The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Ukraine War Updates: Talking Strategy and Tactics || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Things over in Ukraine are in a bit of a holding period, which makes getting these updates out consistently that much harder...and let's not forget that most of the data we're seeing is shaky at best. But here's what I got for you. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/ukraine-war-updates-talking-strategy-and-tactics

Everybody, Peter Zine here coming to you from the side of Mount Silver Hills above Fairplay, Colorado. A lot of you have written in asking for constant updates on what's going on in Ukraine. I'll do my best, but things are kind of hard to parse right now because we're kind of in a waiting period. So four big things. First of all, there have been a number of reports that the Ukrainians have been sending special forces across in the dozens, maybe into the low hundreds, from Kiersen across the Niebu River to wreck havoc behind enemy lines in southwestern Ukraine. Remember, this is an area that the Ukrainians had wanted to do a major thrust, but when the Kakova Dam was blown up by the Russians a couple months ago,

that basically destroyed any possibility of using any infrastructure. So they're limited to doing small attacks like this. Normally, I would say doing assaults across a river with no supporting infrastructure would be suicide, but the Russians have clearly prioritized fighting further east, and it seems like the Ukrainians are operating with impunity. Not enough to do a major landing, not enough to bring in an armor, but enough to be strategically significant. Where the Russians are focusing more is in northeastern,

the northeastern part of the front, specifically the province of Lujansk around the city of Kampiansk. I probably butchered that pronunciation. Apologies. They're doing kind of a half-hearted assault simply to draw, Ukrainian forces away from other areas. Which brings us to the third part. In Zepernica, the Ukrainians are doing their main thrust.

And they have brought in several thousand troops with better equipment and better training that have been in NATO countries over the winter. They're trying to break through. It seems that they've penetrated the first of the three defensive lines, the mines. Now they're dealing with the anti-tank infrastructure and more formidable fortifications. And the Russians are trying to bleed off the support the Ukrainians are flooding into the area. Now remember, the Ukrainians don't actually have to break the lines. They just have to push far enough south to complicate the logistical picture for the Russians. Ukrainians are proving that they can hit the Kerch straight bridge over and over and over.

And as long as they're doing that, the Russians can't use Kerch for large-scale reinforcements or supply or fuel or ammo or anything. That forces the Russians to use the land bridge route west of Miriam. Sorry for the wind. And that's what gets us into the area where the Ukrainian. are trying to interdict. It would be nice to get to the Sea of Zof, certainly. That would cut it completely, but really all they have to do is to get within a few dozen miles in order to make the Russian position in Crimea untenable. Because if you can cut the northern and the southern supply lines at the same time, well, then Crimea is no longer a military asset for the Russians. It's an albatross

around its neck that's going to cost it dearly. The only other thing I want to throw out is that there's been a lot of really bad economic data that's come out of Russia in the last few days. interest rates going crazy, inflation going crazy, trade going crazy. It's difficult to pay too much attention to any of this because for all intensive purposes, Russia is now a wartime economy that is largely closed. And so most of the data that we would look to when we're dealing with a real country, a normal trading country, just isn't relevant for the Russians. For example, you know, whatever is going up or down with the ruble doesn't matter because the rubles not internationally traded.

What's happening with trade doesn't matter because the Russians are literally flying planes full of gold to other countries to pay for things. That doesn't show up in the data. We just don't know. What we do know is that this is a statist economy that is run from the top and all dynamism is gone. Now, that allows Putin and the Kremlin to direct resources to things that they think they need done and to do so relatively quickly, but it also means that everything else is becoming very, very hollow. The Russian economy is not going to recover from this. That doesn't mean that there isn't a Russia. Russia in a number of times throughout its history has not had a functional economy. This is just the newest one. Okay, that's it for me. Everyone take care.