Russia Archives - Zeihan on Geopolitics

MedShare Donation + The Koreans Are Coming to the Ukraine War

You’re about to watch a free video on the North Koreans getting involved in the Ukraine War, but before you do, learn how you can get access to the most recent videos and support a good cause in the process…

All proceeds for the remainder of this calendar year from all new subscriptions on Patreon between now and November 1, will be donated to MedShare International. That means you can get access to the daily videos, news digests, community forum and live Q&A, and your money will be going directly to support those in need.

You can click the link below to join us on Patreon or donate directly to help support MedShare’s efforts.

Reports coming out of South Korea indicate that North Korean troops could be deploying to Russia. These reports are unconfirmed, but the South Koreans aren’t usually in the business of lying. So, what does this mean for the Ukraine War?

North Korea hasn’t seen combat in ages, so while they gain some field experience, the rest of the world will get a glimpse at their capabilities. If the artillery and missiles the North Koreans already sent to the Russians are any indicator, I wouldn’t expect much. This could also drag the South Koreans into the conflict on the Ukrainian side, which might outweigh what the North Korea brings to the table for Russia.

Speaking of dragging new players into the war, Iran’s involvement with Russia could get Israel involved as well. This would likely come in the form of Israeli attacks on Iranian facilities making drones, but with Israel being a leader in defense technology, this could be a game changer for the Ukrainians.

The Russians are showing their declining military capacity by grasping at straws trying to get the North Koreans and Iranians to save their asses, but that strategy may soon backfire.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are free and we will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. Today there’s some weird stuff going in in the news. We’ve got reports that North Korean troops, are in the process of deploying to Russia. Some technical advisers are already there providing the Russians with assistance on how to use North Korean weaponry system. But now we’ve got, open discussion in South Korea about, intercepts.

From Point Yang, about, an actual troop deployment to maybe even fight on the front lines. Now, I don’t have any way to confirm this. I don’t have, my ear in the Korean dictator Kim Jong un’s, House or anything like that. But the South Koreans are not known for making stuff up. I mean, they’re known for.

And they’re known for bulgogi and kimchi and soju and electronics and cellular technologies and computing and mass manufacturing and heavy drinking. But they’re not known to make shit up. So I’m taking this a little bit more seriously than I would any other random report. We don’t usually get a lot of fake noise out of Seoul. Anyway. Four big things come from this.

Number one, the North Koreans have not been in a fight since 1953, so there is no living soldier in North Korea that is ever fired a rifle in anger. And getting any sort of information on how they might perform in real world circumstances would be an intelligence bonanza. Of course, it goes both ways. The North Koreans haven’t had been in a fight, so being able to see a front line, even if they’re not major combatants, is something that they could use for training purposes.

But for the point of view of the United States and South Korea, this is going to be the best bit of information we’ve ever had, in the last 70 years. That will allow us to remap our war plans, for the Korean Peninsula, should anything go wrong. Having a more accurate view of your enemy is always the first step, to planning.

The second big thing, North Korea is not the only country that is providing foreign assistance to the Russians. Specifically, they’re providing, ballistic missiles and artillery shells to the degree that maybe half of the artillery shells that have been used in Ukraine by the Russians this year are from North Korea. I mean, they’re crap. Probably half of them don’t work.

And they’ve been blowing up more Russian artillery tubes than Ukrainian artillery tubes, because sometimes they blow up too soon. Anyway, they’re not the only ones. The Iranians are also involved with the Shaheed drones, which over which a thousand have been used at this point. Now, just as in with the North Korean situation, there’s an intelligence bonanza to be had here or a way to get information on the inside of the system.

The Iranians, have recently launched a couple hundred ballistic missiles against Israel, and Israel is itching to respond, and they’ve basically already been given the green light, more or less, by the Biden administration to do so. The question is where, when and how? Well, if we now have the North Koreans intervening in the Ukraine war and we already have the Iranians intervening in the Ukraine war, then there’s an opportunity here for in exchange for the Biden administration, you know, kind of giving its blessing, to an Israeli retaliation attack on Iran.

They might just add a couple target coordinates in order to get the facilities that make the shitty drones. Iran, like North Korea, is not exactly a technological leader, and the number of personnel that can put these things together is relatively limited. So if you were to take out a cluster of technical support, which the Russians desperately need, as well as the manufacturing facilities of which the Russians desperately need, you could as part of your retaliation attack, see Israel actually remove a huge source of military capability from the Russians in the Ukraine war.

Also, keep in mind that the Russians are among the best in the world at assassination campaigns. And whenever an Iranian nuclear scientist gets a little bit too useful, they tend to meet a dire end. Just simply expanding that target set to include drone technicians is something the Israelis could do very, very, very easily. The third thing, as I mentioned, North Korea and Iran are not countries that I would mention as technological leaders and the fact that the Russians need them for half of their artillery shells and a substantial percentage of their drone warfare, that bodes really, really badly for the Russians ability to maintain this war long term.

We already know that they’re only be able to make a double digits number of new tanks a year. They’re just really refurbishing their old ones. And if the technical skills within the military industrial complex of Russia are down to the degree that they’re this dependent on two fourth string countries, that would suggest as we move forward, they’re going to become wholly dependent upon imports of weapons.

Well, that provides other opportunities for countries to choke the Russian war machine, because if the vulnerability isn’t in Siberia, if it’s inside this farm, that’s a lot easier to get to, especially if you’ve got countries like South Korea or Israel who are now involved. Which brings us to the fourth and final thing, South Korea, in Israel now involved, there’s a diplomatic angle here as well as a strategic angle.

You have to consider both of these countries have been desperate to avoid Ukraine’s entreaties, and the United States requests to get involved in the conflict in any meaningful way, because they’ve got bigger security issues closer to home. That focus wholly on them. And they didn’t want the Russians stirring the pot in their own backyards. Well, now the Russians are stirring the pot in their own backyard, so they are involved.

And so we’re seeing the political restrictions loosened in both Jerusalem and Seoul. And that can have a lot more impact than simply providing the Ukrainians with some technical help and some weapons systems. South Korea is one of the world’s five biggest arms exporters and produces regular things like artillery and rocket system and tanks that are not too far behind what comes out of Germany or France or the United States, but at a significantly lower price point.

In fact, they’ve already signed a deal to provide the poles with over a thousand tanks and assorted systems. Providing that sort of assistance to Ukraine is obviously a no brainer. But when you look at a country like Israel that has under 10 million people and is in kind of a tough neighborhood, mass producing hardware quickly is something they cannot do.

But the South Koreans can. And to flip the equation, the Israelis are the world leader or a world leader in anti-missile technologies and by far have the world’s best anti artillery and anti rocket technology and their Iron Dome system. Well, on day one of any theoretical Korean War, the North Korean is going to be lobbing all kinds of ammo into downtown Seoul.

So if Israel can help out Korea with artillery and rocket defense, cooperation between these two countries changes the strategic calculus of both of them in a very positive way. And if you can take Israel’s technical acumen on some specific weapons systems and married to Korea’s ability to produce a lot of things very quickly, you can actually see that working out through the entire Western alliance system.

So as I said several months ago, when the North Koreans started to get involved at Russian insistence, you know, this was probably one of the dumbest things that the Russians could do. I mean, yes, it gives them a tactical leg up in terms of ammo, but it risks bringing in a really important player. On the other side, and that’s South Korea.

And now we’re looking at both Israel and South Korea being brought in at more or less the same time and being brought in together. And that changes a lot.

