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⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 Ukraine’s SMARTEST Move of the War… Russia’s Ports Just Became DEATH TRAPS
17:47 Ukraine’s Master MOVE Trapped Putin’s Fleet
38:36 Putin’s Global Proxy Empire Is COLLAPSING
56:57 Ukraine Just Took EVERYTHING Away From Russia

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Transcript
00:00:01Putin, Putin, Putin. What are we to do with you?
00:00:05It was all supposed to be so different in the Black Sea.
00:00:08Russia has a navy and Ukraine doesn't.
00:00:10The dreaded Black Sea Fleet was supposed to dominate as it fired missiles and provided passage into Ukraine for scores
00:00:17of troops.
00:00:18But now the Black Sea is a no-go zone for Russia.
00:00:22Worse, the remaining ships in that fleet have sailed from their main base into Novorossiysk.
00:00:27In doing so, they've sailed right into Ukraine's trap.
00:00:31Putin meet rock and hard place.
00:00:34Your fleet is stuck between them and there's nothing you can do about it.
00:00:38What Russia has on its hands right now is a two-fold struggle.
00:00:41Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmitry Pletinchuk revealed in a September 22 interview.
00:00:47Since the Black Sea Fleet was forced to flee its traditional base in Crimea's Sevastopol
00:00:52and move to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, it has faced two issues.
00:00:56One, the fleet is now a stationary target.
00:01:00And two, Russia's warships can't be repaired.
00:01:04Before we dive deeper, if you're enjoying the video, consider subscribing and let us know your thoughts below.
00:01:09You can also become a channel member for access to exclusive content that we don't publish publicly.
00:01:14Each problem feeds into the other, so we'll start with Russia's issue of being forced to keep its warships at
00:01:20Novorossiysk.
00:01:20Back in March 2024, Russia had a major problem on its hands.
00:01:25A country with no warships of its own, at least not since Russia stole them, was obliterating the Black Sea
00:01:31Fleet.
00:01:31A combination of missiles, aerial drones and innovative unmanned naval vessels was hitting Russia's ships as they tried to sail
00:01:39in the Black Sea.
00:01:40By March 2024, Ukraine's range had extended so that Crimea was in easy range.
00:01:46About a third of the Black Sea Fleet was destroyed or crippled.
00:01:50So, Russia's warships escaped to Novorossiysk.
00:01:53There, they were supposed to be out of range.
00:01:56Sure, they would be sitting in still waters, barely moving for fear of going into range of Ukraine's weapons.
00:02:01But at least in Novorossiysk, they would be safe.
00:02:05This port, which is nestled within a mountainous inlet on Russia's Black Sea coast, had distance on its side back
00:02:11in 2024.
00:02:12It was up to 650 kilometers away from the territory Ukraine still held in its own country.
00:02:18It's not that Ukraine didn't have drones that could fly that far when the Russian escape happened.
00:02:22But it wasn't yet building those drones at such a scale that it would conduct strikes against Novorossiysk,
00:02:28especially when those drones could be used elsewhere while Russia's ships were contained to a faraway port.
00:02:34Oh, how times have changed.
00:02:36It's 2026, and long-range drones have become a key part of Ukraine's strategy.
00:02:42Russia is being battered almost daily, and production at scale isn't something Ukraine has to worry about anymore.
00:02:47Novorossiysk has been transformed from a safe haven into a sitting duck.
00:02:52Russia's warships are suffering as a result.
00:02:55This year has been a revelation for Ukraine and a ruination for Russia.
00:02:59It all started in March when Ukraine launched its first combined strike against Novorossiysk.
00:03:05Up to 200 drones traveled to the port alongside missiles, causing fires that lasted 18 hours
00:03:11and scoring a direct hit on a Russian missile cruiser named the Admiral Essen.
00:03:16Attacks have been coming thick and fast since then.
00:03:19April saw the first separate counter-drone center hit the Sheskaris oil terminal at Russia's once-out-of-range port.
00:03:26Fires were started, the Admiral Essen took another hit, and Ukraine added the Admiral Makarov to its list of Novorossiysk
00:03:33victims.
00:03:34May brought with it a two-day raid, once again targeting the Admiral Essen, this time from the side rather
00:03:39than above.
00:03:40In August, Ukraine conducted a massive joint operation that saw it hit four Russian warships in Novorossiysk.
00:03:47And on September 9th, Ukraine hit the port again, scoring hits against at least three Black Sea Fleet vessels, along
00:03:53with more strikes on missile cruisers.
00:03:55These are supposed to be Russia's scariest and most powerful warships.
00:04:00But all they can do in Novorossiysk is float in port and hope that today isn't the day that more
00:04:06of Ukraine's drones come.
00:04:07That is a trap in and of itself, but the real rock and hard place situation comes from the second
00:04:13problem we mentioned.
00:04:14It's practically impossible for Russia to carry out repairs on the ships that Ukraine is hitting while those ships are
00:04:21in Novorossiysk.
00:04:22Russia's major Novorossiysk problem is that the port was never intended to host warships.
00:04:27It's a merchant port, and that means it doesn't have the repair infrastructure needed to maintain missile cruisers, submarines, or
00:04:34any other large Black Sea Fleet ships.
00:04:37The fleet's primary repair infrastructure is still in Crimea, and that has become a no-go zone for the fleet.
00:04:43Russia had been trying to develop Novorossiysk as an alternate base to account for just such a problem.
00:04:48Work was underway as far back as 2013, which is the year before Putin launched his campaign of aggression against
00:04:54Ukraine.
00:04:55But it wasn't enough.
00:04:56The infrastructure isn't there. The port isn't large enough.
00:04:59And that means that every Ukrainian strike that is carried out causes damage that Russia can't fix quickly.
00:05:04The knock-on effect is that warships such as the Admiral Essen that might have been useful as cruise missile
00:05:10launching pads are rendered useless for longer periods of time than Russia ever anticipated.
00:05:15Russia's repair problem goes even deeper than that.
00:05:18It's not as though Novorossiysk has no capacity for carrying out repairs.
00:05:23The port is home to the Novorossiysk shipyard, which has a dry docking capacity of 60,000 deadweight tons, which
00:05:30is enough to house most of the warships in the Black Sea Fleet.
00:05:33But think about what dry docking means. A ship that needs to go in for repairs enters the dry dock
00:05:39and then just sits there, completely immobilized while repairs are underway.
00:05:43And that ship is even more of a sitting duck than it was before.
00:05:47As Pletinchuk puts it, therefore, there can currently be no talk of prolonged repairs or maintenance.
00:05:53In other words, if Ukraine can do enough damage to a ship with its Novorossiysk strikes, that ship gets taken
00:05:58out of commission permanently, even if it's repairable.
00:06:01One problem feeds into the other.
