SOMETHING IS CHANGING AND RUSSIA IS LOSING

Firstly I apologise for the lack of articles in the past month – a combination of vacation and then returning to my fathers death and the subsequent disruptions that’s caused are the culprits. The funeral is on October 8th and this will close this chapter in more ways that one.

During these weeks it’s become apparent that- and I have said so on BlueSky several times – there’s a tangible change to the way the war Russia started against Ukraine has evolved.

Ukraine returned to a massive bombardment of Russian refineries in August that’s carried on and hasn’t stopped since.

These refinery attacks are substantially more damaging than they were in the previous campaign. This time networked groups of drones have attacked whole refinery installations- not just the key cracking towers but vital pumps, storage and piping systems. So much so that several of the refineries have gone off line at the very least semi-permanently.

This has catastrophic implications for Russian crude oil processing because pipelines that carry crude direct to the refineries have nowhere to go, and if it can’t be sent to ports for export, it’s going to end up costing Russia dearly as crude oil drilling sites have to be shuttered.

The scale of fuel shortages has reached a point where Russia is struggling to find refined fuels to buy and it lacks the distribution system to get it where it’s needed even if it does.

Ukraine has not let up on Russian factories and industrial facilities that support the war machine.

Additionally the whole oil market is working against Russia at present, with collapsing prices, the reduced price caps and its own production costs rising. Russia planed to produce 540 million tons of crude oil a year by 2030. That has now been downgraded to under 300 million even if peace returned tomorrow. The reason? Much of it is too expensive to viably extract, let alone transport. And that’s based on there being no war.

Russia’s fiscal situation is even more complicated and worsening. The government resorted to printing 15 trillion rubles by the end of October, which it supplied to banks then promptly made them buy government bonds with it, flooding the domestic market with more inflation busting cash.

Deficits are running at just short of $50 billion – well above the target for the year let alone the end of August. Already next year’s budget is looking unachievable – and that’s with alleged cuts in military expenditure.

Through history, military power and the equipment a nation provides its army can often be traced to the social system and the leadership of that country.

Hitler for example was paranoid about not getting involved in the trench warfare he experienced during his service 1914-18. He and his henchmen, especially Luftwaffe Chief Herman Göring, managed to design an army that could win battles but had no means of winning a war, lacking key strategic components- especially logistics. The Luftwaffe built a multitude of aircraft that were tactically excellent but under-armed, and short ranged, designed for close support and not strategic warfare.

Germany’s bombers we’re in fact so bad at their job – despite the mythological status of the Blitz in Britain, that Lord Beaverbrook, whose responsibility covered aircraft production, considered that they had done absolutely nothing to hinder it.

Russia is similarly bound by the directive of its leadership. Putin created a corrupt self serving government and his military machine – despite western belief that he had transformed it into a Class A fighting force – followed suit. The procurement and production system was so riddled with corruption it materialized on the frontline for all to see and mock as the invasion’s first weeks turned into an unprecedented disaster. The system is so ingrained, that even though some of it has been removed at the production end, in the field it’s as rotten as it ever was. Many would say it was worse.

Now Russia sits exposed as an air defence fraud – its systems too stretched thin and too reduced by combat loses to protect its key oil refineries. Russia is simply too big, another aspect of its fundamental nature that Russians have always seen as a strength, now an insurmountable weakness. The scale or transportation is immense requiring huge amounts of fuel – when it gets short problems are quick to surface. Size provides a vast geography, too vast for even the world’s most elaborate air defences. Trains and railways become a prime target largely because of the distances they cover – but repairing them takes longer because of the distances that have to be traveled. Size, distance has become Russia’s enemy, even more so now that Ukraine has clearly demonstrated its capability to overcome it with often slow simple drones, flying high in the sky on a clear blue day – yet hitting their targets unhindered. This is not what Putin imagined four years ago, when so arrogantly he thought it would all be over in a week, he never bothered to tell his bankers to remove $300 billion in overseas banks. Money now supporting Ukraine.

The strategic war against Ukraine is starting to change. Largely because of modifications to Iskander and Kinzhal missiles, Russia is hitting important areas of Ukraine’s rear industrial infrastructure. This is new as before it’s all been about terror.

Russian drones have been choosing some odd targets at first sight – one batch of Shaheeds this last weekend destroyed 13,000 pigs on a large farm. That’s a lot of pork and when pork is a staple in many homes and the army the destruction of intensive farming makes more sense – but it’s still a civilian problem more than a military one. I would argue Russia is just wasting its time, but five drones is cheap relative to the implications.

The Russians still think that undermining the civilian population is their way to get Ukraine out of the war. But Ukraine is not Syria and it’s not going to give in. In the end where is Russia in Syria now? Trying to get back in certainly, but its influence is minimal.

Russian behavior with air incursions, cable cutting, disseminating propaganda and unsettling the Balkans, attempts at assassination of western industrial leaders, drone incursions, cable cutting, is all designed to keep them in our heads. To scare us, to frighten us and to keep us thinking they’re far more capable than they actually are. We just need to keep cool, and make our position clear. Don’t give them a grey zone to use.

The reason this is all so aggressive right now is Russia is losing. At home that is increasingly obvious as Z-bloggers don’t seem to stop repeating. New video I’ve seen of civilians complaining about the lack of security and the obvious destruction of factories and refineries can’t be hidden. Fuel shortages certainly can’t. Nor can price rises and conscription demands.

Putin’s bravado and determination to make it look like ‘there’s nothing to see here’ wears thin even at home when clearly there is and everyone can see it or feel it. A five mile high column of black smoke drifting 60 miles and raging infernos fueling it are not exactly invisible.

The three day war he started has gone on four nearly four years. By the end of this year it will have lasted longer than the entire Nazi invasion, expulsion and defeat from June 22 1941 to May 9 1945. Just put that into perspective and think about the monumentality of that for a moment.

The balance of this war is changing – I would argue it has changed – fundamentally, but only in the past weeks towards Ukraine. It will have its rough moments – but if the campaign stretches into Russia and they start losing thermal power stations because of their refusal to stop attacking Ukraine’s, the domestic fight will have come home to Russia on a whole new level. It’s not one the regime will easily survive.

People ask me how long now? When will Russia finally cave in? 2026. The war will have come to en end by this time next year, that’s my prediction. It will be won by economic means and there will be some major issues to deal with along the way. I suspect there will be a Russia-NATO clash in the air, because Putin out of frustration, or his military out of the same, will act when they should not have. There will be moment when we all blink and wonder how we got past it.

Some action will take place that everyone thinks has gone way too far. Even in Russia. That will be its catalyst. Where it goes from there, your guess is a good as mine, because Russia will face a massive set of problems and internal strife is inevitable. Another round of states declaring their independence seems certain. Only this time there won’t be a unified US approach to managing it, Europe isn’t strong enough and China will be scrambling for influence in case the fallout heads their way.

Interesting times.

The Analyst

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