Ukraine Drone Strike Hits Refining Complex Deep in Russia

Ukraine has been ramping up drone strikes and they just successfully hit another refining complex in Russia. The strike on the Nizhny Novgorod complex triggered a major fire and caused significant damage to storage units as well as other refining equipment. The pipeline network, however, remains intact.

This attack highlights Ukraine’s ability to strike Moscow and just how vulnerable Russian infrastructure is to drone attacks. Since the majority of the Russian population and infrastructure falls within striking distance, we could see major disruptions to Russian exports.

As Ukrainian drone strikes continue to ramp up, there will likely be far-reaching implications for Russian oil. We’ll continue to monitor this situation and release updates as needed.

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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.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from outside of Nederland, Colorado. The news today is that the Ukrainians have taken some long range drones excuse me, and throw them in some Russian targets, some of which are over 1000 miles from the border. The ones that matter the most is a refining complex in the city of Nazi Novgorod, which is a couple of hundred miles east of Moscow that sits on a major pipeline nexus.

They haven’t damaged the pipeline system and you’re not going to probably not going to do that in any meaningful way for drones because they could be repaired so quickly. And so they went after some of the refineries. Now, if you’re looking for a Hollywood style explosion, you’re never going to see that in a refinery. There’s a lot of standoff distance and the stuff that’s flammable is usually not adjacent to other stuff that is flammable.

That doesn’t mean you can’t do a significant amount of damage. And in this case, it looks like they were going after some of the fractionation columns and at least a couple of the storage tanks, fuel storage tanks. At least one hit was significant to the point that it caused a major fire, that at the point that I’m recording this, at the point that I’m recording this about 8 hours after the attack is still burning.

Something to keep in mind, Russia is a big ass place. And as the Germans discovered during World War Two, they have to move things further and further and further from the western periphery in order to protect it from air assaults. But in the age of drones, this doesn’t matter nearly as much because these things have ranges in the hundreds of miles, which means that everything in European Russia, which is where 75, 80% of the Russian population live and most of the physical infrastructure is is potentially in range.

So while the Ukrainians can’t shut the country down, they can cause enough interruptions to the processing capacity that and maybe even pumping stations that make it difficult for the Russians turn export income. And the impact of that could be far more than what the West has done with sanctions on the Russians so far. We’ve seen this with a few port facilities in recent weeks, and now the Ukrainians are demonstrating the capacity to strike deeper and deeper and deeper into Russia.

And they have now almost been able to reach Tatarstan, which is the most important access point that the Russians have, because it sits on the infrastructure that connects European Russia to all of Siberia. And if for whatever reason, there’s meaningful damage there, you’re talking about something like a third of Russian oil exports go off line overnight. So that is what’s to watch for in the days ahead.

Stay tuned.

Russian Bombs Get an Upgrade

We’ve seen both sides of the conflict in Ukraine adopting and adapting new ways of fighting. While Ukraine has innovated with drones and satellite tech, Russia has modified its large FAB-1500 dumb bombs into glide bombs.

Russia has always fought (and won) wars through sheer numbers and volume, but the introduction of precision-guided systems is a new blend of innovative tech and the traditional Russian numbers strategy. Since Russia has so many FAB-1500 dumb bombs that can be upgraded, they’ll have a multi-decade supply of glide bombs.

This shift in Russian strategy should be setting off alarms for the rest of the world. With such a substantial transformation in Russian military power, global military strategies will need to be reevaluated and revised.

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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.

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TranscripT

Hey Everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado, where we are having a 55 degree day in between snowstorms. We’re going to talk about some of the technological evolutions we’re seeing in the Ukraine war, specifically on the Russian side. I mean, the Ukrainians have got a lot of street cred that they have earned for new and innovative tactics and applying new technologies like drones and civilian satellite information to the targeting systems.

But the Russians haven’t been just sitting there taking it. They’ve been innovating and applying it across their entire post-Soviet arsenal. Or maybe more, I should say, Soviet arsenal and the weapons system in play is something called the Fab 1500, which is a 1500 kilo dead drop bomb that they’re now putting flight kits on that allow it to become a glide bomb.

Think of it as a very low tech missile that if you drop it from a sufficient height, can glide up to something like 50 kilometers or more. Based on circumstances in the battle that DEFCON that resolved back in February, the Russians used over 100 of these a day at some point, and the payloads end up making a bomb crater that in many cases is more than 50 feet across.

