Ukraine War Q&A Series: What’s Going On in Bakhmut?

The third question of the Q&A series is…what the hell is going on in the city of Bakhmut?

Bakhmut is the city in eastern Ukraine that the Russians, specifically the Wagner Group, have been hammering for months. The city is in ruins, the bodies are stacking up, and the Russians still don’t have much to show for it…

This battle has been part of Prigozhin’s ploy to show how great of a leader he is with the hopes of becoming defense minister. All he’s done is proven how incompetent he is as a military leader and pissed off the current defense minister in the process.

Wagner has exhausted its resources (and men), so the Russian military is beginning to take the reigns in Bakhmut. The Ukrainians have jumped on this transitionary period and reversed the flow of territorial captures for the first time since the start of this assault.

The issue with Bakhmut is that it doesn’t hold much strategic significance. Sure, it’s a road nexus, but it falls within striking distance for both sides. It would require significant territory gains on either side to be a viable stronghold. Perhaps there’s something bigger at play here…

(The military situation in Bakhmut is extremely fluid, and I am, you know, not there. So I’m focusing on the big-picture strategic issues rather than a tactical blow-by-blow of what’s going on in and around the city’s remains.)

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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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TRANSCIPT

Here’s a question a lot of you asked. What the hell’s going on in the city of Bakhmut? Now Bakhmut is a place in eastern Ukraine where the Russians have been throwing themselves at the Ukrainian defenders for months now. Apparently, the devastation is just extreme. There’s probably no building in the city that’s still standing. Lots of people, assuming they are still there at all, are living in basements. Everyone else has just left. And this is the place that Dmitri Prigozhin, he’s the leader of Wagner, has tried to make the centerpiece of his participation in the war in Ukraine, thinking that if he can achieve a significant breakthrough somewhere, then he can go to Putin, say, look, Wagner is great, I am great, and I should be part of the formal chain of command. And you know what? Maybe just make me defense minister and well, he has proven that he is incompetent as a military leader and he has burned through huge numbers of people. So Wagner is the group that has gone into prisons and recruited people to fight for six months in order to have their sentences commuted. And he has used them as cannon fodder to clear minefields, to charge very lightly armed with no training straight into Ukrainian positions, to soften them up. And then the professional Russian soldiers that have been recruited by Wagner in the past are then supposed to take advantage of those circumstances and push forward. And they have pushed forward by inches, not miles, inches and six months on there’s parts of Bakhmut that are still in Ukrainian hands. Of late Prigozhin has been screaming from the rooftops that he’s not getting the equipment and especially the ammo that he needs. But considering that he is literally after the defense ministers job, you can understand why the defense minister is like you know Prigozhin were to experience a high profile defeat, you know that wouldn’t be so awful. 

And in the last few days we’ve had some interesting leaks out of the Pentagon Papers, if you remember that from last couple of weeks, indicating that there is intel from the Ukrainians and from the Americans that Prigozhin has actually approached the Ukrainians with tactical information on the disposition of Russian forces, not Wagner forces, Russian government, military forces. He says, like, if I kind of zig to the left, you can hit them on the right. Now, the Ukrainians have not done anything with that information, so they don’t consider him to be even remotely trustworthy. But the fact that we’re hearing this from more than one source is kind of interesting.

Now, the position of the Russians in Bakhmut since it hasn’t achieved a breakthrough is probably not very good. Wagner itself has a problem here because they’ve already emptied the prison, so they don’t have any more cannon fodder. And the rest of their troops are people who retired from Russian military service before the war who then got recruited into this paramilitary arm. Well, there’s no more of those to be had either, because those are all being grabbed by the military. So Prigozhin has spent all the troops he’s ever going to get. And there’s no point really from the Russian military’s point of view in sending them equipment, even if they liked the guy. So the Russian military is now bit by bit taking over control, and they’re a little bit more parsimonious with the men than Prigozhin is, which is, you know, saying something. And so in the last several days, we’ve actually seen some significant counterattacks by the Ukrainians in this space that have reversed the flow of the territorial captures for the first time since this battle started, which was, I think, last July. It’s been a long time now.

That’s kind of the background in the personalities. The question is what’s going to happen now? This city has no strategic significance. I mean, yes, it’s at a road nexus, but as long as you’ve got Ukrainian or Russian forces within 15 miles of it, this whole nexus is under potential artillery threat. So neither side can or will use it unless there’s a significant break and they’re able to achieve huge breakthroughs in one direction or the other. That doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to see more fighting here, because, remember, the Ukrainians are getting ready for their spring offensive. And one of the things that we saw last year is they advertised where they were going to go and then they went somewhere else in order to draw Russian forces off. Their counterattacks in Bakhmut could very well be a similar sleight of hand if they can force the Russians to reinforce in an area where they’ve already taken at least 20,000 deaths and a hundred thousand casualties, that can’t be great for morale. And if you lock them down there, then those Russian forces are not somewhere else where the Ukrainians might be more interested in launching a real assault.

So again, fog of war persists, but it looks like the Russians’ chance for achieving this breakthrough is gone. And the question now is what are the Ukrainians going to do about it? Next question.

Ukraine Shoots Down Russia’s “Unstoppable” Kinzhal Missiles

Russia launched a volley of missiles into Ukraine overnight, of which six were Kinzhals, aka Russia’s top-shelf hypersonic ballistic missiles. Reports coming out of Kyiv state that Ukraine was able to shoot down all the Kinzhals in the strike.

This is one of the most advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal, and Ukrainian defenses were able to put them down with relative ease…talk about a shot to Putin’s ego.

For anyone with looming concerns about a war with Russia, their coffee probably tasted a little bit better this morning.

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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

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Ukraine War Q&A Series: Why Does Russia Have Oil Supply Issues?

