Transcript
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Overview of the latest drone and missile strikes on St. Petersburg and other Russian targets, and the private defensive measures by companies like Yandex and Ozone including lattice pipe cages and dispersed warehouse models.
Speaker A
Welcome back everybody to Neutrality Studies today for an update with the always brilliant and the one and only Stas Kra Pifnik.
Speaker B
I don't know about the brilliant, but the one and only I am, I think the one and only.
Speaker A
Well, Stas, can you catch us up on the updates actually that are happening?Because there were attacks again in St. Petersburg, but there were massive, massive attacks on Kiev for the whole last two weeks.How are you reading the current situation?
Speaker B
Well, you know, the attacks on Russia continue.There's over, I think 12, 1300 drones that were sent in just the last two days ago.Yesterday there were drones.Even where I live you can hear, occasionally you can hear the drones getting shot down because sound goes pretty far.
You can hear the clap of the short range missiles taking them out.St. Petersburg got hit.Well, it's interesting too because it shows you the difference in initiative.In this case, Saint Petersburg hit.There was the world terminal that got hit.
They sent drones in again.There wasn't that many drones that actually got through.There was one drone that hit the Yandex server farm, which by the way did zero damage.Because unlike the oil refinery, Yandex built cages around there.And we're not talking cages, we're not talking, you know, chain link fences.
We're talking about pipe that's about 2 inch pipe or about 5 centimeters wide that's just built up like you if the lattice work that gets built up around buildings, when buildings are under construction, that type of piping and they built it all around the buildings.So the drone flies into it, blew up into it, did almost no damage to the pipes either, by the way.And there's photos of the pipes of the drone burning on top of the pipes of this lattice work.So, you know, zero damage.It works.
The difference is Yandex didn't wait for the government to get to them.And the government does have limited resources like everybody else.Lots of targets needs to be fixed.They went into on their own initiative and just did.As opposed to these oil giants that for some reason continue to wait for the government to do it for them.
So basically doing it.
Speaker A
Yeah, just to be clear, so Yandex and Ozone probably too, they started to put up their own drone defenses.And since most of these drones are relatively lightweight explosives, they need to really explode in the thing in order to do any significant damage.So if you can keep just two meters away and explode there, it's basically, unless you're unlucky with a fire, you're good.That's the kind of idea right Right.
Speaker B
With.With ozone.You know, even if I think there was a fire with ozone in their warehouse.But the thing is with ozone and wildberries, they.The way they avoid the drones is they switched back to their old model, which is dispersed, small, dispersed warehouses, no longer in the large, consolidated, centralized warehousing.
So at this point, yeah, you can hit the big ones.There's not that much in there, if anything's left in there.And finding all the little ones is a lot harder, and targeting them and it's a lot less damage that's done.So they just.And they did this relatively quickly afterwards after the.The strike started.So by August, there were.I mean, ozone and Yandex market and let's see, Wild berries.That's the one I'm missing.They're.There's all still functioning.Order stuff from them.Get.You get it.Sometimes you get a couple days, sometimes you get in one day.
So all those warehouses function.They just went to a less efficient model, which is what the model they all had beforehand before doing the centralized.The huge centralized warehouse.So again, that was a temporary victory.
Analysis of how Western-supplied drones reached Russian cities through NATO ally airspace, the international law implications of neutrality, and Russia's official response coupled with critique of Western weapons performance.
Speaker B
The counter strike wiped out most of the warehousing in the Ukraine.
That's the point.Russia can counter escalate a lot further, a lot faster and a lot harder that he chose not to.Unfortunately, the west, as usual, mistakes someone choosing not to do something with not having the ability to do something.If I choose you not to shoot you with my pistol doesn't mean I don't have that pistol and it's not loaded and I can't do it.And if pushed hard enough, I will do it.
And this is what we're seeing, what we've seen since August and continue to escalate.Now, the big thing about this, of course, was that the drones came from the West.Yeah.Can you, can you.
Speaker A
Can you speak to that first?Like, where did.What do we know where they came from?Because I think.I think NATO still pretends that this is all like Ukraine's doing.Right.Without any western hand in it.
Speaker B
Well, yeah, they kind of pretend in a very poor way.First of all, to begin with, the drones.First of all, to begin with, yeah, that's anonymous.
The drones came from the bay into the city.The tracking has been that they came from Estonia.And then the Ukrainians were trying to say that they somehow skirted between Russia and Belarus right up the border, got somehow around all of the Russian electronics and radar systems, and then hit Saint Petersburg, I guess flew out to the bay, turned around, came back in, which is ludicrous.People started tracking the air raid notifications in first of all Estonia, then Latvia and then Lithuania.So you can start figuring out what the path on a flight path is.
And then the Defense Minister of Lithuania.I can look up his name here in a second.That young guy names.Yes, some guy from Lithuania.One second.I will tell you his name.
Just reading through it.Defense Minister Roberto Secaunus.For some reason Lithuanian names look a lot like Greek, but I have no idea why because they're not in any form related.Rebecca matter of factly told the told journalists like yeah, they all come through Poland.So again, by international law, since neither Poland nor the Baltic states have done anything to keep their airspace neutral, that is they've not resisted the use of their airspace or land space or water space for whatever, if or whatever it matters in this case, airspace neutral.
