New Russian Tactics: Glide Bombs and Double-Tap

The Russians are employing some new tactics in Ukraine’s Eastern front that are adding to their ever-growing list of war crimes committed throughout this conflict. We’re looking at glide bombs targeting civilian infrastructure and Russia’s ‘double-tap’ method.

The intent behind the Russian glide bombs is to make specific regions in Ukraine uninhabitable. They are achieving this by targeting critical civilian infrastructure like water treatment plants and electricity facilities.

When the glide bombs don’t prove devastating enough, the Russians are also implementing a ‘double-tap’ method. This means they send an initial wave of attacks, wait until emergency services or repair crews can respond, and then send in another wave of attacks to wipe them out.

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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 Colorado, where it’s 70 degrees and snowy because mountains. Today, we’re doing a quick update on what’s going on in Ukraine, specifically on the Eastern front, where the Russians are beginning to use a couple of new tactics at a large scale. They definitely fall into the category of war crimes, but so many things that the Russians do these days are. Just to remind everyone, there are over 10,000 documented war crimes committed by the Russians in the conflict so far.

We hit that number well over a year ago. And that’s kind of the number where I stopped paying attention because it’s clear that’s just war crimes for war crimes’ sake at this point. Anyway, these two new ones kind of fall into that category as well. The first one is the use of their new glide bombs, Fab 1500, Fab 1005, 2000.

Basically, weapons that have a metric ton or more of explosive power and sending multiples of them into specific pieces of civilian infrastructure like water treatment plants and electricity-generating facilities with the intent of simply reducing urban populations beyond the ability to have industrial-level technologies. If the Russians keep this up, and they certainly have the weaponry to do it, they will be able to make large, large sections of Ukraine uninhabitable for the population densities that are there now.

The populations around Kharkiv, which is the third-largest city in the country, are the ones most at risk. And where it’s where the Russians have kind of started this shift to just complete obliteration of civilian infrastructure. The second one is something called a double tap. And it’s basically you send your missiles into an area where, you know, there’s a civilian population, and then you wait 30 to 90 minutes and you send another wave of missiles to the same location.

So the first is designed to destroy civilian infrastructure and kill people, and the second is designed to target the repair crews and the emergency services personnel and the aid workers. The idea is, if you can destroy enough of the human capital that allows Ukraine to recover from attacks, then their ability to fight the war might evaporate.

Clearly, these are some pretty nasty attacks. The double taps are something that was inspired by Islamic Jihad and Hamas in years gone by. For those of you who are Middle East buffs, you will remember that there were a lot of suicide bombs that matched this double tap strategy back in the early 2000s. Not much to say about these, except that it’s really hard to fight back against them.

Really? You need to have air superiority and extraordinary air defense and anti-missile coverage if you’re going to prevent these sorts of attacks. And the Russians have proven that they can do these attacks at scale. So the degree to which Ukraine would need external support in order to resist these sorts of assaults is high.

The Limits of Russia’s War Machine

Recent events in the Ukrainian War have shed light on the state of Russia’s ability to resupply its war effort. Even elite Russian troops are being forced to rely on older, reserve equipment—including tanks built well over half a century ago. Moscow’s deep inventory of Cold War-era materiel has kept Russian troops in the fight, but not necessarily fighting: a recent attack by Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia eliminated most of a Russian airborne division fighting in tanks likely older than their fathers.

While Moscow has plenty of old equipment to churn through in its attempt to drag Kyiv back into its orbit, the same cannot be said for its ability to place more bodies on front lines. Russia’s post-soviet demography was already a mess before the war. Combined with hundreds of thousands of casualties due to the war, and estimates of up to a million fighting age men who have slipped out of the country, and Russia is facing a grim inversion of its WWII challenges: while it may have plenty of (aging, derelict) equipment with which to wage war on its neighbors, young men are becoming much harder to find and even harder to replace…

The result? Russia and its war machine have shifted strongly from expansion to maintenance—and all this narrowly balanced against competing Russian economic and political interests. While this does not mean that Russia’s war in limited to Ukraine, it does mean that the timeline for Russian action ends firmly well within the next decade. Does a shortened window of Russian capability mean a decreased likelihood of Russian aggression? Far from it, sadly. The bear’s back is against the wall, and they very much view the Ukraine War (and any follow-ons) as a fundamental war of survival.