So just a huge amount of explosive developed with relative precision. The Russians are saying they have an accuracy rate of five meters. Let’s take them at their word or if you want to say they’re off by an order of magnitude 50 meters. Still, the concussive explosion of that kind of bomb is just devastating to any sort of emplacement, defensive installation.

And certainly troops. And we’re applying this now to the Soviet arsenal. One of the things to keep in mind. Well, actually, let me go back. So if this sounds familiar, putting like a glide kit on a dumb bomb, that’s because we’ve seen this before. Now, for those of you who are under age 45, think back to Desert Storm, where the United States was at war in Iraq the first time.

And we had something called the JDAM, the Joint Direct Attack Munition, where we took our Cold War arsenal of dumb bombs and put flight kits like these on them that allowed for accurate attacks very, very cheap, measured in the single or double digits of thousands per bomb for the adjustment, as opposed to, say, millions per missile. And it converted something that we had just an extreme inventory that allowed us to basically coast on that technology for the next 20, 25 years, a very significant development that transformed American air power.

The Russians are now on the early stages of doing that themselves and being Russian Soviet. They have a lot more of these in inventory than we ever did. And while their dud rate might be a lot higher than ours, you’re still talking about tens of thousands of bombs that they can apply this to. And they’re only in the very early days of it.

So if all they do is upgrade their dumb bombs, they have probably at current burn rates, 20 to 25 years of supplies of these sorts of things. And none of the countries that border Russia have anything like this. They may have had a few supplementary weapons that were left over from the Soviet period, but almost the entirety of the Air Force was concentrated into Russia proper.

And that’s where the industrial plant is to do the modifications. So there have been any number of reasons to think that it’s the Russians who at the end of the day will rely on numbers and sheer weight to win this war and prosecute the next one and the transformation of what has been to this point, a relatively useless weapon, which is just a dumb drop bomb with not a lot of accuracy.

And there’s something that’s more akin to what the United States developed back in the late 1980s. Now, that’s a very, very, very significant development. And the only way that the Ukrainians can really counter this is by getting a functional air force that can strike across the border and hit Russian aircraft before they can drop the weapons in the first place.

And even in the most aggressive estimates that I’ve seen for the transfer of things like F-16s to Ukraine, there just aren’t enough of them in order to make that sort of impact on a broad scale. So this is something that is going to reshape the battle space signature effectively until and unless the Ukrainians can disrupt the ground logistical systems that are supporting the Russian forces.

And even if the Kerch Bridge Group coach go down in Crimea goes from a springboard for Russian power to a massive sandbag that doesn’t affect the eastern front. So we’re looking at here at probably the most significant transformation in Russian military power in the last 30 years. And it’s now being applied to a hot war zone. This is far more significant than what the Russians have been doing with artillery strikes in urban centers or the Shaheed drones from Iran, which are basically war crimes of choice.

Was this something that has a very real, very deep, very lasting military implication that will affect the entire front line, especially in the east? And there is no good, clean, simple counter? one quick addendum in order to put this into a deeper context. The Soviets slash Russians have never, ever won a war based on technology. It’s always been sheer weight of numbers, and this conflict is no different from the ones that came before in that regard.

The reason why the United States fights the way it does is we’ve always been on the wrong continent for most of our wars. And so no matter where we go, we’re always going be outnumbered. So it’s all about precision bringing force in volume, but applying it precisely. So that’s why we’re in precision guided munitions and mid and long range missiles, air power guided artillery, all that good stuff.

We’re never going to be able to fight on the numbers, so we have to have a multiplier. It’s two very different design philosophies and two very different military strategies that are defined by the cultures in question and where they tend to fight. We tend to fight at a considerable remove. The Russians have always fought very close to where they actually live.

What is in play here with this new weapon system or the modified 1500, is applying a little bit of the American approach to precision, to the Russian approach for mass. So, for example, the the JDAMs, for the most part, the United States applies those to our old stock of £500 bombs, very effective the Soviets, because it was always about mass, don’t use £500 bombs.

It was 500 kilo bombs or in the case of the 1500, 1500 kilo bombs, very different scale. And if you can take a little bit of the American precision, even if it’s circa 1987 and apply it to the scale that the Russians can produce, then you have a very different war fighting capability, not just in Ukraine, but wherever the Russians go from now on.

