- 5/28/2025
The New Atlas breaks down the latest surge in the Ukraine conflict, where the U.S. is accused of laundering its military escalation through European allies. As Washington pushes advanced weaponry into the region, Russia intensifies its assault, blanketing Ukrainian targets with waves of missiles and drones. A revealing look at the hidden hands driving the war’s deadliest phase yet. 🎯🛩️
#TheNewAtlas #UkraineWar #Russia #USNATO #MissileStrikes #DroneWarfare #MilitaryEscalation #ProxyWar #Geopolitics #UkraineConflict #EasternFront #USInEurope #WarAnalysis #RussiaUkraine #GlobalConflict #WashingtonAgenda #NATOWar #WorldNews #DefensePolitics #ColdWar2 #EscalationPath
#TheNewAtlas #UkraineWar #Russia #USNATO #MissileStrikes #DroneWarfare #MilitaryEscalation #ProxyWar #Geopolitics #UkraineConflict #EasternFront #USInEurope #WarAnalysis #RussiaUkraine #GlobalConflict #WashingtonAgenda #NATOWar #WorldNews #DefensePolitics #ColdWar2 #EscalationPath
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00Today is May 27, 2025. The conflict in Ukraine has reached another critical juncture.
00:00:07We are seeing an escalation on the part of the U.S., but it is doing this in a very indirect way.
00:00:14It is laundering its escalation through Europe, through Ukraine, as it tries to at least publicly distance itself from this conflict.
00:00:22This is all part of a pivot to China. It sees China as a more urgent threat.
00:00:29It wants to focus its resources on China. It wants Europe to invest more in its proxy war on Russia in Ukraine.
00:00:37And most importantly, it desperately wants to freeze this conflict and come around back to it later.
00:00:43So I'm going to use these two terms often. It is about a division of labor between the U.S. and its European proxies.
00:00:49And this is about strategic sequencing. It's about freezing this conflict, focusing on China first, and then coming back and dealing with Russia later.
00:01:00This is exactly what the U.S. did with Syria. It was a successful strategy.
00:01:05The U.S. successfully overthrew the Syrian government late last year.
00:01:09And they hope to repeat the success regarding its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
00:01:18So I want to talk about the recent signs of escalation.
00:01:22First is this article from Politico.
00:01:24This was just yesterday, May 26, 2025.
00:01:28Mertz lifts range limits on Ukraine weapons to hit targets inside Russia.
00:01:33Germany is under pressure to supply Ukraine with its powerful long-range tourist cruise missiles.
00:01:37These are two decisions that only the United States can make.
00:01:41The United States will make this decision, and Germany will follow suit.
00:01:46If you've been following my work or that of the Duran, Alex and Alexander at the Duran, or Scott of Calibrated,
00:01:52we have all talked about the Taurus air-launched cruise missiles and how if there is any way at all of sending them to Ukraine, they will be sent.
00:02:00There will be a constant escalation until it is physically impossible to escalate any further.
00:02:07This article says Germany and its key allies, as if Germany is the leader now,
00:02:12have lifted range restrictions on weapons sent to Ukraine, allowing Kiev to hit targets inside Russia with no external limits.
00:02:19There are no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine, neither from the Brits, nor the French, nor from us.
00:02:25He's talking about Germany, not from the Americans either, MERS said.
00:02:30Of course, Germany isn't going to make this decision for the United States or talk about it on behalf of the United States unless the U.S. told them to.
00:02:40And so, again, this is the U.S. posing as a mediator in its own proxy war on Russia and laundering escalation through Europe and Ukraine.
00:02:51There were also these posts on social media, first from Keith Kellogg, who is a special envoy for the Trump administration,
00:02:58supposedly as part of these alleged peace negotiations with Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
00:03:05And this is what he has said very recently.
00:03:09This is Kiev.
00:03:10The indiscriminate killing of women and children at night in their homes is a clear violation of the 1977 Geneva Peace Protocols designated to protect innocents.
00:03:18These attacks are shameful.
00:03:20Stop the killing.
00:03:20Cease fire now.
00:03:21This is exactly what the U.S. has done all throughout recent history.
00:03:25When a nation is ignoring U.S. demands, they fabricate claims of human rights abuses, atrocities, trying to corner them politically and diplomatically to agree to whatever it is that they're demanding.
00:03:40In this case, again, I'll show you a cease fire.
00:03:44They desperately, desperately want Russia to agree to a cease fire.
00:03:48The United States has already instructed Europe to prepare forces to enter into Ukraine.
00:03:53They want to create a Minsk 3.0 framework and a Syria-style buffer zone in Ukraine.
00:03:58They want to freeze this and stop this conflict so that the U.S. can focus on China.
00:04:05The vision of labor, strategic sequencing.
00:04:08And then we have this from President Donald Trump himself.
00:04:12I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him.
00:04:16He has gone absolutely crazy.
00:04:17He is needlessly killing a lot of people.
00:04:19And I'm not just talking about soldiers.
00:04:21Missiles and drones are being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.
00:04:25I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not just a piece of it.
00:04:29And maybe that's proving to be right.
00:04:31But if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia.
00:04:33Likewise, President Zelensky is doing his country no favors by talking the way he does.
00:04:38Everything out of his mouth causes problems.
00:04:40I don't like it.
00:04:41And it better stop.
00:04:42This is a war that would never have started if I were president.
00:04:44This is Zelensky's, Putin's, and Biden's war, not Trump's.
00:04:49I'm only helping to put out the big and ugly fires that have been started through gross incompetence and hatred.
00:04:57Except that is completely untrue.
00:05:00President Donald Trump and his previous administration eagerly participated in the lead up to this war.
00:05:07His administration was the first to officially, openly, publicly arm Ukraine.
00:05:13He armed them with anti-tank javelin missiles.
00:05:17And he still, to this day, brags about doing that.
00:05:20We have to remember what actually led up to the 2022 special military operation, Russia's military incursion into Ukraine.
00:05:30The U.S. violently overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014, and that was after years and years of U.S. political interference, not just inside Ukraine, but across all of Eastern Europe.
00:05:42And we know that because the Western media admits that.
00:05:44This is from all the way back in 2004, U.S. campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev.
00:05:49So as far back as 2004, they were trying to overthrow the government, creates Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia.
00:05:58And they spent billions of dollars doing this.
00:06:00It didn't succeed in 2004.
00:06:02But as they admit in this article, they also carried out regime change in Serbia and in Georgia in 2003.
00:06:09They also attempted it in Belarus.
00:06:12And they continued interfering in Ukraine until 2014.
00:06:15They were finally successful.
00:06:17From 2014 onward, again, the Western media admits all of this.
00:06:21The CIA took over all of Ukraine's intelligence agencies, reorganized them, and directed them to pursue U.S. objectives.
00:06:32The spy war, how the CIA secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin.
00:06:35This did not begin with Russia's incursion into Ukraine in 2022 for more than a decade.
00:06:40And this includes all throughout President Trump's first administration.
00:06:44This was published in 2024.
00:06:46For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries encountering Russia.
00:06:54And if you go through this article, they talk about U.S. CIA bases built all along Russia's border in Ukraine, the creation of military units within Ukrainian intelligence to carry out covert operations, killing Russians in Russian-held territory like Crimea and even within Russia itself.
00:07:12When you hear about Ukrainian intelligence carrying out assassinations inside Russia, killing military officers, killing journalists, that is the CIA-created teams carrying this out.
00:07:26It's all admitted in the New York Times article.
