Dear Readers:
I saw this very interesting piece in the Ukrainian newspaper STRANA. One front of this war has consisted of NATO drone attacks against oil refineries within Russia’s internationally “recognized” borders. The goal clearly being to harm Russia’s economy and possibly put a crimp in its military capability. The STRANA piece quotes extensively from an expert named Sergei Vakulenko, who works as a consultant for the Carnegie Foundation, his specialty being the oil and gas industry.
Vakulenko believes that the drone attacks are not necessarily critical to the Russian war effort, but they do add an irritant to existing problems faced by the Russian oil and gas sector: “Because of the sanctions, any repairs of existing equipment take a lot more time and energy than they would otherwise. This is a factor to consider when analyzing these attacks and how they may impact the revenues needed for the Russian budget, and also the stability of the internal market.”
Drone attacks against Russian petroleum refineries have increased greatly in recent days. Four refineries were hit in just a single day. Two of the refineries that were struck produce mainly for the export market, and so this does not directly affect the war effort nor the internal market. Also, losses in the export market can be compensated by the sale of raw (unrefined) petroleum. “But the important point is that, if Ukrainian drones are capable of reaching Ust-Luga, which is 1000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, then they are also capable of reaching another 18 such refineries, whose overall production amounts to around 170 million tons per year. And that is already more than half of the Russian refined product, so now we are starting to see an effect on the fuel supply for all of European Russia.”
On the other hand, Vakulenko does not believe that the smaller drones can do enough damage to have a major effect. For example, they can start fires, but not necessarily shut down the entire plant. These oil refineries are protected by their Soviet heritage: “The construction standards by which these plants were built, back in Cold War times, they were built to withstand a 1000-kilogram bomb. Hence, these small drones do not affect the structure of the buildings themselves, they just start fires.
“If a drone gets lucky, then it might fall into the gas fractionation plant, which is the most vulnerable production unit as it is filled with hot ethane, propane and butane. These gases catch fire and explode a lot quicker than the raw fuel. In this case, there is a chance to create a bigger explosion and cause some damage to this part of the plant. But even in this case, the rest of the plant will remain intact.
“Besides, these plants have very powerful fire extinguishing systems. Highly trained firefighters are present and alert at all times, and there are various systems that kick in, to extinguish the flames. Thus, the probability of burning down one of these refineries is much less than, say, burning down a warehouse or an office building.”
Vakulenko notes that in the recent attacks in Ust-Luga and Tuapse (a Russian town in Krasnodar, on the Northeast shore of the Black Sea, not far from Sochi), the fires were quickly extinguished in just a couple of hours. “More than likely, these refineries will quickly resume their activity. They may lose a few installations and then resume with lower production and a more limited assortment of product. Under normal circumstances, the consequences of the emergency situation could be cleaned up in a month or two.” However, the Western sanctions add complications, since they make it more difficult for the companies to purchase the details and equipment needed to finish the repairs.
Vakulenko concludes: “These fires at the oil refineries can also have a propaganda effect and influence public opinion, both among Russians and Ukrainians. But they are not yet having a significant influence on the Russian economy. It would be different, however, if these attacks continue with their current intensity, in that case what is now just an inconvenience could turn into a real problem for the Russian authorities.”
Awful Avalanche 
It’s the equivalent of the V1 attacks on London in 1944.
LikeLiked by 2 people
To paraphrase Y, Nazis be Nazis
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your point about the V-1 attacks prompted me to do some thinking about analogies between the Nazi air war on England and what’s happening now in Russia. Specifically, I cast my mind back to a few years prior to V-1s, during the Battle of Britain, when the Nazis could still send waves of manned bombers against the Brits. The history, as I read it back then, was that Goering had ALMOST whipped the Brutes by repeatedly smashing their air bases and radar systems. That was the strategic plan — wipe out England’s air force, then the skies would be defenceless against Nazi bombers. Then Churchill did a retaliatory bomber attack against Berlin. It wasn’t big enough to change the course of the war, but it enraged the Germans so much that they changed tactics. They started dropping bombs on London and other cities, to kill civilians and avenge the assault on ordinary Germans. That gave the Brits some breathing space to rebuild their bases, build more planes and train more pilots. So the Brutish skies were not left naked.
So the military history books said, at least. Now that there’s so much counter-narrative analysis coming out about everything, I find myself wondering “was that all a lie, those things I read?”