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

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

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

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

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

So, you know, Russia is this massive producer of both oil and oil products. Why do I even talk about problems with them supplying the front when it comes to fuel supplies? I mean, isn’t there plenty? Well, let’s look at this first from the American point of view.

If you live in California or New York, you know, you know, the gasoline prices are significantly higher than they are in places like Alabama or Texas. And it’s not just about where the crude comes from. It’s also about where it’s processed. So, yes, California, New York, have higher taxes, but there’s also a transport component because the stuff is produced in one area, refined in a second area, and then it has to be shipped to the third area. In the case of Russia, most of the oil production, roughly 70% of the total, is in a corridor in southwestern Siberia, specifically Tatarstan and Bashkortatastan going north all the way up to the Arctic Sea. And with the exception of Tatarstan, there are very few refineries in this area. So you have to then ship the oil by pipe several thousand miles to another location where it is turned into refined product. And the refined product has to be shipped typically over a thousand miles in order to get to the Ukrainian front. There are refineries in places like Belgorod or near Rostov on Don, which is another reason why the Ukrainians have to take those two cities out of the equation. But they’re really along that entire western periphery because they used to supply the former Soviet satellite states of Central Europe, as well as a little bit of exports to the wider world.

Now, because the Russians have lost the Kerch Strait Bridge, they can’t rail fuel to the southern front at all. And so most of this stuff has to either rail into eastern Ukraine or go by truck to everywhere else, which is one of the many reasons why the Ukrainians have been going after the truck fleet and have destroyed most of the military truck fleet at this point. Another thing to keep in mind is that this is one of the many, many reasons why the Ukrainians are putting so much time and effort developing technologies in getting equipment from the West to target oil infrastructure. And in that, fuel tanks are absolutely the best thing to go after. And cargo trains are probably number two. And then, of course, trucks are number three.

Now, you can technically target refineries. The problem is one drone or one missile or one 2,000 pound bomb is only to do so much damage. Refineries are huge. Most refineries, once you include the standoff distance, are something like three square miles and they’re this forest of columns and pipes. And yeah, throwing some explosives into that is generally frowned upon. But when you have a noncommercial grade explosive like, say, diesel or gasoline or naphtha, when you hit it with fire, yes, it burns, but it only explodes under very specific conditions. And so if you want to blow up an entire refinery, it’s going to take you a huge amount of ammo to do so. And this is one of the reasons why I always found myself talking down threats to the oil sector back in the 2000s and 2010s, when groups like Hezbollah or the Iranians or al Qaeda or the Islamic State would try to target a refinery. There’s just not a place where you hit it with a pinprick and you trigger a chain reaction. This is not the Death Star. That means the Ukrainians have to follow by the same rules here if they really want to take a refinery offline. It’s a huge amount of effort. And if they are going to target a piece of energy infrastructure, that’s not a specific pipe or fuel cell or train, the one they’re going to go after is the city of Samarra in southern Russia.

Samarra serves as a junction point for multiple pipes coming in from northern Siberia, coming to and from eastern Siberia, coming up from the Caucasus and of course, going west. Roughly 40% of Russian crude is capable of going through this nexus in addition to its refineries. Now, the Ukrainians probably do have the capacity right now to throw a drone or two into it. But again, they’re going to do dozens, if not hundreds or a lot more sabotage.

So if you are going to see something a little deeper in Russia besides what we’ve seen so far, which is kind of been in a band around that part of occupied Ukraine, what you’re going to see is the Ukrainians probably going after the pipes themselves. They won’t take things offline for very long. Pipes are easy to replace, especially in segments. But if they hit them enough, they disrupt the flows the refineries shut down. How do we know? This happened in Chechnya during the 1990s. The Grozny region used to be the third largest refining center in the entirety of the former Soviet world, and it was a significant oil producer as well. Now that’s all gone to zero, but it gives you an idea of the long, grinding attritional fight that has to happen to really take this stuff offline for good.

And so in the meantime, they go after fuel tanks. You go after fuel trains. Okay. Next question.

Ukraine War Q&A Series: What Happened to the 500k Russian Soldiers?

Question number one of the series is…what happened to the half million Russian soldiers I predicted would hit the battlefield by June?

This goes without saying, but the data we’re working with is shaky. The video could stop there…but it’s also worth noting that even [especially] Russian President Vladimir Putin is being lied to. I suppose you’re asking for it when your inner circle is comprised of only six people (of which only half are competent).

Now back to the 500,000 number. At least 300,000 soldiers have been injured or killed since the operation began, which is close to the total from the first Russian mobilization. Yikes.

The Russians will need to bring in more numbers with a second mobilization, which means low-skilled soldiers and weak points in the Russian line. Now we’re looking through a murky and convoluted lens, but this all sounds like an opportunity for Ukraine.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here. We’ve done a quick series on the counteroffensive that the Ukrainians have planned for this spring and summer. And a lot of you had questions. We’re kind of turning in Q&A into a fourth video that features cloudy, Colorado. Haven’t seen the sun here in a few days. Probably aren’t going to hit for a few more.

So question number one, what happened to the half a million Russian soldiers that I was predicting three or four months ago were going to be on the field of battle by the time we got to June? Well, we’re talking about Russian data on Russian information here. So, you know, on the front end and now. But the best guess we have right now is that Putin was lied to.

We know that Putin is stacking his inner circle with sycophants for quite some time. There’s really only about six people we talked to at all. Only three of them are competent. And the other three, unfortunately, are in charge of the defense industry and especially the military plans in Ukraine. The two personalities that matter the most, the first one is the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, who is arguably the most incompetent person in the Russian government right now.