They are now co belligerence in this combat, in this conflict.Not just no, they were co belligerence to begin with.But under international law, Russia has casus bella declare war on all three of those or four of those I'm sorry and strike them back.They don't do anything.They basically encourage and provide an air corridor for enemy munitions to fly through.
So therefore you're now part of that conflict.That's how the laws of neutrality work.So that they were neutral per se because they try to pretend at least they're publicly they're neutral, that they're not really at war, even though they've sent material and men just under mercenary pretenses.But now they're obviously quite happy to allow their airspace, their territory to be used for launching of attacks, in which case they're absolutely co belligerent.
Speaker A
Hey, just a very quick note.The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free substack.You can also help with a paid subscription there or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com links below.See you there.
So, but what is, what is the reaction so far from the Russian side?I mean from the official reaction?Did the Kremlin make any statements of the Ministry of Defense about this, about the flight path of these, of these missiles and drones?Probably just drones, right?
Speaker B
Yeah, drones.
They'd launched a bunch of missiles, flamingo missiles into Russia.You want to talk about the biggest dud that's probably been created in, in a very long time in military technology?The Flamingo has an impressive 99 point like almost 9% shot shoot down rate.The it.For those who don't know what the Flamingo is It's the upgraded V1, Nazi V1 missile.
It looks just like it.It's a little bit of a difference.And it's built in.It's.It's a British missile.I mean, let's be realistic about this.The Ukrainians slap them together, put fuel in it, launch them, and then they all get shut down.They are.They're a dud, quite literally a dud that the British taxpayer gets to pay for, first and foremost.
So far, it's.It's the same noises that, that get said every time.So we'll see.We'll see how this develops, though, in the arsenal of do we want to expand this war?Russia has more than enough casas bellis to strike just about anything in Central and Eastern Europe.
Western Europe for that matter, too.
Speaker A
I mean, the Europeans, NATO has been salami, slicing itself into Russia for the entire.For the entirety of this war.Right.The whole time, from one thing to the next.
And right now it seems to me that what they're actually aiming for is to provoke Russia into an attack on EU territory in order for them to go and go to their population and say, like, we're so shocked.We told you.See, we told you the Russians are evil.We didn't do anything.It's an unprovoked attack.
We've been just good bystanders.We've just been friendly to Ukraine to help them against the bad invasion.And now the Russians are attacking us because the Russians are crazy.They're lunatics.They're losing the war.
Putin is losing.And now he's expanding because he's trying to camouflage his own mistakes.That's what they want, right?They want Russia to do that so that they can cry wolf.And then I don't know what the next step is.I don't think they know what the next step is.But, but the point is, doing that would expand the war and it would increase the headache on.
Discussion of Europe's strategy to provoke a Russian reaction, illustrated by the 'underpants gnomes' analogy, and examination of escalation pathways such as a no-fly zone and peacekeeper interventions.
Speaker A
On Russia for how to.How to wind it down again.So what.What.What do you see is now.Is now the current talk in, In Moscow.
Speaker B
Yeah, you're absolutely right.The.The European leadership was the underpants gnomes.
South Park.Have you ever.
Speaker A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are.They're exactly that.
Speaker B
The underpants.No, other ones that steal everybody's underpants and the laundromats.And they have a business plan.First we steal the underpants, then big question mark equals profits.And this is the European first we provoke Russia into attacking us, then big question mark equals victory.And they.Yeah, and you're right.They're at that point, what are we going to do?We're going to win.How are you going to do that?We're going to win because we're just superior.
We're just gonna win the same countries that are now burning, by the way.
Speaker A
But you know, the problem with insanity is that even if the guy with the chainsaw is mentally insane, he still has the goddamn chainsaw like he does.I mean, at some point you need to get him into the corset, right, into a little cell, but he's not there, right?So I just don't know how to approach that because it's actually really, it's, it's quite evil, like to, to do this and then to always go further and further and further in order to test one more red line.And it seems that.But now we're at the red line where of, of like, oh, why you don't we just shoot from our territory or let them fly through our territory?I mean, it's, it's actually quite smart, isn't it?It's like you just little by little, little by little until we are at the point where Warsaw will launch the, the missiles and the drones themselves, just like.
Well, that, that's nothing else.I mean, the same that we did six months ago.
But Russia must put at some point its foot down, right?I mean, you sitting there and so on.Everybody in the citizens of Russia, at some point, they will demand that something happens.Aren't we at that point yet?
Speaker B
Oh, we are at that point.
We're absolutely at that point.Whether or not the government accelerates, I don't know.They will eventually, because something will happen.The Europeans are dumb enough to allow some major terrorist incident or desperate and dumb enough they will continue accelerating until.Look, you know, there are four scenarios where this is going to go very bad for Europe.
And just keep in mind, the further down this the road would go, the more horizon get built up.Russia is building well over 20 irrational missile systems per month just to understand what that means.For those that aren't familiar with it, each Arashnik missile system, the Eroshnik itself is a delivery system.It's not a missile.It rides on top of a ballistic missile.
A ballistic missile gets it into space.The Ereshnik block separates, accelerates, launches six glide vehicles.They're coated in nanoparticle carbon tubules which keep the heat from the surface of the system.The system further accelerates as it's coming down from the edge of space, then launches each glider, launches six rods of God.These Things are tungsten steam rods, also coated so they don't melt.
