I am curious what the goal is. The first is pretty, but stills are notoriously easy to replace and bulk grain alcohol is cheap. Are they producing something other than vodka here?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Distilleries commonly produce a variety of alcohols, not just ethanol for human consumption. First ones that come in mind are ethanol for antifreeze solutions and isopropyl alcohol for sanitizing and industrial solvents.

Cutting the vodka production is a nice bonus hit to the morale, but damaging the supply lines of military production is most likely the main goal here.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

Ok I was being circuitous. Distilleries do have the capacity to produce numerous chemicals. The issue is not that Russia might run out of disinfectants or antifreeze. The concern is that that breweries and distilleries are dual use facilities. They can be used to produce common consumer goods, like alcohol, but can also be converted to produce chemical and biological agents. If Ukraine is spending valuable strategic drones to blow up distilleries it could be that they just dont have any better targets, or it might be that they are desperate and trying to do anything to make a fireball, or it might be that the CIA has warned them that Russia is getting desperate and is prepping their next war crime.