00:06:04Russia's warships are already vulnerable in Novorossiysk because they have no escape from the port.
00:06:10Any attempt to sail into the Sea of Azov or the Black Sea doesn't take them out of the range
00:06:14of Ukraine's weapons.
00:06:15So those ships get hit.
00:06:18Then they either languish where they are or Russia takes the risk of dry docking them for repairs.
00:06:24But in a dry dock, the ships are stationary and can be hit again.
00:06:28This necessitates more repairs and on and on it goes.
00:06:31We said it earlier, rock meets hard place.
00:06:34Novorossiysk has essentially become a death trap for Russian warships that have no other options.
00:06:40It's not like those warships can just escape the Black Sea outright either.
00:06:43Russia needs its missile cruisers to launch attacks against Ukraine.
00:06:48And we'll be digging into some more problems Russia has there in a moment.
00:06:51But even if Putin decided that the attacks could be stopped to save the ships, the fleet couldn't leave.
00:06:57Turkey controls both the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, which are used by ships to enter the Black Sea.
00:07:03Those straits have been closed to warships since the beginning of Putin's invasion.
00:07:07Merchant ships can still pass through the straits, but warships aren't allowed no matter what flag they may sail under.
00:07:13It's a trap upon a trap.
00:07:15Putin arrogantly thought that Russia could defeat Ukraine so quickly that Turkey's decision to block the straits it controls would
00:07:21have no impact.
00:07:22But Ukraine devastated the Black Sea fleet.
00:07:25Now that fleet is stuck in a port that is within range of Ukraine's weapons.
00:07:29The ships can't leave and Russia can't even send new warships to replenish its ailing fleet.
00:07:35So we can see what Ukraine's dangerous trap looks like, but what about its results?
00:07:40Russian ships are being hit and have nowhere to go.
00:07:42But what does that mean for Russia's posture in the Black Sea and its ability to hurt Ukraine with its
00:07:47warships?
00:07:48We'll be answering those questions in a moment.
00:07:51First, you're watching the military show.
00:07:53If you're getting value from our channel, don't forget to subscribe and enable notifications so you can catch our videos
00:07:59as soon as they're published.
00:08:02Ukraine's genius move has been pulled off in stages, starting with making the Black Sea itself dangerous, then Sevastopol, and
00:08:10now Novorossiysk.
00:08:11It's almost as though Ukraine has been slowly guiding Russia into the perfect position through which the Black Sea fleet
00:08:16can be rendered useless, and nowhere is that more evident than with the state of Russia's missile cruisers.
00:08:22Russia doesn't have many left.
00:08:24At least it doesn't have many cruisers that are actually capable of firing missiles.
00:08:28That's according to a September 23rd report by Defense Express, which says that Russia is down to just two surface
00:08:35ships that are capable of carrying cruise missiles in the Black Sea.
00:08:39Losing the Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov has been a major blow to Russia, as both could fire cruise missiles
00:08:45at Ukraine.
00:08:46This doesn't mean that Russia can't launch cruise missiles at all, of course.
00:08:50Beyond the two remaining warships that can fire those missiles, Crimea itself is a launch pad.
00:08:55Still, we're seeing Russia's missile capacity being whittled away.
00:08:59The New Voice of Ukraine published a similar report on September 11th, claiming that Ukraine's September 9th strike has left
00:09:06Russia with three of four cruise missile carriers.
00:09:09So the numbers are slightly different, but the ultimate outcome of Russia's missile capabilities degrading is the same.
00:09:14The outlet highlights Caliber cruise missiles as the key in all of this.
00:09:18Since 2022, when the Black Sea fleet was at its best, Russia's total launch potential of Caliber cruise missiles from
00:09:24its warships has declined fourfold.
00:09:27At best, this leaves Russia capable of firing 24 Caliber missiles in a single salvo.
00:09:32At worst, assuming Defense Express is correct, it leaves Russia able to fire fewer than 16 in a single attack
00:09:39from the sea.
00:09:39What Russia has left is up to two, though possibly just one, Boyan-M class small missile ship.
00:09:45Beyond that, it has submarines, specifically a Paltus class sub named Alrosa and a pair of Varshavyanka class diesel submarines
00:09:54named the Starry Oskol and Veliki Novgorod.
00:09:57Keep submarines in mind, by the way. We'll be coming back to them in a few moments.
00:10:00This degradation of Russia's Caliber cruise missile capacity is important because this particular missile has been a mainstay of Russia's
00:10:08strategy ever since Putin launched his invasion.
00:10:11Not only that, but the national interest suggests that the Caliber is the closest that Russia has to America's Tomahawk
00:10:17cruise missile.
00:10:18There are more than a dozen variants of Caliber missiles, which offer different speeds and ranges.
00:10:22However, all are capable of packing a 408kg warhead, and most appear to be nuclear capable.
00:10:29So they're clearly a threat. The land attack variants of the missiles, such as the 3M14T and 3M14K, have ranges
00:10:37up to about 2,400km,
00:10:39which also means that Russia can strike almost anywhere in Ukraine using these missiles.
00:10:44They're fast, too, with the best of the Caliber range being capable of hitting Mach 3.
00:10:49In short, these missiles are lethal.
00:10:51Russia has a lot of them, and they are set to become even more important as Russia prepares to ramp
00:10:57up its missile strategy
00:10:58as winter approaches.
00:11:00Modifications have also been happening, which show us that Russia is willing to further tweak its missile designs
00:11:06to maximize the damage it does to Ukraine.
00:11:08Back in June, Defense Matters reported that some of the Caliber cruise missiles being used in Ukraine
00:11:13are now fitted with cluster warheads.
00:11:16This increases each missile's area of effect, making it more useful for dealing with dispersed targets,
00:11:22such as those at airfields or open military positions.
00:11:25Russia's long-range strategy has also become very missile-dependent,
00:11:29especially as Ukraine has started to run out of the sorts of defenses it needs to shoot those missiles out
00:11:34of the sky.
00:11:35We've seen escalation throughout 2026.
00:11:38For example, the UK's Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office reports that July saw Russia launch 460 missiles at Ukraine.
00:11:45Over half of those missiles were likely cruise missiles,
00:11:48though it isn't clear how many were Caliber missiles versus other types.
00:11:52For Ukraine, Russia's Novorossiysk trap has become more vital than ever,
00:11:56because it needs to focus on taking out the archers rather than the arrows, due to its lack of interceptor
00:12:01missiles.
00:12:02So when Russia can't repair a ship that Ukraine hits, that's a massive result.
00:12:07Ukraine will likely never be able to stop Russia from using missiles entirely.
00:12:11The Kremlin has far too many options.
00:12:14But as more ships and submarines go down, never to emerge again due to the Novorossiysk trap,
00:12:20Ukraine can at least start to reduce the volume of missiles that Russia launches.