Anyway, the Ukronazis seem to switch tactics the way their OG (original German) inspirations did. Sometimes they attack Russian air bases, like the videos of parked transport planes being hit by flying hand grenades. There are repeated efforts to destroy the Kerch Bridge, which seems to be a major Moby Dick for Zelenskahab. They keep blowing stuff up in Belgorod for the hits and giggles of it. Now there’s a campaign against oil refineries. Like the 1940s Nazis, the pUkes keep changing their aims. Not that they have enough means of destruction to make a BIG difference, but if they keep diffusing what little they DO have, it has even less effect. Why not stick with ONE strategic aim and keep at it? It’s like war waged by someone with attention deficit disorder.
LikeLike
I think it was Dima, in one of his vids yesterday, who was lecturing the Ukies, if they want to be successful in conquering Crimea, then they need to focus everything they have on Tokmak and Melitopol! Everything else is just a distraction.
Besides, every time the Ukes attack Belgorod, the Russkies always know in advance exactly where and when. Why? Because Syrsky lets them know!
🙂
LikeLike
The Brutes had planned to withdraw their fighters from southern England to bases in Northern England and Scotland if the Luftwaffe had managed to destroy their network of radars and bases in the south, which in any case it never managed to. The Blitz could not *possibly* have resulted in a German victory. The mythology around the Battle of Britain ignores that.
LikeLike
Maps are very interesting things. I noticed that Ust-Luga is about 20km from the Estonian border, let’s say 30km from Narva.
LikeLike
This is all NATO amounts to. Terrorists with an enormous budget and zero talent at anything but making the MIC even wealthier.
LikeLike
Refineries are far more vulnerable than expressed in your referenced article. Nearly half of all operational and maintenance activities are directed at keeping the refinery operating in a safe mode (regardless of external attack). Ditto for most chemical plants whose base-stocks are hydrocarbon in nature. This is not a trivial threat.
The only effective deterrent is tit-for-tat. The Russian military has the ability to shut off the municipal electricity supply for all of Kiev and surrounding vicinity. At some point, you have to make the price of escalation so high that it is not worth the risk.
LikeLike
I think I agree with you.
LikeLike
Why would the Russ want to limit themselves to Ukrainia? Or, for that matter, why tit for tat?
I think I’d look at the largest crude oil refineries by in Europe and….as luck would have it, the top six are located conveniently nearby [see below]. Russia certainly appears to have the capability to hit them all at once…yes? Tell the world it’s a legitimate response to Biden blowing up Nordstream and let ’em chew on that bone. Send NATO forces to Ukrainia? In an election year ? Who’s kidding who?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1445218/largest-oil-refineries-europe/
LikeLike
These titchy Ukie drones attacking Russian oil refineries with success show the abject vulnerability of petrochemical plants. Spare me the old saw about Soviet overbuilding their infrastructure. Ignitable gases laugh at brick shithouses. And the Ukie drones arrive in quantity, and cannot all be shot down or jammed by the Russians. We’re talking dozens sometimes but three or four at most targets of an evening. Relentless. Who’d expect otherwise?
My father was interning at St Mary’s Hospital London during the V1 Doodlebug buzz bomb blitz in ’44. Saw many of them. There were hundreds. He told me about them, the sound of them, the sudden stop of the pulse jet engine, short glide down amd BANG. Above all, the rank fear they induced as they were unguided and random, but devastating. Everything in the hospital stopped when a V1 barrage occurred, when the pulse jet engines were heard and the air raid sirens were already screaming and had been for what seemed like hours.
A V1 had an 850 kg warhead, not these half-sized 450 kg Storm Shadow, or 550 kg Iskander and Kinzhal warheads. And the SS is only a bit faster than the 450 mph V1. The V2 arrived at 3500 mph — hypersonic in the modern parlance — nobody saw or heard those coming, and had a 2,000 lb warhead. Left a big hole — the V1s with their flatter trajectory was much worse in knocking down houses and killing people.
Both V1 and V2 were bigger than your average modern short and medium range missile which only have to be capable of carrying a nuke. Dad described the destruction and death those V weapon things caused. Many were duds, many V1s got shot down or tipped over by fighter planes, but a lot got through. And V2s flew all over the place out of control, but those got through wherever their dud guidance systems sent them — the Netherlands, Belgium, fishes in the North Sea. Nowhere was safe once the operator hit the ignite button.