And that makes for a very different regional and even global rival that will force the U.S. military into a ground up reassessment of everything that it does.

Israel and Russia Fall Out + Kindle Deal of the Day

Photo of Iron Dome missile defense system firing

KINDLE DEAL OF THE DAY

On March 10, you can get The Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On eBook for only $3.99!

Get your ebook here

If you haven’t purchased the The Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On yet, March 10 is the time to buy! Kindle has selected the eBook version as the Deal of the Day for March 10! We’ll be sending out another email as we get closer to the date.

Back to Israel and Russia Falling Out…

In a marked shift away from the historical relationship between Israel and Moscow, Israel plans to send early warning radar to Ukraine. The details of this plan are still unconfirmed, but let’s break it down.

Israel has developed some of the most advanced missile and drone detection and defense systems, known as the Iron Dome System. What’s being sent to Ukraine will likely be a much more basic version; regardless, it will be an invaluable piece of tech for the Ukrainian’s defense capabilities.

This move by Israel could also signify the beginning of increased cooperation with Western allies – most notably the US. Once the flood gates open, intelligence sharing, some Western funding, and enhancements to military capabilities shouldn’t be too far behind.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Russian Opposition Leader, Alexei Navalny, Dies in Prison

Alexei Navalny, a prominent political prisoner and Putin critic, died in a harsh Siberian prison. This prison was a former Soviet-era gulag, so no real surprise there…

The Biden administration previously said that the death of Navalny would strain international relations, but when put into the context of the Ukraine War, international relations aren’t exactly pristine. So, its unlikely we’ll see much arise from the death of Alexei Navalny.

We need to remember that Russia is not a democracy and Navalny’s political influence was limited. Sure, he opposed Putin, but he was still extremely nationalistic. Its likely that we wouldn’t have been able to differentiate between Russia’s current situation and a world where things worked out differently for Navalny.

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.

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Putin’s Puppet Show feat. Tucker “The Propagandist” Carlson

At this point you’ve all seen or heard about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin (if you haven’t…you didn’t miss much). This was the first time Putin has spoken to an American “journalist” since his military invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

As we enter the third year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I think this is as good a time as ever to step back and take inventory of the situation. Since the beginning, we have known that the longer the war drags on, the harder it will be for Ukraine to mount a definitive counter-offensive. One reason for this has to do with differences in command structures; Russia follows a strict top-down delegation of authority, while Ukraine delegates relatively more local authority to lower-level officers.

While this strategy has paid off for Ukraine so far, the Russian military apparatus is slowly learning to adapt. To compete, Ukraine will need to take a chapter out of the Russian military school of thought and assert a more dominant command structure, one that allows for military-wide policy implementation.

Apart from strategy, Ukraine also needs more and better weaponry from its western allies. This will only get harder as time goes on. Putin knows this, and perhaps that is why he chose this moment, as Congress struggles to pass a military aid package for Ukraine and Israel, to stir the pot. Add to the mix the fact that this is an election year…

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.

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US Congress Dysfunction: Blocking Aid to Ukraine

We are taking a question from the ‘Ask Peter’ forum today – am I worried about Ukraine’s dwindling weapon’s supplies in light of what’s going on with the US Congress? Yes, yes I am.

Ukraine’s supplies are running out and there’s a dozen or so Republican’s blocking anything from being passed in Congress, so that means no more ammo for Ukraine. However, this isn’t isolated to things involving Ukraine, these Republicans are blocking everything they disagree with. So, this is a problem for everything and everyone.

Sure, we’ve seen unproductive Congresses before, but in case you haven’t flipped on the news in a while – there’s plenty going on. The real kicker is that I don’t see this resolving itself anytime soon. I’m sure people will try to step across the aisle and work something out, but the extremes from both sides will be sure to stomp that out ASAP.

Unless we see some true bipartisan cooperation, the dysfunction we’re seeing in Congress will only get worse. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait for the November elections to sort this out, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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.

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TranscripT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Calais at the southern point of the island of Hawaii. Got the slopes up on a lower behind me, the larger volcano here. I am going to take something from our Ask Peter Forum. We’re going to put that link here at the end of the video too, in case you are sending your own questions.