And they're coming down at around Mach 2 13, so about 3km per second.Your eye can kind of catch something flew by before your brain realizes that something flew by.And it's really easy to catch it, that it flew by because it's going to leave an after trail.Why?Because it's glowing in plasma.Plasma that heats up to 4000 degrees Celsius.The surface of the sun is 6000.Steel melts at 1200.Just to understand, it disintegrates what it touches because at that temperature and pressure, it doesn't melt, it just disintegrates and then it melts further out.So 20 of these things.
So you're looking at 36 rods of God per system.Now multiply that out and that's 740 rods of God coming down every month.That's the production value.They can destroy any industrial plant, any underground munitions, any underground gas storage facilities, anything of that sort.So the further this, the longer this takes to start, the worse Europe is going to be on the first hit.
But the Europeans don't seem to care.They seem to be very hell bent on taking their people to war and the sooner the better.
Speaker A
So do you think that Russia at the moment is still playing for more time in order to build up more of these systems?And, and that Russia actually expects that it will have to use them against these manufacturing sites?Although, I mean, I must say that the problem the Russnik has, of course, is that it's only good to be used against, against large targets.I mean, it doesn't make sense to use it against something relatively small.So as soon as the other side goes into producing like decentralized, that, that would, would change things again.But, but for now, I mean, Russia could take out all of the major production facilities in, in Europe if it has enough of those.
Speaker B
Oh yeah, by, by all means.Well, I mean Russia could take out, if you think about the big sites, your major electric power stations, your major manufacturing hubs, your weapons depots, your Starlink terminal areas, your LNG plants, your subsurface gas storage facilities.
Yeah, that'll pretty much so take out a very large chunk of German economy.For example, 20, 20, 30 missiles a month supply is enough to cripple Germany into the Middle Ages.Right in the middle of winter too, if, if the Germans keep pushing it.
Speaker A
No, it's absolutely, it's absolutely horrible.It's a, it's a horrible prospect, right, that any of this could be used.But the, the thing is it seems that Europe is hell bent on, on pushing, pushing Russia to that, to that point.And Russia seems to be resisting at this point.I mean out of various calculations, I suppose.But one of them not least being that, you know, starting a war or going towards one thing, winding it down is another.So.
Speaker B
Absolutely.Well, there's, there's four scenarios of this the way this is going to escalate out and all of them from the European side.One is the Europeans are going to try to set up some kind of no fly zone, which instantly means direct confrontation between Russia and NATO or that block of Europeans that have started us.Now we've had Sikorsky talking about, oh, Russia has 300 combat planes, we'll just overwhelm them.Well, actually Russia has a thousand, 200 combat planes, yes.NATO has about twice as many at two and a half thousand, but that's counting all of America's planes.And for that America would have to strip all of its planes from all of its little locations all over the world and just give them to the Europeans to defend them or to rather to attack with them, which isn't going to happen.It should be the collapse of the, the American empire instantly.
So we're looking at air polarity.On, on the other hand, Russia has absolute superiority in undeniable, absolute superiority in anti aircraft systems.So the European or the NATO countries that are involved would, would suffer horrible casualties.That's one scenario.The next scenario which could go hand in hand or could go separately is we're going to inject peace, quote peacekeepers, whether you like it or not.We don't care if there's a ceasefire or there's negotiations going on.We're just going to do it.They're too afraid to hit us.They will get hit.And as Lavrov said, that is, if Russia follows through, of course they will consider the nation sending that to be at war.
Outline of proposed scenarios for attacking or blockading Kaliningrad under international law, alongside absurd EU contingency plans including ecological disaster myths and the notion of Europe triggering war with Russia.
Speaker B
So that means everything in that nation is now open target.That's two scenarios then.We have Kaliningrad.Yes, there could be an actual attack in Kaliningrad which would be, I'm not saying Kaliningrad is impenetrable.Nothing's impenetrable if you throw enough man material and time into it and you're willing to take the casualties.But Kaliningrad is going to be the casualties.I mean the majority of that fighting would be Poles.
And I'd probably say there's probably going to be about 100,000 less Poles left alive by the end of that battle than there were at the beginning of it.But there is a good opportunity they may try that.There is the possibility of the possibility, probably the probability.The way this is actually going to start is these northern European and Scandinavian countries are going to try to blockade Russia from Kaliningrad, which is illegal under international law.But who cares about that?
Definitely not the European Union.It's the rule of law.Whatever law we decide we want to rule.So they may try.They're talking about Lithuanians, talking about Kapnov reserve gas pipeline, that Swalsky Gap that they want to cut off, which is only about 80km long.
They're talking about a naval blockade in international waters, which are all acts of war.Just to understand.And by the way, in all of their Kaliningrad scenarios, the interesting thing about all of these scenarios is they seem to assume that Russia is just going to sit on its hands and go, guys, oh come on, don't do that.We're going to write a very mean letter to you if you keep doing that.The reality is the moment Kaliningrad gets attacked by land forces, air forces of NATO, everything's at play.
Which means what?The Baltic countries are going to get slammed hard.Not by missiles, I mean by that too, but by the Russian divisions near the border are going to cross the border and going to take out the Baltic countries and open up the path into Kaliningrad, the besieged path.Finland's going to just get wiped.I mean any, any military bases, any electric power stations, everything's just going to get destroyed.
Russia's not going to invade Finland, nobody wants Finland.But Finland's going to be turned into a third world country very, very quickly.That's the first blows of the war and then it's going to go on from there.
