Ukraine is killing the supply lines of Russia with its advanced drones (vehicles)

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PETER ZEIHAN (geopolitics)
https://youtu.be/IJ9ErH_23B4

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Ukrainians have now deployed enough drones that they can reliably target things like fuel trucks. There is no more fuel coming in. The Russian Navy has long since abandoned Crimea, and everything has to come in by rail, and those rail bridges have now been damaged. Ukrainians are patrolling with dozens of drones at a time over the territory and basically hitting the trucks before they can get anywhere close.

So basically whatever fuel is left is being hoarded by the military. The only reason that the Kerch Strait Bridge remains operational is so that civilians in Crimea can flee to Russia. That's a bridge that connects Russia proper to Crimea, across the Sea of Azov.

[....] What we're looking at here is roughly 2/3 of the territory that the Russians have captured -- since the first war going back to 2014 -- is now becoming a sandbag that the Russians cannot reliably resupply.

[...] There are still a lot of ways where this can go horribly, horribly wrong. But the Russians have yet to come up with a way to counter the Ukrainian memory drones that are capable of selecting their own targets, which makes them unjammable. And now that those are being produced in the hundreds per day, the Russian position across the entire southern parts of the occupied territories is really falling apart.

Ukraine starts cracking open the occupied territories ... https://youtu.be/IJ9ErH_23B4

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IJ9ErH_23B4

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Say goodbye to Kazakhstan oil (Peter Zeihan) ... https://youtu.be/xl6TgTRHDAg

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xl6TgTRHDAg

[Yazata]

The problem is that neither side seems able to defeat their opponent. Neither side's army is capable of advancing on the battlefield, so battle lines are more or less frozen in place like they were in World War I. That's admirable for smaller Ukraine, being able to hold off larger Russia. But being the over-achieving underdog isn't going to win the war for them.

I don't see any chance that Ukraine can push Russia out of all the territory that Kyiv claims, nor do I see any chance that Russia can roll over the rest of Ukraine and install a puppet government. So it's a stalemate.

Zeihan seem to think that Ukrainian drones harassing Russian fuel supplies into Crimea will make that territory ripe for reconquest. The idea seems to be that if the Russians become so low on fuel and supplies, then Ukrainian armor can punch through and retake Crimea. I think that the weakness of that analysis is that it's totally Ukraine-centric, based entirely on the briefings of the Ukrainian general staff. What it ignores is that Russia has drones too, tens of thousands of them. Any big Ukrainian army push would be vulnerable with each tank and truck a drone target and would have its own supply lines vulnerable to drone attack.

So Ukraine seems to have turned to a different drone strategy. They seem to be hoping that attacking enough Russian oil facilities deep inside European Russia can hurt Moscow's economy enough that popular opposition to Putin will force Putin to... well, do something.

I think that there's virtually no possibility that Putin would agree to withdraw from all the territories that Ukraine claims, including Crimea and the Donbas. He'd employ nuclear weapons first.

But, the likelihood is growing that Putin might (finally) agree to a cease-fire in place, where Russia keeps what it already has. Ukraine would never agree to recognize Russian ownership of those territories, but they wouldn't need to. Just consider them occupied territories or something.

Would Russia agree? If it was accompanied by sanctions relief and a halt to Ukrainian drone attacks, it would allow the Russian economy to recover. (Thus taking domestic political pressure off Putin.) Russia would keep all of Luhansk oblast and the Crimea, almost all of Donetsk oblast, and much of Kherson and Zaphorizia, which Putin could spin as a great victory for his domestic political audience. And given that the supposedly powerful Russian military has performed abysmally in the Ukraine war, Putin could direct his energies to addressing his army's obvious weaknesses which he has to do before Russia will once again be considered a great power.

Would Ukraine agree? A ceasefire would end the slow motion destruction of their country and allow rebuilding to take place. (Whatever damage they are doing to Russia, more damage is being done to them.) It would halt the meat-grinder consuming the country's young men. (Probably hundreds of thousands of them dead already.) The Ukrainian economy could stabilize. Ukraine would have bravely preserved its independence and avoided becoming a Russian satellite. (The war will probably become a big part of their national mythology.) On the other hand, they would have lost the occupied territories, at least temporarily, which would look like a defeat. But what choice do they really have if they are unable to reconquer those territories?

I don't anticipate any chance that Ukraine could join NATO. Membership would just mean that the United States would be obligated to fight Ukraine's wars. And the only real military threat Ukraine faces is Russia, so Ukrainian NATO membership would just commit the US to going to war with nuclear armed Russia, which could pull down all of civilization as we know it.

But Ukraine could be offered European Union membership as a consolation prize. That would be great for Ukraine's economy and might get Ukraine membership in whatever EU defense arrangements develop in the future. Let the Europeans commit to fighting Russia if that's what Europe really wants. (They would have to increase their own defense budgets and improve their own militaries first, which would give Trump what he wants.)

Perhaps the biggest factor is that the Ukrainians are far more dependent on foreign assistance than Russia, so Kyiv will be more vulnerable to foreign pressure. Trump could lean on Zelensky and more or less force him to accept a ceasefire deal.

And a ceasefire deal is where I see all this heading. Actually, I think Trump has a better chance of getting a peace deal with Russia than with Tehran. (Putin isn't crazy, his goal is to 'Make Russia Great Again' so it's relatively easy to figure out what motivates his actions.) Hopefully Ukraine's obvious drone skills will put Putin in a position where he sees benefit to Russia in agreeing to halting the loss of life and the economic bleeding, and addressing the serious military deficiencies that have been exposed. (With most or all of Crimea and four other Ukrainian oblasts as his consolation prize.)

[Syne]

While one grows longer, more vulnerable supply lines, the other grows more dense, consolidated, and entrenched nearer to their own. Without overwhelming capability on either side, it naturally balances itself.

Do you really think Zelenskyy has grown up enough yet... while having his ego stroked by Europe... for a real compromise?