And it’s am I worried about Ukraine in the light of what has become an American boycott on weapons supplies? Yes. Yes, I am. The Ukrainians are running out of ammo. There’s no way they could produce enough to support the war themselves. And the Russians are mustered. A fresh human wave. And, you know, human waves are very vulnerable to mass fire, but you have to have ammo for that to work.

So there are some concerns. We might be seeing a turning point in the war here in the next few weeks if something doesn’t change. But what is going on is we’ve got a dozen roughly Republicans on the right who are blocking anything from happening in Congress that they don’t agree with. And so this is not a Ukraine problem.

This is an everything problem. These few reps are blocking anything on any issue. So we’ve got programs that need to be addressed, not just Ukraine, but aid for Taiwan against China, aid for Israel, against Hamas, others issues with health care and business reform and criminal justice before the Senate, the defense system and the budget, every single thing has been dropped.

It’s not that these folks oppose Ukraine per se. It’s they oppose anything that isn’t exactly their way. So I call them the Greenpeace faction of the Republican Party because they just hate everyone. This means that this Congress has been the least productive in American history at this stage. And Congress a little bit more than halfway through their session.

We’ve only passed about 20% of the bills that the second the least productive Congress in history has passed. So this is an issue of big government versus small government. This is just an issue of dysfunction and it’s a problem for everybody. Now, I don’t think it’s going to get any better any soon. When the Republic ends didn’t do very well.

And last midterms, the hope of getting a big majority vanishes. They had a very slim minority beginning, and they have seen that minority shrink down in part, it’s because they’ve cannibalize their own. This faction of Republicans forced out the former Speaker McCarthy from California. And so he just quit. He left the House altogether, leaving that seat open. We’ve had another couple of resignations since.

And then the Republicans purged one of their own, a Republican, Santos of New York four. Let me make sure I get this right. Using campaign finance to purchase gay fetish foot Port Arthur can’t make a shit on any hill. What it means is not just that the margin that the Republicans have in the majority has gotten smaller and smaller.

Worse than it sounds. Because to pass something in Congress, you don’t need a majority of the votes. You need a majority of the seats. And so every empty seat kind of acts as a quasi vote against the majority. So they only have a Republican that only have a margin of two. They can only lose one vote if they still want to get things passed.

That makes each individual faction, including the Greenpeace faction, more powerful. So this is going to go one of two ways. Number one, they’re going to continue to stall everything. And this Congress will go down in history as the most pathetic ever until we have general elections a year from now, November and the new Congress would set in January, or the bulk of the Republicans reach across the aisle and start cutting deals with centrist Democrats.

Now, that’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s a lot of minutia, there’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of noise. And in the environment that we’re in right now, anyone who reaches across the aisle is inviting a primary challenge from the freak wings of their parties, whether it’s the Greenpeace faction of the Republicans or the squad version of the Democrats.

So none of these are easy decisions, but they do suggest that drama in Congress is going to increase or rather than decrease in the months ahead. And that’s not just bad for Ukraine, that’s bad for everyone except for the Chinese who think this is fair test. All right. That’s it for me. Take care.

Finnish Presidential Elections and Anti-Russian Sentiment

Finnish politics are not something that often make the headlines, but with a marked shift away from “Finlandization” (when a smaller country remains neutral to appease a larger and more powerful neighboring country) comes some unfamiliar coverage.

Finland has become one of the largest and most assertive supporters of Ukraine, both materially and diplomatically. The most recent presidential elections reflect these anti-Russian sentiments, with candidates competing to take the strongest stance on large ticket items like security issues and more nuanced issues like revoking Finnish citizenship for Russian-Finnish citizens.

This election is just a glimpse at the complexities of Russian relations within Eastern European countries and a signal of what might be coming…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the slopes of Mount Lower with Mauna Kea there in the background, surrounded by volcanic, you was going to go all the way up to the top, but apparently the volcano decided to destroy the road. So whatever. Anyway, that means you get a bonus video. The big news, it’s happening today. We were seeing this on Sunday, the 28th, is that there are presidential elections in Finland and for the first time ever, they matter.

So since the Ukraine war, we haven’t had a lot of electoral contests in Europe in the context of the change security environment. This is really the first one that matters. It matters for more than one reason. Finland. Well, there’s a term for it familiarization. The idea that you’re scared of your bigger neighbor. So you plot a neutral policy in order to make sure that they’re not aggravated.