And he’s obviously in charge of the broader battle plan and the entire defense industry. And we now know that Shoigu has probably Stalin personally, one third of the Russian budget that was appropriated for defense equipment manufacturer over the last several years, and probably one third of a second third was stolen by his underlings. So whenever you see the Russians just not having enough equipment to do anything meaningful, it’s probably his fault.

And he’s the one in charge of the battle plan, and he’s the one who indicated there were going to be a lot more weapons shipments. The second defense official, who arguably rivals Shoigu with his military incompetence, is the guy who runs the Wagner Group, Dmitry Rogozin. This guy was literally a caterer until a few years ago and then got a little bit of money from the Russian government in order to build up this parallel military group that we know as Wagner that would go around the world hiring itself as mercenaries and committing war crimes when the local governments didn’t want to.

That doesn’t mean he can’t run a paramilitary organization, but it means he has no experience either. Managing or leading or participating in a military operation himself. And he has been leading the military operation and parliament. Now, for those of you who have been following Ukrainian news, you know that the Russians have been throwing body after body after body after body against the bombing city for six months now.

And conservatively speaking, 20,000 Russians have died and 100,000 have been injured. The real numbers are probably significantly higher. How much higher? We don’t know. But that means this one battle, which is not particularly strategically significant, where they’ve lost huge numbers of forces taking a real bite out of any other conscription or mobilization programs that the Russian government has been instituting.

So back to that half a million number. Best guess is that the Russians have lost at least 100,000, maybe as many as 200,000 men since the operation began. In addition to the at least 100,000 that were injured in Baquba and probably another 100,000 everywhere else. So let’s add it up. When the Russians first came in, in February of 2022, they had about 100, 140,000 men.

They then did a partial mobilization that is confirmed as anything as we can get with Russian data that brought in another 300,000. But if you’re talking 100,000 injured throughout the war, 100,000 specifically in Barkman and another at least 100,000 dead. That’s the entire mobilization.

So we’re probably looking at a second partial mobilization, maybe 200, maybe 250,000. But that doesn’t leave Russian forces with all that many more troops than they started with. And these new troops aren’t going to be nearly as skilled, which argues that the Ukraine is going to have a relatively easy time of things. Most of these new recruits haven’t really been in battle.

They’ve been building anti-tank fortifications. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never built an anti-tank fortification myself. And if you were mobilized over the course of the last 90 days to build tank fortifications, I would argue that maybe they’re not the best anti-tank for fortifications that could be built. All this would suggest that the Ukrainians are going to do really well in the next couple of months.

But fog of war and Russian data and people actively lying to the Russian government about the status of the war. So. Okay, onto the next question.

Ukraine War Updates Part 3: What’s Next for Russia

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

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

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

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

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here today. We’re doing part three of our Ukrainian Counteroffensive series. In blast sections, we explain why we going have to wait a little bit longer to get rid of the mud and how the Russians are going to go after the food supply, as well as the most likely, you know, smart plan that the Ukrainians are likely to fall.

Today, I think it’s worth underlining that even if the Ukrainians are wildly successful or horribly unsuccessful, we are really only at the beginning of a very long, drawn out military conflict here because for the Russians they see this conflict as existential and only a step one. The problem is that Russian territory is really poor and it’s flat and it’s open and it can’t support a very high population density.

So the only strategy that the Russians have ever discussed, heard in the last 400 years that allows them a degree of security is for them to expand out beyond the territories they hold to absorb ethnic group after ethnic group, of which the Ukrainians are only one of many, and eventually expand until they reach a series of geographic barriers that are not flat and open.

And in the case of Ukraine, that means the Caucasus Mountains and the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea, which means that Ukraine is not the end here. The Russians are going to go until they reach a geographical crustal defense that they can man with their rapidly declining demographic structure. And that means even if the Ukrainians fall to a man, even if they’re wiped out completely, the Russians are not done.

They will then come for Romania and Poland and Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania and probably Finland as well. So the Russians minimum victory is in the territories they hold now. It’s not holding up the Crimea. It isn’t Kyiv, it isn’t the vault, it’s Warsaw. And that’s a different sort of conflict that people have been preparing for at this point.

But for the Russians, that is the minimum that will give them what they need, a physical security. Now, what about the Ukrainians? Now, the Ukrainians say they’re going to liberate every inch of territory, which includes the entirety of Lugansk, Donetsk and the Crimea. Only that doesn’t make them any more secure. It gives them a little bit better strategic depth.

It gives them some of their industrial heartland and some of their coal and steel industry back. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t stop the Russians, because for the Russians, this is a battle for their existential survival. And even if they are ejected from Ukraine, they will not stop. They will rearm. They will rest. They will recruit, and they will make another attempt.

So if the Ukrainians are to prevent the Russians from actually waging war, if they’re going to stop this from happening again after they get the Donbas and Crimea, they then need to cross into Russia proper and then neutralize to specific urban areas that serve as logistical hubs. The first is Belgorod, which is just north of Kharkiv, which serves as the primary artery for transporting materiel, men and fuel into the northern aspects of the front.

If Belgorod could be neutralized, if the rail and the roads could be taken out of, the industrial infrastructure could be destroyed. If the fuel centers could be removed, then the Russians would have to proceed on foot on that front, and that is not a feasible option in an industrial war. The second one is much more complicated. It’s further to the southeast.

It’s called Rostov on Don. It’s a it’s a port city on the Don River. And it serves as the only logistical hub for supplying the entirety of the southern front. Not only can you get into Donetsk and Luhansk from there, that’s the only way you can get into the Crimea. It’s the other side of the bridge, if you will.