00:07:29They created these units, and these are the units carrying out these operations.
00:07:33And there's this more recent article.
00:07:35This was published in 2025, also from the New York Times.
00:07:38The partnership, the secret history of the war in Ukraine.
00:07:42This is the untold story of America's hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia's invading armies.
00:07:49And if you go through this article, it admits that Ukraine isn't fighting Russia at all.
00:07:53The U.S. is fighting Russia through Ukraine.
00:07:55There is a command center in Germany.
00:07:57U.S. generals direct absolutely everything from large offensives in 2022 and 2023 to picking out specific targets on the battlefield using Western transferred weapons to Ukraine to target and destroy these targets.
00:08:14And that means both inside Russian-held territory, but also inside indisputably Russian territory.
00:08:22This is a U.S. war being fought against Russia, using Ukraine as intermediaries.
00:08:27Also, a lot of this is being laundered through Europe.
00:08:30And now much more so than ever as the U.S. seeks to pivot to China, freeze this conflict and pivot to China.
00:08:36They want Europe to take a bigger role in all of this.
00:08:41They need to prepare the European public to give up the use of public money being spent on them.
00:08:51They need to prepare them for that because this public money is going to be transferred to arms and ammunition production,
00:08:57which is going to be used to freeze this conflict or at least create some sort of stalemate,
00:09:03giving the U.S. time to focus on China before it circles back around.
00:09:07Division of labor, strategic sequencing.
00:09:10When I talk about division of labor and strategic sequencing, I'm talking specifically about this directive,
00:09:17U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, under the Trump administration, delivered to Europe on February 12, 2025.
00:09:24Earlier this year, he laid this plan out for a division of labor and strategic sequencing.
00:09:32Where did this idea come from?
00:09:34They come from policy papers published years before Trump ever came into office.
00:09:39The first one I want to show you is this from the Marathon Initiative.
00:09:41It's another one of these corporate finance here funded policy think tanks that actually drive U.S. foreign and domestic policy,
00:09:48not Congress, not the White House.
00:09:50And it's titled Strategic Sequencing Revisited.
00:09:53And it was published in 2024, but it's about a policy paper published earlier in 2020.
00:10:00And I want to read this introduction to you.
00:10:03The United States faces a growing risk of a multi-front war against Russia, China, and Iran.
00:10:08The optimal response to this danger would be a sequential strategy aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and Ukraine
00:10:14on a faster timeline than China's prepared to move against Taiwan.
00:10:18But for that strategy to work, the United States must use the current window wisely to shore up the situation in Eastern Europe,
00:10:23broker a more effective division of labor with allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific and reform U.S. defense industrial base.
00:10:32And these are all of the things U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has said since taking his position within the Trump administration.
00:10:41That is his agenda, to implement this policy paper and all the other policy papers describing the strategy.
00:10:49So let's go to Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, February 12, 2025, directive.
00:10:57This is a year after this policy paper was published.
00:11:01He says,
00:11:02We face a competitor in the communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific.
00:11:09The Indo-Pacific is on the other side of the planet from the U.S.
00:11:12So what Secretary Hegseth is talking about, what the Trump administration, the Biden administration, Obama, Bush, so on and so forth,
00:11:20what they're talking about is containing China in Asia so the U.S. can continue helping itself to Asia,
00:11:28maintain its primacy over Asia despite being located on the other side of the planet.
00:11:33He also says,
00:11:34As the United States prioritizes its attention to these threats, he's talking about China,
00:11:39European allies must lead from the front.
00:11:41Together, we can establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and Pacific, respectively.
00:11:49It's almost verbatim what was laid out in the 2024 Wes Mitchell paper from the Marathon Initiative.
00:11:56He also said, again, this is Secretary Hegseth in February this year, talking about Europe.
00:12:01So donating more ammunition and equipment, leveraging comparative advantages, expanding your defense industrial base,
00:12:08exactly what Wes Mitchell said in that 2024 paper, and importantly, leveling with your citizens about the threat facing Europe.
00:12:16Part of this is speaking frankly with your people about how this threat can only be met by spending more on defense.
00:12:23Two percent is not enough.
00:12:25President Trump has called for five percent, and I agree.
00:12:28That's what this is about.
00:12:29Now, the U.S. is still directing the proxy war against Russia, but it needs Europe to take more public spending away from the European people
00:12:37and put it into its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
00:12:41And so they need to convince the European people that there is some sort of threat facing them from Russia
00:12:48to justify transferring public spending from Europeans in Europe to this U.S. proxy war.
00:12:55That is what this is about.
00:12:56That is what the Trump administration came into office planning to do.
00:13:00Not make peace, but to continue this war and to ring Europe further for support for this so that they can focus more on China.
00:13:10Division of labor, strategic sequencing.
00:13:12And challenge your countries and your citizens to double down and recommit yourself not only to Ukraine's immediate security needs,
00:13:20but to Europe's long-term defense and deterrence causes.
00:13:23Does that sound like a Trump administration seeking any sort of peace with Russia in Ukraine?
00:13:29The answer is no.
00:13:31And then this part is very important.
00:13:34Again, this is Secretary Hegseth delivering his directive to Europe February earlier this year.
00:13:41Security guarantee.
00:13:42Any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.
00:13:48No American troops.
00:13:49European and non-European troops.
00:13:51If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission,
00:13:56and they should not be covered under Article 5.
00:14:00There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact.
00:14:04So that is not ending the conflict.
00:14:06That is freezing it.
00:14:07This is the actual plan.
00:14:10They want to continue it as it is at worst.
00:14:16And at best, they would like to freeze it and come back to it just like they did with Syria.
00:14:22That was a proxy war of the U.S. ways to get Syria from 2011 to 2024.
00:14:27And they had to freeze the conflict because they were losing.
00:14:30They froze the conflict.
00:14:31They hollowed out the Syrian army, economy, government.
00:14:37Then they overextended Syria's allies, Russia and Iran.
00:14:41And by 2024, everything collapsed and they won.
00:14:45The U.S. won.
00:14:45They overthrew the government of Syria just like they saw it to from 2011 onward.
00:14:51This is what they plan to do with Ukraine.
00:14:54So there is no change with the Trump administration.
00:14:57This is continuity of agenda.
00:14:58And this is their plan to implement it.
00:15:01After U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered this directive to Europe, they immediately began implementing it.
00:15:09A lot of people don't recall or talk about Secretary Hegseth telling Europe that this was the plan.
00:15:17They still honestly believe President Trump wants peace in Ukraine.
00:15:21But after he delivered this directive, Europe began implementing it.
00:15:25And then people who still believe President Trump wants peace, they interpreted this as Europe undermining President Trump's peace negotiations, even though the U.S. told Europe to do this.
00:15:38So we remember right after that, the U.K., along with other European nations, announcing a coalition of the willing.
00:15:45This was them getting troops ready to go into Ukraine if a ceasefire was arranged.
00:15:50There was also this.
00:15:51Germany set to spend big on army and infrastructure.
00:15:54This is March, right after February.
00:15:58Germany to comply with Trump's 5% defense spending target, foreign minister suggests.
00:16:04So this is very explicit.
00:16:06President Trump told Europe not 2%, 5%, and Europe began complying.
00:16:12France also.
00:16:13Macron's defense spending plan drives open political divisions in France.
00:16:17And then the most explicit example of this was actually the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defense, John Healy.
00:16:25He literally sat across from the table from Secretary Hegseth in March, about a month after Secretary Hegseth delivered his directive.