And this is the position that Stalin forced upon the Finns back at the end of World War Two. And so presidential elections have always been about that debate of just how friendly can we be to the Russians so that they don’t decide to invade us. And that has been the case now for over a half century. And the outgoing president was known as the the Putin whisperer because she had a tight personal relationship.

But with the Ukraine war that has changed. And Finland is arguably of the of the real countries, the sizable countries that are assisting the Ukrainians, the one who has provided the most material support per person as well as leading the charge in terms of diplomatic efforts, and has also jumped on board NAITO, which is something that they assiduously avoided for the last 70 years in order to not aggravate the Russians.

Now, the presidential contest is a beauty contest about who can be the most anti-Russian, who will take the strongest position on any type of security issue. And so we’re kind of seeing the debate take place in three general arenas. The first is the Ukraine, where proper who’s going to promise more aid, who’s going to be more of a hawk?

The second one has to do with citizenship. There are a substantial number of dual citizens who are Russian and Finnish citizenship. And the debate at the presidential level now is whether or not to revoke their Finnish citizenship if they do not surrender their Russian citizenship. And that’s important enough as it is, but it also is carrying out into European foreign policy because Finland is not the country in Europe that has the largest percentage of ethnic Russians among its population.

That would be Latvia, with Estonia and Lithuania coming up in second and third place. So there’s always been a little bit of a quiet human rights debate within Europe about the position of the ethnic Russians in those countries. With Finland trying to take the position of the ethnic Russians in order to mollify Moscow. Well, that is not the case anymore.

The debate is whether or not these people should be kicked out, whether they should be forced to change languages, whether they should lose their European Union citizenship. The fact that the Finns have changed so much in two years is just a testament to just how brutal war in Ukraine is and how close it hits to home to countries in these regions.

Something to consider if you don’t live in Eastern Europe for anyone else in the world, the countries from Finland to Estonia to Latvia to Poland, to Romania and Bulgaria. Now these are the countries who have the most experience of living under Russian rule or fighting the Russians, and they’re the ones who have been basically training their military in order to support the Ukrainians in the conflict because they know what happens if they don’t.

Anyway, by the time you view this, the polls will have opened in Finland and we should have results in the not too distant future as Europe’s most neutral country becomes its most aggressive. A One more thing for those of you who are not fueled by issues of democracy versus repression and mass rapes and or how about illegal migrants?

Yeah, so the Russians have been flying people in from South Asia and the Middle East and herding them through the force of northern Russia and forcing them through the Finnish border. So that really has the Finns all cheesed off to.

Ukraine Attacks Russian Energy Terminal

Ukraine managed to sneak some drones by Russian air defenses and hit the Ust-Luga oil refinery and loading facility. The attack didn’t cause significant damage, but it disrupted production and shipping operations.

The successful attack has given us a glimpse at Ukraine’s capabilities and what might be in store for the future. The Russian’s response to the drone strike pokes glaring holes in the Russian system, specifically the lack of qualified workers and immense strain placed on the limited skilled personnel actively working.

This attack is a reminder of how the Russian oil industry can impact global oil supplies and the massive vulnerabilities within the system. Sanctions have also intensified in a weird sort of way following the attack, which has further impacted the flow of oil to Europe.

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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.

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TranscripT

Everybody. Peter Zine here coming to you from above the very active Kilauea volcano. That’s the crater that kicked off last year. Today we’re going to talk about an assault that happened last week. The Ukrainian sent a squad of drones north out of Ukraine over Russian airspace into the gulf of finland to attack the Ust-Luga…hope i pronounce that right.

Oil refinery and loading facility now north mali, this wouldn’t really matter because normally drones, as we’ve seen, can’t get through any sort of meaningful air defense. But the Russian air defense in this area appears to be just as crappy as it is everywhere else in the country. So a bunch of them got through. The other reason I would normally care about this is most refineries.

Everyone gets all you want on. They expect Hollywood explosions when a bomb goes off in a refinery, you know? Yeah. Keep in mind scale here, most refineries are over a square mile and this one’s no exception. There’s a lot of standoff distance among the different facilities. So if something does blow, it doesn’t blow up the whole thing. And crude oil at room temperature isn’t even flammable.