Now, if, if, if, if if the Ukrainians were to take the war to this point, there would be more going on here than simply preventing the Russians from launching another assault. It would also be about crippling Russia’s ability to maintain its own territorial coherence. Rostov on Don also serves as the primary logistical point to connect the greater Moscow region, where most Russians live south through road and rail to Rostov on Don, and then further south to the Caucasus, which is one of those all important barrier points that the Russians feel they must control.

And for those of you who have been asleep for the last 30 years, there’s an ethnic group there called the Chechens at the very end of that chain of Chechnya in Pakistan. If if if the Ukrainians were to succeed in neutralizing Rostov on Don, you can bet your ass that the Chechens going to launch a third rebellion. And this time the Russians wouldn’t be able to easily reinforce force or assault the Chechens, meaning that this time it would probably be successful, especially when you consider that the Ukrainians have already soaked up a lot of the military equipment and ammo that the Russians had stockpiled since 1945.

So what we’re looking at here one way or another, is an extreme breakdown of the security order. Either the Russians win, which means Ukraine ceases to exist and we’re in a direct nuclear confrontation between NATO’s in Russia or the Ukrainians win and neutralize Russia’s ability to control large chunks of its own territory, likely heralding the disintegration of the Russian state itself, which also has nuclear connotations.

So a lot of countries in the West have, in my opinion, been doing the right thing in the right order and almost even at the right speed in order to fight the Russians back. But I don’t think a lot of brain power has been dedicated to what happens the next day if one side actually wins this round. Now, luckily, even in the most outsized Ukrainian success this year, this is not a problem for 2023. 2024 however….

Ukraine War Updates Part 2: The Counter-Offensive

Ukraine has done all the prep work to launch its counter-offensive against the Russians. Now they just need Mother Nature to do her part and let the ground firm up. So, I would expect the tanks to roll out at the end of May or June.

Preliminary attacks by the Ukrainians have helped weaken the Russian’s ability to move. Since Russia typically fights by rail, these attacks have focused on rail nodes and connections. As Russian strategy pivots to trucks and vehicles, Ukraine targeting will shift to fuel depots and supply lines.

The Ukrainians have seen success by punching through the Russian front, cutting off supply lines, and forcing a rout. We will likely see a similar strategy used as the Ukrainians push into the Donbas and eventually out to the Sea of Azov.

If you’ve followed me for a while, much of this will sound like my predictions for a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the winter. As we’ve learned, the weather always wins and the Ukrainians are pretty sneaky…so these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. What I’m looking to do is outline the logical next steps that Ukraine will take to win this war.

Yes, this map is from November. But given the largely static nature of the war, neither side has made significant gains since then.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the Bluebird Trail, which is just above Ken Castle in Colorado. You got the dry red rocks in the Lockheed Martin research facility down there below me. Looks really cool. After sunset, it’s lit up. Looks like a spaceship setting down in the rocks. Anyway, this is part two of our ongoing series on the coming Ukrainian counteroffensive. Expect to see that starting probably either in the last week of May or some time in June. Once the ground has firmed up enough that it’s not muddy in tanks can actually maneuver.

We’ve already seen the Ukrainians do a significant amount of prep in terms of preliminary attacks to hobble the Russians ability to move. Now, for those of you who’ve been following me for a while, you know that the Russian system, the military is designed to fight by rail. It does not do well with trucks. They don’t have very many and they’ve lost most of what they have. They prefer to put their troops and their equipment on rail lines, rail them as close as possible, and then throw everything like a giant fist at their foes. That has been a problem in this conflict so far, because the Ukrainians managed to take out the Kerch Strait Bridge, which was the only reliable rail connection into the Crimea.

And they’ve gone after a number of rail connections and nodes in the eastern sections of Ukraine, an area known as the Donbas, which takes up the two provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. And that has made it more difficult for the Russians as well, though not nearly as bad as Crimea. What they’ve been doing of late, what the Ukrainians have been doing of late is using a mix of missiles, drones and other air craft to target fuel depots and fuel trains.

And they’ve hit some very close to the border of Belarus in the north. They’ve hit some near Rostov on Don, some near over a season on the Black Sea and then, of course, in Crimea themselves, because trucks use a lot, lot, lot, lot more fuel to move the same amount of cargo compared to trains. So if the Ukrainians can hobble the Russians ability to move about the battlefield, then the Ukrainians can use superior movement.

And this has always been a war of movement for the Ukrainians. The Russians are slow but powerful. So Ukrainian strategy has been to move quick, punch through the lines, get behind them, partially encircle the Russians and then force a route where the Russians just leave everything behind. And that’s what they did in Kharkiv province in the summer offensive and in their fall offensive in Kherson.

The hope that the Ukrainians have is they’re going to be able to do that again with their spring offensive. And it really breaks down into two major pieces. The first is going to be a series of eastward thrusts into the Donbass to hit those other rail connections, to break up Russian formations in the Donbass so they can’t maneuver to assist one another, allowing the Ukrainians to dice them up and take their stuff.

You know, reasonable strategy has worked a couple of times already. But the second the bigger push is going to be going on the east side of the Dnieper River and then punching straight south through the province of Japanese. Easier in order to get to the Sea of Azov, which is an inlet off of the Black Sea. And if they can do that, they not only cut whatever remaining light rail connections that might be partially available to the Russians for logistics right now.

They also cut every single land connection and basically take the entirety of the southwestern part of the front and all of the Crimea peninsula and put it in a box. Because once the Ukrainians can get to the Sea of Azov, they’ll be able to take out the rest of the Kerch Bridge and then not even military trucks will be able to get in to resupply.

And then you’ll have the best forces that the Russians have completely trapped, completely devoid of reinforcements. The Navy will have to withdraw because the Ukrainians can then hit anywhere or any of the Crimean ports with missiles that they have. And the beautiful thing from the Ukrainian point of view is these attacks that they’ve already used to cross into Russia proper that uses Ukrainian gear, American gear at the moment is not allowed to be used on Russian territory.