Speaker A
I mean, the Europeans aren't the brightest light in this night, but they cannot be that dumb to think that attacking Kaliningrad or even blockading Kaliningrad would end in anything else but an all out war with Russia.I mean, you cannot be that dumb because naturally Russ would have to have to start doing something, right?Naturally.But maybe they make this mistake to think of Russia the way they looked at themselves back in 2014 during Crimea, right?Just because they were incapable of doing anything about Crimea, they kind of now suppose that Russia will be incapable of doing anything about Kaliningrad because they move so slowly at the front line, because they can't advance, because it took them five years for 20% of Ukraine and blah, blah, blah, blah, yada yada, yada.Maybe they convinced themselves, themselves of that.
Speaker B
More than likely, yes.
You know, they, there's even a scenario, you know, for a long time they tried to get Kra to secede from Russia, offering EU citizenship, things like that, which, which most people look at EU citizenship these days and go, no, no thank you.The elites go, oh yeah, we're going to get rich.The peasants are going to know their place.And the peasants go, no thank you.Uh, we've seen this with Iceland as a matter of fact just recently, or the Icelandians at this point.
Speaker A
Sorry, sorry Adam interrupting you too much today.I don't know why, but I must just say, you know, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if even Albania had second thoughts about joining the eu because it's basically like boarding the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.
Speaker B
It's like why several times do that?They goes back and hits, come back and hits.Just, just to make sure that the iceberg is still there.
That's the EU Titanic.Yeah.
And just in case, just in case the, the iceberg's not enough and the fires burning all over Western Europe isn't enough, we have a self destruct button on the eu.It's called War with Russia.Everybody ready?We're going to push the button.Yeah.
These people, I mean they are that insane.I think at this point they, they are that.It's incredible.They even have this.One of the scenarios they had.You're going to love this.You want to talk about every racial slur toward Russians.So Kaliningrad's.It's only a matter of time before Kaliningrad becomes Europe.Because you see the scenario that they were playing out was the Russians create a ecological disaster, Kalinica.They in their race with the Europeans, with the mighty European technology.Russians build a battery plant in Kaliningrad.But because Russians are these half witted eastern polar bears in human form, they do it, you know, half assed.And the power plant starts to burn and the burning power plant creates lots of pollution and they throw the, the conscript military because you know the, there's no volunteers in the Russian military.And you'd throw military, not, you know, MTS emergency services into it.
They get thrown in to put out the fire and they rebel and they say we're not going to do this.And Russia starts sending in more regular army to crush these rebelling conscripts.And Europe has to now choose.Do we escalate?Do we support Kaliningrad's new independence strike?
This is the fantasy crap that these people, this is like Tom Clancy, the late Tom Clancy in his later years.The idiotic things that he was writing for, quote, for fiction.This is the level of insanity that these people believe in.
Exploration of mounting civil unrest across the EU, from mass protests in France to sabotage of drone-manufacturing facilities and the shadowy role of black bloc groups escalating otherwise peaceful demonstrations.
Speaker B
When you run these kinds of scenarios, you know, scenario is nothing more than an image of your belief of what's, what's coming because that's what you're practicing for.For this is the idiotic things that they practice for a second world economy called the European Union, large parts of which are collapsing in the third world where it cannot feed itself, it cannot provide fuel, it cannot heat itself, it can't do anything to the social contract.Are predicting that Russia is going to build some power plant or some battery factory, it's going to explode and, and they're going to come in as the white knights to save the.This is the ridiculous scenarios.This is, this is Bareilly's garden.You know, the garden that's on fire in France right now.
Speaker A
Yeah, exactly.But let's talk about that a little bit because the EU seems to be falling apart not only at the seams but at the core as well.I mean France is only one example, but we now see that others are taking this as picking this up and we've seen like some similar scenes now in Milan.Although, well, you know, vandalism is vandalism.There's, there's a difference between that and mass protest and mass mass unrest.And France has mass unrest.But in this sense, you know, Russia would, it would be nonsensical for Russia to intervene now because all you do is to help them rally around the flag.Right.So never disturb an enemy while it is actually making terrible mistakes.
But it doesn't let Russia off the hook of how to counter this kind of salami slicing of the Europeans.Until now it seems to me that Russia hasn't fined, found an answer that wouldn't actually play along the fiddle of the, of the Europeans or, or NATO.That's, that's this kind of conundrum, right?Escalate and play according to their game or don't and also play according to their game.So it's kind of, it's very dirty.
Speaker B
It is.Well, there's some bright light.There's been different organ groups.Maybe there are organizations too, but, but groups that have been committing sabotage on key war making capacity.I've talked to people, more than a few people.They all realize these drones are going to lead them into war.Some people have taken it into their hands and they've sabotaged some of these drone operations, drone, drone plants.There's been fires that were lit in Bulgaria for Example, and I'm not surprised because the Bulgarian as a population are very pro Russian.And more than one Bulgarian government has wound up being kicked out on its ear, thrown out on its ear for being anti Russian.Unfortunately, they keep putting more people in that are again to turn into anti Russians.
Kind of like Meloni and probably Le Pen.Well, Le Pen you don't even have to worry about.Le Pen's already said their position.She's basically bought and paid for now.She's opposition light.
And we've seen that and we hear that from Le Pen and it gets worse every day, every time she opens her mouth lately.So.And there were these Starlink terminals, the big antenna terminals that were burned down, I think 11 out of 14.And there's been multiple fires and sabotage on various drone manufacturing plants.Look at some people in Europe have woken up and gone, you know, if this continues, we're all going to go get into the meat locker and we don't want that.