So the warheads that these bombs can carry, which are less than £100, probably with the models that were used probably under £20, it’s not that you can’t do damage, but you can’t do real damage. But this is not just a refinery. This is also a loading facility. And in a refinery, once you’ve made your fuels, fuel’s being more flammable than raw crude.

You then put them into a truck or a pipe and send it away With a port facility you put into a big giant tank and then a large vessel comes by and sucks off what it needs and goes on its merry way. And so the tanks themselves are the vulnerable points here. Now, judging from the size of the explosions and the fires that were started, the tanks were not hit.

That’s just something that you should have in the back of your mind when you evaluating. When somebody says a refinery, a certain piece of energy infrastructure was hit, you know what to look for. What’s interesting here are two things. Number one, it took the Russians more than three days to put out the fire and they put it out the wrong way, using water in, you know, the near Arctic winter, which caused a lot of water to freeze and then expand and break more infrastructure damage assessments are still underway.

We don’t know how bad it was. And it had this been a normal attack, we would have known within 24 hours whether or not anything substantial had been done. But here we are nearly a week out and we still really don’t have any more but the vaguest ideas and the facility is shut down. Now, there’s a lot of reasons why this matters.

Number one, while the Europeans have put sanctions on seaborne crude, seaborne oil product is in a loophole. So they were still taking stuff from this facility. And with its shut down, all of a sudden sanctions have gone up to a whole new level. And we’re going to have a very good idea of how the Europeans can absorb or not.

This newest change. Quick add on the Ukrainian attack on US. Luger was on Sunday, the 21st in less than 72 hours later. The Russians were able to begin shipping out again. However, what is being shipped out is primarily oil, almost exclusively oil and something called condensate, which is kind of a raw product somewhere between natural gas and oil.

The actual refining complex remains completely offline. There’s no naphtha, there’s no fuel, there’s no intermediate products that are coming out at all. And at present, the Russians are still completing their damage assessments. And at the pace they’re going, we probably won’t have any information on the level of damage until probably March. And then with their very, very thin remaining skin of skilled labor, they can start talking about repairs.

Second, this is the first significant Ukrainian attack against a significant economic asset of the Russian Federation. And at least on the surface, it looks like it was much more successful than they ever thought was possible. That means that the northern parts of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland are suddenly in a danger zone that is well within the Ukrainians proven range of operation.

Now, the Ukrainians and the Russians haven’t really gone against civilian shipping right now, but I can’t think of a better target than an oil loading and refining platform such as what we’ve got. And it was ooyala. Again, apologies for the inaction. We’re just going to put the spelling right here so you can see what I’m having the trouble with.

Okay, So this is the sort of thing we should now watch for in the future, because this is not the only facility of this type which is within the Ukrainians reach. There are a number of facilities that no virus sees on the Black Sea and two ops on the Black Sea and closer to St Petersburg, also on the Gulf of Finland.

And now that the Ukrainians are proving that a few things can slip through, you can bet that they’re going to target all of them and all told, if you look at all of the infrastructure combined, it’s combined export and throughput capacity is in the vicinity of three and a half million barrels a day, which is about three and a half percent of global output.

So if you put a meaningful dent in the export infrastructure, it’s impossible for the Russians to shunt this stuff somewhere else. There’s nowhere else to go. And so it just backs up through the system. There’s also one other thing to look at the fact that the damage control crews proved to be so incompetent is something that we’re starting to see at the edges as the Russian economic system frays.

The Soviet educational system collapsed back in 1986, which means that the youngest people who are worthy of terms like engineer, turned 64 this year. And so when I think of fire suppression, I think of something that normally I could not just pick up the hose and go do it. You want someone with specialized training, and especially if you’re talking about petroleum, natural gas or refined product fires, you definitely want someone has some idea what they’re doing.

Russia is running out of those people. It’s not just that a million people have fled the country and a half a million have been drafted and committed to the war being killed. They don’t have much of a skilled labor pool left. And what they do have is being dedicated to the war itself. Air defense in the vicinity of the war, or the military industrial complex to keep the war going.

So we’re seeing some very serious phrase with the system. This this is not the sort of thing that they should have gotten wrong. That fire should have been put out very quickly with things like foam, and it wasn’t. And that suggests the Russians ability to maintain their overall system is starting to feel the strain of all of this.

And they don’t have a backup plan. There isn’t enough labor in the country to redirect from somewhere else, especially skilled labor. All right. That’s it for me. Take care.