Photo from Wikimedia commons

MedShare Donation + Russian Sanctions Are Making Global Finance Spicy

You’re about to watch a free video on a new round of sanctions hitting Russia, but before you do, learn how you can get access to the most recent videos and support a good cause in the process…

All proceeds for the remainder of this calendar year from all new subscriptions on Patreon between now and November 1, will be donated to MedShare International. That means you can get access to the daily videos, news digests, community forum and live Q&A, and your money will be going directly to support those in need.

You can click the link below to join us on Patreon or donate directly to help support MedShare’s efforts.

The Russians are kind of like the Hydra from Greek mythology – that’s the creature that grows two heads every time you cut one off, for those who have been out of 5th grade for a bit – but the most recent round of sanctions might be the cauterizing torch needed to stop the Russians from bouncing back this time.

Sanctions are not a new strategy to fight the Russians; the US and the Europeans have used them to cut off access to dollar/euro liquidity since the dawn of the Ukraine War. While this shut the Russians down for a bit, the Chinese stepped in and provided yuan liquidity to help circumvent those Western sanctions.

On October 12, the exemption allowing Chinese yuan to help the Russians will expire. Any Chinese institutions that continue working with the Russians will risk losing access to dollar liquidity, which would be devastating for the Chinese economy. The removal of the yuan will limit Russian trade and global economic activity and I would expect most Russian industries to take a big hit, except for those producing military parts and equipment.

We’re entering unprecedented territory here. No country of Russia’s scale has been cut off from global liquidity, so the outcome is up in the air. However, the next round of sanctions could very well decimate the Russian economy.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are free and we will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey everyone, Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from the South Carolina coast. And since we’re on a beach, we have to talk about finance. Yeah. We’re about to get something really interesting happening in Russia with the sanctions. Now, first, the backstory: if you remember a few months back, the United States restricted dollar liquidity, and the Europeans restricted euro liquidity, which is a fancy way of saying that if you are a Russian entity, you can no longer access the currencies. Liquidity is basically the lubricating oil that allows everything to move, allowing any sort of financial institution to get temporary loans to smooth over operations.

The sanctions essentially shut down the Moscow Stock Exchange because, without currency to constantly churn through, any sort of international exchange becomes impossible. Keep in mind that, especially for the U.S. dollar, it’s the intermediary in all foreign trade. So when the United States said, “Nope, you’re out,” the Russians had to find other ways to do things. In the meantime, that shut down a lot of operations. So the exchange itself actually closed down for a while.

Anyway, what happened was the Chinese stepped into that role with yuan, essentially introducing an extra step and an extra cost, but allowing operations to begin again. The problem is that on October 12th, the exemption for the Chinese runs out. Basically, in order to ensure there was less of a shock to the global system, during the first phase of the sanctions, the Russians were denied access to liquidity. Now, in the second phase, anyone dealing with the Russians will be denied access to this liquidity as well.

For the last few months, the Chinese, who have dollar liquidity, have been providing yuan to the Russians. That will now be removed, or the Chinese companies and banks — all of which are state-owned — will lose access to dollar liquidity. Since the Chinese economy is roughly nine times the size of the Russian economy, every Chinese financial institution has far more exposure to the global system and the American economy than to the Russians. So, essentially, all this U.S. dollar liquidity is going to go away overnight. We’re going to see another seizing effect in the Russian system. Pretty much any company that uses parts or sells any commodity or product on the international system — which is, you know, 80% of them — is going to be out of luck.

There will be some exceptions. The Russian government has picked up a lot of yuan over the last couple of years because they’re trying to limit their exposure to everything else, so they have sufficient currency reserves to provide limited supply to limited companies. But almost all of that is going to the companies that have to import parts for weapons systems. So you’re looking at maybe 20 to 30% of the Russian companies that need this liquidity being able to get some of it in order to keep weapons manufacturers running. Because, as we’ve seen in this war, Russia’s technical skills have suffered greatly.

Probably half of their parts are coming from China, and about 10 to 20% are coming from the West. All of that requires currency liquidity. So the companies involved in those trades and in that manufacturing will still be able to get yuan from the central government and use that to access international systems. But everyone else is going to be high and dry.

Textbooks tell us that this shift to a more autarkic model is going to completely devastate any sort of economic flexibility. Everything from payroll to sourcing is going to be almost impossible. The problem with that confidence is that we’ve never had anyone of note get cut off to this degree before. In past times when the United States has done something like this, it’s been to a country like Iran, where, let’s just say, manufacturing and international trade are not something they’re really good at, at least not in this millennium.

And there wasn’t a secondary level, so rubles or yuan or euros or whatever could still be used to get in through the back door. This is much more airtight. On the 12th, we’re going to find out exactly what effect this has. Based on its effectiveness, we’ll know exactly what the next round of sanctions will be.

MedShare Donation + Russia Strikes Three Commercial Ships

You’re about to watch a free video on Russia attacking commercial ships, but before you do, learn how you can get access to the most recent videos and support a good cause in the process…

All proceeds for the remainder of this calendar year from all new subscriptions on Patreon between now and November 1, will be donated to MedShare International. That means you can get access to the daily videos, news digests, community forum and live Q&A, and your money will be going directly to support those in need.

You can click the link below to join us on Patreon or donate directly to help support MedShare’s efforts.

Russia has attacked three civilian ships carrying grain in Ukraine’s southwest maritime corridor. This marks Russia’s first major attack on commercial shipping, and a significant escalation of this war.

Ukraine doesn’t have too many options for getting its grain out, so they rely heavily on sea transport. Since the collapse of a political deal with Russia that allowed grain shipments to get through, the Ukrainians have created a corridor through Romanian and Bulgarian waters; however, the Russians most recent strike might put an end to that.

We will likely see disruptions to global food supplies and further complications with maritime insurance…which makes sense, as the potential loss of three ships is no small setback. This situation is evolving rapidly and I will continue to update as news comes out.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are free and we will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey everybody, Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado with just a quick update. It’s the 10th of October and we just got confirmation that the Russians are attacking civilian shipping with international flags in a corridor to the southwest of Ukraine, ships primarily carrying grain. We have been very, very fortunate in the conflict so far that we haven’t had a food crisis.

At the very beginning of the war, when the Russians were blockading the entirety of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, we basically had 3 or 4% of global food production fall off market overnight with no replacement. And food prices quickly rose to, recent record highs, the highest we’ve had in 15 years. Since then, we had a political deal between Russia and Ukraine to allow ships to come and go in order to pick up foodstuffs.

And after that deal collapsed a year later, we then last year had the Ukrainians open up their own grain corridor, which went west from Odessa into Romanian Bulgarian waters, where Russian ships wouldn’t dare go. But there was still that thin sliver of territory between Odessa and the maritime border with Romania that was in Ukrainian space, where there was always a concern that the Russians would strike.

And now they have right now only three ships. Right now only three attacks. Right now, no ships have been sunk. But this would be the first time in the war in a meaningful way that the Russians have actually gone after commercial shipping. They have a couple things to keep in mind. Number one, Ukraine does not really have a very good way to get grain out by rail.

All the countries that border it to the west are also agricultural exporters. So even if there wasn’t a political complication and there are, these are markets that couldn’t absorb it. So you need to go several hundred miles further in order to get to ports in, say, Germany or Croatia in order to get the grain out. And those ports are already being used by other exporters.

So, you get snarled in addition to the fact that the rail lines are insufficient to the task, in addition to the fact that they use a different rail gauge. So really it’s by sea or really not at all. Second, while we have had some changes in the insurance regime of maritime shipping in the last several years, the still the bottom line is we haven’t really lost a insured ship in the Ukraine war yet, and we don’t know how insurers are going to adjust policies.