00:12:24We mentioned submarines again there, and we asked you to keep them in mind a moment ago.
00:12:28This is why.
00:12:29The Novorossiysk trap has made it almost impossible for Russia to maintain its Black Sea submarines.
00:12:36Pletinchuk says that the technical condition of Russia's submarines in the Black Sea is degraded
00:12:41to the point where Ukraine is seeing very low activity from them.
00:12:45Nearly five years without proper docking can affect their operating regime.
00:12:49Before that, they used their combat units, including submarines, under fairly harsh conditions.
00:12:54But this cannot continue indefinitely, he points out.
00:12:57These technical issues are forcing Russia into making tough decisions.
00:13:01As Pletinchuk adds, they face a choice.
00:13:03Risk their money and file empty reports, or go to sea and launch missiles from the relevant launchers.
00:13:09They choose the first option because they consider it less dangerous.
00:13:12Although there is always a risk, the Ukrainian Navy spokesman explains.
00:13:16The long and short of it is that prolonged use of submarines without docking leads to degradation.
00:13:22And this is something that Ukraine hinted at even earlier in 2026.
00:13:26Back in February, Pletinchuk was already discussing Russia's decreasing use of submarines,
00:13:33noting that the increasing complexity of keeping them working in the Black Sea was causing issues for Russia.
00:13:39Again, he brought up the maintenance issue, stating,
00:13:42A submarine is a complex mechanism that requires proper operating and maintenance conditions.
00:13:47And any maintenance now is a risk.
00:13:50Russia is less and less willing to take that risk.
00:13:53And it should be.
00:13:54Ukraine has been hitting submarines throughout the war.
00:13:57In August 2024, Ukraine claimed to have sunk a Kilo-class submarine at Sevastopol,
00:14:02causing catastrophic damage to the vessel while it was undergoing maintenance work.
00:14:06A chilling reminder to Russia that any vessel that comes to a standstill for repairs turns into a target.
00:14:13December 2025 saw Ukraine pull off an even more impressive attack,
00:14:17as it used its sub-Seababy unmanned submersible vessels to carry out another attack on a Kilo-class submarine.
00:14:24That sub was hit in Novorossiysk, and it also sustained damage severe enough to put it out of action,
00:14:30at least for the rest of the war.
00:14:32And according to the new voice of Ukraine,
00:14:34the Paltus-class sub that is among the three that Russia has left in the Black Sea
00:14:38is already in poor technical condition.
00:14:41That may well mean that it isn't participating in missile strikes against Ukraine,
00:14:46even though it hasn't been struck.
00:14:47What we're seeing here is the Black Sea fleet falling apart.
00:14:50The ships and subs that Ukraine is striking aren't being repaired,
00:14:55because Novorossiysk either doesn't have the facilities,
00:14:57or attempts to repair carry too much risk.
00:15:00But even vessels that haven't been hit are becoming less useful to Russia.
00:15:05As each month passes, they degrade while they're stuck in their hidey hole.
00:15:10Again, no maintenance can happen.
00:15:12If it's tried, the Novorossiysk trap springs shut,
00:15:15as Ukraine will soon discover that a ship has entered the port's dry dock.
00:15:19Here's the simple truth that Putin now has to accept.
00:15:23Russia doesn't control the Black Sea anymore, and it hasn't for a while.
00:15:27There is no safety to be found anyway in or around the Black Sea for Russia's ships,
00:15:32and that extends to a Russian port that was supposed to be out of range.
00:15:36Ukraine has effectively gained fire control over a huge portion of this naval battleground,
00:15:41as its combination of missiles, aerial drones and unmanned vessels
00:15:45makes doing practically anything a massive risk for Russia.
00:15:49All Russia can do now is use the few missile firing warships and subs that it has left as best
00:15:54as it can.
00:15:55But they are all targets that are also degrading due to lack of maintenance.
00:15:59Ukraine feels confident enough to essentially claim victory in the Black Sea,
00:16:04as President Volodymyr Zelensky did in July.
00:16:07The Ukrainian Navy, together with other components of the defense and security forces,
00:16:12has achieved what many thought was impossible.
00:16:14Russia has lost the Black Sea, Zelensky claimed.
00:16:17He wasn't boasting either, as his comment came on the back of outside observers saying the same kind of thing.
00:16:24Just a couple of months before, the European Commissioner for Defense and Space, Andreas Kubelius,
00:16:30used the Black Sea forum to note that Ukraine has shifted the balance of power in this arena of the
00:16:35war.
00:16:36It's hard to argue with either.
00:16:38Russia's once-dreaded Black Sea fleet has been reduced to a shadow of its former self.
00:16:43That fleet is basically a turtle, occasionally poking its head out to see if it's safe,
00:16:48though so slow-moving that every ship in the fleet knows that it's a target.
00:16:52And all of this, from the fleet degradation to the Novorossiysk trap, means that Ukraine now has leverage.
00:16:57On September 23rd, the New Voice of Ukraine reported that Ukraine had agreed to contribute to safe navigation
00:17:04and food security in the Black Sea if Russia is prepared to take steps toward de-escalation.
00:17:10We agreed to a passage regime that can ensure safety, and now we are awaiting Russia's response,
00:17:15Zelensky declared at the Crimea platform summit held on that day.
00:17:19Now, if Zelensky had made this statement in 2022, it wouldn't have meant much.
00:17:23Russia could have just said, our fleet controls the waters, so Ukraine's offer is meaningless.
00:17:28But in 2026, this offer has much more weight behind it,
00:17:32because Russia knows that refusal to de-escalate means that Ukraine goes back to what it's already doing.
00:17:37And if that happens, it just means more ships getting struck, and more getting stuck between the rock and the
00:17:43hard place.
00:17:43That is the Novorossiysk port trap.
00:17:46On August 24, 2026, Ukraine held its Independence Day parade.
00:17:52The country's 35th Independence Day anniversary was marked on the water, on the Dnipro River,
00:17:58in the first display of its kind that Ukraine has ever staged, a parade made up entirely of unmanned systems.
00:18:04The centerpiece was a boat called the MV-11. It comes from a Ukrainian company called U-Force,
00:18:10and it's the largest vessel that the company has ever built in its Magura line.
00:18:15It carries a payload of up to 2,200 kilograms, roughly 4,850 pounds.
00:18:21It can stay at sea for up to seven days.
00:18:23And unlike almost every Ukrainian naval drone that came before it, it's not designed to blow anything up.
00:18:29It's built for the open ocean as a transport and support platform, a mothership meant to carry, launch,
00:18:36and resupply other unmanned systems far from any coast.
00:18:39Now, if you want more exact details on Ukraine's naval drones and how each specific model was developed,
00:18:45make sure to subscribe to the military show.