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 Colorado. today we’re to talk about the reserves that the Russians are activating to keep fighting the war. at the end of March in Japanese province, the Ukrainians massacred a group of Russian forces that were part of the 76th Guards Air, assault Group. Now, the 76 has been fighting in the war for a while. 

they’ve been defeated a few times, but they’re generally considered some of the better Russian troops. they were part of the, the military formations before the war generally had the best equipment because they were some of the best troops. Well, when they came up against, Ukrainian forces this most recent time, they were fighting in t 55 tanks, which were tanks that were built right at the beginning of the Cold War back in the 50s. 

So these things have been considered by Russian standards, outdated by over a half a century. And yet here they are, being used by the elite forces. they don’t move as fast. They don’t shoot as far their armor’s thin compared to modern tanks. but most importantly, they require four people to operate instead of three. so, you know, much more manpower intensive for much less bang for the buck. 

the fact that these things are in use at all is a bit of an issue for the Russians. So, at the beginning of the war, the Russians had 12,000 tanks, of which about 2000 were in active service. the presence of the T 55 is in the hands of elite groups means that those original 20 tanks are now all, incapacitated or more likely, just flat out destroyed. 

Now, the Russians have very, very deep reserves. There’s another 10,000 to go. But as you dive into the reserves, you’re getting into older and older tanks. or that’s what it would logically seem, actually, they’re starting with the oldest ones first. The issue is that the T 50 fives had no optics. They predate optics. And so when you want to bring a new tank into service, you can throw some cheap optics and actually get it through the refurbishment process fairly quickly, where if you have a newer tanks, it’s 72 or something newer. 

Those had optics, but it’s been 30 years that they’ve been in storage, and so all the seals have gone and the wiring is bad. And so you need to replace something that was already there, as opposed to slap something aftermarket on it on the first place. that requires more advanced equipment, a lot of which the Russians don’t have anymore. 

And so the 270 twos and newer tanks take a lot more effort to refurbish. So the Russians are starting with the old, old, old tanks. but the bottom line here is that the entire pre-war tank, reserve is gone. And now everything that they put on is something that they’re having to update. the same goes true for soldiers, based on whose numbers you’re believing. 

That’s somewhere between 550,000 and 750,000 Russians have been killed or incapacitated by the conflict so far. Well, that is the entire pre-war army. And the Russians are having to put new people, recently drafted people into the field with minimal training. and this is now meaning that there is a problem with inflows. now, the Russians have not had a problem doing kind of a silent draft where anywhere between 15 and 45,000 people are, unofficially drafted every month. 

the Russians have flows of people to spare. but the source is not bottomless. At the beginning of the war, the Russians had about 8 million men in their 20s. Well, if you’ve killed roughly 600,000 or killed in capacity and 600,000 and another million of fled, you’re now down to about 6.5 million left. So if you look at the number of tanks that they’ve got in reserve, you look at the number of men in the 20s that they’ve got left. 

They can keep up this piece. They’ve been going for the last two years for probably another 5 to 8 years. And when that happens, they’re out of a gear. And they’re out of men. So that’s how long roughly the Russians have that they continue this war and any follow on wars. so we really are looking at the twilight of the Russian system here. 

But it also means that since there’s no longer resources that can be shuffled from other places in the Russian Federation, the Russians are now dependent upon this throughput for refurbishment, for training, for equipment coming from other countries in order to just to fight the war in the first place. So the situation in Ukraine for the Ukrainians isn’t great, but the Russians have now run out of stuff to reposition and they’re dependent upon that throughput. 

And that means economic and political factors, both in Russia and abroad, now massively affect the pipeline that allows Russia to keep men and equipment. And the front in the first place. So we need to watch the Russian space and the adjacent countries much more closely now than we have, because there’s no longer any depth to what the Russians can do. 

As soon as they get something, they throw it into the front, because if they don’t, the front gets empty. So it may feel that the Russians in the last month or so have had a bit of momentum. And they have, but they haven’t been able to capitalize on the breaking of the other Deka front. And in fact, the front has become static again. 