If you would ask me, before the war started, it would have been pretty dramatic where we had a loss of shipping like 25 years. And so if a ship had been taken down that had a policy, basically no one would be able to offer a policy anymore. And all ships would be completely uninsured in the area. That assumes there’s not a cascade through the financial system.

Now that they’ve had a couple of years to kind of prepare for this moment, we really don’t know what companies like Lloyd’s of London are going to do, but we’re going to find out really, really fast. So stay tuned. And if this gets bigger than it is right now, I’ll definitely be telling you more.

Russia: Threats, Deterrence, and the War of Numbers

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Okay, now that all the housekeeping is out of the way, let’s move on to today’s video.

So far in the Ukraine War, the Russians have threatened Finland and Sweden with nuclear annihilation for joining NATO, Germany with nuclear annihilation for providing tanks, Britain with nuclear annihilation for providing missiles, France with nuclear annihilation for merely discussing the possibility of troops, and America with nuclear annihilation because it was a Tuesday. Needless to say, the credibility of Russia’s threats leaves something to be desired…

Russia has struggled to maintain a credible “red line” (referring to the point at which Putin will push the shiny red button) for quite a while now. With the US ready to launch a counter attack should nukes fly, the Russians are already hesitant to pull the trigger, but their recent failed missile test and refusal to enter negotiations means they don’t have a ton of options.

In all likelihood, Russia’s only path to victory in Ukraine relies on sheer manpower. Which means they’ll keep sending wave after wave after wave of their population into the meat grinder until something shifts in their favor…because that’s all they know how to do.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are free and we will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Kolar, Wisconsin. I love this place, except in the winter when—oh my God. Anyway, back on the 26th. The 26th. The 25th. I can’t remember the exact date. Anyway, sometime in September, the Putin government, Putin himself, announced a new nuclear doctrine for the threshold of when they would actually hit the big candy-like red button.

The Russians are having a problem because they have established all kinds of red lines—dozens of them—over the last two and a half years. Whenever someone has crossed them, whether it’s Ukraine in the war, or weapon supplies from the United States, Germany, Britain, or Turkey, the Russians have ignored their own red line.

So they’re having a credibility problem with their deterrence policy. Putin’s announcement a couple of days ago was about trying to reestablish that. He said that now any non-nuclear country who has an ally who is a nuclear country, should the non-nuclear country use a non-nuclear weapon against Russia, it justifies a nuclear strike on the nuclear country.

This is a stupid, pointless press release—kind of reminds me of the Obama era—because it’s already been violated a few hundred times. The Russians have had a real problem establishing or reestablishing deterrence because they keep saying stupid things like this, which are nonsensical. Immediately, the world goes on, and it’s shown to be a bluff.

Now, the issue is that the Russian conventional military is not all that. By the numbers, Ukraine should have been gone a long time ago, but it’s still punching well above its weight. And that’s before you consider that most of the Western alliance is providing the Ukrainians with ammo and weapons. So, how do you reestablish deterrence?

Well, the first, easiest, most direct, and most reliable way is to have a conversation—to basically call up the United States, establish a summit, and talk about strategic issues, of which nuclear weapons are one.

The Russians have firmly refused that option because if they do that, they have to talk about Ukraine. They have to talk about war crimes. They have to talk about mass kidnappings. They have to talk about the weaponization of sexual violence. They have to talk about encouraging migrants to go to Europe by breaking countries in Africa and the Middle East. They have to talk about all the things they’ve been doing over the last 2 or 3 years that they see as giving them a little bit of leverage.

Of course, the Europeans and the United States have acted, and so the Ukraine war is continuing. Ukraine still exists. For the Russians to establish deterrence by negotiation, they have to put everything else on the table, and they are not willing to do that. As a result, we’ve had no meaningful summits in the last three years with anyone.

What’s the second thing you can do? You can do a demonstration nuclear test. The problem is that the Russian nuclear force has degraded just as much as the Russian conventional force. Less than a week ago, the Russians tried to test out one of the new intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it blew up in the silo.

Now, this is really bad—not just from an embarrassing point of view or a deterrence point of view—but most of the avionics for Russia’s ICBM arsenal were built in Ukraine. This new missile that the Russians were testing was their effort to build a domestic supply chain. It is now apparent that, at least at the moment, that is not possible.

It begs the question of just how reliable the rest of the Russian nuclear arsenal is. If they hit the big candy-red button, will anything happen? If countries aren’t confident that things will launch, deterrence can’t happen.

The third thing you can do is nuke someone. The problem here is, while the Russians have bled away and pissed away their deterrence, the United States has not.

The United States continues to test, fine-tune, and deploy its weapons. It made very clear to the Russians in the early weeks of the Ukraine war that if Russia were to throw a nuke into Ukraine or anywhere else, the first thing the United States would do is use its conventional forces to destroy every Russian military and civilian asset—shipping around the world, every single port within range of conventional force, every single port the Russians have.

If that nuclear weapon were to hit a NATO ally and not just Ukraine, the first few weapons the United States would send back would target Putin personally. So that’s not an option either.

So, what’s left?

What’s left is nothing good. You get Obama-style pointless press releases and Trump-style bluster. That is what passes for strategic policy in the Kremlin these days. Now, whether or not any of that is sustainable over the long run is really not the point. The question, ultimately, is how will the Ukraine war play out?

Remember, Russia is still a large country, and even on its back, it still has a huge amount of resources and manpower to throw at the situation. They’re not bottomless anymore—this is not 1920 or 1980—but the Russians still outnumber the Ukrainians at least 3 to 1. They have an industrial plant that, while atrophied, is still an order of magnitude bigger than anything the Ukrainians have.

They have the Chinese providing huge amounts of components. Probably half of all the weapons systems the Russians have built in the last two years are majority made with Chinese components. Upwards of one-quarter of the artillery shells being used by the Russians on the front are coming from North Korea.

And, of course, all the Shahed drones are coming from Iran. So, there are very real flows here. It’s ultimately a question of whether the Russians can put the numbers to play. To that end, the Putin government, just before that disastrous failed nuclear missile test, announced that they were expanding the military to make it the second-largest standing army in the world.

If Russia is going to win, that’s how—through numbers, by ignoring the casualties, and just steamrolling them. If that sounds inhumane, it’s because this is how Russia has won every single war in its nearly thousand-year history. So far, in this war, they haven’t really put their weight into it. We might be seeing that change now.

If the Russians are going to win, this is how it’s going to go. It’s not going to be because of nukes.

New Ukrainian Weapons Hit Russia Where It Hurts

Ukraine has successfully attacked several major Russian ammunition depots, with explosions detectable hundreds of miles away. These strikes suggest Ukraine’s war strategy is evolving…

There are a handful of factors contributing to the success of Ukraine’s tactics: vulnerability of Russian ammunition, Ukraine’s new missile-drone hybrid weapon and Russian rail system targeting. Combine all of these and you get a recipe for Ukrainian success.

The strategic shift we’re seeing now could pose some serious challenges for the Russians moving forward.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hello, everybody. It’s Peter Zeihan coming to you from a foggy Colorado. It is the 22nd of September. In the news over the last 4 or 5 days, the Ukrainians have managed to blow up a handful of major arm depots within Russian territory, some of them a couple hundred miles from the border. The three places in question are cross-border, Tow Rope Pets, and two corvettes.

Yeah, pretty sure that’s right. Anyway, one of these explosions was big enough that it was detected by seismic monitoring stations a thousand miles away, which is cool—kind of creepy. Kiloton-range explosion. We’ve got four things going on here, all of which are pretty significant, and when you put them together, it suggests a change in the tempo of the war.