00:18:48And to get exclusive access to content we don't post publicly, consider becoming a member.
00:18:53So why is this drone suddenly important?
00:18:56Well, at the start of the war, Ukraine didn't have a navy.
00:19:00To understand what Ukraine built, let's put into perspective just how little it started with.
00:19:05The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was far from just a transfer of territory.
00:19:11Ukraine lost the infrastructure of a navy, Sevastopol, the shipyards, the basing, and a large share of the personnel.
00:19:17What survived was a modest coastal force.
00:19:20And in the opening days of the full-scale invasion, that force effectively ceased to exist.
00:19:25The frigate, Hetman-Sahai-Dachnyi, Ukraine's flagship, was scuttled in Mykolaiv.
00:19:31The patrol ship, Slovyansk, was sunk within days.
00:19:34Other vessels were destroyed or captured outright in the Sea of Azov.
00:19:38By March 2022, Russia's opening assault had very nearly finished off what the 2014 occupation had left behind.
00:19:45That left Ukraine facing two threats it didn't have the tools to answer.
00:19:50The first was a blockade.
00:19:51Ukraine is an agricultural exporter that moves the bulk of its grain by sea.
00:19:56As soon as those trade routes stopped being safe or effective, global food prices went up.
00:20:01The second was the threat of a possible amphibious assault on Odessa.
00:20:05Russian landing ships were positioned in the region.
00:20:08The fleet had been involved from day one, firing caliber cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities from the water.
00:20:14And Russian planners had every reason to believe nothing could stop them.
00:20:18Because, as one Russi analyst put it in a documentary film this year,
00:20:22it simply wasn't clear that Ukraine possessed any maritime anti-access capability at all.
00:20:27That assumption is the single most important thing to hold onto in this entire story.
00:20:33Russia had the correct idea on the balance of forces,
00:20:36but it was wrong about what Ukraine would do with the balance of forces it had.
00:20:40And the Black Sea, as we will see, turned out to be an almost perfectly designed laboratory
00:20:45for testing exactly that kind of assumption to destruction.
00:20:49The first crack appeared in April 2022.
00:20:51Two Neptune anti-ship missiles struck the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
00:20:58The ship burned and sank.
00:20:59It was the largest warship lost in combat by any navy since the Falkland,
00:21:03and it happened at the hands of a country whose conventional naval forces were overwhelmingly outmatched.
00:21:09But there's one detail that most coverage skips, and it matters more than the explosion.
00:21:14The Neptune by that point hadn't even officially entered service.
00:21:18There was a single training battalion.
00:21:20It was a system that existed in a bureaucratic grey zone between development and deployment.
00:21:25This also meant that the Russians weren't alert to it as a probable threat and couldn't prepare for it.
00:21:30That's lesson one, and it has nothing to do with drones.
00:21:33In a war of rapid adaptation, the dangerous weapon is not always the most advanced one,
00:21:38but the one your opponent hasn't yet updated his threat picture to include.
00:21:42But the Neptune had a hard limit.
00:21:44Its reach is around 162 nautical miles.
00:21:47That's enough to push Russian warships out of the northwestern corner of the Black Sea and away from Odessa.
00:21:53It was nowhere near enough to touch Sevastopol or Novorossiysk, or the shipping lanes across the rest of the basin.
00:21:59Ukraine had bought itself a bit of time and created a small bubble of opportunity.
00:22:04Solving that range problem is the whole story of what came next.
00:22:08But before Ukraine got there, Russia made its second mistake.
00:22:12Snake Island sits about 45 kilometers off the Romanian coast and roughly 140 kilometers from Odessa.
00:22:18It's barely a speck.
00:22:20It is also, on a map, an extremely attractive piece of real estate.
00:22:24Radar coverage, room for air defenses, and a commanding view of the northwestern Black Sea.
00:22:29After the Moskva went down, Russia leaned into it as a forward operating base,
00:22:35precisely because it sat so close to Ukraine.
00:22:38What Moscow appears to have missed is that proximity is not a one-way street.
00:22:42Once Ukraine received French Caesar self-propelled artillery,
00:22:46the island came into range of a weapon that could hit it repeatedly and cheaply.
00:22:50As one analyst framed it in that same documentary,
00:22:54what the Caesars demonstrated was the sheer advantage of being close.
00:22:57It gave Ukraine a great many different ways to cut the island off.
00:23:01Landing ships attempting resupply was sunk.
00:23:04The garrison could not be sustained.
00:23:05And after 126 days of occupation, Russia withdrew.
00:23:10The consequences went well beyond one rock.
00:23:13The Black Sea Fleet pulled back towards Sevastopol,
00:23:15and its entire concept of operations changed.
00:23:18It stopped trying to exert sea control.
00:23:21It became, in effect, a floating missile battery,
00:23:24existing mainly to support the long-range strike campaign against Ukrainian cities.
00:23:29That's a strategic defeat,
00:23:30and it happened before Ukraine had launched a single naval drone.
00:23:34The drones arrived in October 2022, about eight months into the full-scale war.
00:23:40The first publicly reported Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessel attack
00:23:44pushed past Russian defenses and reached deep into Sevastopol harbor.
00:23:48It didn't sink the fleet.
00:23:49What it did was prove that the harbor was not a sanctuary,
00:23:52and that established the pattern everything after it would follow.
00:23:56The vessels themselves were, at the start, almost insultingly simple.
00:24:00Small, explosive-laden craft with cameras bolted on.
00:24:04Basic enough, in the Atlantic Council's description,
00:24:07that they could be assembled in garages rather than shipyards.
00:24:09There was no secret propulsion breakthrough, and no artificial intelligence doing the fighting.
00:24:15The actual enabler was communication.
00:24:18Resilient two-way satellite connectivity, including commercial networks like Starlink,
00:24:23which let a human operator sitting safely on land steer, navigate, and aim the boat through the entire mission.
00:24:29Ukraine has since experimented with automation, particularly in the terminal attack phase where jamming is heaviest.
00:24:35But the foundation, the thing that made these boats work when nothing else did,
00:24:39was a reliable data link and a person on the other end of it.
00:24:43That matters, because the popular image of this campaign is swarms of autonomous killer robots making their own decisions.
00:24:49That's not what happened.
00:24:50What happened is scalable, semi-autonomous precision coordinated by people.
00:24:55It's a far less cinematic idea, and a far more transferable one,
00:24:59because it means any country with satellite links and a few good engineers can do a version of this.
00:25:04And geography turned that data link into a strategic weapon.
00:25:08The Black Sea is small.
00:25:10Odessa to Sevastopol takes less than 12 hours at 15 knots,
00:25:14and closer to 4 for a fast drone boat running at nearly 50.
00:25:17Suddenly, the 162 nautical mile ceiling was gone.
