The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Ukraine War Ceasefire || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Here's a quick update on what's going on in the Ukraine War and the discussions of a potential ceasefire.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-ukraine-war-ceasefire

Hey all, just a quick update from Vegas on what's going on with the Ukraine war. Two things. Number one, the Ukrainians have definitely been kicked out of their position in Kursk. That's the chunk of Russian territory that they invaded over the summer in order to get a negotiating ship. During the American intel and weapons blackout, the Russians were able to launch a multivectored assault. They basically relocated over 100,000 troops and basically hit the Ukrainians from all positions at a time. time when the Ukrainians couldn't see them coming because of the lack of the intel from the United States. The Ukrainians did manage to get their people out, but lost a lot of gear along the way.

The Ukrainians found themselves facing some new drone tactics from the Russians. Specifically, the Russians would fly in dozens of drones and then park most of them near the roads, wait for something to come by that they could pick up from, say, airborne reconnaissance, and then activate the drones and swarm in. So casualties were not light, and a lot of equipment was destroyed, especially softer things like ambulances and pickup trucks and vans. Even a couple tanks were abandoned. But most of the troops got out, which brings us to number two. The degree to which that Donald Trump personally has been caught up in Russian propaganda

is really robust, because while this attack was going on in Kursk, the Russians in order to communicate to their own people how wonderfully the war was going were releasing things that were just not backed up like fact, specifically the idea that somewhere around the 10,000, Ukrainians had been caught in what they call a cauldron and cut off from other forces. And in a cauldron, then you can push in from whatever direction you want because there's no retreat. Well, that did not happen ever. In fact, when Trump was repeating these things on his truth social posts, all the Ukrainians

had already been out of Kursk, or at least the endangered part of Kersk, for 48 hours. So just basic information from the American military and the American intelligence stuff is not reaching Trump and he's just spouting out whatever he's being told by the Russians. Now, who specifically the vector was for sharing that information with Trump? I don't know. Could have been Putin himself. Could have been someone with the administration who has basically been compromised. Could be somebody who is just really, really stupid and has fallen for it. All three of these, unfortunately, are options. But it held true. And then most importantly, yesterday, the 18th of March, we had a one-on-one phone call between Putin and Trump that lasted about 90 minutes where Trump tried to convince Putin

to adopt a ceasefire. And Putin's position is that he would do a partial ceasefire that involved things like not attacking energy infrastructure. He violated that less than three hours after the phone call. And he said that for real ceasefire, again, 30-day ceasefire, what he expected was an end to all Western weapons transfers to Ukraine and end to all intelligence support. to Ukraine and an end to all military recruiting within Ukraine to set the state for the complete dissolution of the Ukrainian armed forces. And this for a 30-day ceasefire. It's obvious to anyone who is familiar with this conflict or anyone who is familiar with nouns that Putin is not interested in the ceasefire unless he gets everything he wants on Ukraine long run. And that means

the dissolution of the state. Trump seems to be at the moment not ready to accept that that is the situation. It doesn't mean he won't, but with Russian influence in his administration so robust, just getting basic information and accurate information to the president has clearly become a challenge. But we can't rule out that at some point that the Trump administration will treat Russia like it's a real threat, like it's Canada. And should that happen, you know, everything is up in the air. This is the most erratic American administration we have ever had.

And its strategic decision-making is clearly hobbled by the fact that it's compromised in terms of intelligence. But when you're dealing with somebody who is that erratic and is just at the top of a system that is so unstable, things can change in a heartbeat. So I don't want to say boo and I don't want to say yay. I just want to say that this is a very dynamic political process. And it all depends upon the mood of one person. And that person's mood is famously volatile. Thank you.