The first thing to understand is that the Russians don’t move and store ammo like normal people. They don’t use forklifts, crates, or pallets; they just have things in boxes moved by hand. So, when something goes wrong—and things often do—it’s very volatile. That’s definitely what happened at all three of these facilities.

The second development is that the Ukrainians have brought a new weapon system into play. The technical term is “drone missile,” which is a bit shy of a cruise missile. The name of this system is a letter, and I’m not going to apologize for mispronouncing it because the Ukrainians chose that name specifically because it’s difficult for the Russians to pronounce—so I’m in the clear. The NSA, anyway. Its range isn’t nearly as good as some of the drones the Ukrainians have been fielding over the course of the summer.

Some of these drones have hit targets a thousand miles from the front, but these probably have a range of no more than 300 miles. However, because it’s a missile instead of a drone, it flies much faster, is much harder to intercept, and can carry a much heavier payload. The bigger Ukrainian drones can carry warheads about 75 pounds, with most of them carrying a third of that. But these new missiles likely have warheads 2 to 5 times as large. I say “likely” because they’re new, and last week was the first time we saw them in action. That said, they’re being used in large numbers—specifically in the attack on Tow Rope Pets, which involved at least 100 of these missiles. This is not just a case of 1 or 2 missiles being launched; entire fleets are now in play. For their debut, that’s pretty impressive from a manufacturing point of view, leaving aside logistics and military planning.

The third issue is that Russia, when it moves cargo more than the final mile, usually relies on rail. Russian territory is vast, and the value of agricultural land in Russia is low. Precipitation is fickle, and the summer season is short, so the amount of income Russian land can generate for the state per square mile is very low. Of the major agricultural zones in the world, Russia’s is by far the lowest in terms of income generated.

This means the Russians can’t afford a normal transport method like having a road network that individual farmers can always access. They simply don’t have the income necessary to build or maintain such a network, so they need something more cost-effective—hence, rail. About 90% of what moves in Russia, whether it’s barrels of oil, bushels of grain, or stacks of ammo canisters, moves by rail. It’s only in the final mile that cargo is moved by hand or maybe by civilian car if it’s a military asset. This system has lots of vulnerabilities, but it’s hard to target trains because rail networks are difficult to disrupt long-term. If a rail line gets blown up, you just lay new track.

In the recent attack, it appears that a train was present, unloading ammo at the time, and it was hit, causing the entire depot to explode. I must emphasize that I’m using local Russian reporting, so take it with a grain of salt. But usually, the Russians don’t celebrate their own trains and ammo dumps getting blown up. “Celebrate” is the wrong word, but you get the point. Unless this was an amazing coincidence, it suggests the Ukrainians have found a way to track Russian rail movements in real-time.

There’s reason to think this is true because a few weeks ago, the Ukrainians attacked Russia to the north and took over large portions of the Kursk province, including a rail depot at a place called Susa. If this allowed the Ukrainians to tap into or hack the Russian rail network, they could now know the schedules and locations of Russian locomotives and what they’re carrying. If they’re carrying ammo and heading to a warehouse full of more ammo, well, that’s a target-rich environment for the Ukrainians. So, we should expect more of these kinds of attacks.

Which brings us to the fourth and final issue: a potential change in targeting. If the Ukrainians do have better intel on the rail system and now have these faster, more lethal, mass-produced missile drones, the logical next step is to target Russia’s power generation and distribution systems. Unlike in the U.S., where half of our cargo by ton-mile is moved by truck, rail is critical in Russia, and two-thirds of Russia’s locomotives are electric. If Ukraine can disrupt the electricity system, the entire Russian transport system could fall apart.

We may already be seeing early stages of this. We know the Ukrainians have used drones to attack power centers in Crimea, though it felt like a test run—there weren’t many drones involved. But if they now have better intel on rail systems and weapons to hit ammo and transport networks, we’ll likely see much more activity within 150 miles of Ukraine’s borders to the north, northeast, and east.

We’ve seen Russian counteroffensives in places like Kursk peter out in the last 72 hours, as well as in the Donbas, where Russian forces were on the verge of capturing a Ukrainian rail network at Borowski. The Russians had been making steady progress toward this goal for months, ever since they captured the fortress city of Avdiivka. They got within 5 or 6 miles of Borowski, and if they had taken it, Ukraine’s ability to move forces along the front would’ve been crippled. But the assault stopped, likely due to the kind of attacks I’ve just described.

This is bad for Russia in the short, mid, and long term. It affects their ability to reach the front, let alone supply it. Remember, the Russian military doesn’t operate on quality—it’s all about throwing huge numbers of troops and shells at the enemy and incrementally advancing. You can’t do that without a robust rail network, and the Ukrainians may have just found a way to strike at its heart.

A New War in Ukraine

There are lots of moving parts in the Ukraine War right now, so let’s do a little recap of everything that’s going on. There are four big ones…

First up is the Ukrainian Offensive in Kursk. One of my recent videos covered this in more detail, but essentially the Ukrainians have poked into Russian territory and caused significant Russian casualties, destroyed a number of bridges, and cut off key supply lines. They are also bringing some heavy artillery and equipment along with them that will impact the front lines.

Next, the Ukrainians sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. This was a critical piece of transport for the Russians and was one of the few things keeping their supply lines to Crimea open. This is a big win for Ukraine as it will weaken Russia’s position in the Crimean front.

Third is the destruction of a major fuel depot in Russia. A Ukrainian attack set about a third of the storage tanks ablaze at a depot in the Proletarsk district. This fire is still spreading and could cause major setbacks for the Russian forces in Crimea that depend upon this fuel.

Last is the Russian assault on Pokrovsk. While the Ukrainians are seeing big wins across many fronts, they are facing heavy pressure from the Russians in the city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas. The Russians are seeking control of this nexus city, as it would complicate Ukrainian supply lines in the region.

Like I said, lots of moving parts…but that means there’s a potential for significant changes. So, stay tuned for further updates.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado on a somewhat gloomy Saturday. This is the Geneva Basin behind me, and I am standing on the crest of Geneva Mountain. Today, we’re going to catch you up on everything that’s going on in Ukraine. We’ve got four big developments that have evolved over the last couple of weeks. The first one we’ve already discussed quite a bit.

And that is the Ukrainian offensive through their northern border into Russia proper, into the Kursk province, where they’ve triggered a war of movement with the Russians. From everything we can tell, the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties, but the Russians are taking just absolutely astronomical casualties because the Ukrainians have destroyed the bridges across the river.

So, the Russian forces that are south of the river and north of the Ukrainian border are just getting chopped up without any support, and the Ukrainians are apparently having a pretty good time of it. They’ve also brought a lot of their longer-range missiles, mortars, and drones very, very close to the border itself and are launching them at targets up to 100 miles within Russia proper, gutting the logistics, infrastructure, and everything in the southern and western parts of Kursk province. Basically, the entirety of the northern front of the Ukraine war has now been relocated into Russian territory. This is a significant change in battlefield realities, and if the Ukrainians can keep this up, they’ll be able to cut the infrastructure between Kursk city and Belgorod city, which is how all Russian forces have been supplied for the northern front.

So, this is very significant and has the potential to become much more so in the days and weeks to come. The second big development is that the Ukrainians have successfully sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. Now, for those of you who haven’t been watching for a while, the primary means that the Russians have been using to supply their forces in the Crimean Peninsula, in the south of Ukraine, has been the Kerch Strait Bridge.

