The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Russian Reach: US Cuts Ukraine Intel & Dominos Fall || PETER ZEIHAN

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

The US has halted all intelligence sharing with Ukraine. If you thought the weapons cutoff was a big deal, buckle up.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-russian-reach-us-cuts-ukraine-intel-dominos-fall

Hey, everybody, Peter Zine here, coming from Colorado. This one is going to seem a little out of order in the series, but events are happening very, very quickly. We're getting overtaken by them. It's the 5th of March while I'm recording this, and the United States has just ceased all intelligence sharing in cooperation with Ukraine. There's any number of reasons why this is not an America's interest, not to mention all the intel that the U.S. was gathering from Ukraine. But for the Ukrainians, this is actually far more important than the weapons cutoff that is now about 96 hours old. The United States, contrary to what you might have heard, has supplied Ukraine with less than one third of its equipment in any given day of the stuff that is imported from somewhere else. And probably 40% of the total that Ukraine uses now is produced in Ukraine itself.

So while losing access to the weapons flows as bad, it's not. nearly as deadly to Ukraine as losing access to the information that allows the Ukrainians to target it. The Russians outnumber the Ukrainians in every field and can draw upon their old Soviet era stockpiles in addition to the Chinese and North Korean troops and equipment. That gives them a huge numerical advantage. So the way the Ukrainians have been staying one step ahead is to do two things. Number one, try to turn the war into a war of movement at any given point so that numbers in any particular place can be moved and concentrated to attack Russian weak points as opposed to just staying still, letting the Russians to come to them and grind and grind and grind.

And then number two, know where the Russians are coming from, not just so you can maneuver, but so you can target logistics in that direction and know which rail lines and which trucks and which intersections and all that good stuff. Without American signals intelligence, satellite intelligence, a lot of that goes away. The other NATO countries do have some capacity, but the agreements that have made, within NATO were specifically designed so the United States maintains preeminence and all of that. And by turning it off, the Ukrainians basically lose every advantage that they had in the fight with the exception of the drones. And the drones require long-range targeting information that came

from the intel. So they can really only be used relatively close to the front. In contrast, every advantage that the Russians have can now be pushed to its ultimate maximum because they will be encountering Ukrainians in pockets that can't maneuver intelligently and just overwhelming them with sheer numbers of weapons and people. So far from being an honest broker, far from trying to negotiate peace, this is a flat-out effort by the Trump administration to crush the Ukrainians on the battlefield as quickly as possible. And about the only thing that they could do that would be more horrific than this would be to actually provide information to the Russians directly And we are now in a world where I can no longer rule that out.

Well, shit, we may already be there. In the time that it took us to process the previous section of this video, we've had a number of America's close security partners, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, all publicly float through back channels, that they are considering suspending, at least selectively, intelligence cooperation with the United States. The two reasons given, again, back channels, very very spy-worldy, are they're concerned that the United States is just hemorrhaging

classified information, not necessarily the information per se, not that the findings, the raw intel, although that too, but methods of collection and integration that would basically endanger their entire intel networks and their own national security. And of course, the second piece is whether or not the Russians are actually reading any of this as well. Quick back story. So intelligence cooperation with Saudi and Israel has always been a little tongue in cheek. Because they're like, oh, we're worried that the Americans are going to leak and then something bad were happening. And the Americans are like, we're worried that you're going to leak and something bad.

It's going to happen. So it's always been a little bit of back and forth. And we only cooperate with one another on the things that are of direct interest to Israel and Saudi Arabia. It's not like they're getting the mother load here. But their primary concern, of course, is that if you're Israel and if you are Saudi Arabia, Your three biggest threats are Russia, Iran, and Iran's various proxy organizations throughout the region groups like Hezbollah. And if we now have the United States compromised, there is a question as to how much American intel and global intel is getting into those hands, which would, of course, be a real problem for Israel and Saudi Arabia. The second issue deals with the Anglo States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

those four combined with the United States are called the Five Eyes. And it is the tightest alliance in human history, the tightest alliance in American history. And it is the only system in the world that is basically an open book for intel sharing. So the United States collects the alliance share of the Intel. But there are other things that the other allies are better at, and they all have their own regional networks.

So the U.S. collects its bevy. We go and we have a powwow with the rest of the five eyes. We compare notes with what they've collected. And then we all go back home and take the information that we've learned and use that to inform additional investigations using our other partners, and we just go back and forth and back and forth. It's a very robust, very productive system. But the five eyes have two concerns. Number one, the way that the Trump administration has

completely gutted the top level of our intelligence directorates has them terrified because they are seeing things leaked out into the public sphere that should be kept secret. In addition, they're also very worried about Elon Musk's Doge because you've got people who are in their 20s with no security clearance or getting access to databases and then just posting it on social media because it's fun. Whether this is just rank, gross, incompetence on the part of the Trump administration or the Russians are directly manifesting these things from behind the scenes really doesn't matter at this point because anything that gets out, the Russians are going to pick up anyway. So the five eyes are seeing Russian eyes and fingers in the heart of their own national intelligence

systems right now, which means that the United States just isn't a competent or a trustworthy partner to them. And so the question isn't how will cooperation be scaled back, but how much and where? This isn't the end of the relationship. This can probably, hopefully, be fixed. But we haven't had this sort of sustained breakdown in intelligence collection and processing in the United States ever, not even with the most robust Soviet moles, Russian moles that we've seen folks like alter James. I can't believe I have to say this, but if you are, one of my followers in the intelligence community and you are concerned that your senior leadership is either completely incompetent

or has already been compromised, your options are limited for what you can do. And I'm assuming you want to do it by the book, in which case the authority that has oversight over your entire world is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. That's where you need to go. anyone who says giving information to the oversight committee is traitorous is themselves a traitor because this is how the system works. This is how you do it by the book. This is the part of the legislative branch that has actual tactical oversight over everything in the world of Intel. So don't let people bullshit you on things like that. And if you are one of my non-intelligence

industry followers and you do not have a senator who is on the select committee, leave them alone. They're dealing with enough right now as it is. Hey, everyone, Peter Zion here. You have just watched a video on a series that I've put together called The Russian Reach, which examines the role of the Russians in manipulating the current White House, as well as the U.S. government in a broader sense. For anyone who signs up for my newsletter, for watching any video, for the remainder of the month,

any scent that you would have normally given me for the next three months is going to a medical charity called MedShare. MedShare steps in to help out communities who, through no fault of their own, have temporarily lost the ability to look out for themselves. So, for example, if the Russians are bombing your power grid and the Americans are no longer providing the tactical intelligence so you can anticipate the missile strikes

and position your air defense, and the Americans, furthermore, have stopped all financing to help you repair said power grid in the aftermath. MedShare steps in to help hospitals with things like diesel generators. this QR code will take you directly to the Ukraine page and that is where all of the donations will be going.