00:16:35And this is what he says.
00:16:36We last met last month in NATO, and then you challenged Europe to step up.
00:16:48You challenged us to step up on Ukraine, on defense spending, on European security.
00:16:56And I say to you that we have, we are, and we will further.
00:17:02And last week, the British Prime Minister announced the biggest increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War.
00:17:10And we will go further.
00:17:12So absolute obedience from Europe.
00:17:15And so this is not Europe undermining U.S. peace negotiations in Ukraine.
00:17:20This is Europe doing exactly what the U.S. told them to do.
00:17:24Why is there this desperate desire to freeze this conflict?
00:17:28Why is the Trump administration and Europe so insistent on Russia accepting a 30-day unconditional ceasefire?
00:17:37Because that will give them the opportunity to send European troops into Ukraine and make it very difficult for Russia to restart its military operations.
00:17:48Why are they doing that, though?
00:17:49Because as the conflict stands, and just like in Syria, before that conflict was frozen, the U.S. is losing in this proxy war against Russia.
00:17:59And every time morale starts to wane and there's this need to encourage not just Ukraine, the military, the public, but maintain global support for this U.S. proxy war against Russia and Ukraine,
00:18:18they need to convince everybody that no matter how bad things look for Ukraine, Russia is about to collapse.
00:18:24So we always see this narrative rolled out when they need to convince people to just keep fighting a little bit longer.
00:18:33We have this article from The Washington Post.
00:18:35Trump softens on Putin as Russia's military edge weakens.
00:18:38Officials say Moscow's advantage on the Ukraine battlefield is waning, experts say.
00:18:43But President Donald Trump seems disinclined to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin to engage in ceasefire talks.
00:18:50Well, we know that's not true.
00:18:51The U.S. is laundering escalation through Europe.
00:18:55They have Germany taking the limits off these weapons.
00:18:58The U.S. itself obviously made that decision, but they have Germany announce it.
00:19:04So it's public perception management.
00:19:07But the main point of this article is to convince everybody that Russia is weakening.
00:19:11Just keep fighting a little bit longer.
00:19:13Just keep going a little bit longer.
00:19:14This is what The Washington Post says.
00:19:16Absent unnegotiated settlement or robust Western assistance, the war probably will continue to slowly trend in Russia's favor through 2025.
00:19:25This is according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment presented to Congress 10 days ago by the agency's director.
00:19:32This was this was this was from, I believe, May 25th, 2025.
00:19:38But Russia's gains are slowing and continue to come at the expense of high personnel and equipment losses.
00:19:46Since its February 2022 invasion, the DIA assessment said Russia has lost at least 10,000 ground combat vehicles, including more than 3,000 tanks, as well as nearly 250 aircraft and helicopters and more than 10 naval vessels.
00:20:02Over the past year, Russia has taken only 6% of additional Ukrainian territory at the cost of 1,500 killed or wounded per day, current and former Western officials said.
00:20:14Russia is very gradually taking bits of territory still, but at an unsustainably high cost, said Richard Barons, the former head of Britain's Joint Forces Command.
00:20:25Some officials have estimated Russia's total casualties at more than a million.
00:20:29But is any of that true?
00:20:30Where's the evidence of any of this?
00:20:33And isn't this what we have been told since the conflict began, that Russia's its military power is going to collapse in a year's time?
00:20:43We've been hearing this since 2022.
00:20:45I've actually have articles like this from Newsweek.
00:20:49Russia might run out of weapons ammunition by end of year.
00:20:51This was 2022, so by the end of 2022, they would have run out of weapons and ammunition years ago at this point, in hindsight.
00:21:02And then they published articles like this.
00:21:04This was just this year.
00:21:05Russia could run out of tanks by 2026.
00:21:07So you can see, this is a running narrative that they used to convince people to just keep fighting a little bit longer.
00:21:15It's not futile.
00:21:16Just keep fighting a little bit longer, Russia will eventually collapse.
00:21:20And yet the collapse never quite seems to come.
00:21:22As a matter of fact, as I'm going to demonstrate, because this is as much of an update on military industrial production as it is on the geopolitical aspects of this conflict,
00:21:32I'm going to show you that Russian military industrial production has massively increased.
00:21:38And this is all according to Western sources, not Russian sources.
00:21:42If you look at Western claims of Russian losses, Russian Ukrainian losses, there's about a seven to one ratio of injured to dead.
00:21:53If we go to MediaZona, this is a U.S.-backed opposition group together with British state media, the BBC.
00:22:03And these are what they call confirmed Russian losses in this conflict.
00:22:10And as you can see, they have a timeline from February 2022 all the way up to April, May 2025.
00:22:17And as you can see, there is a steep decline in Russian losses.
00:22:22And over the course of a month, you could say that the numbers are still catching up.
00:22:28But this period of time is too long to say that the numbers need to catch up.
00:22:34There's obviously a decline here.
00:22:36And if you look at any given day, there's about 100 to 130, 40, let's be generous and say 150.
00:22:45100 to 150 confirmed dead according to this project.
00:22:51Let's just say it's around 100 because there's many days where there's far fewer than 100.
00:22:57Let's say the average is about 100 confirmed dead according to MediaZona.
00:23:03You take that and times it by seven.
00:23:06That's around 800 total casualties, dead or injured.
00:23:11So it's not even close to 1,500.
00:23:13Let's say, though, that they are losing 1,500 troops every day, dead or injured.
00:23:21That's around 45,000 casualties per month.
00:23:27And yet we have articles like this from the Wall Street Journal.
00:23:33This was from April 27, 2025.
00:23:35So relatively recent.
00:23:37The Russian military moves that have Europe on edge.
00:23:41What does this article say?
00:23:42It says, in recent months, Russia has seen a sharp rise in recruitment because of generous
00:23:47one-time signing bonuses at both the federal and regional levels.
00:23:51The U.S. estimates that around 30,000 Russians are signing up each month, up from about 25,000
00:23:57last summer.
00:23:58Some Eastern European intelligence officials said the ranks are now swelling by some 40,000
00:24:03soldiers a month.
00:24:04So 25,000, 30,000, 40,000 a month.
00:24:09Not 45,000, not more than 45,000.
00:24:12Yet this is what the Wall Street Journal also says.
00:24:15The extra manpower has allowed the military to rotate new troops in and out of Ukraine and
00:24:20to build new units trained and housed in Russia, according to some European intelligence assessments.
00:24:25That would be impossible if they were losing 45,000 or more casualties every single month,
00:24:31but they were only recruiting 25,000, 30,000 to 40,000 a month.
00:24:37They would not have this additional manpower to rotate troops back and forth from the battlefield
00:24:42or to create entirely new units and train them extensively inside Russia for long periods
00:24:47of time.
00:24:47That would be impossible.
00:24:49So this is not adding up.
00:24:50Clearly, Russia is not losing that many casualties.
00:24:54As MediaZona itself indicates, there is a decline in casualties.
00:24:57It's not anywhere close to 1,500.
00:25:00And if these recruitment numbers are right and the result of this is additional manpower,
00:25:05a surplus of manpower, then this 1,500 casualty a day claim is wrong.
00:25:12Russia is obviously recruiting more manpower, training more manpower, preparing more manpower
00:25:18than it is losing on the battlefield.
00:25:20What is the same Western media, actually Ukrainian media, saying about Ukrainian manpower levels?
00:25:28Here's from Kiev Independent.
00:25:30This is as pro-Ukrainian as you're going to get.