And so the Russians are doing attacks, like with the 76, to try to try to find a weak point, and the troops are just getting cut up and they just can’t maintain this pace forever. But we’re still looking at another 5 to 8 years. Okay, that’s it for me. Take care. 

Apparently A Cessna and Elbow Grease Is All Ukraine Needs

The Ukrainians are getting creative and finding ways to launch longer-range attacks on Russian infrastructure. We’ve already seen strikes on pipeline nexuses and chemical complexes as deep as Samara and Tatarstan.

Attacks like these hold significant economic implications for the Russians, as any disruptions to these oil facilities could be devastating. The issue isn’t so much that Ukraine is poking holes in Russian air defense, but perhaps exposing that there…Isn’t any.

Attacks like these will likely prove to be a growing challenge for Russian security and economic stability as the conflict continues.

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 everyone. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado, got a fresh dusting overnight because, you know, April, it’s April 2nd in the news in the last 3 or 4 days is that the Ukrainians have demonstrated a significantly longer range for weapons systems launched from Ukraine proper. specifically, the Ukrainians have been able to hit targets with their new drones that are in the, locations of Samara and Tartus stand.

now, these are more important than a lot of these in pieces of infrastructure that Ukrainians have been hitting with their drone campaign recently. Samara is a major pipeline nexus where a lot of the crude that comes in from southwestern, Siberia gets processed or redirected to European or Black Sea markets. And Tatarstan is even deeper within the Russian Federation, in Siberia proper.

and it is also a major chemicals and refining complex. So the significance here is pretty, pretty strong. the issue is throughput. The Russians don’t have a lot of storage. The country’s really big, and the most of these systems were built in the imperial age under the Soviets. So they were designed to supply the empire. Well, now that, the empire has gone its own way, and most of the former Soviet republics and, former Soviet satellite states are getting their crude and natural gas from somewhere else.

The Russians are completely dependent now for income on getting this crude out to the wider world. That means getting to the black on the Baltic Sea, because they can’t really use the pipes to go into Germany anymore. So when you think of that, and then you look at notes like some are in tartar, stand, we have a problem.

Because if these are interrupted, especially Samara, which is a nexus, then the crude has nowhere to go. There’s not a backup system when these clusters get taken offline, for whatever reason, pressure builds up in the pipe. Back to the wellhead. Now, this could be worse. the facilities that are in southwestern Siberia, especially places like Tarter stand in Bucharest on it, doesn’t get so cold there in the winter that the well heads freeze.

But now that the Ukrainians have demonstrated the ability to strike over 1000km from their border, it’s only a matter of time before they start aiming for targets that are north of Moscow instead of south of Moscow. And if those pipeline accesses go offline, then you’re talking about the well heads in northwestern Siberia actually freezing shut. And a lot of the stuff just goes offline forever because if the wellhead freezes shut, you have to drill it.

And you can only re drill in the Arctic summer. And that only lasts for about 3 or 4 months a year. So, that’s kind of piece one. Piece two is what’s going on in Totters on Thomaston because it is a combination of producing zone and chemical zone. A lot of these chemicals are what allows the Russian agricultural system to work.

 

And a lot of this stuff is exported to China. So what the Ukrainians are demonstrating is the capacity to identify targets that move up the value added chain, not just going after raw crude, not just going after refined product, but even downstream products, like chemicals manufacture. so the economic hit to the Russians from this continues to climb.

And now it’s really just an issue of whether or not the Russians have the capacity of getting meaningful air defense of the hundreds of facilities that they have across European and Western Siberia and Russia in order to stymie these attacks in the first place, because they’re clearly not moving fast enough on the front in order to disrupt these drones launching.

And this is a very, very cheap way to do it. These things cost more than, say, the Iranian Shi’ite drones. But you’re still talking about well, well, well, well under $1 million a pop. Whereas a refinery that handles 100,000 barrels a day is going to run, you know, $1 billion on a good day. So the disruption here is real.