Considering it was after D-Day, the V1s and V2s had a serious morale effect in London of the very negative kind. All quickly glossed over afterwards, but Dad said it was depressing in the extreme at the time.
Fifty Tauruses from the Germans, if they ship ’em to Ukraine to hit Russia, isn’t much compared to the V1 onslaught, frankly. We forget the Nazi horrors. And what did the US do after the war was over? Give von Braun a plum job in the glorious USA and eventually put him in charge of developing the Saturn rocket that shoved the astronauts to the moon. Hell, he had a regular column in Popular Science magazine! I’ve got a lot of books on old rockets, and read dozens of excuses for Werner’s political beliefs. All whitewashed by the Dulles boys — gotta get dem Russkie commies by hook or by crook — hell the CIA demanded it.
Compared to WW2, the SMO is a bar fight, except perhaps in artillery rounds expended per unit length of front. But armour losses are piddling compared to WW2.
I don’t know why the RF has proven to be sloths in Black Sea navy port defence in Crimea and Azov Sea, but the admiral in nominal charge recently was canned after all those Ukie sea drone successes against four Russkie ships. Honestly, the footage I saw where some Russkie blokes blazed away at sea drones with about 10% of the shell rate of a WW2 Bofors or Oerlikon gun was depressingly amateur looking.
And why the RF didn’t seem to expect the Ukies to respond to the hammering of their infrastructure, military bases, airfields and so on, by attacking Russia proper targets is beyond my ken. Terrorism? Really? Applies only to targeting civilians, in my view. Anything else is game on — it’s war, not an exercise in gentle restraint. From the Ukie viewpoint anyway They showed they hated their own countrymen from the beginning in 2014, shelling the Donbass randomly after Maidan. So for the RF to wave its arms in pearl-clutching horror a decade later at Ukie tactics is a bit rich. I repeat, what did they expect? Why haven’t they protected their infrastructure better? God only knows. Some Russia tactics seem half-arsed to me, betraying a lack of strategic forethought.
But the good thing is that the US and NATO are completely arsed, grossly incompetent, and swaggeringly over-confident in their capabilities. Hell, the Houthis have their measure. Imagine the US dolts attacking China through Taiwanese proxies. Doom in a day. North Korea will obliterate South Korea, Okinawa, Japan proper and Guam just for target practice and Kim fun, leaving the Chinese to bump off Taipei and the US Navy dolts parading up and down the Taiwan Straits like Hollywood heroes saving the world for “democracy”.
If it all goes nuclear, Russia has it over the US antiques in spades, and I’d wager a huge bet, which I’d likely never collect in winnings, that China has lots of shiny new nukes that’ll work just fine, too. It’s the US chestbeaters who are in a sorry position where all they’ve got left is bluffing. And the Europeans are laughable in the extreme. Might as well wave wooden spears — best they shut up, kick out the Americans and come to terms with the new reality. Or start a war with Russia and get flattened for being prime dolts -a) for believing Yankee bullshit, and b) thinking that treating Russia as if it were a nation of illiterates suitable only for supplying raw materials to their intellectual superior societies was a btilliant idea. I’ve seen both German and French haughtiness first hand and it is beyond annoying, given there’s bugger all to back it up.
Still, in a general way, the RF is hammering Ukie logistics chains and warehouses with ease, blown out the sea done factory in Odessa, knocked down multiple buildings used to house Western mercenaries, and blown off Budanov’s guerilla force forays into the Belgorod and Kursk regions. Time to put a KH-59 through his office window and end the head pain the man is experiencing. It would be, after all, the humane thing to do.
LikeLike
Good stuff Beluga but, you gotta remember, it ain’t Ukrainia’s money/army/weapons destroying Russian infrastructure it’s US/UK/DEU/FR Money/Technicians/Arms…
LikeLike
“We forget the Nazi horrors…what did the US do after the war was over…Give Von Braun a plum job..Werner’s political beliefs…whitewashed by the Dulles boys.” – Beluga
If this was the extent of the Dulles-Bros sins I wouldn’t bother to write about the D-Bros evils here….on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, indeed their sins would fall under the “so-the-eff-what” category.
