainly provide them with the intelligence required. Russia and North Korea both engage in extensive black market trade.)
We can reach Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk by container ship (the others are inland), but like I mentioned before you hit the second issue of potentially miffing and alienating Asian partners like Japan and South Korea, semi-aligned states like India, and opposing states like China.
And even Ukraine can't afford to alienate China given the level of control and ownership China has over Ukrainian industrial capacity and infra [0]
That's why we haven't seen incidents in the Far East to the same scale as those in Siberia.
Honestly, it's a tough nut to crack if the EU, UK, and the US don't provide boots on the ground but we obviously can't given our priorities in the Pacific.
> you hit the second issue of potentially miffing and alienating Asian partners like Japan and South Korea, semi-aligned states like India, and opposing states like China
China is already arming Russia. Japanese and Korea refiners have been phasing out Russian crude. Miffing New Delhi is well worth forcing Moscow to move air defences around.
> Japanese and Korea refiners have been phasing out Russian crude
Their refineries are phasing out Russian crude, but Japanese and Korean firms continue to extract, maintain, and invest in large capex projects like Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II. Notably - Mitsui Group (JP), Mitsubishi Group (JP), JAPEX (JP), Tohoku Electric (JP), and KOGAS (KR) have continued to operate in Russian ONG projects and comply with Russian investment laws.
> China is already arming Russia
Yep, and they have a controlling stake in Ukraine's economy itself, with significant portions of Ukraine's MIC and Ag industry owned an operated by Chinese companies - which means Ukraine cannot target Chinese owned or associated assets without facing domestic blowback from China such as sudden loan repayments or export controls on intermediate parts.
> Miffing New Delhi is well worth forcing Moscow to move air defences around
I agree, but Ukrainian missiles aren't reaching Vladivostok or Sakhalin unless we give them ICBMs. Most Asian investments in Russian ONG are all the way in the Far East which is outside the range of anything short of an ICBM for Ukraine.
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That's what makes this a pickle.
The ONG assets Ukraine is hitting in Russia are primarily for domestic consumption with some amount of export to Turkiye, Azerbaijan, or Hungary. But they don't actually prevent Asian buyers from continuing to operate - only sanctions can do that. And on top of that, Asian buyers have figured out fairly sophisticated ways to bypass secondary sanctions against Russia [0]. And the Asian assets which they could try to target would lead to severe blowback from one of Ukraine's largest trading and FDI partners. In a prolonged war of economic attrition, I'm not sure how Ukraine can win without on-the-ground support from the EU and US, because economic pressure such as sanctions don't have the same staying power that they did 10 years ago.
> Ukraine cannot target Chinese owned or associated assets without facing domestic blowback from China such as sudden loan repayments or export controls on intermediate parts
Fair enough for ownership. Don't think so for associated.
That said, China being sensitive to such attacks is itself leverage for Kyiv. China retaliating against Ukraine in the way you describe would be a massive geopolitical win for America, inasmuch as it would make clear the deal with the devil every adversary of Russia, Iran and North Korea's makes when they rely on China.
> Ukrainian missiles aren't reaching Vladivostok or Sakhalin unless we give them ICBMs
But most oil exports that are subsidizing the Russian economy and providing forex are being exported from the Russian Far East.
Hitting infra in Western Russia makes it painful for civilians and does have a psychological impact of highlighting to the Russia public how war has consequences, but by and large it doesn't do much given that Russia still has the capability to continue garnering foreign currency or operating with foreign markets.
Furthermore, those strikes aren't truly crippling [0] to Russian ONG capacity and the associated sanctions won't have much of an impact given how diversified Russian ONG companies are [1], with JVs and stakes in Western ambivalent countries like China, Congo, Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and others.
The psychological impact of such strikes cannot be understated, but it's not really painful for Russia given that they have chosen to dig in and believe that they can win an economic war of attrition [2] as it stands. If the much more isolated Maduro regime in Venezuela or the Khamenei regime in Iran are able to hold onto power, it's hard to see how these strikes can impact that Putin regime in what has become a war of attrition, especially when regional powers like Vietnam have begun pivoting back to Russia [3], and larger powers like China [4] and India [5] are doubling down on Russian investments.
Putin may not lose power, but may lose ability to keep the logistics of an invasion force. Also, none of those other countries are locked in a war of attrition.
Iran was in a de facto decade long state of war with troops, munitions, and significant capital going to theatres in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan - just like Russia has been in Ukraine.
> Putin may not lose power, but may lose ability to keep the logistics of an invasion force
That is true and highly likely, but that isn't a win either, especially if Russia changes it's tune to turning Ukraine into an economic war of attrition, which seems to be the plan given their recent pivot to targeting Ukrainian energy and industrial infrastructure.
Since Russia can't drive troops into Kyiv, they are trying to destroy Ukraine's infra to such a degree that it would require a Herculean amount of investment from European capitals, which would be difficult to fully unlock due to Ukraine not being a part of the EU and face pressure from European nations own budgets for rearmament.
A frozen conflict with much of Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, and large portions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson remaining under Russian control isn't a win for Ukraine, and longer term freezes Ukraine out of the EU and NATO because conducting an election during an active war with a nation that has previously meddled in their elections is unrealistic, but the EU can't make an exception for Ukraine due to internal votes along with the precedent it sets for other EU ascension members.