00:25:21Ukraine could reach across the entire basin.
00:25:23What followed was the Magura, with the most notable model being the Magura V5.
00:25:29It's about 18 feet long, with a carbon fiber hull that's roughly a foot and a half above the waterline,
00:25:34which makes it very hard to see on radar and hard to pick out thermally.
00:25:38It can achieve a max speed of over 40 knots, with some reports claiming over 50.
00:25:43Estimates have placed its cost at roughly $250,000,
00:25:47unlike traditional long-range machinery, which ups the cost into the millions.
00:25:51Then came the kills.
00:25:52In May 2023, three Maguras attacked and damaged the intelligence collection ship Ivan Kors hundreds of miles from Ukraine.
00:26:00In November of that year, they struck Chornomosk Harbor, damaging landing ships.
00:26:05On the night of January 31, February 1, 2024, they sank the missile corvette Ivanovets.
00:26:12In February, they sank the Rapucha-class landing ship Cesar Kunikov.
00:26:15In March, the target was the patrol ship Sergei Kotov.
00:26:19There is one tactical detail in the footage worth pausing on, because it tells you how fast this was evolving.
00:26:25Ukrainian operators developed a maneuver called Chasing Splashes, where they would steer the boat toward the point where the last
00:26:31shell landed,
00:26:32in order to break the gunner's ability to correct his aim.
00:26:35The technique was quickly proliferated throughout Magura operators and beyond, showcasing just how important new technologies and ways of using
00:26:43them were.
00:26:44Within roughly a year of becoming public, Magura V-5s had reportedly destroyed eight Russian warships and damaged six more,
00:26:51causing over $500 million in damage.
00:26:53But before we get into what happened next, make sure to hit the subscribe button.
00:26:58It genuinely helps the channel, and we've got a lot more coming on on how this war is rewriting the
00:27:03rulebook.
00:27:04Now, if the story ended with drone boats sinking ships, it would be a good story, but not a historic
00:27:10one.
00:27:10What makes this a genuine change in naval warfare is what Ukraine did to the platform afterwards.
00:27:15Part one is the missile truck. Ukrainian engineers turned the drone from a contact detonation weapon into a launcher.
00:27:23A small, low-profile boat can no longer be dismissed as a close-in threat,
00:27:27because it might be a mobile missile battery appearing from a direction nobody was watching.
00:27:33Part two is air defense, which is the audacious one.
00:27:36The single greatest vulnerability of a small surface vessel is attack from the air.
00:27:41Helicopters in particular had been shredding Ukrainian drone boats,
00:27:44so Ukraine bolted anti-aircraft missiles onto them.
00:27:48In December 2024, Magura V-5s armed with heat-seeking missiles shot down two Russian Mi-8 helicopters
00:27:55and damaged a third off the coast of Crimea.
00:27:58Ukraine described the incident as the first known case of a naval drone shooting down an aircraft.
00:28:04Then in May 2025, according to the US Naval Institute,
00:28:08two Russian Su-30 fighter jets were shot down over the Black Sea by AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles,
00:28:14fired from Magura-7 drones.
00:28:16Ukraine and Ukrainian sources describe the attack as the first known destruction of a crude fighter by a missile,
00:28:23launched from an uncrewed surface vessel.
00:28:25Think about what that does to the risk calculus of every Russian sortie over that water.
00:28:30The cheap thing shoots back at the expensive thing now.
00:28:34Part three is the miniature aircraft carrier.
00:28:36This includes Sea Baby drone boats operated by Ukraine's security service,
00:28:41which have been observed carrying six to eight first-person view or FPV attack drones inside compartments
00:28:47that open during an attack alongside thermobaric rockets.
00:28:51Those reports even come originally from Russian military bloggers describing operations roughly 40 miles east of Odessa,
00:28:58so they aren't purely Ukrainian sources.
00:29:00And the concept behind them works.
00:29:02Some of those FPVs are guided by fiber optic cable,
00:29:06which makes them immune to the radio jamming that kills ordinary drones.
00:29:10A boat that carries unjammable drones to win striking range of a coastline
00:29:14is a fundamentally different problem than a boat with a warhead in the bow.
00:29:18Then comes part four, underwater.
00:29:20In December 2025, Ukraine's security service reported that a subsea baby underwater drone
00:29:27struck a submarine at its pier in Novorossiysk.
00:29:30Russia denied any damage, but satellite imagery taken the next day showed a nine-meter crater in the pier.
00:29:36The submarine, sitting visibly lower in the water, and the vessel, later identified as the B-271 Kolpino,
00:29:44wasn't moved more than a month later, indicating that there was some damage after all.
00:29:48This was reportedly the first time an unmanned underwater vehicle has hit a submarine in port.
00:29:54Part five is the interception.
00:29:56In April 2026, Ukraine reported that a drone unit had destroyed a Russian Shahid
00:30:01with an interceptor drone launched from an uncrewed surface vessel.
00:30:05Drone against drone fired from a robot boat in the middle of the sea.
00:30:09Which brings us back to where we started, with part six and the MV-11 from the Independence Day parade.
00:30:16This is the logistics tale that lets all of the above operate far from home.
00:30:21So what did it actually cost Russia?
00:30:23The headline numbers vary depending on who's counting and what they're counting,
00:30:27but most sources suggest the overall erosion of the Black Sea Fleet at around 30-40% in 2025,
00:30:34attributing it to a combination of drone boat strikes, deep strikes and other pressure.
00:30:39A Carnegie Endowment study published this year is more precise,
00:30:43and in some ways more damning, even if the authors are Ukrainian.
00:30:47It found the Russian fleet's capacity for long-range missile strikes had fallen by about a quarter.
00:30:52Its anti-ship missile capability had dropped by nearly 40%,
00:30:56and its amphibious assault potential, the capability that made the threat to Odessa credible in the first place,
00:31:02had been gutted, with seven of twelve landing ships destroyed, disabled or tied up in extended repair.
00:31:08Other reports also claim that Ukrainian naval drones have sunk or damaged roughly a dozen Russian warships since 2022,
00:31:15and forced the Black Sea Fleet to move its main operations back to Novorossiysk.
00:31:20Sevastopol, a Russian naval home port since the 18th century, became a place to keep your fleet at your own
00:31:26risk.
00:31:27And here's the multiplier that makes those losses so much worse than they look.
00:31:31Under the Montreux Convention, Turkey controls the straits, and they've been closed to warships since the invasion began.
00:31:38Russia cannot sail replacements in.
00:31:40Every ship lost in the Black Sea is lost permanently for the duration.
00:31:44There is no theatre on Earth where attrition bites harder.
00:31:47Now, weigh that against what it cost Ukraine.
00:31:50Each of these boats cost a few hundred thousand dollars.