00:25:33April 4th, 2025.
00:25:34Inside Ukraine's desperate race to train more soldiers.
00:25:38So right there, already a stark contrast to the manpower situation in Russia, according
00:25:44to the Western media itself.
00:25:45Three years into Russia's full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military faces an endemic manpower
00:25:50shortage and is forced to scramble for people to fill in the gaps in the infantry depleted
00:25:55by the war.
00:25:57So they're not recruiting and preparing and training more troops than they're losing.
00:26:02Commanders on the ground have said, however, that they're increasingly receiving soldiers
00:26:07who fight as though they have never been trained.
00:26:09I've been talking about this for years.
00:26:11Lacking basic survival skills, such as using an anti-night vision blanket to avoid being
00:26:16spotted by the omnipresent drones.
00:26:18New recruits are often killed or wounded in the first weeks, according to over a dozen
00:26:23officers interviewed across the front line.
00:26:27Ukraine cannot recruit more troops than it is losing on the battlefield.
00:26:31And because they're just barely or maybe not even replacing their losses, they do not have
00:26:38a surplus of manpower that they can train extensively for long periods of time to actually prepare
00:26:45them for the front line.
00:26:46That is what they are admitting here.
00:26:48And this isn't just depleting manpower.
00:26:51This is also a dive in terms of the quality of these troops.
00:26:57And they admit that they're not properly trained.
00:26:59And it's much worse than just a problem recruiting basic infantry, entry-level infantry, or entry-level
00:27:08artillery, or all of the other roles necessary on the battlefield.
00:27:12They do not have time to even train basic infantry.
00:27:15They do not have time to train all of these other specialties needed for modern warfare.
00:27:21It gets even worse, though.
00:27:22We're talking about officers and non-commissioned officers that provide leadership.
00:27:29Everything from a platoon to a company all the way up to a brigade.
00:27:36A brigade is about 4,000 troops.
00:27:38At every level, you need to have non-commissioned officers and officers providing leadership,
00:27:44overseeing the different units that make up a brigade.
00:27:47It is units within units within units that makes up a total brigade.
00:27:52And all of these units inside a brigade must fight together, coordinate, conduct combined arms operations.
00:28:01You'll have infantry working with artillery, with drones, with intel, with all of these different aspects required for modern warfare.
00:28:08They all need sufficient training.
00:28:09And they need sufficient leadership on the battlefield.
00:28:11And because they cannot even replace basic infantry, they are most certainly incapable of replacing non-commissioned officers and officers who are perishing on the battlefield as well.
00:28:22And I've talked about how papers within the U.S. military talking about standing up a new brigade,
00:28:29and this is if you have a pool of officers to draw from, takes about two to three years to build a new brigade.
00:28:36Ukraine does not even have those officers to draw from, so they'll take even longer.
00:28:39As a matter of fact, it is impossible for them to reconstitute brigades, and it has been all along.
00:28:45I remember doing videos about Ukraine building up brand new brigades ahead of the 2023 offensive,
00:28:51and I laid all of this out, and I warned people that it is impossible to build up effective brigades in that time frame under those conditions.
00:29:00And of course, after the 2023 offensive, which was completely defeated by Russian defenses,
00:29:06they attempted to reconstitute these brigades because they were devastated by the 2023 offensive.
00:29:11And I warned about how that would be disastrous.
00:29:13And this problem continues to get worse and worse and worse the longer this conflict takes place.
00:29:18And I would say this is their biggest weak point.
00:29:22This is where a collapse is going to happen, probably much more likely than in the case of a shortage of weapons and ammunition,
00:29:31which they are also suffering from.
00:29:33Let's get back to the Washington Post article.
00:29:35They also talked about arms and equipment losses for Russia.
00:29:38They say, Russia has lost at least 10,000 ground combat vehicles, including more than 3,000 tanks,
00:29:44as well as nearly 250 aircraft and helicopters and more than 10 naval vessels.
00:29:48I read that already.
00:29:50And I showed you these articles here where they're always talking about by the end of the year,
00:29:56Russia will be out of armor or missiles or any number of weapons or pieces of equipment.
00:30:05And this is the most recent one.
00:30:06Russia could run out of tanks by 2026 reports.
00:30:11And this says,
00:30:12The current rate of Russian tank losses in President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine
00:30:16could see them run out of military vehicles by the end of next year,
00:30:19according to International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS,
00:30:23in releasing its annual assessment of global military capabilities,
00:30:26the think tank said Russian forces lost about 1,400 main battle tanks in 2024,
00:30:31along with other high losses of infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers.
00:30:36It also said,
00:30:38Its report added that Russia has been able to reconstitute some of these losses by relying on stored Soviet legacy equipment,
00:30:45and that in 2024, Moscow's forces have refurbished and built more than 1,500 main battle tanks
00:30:51at around 2,800 infantry fighting vehicles and APCs, armored personnel carriers.
00:30:56However, the equipment in storage is highly likely to be in deteriorated condition.
00:31:03And this may make it hard for Russia to deliver enough equipment to offset previous attrition rates.
00:31:09IISS Director General and Chief Executive Bastian Gregorich said current Russian equipment losses
00:31:16cannot be offset indefinitely by refurbishing stored vehicles.
00:31:20He added that Moscow may not have enough MBTs for its offensive operations beyond 2026.
00:31:26But a lot of this is based on so-called open source intelligence,
00:31:30especially this pro-Ukrainian website.
00:31:34This one, I'm sure everyone is familiar with this, Oryx.
00:31:39And they maintain this.
00:31:40This is a tally of all the weapon systems they claim they've confirmed visually that have been,
00:31:46and you can see it's broken up in categories, destroyed, damaged, captured.
00:31:51That is how they break it down.
00:31:52And I want to focus on T-90M main battle tanks.
00:31:56This is the most modern main battle tank Russia is currently using on the battlefield.
00:32:04And so the same IISS that Newsweek was citing, they're talking about T-90M production.
00:32:11This is actually from June 2024, but this gets across the main idea the Newsweek article is also trying to convey,
00:32:18that they're just not making enough of these tanks.
00:32:22And so what does the IISS say?
00:32:25They're talking about T-90M production.
00:32:27They say this would suggest an increase in annual output from about 40 before February 2022
00:32:32to a wartime output of 60 to 70 for 2023,
00:32:36with possibly even more to be produced over the course of 2024.
00:32:39Based on this pattern, the production rate from 2025 could be more than 90 main battle tanks,
00:32:46T-90M main battle tanks.
00:32:48If you go back to Oryx, T-90M, how many are destroyed?
00:32:53You just keep looking here until you get to damage.
00:32:57Destroyed, destroyed, destroyed, destroyed.
00:32:59This is what is damaged.
00:33:00So 83.
00:33:0183 tanks destroyed.
00:33:03And if you look at some of these pictures, it's hard to tell what condition these tanks are in.
00:33:10Let's just say that one is pretty much destroyed.
00:33:12They have pictures like this.
00:33:16Is that destroyed?
00:33:18Is that completely destroyed?
00:33:20It's hard to tell.
00:33:21For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that all of these are destroyed.
00:33:25But I'm just showing you.
00:33:26There are pictures that they say are of destroyed tanks that don't really appear to be destroyed.
00:33:31They're obviously damaged and abandoned.
00:33:34Is that to say they cannot be recovered and refurbished and modernized?
00:33:40I don't know.
00:33:41So out of 136 tank losses, 84 are designated destroyed over the course of three years plus.