But after a series of attacks on it over the last two years, the cargo function of the bridge has basically been shut off. They can ship personnel in, but no cargo, so no fuel. So, they’ve been using rail ferries to go from the Black Sea coast of Russia into Crimea in occupied territory. Well, the Ukrainians a few months ago started targeting the rail ferries, and this last week, the final one was hit while it was at dock in port.

It sank in its berth. So even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel to clear it—which it’s unclear that they do—they’re talking about an operation that would probably take a minimum of a couple of months. And even if they cleared it, they have no more rail ferries, and no one will sell them any.

So, this has basically destroyed the capacity of the Russians to ship fuel to the Crimean front. The third thing involves the city of Prohodytsk—probably mispronouncing that. Anyway, that is a city further inland, closer to the Russian border, and it’s a major fuel depot. There are 74 of those giant tanks that you see outside of refineries all over the area.

So far, the fire that the Ukrainians triggered with this attack has been so intense that it has completely destroyed a third of the tanks, and it’s spreading to the rest. Once again, even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel necessary to fight the fire—which they don’t—it’s, I don’t want to call it out of control, but the Russians are barely holding the line. The Ukrainians have not let up; they’ve launched at least a couple more attacks since then. There’s a very real possibility that this entire depot, by far the biggest and most relevant one to the Prohodytsk front, is not going to be there a couple of weeks from now.

So, not only is fuel delivery now out of the equation, but fuel storage and forward positioning also seem to be going offline permanently as well. That would normally open up a huge opportunity for the Ukrainians to press the Crimean front because the Russian soldiers in Crimea are kicking for reinforcements, more ammunition, and supplies.

But that brings us to the fourth problem, which is absolutely not going the Ukrainians’ way, and that is the Russian assault on the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk—emphasis on the “krovsk.” That is in the Donbas, actually not too far from one of the regional capitals. Basically, what’s going on here is that the Russians have decided that they have to take this city at any cost, and they’ve been launching literally dozens of assaults against Ukrainian forces every single day for the last month.

And as the Russians are scrambling to move forces north into Kursk or south towards Crimea, they have not pulled anything out of the Pokrovsk front. Now that they can’t get fuel to Crimea, there is an argument to be made that the Russians might not even bother trying to send reinforcements to Crimea in the short term. Instead, they’ll send everything to Pokrovsk because if Pokrovsk falls, it’s a major problem for the Ukrainians. It’s a real nexus where several supply lines come together.

If it is taken out, it’s not that the Ukrainians can’t supply the front in the Donbas, but instead of having a single point where they can concentrate their forces and build for a pushback, they’ll have to do it from several different points that require a lot of rerouting.

That won’t be nearly as effective and will be much easier for the Russians to disrupt. The Ukrainians have always been trying to make this area work, while the Russians have always tried to put more pressure on it. One of the reasons why the Ukrainians have managed to secure this area so far is that there are no minefields up there, so they’re free to maneuver.

But if Pokrovsk falls, the Ukrainians are going to be running around just trying to hold the front at several different places, making the reinforcement problem even worse. So, there are a lot of decisive things going on here. Kursk is in play, Crimea is in play. If the Ukrainians can find some reserves to free up, those are now, of course, going to be contested.

We’re probably going to see more changes in the front line in the next few months than we have seen in the last couple of years. Very, very dynamic situation, very unclear. I think that’s one aspect to keep in mind here because we have three different factors at play.

What Are China and Russia Doing in Africa?

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

China and Russia seemingly enjoy having their fingers in the African pie, but what are they doing there? And should we be worried?

The Chinese have carried out infrastructure projects advertised as free, and later tried to collect payment on those “free” projects. As you could imagine, much of that Chinese infrastructure in Africa fell into disrepair; we’re not just talking about pennies here either…

But that’s not the only thing China is up to in Africa. They are also heavily investing in minerals like manganese, cobalt and copper. While the investments are real, they are overpaying due to corruption and Chinese bureaucrats seeking to move money out of the country.

Now, onto the Russians. The Russian involvement is bit more sinister, as they are using the Wagner Group (a paramilitary organization) to destabilize regions, instigate regime changes, and secure gold mines. This has been highly effective in places like the Sahel region, and is expressly designed to amplify regional risks and create a stateless zone that will cause headaches for everyone else for years.

These activities all have varying degrees of impact, and while the Chinese might be pouring more money into Africa, I would keep your eyes on the Russian involvement.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from just above Sister Lake. That’s Volunteer Peak in the background.

I am finishing up my high country traverse from Rock Island Lake to Doe Lake to here, then back on the trail for, you know, an hour, then another traverse. Anyway, going through the Ask Peter forum, we’ve had a question come in about what I think about everything that the Russians and the Chinese are doing in Africa specifically.

It kind of falls into three general categories. Let’s start with the Chinese. First, we’ve got the old stuff, the One Belt, One Road initiative, where the Chinese basically came in, said, “We’ll build this piece of infrastructure, or a building, or whatever it is for you, and it’s free. We just ask you to be our friends.”

Well, a few years later, the Chinese came back. It’s like, “Oh, when we said free, what we really meant is this is a loan, and you have to start paying us back right now.” They were laughed out of the room in a lot of places. So, a lot of these projects were things that the locals didn’t need or can’t operate themselves. Once the Chinese actually started demanding payment, a lot of this stuff just fell into disrepair.

I’m not really concerned about that. There are a couple of exceptions here and there, but only a couple.

How much did the Chinese waste on this? I don’t have a specific number for Africa alone, but on a global basis, we’re talking easily north of a trillion. It’s not the dumbest thing we’ve seen the Chinese government do, but it’s certainly one of the dumbest things they’ve done that the rest of the world has gotten all up in arms about. Anyway, let’s see what’s next.

The second big thing is the mineral acquisitions that the Chinese are doing in Africa. This is all stuff that, from a technical point of view, is pretty easy. They’re not doing any deep offshore oil, for example, because they don’t have the technology to do it themselves.

But these are much more real, if that’s the right term. The Chinese are getting manganese, cobalt, copper, and all the rest. A couple of things to keep in mind: it’s not that this isn’t real—this is very real—but whenever you see the Chinese spending $4 billion for something that’s only worth $1 billion, it’s not just about resource acquisition.

It’s about capital flight. It means that someone in the Chinese bureaucracy has figured out a way to get a lot of cash out of the country and disguise it as investment. So, this is real investment. It is actually taking minerals and bringing them back to China. Whether it’s cost-effective needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

I’d argue that probably half of them are not, but there is a bribery and corruption effect in play here that you can’t overlook when you’re looking at everything else.

The third issue is the Russians, who have a very different sort of strategy. What the Russians are doing is taking Wagner, their paramilitary group, sending it over there, and literally kicking over the anthills.

The goal here is not to provide stability; the goal is to enact regime change. And then, as a bonus, the new regime, whatever that happens to be, typically gives the Russians a gold mine. They’re not interested in other types of mineral extraction because gold is just easier to smuggle. And that’s how the Russians are getting around sanctions these days.

They’re literally flying planes full of gold to places to pay for things that they can’t get otherwise. The place where the Russians have been most successful with this is the hellish area just to the south of the Sahara, just to the north of the wetter areas like Nigeria or Congo. So, you’re talking about places like Mauritania, Niger, Chad—those kinds of places.

A number of them have had coups in the last few years, especially since the Ukraine war started. This has ejected what used to be a lot of French influence and, to a much lesser degree, American influence. The Americans were there to fight the final chapter of the War on Terror. The French were there because it was their old colonial holdings.

Anyway, the territory here is pretty much worthless. I mean, you’re talking about something that’s barely a step above desert, even before you consider things like climate change, which suggests that the Sahara is going to be marching south here for a while. The problem, of course, is that when you take an area where the state was weak and you destroy it, you turn an entire band of Africa into a stateless zone.