So with every inch that the Ukrainians close towards the border, more and more of their own stuff can do deep strike into Russia proper. Now, if some of this the Donbass campaign, the separatist campaign sounds a little bit familiar, that’s because I mentioned this before. I thought there was going to be a winter counter attack. And so back in November, I basically released a video more or less lining up about half of what I just did right now.

Which brings me to why you shouldn’t take what I’m taking too seriously. Number one, whether wins and if we get a wet meh, then this attack is going to be pushed back not just to June, but maybe into July and even in August. And there might not be enough time to do it at scale anyway. Second, the Ukrainians have proven themselves very adept at fooling people into thinking what their actual intentions are.

So for example, the Kharkiv offensive last year, which was the biggest victory for the Ukrainians of the war so far, they didn’t advertise that at all. They made everybody think they were going after Kherson first, and that attack did happen, but it was really just designed to draw Russian troops away from where the Ukrainians really wanted to go.

And in the end, they ended up getting them both. So obviously the Russians get a vote in this. Obviously, the Ukrainians can decide where they go. What I’m outlining are the logical steps and things that ultimately Ukraine is going to have to do if it’s going to win this war. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to do it on my timeframe.

All right. That’s it for me. You all take care. See you tomorrow.

Ukraine War Updates Part 1: The Inevitables

The headlines of the week are all looking at the “Imminent Ukrainian Counterattack,” and while there are many reasons to expect action from both sides….let’s focus on the inevitables for today.

We’ve seen the Russians struggling to hit their targets thanks to upgrades to the Ukrainian defense capabilities. So we’ll likely see the Russians pivot from targeting power infrastructure to something new…

While not perfect, the Black Sea export initiative did have some successes. By the EU’s counting, some 23 mmt of grain—mostly corn and wheat—were exported, helping the Ukrainians clear the backlog of their bumper 2020/2021 harvest. But the good news ends there. Ukraine has lost at least 15% of its grain storage capacity to the war, and much of its sunflower-crushing facilities are either inaccessible due to occupation or loss of infrastructure or destroyed. This means Kyiv, when able, will likely have to focus on exporting bulk sunflower seeds rather than higher-value sunflower oil.

Unfortunately, the Black Sea grain export deal brokered by the UN and Turks expires May 18th and is unlikely to be revived anytime soon. Expect the Russians to switch their focus to agricultural infrastructure. Targets like this are much harder to defend, and this will likely mark the beginning of the end of any meaningful food exports coming out of Ukraine.

On the Ukrainian side, they have all the supplies and weaponry ready to launch a counter-offensive, but there’s still a few feet of mud keeping anything from happening. I wouldn’t expect a ton of action from either side this month, but it’s coming soon.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the minimum victory cases for each side.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeiha here coming to you from Colorado. It is the 9th of May and all talk is about the imminent attack…counterattack of the Ukrainians against Russian forces across the length and breadth of Ukraine. There are a lot of reasons to expect a lot of action, and we’re going to have to break this up into chunks today.

We’re going to do talk about the stuff that we know is inevitable. We’ve seen significant improvements in Ukrainian air defense to the point that over 90% of the missiles and drones that the Russians have been firing in have not been able to hit their targets, which is, you know, great if you are in Ukraine because they’ve been targeting the power grid.

However, once it becomes apparent that the Ukrainians are going to move and once it becomes apparent that the weather is warm enough that targeting the power sector isn’t going to kill any civilians in Ukraine, the Russians are going to switch their targets to facilities that are more difficult to defend, and that is the agricultural supply chain system. So on the 18th there is a a deal that lapses.

The Turks and the United Nations have brokered a deal between Ukraine and Russia that allows civilian bulk trade, shipping vessels to get into Ukrainian ports after being searched by the Russians, load up with Ukrainian corn, wheat, sunflower and other stuff, and they get re-inspected on their way out just to make sure that they’re not smuggling anything in such as, say, weapons.

The Russians have been warning for weeks, if not months, that they’re backing away from the deal and they’re definitely not going to be renewing it next week when it comes up for renewal because they need to switch targets sets. In the past, they’ve gone for the power grid because that’s how you kill people in Ukraine in the winter.

But once you get to summer, you have to starve them. And this is probably going to be the end of meaningful agricultural exports from Ukraine. They’re going to go for ships, going to go for port. The window for loading facilities are going to be for coal train systems. They’re going to go for silos and storage facilities. And of course, any place that builds or maintains agricultural equipment, this stuff is a lot more dispersed.

It’s a lot harder to defend. It’s not like just putting a bunch of air defense around a city and you to have a lot more target hits because of it. But that’s how this is going to go on the Ukrainian side. This doesn’t mean that you should expect an assault before the 18th. In fact, I really don’t think it’s going to happen this month.

And the problem is simply weather and not like abnormal weather, just how it normally is. The problem the Ukrainians face is that every phone, every spring, the country just gets deluged and the land is very flat and it doesn’t drain very well. So you get mud, not mud. That’s like three or four inches deep, but mud that can be 6 to 8 feet deep.

And until it dries out, you simply cannot move people, much less tanks unless they’re on a road. And if you have heavy equipment on a road, you’re just asking for it to get blown up. So while the Ukrainians appear to be nearly ready, they’ve brought in a lot of weaponry. All the battle tanks that nature was promised are there.

And they’ve even trained up on a few jets that have been donated. They can’t move yet. And so it’s probably going to be the last week of May or into June when things finally draw out. That’s just kind of traditionally when the spring mud season ends. So it’s coming. It’s close, but we’re not here yet. Now, in tomorrow’s session, we’re going to talk about what the goals are of the Ukrainian offensive.