So.And thank God for that.France, you know, my verdict is out.I'm still waiting to see how this happens.Because on the one hand you have legitimate demonstrations.
Look, the French school system suck.They used to be the premier.This is what France was so proud of, the egalitarian school system.Now it's just broken down.Teachers don't have enough pay to survive on.
There are talks about some of the classrooms are without tables or desks and so on and so on.So you had these legitimate demonstrations where teachers, parents, students are coming out middle class.Hardly what you would call extreme leftists.And they were, from the looks of it, they were peaceful demonstrations, demonstrations.And then you get the black block that always appears, that ever present black bloc that appears in England, that appears in Germany, that appears everywhere.
That appeared in Ukraine, by the way too.And for those who don't know what the black bloc is, it's the quote, anarchists, they're black because they're dressed from head to toe in black, so you can't see who they are.They always, this little battalion of them will always appear and start a big fight with the police.So instantly the peaceful demonstration turns into a ruckus and the police get a green light.What's the green light?
Beat the living crap out of everybody, mass arrests and so on.And then, and then you get politicians like Macron and his bunch who suddenly come out and say, oh, the extreme.First they start with the extreme left, but they always go to the extreme right.And by extreme left, extreme right.They're not really extreme, they're just anybody who isn't in our camp, the globalist camp.
So anybody says, well, we don't want to do that.You're extremist.That's the standard.That's the gold standard.You don't throw the, the party line of the, the globalist abstain elite.You're an extremist.You know, it doesn't take much, does it, these days and instantly they would, they do, oh, you know, you can't have the leftist parties participate in elections because they support this, see what's happening.Or you can't have the rightest parties and because they support this, see what's happening.So the question becomes, where do these black blocks come from?We know in places like Ukraine they're paid for.They were paid for.And in Russia, though, it happened to for, but much more limited because the government cracked down on it relatively quickly.They were paid for by the US flat out usaid.Other organizations are paying for these black plaques to come in there and start a ruckus and try to overthrow the governments.
In this case, these black blocs seem to be really playing into the hands of the existing powers in the European Union.
So again, are they hired?Are they just ultras, you know, football fanatics who are just looking for a fight and if they get paid for that fight, that's even better.So they're just always conveniently appearing at every peaceful demonstration and then disappearing soon enough because you don't see them getting arrested, you see the regular people getting arrested.
Speaker A
Yeah, and we cannot, we cannot exclude that.It is both right, that you do have football hooligans, that you do have some, some junkies and whatnot who take advantage of this and that you do have a couple of people who are sent there in order to help, to stir things up.And we actually do see how people on the street start beating up the people who, who throw Molotov cocktails and whatnot at ambulances because it's utterly clear that you don't throw anything at an ambulance or at other fire truck.Just don't do that.Any normal person, 99.9% of people in the, in the population would never ever do that because you understand that especially a fire truck and an ambulance is obviously there to help.So anyhow, so we cannot really exclude what, what, what the dynamic is, but that we have it and that it is something that France doesn't like.
That is also quite clear.
Insights into why Russia chooses not to exploit European domestic turmoil, the uncontrollable nature of war, and a frontline battlefield update detailing Russian advances around Dobropolia and Kharkiv.
Speaker A
Now where does this leave us though, now with respect to Russia again?Because not that Russia wants this kind of chaos to happen in France or Germany or whatnot.But since it is, this is something that you would just rather just leave it alone.Right.Instead of intervening through by somehow changing the course of the military operation.And it seems to me the military operation is still thought of as such in Ukraine.Methodologically, like just plowing forward.How do you see that one going?
Speaker B
Well, it's the same thing as, you know, when I was talking to Professor Morandi, as a friend of mine, I think, you know,
Speaker A
never met him personally, but online, of course.
Speaker B
Oh, you haven't?I thought you had.Well, you know, we talked about why Iran isn't striking Israel for the last couple of months.He said, why do we want to help Netanyahu?Does any strike at Israel, no matter what Israel is doing at the moment during this election campaign, just plays into the hands of Netanyahu.They want it because, oh, look, you know, if you vote for my opposition, it's going to get worse.Even though in Israel's case, the opposition is actually more psychotic than Netanyahu is, at least on their own words.So that's a whole different issue.Yeah, exactly.Russia has no desire to help enforce Macron's power or Meloni's power or any of these other people.
If their countries are falling apart, even if they do it to themselves, let them do it to themselves.Because the problem with any of these kinds of controlled chaos that the Americans so love to talk about, controlled chaos, the whole nature of chaos is you cannot control it.That's why it is chaos.You can initiate this, you can get the demonstrations out there into the streets.You can spark violence by putting in your own violent organizations to start a fight with the police and then you can release the police like the hounds to go after everybody.
But will that calm things down or will that actually bring the people that were neutral, were just out there on a very legitimate reason into the fight and then you have a big spread.I think France may be losing control.If the government's trying to do this on purpose, they may be losing control.When town halls are burning, quite literally 200 year old buildings are being demolished, parts of Paris are burning, and not cars, but actual buildings.You may have gone a little too far.That's the problem with controlled chaos.You don't ever really control it.You may think you control it.It's kind of like the European attempt to salami slice.How far is that salami slicing gonna take you before you lose control?
And control is almost always lost.That's the point of war.You can the start of war is easy to end the war.Wars take on their own personalities.War takes on its own character and its own ambitions and plans and its own blood loss.