The last time the world was a little obsessed about a stateless zone, it was Afghanistan. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the next al-Qaida is going to form here or that the next major terror attack is going to erupt from this area, but it’s a very similar series of conditions. You have a weak population that can’t fend for themselves, and you’ve got warlords who are basically running amok and, with Russian help, knocking over anyone who might want to impose a little order on the area.

So, of the three categories, this is probably the one with the lower dollar amount attached but probably the highest transcontinental significance. Three very different circumstances going on here, all with different outcomes.

Okay. See you next time.

Ukraine Pushes Into Russia, Yet Nukes Didn’t Fly…

Ukraine has made a significant push into Russian territory, capturing roughly 1,000 square kilometers within the Kursk province. The Ukrainians also destroyed a handful of bridges that will hinder Russia’s logistical support for Belgorod and complicate Russian reinforcement efforts.

Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has Russia scrambling to pull together enough troops to counter the push, but the Russians lack the manpower and leadership necessary to effectively do so. This is a huge strategic gain for Ukraine, but it pales in comparison to the bigger learning here.

Despite Ukraine crossing into Russian territory, and dealing a huge blow to Russian forces, nukes haven’t flown. This might signal to the West that Russia’s bark is louder than its bite, and those nuclear threats may be just that…threats.

This could be a turning point in Western support for Ukraine and we could be seeing more operations in the near future.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Back from my backpacking trip. I’m back in Colorado, and today we are going to talk about the most recent evolutions in the Ukraine war, which are wildly significant. Let’s deal with this from the least important to the most. First of all, going into Russia itself—nobody invades Russia on a whim.

I mean, part of the problem that the Russians have always had expanding from Moscow is that there is no logical place to stop this within a thousand miles of them. So they expand, conquer some minorities, occupy them, try to crucify them, turn them into cannon fodder, and throw them at the next line of minorities.

And they continue this process over and over and over and over and over, until they eventually reach a geographic barrier that they can actually hunker down behind, which is typically like the Baltics, the Carpathians, and the Black Sea. It works until it doesn’t. What we’re seeing with Russia right now is that the demographic decline among the Russian ethnicity is so high that within a few years, they’re going to have problems occupying their own populations.

Anyway, anyone who wants to attack Russia has to do that in reverse. And even if you make it all the way to Moscow, that’s not all of the Russian Federation territory. You basically have to go until Russia is broken. And by Russia, I mean the population. We have the possibility of seeing that in the next 10 or 20 years, but we’re not there yet.

The incursion that the Ukrainians have made into Russia proper isn’t all that impressive from a territorial point of view. Basically, in the last two weeks, the Ukrainians have invaded Russia proper. They’ve taken over about 1,000 km² in the province of Kursk. The question is why? And what is next? Well, the Ukrainian plan seems to be to take a pretty sizable bite out of the territory.

They have already destroyed the three permanent bridges that are over the River Cem, which is an East-West river that cuts through Kursk Province. By doing that, they’ve made it very difficult for the Russians to reinforce the territories around where this incursion has been. We know that the Ukrainians are currently expanding on at least four different axes: northwest, northeast, north, and east.

In doing so, they’re basically looking to swallow, at least temporarily, about half the province—about 6,000 mi². To give you an idea of scale, the Donbas in the southeast, where most of the fighting has been concentrated for the last year and a half, and the Ukraine war combined, is about 20,000 mi². So, you’re talking about an area about a third of that territory.

The 1,000 square kilometers that the Ukrainians have captured so far is greater than the entirety of what the Russian army has achieved in the Donbas in the last 18 months. So, from a Russian point of view, this is a small amount of territory. From a Ukraine war point of view, it’s a huge amount of territory. And because those bridges are now out, the Russians can only resupply with pontoons.

Unlike hard bridges that require some pretty heavy weaponry to take out, pontoons can be taken out by much shorter-range things like artillery. And they are. So, the Russian ability to fight back has been relatively limited. The question is, how far can this be pushed? Why is it happening? Let’s start with the why. I have always identified the city of Belgorod as one of the cities that the Ukrainians have to neutralize if they’re ever going to win this war because it’s the tip of the spear for Russian forces. This is where, in the northern theater, all of their armies and all of their artillery are concentrated because it’s at the end of the logistical lines. It’s a big rail and road hub. Well, if the Ukrainians are capable of basically taking the southern half of Kursk Province, they take out most of the infrastructure that feeds into Belgorod.

So, it neutralizes a city of a million people without actually going in and conquering a city of a million people, which I’ve got to say is pretty clever if they can pull it off. And with the bridges now out of the equation, I’d say there’s an even chance that they’re going to be able to pull that off. However, this is the end of their deployable reserves.

The Russian strategy is basically to launch a lot of artillery assaults, send in a huge number of barely trained—if trained at all—conscripts to soak up ammo and pin Ukrainian defenders in place, and then follow up with more and more and more artillery. It’s a very slow, grinding process, but because the Russians have manpower superiority, it’s one that has been broadly effective, at least in keeping the Ukrainians from doing things like this.

It took the Ukrainians scraping up the last of their reserve units, along with some advanced units that were training with NATO for future operations. I don’t think they’ve got a very deep bench beyond this. But they have succeeded in doing what they’ve always wanted to do in this war, which is to trigger a war of movement in Kursk, in Russian territory, ironically, in a way that they haven’t been able to do on their own territory.

The counteroffensive that we’ve seen from Ukraine in the war so far in the Donbas and near Crimea has basically been hamstrung by Russian defensive lines. You’ve got multi-layered lines of tank emplacements, artillery emplacements, and most importantly, minefields, so that when the Ukrainians move into these areas and have to start to clear the mines, the Russians are able to call in artillery barrages, and the Ukrainians ultimately have to decamp for other locations where they’re not going to die.

That doesn’t apply in Kursk. Those defensive lines are in Belgorod, but you don’t have them in Kursk. So, the Ukrainians have been able to basically locate a battlefield that plays to their strengths rather than the Russian strengths. And they’re kicking some serious ass. The problem is they probably don’t have enough men to fully take advantage of it.

But neither do the Russians have the men necessary to eject the Ukrainians. For the last two and a half years, the Russians have spent most of their logistical efforts in building a pipeline of men and material. Basically, they scrape together whatever men they can forcibly draft from the population, put guns in their hands, and throw them to the front.

To do this in a way that does not trigger a political crisis, they can only do it so fast and only in so many places. They prefer to go to those occupied minority populations where they think the young men are disposable. And in fact, if they die, that’s actually a plus from the Russian point of view because it means they can’t rebel against Russian rule. But they’ve basically dragged all the people they can of the appropriate age group out of those zones.

And now the cupboard is getting dry.

The pipeline isn’t simply running low in terms of forces but in leadership. Putin has basically used every military commander that he has already that’s even remotely competent. And so, he’s just assigned one of his former bodyguards to run the operation in Kursk.

And you can imagine how well that’s going.

The Russians also now have 10,000 Ukrainians, including the Ukrainian support echelons, running around in Kursk. As a rule, the Russians have never attacked an area where they don’t enjoy at least a 3 to 1 manpower superiority. They prefer 7 to 1, and they don’t have the forces to put there.

So, their options are to either partially abandon the Donbas offensive or dig deep into the Russian population. What we’ve seen them do in the last two weeks is basically mobilize every military force they have left in the country, which is not a lot, and include the Pacific, the Baltic, and the Arctic theaters of what little security personnel remain and throw them into Kursk, in many cases untrained.