It is getting bigger. And we’re getting to the point where it’s time to start thinking about what happens when Russian crude and materials processing goes offline in some form, because we’re only in the early days of this Ukrainian campaign. And now that they found a soft spot, you can guarantee they’re going to hit it over and over and over and over.

Quick addendum, there is very clear footage coming out of toddler son of a small passenger plane. Think of something like the size of a Cessna, maybe a little bit bigger, flying and ramming into, a munitions factory that builds drones for the Russian military. specifically the Shaheed type that have been causing the Ukrainians so many problems.

Now, it’s not so much the significance of this attack as attacking a factory floor with a 50 to 100 pound bomb. You know, let’s let’s call it huge, say 300 pounds, isn’t going to cause enough damage to really take anything off line. The issue is that it got there. It flew over 1000km through Russian airspace. that means one of two things.

Either number one, the Ukrainians now have kits that they can smuggle into Russia, modify a plane at an airfield within Russia and launch like that, which would be from an internal security point of view and a technical point of view, just a disaster for the Russians or the Russians have absolutely no anti-aircraft coverage in the core of the country, where most of the infrastructure is and most of the people live, no matter what the outcome here is, this is a disaster for the Russians, because there’s no doubt that the Ukrainians will be now be doing it at scale, because it’s clear the Russians can’t stop them.

How Tariffs and Drones Saved Ukrainian Agriculture

Ukrainian agricultural exports are finally having the boot lifted from their throats thanks to new tariffs on certain goods in the EU and Ukraine’s adoption of water based drones.

Exporting Ukrainian agricultural products has been no easy feat; between Russian bombardment, infrastructure attacks, and European interdictions on Ukrainian goods, there wasn’t much movement early on in the conflict. Between the proposed tariffs by the French and some recent success with water-based drones, Ukraine might finally be able to get some product out.

These new tarrifs will free up the markets for Ukraine’s primary revenue generating products, wheat and sunflower. The recent water-based drone attacks on Russian vessels have helped to reestablish the grain corridor through NATO territories, easing pressure further.

Although this is just a small victory for the Ukrainians, restoring their ability to earn through agricultural exports could help ease tensions across the board.

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, everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. quick update on the trade and war situation in Europe, specifically Ukraine. it appears we have or they have solved the problem of getting Ukrainian agricultural goods to market. So the quick backdrop is that because of the Russian war, the Russians were bombing places like Odessa and interdicting ships on the Black Sea.

And by water is how the Ukrainians ship out. Well over 80% of their agricultural output, or at least before the war, it was, but nobody wanted to get hit by a Russian missile. So basically everyone got locked up in port and we had backlogs, throughout the entire system. the Ukrainians started to ship things by rail west into the European Union.

they couldn’t get nearly as much out at most one third of what they could do, based on product and some products, less than 10%. But every kilometer that the, Ukrainian stuff was in a rail car, was a kilometer of ton rails that the Europeans could not use. So the Romanians, the Hungarians, the Slovaks and the poles, the border states in particular, were getting cheesed off because their farmers were having a hard time getting their crops to market.

And so they would say, you could transit, but you can’t actually sell that here. Well, if you have to go all the way to Germany, that’s a lot of ton miles that were suddenly not available for everything else. So it wasn’t a very tenable such solution. So these countries may on the whole be very pro Ukraine, but they don’t want to destroy their own agricultural sectors to do it.

So two things have changed. First, the French, the French have gotten involved. Though the French are arguably among the most agriculturally protectionist countries in the world. and none of this stuff was coming to France, but, the French economy is roughly as large as all of the border states put together. And so when the French did decide to get involved, it had an impact at the European level very quickly.

And they were looking at some of the secondary products that were coming in, things like poultry and eggs and honey and corn and oats, and they’re like, okay, we produce all of these things, and now all these things aren’t necessarily making it to France. They are making it to Central Europe, which is depressing. Prices within the European Union.

So how about we do this? We do it. We give everyone in Europe the ability, put tariffs on the products that we care about. And in doing that, we then open up the ability for everything else, most notably wheat and sunflower, which are, the Ukrainians, big money makers. now everyone in the border states grows wheat, but by freeing up some categories, then things could go elsewhere and things could basically be shuffled around.

