The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Ukraine Opens Up on Belgorod || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

From the beginning of the Ukraine War, the Western nations have placed restrictions on how their weapons donations to Ukraine can be used. Specifically, Western nations have been concerned that if Ukraine targets Russian forces within Russia, escalation may be unavoidable. But recent events have forced a change of calculus in the West. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/ukraine-opens-up-on-belgorod

Hey everyone, Peter Zine here coming to you from Colorado. In the last 36 hours, we had the most significant shift in the balance of power in the Ukraine war of at least the last year. But first, the back story. Two cities in play. Belgarod on the Russian side of the border, which is a big logistical hub and population center, and Kharkiv on the Ukrainian side of the border, which based on whose numbers you're using is either the second or the third most populous city in Ukraine. Early in the war, forces originating from Belgarod launched a massive assault on Khark, even nearly captured the city.

And only with some very clever maneuvering in a couple of counteroffensive is about a year into the war were the Ukrainians able to fight the Russians back to the border. Of late in the last few weeks, the Russians have made another try using walls of T-62 tanks, which are technically outdated, but still, you know, can kill you. And just coming over in huge numbers trying to overwhelm the Ukrainian. who were occupied elsewhere in the country. They have been stopped, and the Russians have been facing some really horrific casualty ratio, somewhere between 5 and 6 to 1 versus the Ukrainians, but the Russians have them

in despair and an attitude that numbers are equality all their own. What's going on is that the Russians have been counting since the beginning of the war on Western weapons provided to Ukraine not being able to be used on the Russian side of the border. So from Belgarod, they've been launching wave after wave of artillery and missile attacks, targeting Kharkiv city, not just the military assets, but the city itself. They've definitely killed a lot of people. They're going after the power grid. They're going after logistical hubs and is triggering a lot of hardship for the population

that has managed to survive the assaults. The Ukrainians are screaming for the Western restrictions on weapons to be used on the Russian side of the border to be lifted. And what's changed in the last 48 hours is those restrictions have been lifted, at least as far as the Kharkiv Axis happens to be. And in the last 24 to 36 hours, the Ukrainians have opened up targeting everything of military significance in the Belgarad area,

not simply going after the artillery that is attacking them, but air defense sites, ammo dumps, fuel depots, rail yards, everything. Three things come from this. The first, the tactical. The Russians have put everything, that they have free into the assault on Kharkiv.

And now their logistical hub behind them is getting obliterated. So we will probably, probably, probably see a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive in the next few days to weeks that with the goal of just chopping up this group completely and not turning them to casualties, turning them into full-on fatalities, and talking about a significant liquidation of Russian military firepower because they're not going to be able to get the men to reinforce the equipment, the ammo, and the fuel. they will be stuck. They will have to run back to the border with Russia. That's part one. Part two, this was always going to happen. If Ukraine is ever going to win, Russia has to lose the ability

to launch a new assault. And Belgarod is the population center, is the logistical hub that is closest to the Ukrainian border and has always, always, always been a primary military node for the Russians. And so if Ukraine is ever going to emerge on the other side of this is an independent state with any degree of security, Belgarod has to be neutralized, and it's in the process of getting hit very hard right now. Will the attacks this week be enough to do that? I doubt it. But this is probably the best that the Ukrainians can do without actually crossing the border with ground forces, and as far as I can tell that is well beyond them at the moment. Second, this isn't the only logistical hub. Pretty much everything on the southern front and the southeastern front, it comes through a place

called Rostovandan, which serves the same role for Belgarod, but to the southeast of Ukraine and solidive to the northeast. The problem from the Ukrainian point of view is that Rostovandan is a lot further from the front line than Belgarod. In fact, most of the successes the Russians have had in this war so far have happened in the provinces of Luhanskandans, places that the Russians actually grabbed some territory from the Ukrainians 10 years ago in the last Ukraine war. And it's not clear that the Western weapons being provided are exist in enough number and especially enough range in order to meaningfully target Rostov. That's going to be a crisis for another day. But if Rostov can be removed from the equation, then Crimean Peninsula almost instantly

falls back to Ukrainian support because that's where all the support, all the ammo, all the equipment, all the fuel ultimately come from is from Rostov, either over a bridge or a ferry or rail line into Crimea. So the reason that we haven't gotten here yet is that the Western nations were always concerned that if their weapons were used directly on Russian soil, that the Russians would retaliate. But one of the things that I pointed out in a video

that we did last week is that the messenger has recently changed. And instead of Putin being the one to make all the threats or somebody from the intelligence directives or somebody from the military, most of the threats have come from a guy named Dimitri Medvedev, who the best way to be the best way to, think of him is Russia's equivalent of Tucker Carlson. Someone who just simply takes all of his marching orders from Putin, reads exactly what's put in front of him.

He's not a serious personality. He's just a mouthpiece. And one that is used to test out ever more outlandish statements before more serious people say them. Like I said, just like Tucker. And since Medvedev has been the one who's been threatening retaliation, the Western Capitals came to the collective conclusion that with the nature of the war in his current form, the Russians really weren't serious about it and it was okay to do it. Now that that seal has

been broken, you can count on the Western nations liberalizing the restrictions on the Ukrainian use of Western military equipment to basically target Russian military assets whenever and wherever they happen to be. Now, will that happen tomorrow? Probably not, but before the end of the year, almost certainly. And by the end of the year, we will also have some Western troops, most not believe French, operating within Ukraine itself. So there has been this realization so far this year, especially in Europe, that if this war is coming to come to a conclusion that involves something other than the European seating European territory, that this war needs to be taken more seriously

in terms of finance, in terms of equipment, in terms of policy, and above all else in terms of deployment. And what we're seeing right now is the beginning of that transition.