FYI, the Ruskies, to their credit, also sought the expertise of of Nazi Rocket scientists and wound up with a talented crew who facilitated the production of the finest heavy lift engines in the world…until the Rocketdyne F-1 ! Indeed, we owe the development of transistors morphing into IC-chips to the fact that the US couldn’t…”get it up” at least as far as heavy lift Rockets goes. Yeah, that’s right, the whole technological revolution we now live in is a result of the Russkies being able to beat the shit out of the USA in early HEAVY lift engine tech…the Russkie-Rocket-Nazis were better than the US-rocket-Nazis so, the US workaround was to lighten the electronics payload…go figure!
The world as a whole still lives off the efforts of those cold-war-warriors be they east or, be they west. Be grateful Beluga or, at least be aware that anybody who uses a gps or other “satellite” technology is a Naziphile by your own moral standards. To be clear, scientists, engineers, technicians, skilled mechanical artisans do not start wars/pogroms/genocides et al, they serve their respective countries…just as ordinary soldiers do…often doing national duty as both.
As a Distinguished graduate of Redstone-Arsenal-Missile & Munition School I will relate to you that when I served in Huntsville [circal 1980’s] it was and I believe still is, the most integrated city in the south/USA at ALL LEVELS OF SOCIETY, it’s a badge of honor the city has worn with great pride for seven decades.
The Von Braun team required of the US Army that the Huntsville School System be brought up to German Rocket-Scientist-standards and by consent of the locals, IT WAS. As a result of Von Brauns teams good work, Huntsville has become a vast, though largely unknown tech center. The reason it’s largely unknown is, few ever leave..it’s just that good to live there. However tangential my association may be to Dr. Von Braun, his work, in association with the US Army, to create a more equitable society in Huntsville AL is an example to to all of the United States. The critics of Von Brauns team and it’s association with US-Army-Redstone-Arsenal just don’t know their facts.
LikeLike
Extremely interesting discussion, both of youse, thanks!
LikeLike
Are Yalensis and his readers aware of the satirical Tom Lehrer song about Werner von Braun?
Lehrer was an amazing guy, especially when you consider the time period when he was doing his schtick (early 1960s, middle of the Cold War.) So many songs about hot-button topics, including race relations in the U.S. This was before Weird Al Yankovic came around and started making humourous videos for MTV; before every AM radio morning show crew was doing parody songs.
To think that a major Hollywood record company would give Lehrer a contract and put out several vinyl albums of his stuff! That wouldn’t happen now. The U.S. had more freedom in the 1960s. Censorship is everywhere. Ban Tik-tok! You can’t say that on our campus! Your “free speech” that the government doesn’t like is blocked from Utoob and Twaater, but that doesn’t violate the First Amendment because it’s a CORPORATION censoring you, not the .gov. United States of hypocrisy…
I was lucky enough to be exposed to Lehrer by my 7th-grade social studies teacher. He was a young guy, probably gay, with some paedophile characteristics, but that’s another story. Part of our education was about ecology, and Mr. Crady played Lehrer’s “Pollution” song for us in class. These days, Lehrer would irritate some student snowflake who’d tattle to a parent, who’d go Karen-ing to a school official, and that record would be torn from the turntable.
I don’t recall whether it was in school or when the teach would invite some of us boys over to the flat he shared with the male French teacher, but I got hipped to Lehrer’s anti-war songs. Making light of how the U.S. would light up the whole world with nuclear bombs. They were catchy ditties, and they stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. I bought Lehrer’s two LPs in the 1970s — still have ‘em to this day! — and scored backup copies on CD in this century. Considering that those songs are older than most of the people alive on Earth, they have stood the test of time. As relevant today as they were when the USSR was still a thing.
LikeLike
So, even while your social-studies teacher was possibly “grooming you” to be one of his boy-toys (for some reason, you didn’t make the cut!), at least he was educating you in free-thinking. Even trade, in my view. He sounds like the kind of guy who would also have a collection of every Mad Magazine ever printed!
Yeah, I think the late 1950’s, early 1960’s were a great time in American history. It was kind of a post-war Rennaissance. They had beatniks and free-thinkers galore, it was a great time for poetry and literature, and also cinema. A couple of years ago I completed a personal project to watch every episode of “Rocky and Bullwinkle” on youtube. A great example of Cold-War snide and representative of the Mad Magazine kind of humor, which trained young Americans of that era to be skeptical of their government, as well as sarcastic.