00:33:50IISS is saying Russia is making 90 tanks a year.
00:33:55So they are actually making more tanks than are being completely destroyed.
00:33:59This 136 tanks lost that we keep hearing cited across the Western media are also including
00:34:06tanks that have been damaged, damaged and abandoned, or even captured by Ukraine.
00:34:13Who's to say that Russia hasn't been able to recover many of these tanks?
00:34:18If you follow the Russian Ministry of Defense on Telegram,
00:34:22every week they have videos from repair shops all along the line of contact.
00:34:27Recovering and repairing armored vehicles, including T-90 tanks.
00:34:33But even if you looked at this number 135, and let's pretend all 135 T-90 M tanks have been
00:34:42completely destroyed, are irreplaceably lost over the course of three years.
00:34:49That accounts for about 45 tanks per year.
00:34:55And IISS, a Western think tank, is saying Russia is making 90 new, brand new, from scratch,
00:35:05T-90 M main battle tanks.
00:35:07That's twice as many as they are losing.
00:35:10People can make the argument, well, Russia is ahead of the curve for T-90 M main battle
00:35:15tanks.
00:35:16But that's because they used so many T-72s.
00:35:19There's different variants of T-72s.
00:35:21There's also T-80s that they are refurbishing and modernizing.
00:35:27And so these are also being lost.
00:35:29But they cannot be replaced once the Soviet-era stockpiles of old tank hulls and turrets run out.
00:35:37So I don't think that it's a viable argument.
00:35:41So there's that.
00:35:43We also hear a lot of Western analysts claim videos of Russians carrying out assaults using
00:35:48motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles like four-wheelers, side-by-sides, which are basically
00:35:56an off-road golf cart sort of vehicle.
00:36:02It could be electric.
00:36:02It could be gas-powered.
00:36:03They're claiming Russians are using that because they're already out of armor.
00:36:08So they can't even make up their mind whether they're going to run out of armor next year
00:36:11or they're already out of armor.
00:36:13And the reality is Russia and Ukraine, they carry out assaults like this because using
00:36:18smaller, quieter, faster vehicles for these assaults make it much less likely they'll be
00:36:23detected and makes it much harder for swarms of drones to target and destroy them while
00:36:29conducting these assaults.
00:36:30So an armored vehicle is much larger, it's louder, it's easier to detect, it's moving
00:36:36slower, and it's easier to engage with drones and other types of anti-tank weapons.
00:36:42So a lot of this is already not adding up.
00:36:45Out of all of the arguments the Collective West makes, I would say their argument regarding
00:36:50armor is probably the most convincing.
00:36:53After armor, it gets worse and worse for Ukraine and its Western sponsors.
00:37:00What about other capabilities?
00:37:02They talk about armor, but the vast majority of casualties on the battlefield are from artillery
00:37:08and drones.
00:37:11They make up a significant portion of casualties on both sides.
00:37:14I've talked about artillery shell production for years and years now.
00:37:20I've been explaining why Russia has consistently outproduced both the U.S. and Europe combined,
00:37:24combined.
00:37:26And despite claims that the West would drastically expand production, they have fallen far short
00:37:32of that.
00:37:33Let's do an update on that.
00:37:34This is Business Insider.
00:37:35This is an article from this year, April 4th, 2025.
00:37:39Russia on track to build artillery shells, stockpile, triple the size of the U.S.'s and Europe's
00:37:45combined, top U.S. generals.
00:37:47Notice none of my sources are Russian.
00:37:49This is all Western media citing Western sources.
00:37:54What does this article say?
00:37:55It says, Russia may be losing weapons, tanks, and ammo at a staggering pace in Ukraine.
00:38:00That is debatable.
00:38:02But its defense production is going to easily make up for it.
00:38:06A top U.S. general told Congress, U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme
00:38:13Allied Commander in Europe, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Washington expects
00:38:17Russia to produce 250,000 artillery shells monthly, monthly, which puts it on track to
00:38:23build a stockpile three times greater than the United States and Europe combined.
00:38:29That is this year, 2025.
00:38:31They're talking about this year.
00:38:33And I've talked about the reason why the West cannot compete with Russia, because Russia's
00:38:40military-industrial base is comprised of state-owned enterprises.
00:38:44The state tells them what is needed, and they produce it, whether there is profit or not.
00:38:50Their primary objective is to fulfill the needs of the state.
00:38:54Across the West, military-industrial base is comprised of private corporations that seek, first and
00:38:59foremost, to profit, and if it's not profitable, not interested in doing it.
00:39:04I'll give you an example of how this affects shell production specifically.
00:39:10This is the Warzone shell game inside the worldwide TNT shortage.
00:39:16This was from May 12, 2025.
00:39:20And it's an interview with Johnny Summers, vice president of Energenics for Global Ordinance.
00:39:28This is a company that makes 155 and 152-millimeter artillery shells.
00:39:33And he's talking about the explosives in the shell itself and the propellant needed to launch
00:39:38it out of an artillery piece.
00:39:41They're talking about TNT.
00:39:43China is offering TNT around the world, and we get offered it one or two times a week from
00:39:48various brokers that approach us.
00:39:49We're not allowed to procure that TNT from China, so we don't.
00:39:53Thank you very much.
00:39:54We're looking at other sources in other countries.
00:39:56I don't want to divulge too much at this point, but we are in negotiations with a couple of
00:40:01other factories in other countries that aren't on the banned list, where we can potentially
00:40:06bring in TNT for both the U.S. government and for our commercial customers.
00:40:11When you need to expand production, and expanding production could take a year or more to
00:40:19actually do, but you're still in negotiations to actually procure input material for production,
00:40:28that means Ukraine is not going to get these shells anytime in the foreseeable future.
00:40:32What about propellant?
00:40:34This requires nitrocellulose.
00:40:38This is what he says when he's asked about the propellant.
00:40:42China makes that as well in large quantities.
00:40:45We've got a contract to procure some from Taiwan, which is part of China, by the way.
00:40:50There's also a factory in Brazil.
00:40:51Most of these factories that exist don't do high volume.
00:40:54We work with a propellant manufacturer in Canada, and their annual requirement for propellant is about
00:41:005,000 metric tons, so that's a lot of nitrocellulose, but they're saying that is the problem.
00:41:07They need to source it overseas.
00:41:09They're asked whether or not they're going to make a production plant themselves to make these input
00:41:14materials vertically integrate their operation, and they said, no, it doesn't make any business sense
00:41:18to do that.
00:41:19It's expensive.
00:41:20It's difficult.
00:41:21There's all kinds of regulations and red tape, and we're not interested in doing that.
00:41:25That is the problem with leaving this to private corporations that prioritize profit over any
00:41:32sort of purpose, when profit is their purpose.
00:41:35A state-owned enterprise is going to create a massive production facility.
00:41:39They're going to keep manpower on hand, even if production decreases.
00:41:45They're going to keep equipment, tooling on hand, even if it's not being used.
00:41:49They're going to keep it in case the state needs to surge production for national security,
00:41:55not for profit, even if it means losing money in the process.
00:41:59Private corporation in the West is going to look at excess production capacity and say,
00:42:04that is a waste of space, time, and money.
00:42:07We are cutting it to maximize profits.
00:42:10They're going to look at vertical integration and say, it's too difficult to do that here in
00:42:14the United States.
00:42:15It's cheaper and more profitable to outsource it overseas.
00:42:18So this is what they have done.
