"Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The air raid sirens sounded again in the center of Batumi City. Comrade Selov, who was holding an emergency enlarged meeting of the Party Committee, deploying the mobilization and defense work of the Full Autonomous Republic, looked at the smoke pillar that soared into the sky outside the window.:3w〗

That was an oil depot at the Batumi Refinery that was burning! There might be millions of gallons of gasoline or other oil burning, and all the fire brigades in Batumi were helpless. And this huge smoke column has now become a target for attracting imperialist bombers, and even at night, imperialist bombers can find their targets.

There were several timid committee members in the conference room who wanted to get up and go to the air-raid shelter to hide, but when Selov saw it, he glared fiercely.

"Continue to hold the meeting!" he said, "The enemy's target is an oil refinery, not a party committee building. We are now quick to discuss plans to strengthen firefighting forces, organize workers' battalions and build urban defense fortifications as soon as possible... We are close to Türkiye here, and we must be prepared to resist the Turkish invading army!"

In addition to strengthening firefighting, the other two tasks were deployed by the Georgian Party Committee. Now no one can guarantee that after the large bombing, thousands of Turkish reactionary armed forces will not cross the border to attack Batumi! Therefore, the Georgian Party Committee urgently instructed Selov to cooperate with the border guards to defend Batumi as much as possible.

At the same time, the People's Committee of the National Defense also urgently dispatched two infantry troops, one cavalry army and two tank brigades to reinforce the newly established Caucasian Front, and urgently transferred a fighter aviation regiment equipped with Lag-3 fighters from the Finnish battlefield to Georgia.

Molotov, who also served as the People's Commissar of Diplomacy, was ordered to generate electricity to the Soviet embassies in the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, so that they could find out the attitudes of all parties. At the same time, Molotov also urgently met with ambassadors from Turkey, Britain and the United States who "know nothing" about the air strike against the Batumi Nacional University, and inquired about the situation.

"The Turkish ambassador really didn't know anything, and was completely shocked." Molotov said at the Kremlin Political Bureau meeting. "The British ambassador and the American ambassador were very shocked, but they all hoped that the Soviet Union could maintain restraint and calm..."

"Restrain and calm?" Stalin hummed, "If Manchester and New York are next to each other now, can they still restrain and calm? This is the French imperialist invasion of the Soviet Union, a war of aggression! The Soviet people will never give up, and this time they must put the red flag into Paris!"

Stalin said harsh words and turned his eyes to the sweaty National Defense People's Committee member Voroshilov.

"Comrade General Secretary, two heavy bombing aviation brigades have been ready to attack," Voroshilov said. "The Turkish capital Ankara and Damascus in French Syria are both within the combat radius of heavy bombers."

Soviet heavy bombers, like their fighters, have already looked old. Now the heavy bombing of the Soviet Air Force is still the TB-2 and its improved TB-3, with as many as 6 heavy bombing aviation brigades, with a total of nearly 1,000 old-fashioned four-machine heavy bombings.

In the early 30 years, these four heavy bombs were a powerful force to deter imperialism. However, by 1940, these old-fashioned aircraft with slow speed, weak firepower and low flight were no longer useful. Even if they attacked at night, they were easily shot down by opponents' ground firepower and night fighters.

However, it is not the temper of the Russians who are not fighting back after being bombed. Stalin can only be hard and not soft on this issue, otherwise the comrades below will have ideas.

"Go to bomb Damascus tonight!" Stalin issued an order - the Syrian people are going to be bombed by lying down. But there is no way to do this. Paris is too far away and Soviet planes cannot reach it.

Voroshilov asked in a low voice: "Comrade General Secretary, do you want to contact the Germans and send several heavy bombing aviation brigades to bomb Paris?"

Take off from Germany's territory and get Paris. However, Stalin asked coldly: "Do you want to send a few more mechanized troops to attack France with the Germans?"

Shouldn't it be sent? Voroshilov saw Stalin's face was wrong, and he didn't know how to answer.

"How is the loss at the Batumi oil refinery?" Stalin changed the topic.

"Comrade General Secretary," Molotov, who was chairman of the People's Committee, replied, "The situation is serious. A large oil storage tank was hit, causing a fire, and the factory may be bombed for a second time."

The second wave of bombing has begun, but the Kremlin has not received any report. Since the first wave of bombing detonated the oil storage tank, the Batumi refinery has now ignited a fire, which has become a very eye-catching target. Now the French Leo-451 bomber can drop bombs at an altitude of more than 6,000 meters. Apart from the Lag-3, the Soviet Air Force has no fighter jet that can fly to such an altitude. Even the Lag-3, although it can fly quite high in theory, its performance will drop significantly when it reaches high altitudes, and it is easy to stall, which is very dangerous.