But I’m going to warn you right now, the Ukrainians have done well because they have been unpredictable. And after that, we’ll start talking about minimum cases for victory for both sides. All right. That’s it for me. Talk to you guys tomorrow. Bye.

Top Secret Pentagon Documents Leaked by a 21-Year-Old

What happens when you give a 21-year-old access to TOP SECRET documents? They end up leaking those documents on a gaming chat platform…shocking.

Most of the information that was leaked pertains to the Ukraine War and how the U.S. has low confidence in the reports coming out of Ukraine. Nothing too far-fetched, but that doesn’t mean we should take everything in the public domain at face value. Let’s remember who is blasting this info around and how easy it is to tamper with.

Russia once boasted the largest human intelligence arm, but we haven’t seen much Russian interference since Snowden. This means they’ve gotten really good, or that capability has lapsed, and I lean toward the latter.

As the US faces another leak, the real question that must be asked is whether people like Snowden, Manning, and Teixeira should even have access to this stuff.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado where spring has sprung and the frogs are chirping, which means, of course, later today we’re supposed to get a foot of snow. Anyway, I thought it would be worth me commenting on the recent intelligence leaks by airmen Teixeira. Let’s deal with the contents of what was leaked and then we can talk about espionage and leaks in general.

So most of the documents that were leaked relate to the war in Ukraine in some way and involve internal U.S. assessments of how the war is going and how the Ukrainians are doing. And they’re broadly less than fully complementary. Basic indication from the leak is that the Ukrainians have been suffering higher casualties than are reported and more importantly, that the confidence in the numbers provided by the Ukrainians is very low. So the U.S. really doesn’t have a good view. In addition, there’s concern that by engaging in a static defense in places like Bakhmut, the Ukrainians are losing their combat firepower, which is going to make it more difficult for them to launch future offensives. There’s nothing about either of those assessments that is particularly controversial. But before you say that everything that is now out there in the public domain is true, keep in mind that it has been the Russians now that have publicized this stuff far and wide, and they have undoubtedly changed a lot of the details in order to make their propaganda machine a little bit stronger than it otherwise would be.

But three things to come from this. First of all. Teixeira, the guy who did the leak – the U.S. airman – from all appearances, was not recruited by the Russians. And that’s something that’s kind of had me curious for a while now. Not since Edward Snowden in 2013 have we had any of our leakers have a very firm and obvious Russian connection. Snowden apologists, of course, are going to reject that out of hand. But, you know, screw them. The Russians used to maintain the world’s best human intelligence arm. And in the last decade, either they’ve gotten so good that no one has detected them functionally working really anywhere, or that capacity has languished along with everything else that we’ve seen in the Russian state services of late, whether it’s the military or their cyber capabilities or anything else. That’s probably really good news. Second, Teixeira himself and why people do things like this, it’s really an issue of foreign recruitment. Even if they’re not a foreigner involved. People are often motivated by the same factors, with the big three being ego, ideology and sex. And in the case of Teixeira, it looks like it was probably a combination of all three. He was on a gamer’s forum. He had these documents. He had access to these documents. He brought them home. He photocopied them. He took PDF photos of them, and then he published them on the gamers platform, Discord, like the whiny bitch he is.

In the case of a couple of previous big leaks, I’m thinking here of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Ideology was certainly part of it for Manning in terms of Edward Snowden clearly was paid by the Russians, clearly fled to Russia, clearly married a trophy bride as soon as he got there. So, you know, I’m sure it’s for love, but let’s be a little bit more honest here. And then ideology, of course, intertwines with Snowden as well. I think the criticism here, if there is one, is we’ve now had three leaks of significance in the last 13 years that get into the files that are top secret and above. And if you look at the three specific cases of Snowden, Manning and Teixeira, they all have something in common. They probably should have never had access to these documents in the first place. Snowden was a part time contractor, and yes, he was definitely a spy. And yes, he definitely hacked into the system. But somebody at his level should have never been near a terminal, and given access in the first place. Manning was a private at the time and definitely should have not had access to the high end stuff. And Teixeira was a 21 year old airman. Now I am not the sort of person who’s going to go in and pick apart American security policy when it comes to information. But there is a pattern here and probably something that should be addressed in the not too distant future. But the biggest bit of encouragement I had is how fast Teixeira was caught. I mean, it really only took a few days for the FBI to find them. At the same time, a bunch of independent journalists found him and then publicized his information. So at least on time, on target, we are getting better from the law enforcement side of this. But maybe we should work a little bit more in information security on the personnel side.

Okay. I think that’s it for me. Take care.

Turkey Navigates the Ukraine War

Despite the threat to Turkey’s national security that a Russian victory in the Ukraine War poses, the Turks are taking a far different approach to international affairs than Japan…and it makes a lot of sense when you take a broad look at Turkey’s geopolitical situation.

Unlike Japan, Turkey doesn’t need to buddy up with the US to ensure a bright future. Turkey has some of the strongest demographics in G20 — thanks to high birth rates and a young population. They are blessed geographically — a land invasion would be futile since they are located on a peninsula and they fall at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia, so trade isn’t an issue.

Turkey’s main concern with the Ukraine War is that if Russia wins, they will likely head after the Bessarabian Gap next and jeopardize the Turkish Straits — a.k.a the heartline of the Turkish economy. This is one of the main reasons Turkey has stuck with NATO, as they are patrolling these areas.

Outside of the protections offered by NATO, Turkey is broadly self-sufficient. Even if they left NATO, they still have a massive army to protect themselves. Thanks to recent industrialization efforts, they are a high-value-add society, they produce much of the necessary foodstuffs to feed their population, and their energy needs can be imported from several different places.