 

North Korean Missiles Heading to Russia, Part Two

We’re back with part two of Russia’s missile-sourcing escapade. Today we’re looking at the specifics of these North Korean missiles and their significance.

The North Korean’s are sending the Russians some of their KN-23 and 25 missiles, which are limited range (max. 400 miles) and low accuracy models. This means that each of these missiles is a war crime waiting to happen, but what’s another drop in that bucket? Unfortunately, this has just dumped a new load of gasoline onto the fire that is the Ukraine War.

The Russians will be able to use these missiles in conjunction with satellite guidance to close in that accuracy ring a bit. In the meantime, they’ll be gathering insights on the technological capabilities of the North Korean and Iranian missile systems.

Once the Russians mesh the missile and satellite tech together, the Ukrainians will be facing a much more intimidating Russia than before.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from? Well, there’s no other word for it. It’s a frigid Colorado this morning. We’re right at two degrees Fahrenheit. Anyway, I want to do a follow on to a little bit. We we talked yesterday on the transfer of North Korean missiles to Russia. The models in question are called KN-23 and 25.

They have a very limited range and they’re not particularly accurate when the North Koreans use them. The accuracy range is typically 100 to 200 meters. So they’re not much. Well, they’re just not smart. There are most artillery actually hits more reliably than they do with the add on of satellite guidance. And a little bit of extra hardware. You could probably get them into the 50 to 100 meter range.

Now, this is important for two reasons. Number one, it means that every missile that the Russians fire in the general direction of a population center, which is where most of these things are being used in Ukraine, is almost by definition a war crime. So, you know, we’re we’re now getting half of we’re past 150,000 documented incidents. So if the war crimes tribunals ever do happen to happen at the end of this war, who is to be a lot to do?

But the second and slightly more important in the long range point of view is the assistance, the military assistance, the supply assistance that the North Koreans and to a lesser degree the Iranians are providing the Russians. Is it just important for the war or to get an intelligence look at what the North Korean and the Iranian systems can do technologically?

And from a production point of view, the Russians are also promising that both countries are satellite tech, or at least the ability of the Russians to launch a satellite for them. And so if you marry Russian satellite tech, which doesn’t have to be top notch to provide guidance to C weapon systems, and you apply it to these two laggard countries, you can actually make a fairly significant improvement in their capacity to target going from a 200 meter range to a 100 meter range, obviously is a significant step up.

So I don’t mean to belittle any part of this transfer system that is going on. It’s just a question of time. Okay. That’s all I got for now.

Why Are the Russians Shopping for Missiles?

The Russian military industrial complex can’t keep up with the demands of the Ukraine War, so the Russians are sourcing large quantities of short-range ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran.

This reveals, or confirms suspicions, that Russia’s production capacity for certain weapons systems has collapsed. Specifically, the Russians are sticking with their Soviet roots and purchasing Scud-like missiles for their outdated systems from the 60s and 70s. As the faux Scuds make their way to the front lines, Western intelligence will get a glimpse at North Korean and Iranian military capabilities.

Of course the Russians will deny this, but when you see some gold-heavy planes trickling over to Iran and North Korea…don’t be surprised. However, the Russians aren’t the only ones getting prepared. A number of European countries have ordered Patriot missiles and Germany has reversed its plan to decommission its military.

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.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. One of the bits of news that came across my screen as I was flat on my back with a thrown muscle is that the Russians have started to contact the North Koreans and the Iranians about purchasing large numbers of short range ballistic missiles. Now, the concept of the Russians shopping around for weapons systems for the Ukraine war, that’s not new.

And the two systems that have seen the most activity of the Shaheed drones, which are those moped drones, really loud ones, the fly in a straight line, those are from Iran. The Russians have been launching those at Ukraine for months and then artillery from North Korea because the burn rate for Russian artillery is an order of magnitude or more than what they can produce for themselves.

But this time they’re going for short range ballistic missiles. Now, this tells us a series of things. First of all, it gives us a really good peek into just how horrible the Russian military industrial complex is. The Russians had stopped or at least slowed the making of most of these things. If you remember back to the Gulf War of 1991, the Scuds, that’s the class of missile that we’re talking about.