The French got happy, and it took some of the pressure off of everything else. That was part one. Part two is a Ukrainian military strategy using drones. they basically been refitting small jet boats and jet skis and going in force after Russian vessels, especially Russian landing vessels. well, in the last few days, they’ve taken out another two or at least heavily damaged another two, as long as as well as a spy ship that allows the Russians to identify where launch sites and radar sites are.

And what this has had the net effect of doing is clearing the entire western half of the Black Sea of Russian vessels, and forcing the Russians to fall all the way back to an over a cease, and maybe even even to offshore on the eastern side of the Black Sea, which ports most of the western half of the Black Sea, out of range of even Russian missiles.

So this is opened up a grain export corridor going down the western side of the Black Sea through NATO territory, specifically Romania and Bulgaria, Turkey, to the Turkish Straits and out to the Aegean and the wider world. You do that, you take pressure off those bulk commodities like sunflower and wheat. So I don’t mean to suggest that this is solved, and I don’t mean to suggest that everyone has gotten everything that they want.

But a lot of the pressures that we were seeing that were locking up the cargo shipments are now gone, or at least severely ameliorated. And all of a sudden, Ukraine again has its single largest line item export earner back. and that will help everyone, because the more that the Ukrainians can put their own money into the war, the less pressure there will be politically on everyone else.

A Conversation with The Times

Here’s my Frontline interview with Times Radio from last week. We discussed the war in Ukraine and global security, specifically looking at what could unfold in Russia due to this conflict.

“Putin is running out of time and allies as the west doubles down on shutting Russia out of the global economy and corruption erodes his military gains in Ukraine.”

You can find the full interview below…

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

More Than Hon Hon Hon: What Are the French Up to in Ukraine?

There’s been recent discussions by French President Macron regarding deploying French troops to Ukraine. Is this really going to happen and why would they do this?

Given France’s nationalist stance, stable demographics, and the evolving European landscape, this appears to be a feasible endeavor. The French stand to gain some insight to tech and new tactics, some resource regulation, and the obvious strategic positioning to support Ukrainian forces and the security interests of wider Europe.

Given the relative speed with which France can make decisions and implement them (when compared to the Germans), this is likely the emergence of the French as an assertive power in European strategic conversations. This move could shake up all of Europe, so I’ll be monitoring this situation as it continues to unfold.

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 Colorado today. We’re going to kick around with the French are doing in Europe, specifically in Ukraine. You have French President Macron, who has been recently talking about sending French troops into Ukraine. And not only is this week broken the eyes on a broader strategic discussion. It bears the question of what the hell the French are thinking, how they fit into the alliance network, how this might play out.

And I got to say, in traditional French fashion, it’s it’s interesting. So the French have a reputation well earned, I might point out, for being rather narcissistic. They’re convinced that the world revolves around them. They they believe that oftentimes the Americans are just as much of a problem as the more legitimate strategic threats, because the Americans tend to take the lead in everything because they’re providing the men and the money and the intelligence and the satellite system and the transport, you know, other pesky things.

But the French have always, always, always been at the center of decision making in Europe, largely because they’ve had a relatively strategic position out on the western edge where they’re not being constantly hit from multiple directions so they can focus their forces when they want to, not the the degree of a naval power like Britain, of course, but for a land power, they punch pretty hard and it’s kind of hard to hit them back.

Now, what this means is that the French being on the far side of Western Europe are directly impacted by the day to day goings on of the Ukraine war. And even in the worst case scenario where Ukraine falls, they’re not in the next line of attack. That would be Poland and Germany and then the low countries before you would get to France.

So from a certain point of view, the French can take an almost American approach to this and take the very long view. And that’s been shaped by their political culture, their geography, their military system. You know, this is nothing new here. But why? Why, why, why, why would they be talking about sending troops? Well, we’ve got a few things going on that are making this more and more feasible.

Number one, the very nature of Europe needs to change. So the EU, as it was originally envisioned, was an economic and trading club, but everything that allowed it to work has basically broken down in the last few years. Number one, globalization is going away. So the Europeans are losing their ability to sell on the international market bit by bit.