00:31:53That's less than the price of a single modern torpedo,
00:31:55and the arithmetic holds even when the drones fail.
00:31:58One analyst in that documentary put it about as plainly as it can be put.
00:32:03If you can miss ten times and hit something disproportionately valuable on the 11th,
00:32:07and the thing you're spending is cheap enough, you're still effective, even while being inefficient.
00:32:12That sentence is the most important idea in modern warfare, and it's worth sitting with.
00:32:17For four centuries, naval power rested on capital ships whose loss carried enormous political and military weight.
00:32:23That logic assumed the thing attacking them was also expensive.
00:32:27Once it's not, the whole structure of deterrent starts to wobble.
00:32:30A $300,000 boat can disable a vessel worth hundreds of millions, or simply force it to move somewhere else
00:32:37and stay there.
00:32:38And even when the defender wins the engagement, he loses the exchange.
00:32:42Every intercept burns flight hours, air defense munitions, and maintenance capacity that cost more than the thing being shot down.
00:32:49The US Navy learned the same lesson in the Red Sea, where it expended 220 standard missiles against Houthi drones,
00:32:56costing a few thousand dollars each.
00:32:58Replacing those interceptors was estimated at more than $500 million, but at the Navy's own procurement rate, it would take
00:33:04roughly two years to do it.
00:33:06So why did this work here, and what does that tell us about whether it works anywhere else?
00:33:11Analytically, the Black Sea handed Ukraine a very particular set of laboratory conditions.
00:33:16For one, it's almost entirely enclosed.
00:33:18The only way in or out runs through narrow passages controlled by a single country, and those passages have been
00:33:24shot to warships throughout the war.
00:33:26Reinforcement is impossible, and so is escape.
00:33:29Secondly, the sea itself is small.
00:33:32In maritime terms, the Black Sea is only about 20% larger than Germany.
00:33:36There is very little room to hide a fleet, and a great deal of opportunity to strike sea targets from
00:33:41the shore.
00:33:42You can genuinely influence what happens on one coast from the other.
00:33:46Third, the opponent was already committed.
00:33:48Russia's fleet was in that basin, couldn't leave, and had adopted a posture that made it a stationary target.
00:33:54Ukraine didn't have to find the Black Sea fleet, it knew exactly where it was.
00:33:58But here's where it gets interesting, because some of the lessons from Ukraine are applicable worldwide.
00:34:04Let's start with the United States.
00:34:06In June 2026, American Special Forces sank a target ship using a Ukrainian Magura at the Balikatan exercise off the
00:34:14Philippines.
00:34:15That was the first use of the technology in the Indo-Pacific, and it happened in a joint exercise with
00:34:20US operators at the controls.
00:34:22In July, U-4 signed a memorandum of understanding with an American boatbuilder to manufacture Magura vessels in Oregon and
00:34:30South Carolina.
00:34:31The stated volume is potentially hundreds of boats a year, and eventually thousands for the US market.
00:34:36Bear in mind that Ukraine banned weapons exports outright in 2022 to keep everything at the front, and only started
00:34:43opening that door in 2025.
00:34:45Meanwhile, the US Navy is restructuring around the concept.
00:34:50At the Sea Airspace Symposium in April 2026, the commander of Surface Development Group One said that by 2030, the
00:34:58service expects more than 13 medium unmanned surface vessels in the Indo-Pacific alone, alongside thousands of smaller uncrewed boats,
00:35:05with the planning data running out to 2045.
00:35:08And a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies urged the Pentagon to copy not just Kyiv's hardware,
00:35:15but its acquisition methods, on the argument that unlike theoretical models and peacetime pilot programs, Ukraine's approach has actually been
00:35:23tested in combat.
00:35:24Then there's NATO.
00:35:26In September 2025, Ukraine's navy ran the alliance's red team for the first time in joint exercises in Portugal.
00:35:33It beat NATO's Blue Force in all five scenarios.
00:35:36That result is being taken extremely seriously in the Baltic, where the problem is inverted.
00:35:41Russia reaches the Baltic from St. Petersburg and from Kaliningrad, and a country like Denmark would be playing the role
00:35:47Russia played in the Black Sea.
00:35:49The stronger navy, trying to stop exactly these tactics from being used against it.
00:35:53That's because Russia has been learning too, and in a Baltic confrontation, it would be the weaker naval power.
00:35:59Nobody would be surprised to see Russian drone boats making the Danish straits a risky place for Allied shipping to
00:36:05pass through.
00:36:06And then Taiwan, where the straits separating the coastlines is only about 100 kilometers.
00:36:11Taipei is building its own fleet of sea drones, hoping to buy time in the event of an invasion attempt.
00:36:17In American planning circles, there is a concept sometimes called the hellscape.
00:36:21A combination of uncrewed surface vessels, aerial drones and mines intended to slow a Chinese fleet's crossing long enough for
00:36:29help to arrive.
00:36:30That idea didn't come from a think tank whiteboard, it came from the Black Sea.
00:36:34Which is exactly why there are some caveats to this story.
00:36:38The first and biggest caveat is that this situation is not sea control, as Ukraine didn't take and occupy the
00:36:44Black Sea fully.
00:36:45What we're seeing in 2026 is mutual sea denial, a situation in which neither side can operate freely.
00:36:51Case in point, Russia retains limited freedom in the eastern Black Sea, and uses its own drones to strike Ukrainian
00:36:58ports and vessels.
00:36:59A Ukrainian signals intelligence ship was destroyed within sight of the Romanian border.
00:37:04Crimea remains occupied, and Ukraine can't really project power out onto that water any more than Russia can project it
00:37:11in.
00:37:11The second is that while the drones work, air power still rules over it.
00:37:16From the middle of 2024, Russian helicopters and tactical aircraft significantly reduced the survivability of Ukrainian drone boats,
00:37:24which is why Ukraine had to start bolting missiles onto them.
00:37:27Sea drones perform best in air-contested environments.
00:37:30Against an opponent who genuinely owns the sky above the water, the picture looks very different,
00:37:35and that should give anyone drawing straight lines from the Black Sea to the Taiwan Straits some pause.
00:37:40The third caveat is that electronic warfare is still effective, and both sides have made strides in using it more
00:37:46offensively.
00:37:47Russian jamming has been assessed as rendering somewhere between 60 and 70% of Ukrainian aerial drones ineffective.
00:37:54Every jammed drone means committing two or three more to do the same job.
00:37:58The cost exchange logic that makes this whole approach work is not fixed, it moves, and the enemy gets a
00:38:03vote.
00:38:04And the fourth caveat is that the Black Sea shouldn't be taken as a blueprint.
00:38:08It was a very specific sequence of circumstances, shaped as much by Russian miscalculation and Turkish control of the straits
00:38:15as by Ukrainian ingenuity.