00:42:20And now they're in the process of trying to undo it, and they won't even undo it because
00:42:25it's not profitable.
00:42:26The link to this interview is in the video description below.
00:42:29You could read the entire interview and draw your own conclusions.
00:42:33Let's get back to the Business Insider article talking about shell production.
00:42:37It says, the U.S. now makes about 40,000 155-millimeter artillery shells a month and hopes to
00:42:43reach a monthly production capacity of 90,000 rounds in 2026.
00:42:47So not this year, next year, sometime next year.
00:42:51Meanwhile, the European Union has pledged to hit a manufacturing capacity of 2 million
00:42:55rounds a year, or about 165,000 rounds a month.
00:42:59However, its leaders have estimated it will only reach that level by the end of 2025.
00:43:06Many of these rounds are being sent to Ukraine, though NATO countries are also concerned about
00:43:10maintaining their own stockpiles.
00:43:12Should Ukraine receive 2 million shells a year, it can fire just 5,000 a day.
00:43:17Kavoli, meanwhile, said at the defense conference in February 2023 that Russia was expending 20,000
00:43:24shells a day on average.
00:43:27Well, that was in 2023.
00:43:29If they're making 250,000 rounds a month themselves, we're also told they're receiving artillery shells
00:43:36from North Korea, we don't know how many exactly, but at a minimum around 8,000, 8,500 shells
00:43:43could be fired per day by Russia now.
00:43:46That is still more than Ukraine will be able to fire per day if and when the U.S. and Europe
00:43:56both reach their production goals sometime in the future, this year or next year.
00:44:04And that's if by next year, the end of this year or next year, Russia hasn't increased
00:44:11artillery shell production even further.
00:44:14Now, the argument you will hear is that Ukraine, okay, Ukraine doesn't have artillery, but they're
00:44:19making drones instead.
00:44:20They have this huge advantage in drone, drone technology, and they're using these drones
00:44:26to compensate for a lack of artillery.
00:44:29But this isn't true, and it also doesn't even make sense when you really think about it.
00:44:33Both Ukraine and Russia have huge numbers of drones.
00:44:38So it's not as if Ukraine has drones and Russia does not.
00:44:42They both have drones, and depending on what source in the West you listen to, they describe
00:44:48about a comparable number of drones being produced on both sides so that Ukraine really doesn't
00:44:54have an advantage.
00:44:56Often we hear, well, it's not an advantage in numbers.
00:44:58It's an advantage in capability and in terms of the training of Ukrainian drone operators.
00:45:04But if we go back to the manpower issue, they can't even train basic infantry.
00:45:08So where are they getting these drone operators from?
00:45:11None of it adds up.
00:45:12But back in reality, Ukraine is using their drones to compensate for artillery, but also
00:45:19for all of the things you need to actually use drones for.
00:45:23Russia has drones to use for everything you need to use drones for.
00:45:27Plus, they also have more artillery at their disposal.
00:45:30So they have the obvious advantage in both areas.
00:45:32But it turns out, according to the Western media, that no, Ukraine actually does not have
00:45:40an advantage in drones.
00:45:43This was never true, but it's a narrative that has persisted.
00:45:46But the Western media, even now, is admitting that no, they don't have an advantage.
00:45:51So this is May 23rd, 2025.
00:45:53This is earlier this week.
00:45:54Washington Post.
00:45:55Ukraine scrambles to overcome Russia's edge in fiber optic drones.
00:45:59Ukraine pioneered the use of small drones on the battlefield, but in Russia's course
00:46:04region, Moscow's fiber optic cables helped turn the tide.
00:46:09New drones were swarming the battlefield and didn't rely on jammable radio signals like
00:46:14the older, simpler models.
00:46:15These were controlled instead by tiny cables as thin as thread stretching back to the operator.
00:46:22So usually you're using some sort of radio signal to control a drone.
00:46:26If you're using a radio signal, electronic warfare can disrupt that signal.
00:46:33It can commandeer the drone or it can disrupt the signal so you're no longer able to communicate
00:46:38with the drone.
00:46:38The drone just sits there or falls out of the sky, depending on how it was designed.
00:46:44With a wire guiding the drone, there is no way to use electronic warfare to interfere with
00:46:49the signal.
00:46:50It's going through the wire directly to the operator.
00:46:53This is how anti-tank guided missiles, wire guided anti-tank missiles actually work.
00:46:58They're now using that concept with drone warfare.
00:47:03For months, Russia has ramped up its deployment of fiber optic drones, which are steered by the
00:47:09same data transporting cables made of glass that revolutionized high-speed internet access.
00:47:14While the cables can occasionally tangle, cutting off the signal, they also give the weapon a
00:47:19major advantage because they cannot be disrupted by jamming signals.
00:47:23Russian troops have used the weapons, which have a range of up to 12 miles or 19 kilometers
00:47:29for the rest of the world, to destroy Ukrainian equipment and control key logistic routes,
00:47:36particularly in Russia's western Korsk region, where Ukrainian troops say the new technology
00:47:41contributed to their recent painful retreat.
00:47:43That and many, many other factors, the manpower issue, obviously.
00:47:49And again, going back to my older videos covering the conflict in Ukraine, again, the western
00:47:55media, even Ukraine itself admitted this incursion into Korsk drew some of the best manpower
00:48:02and equipment from Ukraine's armed forces away from the line of contact, weakening the entire
00:48:08line of contact and compounding all of Ukraine's problems.
00:48:11The article continues, it says Russia's fiber-optic drones, which have a longer battery life and
00:48:16more precise targeting than wireless models, vastly outnumbered Ukraine's drones on the
00:48:21battlefield in Korsk, giving Russia a key advantage in making movements so risky that Ukrainian
00:48:26troops were at times stranded on the front line without food, ammunition, or escape routes,
00:48:31soldiers said.
00:48:32Ukraine is also using fiber-optic drones in Korsk and everywhere, though in significantly
00:48:36smaller numbers as it races to catch up with Russia's mass production of the devices.
00:48:41And what soldiers and experts describe as the first time Russia has surpassed Ukraine
00:48:45in frontline drone technology since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
00:48:48But that isn't true.
00:48:50If it was true, you would have seen some sort of manifestation of this advantage.
00:48:54They always claim Ukraine had.
00:48:55They've never had any sort of overwhelming advantage on the battlefield.
00:48:59The only time they had any sort of actual advantage was in 2022 because Russia did not commit nearly
00:49:06enough troops to hold all of the territory they initially seized, which is why we saw the Kherson
00:49:13and Kharkov offensive succeed against Russian forces.
00:49:17They just withdrew because they knew they didn't have the ability to hold all that territory.
00:49:21They retreated to the amount of territory that number of troops could sustainably defend.
00:49:28And since then, Ukraine has held no advantage over Russia in any regard.
00:49:33The same article is talking about Ukrainians making drones in these workshops that are distributed
00:49:39all across the country.
00:49:40They're more difficult to find and target than, say, a large factory mass-producing drones.
00:49:47And a lot of these workshops work specifically for one unit.
00:49:52One specific military unit has a workshop making drones custom-tailed for its needs.
00:49:59And they always claim that this is some sort of advantage Ukraine has, except Russia also
00:50:03has these types of workshops attached to specific units.
00:50:08They also have massive factories producing huge numbers of drones of all kinds.
00:50:13This is the Garan-2.
00:50:16And if you look at different sources, 2024, 2025, they should have reached about 6,000 Garan-2
00:50:25drones per year, possibly more.