Unfortunately, a lot of those wise-guy kids grew up to become the Hillary Clintons of our era. They learned how to weaponize the various social justice causes of the day, in the service of American Imperialism.
LikeLike
“..the late 1950’s, early 1960’s were a great time in American history. It was kind of a post-war Rennaissance. They had beatniks and free-thinkers galore, it was a great time for poetry and literature, and also cinema. A couple of years ago I completed a personal project to watch every episode of “Rocky and Bullwinkle” on youtube. A great example of Cold-War snide…humor, which trained young Americans of that era to be skeptical of their government, as well as sarcastic.
True that
Unfortunately:
” the early boomers could see that the late boomers would want the same things they did [pent-up-demand] and that made the late boomers easy prey for the sociopaths within the pre/old-boomers…and so it goes.
LikeLike
Early boomers also got affordable college education, then that perk disappeared at some point in the chain.
LikeLike
Generational labels are so off the mark they should be tossed, those who entered the workforce 1955-70 faced a vastly different world than those who entered the workforce post 1973. The late-boomer economy was cause for a lot of “late-bloomers”, they really should be pushed over to Generation X. What is thought of as “baby-boom opportunities” really belongs to the early boomers who should be placed within a category for those born 1935-1950. Note: Those born post 1965 got a shot at the open road presented by the PC et al boom but, that is a small sliver in time.
LikeLike
I’m in a reminiscing mood, and I reckon you’re entertained by comments from your coterie as much as we’uns are informed by your translations. So I’ll spin a yarn about how my (possibly) paedo teacher affected my life.
Each year during summer break from junior high school, he would take a bunch of students on an epic journey across America in a Ford van dragging a pop-up camper. From the Washington, D.C. area where the school was, he’d go through the Blue Ridge mountains, over the Mississippi River, into New Orleans, across vast Texas — including a stop at the Astrodome when that was still considered a wonder of the sporting world — a day trip over the border to Juarez, Mexico — bullfights! — into the desert Southwest, hiking the Rockies, ending with a day at Disneyland. The highlight was a week-long trip down the middle of the Grand Canyon, shooting the rapids on these huge inflatable rafts that were made as supports for military pontoon bridges. (Professional river runners piloted them, not the teacher.) Us boys got onto a 747 jet in Los Angeles and flew back to D.C. My first airline trip! Another group from his classes simultaneously flew out to Cali and met him to make the same journey in reverse.
It wasn’t free, of course. The excursion cost $1,200, which was not a small sum in 1971. I reckon my dad wasn’t making much more than $25,000 a year from his Army job the, so that woulda been like 5% of his pre-tax income. It took some begging from me, and lots of contemplation from my parents, before they consented. The teacher’s trips were well-known at that school and highly regarded. This wasn’t any elite private academy, either. Just a regular government-run public school in the Maryland suburbs, at the fringe of where Washington white-collar blended into redneck trucker-and-dirt-farmer territory. The boys who went on the trips came from the better-off families.
Now that I think back on it from a perspective of post-Cathoholic priestipervs, it was SO WEIRD to have a teacher involved with his students like that. It was kinda obvious that Mr. Crady was swish. He wasn’t married, liked show tunes, had a generally gay vibe to him back when “gay” still connoted light-hearted and carefree. The American social scene had not been as sexualised then as it has become now, though. People like my parents weren’t evaluating teachers on the basis of “is this guy a kiddy fiddler?” The idea that male teachers would do dirty deeds with boys — that would have been as unthinkable as saying someone would grow an extra head on his shoulders if he needed to complete an extra-hard math equation.
The things he did would NEVER fly now. There were a couple times when we boys went to his apartment — I think that was for pre-trip planning. Once, he took a group of us to an overnighter to New York City to see the musical “1776” (that was the “Hamilton” of its era.) It was to educate us about the Founding Fathers. Parents paid for that one too, of course. That was the only time I’ve been to a stage show on Broadway, but when you write blog posts about going to the opera, I can sorta relate based on my long-ago experience.
Similarly, when I saw news stories that happened in the U.S. South, or a hurricane would hit Houston, or there would be an article about saguaro cactuses, I felt like I knew a bit about the background of those events. I had been there! Mr. Crady would provide background about local history as we went along, so we got educated, not merely entertained by the scenery. He was a teacher through and through. That trip made me feel like a well-rounded American during the decades I still felt patriotic about the country. So many amazing sights we saw, especially the canyon raft trip! The U.S. is a wonderful land, geographically speaking. Too bad the power structure is so twisted and murderous. But that’s another rant.