00:38:17Every other military studying it will have to run its own experiments to find out what actually transfers to their
00:38:23own waters.
00:38:24But something did change, permanently, and it's not really about boats.
00:38:28For as long as there have been navies, the ability to deny an enemy the use of the sea belonged
00:38:32to whoever had the bigger fleet.
00:38:34That's no longer true.
00:38:36For years, Russia has worked to create a puppet empire spanning from the Caucasus to the Middle East.
00:38:43Influence has been Putin's most important tool, but that influence is waning, and the puppet empire is on the verge
00:38:50of collapse.
00:38:51Russia has been found out.
00:38:53The fragile spiderweb of alliances Putin spent so long trying to build and manipulate is tearing apart at the seams.
00:39:00And no matter where you look, we see evidence of nations pulling away from Russia.
00:39:05We start with Armenia.
00:39:07Russia has had problems with Armenia for a while.
00:39:10Most of them centered on the country's Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan.
00:39:14Recently re-elected to his post, Pashinyan has long set out his stance as a Russo skeptic, and as a
00:39:20man who wants to develop deeper ties with the collective West, and especially the European Union.
00:39:26Moscow hates Pashinyan for these actions.
00:39:29It's going to hate him even more after what he just did.
00:39:32Before we explain why, everything you see here is researched, verified, and produced by real people.
00:39:37If you value that, subscribe, comment below, and consider becoming a member for access to exclusive content.
00:39:44In an August 27th news conference, Armenia's Prime Minister declared that Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner
00:39:52of his country.
00:39:53Moscow has failed to meet its treaty obligations, Pashinyan raged, and that failure includes Russia refusing to come to Armenia's
00:40:01assistance during the Second Karabakh War.
00:40:03That in action in 2022 has set the stage for the collapse in the relationship between Russia and Armenia in
00:40:102026.
00:40:11What we're seeing here is the downgrading of the relationship between Armenia and Russia.
00:40:16And to further twist the screw, Pashinyan has also outlined his plans to apply for Armenian membership to the EU.
00:40:22Those membership efforts are going to be stepped up, Pashinyan claims, stating,
00:40:26This process of applying for EU membership also requires a great deal of work and we will probably soon start
00:40:33this process especially to hear the appeals for our EEU partners.
00:40:36A referendum will likely be held but only after the application has been made official.
00:40:41Russia won't be happy about that.
00:40:43It wants Armenia to hold a referendum before the application is lodged because Russia would then have a better chance
00:40:48to manipulate the results through misinformation and voter coercion.
00:40:52Moscow is furious.
00:40:54Several of Putin's talking heads have already come out to lambast Pashinyan for his statements.
00:40:59Chief among them is Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who whined that Pashinyan's plans for the relationship downgrade reveals
00:41:07fundamental contradictions.
00:41:09This tactic by the Armenian authorities appears frankly inappropriate.
00:41:13Armenia intends to gain the benefits of EU membership without sacrificing its privileges within the EAEU, Zakharova said, as she
00:41:20tried to use Armenia's membership in the Eurasian Economic Union as leverage.
00:41:25Armenia is one of five member states of the EAEU, which is intended to serve as a common market, much
00:41:30like the EU, though focused on former Soviet states.
00:41:33Realistically, it's an organization through which Russia tries to control what it views as puppet regimes.
00:41:38Holding the EAEU over Armenia's head likely isn't going to work, as Armenia and Pashinyan have seen how Russia tries
00:41:45to use the group to get its own way.
00:41:46Between January and May, Armenia's turnover from trade with Russia declined by 21%, the $2.2 billion compared to the
00:41:54same period in 2025.
00:41:56That was part of a Russian plan to put pressure on Armenia to vote the way it wanted, which would
00:42:01mean booting Pashinyan out of office.
00:42:03It didn't work.
00:42:05Rather, the plan just showed Armenia that Russia will try to use the EAEU to strong arm it when the
00:42:10Kremlin doesn't get its way.
00:42:12And Russia is still doing it. Russia has already gone against the entire spirit of the supposed free trade entity
00:42:18by imposing bans on Armenian goods.
00:42:21What use is EAEU membership if the group doesn't function as intended?
00:42:25That's the question that Armenia will be asking, meaning Zakharova's threats are likely not being taken too seriously.
00:42:31Perhaps knowing that, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also weighed in on Armenia's decision to downgrade its relationship with
00:42:38Russia.
00:42:39In my opinion, this doesn't speak to a great deal of trust in Armenian voters or the Armenian people, Lavrov
00:42:45said on August 28th, when discussing Pashinyan's decision to delay an EU referendum until an application has been lodged.
00:42:52Lavrov claimed that Armenia has developed due to the EAEU, noting that higher trade turnover.
00:42:58But that turnover means nothing when Russia can take it away whenever Armenia does something that the Kremlin doesn't like.
00:43:04Armenia's decision is a bad sign for Russia.
00:43:06It shows that the Kremlin's influence has all but collapsed in the country, leaving Armenia, more likely than ever before,
00:43:13to head into the arms of the collective West.
00:43:15But this is just the latest issue Russia has faced as it tries to maintain its grip on its proxy
00:43:21empire.
00:43:21No matter where you look, Russian allies are either falling or making the conscious decision to distance themselves as far
00:43:28away from the Kremlin as possible.
00:43:30Armenia is in Russia's backyard, and that's where the collapse of the Russian proxy empire is most damaging to the
00:43:36Kremlin.
00:43:36But before we head there, we first travel to the Middle East.
00:43:39On December 8th, 2024, Bashar al-Assad lost power in Syria.
00:43:45The collapse of the Assad regime ended 50 years of dictatorial rule.
00:43:49For millions of Syrians, this was a cause for celebration.
00:43:53But for one man in the Kremlin, Assad's fall was the worst thing that could have happened for his attempt
00:43:58to build a Middle East power base.
00:44:00Putin had spent decades and billions of dollars building up bases in Syria, from which Russia was able to project
00:44:06power into the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean region.
00:44:09In the space of a few weeks, what was once a rock-solid foundation of influence crumbled from beneath Russia.
00:44:16Syria transformed from a strategic asset into a potential liability,
00:44:20and Putin's attention immediately turned toward trying to salvage Russia's interests in two key locations,
00:44:26the Tatar's naval base and the Khomeini mayor base.
00:44:30Russia has spent the last couple of years trying to maintain the exclusive rights to use these two bases.
00:44:35At least then, Syria wouldn't be a lost cause for Russia's influence campaign.
00:44:40However, August 2026 has seen Syria's new government declare that Russia no longer has exclusive control over these bases, reports
00:44:48the Times.
00:44:49In Armenia, we're seeing the democratic process ruin Russia's attempts to maintain its proxy empire.
