The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - New Ukrainian Weapons Hit Russia Where It Hurts || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Ukraine has successfully attacked several major Russian ammunition depots, with explosions detectable hundreds of miles away. These strikes suggest Ukraine's war strategy is evolving... Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/new-ukrainian-weapons-hit-russia-where-it-hurts

Hello, everybody. It is Peter Zion coming to you from a foggy Colorado. It is the 22nd of September. In the news in the last four or five days is that the Ukrainians have managed to blones up a handful of major armed depots within Russian territory, some of them a couple hundred miles from the border. The three places in question are Krasmador, tow rope pets, and Ticorretz. Yeah, pretty sure that's right. Anyway, one of these was big enough that it was detected by seismic. Monitoring stations a thousand miles away, which is kind of creepy. A kilotone range explosion. We've got four things going on here, all of which are pretty significant. And when you put them together, it does suggest a change in the temple of the war.

The first thing is it is important to understand that the Russians don't move and store ammo like normal people. They don't use forklifts. They don't use crates. They don't use pallets. They just have things in boxes. They're moved by hand. And so when something does go wrong and things often. go wrong. Things are very blammy. And that is definitely what has happened at all three of these

facilities. The second thing that has happened is the Ukrainians have brought a new weapon system into play. It's kind of a, the technical term is drone missile. It's like a little bit shy of a cruise missile. The name of the thing is Alenasa. And I'm not going to apologize for mispronouncing that one because the Ukrainians chose that name specifically because it was difficult for the I'm in the clear. The planissa. Anyway, its range isn't nearly as good as a lot of the drones that the Ukrainians have been fielding over the course of the summer. Some of these things have hit 1,000 miles from the front.

These probably have a range of no more than 300. However, because it's a missile instead of a drone, it flies much faster, as much harder to intercept. It can carry a much heavier payload. The bigger of Ukraine's drones to this point can only have a warhead of about 75 pounds, most of them, like a third of that. But these things are probably having warheads that are two to five times as large. I say probably because it's new. And just last week was the first time we saw them in play. That said, we're seeing them in play in large numbers.

Specifically, the attack on Toparets used apparently at least 100 of these things. So, you know, not something that is just one or two a shot. Their whole fleets of things are now already being launched. And for their debut, that's pretty impressive from a manufacturing point of view, leaving aside everything that has to do with logistics and military planning. The third issue is that Russia, when it does move cargo more than the final mile, it's usually by rail. Russian territory is wide open, lots of distance to cover, and the value add of the agricultural land in Russia is very, very low. Precipitation is fickle, the summer season is short.

So the amount of income that the Russian land can generate for the state per square mile is very, very low. Of the major agricultural zones in the world by far the world's lowest. That means that the Russians can't afford what we would consider. to be a normal method of transport or like having a road network so individual farmers can always access the transport system. The Russians just don't have the income that's necessary to build, much less maintain that sort of network. They need something that's much more cost effective. And so everything that gets moved in Russia, well, 90% of it, tends to move by rail. And whether that is a barrel of monkeys or a bushel of grain or a stack of ammo canisters,

it means it all goes by rail and it's only in the final mile that it's usually moved by hand and then maybe by civilian car to get to the front if it's a military asset. Anyway, lots of vulnerability in that sort of system. But since you don't necessarily know where the trains are going to be, it can be a little hard to target because rail networks are really hard to disrupt in the long term. You just have to lay new rail if it gets blown up. Well, in the Tickleretsk attack, it appears that a train was there at the time of the attack unloading ammo and the train itself was hit and so the entire depot was blown up.

Now, I must emphasize here I'm using local reporting from within Russia. So I don't know how much to trust it, but usually the Russians don't celebrate their own trains getting blown up and their own ammo dumps getting blown up. Uh, celebrate wrong word. Anyway, point being that unless this was just an amazing coincidence, it suggests that the Ukrainians have found a way to track in real time Russian rail movements. And there's reason to think that that is real. because if you remember a few weeks ago, the Ukrainians attacked Russia to the north of them and took over large portions of the Kursk province,

complete with the Railway at a place called Sza. And if that Suds is allowing the Ukrainians to basically tap into or hack into the Russian rail network, they now know the schedules and the locations of the rail locomotives and what they might be carrying. And if what they might be carrying is explosive and it's going to a place where it's unloading into a warehouse, it's full of things that are explosive,

well, let's just call that a target-rich environment for the Ukrainians. So we should expect to see more of this sort of activity. Which brings us to the fourth and final issue, which is probably a change in targeting. If the Ukrainians really do have better intel on the rail system now, and if they've got these faster, more lethal, mass-produced missile drones, well, the logical target for the Ukrainians is to start going after the power generation and distribution system. unlike in the United States where we move half of our cargo by ton mile by truck in Russia, you know, rail is really important.

And two-thirds of Russia's locomotives are electric. So if you can disrupt the electricity system, then the entire Russian transport system falls apart. Now, we may already be seen some of the early stages of this. We know the Ukrainians have used some drone to attack some power centers in Crimea. It felt like a test trend to me. There weren't a lot involved. but if they really do have better information on rail systems, and now they've got the weapon systems to go after ammo,

and they've got the weapon systems to go after the transport network, we're probably going to see a lot more activity within 150 miles of the border to the north, to the northeast and to the east of Ukraine proper. And we have seen Russian counter-offensives in places like Kirste Peter out in the last 72 hours, as well as seeing the Russian assaults in places like the Donbos, in eastern Ukraine, where they were on the verge of capturing a Ukrainian rail network at Barovsk. It's a place that the Russians have been assaulting and moving towards for months, ever since they captured the fortress city of Avadipka in the Donbos back in the spring.

Anyway, they got within about five, six miles of it. They were making an early study progress. If they had taken that out, they would have basically hobbled Ukraine's ability to move forces back and forth along the front to wherever they were needed to be. and the assault just stopped in the last few days, probably because of attacks that are having just this sort of effect. So this is really bad for the Russians short, mid, and long term. It hits to the ability of them to get to the front in the first place, much less supply it.

Remember that the Russians never have operated on a quality basis with their military. It's all about throwing huge numbers of people, lots and lots of shells at whatever their target is and incrementally advancing. You can't do that without a very robust rail network. And the Ukrainians may well have just found a way to go after the heart of it.