France, being nationalist, never really got into that. So they don’t have anything to lose. Second demographics. Most of Europe is aging so rapidly that all of the major countries basically ceased functioning as modern economies. And 5 to 15 years. But not France. France actually has needless policies and so has a pretty high birth rate or complications that come from that.

But this is not a country whose economic models in danger. Third, if Europe as an entity is going to matter at all. It has to be able to stand up for its own security concerns. And we now know very clearly that the Russians are not going to stop unless they are stopped. That means France, despite being on the far western edge, can’t take a completely hands off approach.

You can take the long view, but it can’t do nothing. You put all this together and the French see, putting boots on the ground as you create is something to very seriously consider. Number one, there’s a lot of resources, especially in agriculture in Ukraine, getting that under the European EGIS so it can be regulated by European norms is something the French like, just as it is.

Number two, technology. Ukraine has become a background in a new type of warfare using mass drones in the hands of not just strategic decision makers, but everyday troops. And if you are France, you would rather understand that before it comes to your borders. So having folks there not just to train the Ukrainians, but to be trained by the Ukrainians makes a lot of sense.

Three, whatever the future of the European Union is going to be, it’s not going to be a major trading bloc. They no longer have the population to sustain that. It’s going to be based more on politics, security, culture and identity. Well, these are things that the French are much more comfortable with. And if you can bring Ukraine into that family, it makes the overall unity of the system much stronger and more coherent.

This isn’t like the old days when the French would oppose European Union expansion because they don’t want to have to subsidize anyone. Those days are over anyway. The European Union is losing the ability to do that as the Germans age out. There’s no one left to write the check except for the French, and they don’t want to. So they’d rather change the nature of the union itself.

And then finally, there’s a leadership issue here. A very short term leadership issue under German Chancellor Schulz. Germany is basically getting dragged into a lot of strategic positions. They’ve got a fractured government made of libertarian businessmen, Greens and social Democrats. And there’s very little that they agree on. And it’s really hard for them to change their mind on any policy or take a leadership position, because before Germany can act, the coalition has to come to an agreement.

So whether it’s been on subsidies or health care or labor negotiations or the Ukraine war or EU policy, everything has just been so damn slow. And then you have France, where there’s a majority government run by a major party under a relatively airmatic leader who can make decisions and implement them very quickly. And if you put that in the context of what’s going on Ukraine right now in this conversation of troops, people are looking to Germany to set the strategic conversation at all.

They’re looking to the French and may they may not like what the French have to say. But there’s a lot of different opinions, because if you are in Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania or Finland or Sweden or Poland, well, of course we’re going to have to get involved in Ukraine. Of course, the Russians are not going to stop.

Of course, we need to consider putting boots on the ground in order to protect the Ukrainians and look out for European values to have someone on the other side of Europe and far west saying that. That’s a rallying cry, not something to argue against. So for the first time in quite some time, the French are getting some very real strategic kudos from other European countries for being aggressive as opposed to just arguing with the United States.

And then there’s the final issue of what would they do when we get there. We’re not talking about French troops going to the frontline and fighting the Russians. No, no, this is not a Napoleonic invasion. The idea is threefold. Number one, you put them there in order to repair equipment that the Ukrainians need. So it doesn’t have to get shipped all the way to Western Europe.

So speed the process up. Number two, training it both ways. The French training the Ukrainians, especially things like Special forces, the Ukrainians training the French, and especially in things like drone tech. And then third, provide a strategic backstop in places that you don’t expect to get hot but could. So you put French troops on, say, the border of Belarus or the border of Moldova, where the Russians have forces in a place called Transnistria, where they’re basically sponsored a secessionist operation 30 years ago, and they’re still there.

And that way the Ukrainian forces that are there now can redirect to the front line. So there’s a lot of reasons that we should treat this seriously. I mean, yes, it’s the French, so there’s a lot of bombast and pomposity. But this is a very, very real strategic discussion that Macron has started. And if I was a betting man, I’d say it’s going to manifest as something that is actually real before the end of this year.

The Ukraine War Goes Seaborn

The Ukrainians have made some huge strides in the maritime theater and have poked some eyebrow raising holes in Russia’s naval capabilities.