They’re not advanced. They were developed in the sixties, in the seventies. They’re so basic that even the Iraqis had their own weapons program where they would make their own. They’re not particularly accurate. They don’t have much of a range. And the Russians had intended to replace all of their Scuds with Iskander, which are a weapon system that is more accurate with a little bit longer range.

But it’s turned out that the Russians can’t produce those in any meaningful number. And since they have already scaled back their ability to produce the older weapons in the first place, they’ve got to go somewhere else. They don’t have a significant skill set in military technologies anymore to speed everything up at the same time. And so this is something where they simply have to shop around to find it.

Okay. So that’s number one. And number two, we’re going to get a really good look at the inside of the military industrial complex in the military capabilities of both North Korea and Iran here. We think of these countries as being, you know, warlike, but they haven’t actually been involved in a major war for quite some time in the case of the Iranians, it was in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power.

That was the Iran-Iraq war. So in 1998, it was the last time we saw the Iranians actually going at it. And in the case of the Koreans, you know, we got third hand reports from countries that have bought a few of their missiles here and there. But for the most part, you’ve got to go back to the 1950s for the Korean War, which ended in 1953 when these weapon systems didn’t even exist.

So if you’re in Western intelligence or Western militaries, you’re going to be really curious to see how these things look. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it sucks to be Ukraine in this situation. But in terms of kind of lifting up the skirt and being able to see what’s going on, this is going to be a really robust intelligence gathering operation.

Then we’ve got the third thing. What are the North Koreans and the Iranians getting for this? There were some reports early on that the North Koreans were going to get some sort of intercontinental ballistic missile technology from the Russians in exchange for artillery shells. And there may indeed be some of that. But it appears that the Russians are giving the North Koreans the runaround like they did to the Indians.

The Indians spent billions of dollars in years giving money to the Russians in order to develop a joint cruise missile called the Brahmos. And the Indians are now not in public, but behind closed doors, admitting that all the money was just stolen and that they’re never going to get that weapons system and it’s time for them to move on.

And it seems that some version of that is going on with the North Koreans as well, though the Russians have talked a big talk, but the number of people that they have that can actually do the work is so small and they’re all working on weapons projects within Russia. There isn’t a lot to spare in terms of sending it to the North Koreans, which leads us to what the Russians do have.

And that’s a goal. The Russians are under any number of sanctions. They can’t use the U.S. dollar in international markets. The Chinese aren’t really even interested in having their own yuan. So bilateral trade there has proceeded, but not by the volume that the Russians would like. And nobody wants the ruble. In fact, some governments have made it very publicly to how little they think of the Russian currency.

And so the solution is gold. Russia is arguably the the world’s largest second largest, the third largest gold producer here. And then their gold reserves, both in terms of bullion and partially processed gold, are completely off the books. And they’ve got a stockpile that they don’t admit to. So probably they’re the world’s largest producer, the world’s largest processor and the world’s largest holder of gold bullion.

In addition to having a massive stockpile of stuff that they could process into finish bullion if they wanted to. And so it appears what they’re doing is when they have a lot of stuff that they want to buy and they’ve got a long list of these days because there are so many tech sanctions, is they simply load up a plane with gold bullion and fly it to the country or the entity that they’re buying stuff from.

So expect to see some version. So Marine jets weighed down by gold flying across the Caspian to get to Iran or flying across Siberia to get to North Korea to pay for this stuff. I may be laughing because it’s so weird, but. But it works. It’s un trackable. And once the gold gets into the Iranian, another country in systems, it’s a fairly straightforward process to get it laundered through a place like Switzerland or especially the United Arab Emirates.

Those are the places that do the gold certification. So this is the path we’re on right now. It’s a little nonstandard, but it is definitely showing a lot of light on a lot of things that we haven’t had good information on for a very long time. And Russia’s propensity to throw the kitchen sink and everything that’s not nailed down in the Ukraine war necessity, need to, you know, do this.

Massive arms shopping has encouraged other countries to alter their defense systems. And we now have a coalition of European countries that have placed an order for over 1000 Patriot missiles so they can shoot down all of this stuff that the Russians are now buying up so that they can throw. And the country that has placed the largest order is a country that just two years ago was quiet.

Lee in the midst of its plans to decommission its entire military because it was so committed to global peace, and that would be Germany. They’ve now come full circle and now they’re arming up as quickly as they possibly can manage, which in German terms is still not all that fast because there’s a lot of paperwork, but still.