A New Front: Ukraine's War on Russian Oil and the Power to Hurt

I appreciate so much that you don't pitch your book until the end. It's very refreshing to just get all the information and then you can pitch.

Oil infrastructure is so large and costly. I don't know if any country could cost-effectively defend a 1000km pipeline, and Russia has several of them.

Since the West has not gotten the message yet, Ukraine needs to do what it must to cause the most pain to Russia, even if it's actions adversely affects Western oil imports.

The port facility ones ( St Petersburg and Black Sea) are the most important ones. Because it doesn’t matter what they can do elsewhere if they can’t ship the product.

Seems to me that Ukraine is forcing relocation of russian air defense assets to improve the environment for F16s

The successful strike on the rail line to China in the far east, and a alternate bridge a day later, which was nearly the full expanse of the largest country in the world. Logistics for equipment and munitions is also strategically important, so combined with oil silos and depots, ammunition storages and factories, is even more threatening... add to that, the deteoriaating central heating infrastructure in the two largest cities and in the rural centers, the threat to domestic and military security is heightened further... the cost burden to the RFU is considerably high.

The effectiveness of drones is utterly terrifying heading into the 2020s. We're going from Sticks to Swords to Arrows to Guns to Bombs to Drones 0_0

Zelensky deserves a humanitarian award for helping keep Russian citizens warm this winter.

0:50 "lines on map" 👍

4:08 That's a lot of freedom squares! Coincidentally Freedom Squares are my favorite breakfast cereal.

13:50 thanks for explaining the kind of things officials will shy away from explaining

Frankly, the potential leverage here for Ukraine is understated if anything in this video. Trading in Russian oil and gas has been a politically risky thing for many countries, even those in the BRICS, but it has been worthwhile because it is so cheap and because Russia has so few trading partners it is also reliable. Western pressure to either buy elsewhere or pay Russia less has been only partially successful. It has lowered the price but not the reliable oil deliveries and eager customers. But many of those same eager customers may be less enchanted with the prospect of Russian oil if its supply becomes unreliable. Even if that means they buy more from other suppliers to offset their losses, it represents a loss of trade for Russia. Every delayed shipment risks altering their deals with their buyers and gives those buyers increased leverage to demand lower prices. Russia is hardly in a position to refuse to negotiate a price reduction once such demands are made. If Ukraine can achieve that result, it is almost as good as achieving the kind of disruptions it would like to create.

Just think, the Ukrainians would’ve been able to start doing this way earlier, if only the West didn’t impose restrictions on weapons use within Russian territory…

Plain and simple for the average, interested, person. Thank you. Your presentation skills are amazing, quiet and effective.

I believe the impact on the world is manageable and Ukraine#s leverage on her partners is overestimated when it comes to the refinery-campaign: Russia only has 6% of global refining capacities and Ukraine would be currently able to stop 50% of it (at best! and for a limited time). This is not enough to shake world markets. Much more impactful it is for Russia: There relative profit in oil products is way better than in crude oil. Volumes are way smaller, yes, but profits are sweet. These now get taken down to some extent. This definitely hurts - we see cracks appearing in Russian economy even without this.

I actually like it when you pitch your books since it's always fun to try to see you drive a connection between the topic at hand and the books. Might buy them someday.

This new strategy is literally flames.

4:11 The first joke about freedom units didn't get me, but "freedom squares" did.

Thanks for this update. I am looking forward to ordering your books.

In case some people are wondering, where Gerassimov is, they might want to check out this video. Haven't expected him in the audience at 13:53. Really like the way you#re explaining all this and connecting the dots. Great work, thank you for that.