While the Turks don’t want to see the Russians win, they know the value of keeping them around. Until recently, Turkey was profiting off Russia by providing them with a number of materials on the secondary markets and access to the US/EU financial markets. NATO has recently cracked down on this issue, but it shows that Turkey is navigating this situation with one goal in mind: to position itself as a significant world player for years to come.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the tail end of the Routeburn Track on the way to the divide. Sorry, no scenic highway. It started raining last night and hasn’t let up and the view is well….white and trees. Anyway, yesterday we talked a little bit about how the Japanese have realized that they’re never going to be a singular great power again and so have found a way to partner up with the country that is most likely to either encourage them or dislodge them and that’s the United States. And today we’re going to talk about Turkey in kind of the same context.

Now, unlike the Japanese, who have admitted that they will never be the dominant naval power in the Pacific and never the economic power of the Pacific again. The Turks are nowhere near that stage and with good reason. Their geography is different. Their economic structure is different. Their demographics are different. Demographically, they are the youngest of the G20 countries. With the exception of Argentina. And they’ve got the highest birthrate again, aside from Argentina, which gives them a lot of opportunities moving forward. Meaning that if current aging and urbanization trends continue, they’re not going to face a German style situation within the next 50 years. So you know, they’ve got the most valuable of commodities…time. Second, they’re on a peninsula, so it is relatively difficult to attack the Turkish space by land and to make sure that no one tries. Turkey today maintains the second largest army in NATO. So unlike the Japanese, who were overwhelmed back in the forties by American naval power, there’s really no one even on the horizon who could potentially challenge the Turks at home. As to their neighborhood, Turkish interests are a lot more varied and there are a lot more questionable calls. I mean, the Japanese, they’re a series of islands with very few resources, so they have to go out and there’s certain things that they have to achieve in terms of security and economic control or at least influence in the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan, and the Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia and all the sea lanes going across the Pacific. They really have to have it all if they’re going to succeed, and they know they can only get that all hand-in-glove with the United States. Well, the Turkish situation requires a lot more thought, not because there’s “a” right answer, but because there’s many potential opportunities. They have interests in the Caucuses with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. They have interests in northern Iraq and the Levant, which involves the Israelis, the eastern Mediterranean, which of course involves the Egyptians, the Aegean Sea with the Greeks, and most importantly, in my opinion, in the Eastern Balkans, with Bulgaria and Romania. And that’s where today’s conversation kind of takes us.

There are plenty of hot takes out there, including for myself, on how this war may or may not roll out. We’re talking about Ukraine now. But if the Russians are successful and honestly, still by the numbers, this is still Russia’s war to lose. Ukraine will in time fall. And the place that the Russians are most likely to turn to next is a zone of territory called the Bessarabian Gap, which makes up what is today’s Moldova and a northeastern slice of Romania. Roughly 20% of Romania’s territory. Because the Russians see the Bessarabian Gap as one of the primary invasion zones that access the Russian interior and they want to concentrate a military footprint in that zone to make sure that no one can try. Well, the Turks see it basically the same way just from the other side. A number of assaults that have come for Istanbul over the millennia have gone through that same gap. Right now, the Turks kind of have the best of both worlds. It’s NATO’s territory. And so it has NATO’s security guarantee, especially the Romanian chunk. But the Turks don’t have to plug it themselves. So they’re a big beneficiary, almost incidentally, from the current security order. But if the Russians were to take that, then the Turkish heartland, the Turkish capital, the Turkish Straits, would all be directly vulnerable to Russian power. And the Turks cannot tolerate that. So the primary reason that the Turks are still remaining engaged in the NATO alliance, at least for the moment, is because of that promise of a security block in that zone. And if, for whatever reason, the Americans back away from Ukraine, the Turks would have no choice but to step in directly and partner with Romania. And forward position military forces in the gap to make sure that the Russians can’t try anything cute.

But on the broader issue of power, Turkey is just in a better position than the Japanese are. We’ve already talked about demographics in terms of geography. It’s not like they’re kind of dangling at the end of Asia. So they need a globe spanning Navy to access raw materials and resources markets. They’re at the crossroads of Europe and Africa and Asia. So as long as there is trade, whether it is by water or by land, the Turks have some cards to play. In addition, whereas the Japanese have bit by bit deindustrialized and moved into services and high tech. Over the last 30 years, the Turks have been rapidly industrializing, in part to serve as a kind of a supply depot and a middle manufacturing zone for the Europeans, much in the way that Mexico does with the United States. And in terms of value add, if you compare the cost of the stuff that goes in versus the cost of the stuff that comes out, Turkey is one of the most high value added economies in the world already. Turkey is broadly self-sufficient in all the foodstuffs that it produces for itself and never kind of got into this craze that a lot of countries have, that they have to have organic avocados that are out of season. So even if global trade shut down tomorrow, the trade system would be broadly okay. And for energy, they may be a significant importer of everything but coal. But the places that they have the options of importing from are many. Today, they’re getting a lot of their natural gas and oil from Russia, but tomorrow could very easily be northern Iraq or Azerbaijan. In fact, several of those pipelines are already in place, and it’s only been some political squabbling that has kept them from running at full capacity. So nothing like a blackout to motivate.