About the paedo stuff, though… Mr. Crady was like a big, goofy boy. We were all 12 or 13 years old and I don’t think he was even 30 yet. He’d make silly jokes, play sappy 8-tracks on the van’s tape player — Neil Diamond’s greatest hits was on frequently — and sometimes get into tickling tussles with us. “Feely meely, feely meely!” is what he’d sing-song when he poked and rubbed us. Not on our cocks, though. It didn’t happen every day, but we thought it was a laff riot when it did.
As you mention about grooming, Bukko was never a chosen one. In any group, there’s a hierarchy of orbits. Chickens’ pecking order! The teacher liked me because I was an intellectual kid even then. All 10 of us on the trip were good students — he didn’t take dullards. But there were others in our mob who Mr. Crady would dote on just a leetle bit more than me. I could sense that I wasn’t in his innermost circle, but that was just how life worked.
Did he molest anybody? I never got the feeling he did. Certainly not me! None of my friends on that trip said anything was suss. My dad got reassigned to some military bases down south the year after the cross-country trip and we moved, so I lost touch.
Decades later, after the paedopriest scandal broke, I realised “the way those padres operated sounded a lot like my teacher.” Ya see, most paedos aren’t the slobbering sex fiends we imagine. They’re friendly, not creepyclowns who dangle candy in front of kids and then drag them into the bushes. They gain a boy’s confidence before they get into his pants.
I usedta do the occasional shifts as a nurse in a state prison in Florida. Most of the inmates were brainless thugs. Once or twice I came across a chipper crim who could carry on an intelligent conversation. Those guys were fun to chat with, and they seemed interested in me as a person. We nurses had access to the inmates’ case files. So I looked up what those guys were in for. Child sex crimes! It occurred to me: they’re worming their way into my good graces just like they did with kids. The paedo M.O.
In 2012, I was visiting my mom in Maryland, where she had returned to live. We got to talking about that teacher, the trip, and molesters. I Oogled the teacher’s name, fearing that I’d find out he had been convicted of sick stuff. But no, thank goodness! It turned out that one of his former students, who had taken the epic trip a few years after I did, was an indie film-maker who was putting together a movie about the teach. I got in touch with the film-maker by e.mail and added my glowing memories about the guy. He was living in England by then, the film-maker informed me, and had married an actual woman. Who (ominously) was the mom of one of his student boys. Maybe there was some super-icky degeneracy going on, diddling the boy, shacking up with the mom. I hope not, because I’d like to believe the teach was a noble character. He certainly had a more positive effect on my development than my own father (who was a violent military prick).
Both things could be true. Mr. Crady could have been a benign inspiration to a lot of boys like me, while maybe taking a few to the Dark Side after he groomed them. It’s a trope that all of us — if we’re lucky — will have that ONE special teacher who changes our life. NOT said is that sometimes, a teacher will perma-warp a pupil. Life is like that — not 100% good OR totally evil. Hero to many, pervo to some…
LikeLike
What an interesting story, Bukko, thanks for sharing! Mr. Crady sounds like a fun guy, he was a good influence on your life, and he didn’t try to bugger you, so that’s all good. The tickling bit sounds creepy, but if that’s all he needed to get his jollies, then it’s a fair price to pay for the trips and education. The tickling was probably him trying to figure out who, if any of the kids, would “consent” to be more than just tickled. He’d probably figure out, during his tickling session with you, that you were a young buck of the hetero variety, so he would leave you alone after that and just enjoy your company as an intellectual, not a potential boyfriend.
I am guessing that every now and then, out of the herd, he could find that one special boy, and maybe there was even mutual affection, so the kid would grow up and not even be traumatized or tell his mom. Mr. Crady probably had good instincts for that, which is why he never got in trouble. People don’t like to admit, but even young children (especially that age 12-13, that’s prime) can have sexual feelings, and can have crushes on adults. Sometimes it can be almost “mutual” in a way, although of course it is always inappropriate, and society is right to condemn these types of relationships. But it should not be assumed that children are automatically traumatized by these experiences, when there is no real violence or coercion involved.
LikeLike