00:50:29That's why in recent weeks and months, we have seen larger and larger swarms of Garan-2 drones.
00:50:37A recent attack targeting Ukraine is said to have consisted of just one single attack consisted
00:50:46of up to 500 Garan-2 drones.
00:50:50So no, Ukraine does not have an advantage in terms of drones, not in quantity, not in quality
00:50:56or capability.
00:50:57They do not have an advantage in terms of manpower.
00:50:59Admittedly, they do not have an advantage, nor will they ever have an advantage in artillery
00:51:04fire, not as things are now.
00:51:08You have a front line.
00:51:10You have troops on both sides.
00:51:12Russia has more drones, more artillery to strike at the front line and to the rear of
00:51:19the front line, the logistics supporting the front line.
00:51:22What about even longer range weapon systems, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles?
00:51:29I just talked about the Garan-2 drone.
00:51:31That is also a very long range weapon.
00:51:35Who has the advantage there?
00:51:37Again, it is Russia.
00:51:38And this is according to the Western media.
00:51:42This is a report published earlier this year, 2025, tactical developments during the third
00:51:47year of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
00:51:50And it says Russia is currently set to produce, in 2025, more than 750 Iskander ballistic missiles,
00:52:01more than 560 KH-101 cruise missiles, according to plans drawn up by the Russian Ministry of
00:52:09Defense.
00:52:11Ballistic missiles and cruise missiles is another area of obvious advantage for Russia.
00:52:17Again, the Western media admits all of this.
00:52:20Just, let's not even count Garan-2 drones, or let's not talk about cruise missiles yet.
00:52:26Let's just talk about the Iskander ballistic missile.
00:52:30Russia is saying 750 per year.
00:52:36Other sources say around 600 to 650.
00:52:41The only missile that I'm aware of capable, in theory, of intercepting an Iskander ballistic
00:52:49missile is the Patriot missile system.
00:52:52This is the only air defense system that was transferred in large numbers to Ukraine that
00:52:56is capable of possibly intercepting Iskander missiles.
00:53:00If Russia is producing somewhere between 600 to 750 missiles a year, is Ukraine receiving enough
00:53:10Patriot missile interceptors to intercept them all?
00:53:13Is Lockheed Martin, which produces the Patriot missile interceptor, are they making enough worldwide
00:53:19to intercept this number of Iskander ballistic missiles?
00:53:23And the answer is no, and this is according to Lockheed Martin itself.
00:53:28This is from March 24th, 2025.
00:53:31Lockheed Martin's PAC-3 achieved record production year.
00:53:36How many are they producing?
00:53:38It says in October 2024, the U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to increase production
00:53:43capacity to 650 PAC-3 MSEs per year.
00:53:48Lockheed Martin is expected to reach 650 by the year 2027.
00:53:54Let's just say they had 650 missiles right now.
00:53:58That is 100 missiles short, if Russia is correct, and Russia is producing 750 Iskanders per year.
00:54:06It's 100 missiles short, and that's assuming every single Patriot interceptor is sent to Ukraine,
00:54:11which is not true, which is not happening, and will not happen.
00:54:14But let's just say that somehow that was possible.
00:54:17Every single Patriot missile interceptor was sent to Ukraine.
00:54:20That is not enough to intercept all the Iskander missiles Russia is producing,
00:54:25even if these missiles had a 100% success rate with just one shot, which they don't.
00:54:31And if you watch videos of Patriot missile systems themselves coming under attack from
00:54:37Iskander or Kinjal, which is a modified air-launched version of the Iskander,
00:54:45which reaches hypersonic speeds, you will see the Patriot missile system launches every missile
00:54:50that is available.
00:54:52It will launch every single missile in an attempt to intercept these incoming Iskander or Kinjal missiles,
00:54:58and they still often miss.
00:55:02It usually takes two to three interceptors to intercept any incoming target,
00:55:08whether it's a cruise missile, a drone, or a ballistic missile, especially a ballistic missile.
00:55:14So Ukraine will never have enough Patriot missile systems or missile interceptors
00:55:20to protect itself from this huge number and growing number of Iskander ballistic missiles.
00:55:27What about, people will say, what about NASIMs?
00:55:30NASIMs have the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile.
00:55:34These are not capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.
00:55:37They are supposed to intercept aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles.
00:55:43What about AIM-120 AMRAAM annual production versus Russia's production of cruise missiles and drones?
00:55:54Let's look at this article from Breaking the Fence.
00:55:59Raytheon to max out AMRAAM production for some foreseeable future.
00:56:04This was September 2023, but foreseeable future, I think we could say, covers 2024-2025.
00:56:13Let's see what the article says.
00:56:14Ukraine has been hungry for the missiles to bat down a range of airborne threats from aircraft to cruise missiles,
00:56:19and obviously drones, built as air-to-air missiles.
00:56:23Kiev has primarily used AMRAAMs with the ground-based National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System,
00:56:30NASIMs, also made by Raytheon,
00:56:33though the impending transfer of F-16s means AMRAAMs could soon be fired from Ukrainian aircraft as well.
00:56:41Now, historically, we've been somewhere between 500 to 800 rounds a year, said Paul Ferraro,
00:56:49president of AirPower for RTX subsidiary Raytheon.
00:56:54During a briefing with reporters,
00:56:56current orders have ramped that number up to nearly 1,200, Ferraro said,
00:57:01hitting the company's ceiling for the missiles production and giving current demand,
00:57:06and Ferraro said he expects that level of production to continue for the foreseeable future.
00:57:11So 1,200 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles every single year.
00:57:17Roussi says Russia is making just 560 KH-101 cruise missiles alone,
00:57:24plus 6,000 Garand-2 drones.
00:57:28And then we have this article from Army Recognition.
00:57:33Ukrainian intelligence reveals Russia's missile production surge despite sanctions,
00:57:37because there's many other types of cruise missiles Russia manufactures other than the KH-101.
00:57:44And this is citing Andrei Youssov, a representative of Ukraine's defense intelligence.
00:57:53This was shared at the end of last year.
00:57:55According to him, Russia produces between 40 and 50 Iskander missiles,
00:58:0130 to 50 Kalibur missiles, and approximately 50 KH-101 missiles each month.
00:58:09Each month.
00:58:10These figures indicate a steady increase in manufacturing capacity over the year.
00:58:15360 to 600 Kalibur cruise missiles together with 600 KH-101 cruise missiles
00:58:22is already somewhere between 960 to 1,200 cruise missiles,
00:58:27plus the 6,000 plus Garand-2 drones Russia manufactures each year.
00:58:33And again, you cannot compare the number of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles produced, 1,200,
00:58:39to the number of incoming targets on a one-to-one basis.
00:58:43Usually two, two or more missiles will be required to ensure these incoming targets are successfully intercepted.
00:58:52And that, again, is assuming that all 1,200 of these missiles are going to Ukraine, which they never will.
00:59:00A small number of them from that number will go to Ukraine.
00:59:03So, again, it is impossible for Ukraine's air defense network to intercept all of these incoming missiles and drones from Russia.
00:59:13And this has an accumulative effect over time.
00:59:17It is wearing down the number of interceptors available.
00:59:20It is also targeting and destroying the air defense systems themselves.
00:59:24NASEMS, Germany's IRST system, the Patriot missile system.
00:59:29We've watched numbers of these launchers and radars being destroyed.
00:59:35The Pentagon itself admitted a Patriot missile battery was damaged in 2023.
00:59:42A congeled missile, it failed to intercept.