They’ve even raided the security forces around the cosmodrome in the Far East. And I’ve got to tell you, if your security force was designed to keep a launch pad safe, it’s probably not very good in the face of an Abrams barrel. There’s nothing left. They haven’t been able to find the 30,000 to 70,000 troops that they need in order to retake Kursk.

With the bridges gone, they can only approach from the east.

So, the Ukrainians are having a bit of a heyday at the moment, running around in Kursk, dealing with lightly armed and wildly untrained troops that don’t even have the benefit of large-scale artillery support. I don’t mean to suggest for a second that the Ukrainians are not taking casualties themselves. It’s an active war zone. I don’t have good data. I would be shocked if, in an offensive operation of this scale, they’re not taking heavy losses, especially in their armor. But the fact remains that the Ukrainians have found a way, relatively on the cheap, to play to their strengths, neutralize Belgorod, and change the narrative of the war.

Anyway, all of this collectively pales in significance to the real shift that we’ve identified as a result of the Kursk operation.

Nukes haven’t flown.

Throughout this war, the Russians have at every stage identified a series of red lines, saying that if you cross this line, we’re going to nuke Washington and Warsaw and Berlin and Paris and London and the rest.

And at every stage, it’s turned out to be a bluff. Well, now the Ukrainians have crossed the international border in force. They have castrated the Russian military in the area. There’s very little standing in the way of them taking even more territory. And they’re about to castrate a city of a million people that used to serve as the primary launching point.

And the Russians haven’t launched. One of the big concerns in the Western capitals ever since this war started is—well, they call it escalation management. The idea is we know that the Russians are a major power, but most importantly, we know that the Russians are a major nuclear power. And at some point, the Russians very well may kick off some nukes because they feel threatened.

Well, now we have an incursion that has crossed the international border, and the Russians are broken in the area. And yet, the nukes are still capped. Whether this is because the Russians are unwilling or unable is a discussion we can have, and that is a legitimate discussion to have. But the fact remains that even now, the Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to that level, and that tells me that the conservatism in Western capitals about challenging the Russians is about to evaporate.

Because if the Ukrainians can do this without that sort of counter-reaction, then pretty much every Russian threat to this point is meaningless. Is there eventually a red line where if you step across it, the Russians will pull the trigger? Probably. But we now know it doesn’t involve population centers, territory, or cities within a few dozen miles of the wrong side of Russia’s internationally recognized borders.

And that ultimately is going to trigger a new sort of offensive operation that has the full support of pretty much every Western country. That is the biggest tidal shift in the world to this point. And that is something we’re going to see the consequences of over the next few months.

The Baltics Ditch Russia for European Integration

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July.

The Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are taking one step closer to the Europeans with their upcoming electrical system swap. This switch from Russian to European electrical standards marks a significant shift for these nations.

Since the Baltic states industrialized under Soviet rule, their electrical systems have long been geared to Russian technic norms. While other similar countries transferred over to the European standard, the Baltic transition was made slower due to the geography and proximity to Kaliningrad. This was amplified by demographic issues and slow growth that have plagued these countries.

The electrical switch is a critical step in integrating the Baltic states into the broader European system and it reflects the ongoing progress these countries are making.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from the Hoover Wilderness. This is the northwest shoulder of Slide Mountain. I’m in the part where Yosemite merges into the Hoover, and there are so many things to look at that they haven’t even bothered naming most of them. Anyway, taking an entry from the Ask Peter forum today, specifically asking for comment about the effort in the Baltic republics.

That’s Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the three Central European states on the Baltic Sea, who are switching their electrical system over from Russian standards to European standards.

This has been a long time coming. They’re actually already using European generation assets, but they do use a different frequency. If you remember back to the bad old days of the Cold War, everyone was convinced for a while, pre-1985 roughly, that they needed to control their own manufacturing system. So we all had our own electrical networks—the Soviets had theirs, the Americans had theirs, the Brits had theirs, mainland Europe had theirs, Australia, and New Zealand had theirs, blah blah blah. Wow. It was really annoying. Anyway, now that the Baltic states are no longer part of the Cold War and no longer part of the Soviet Union, they are finally switching over.

While the connections are already in place to draw power from the European space, this will be changing the frequency as well. So basically, everything’s going to go down one day next year, I think in March, and then it’s going to come back up and they’ll feel a little bit more European.

This is one of the many problems that the Balts and really all of the Central Europeans have had in adapting from Soviet life to European life. Most of these countries had their first taste of industrialization under Soviet rule in some way. And don’t make that think that they’re laggards because, you know, Sweden had their first taste of real industrialization in the 1940s and 50s as well. This is just when it happened for many, many, many people. So their systems were designed to work in a different world, and moving over bit by bit can be done, but it takes time and it takes resources.

In the case of the Balts, they’re definitely the laggards in this. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia went over very, very early because they have a lot more physical connections to Europe. For example, you can basically walk from any part of Germany to any part of Poland without a problem. The Balts are hanging off the northern end of Poland. And there’s a little problem in this little enclave called Kaliningrad, which inhibits direct connections between the greater EU and the Balts. Basically, you’ve got this little pocket of Russian territory that’s on the Baltic Sea.

Kind of reminds me of, I don’t know, Washington, DC, without the governance. You get all the dirt, all the traffic, all the corruption, and all the bad weather, but none of the power. Well, that’s kind of what it feels like to me anyway. Rooting around that has always been difficult because there’s a security issue.

There’s something called the, let’s see, I’m going to butcher this name, Suwałki Gap, which is the thin layer of territory that connects a sliver of Poland to a sliver of Lithuania. They’re building out infrastructure to make that a more viable connection, but it takes time. And remember that the Balts are called the tiny Baltic republics for a reason.

These are not large states. And when they got into the European Union, and they got into the Schengen zone, and they got into the free movement treaty, a lot of people who were in their 30s or younger left. So the total population for all three Baltic states combined is only about 8 million. I mean, geography’s a bitch. If you’ve got this kind of weak connection and then that kind of population density, there’s only so fast that you can go without a lot of outside help.

Now, the European Union, with development funds, has been paying for some of this, but ultimately the Balts have to dig deep. There’s also been talk about the Swedes and the Finns doing more, like maybe having a bridge or a tunnel from Finland to Estonia. But you should put that out of your mind right now because Finland only has like 5 or 6 million people, so it would never be viable.

Anyway, this is one of the many, many reasons why back in the day, in the 20s, I was like, if you’re going to expand NATO, great. Poland, obviously; Hungary, obviously; Romania, obviously. But the Balts? Should we really be extending the defense guarantee to countries that couldn’t be defended? But that was 20 years ago. And in that time, the Balts and the Europeans have come a long way in building connections among them.

And more importantly, in Ukraine, where we’ve seen very, very, very clearly that the Russian army is not all that, and they’re burning through their men and their equipment at a rate that they just can’t replace. So while it’s still a meaningful conversation about defense of the Balts, because they are very exposed and at the very end of a very long chain of logistics, it’s no longer silly to have that conversation.

So I see this electrical switchover as another small step in a multi-decade process to make the Balts part of the free world. So far, so good.

Did the Russians Really Not See This Ukrainian Advance Coming?

A Ukrainian soldier advances with an AK 47

Peter’s currently hiking beyond the reach of standard comms, so no video, but he’s still keeping abreast of recent developments in Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces are currently involved in a push into Russian territory, centered on advancing toward and beyond the border town of Sudzha. No apologies necessary if you’ve never heard of Sudzha—a town of less than 7,000 people—but Ukrainian forces likely did not choose it at random.