"Will production be seriously affected?" Stalin asked calmly.

Molotov nodded, "The work may be shut down for several months, but the impact on the national economy is not particularly large."

Batumi Oil City was the first five-year plan to introduce German machines and technology and expand it on the basis of the legacy of the Tsarist Russian era. It can process millions of tons of oil every year, accounting for about 50% of the domestic oil processing volume of the Soviet Union (not as much as 70%. Since the Soviet Union is an Iron Curtain country, Britain and France did not know that there were the Second Baku Oilfield and Ufa Oil City). If construction cannot be started in a few months, it will naturally cause the fuel supply in the Soviet Union to be tight, but it is definitely not as serious as Britain and France imagined.

Stalin lit his pipe and smoked while thinking, "What is the purpose of the French bombing Batumi? Preparing to invade Southern Russia? I don't think so... Their purpose is to reduce our oil exports to Germany. Perhaps the monthly oil export of 500,000 tons is indeed a little too much. Now our own oil base has been bombed by France, and the losses are serious, so there is no way to continue to supply crude oil at the standard of 500,000 tons per month."

"Comrade General Secretary," asked Migo Yang, a member of the Political Bureau responsible for domestic and foreign trade, "Then how much crude oil should we supply to Germany every month?"

Stalin spit out a circle of white smoke, thought for a while, and said: "In April, the delivery was suspended for one month, and the reserved oil depot was blown up. It began to be halved in May, and 250,000 tons per month... In addition, Germany is required to process 250,000 tons of crude oil for us every month from May."

This is a request that Germany cannot refuse, if Germany still wants to win over the Soviet Union as a friend.

Stalin glanced at Molotov and said, "Tell the Americans about this situation... If the United States does not want us to stand on the side of Germany, there should be some action."

There is no way to use crude oil directly. If Germany processes 250,000 tons of crude oil for the Soviet Union every month, then they will have to process 250,000 tons less, and the crude oil sold by the Soviet Union to Germany will also be reduced by 250,000 tons. This means that the French bombing has partially achieved the goal.

"Comrade General Secretary," Molotov, who also serves as the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, asked at this time, "Are we going to declare war on France now?"

France bombed the Batumi oil refinery, which was a bare act of war and in theory should be declared.

"Declaration of war?" Stalin snorted, "That is part of the bourgeois international legal power. We are socialist countries. Do socialist countries still need to declare war when fighting?"

Molotov breathed a sigh of relief, declaring war is easy to get a truce. It would be better to be more rigorous when the war was declared. If the war was declared upright, it would have to fight to the death. And once France was declared, then can we live and die with Britain peacefully? If we declare war with Britain, we would just board the German ship... Of course, it is not impossible to board the German ship, the problem is that the conditions have not been agreed upon yet.

Stalin paused and said, "Comrade Molotov, go to Berlin immediately and discuss with the Germans the issue of the Soviet Union's entry into the war."

Molotov became nervous again after hearing this, and looked at Stalin and asked, "Comrade General Secretary, what conditions should we propose?"

At this time, discussing with Germany to participate in the war will definitely be unfavorable to the Soviet Union, but it will not be possible to discuss it. Who knows whether the "armed conflict" that was bombed with the French will escalate step by step?

Stalin said: "The Red Army will enter Finland, Russian Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, French Syria, Iraq and Iran. In addition, the cause of liberation of the Indian people should also be the responsibility of the Soviet Union."

Molotov nodded. To be honest, such conditions were not harsh. After all, the addition of the Soviet Union was equivalent to ensuring that Germany could win the world war!

But if the Soviet Union's requirements are really met, then the entire Middle East oil-producing zone and Romanian oil fields will fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. Moreover, after occupying Russian Poland, the Soviet Red Army can directly threaten Germany's core headquarters, so it is unlikely that Germany will accept these conditions.

"Comrade General Secretary, if Germany does not accept these conditions," Molotov asked carefully, "will there be a second or third option?"

Stalin took two puffs of cigarettes and thought, "You can discuss it slowly... Don't refuse anything, don't agree to anything unless Germany accepts our conditions.

In addition, we need to make technical assistance requirements. Our aviation technology is already behind, requiring Germany to transfer BF-109 and Folk Zero related technologies. Only in this way can we protect the oil-producing areas of Baku, Batumi and Grozny. Otherwise, the French would have fried them a few more times and we would have no oil to supply to Germany!”
Chapter completed!