So it's very hard to stop on the Ukrainian battlefield right quick.The non Russian movement, forward as there is none, has now taken all of Dobropolya and expanding rapidly westward because there's no movement.And rapidly northward because there's no movement.The second pocket up in Kharkiv oblast has been flattened out and there's movement southwest, but there's no movement.The Ukrainian counterattacks around Krasnoyman are petered out for the most part.
There's some attacks going east of Kramatorsk, but again very limited.And it's pulling out resources from Kramatorsk.The rainy season's in, going in and out of Kramatorsk.It was already a death, death ride.So any troops pulled out of Kramatorsk and that agglomeration into counterattacks are going to be dead and not able to defend Kramatorsk.
Obviously it would make sense, it would only make sense if you were buying time to be able to bring in more forces.But the problem is they can't bring in more forces because the areas, the roads leaving into that agglomeration are fully controlled by Russian aviation, by Russian drones, by Russian long tube and rocket artillery.You can bring in maybe twosies and threesies, but you can't bring in large amounts of troops or supplies.So anything you're using on the offensive and the offensive always eats up a lot more supplies than the defense.That's just how it is.
That's the logistics element here.Any offensive you use, they may gain you some pr, they may gain you some time in space, but in this case there's nothing you can gain out of that time and space because you can't bring in more forces.They're just using up the resources you have on a couple of raws.So that's that.That's an interesting view that, that they're doing this again.
They're doing a lot of very stupid things.But hey, why interfere with your enemy when they're doing stupid things?Making mistakes.Yeah.The only, the only encirclement right now that hasn't fallen out of the, out of those three is surprisingly enough for me.I'll flat on say it is.
I thought that would go a lot faster than even Dobropolia.But they're still fighting inside.Or Dobropolia is a cleaned up operation right now.What's left of Little pockets.But Russian forces are already moving west and north from Dobropolia.
There are Russian forces moving further east from east to west to close off Dubropoglia from that little bit of Dubopolia that's still open, but under Russian aviation and drone and artillery suppression.So it's put the simple fact that the city is, well, the town is about 30% in Russian hands and hasn't fallen yet.That's a surprise thing.War has always got a little bit of a surprise.You think if you look at the numerics of it, they should fall fast.And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.So that's the whole point of trying to guess.And I gave it my best guess.I was wrong, obviously.Enough they didn't fall, not yet, anyways.It will fall, but it's obviously taking a lot longer.Whether that's because Russia is diverting resources somewhere else, or there weren't enough resources to finish the job, I don't know.
Or maybe there's orders for whatever reason to slow down, I don't know.But the breakout and the taking and breaking out of Dubropodia, that leads.To understand what Dubra Poria was, Dobropolia was not that heavily fortified like the rest of the Donbas, because Dobropolia was the deep rear.
It was the logistics hub.The fact that the Russian army was surrounding the logistics hub tells you that everything east of the logistics hub, all those fortified positions in depth, are gone.So that already tells you that that whole line is gone.There's no line.You're now into the logistics.
So to have it taken.Dobropolia, Russia has three routes.It can go into a deep encirclement of Zaporizhzhia by going west and striking straight towards Zaporizhzhia, basically cutting off any other Ukrainian forces in that area from their supply lines.It can go west, northwest into or toward Dnieper Petrovsk, particularly eastern Dniproprovsk, which is east of the Dnieper river, and start putting pressure into that direction.And it could go north into Kharkov Oblast, into a deep encirclement around a really deep encirclement around the Slavinsk, Kramatorsk, Zaporozha agglomeration.
And the fact that they're moving forward, and they've been moving forward at a decent rate considering the nature of this conflict, shows you the Ukrainians just don't have the troops to mount any kind of defenses, and they don't have any defenses prepared so this is a big problem for them.This is a very big problem for them and has the potential of cracking out the line totally and sending the splinters of the crack into all directions.
Speaker A
So, I mean, whatever it is, it will be remembered as the fastest moving stalemate of the history of warfare.But we are still, I mean, in terms of what to expect, because, okay, the front lines are moving, these pockets are being cleared, and this is probably the last line of real defense that Ukraine has before the flatlands and so on that then lead all the way to Kyiv.At the same time, Kyiv is being bombarded on a daily basis, and Russia is driving the point home that anyone who can leave should leave, because it's now.
The Kiev is now obviously, obviously a military target.But John Mearsheimer made that point on his channel, and it's, of course, extremely important.Ukraine is just massively big, and big stretches of land just are logistically difficult to work with for an offender and a defender, actually.And so if you move forward, you need to do so extremely carefully, because if you don't do it, do it, do it properly or, or, or with it with due care, then what happens to you is what happened to Russia actually in 2022, and you just have to retreat because you can't hold it.Right.
Although, like, what happened then is completely different from now, but the, the depth, the strategic depth issue remains.And I don't see, I don't understand the Russians as foolish, but rather as, as, as very careful in how to, how to plan that and how to go forward into these, into the depth.And it's not just the depth, it's also the width, right, that, that, that seems to be moving.So in terms of timeline, we are not looking at the idea of Christmas in Kiev, right.We're looking at something 2027 ish, if, if at all.
Assessment of Europe's logistical challenges in reinforcing Ukraine, the geographic obstacle posed by the Dnieper River, and Russia's strategic objectives from Kherson to Odessa alongside proposed surrender conditions.