And so what we’re seeing in terms of how the Turks versus the Japanese are dealing with the Ukraine war, the Japanese have signed on to the American led system. And so they are going in up to their armpits with helping out the Ukrainians. However, is appropriate for their own cultural MAU. The Turks have been a lot more circumspect. They definitely, definitely, definitely don’t want the Russians to win, but they see the advantage of not having this blow up and have the Russians just disappear altogether, especially if you think, like I do, that ultimately this is Russia’s war to win. Now, to that end, the Turks have been very active in not so much bypassing the sanctions that are on Russia, but providing the Russians with ways to get around them. So there are a lot of things that are under secondary sanction restriction like semiconductors that the Turks have been importing four or five times as much as they normally do, and then they’re just selling them on to the Russians. There’s a very strong mercantile culture in Turkey. If you’re familiar with Star Trek, this is basically a nation of Ferengi when it comes to trade. There’s also been a number of banks within the Turkish space that have helped the Russians access the dollar and the euro market because the Russians discovered early on in the conflict that Yuan aren’t worth the paper that they were printed on. Basically, if you buy Yuan assets, you’re stuck with Yuan because the Chinese don’t want it back. They find their own currency borderline useless. So that little mistake cost the Russians a few hundred billion dollars.

Anyway what’s changed in the last couple of weeks is that the two things, number one, pressure from Europe and the United States on the Turks to push stricter compliance with the secondary sanctions regime has been fairly successful and the Turkish government is now shutting down a lot of these middlemen that allow banned goods into the Russian space. We’ve already seen semiconductors from things like washing machines end up in Russian cruise missiles. So it’s clear that the Russians have been working to establish an alternate supply system, and anything that chokes that off is going to force them to start over. Second, the banking issue, the federal government in the United States has specifically warned the Turks, if they don’t cut that out, that they risk pulling under the sanctions themselves. And that didn’t require a lot of prodding from the Turkish government to the Turkish banks were like okay, message sent, you’re serious about this and they kind of shut down that window as it was.

The bottom line here is that the Turks have a little bit more wiggle room, despite the fact that they are more exposed to the security issues that are going on in Ukraine. And because they see themselves in the long run as having options to great power hood, which is an accurate assessment, they don’t want to just follow blindly in the way that the Japanese are willing to. This is a country that in the long term is unlikely to be part of the American Alliance Network because it’s going to lead its own. And who all gets involved in that will in many ways be dependent upon how the war in Ukraine proceeds from this point forward. Because if the Russians do prove to be successful, well, then Bulgaria and Romania are going to be the first countries to sign up willingly for a Turkish centric defense system.

Alright. That’s it for me. I’ll see you guys in drier weather.

Talk to you guys later. Bye.

Russia Targets the Ukraine Grain Deal

The changing situation with the Ukraine Grain Deal has given me plenty to ponder while tromping through Fjordland in New Zealand. Due to the war, Ukrainian agricultural exports were reduced to a fraction of their pre-war numbers. The grain deal brokered by the UN was a glimmer of hope that perhaps exports wouldn’t entirely fall off the map…

With winter on the way out and summer just around the corner, the Russians are revaluating their strategy. Targeting power infrastructure may have worked during the winter, but it doesn’t make much sense for the warmer months…it appears the new target will likely be Ukrainian agriculture.

We’ve already seen the Russians change the renegotiation period of the grain deal from 120 days to 60 days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if March is the last time the Russians resign. So Ukrainian exports might fall off very soon, but can the rest of the world’s (already struggling) agriculture industry pick up the slack?

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? 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.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan coming to you from Ruby Baby in Fjordland in New Zealand. The big news that I’ve noticed is that the Russians are throwing a bit of a fit about the grain deal they have with the Ukrainians. Now Ukraine until very recently was one of the world’s five biggest agricultural exporters for wheat, number four in corn, number one in sunflower you know all important things that help prevent a lot of countries from starving to death. Well, the problem is that most of the stuff that comes out of Ukraine is shipped by water. It’s far easier to ship things by water than it is by land. In terms of rail versus water, about a 3 to 1 cost difference. And Ukraine is perfectly set up for that because they’ve got the Dnieper River that cuts right south to north through the middle of the country. And so everything just gets on a barge, goes out, eventually hits the sea cities Kherson and Odessa, then are put on the big altars and then taken out through the Black Sea, the Turkish Straits and the rest of the world. What has happened, however, is with the Russians first capturing Kherson and then putting Odessa under assault, this is all been disrupted. So the only way to move things out of Ukraine at present is by rail. And not only does Ukraine not have a well-developed rail system. It doesn’t use the same gauge as the European ports. So it’s been very, very difficult, to get much out. Really less than about one out of six vehicles that they used to ship, they can ship now.

Now, the Turks in league with the United Nations have convinced the Russians to sign on to a grain deal. And this grain deal allows ships to come into Odessa, get searched by the Russians on the way in to make sure they’re not carrying weapons and then load up with grain and they get searched on the way out to make sure that they’re not carrying anything that the Russians don’t want to get out. This has increased the volume to about 20 to 25% of the volume that the Ukrainians could do before the war. So still not great.

Now, if you’ve been following the war, you know that throughout the winter the Russians have been bombing the power grid with drones and missiles to try to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. They’ve been doing this in the winter, thinking that if you can freeze the country to death, many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people will be injured or killed. And that might weaken the war effort. Once we get to summer that’s going to change. So what the Russians are facing here is the grain deal is normally renegotiated every 120 days they are  now insisting they only want a 60 day renewal. Well, if you fast forward from late March, 60 days, we’re getting into the beginning of summer. In the beginning of summer, the Russians won’t have a vested interest in destroying the power grid because no one’s going to freeze to death. So they’re going to go after the agricultural system, everything from fertilizer on the front end to the silos and the rail stations on the back end to try to kill as many people as possible that way.

So last year was probably the last year that Ukraine will be a significant agricultural exporter at all, and we should not expect to see the Green Deal renewed come late May. That’s just the situation we’re at. And if you throw in the problems with natural gas and nitrogen processing in Europe hitting the fertilizer market, the problems getting potash out of Belarus hitting the fertilizer market, the problems getting phosphate out of China, hitting the fertilizer market later this year is going to be really raw for a lot of places. Aright. That’s it for me. I’ll see you guys at the next spot. Take care.