00:59:44We remember that video.
00:59:46The Patriot missile system launched every single missile it had available, and it still missed.
00:59:52So this is the problem Ukraine has.
00:59:54This is the problem the Collective West has in terms of modern military capabilities.
00:59:59The rest of the world has not just caught up because they are employing state-owned enterprises to oversee military industrial production.
01:00:06They have vastly surpassed the Collective West.
01:00:08The West's ambitions far exceed its capability of achieving them, at least through military power.
01:00:17Remember, they also have many asymmetric means of pursuing their objectives successfully.
01:00:25Just always keep in mind Syria.
01:00:26That is always a reminder that military power alone is not necessary for the U.S. to succeed.
01:00:33And I'm only talking about ballistic and cruise missiles.
01:00:37I haven't even really talked about hypersonic missiles.
01:00:40The Zerkan or the Kinjal air-launched hypersonic missile hasn't been used for months now.
01:00:51And I came across this.
01:00:53I came across this article from Euromedia and Press.
01:00:55Again, as pro-Ukrainian as is possible.
01:00:59Russian MiG-31K carrying Kinjal missiles absent from Ukrainian skies for three weeks.
01:01:04And this was early, early month.
01:01:07This was February 2025.
01:01:10We still have not seen MiG-31 Kinjal strikes since then.
01:01:15And the BBC News, Russian speculates that the aircraft may have exhausted their service life.
01:01:21But then it also cites Ukrainian officials who say they don't believe that.
01:01:26They believe Russia is stockpiling these Kinjal hypersonic missiles.
01:01:30The reason why is because Ukraine's air defense system has collapsed.
01:01:35They are incapable of successfully intercepting ordinary Iskander ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.
01:01:43There's no reason to use this much more capable Kinjal missile.
01:01:49You should stockpile them and save them for circumstances that actually absolutely require them.
01:01:55You use hypersonic missiles to circumvent capable air defense systems.
01:02:01Russia's pause on using the Kinjal hypersonic missile is another indicator that Ukraine's air defenses have collapsed.
01:02:08So when you look at all of these different areas, manpower, drones, artillery, air defenses, the lack of any significant long-range strike capability of its own to strike back at Russia in regards to cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
01:02:30All of this adds up to a severe deficit against Ukraine.
01:02:35We're always hearing about a little territory Russia is gaining.
01:02:39But we have to remember, Russia is not fighting a war of territorial conquest.
01:02:45Right now, they are fighting a war of attrition.
01:02:48They are trying to grind down and hollow out Ukraine to precipitate a collapse.
01:02:53They're not trying to break through positions.
01:02:56They're wearing them down, and as they give, as they crumble, they're moving forward.
01:03:01There's a big difference between the two.
01:03:05And even still, as Ukraine's fighting capacity gradually collapses over time, we are seeing gains in Russian territorial possession.
01:03:17So right here, this was the New York Times, October 2024, and you can see how the initial incursion, the amount of territory taken, the amount of territory Ukraine took back in its different offensives.
01:03:33And then, this isn't a linear, but an exponential increase in territory taken, and this is amid a war of attrition, not a war of territorial gain.
01:03:45What happens when Ukrainian manpower, arms and ammunition, can no longer even just hold the line?
01:03:57We are going to see additional territorial gains.
01:04:01People constantly ask me, when will Russia launch a big arrow offensive?
01:04:06There's no reason for them to do that.
01:04:08It would be costly.
01:04:09The outcome would be uncertain.
01:04:11At a time when attrition is already having the desired effect.
01:04:17It is just like the conflict in Syria, which was frozen for years and years, but because of the U.S.'s ability and the ability of its proxies to hollow out Syria, eventually there was a complete collapse.
01:04:32The entire country was captured in less than a month, very rapidly over the course of one or two weeks.
01:04:39The whole country was captured, basically.
01:04:41That is the type of scenario that Ukraine could potentially face.
01:04:47At the culmination of this war of attrition, Russia is launching.
01:04:52This is what the Trump administration, what the special interests he works for, fear the most.
01:04:58In that case, there is nothing to freeze in Ukraine.
01:05:03The U.S. has just simply lost in Ukraine.
01:05:06And then it will have to still deal with the rise of China.
01:05:10And it will still have to find a way to deal with, to pin down and overextend Russia as it focuses on Iran and China and North Korea elsewhere.
01:05:20It's a multi-front conflict the U.S. is waging to maintain its global primacy.
01:05:26It does not seek to wage war against all of these countries at the same time.
01:05:31It wants to freeze them, overextend others, focus on just one, defeat them in detail, rather than try to fight them all at once.
01:05:42That is the plan.
01:05:43That was always the plan.
01:05:45That was the plan before President Trump stepped foot in office.
01:05:48This is the plan he is obviously implementing, regardless of the rhetoric, the back-and-forth rhetoric that comes from him and others in his administration.
01:05:58The people he surrounded himself with are people who work for the interest of funding these think tanks, that have articulated these policies they themselves are repeating almost verbatim, like U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hexf did in February.
01:06:13That directive he laid out in February is visibly what is now taking shape.
01:06:18Everything else was a distraction.
01:06:19Everything else was to manage public perception, to make it appear as if President Trump really did try for peace, and it was others who undermined him.
01:06:31He himself now on social media is blaming everyone except himself.
01:06:36It all goes back to the fact that this is a U.S. war on Russia fought through not just Ukraine, but also Europe.
01:06:44If the U.S. really wanted to, it really could have ended this conflict overnight.
01:06:48It could have pulled the plug, and everything would have ended.
01:06:52The fact that it hasn't is because the U.S. and those in the U.S. government right now do not want it to end.
01:06:59They just wanted to convince some people that they did want it to end.
01:07:03We have to keep a very close eye on the conflict in Ukraine.
01:07:08We also have to keep a very close eye on the overall geopolitical situation.
01:07:13As the policy papers themselves admit, this is not just about Ukraine and Russia.
01:07:18This is about a global strategy of division of labor and strategic sequencing, not just Russia, but also China primarily, but also Iran and North Korea.
01:07:33We have to remember that even with all the advantages Russia and China have militarily over the United States,
01:07:38the U.S. has a vast array of asymmetric means at its disposal, that it has used successfully in recent history, Syria being a very important example to keep in mind.
01:07:51So we have to keep an eye on what is going on in Ukraine together with all of these other factors.
01:07:58They all are interrelated, and the outcome of any one of them is going to affect the other.
01:08:05I will continue keeping an eye on all of this and reporting it.
01:08:08If you thought this video was useful, please like and share.
01:08:11Think about subscribing. It's free to do. It helps the channel grow.
01:08:13Check the video description below for other places you can find and follow my work.
01:08:17Everything that I referenced in this video is listed in the video description below.
01:08:21You can check out those articles and read them for yourself.
01:08:26Also in the video description below are ways you can help support my work.
01:08:29I do not monetize my YouTube channel or any of my other social media platforms.
01:08:32If ads pop up, feel free to skip them because they're not helping me out at all.
01:08:36If you do want to help support my work, please do so through Buy Me A Coffee and also through Patreon.
01:08:42Again, the links to both of those platforms is in the video description below.
01:08:46So to everybody who has been helping out, whether it's a one-time donation or donations month to month,
01:08:52or even if you have no resources to spare and you're just helping share my work with others,
01:08:56that is all greatly appreciated.
01:08:57That is what allows me to continue doing this work.
01:09:00So thank you, and as always, thank you for watching.
Recommended
21:34