The first thing of note is the sinking of a Russian patrol vessel by Ukrainian drones. This drone strike took place farther east than other attacks, bringing Russian detection capabilities into question.

The second incident was the sinking of a Russian landing ship. This further hampers Russia’s ability to reinforce Crimea and shows just how vulnerable Russian naval assets might be.

These attacks suggest a shift in Ukrainian strategy, targeting Russian naval assets with drones. While the war that on land has been a drawn out series of give and take, the maritime theater is heating up.

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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 a snowy Colorado morning. There are two recent things that have gone down in the maritime theater in Ukraine that I think are worth stitching together. The first is that around midnight of March 4th, the fifth, a patrol vessel, Russian patrol vessel. The name escapes me was sunk by a bunch of waves, water, drones, basically.

The reason this matters is it happened a lot further away from the places where most of the drones have hit Russian water assets in the past. The Ukrainians really don’t have much of a coastline anymore. It’s really just far western Ukraine on the west side of the Crimean peninsula. And so when vessels are used to there, the they become in range of these UAV swarms that Ukraine have been launching with greater frequency.

But that’s not where this patrol ship was. It was on the far eastern side of Ukraine near the Kerch Strait Bridge. So that’s about 300 miles from any potential launch point. And that meant that the waves had to cruise by pretty much every naval asset the Russians had in order to get them to where they needed to go.

So either they’re getting quieter or there’s a lot of more holes all along the Russian detection perimeter or both. Also, it’s in the vicinity of the bridge. So if you want to say that this is a shaping operation in order to strike the bridge directly, you know, that’s a reasonable concern. The other thing that’s unique is this is a relatively new vessel.

Patrol ships are pretty small but designed for anti-insurgency, clearly not doing that job very well. And if there is a type of vessel that’s going to be decent at shooting down drones, it’s going to be something like this that’s relatively small in the first place so it can shoot down into the water. And apparently none of that worked.

The thing sank. The second vessel to go down, went down a couple weeks ago, I believe it was February 1415, and it was a landing ship. Now, landing ships are used to deliver military cargo to areas that don’t necessarily have excellent port facilities. The idea is you can just kind of pull up to the shore, drop off everything you need, and then take off again.

The reason that these are really important in any sort of operation is because it means you’re not beholden to civilian or military infrastructure. You don’t have to wait for a port slot to be available. And if you’re at a port slot, obviously the enemy knows where you are. Also, you know, you’re not talking about things like cranes being required.

You can just roll right off. The Russians brought a half a dozen of these into the Black Sea just before the war. This is one of the reasons why the folks in the military community were pretty sure the war was going to happen this time. And the Russians began with about a half a dozen in theater. So 12 total.

Now, this was the fifth one that was sunk. It was called the Scissor Hulk kind of politics for pronunciation. Anyway, well, when the seas are went down, they basically down to 50%. And with that, that means the Russians are dependent on either civilian transports, which do not do well in a war zone at all, or a single thread of supply coming across the Kerch Strait Bridge that is now no longer being transported by rail for the most part, mostly by truck.

You take these two together, the Russians are losing the ability to reinforce Crimea by the water and the Ukrainians are demonstrated that they’re able to strike targets in the vicinity of the bridge, which would inhibit the Russian ability to supply by land. And if Crimea loses the ability to supply them, this war changes very quickly, regardless of what happens with the Ukrainian army and the U.S. Congress.

Now, there’s obviously lots, lots, lots more going on there. And the fog of war remains, as ever in place. But it does seem that the Ukrainians have adapted to the lower flows of equipment from the United States by getting more creative with their military tactics and going after vulnerable targets, in this case, naval assets that no one before the war would have ever thought were the vulnerable side of the Russian war machine.

So we’re probably going to see more and more of this going on, because while the Ukrainians are having a hard time getting Howitzers, they’re having no problem getting jet skis. And basically they modified jet skis and things like them in order to make these maritime drones. So the pressure on the naval aspect of the Russian assault, as all of a sudden kind of surprisingly emerged as a critical component in the near term.

As for what’s going on on land, that is largely a function of the U.S. Congress, and we will address that in the next video.

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.

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.

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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

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.

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.

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

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.