Speaker B
Yeah.2027.Well, it also depends on how.If this war expands or not, right?Which, by the way, brings up another point.
If the Europeans even try to get to the front, just so they understand if, if they're so lucky that they are not hit before they cross the.Across the Ukrainian border.From the Ukrainian border to the front lines, they're looking at about 7, 800 kilometers of distance that they need to traverse.Now you got to ask yourself, does Europe even have equipment that can handle
Speaker A
that,
Speaker B
heavy equipment without breaking down?Does it have recovery services in those units?Does it have rails out?Okay, so you can't rail them.You can just bus them, but there's lots of.Russia has massive Amounts of intelligence, human intelligence on the ground.So if you start busing them sooner than later, they're going to get noticed and those buses are going to get taken out in route.So you start going down this logistics line if they're riding in their own military trucks.And it's even an easier target to identify, especially when one side has air dominance.So not air superiority, total air dominance.
At this point, you've got to ask yourself the question, how do you even get to the front without taking massive casualties?And can you have the capability of getting it to the front?And if the bridges are down, it makes getting across the Dnieper much, much more difficult.Sure, I guess you could use Borges pontoon bridges.But again, the drones are always out there looking for pontoon bridges and barges to take out.
So the whole logistics becomes.I mean, for your American audience, just so they understand, the Dnieper is.While it's not as wide as the Mississippi, it gets decently close to it.And in large areas, it's not like the Mississippi, where the Mississippi is all flatlands.You have 100 km in either direction of the flood plains.
There are areas like, for example, in Zaporozhya, there's only a beach in Zaporozha City at the northern edge of Zaporozha City.The rest of it is rapids and very high cliffs that have been carved out of the ground.There's a sitch where the sitch was a relatively strong fortress was because it had cliffs on all sides of it.And it's just an island in the middle of a very large island in the middle of a very wide river.So just from that alone, it's a very large barrier.
Even in Kherson, where it passes Kherson, there are cliffs on one side, it's lowlands on one side, cliffs on the other side.So it's not the Mississippi, it's not even the Danube in the last half of the Danube, where it's basically more or less flat, open areas around it.So there's an issue there on defensive and offensive.
Speaker A
Yeah.Just to ask about your expectation there, and of course, you're not part of a planning staff or you don't have any insights, but speaking about what would make sense geographically and strategically, I mean, for the Russian army to try to reach the Dnieper on the whole line and then just cut the.Cut Ukraine and cut Ukraine there and kind of stop it in terms of, like, advance, that would make strategically the most sense, wouldn't it?
Speaker B
Yes or no?Well, first of all, if we're talking about.I think the view is now becoming more.We're just going to take historical Russian territories where Russians live.
They were forced ukrainized by the bolsheviks in the 1920s.That's basically taking Kyiv and going straight south to Odessa, both sides of the Dnieper.That's all ethnically Russian.Now, having said that, obviously Russia has to take Kherson.That's Russian territory.So they have to take Kherson.That's on the other side of the upper river.So they have to take that area.And Porto Zaporozha province is also on the other side of the of the river.If you're gonna take Odessa, you have to take Nikolayev first.
It's just along the way.You could try to bypass it, but the roads aren't good.And you leave an enemy in your flank that can counter attack you.You know, flank security is very important, which we're gonna extend it like that.And again, if you're down extended, you're gonna have to take in Goliath.
So.But before that happens, I mean, first we're gonna see Kherson has to be taken.But before we see Kherson taken, it's gonna be Zaporozha that has to be taken.And maybe during the siege of Zaporozha, they'll start working on Kherson because the Ukrainian forces in the south are going to be extremely tightly pulled.So you put them on the horns of a dilemma.Who do I defend or do I do anything?What do I do?That's the whole point of the horns of dilemma is you make it so difficult for the enemy to try to figure out what to do.They don't do anything.They freeze up, they're confused.
That's one more likely what we're going to see first is Eastern Kharkov Oblast is going to be taken, which is it's being in the process right now up to the Severno Donetsk River.Then once Russia crosses the Sierra Donetsk river and the big river reservoir, that's about a third of Kharkov Oblij taken, it starts putting pressure on Kharkov from the east.It's got pressure from the north.Before they go into Kharkov, they're going to take Sumi.Sumy is the main logistics hub for Kharkiv.
So you start Kharkiv is the bigger target.Obviously.Sumi is a city of about 200,000.Kharkiv is a city of about one and a half million.So you've got to cut it off from any of its logistics capabilities and surround it, even a deep encirclement, and then you squeeze it tight.
And as far as people leaving, if you've seen the videos of the Polish border, those lines for tens of kilometers, of course.So, yes, it's having the desired effect.It's getting civilians out of the battle zone.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's, it's, it's just horrible.It's just a horrible situation.But the, the, at this point, neither the, at this point, neither the Europeans nor the Ukrainians have any kind of discourse ongoing that, you know, they need a change of hearts because, and I want to ask you that, look, if today, for some reason, for the.If today, Volodymyr Zelensky said, we want to surrender, we want to stop this Russia, we will stop it, we will yield to your terms despite that he would get killed and whatnot.Let's just assume, if that did happen, what do you think Russia would be willing today to accept in terms of like, okay, you do this, we stop shooting, we move to a peace accord.Because it's already so at such a horrible point versus where it was in April 2022?