While the situation is still murky, Ukraine’s forces seem to have basically seized the town of Sudzha overnight on August 5th and 6th,and are moving toward Lgov (a town of less than 25,000 people). There are some logistical gains here and pressure points for the Russians: a significant natural gas metering station near Sudzha, some road access across the border to Ukraine. But the real goal here is likely securing Sudzha and Lgov and securing both sides of the Seym River.

Sudzha and Lgov also afford the Ukrainians excellent access to highway systems to regionally significant and import logistical hubs in Kursk and Belgorod. An ability to take the fight from eastern Ukraine to places like Belgorod would mean that Russia’s invasion has a second front not only within its own territory, but defending the logistical supply hubs vital toward supporting its efforts within Ukraine.

The Russians seems to have been surprised with the speed and success of Ukraine’s efforts, but long-time subscribers will note that we have highlighted Russian vulnerability vis-a-vis Belgorod and supplying the war effort more than once. We are including links to previous coverage and analysis on this issue below.

MAY 11, 2023
Ukraine War Updates Part 3: What’s Next for Russia

When a country views a conflict as existential, putting a timeline on it is nearly impossible. So no matter how well (or bad) this Ukrainian counter-offensive plays out, we are only at the beginning of a long, drawn-out war.

For the Russians, war doesn’t stop in Ukraine; it stops once they have captured enough land or territory deemed critical to their survival. So we’re no longer talking about Kyiv or Crimea…we’re talking about Russia moving west and trying to occupy former strategic positions the Soviets held, like Warsaw.

So what does that mean for the Ukrainians? If they are going to stop the Russians from waging war again, not only do they need to take back all of their lands…they need to take the fight to the Russians.

No matter how the Ukraine War plays out, we are looking at an extreme breakdown of the security order. Either Russia emerges victorious, and a confrontation with NATO is in the cards – OR – Ukraine comes out on top and sends the Russian State down a path of disintegration.

Map showing Russian Transportation lines

MAY 16, 2023
Ukraine War Q&A Series: Why Does Russia Have Oil Supply Issues?

The second question of the Q&A series is…if Russia is such a massive producer of oil and oil products, why are we wasting time discussing supply issues?

The Russian oil problems are best understood when compared to the American system. If you compare California and New York gas prices to those in Texas or Alabama…you might have a heart attack. Outside of the crazy taxes in CA and NY, this boils down to transportation.

Like CA or NY, most Russian oil is produced in one area, refined in another, and then needs to be shipped to its final destination. For the Russians, thousands of miles separate each of those steps. To complicate this supply chain even further, most of this stuff must be trucked into Ukraine since the Kerch Strait Bridge rail capabilities are gone.

The Ukrainians are fully aware of this shortcoming and are now focusing much of their firepower on oil transportation and infrastructure. Destroying refineries is easier said than done, so I would expect the main targets to be fuel tanks, fuel trains, and the occasional pipeline.

MAY 26, 2023
Russian Partisans Attacked the City of Belgorod

A group of ethnic Russians opposed to Putin’s government joined forces with Ukraine and launched an assault across the border into the city of Belgorod. There are three main takeaways from this cross-border attack.

Russia didn’t bother garrisoning its logistical centers along the Ukrainian border. While this assault was quickly put to rest, this will be crucial as Ukraine launches more attacks in the coming weeks and months.

We’re going to hear a lot more about Belgorod in the future. It’s one of the critical points the Russians use to launch assaults into Ukraine. For Ukraine to “win“ this war, Belgorod will need to be neutralized, one way or the other.

The final component is that these are ethnic Russians…fighting against Russia…in Russia. So this little hiccup might throw a wrench into some of those “for the Russian people” propaganda pieces that Putin is pushing.

As I’ve said before, the Russians will continue pushing this war until they can’t, and if Ukraine wants to win, they’ll eventually have to cross the border. These partisans may have just answered how that might be carried out.

JUNE 3, 2024
Ukraine Opens Up on Belgorod

From the beginning of the Ukraine War, the Western nations have placed restrictions on how their weapons donations to Ukraine can be used. Specifically, Western nations have been concerned that if Ukraine targets Russian forces within Russia, escalation may be unavoidable. But recent events have forced a change of calculus in the West.

Less than 48 hours after NATO gave Ukraine the right to use those donated weapons against Russian targets within Russia, Ukrainians opened up on Russian military assets in and around the Russian city of Belgorod.

It’s too soon to assess damage, but the lack of Russian counterattack suggests Ukraine will soon be able to attack Russian forces wherever they can be reached. Regardless of the weapon systems Ukrainians are using.

JUNE 17, 2024
Why Did Russia Choose Invasion Over Nukes? || Ask Peter

For years I’ve warned that a war between Russia and Ukraine was inevitable, but why didn’t Putin just play the nuke card? As an add-on, we’ll also be touching on some new Russian alliances that could rub the US the wrong way.

The Russians are no strangers to wars and territorial expansions, so despite having nukes, they still prefer their tried and true method of occupation. This may seem foolish given their nuclear capabilities, but the Russian goal is to establish a buffer they control easily, not a zone they have to patrol wearing hazmat gear.

The Ukraine War has also brought up conversations of Russian alliances with some unsavory characters, i.e. North Korea, Iran, and China. I’m really not too worried about these alliances either. The logistics alone make them all deal breakers.

The conversation about the American-led global order being disrupted is less about Russia’s moves and more about how the Americans decide to proceed with their global strategies.

JUNE 18, 2024
Ukraine: F-16s, Offensives, and Abject Humiliation

Ukraine is gearing up for one of its most important offensives to date, but what makes this one so different from the rest?

The main driver of this offensive is a delivery of F-16s from NATO, which was preceded by some large arms packages from Europe and the US. Now this is all very exciting, but we’re still a little ways out from this going down. In the meantime, Ukraine will be laying down the groundwork to help ensure that this offensive can successfully break through the stalemate that has defined much of the battlefield this year.

So what does that groundwork look like? You can expect to see Ukraine ramp up its strikes on Russian air defenses all throughout the occupied territory and even deep into Russia and Crimea. This will (hopefully) allow the Ukrainians to establish regional air superiority and use those F-16s to their full capabilities.

It doesn’t mean Ukraine will be flying into Moscow tomorrow and ending the war, but cutting off Russian logistics in Crimea and other areas could cause significant losses to Russia – and Putin’s ego. Expect further updates once all of this kicks off.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited NAtions

The Absent Superpower

The accidental superpower

The End of the World is Just The Beginning

Disunited Nations

The Absent Superpower

The Absent Superpower

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

MAY 11, 2023Ukraine War Updates Part 3: What’s Next for Russia

MAY 16, 2023Ukraine War Q&A Series: Why Does Russia Have Oil Supply Issues?

MAY 26, 2023Russian Partisans Attacked the City of Belgorod

JUNE 3, 2024Ukraine Opens Up on Belgorod

JUNE 17, 2024Why Did Russia Choose Invasion Over Nukes? || Ask Peter

JUNE 18, 2024Ukraine: F-16s, Offensives, and Abject Humiliation

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GEOPOLITICAL INSIGHT STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

MAY 11, 2023
Ukraine War Updates Part 3: What’s Next for Russia

MAY 16, 2023
Ukraine War Q&A Series: Why Does Russia Have Oil Supply Issues?

MAY 26, 2023
Russian Partisans Attacked the City of Belgorod

JUNE 3, 2024
Ukraine Opens Up on Belgorod

JUNE 17, 2024
Why Did Russia Choose Invasion Over Nukes? || Ask Peter

JUNE 18, 2024
Ukraine: F-16s, Offensives, and Abject Humiliation