Speaker B
Well, you know, first of all, obviously, Russia would insist on a denazification which includes surrender all your war criminals for trial.
The people have committed horrendous crimes against the Russian population.That would have to be a change of government.You cannot leave Zelensky and his crew in place.Whether that's an installed government, whether that's elections, you know, whether that's a governorship with a civilian government with a military governorship over it, I don't know.That'd be something that had to be agreed upon.
At the very minimum, you're going to have those four obelisks fully exposed of Ukrainian forces and possibly at this point, Kharkov, or at least Sumi or at least parts of them.You know, what is the critical mass in one of these provinces before you wind up with the People's Republic forming?
You know, that's a good question.We've saw what happened from videos on phones, some that they even uploaded.
Evaluation of how freezing ground, fog, rain, and snow will hinder both heavy equipment and FPV drone operations, followed by closing remarks and channel information.
Speaker B
We saw what happened when the Russian military pulled back out of Kharkov.The SBU comes in and starts mass murder.There's multiple videos where they're tossing bodies of civilians into pits with their hands tied behind their backs or raining dead bodies, obviously, and doing other cleaning operations.
Everything they use this last time, everything
Speaker A
they accuse Russia of having done in Bucha.Right.But let's put that one aside.Just the last kind of minutes.
Top a couple of minutes, the Next, the next couple of weeks the weather is going to change, right.And it's going to make, it's going to make an impact on this battlefield situation.Do you think we, are we.This will kind of freeze actually a part of the, of of the movements or will it rather lead to a, to a speeding up of things because the ground will start freezing?
Speaker B
Well, the ground will freeze for a long time and in itself, especially last couple of years, the ground has a frozen period.
Speaker A
Oh yeah.
Speaker B
There have been relatively warm winters.I mean it's been snow slush, but it hasn't been this 1941, 1943, 44 type winners where everything was just extremely cold.So the southernmost part.Yeah, the ground never froze.Totally.It just turns into a sloppy mush.But here's the thing, there is something that to consider.On the one hand, the ground becomes very difficult to move on.So for heavy vehicles, people can walk across the ground as long as it hasn't been churned up.
Because I mean it's not just mud, right.It's, it's got grass growing on it, it's got other things growing on it.If you walk across a churned up farm field, yeah, you're gonna have problems.If you walk across the field as a human being, you're not gonna have a problem getting across it.Once vehicles have gone through it and churned it up, that's a whole different reality.
You're gonna leave, you're gonna leave your footwear and probably the skin off your feet stuck somewhere in the mud.It is, it's quicksand almost.There's the black earth.It just, it so absorbs the water.The.
But on the flip side, I mean on one side you could say, well the Russian heavier equipment can't move forward.It can, but very slowly, very limited.And that's true.And by the way, Ukrainians can't get a lot of stuff in either unless you're going on hardened surfaces.But here's the other flip side.
What comes with this weather pattern starting right now already place is the fog is the rain and eventually the snow, especially wet snow.What doesn't work well in fog, wind, wet snow and rain?Drones.
You can fly the drones in the fog, of course.I mean sure, yeah, the fog's not going to stop the drone, but that tree you just ran into or that building you just ran into sure as hell will.And when I'm talking fog, we're talking fog with about a 1 to 2 meter visibility.I mean we're talking pea soup fog.And I'VE driven in that piece of fog.Well, you drive for a little while, then you go, yeah, now I'm just going to park off the side of the car and sleep because it's suicide.Keep driving with the fog lamps.You see 2 meters, 3 meters ahead of you.It's just, it's not worth it.Try flying the drones through that, especially, you know, in a, in a forested or a city environment.
Flying over the fog.Yeah, sure, you can fly over the fog.You're just not going to see anything down there.So it's.The fog banks are very thick, so it's pointless to fly drones.Then you get into the rain.
Speaker A
Drones.
Speaker B
These FPV drones don't do too well in the rain.They don't do too well in good wind because they're not that stable.Wet snow is even worse because it clamps up on them.
So there's a lot of limitations.And when the limitations comes in is when the army that's not dependent on the drone wall starts moving forward a lot faster.
Speaker A
Right, Right.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker A
All right.So in terms of expectations, neither much slowing down or much speeding up to be expected, but probably the same, the same approach as till now, unless it's the same approach.
Speaker B
But it is speeding up.It's speeding up not because the approach has changed.It's speeding up because the Ukrainian defense has, I won't say collapsed per se, but is very thinned out, which is
Speaker A
now leading the Europeans, NATO to panic, sending off these generals and blah, blah, blah, and now trying to escalate and further salami slicing to provoke the bear to see whether it takes it or not.
And it's anyone's guess if it will, but we have to wind it down.Mstas, thank you so much for your time and anyone who wants to find you and follow your analysis, they should go to your YouTube channel and to your Telegram channel.Can you give us the rundown?
Speaker B
Yeah.So YouTube is at Mr. Slavic Man, Slavic with a K. All one word, X is Stannis Kivnik.
It's Stas for short.It's not Stannis.I don't know why, but it.We couldn't fit the whole name in.Russian names are long.
Even though I got Jon Snow down, there was an inside joke like you forget to switch it.And then on YouTube, that's YouTube X.And on Telegram, it's Stas, the Russian Channel.And Stas was there as the English Channel.
Speaker A
Everybody.Stas was definitely there.He was definitely here on this channel.And we will have him back in the near future.Stas Krapivnik, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker B
Thank you.