00:44:55In Syria, an uprising upended the Kremlin's plans, leaving its Middle East power base in ruins.
00:45:00The fall of the Assad regime was especially painful for Russia.
00:45:04The relationship between Russia and Syria has been carefully cultivated since the Soviet era, starting in 1953, when the Soviet
00:45:12Union began seeking ties with nationalist Arab regimes.
00:45:17Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, was more than happy to accept help from a foreign superpower, and he was just
00:45:23as happy to grant that superpower access to its main military foothold in the Middle East.
00:45:28Since 1971, Russia has held exclusive control over the naval and air bases we mentioned.
00:45:33Those bases helped to sustain the operations of Russia's Afrika Korps.
00:45:38Russia even helped the younger Assad survive during the 2015 civil war in Syria.
00:45:43But the rebel uprising in 2024 came too fast and too strong for Russia to respond, especially after two years
00:45:49of brutal war in Ukraine.
00:45:51Bashar al-Assad fell, and with him fell another nation in Russia's global proxy empire.
00:45:57The fall of Assad was perhaps the first indicator that Russia is losing its grip on its proxy empire.
00:46:03So long propped up by promises of security, that empire is in decline, as other puppets either fall by the
00:46:09wayside or actively turn their backs on Putin.
00:46:13We'll explain more in a moment.
00:46:14First, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.
00:46:18If you're getting insight from our channel, don't forget to subscribe and enable notifications so you never miss a video.
00:46:24If 2024 set the stage, 2026 has been the most damaging year yet for Putin and his ambition to create
00:46:31his own version of the Soviet Union.
00:46:33The year has seen several of Russia's favorite puppets disappear.
00:46:37Most recently, it was former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's turn.
00:46:41In April, Orban's 16-year stint as the leader of Hungary came to an end,
00:46:46as the country voted to elect a new prime minister who wouldn't be so beholden to Russia as Orban had
00:46:52been.
00:46:52The loss of Orban was a body blow to Russia in more ways than one.
00:46:56Orban was living proof that sovereign, illiberal democracy is possible, popular and even sustainable in some parts of the European
00:47:03Union,
00:47:04the Centre for European Policy Analysis points out.
00:47:07Losing him was a blow against that ideology, which, in turn, was a shot against Russia.
00:47:12But worse for the Kremlin was what Orban represented when it came to Hungary's dealings with the EU.
00:47:18Orban was the veto master, often ensuring that he, and often he alone, stood in the way whenever the EU
00:47:25wanted to take an action that would damage Russia's campaign in Ukraine.
00:47:28Putin would jump, and Orban would leap to Russia's defence, as we saw toward the end of 2025 and into
00:47:3426.
00:47:36Hungary under Orban tried to get in the way of the $102 billion loan that the EU intended to give
00:47:41to Ukraine, backed by frozen Russian assets used as security.
00:47:45Orban is now gone, and Hungary has approved the loan.
00:47:48That, in a nutshell, demonstrates the importance of Orban to Putin and his attempts to influence EU policy.
00:47:55Russia tried to play off the loss of Orban as no big deal.
00:47:58Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov even tried to claim that Russia and Hungary were never friends,
00:48:04as he also tried to ensnare Hungary's new Prime Minister in the Kremlin's tendrils.
00:48:09In this instance, there is mutual willingness on our part, and we will then proceed to take our cue from
00:48:14the specific steps taken by the new Hungarian government.
00:48:18Peskov said of the relationship Russia hoped to strike with Peter Magyar upon his election.
00:48:23Not long after, Magyar made sure Hungary got out of the way of the EU loan.
00:48:27Another puppet went down.
00:48:29Russia followed up its loss of influence in the Middle East with the loss of a proxy in Hungary.
00:48:33And the great irony is that none of this would have happened if Putin weren't so obsessed with Ukraine.
00:48:38It's that obsession that has caused Putin to direct almost all of Russia's military focus on one nation,
00:48:45rather than spreading it across every country that it tried to control.
00:48:48Armenia has backed away due to Russia's failure to meet its treaty obligations, which included security.
00:48:54Assad fell due to Putin not being capable of focusing on Syria.
00:48:58And Orban is gone in part because Hungarians were sick of their leader cosying up to an authoritarian
00:49:04trying to rampage through a country that is on their doorstep.
00:49:07And still Russia's power declines.
00:49:09Russia has been having an awful geopolitical 2026, even before it lost Orban.
00:49:15At the very beginning of the year, the US ousted Venezuela's strongman authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro
00:49:20in a bold raid that saw Maduro arrested and taken into the US.
00:49:25Russia lost another leader it wanted to manipulate.
00:49:27And that also meant it lost a potential power base in Latin America.
00:49:31Again, the Kremlin complained, calling America's actions an act of banditry.
00:49:36But what the Kremlin really meant was that Russia had been trying to control Maduro by providing him with air
00:49:41defense systems
00:49:41and attempting to build an economic partnership with Venezuela under Maduro.
00:49:45You could argue that this relationship was still in the very early stages, as the nest center points out.
00:49:51The air defenses Russia sent to Venezuela were likely old, faulty, and as proven by the US, incapable of stopping
00:49:58Western power.
00:49:59Trade between the two nations only amounted to $200 million in 2024.
00:50:03But symbolically, this was another blow to Moscow.
00:50:07Maduro was an ally, albeit not a powerful one.
00:50:09He could have represented a route for Russia into Latin America.
00:50:13But he, like so many others since the start of the Ukraine invasion, is gone.
00:50:17Also gone is Iran's former supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
00:50:21He was blown to pieces by a bunker-busting bomb on the first day of Operation Epic Fury.
00:50:26And though he has been replaced by his son, the loss of Khamenei represents another dent in Russia's attempts to
00:50:32build a global proxy empire.
00:50:34Now, this particular power collapse is in progress rather than completed.
00:50:38The younger Khamenei is still an ally to Russia, and we won't see the true impact of the loss of
00:50:43Ali Khamenei until the conflict between Iran and the US is over.
00:50:46Still, the Kremlin could do without the turmoil of forced leadership shakeups in Iran, especially as Russia relies on Iran
00:50:52to provide it with weapons to use against Ukraine.
00:50:55The Shahid-type drones we now see flying into Ukraine almost daily were created by Iran.
00:51:00Now, the level of support that Iran can offer has been weakened due to repeated airstrikes by the US and
00:51:06Israel.
00:51:07All over the world, we're seeing the collapse of Russian influence.
00:51:10But now we come back to Armenia and the nearby nations.
00:51:14Armenia is in Russia's backyard, and it's there where we're starting to see the Kremlin power base crumbling, the point
00:51:20where it's hard to see how Russia can recover.
00:51:21The relationship between Russia and Kazakhstan is fracturing to the point where Kazakhstan's president, Kasim Jomart Tokayev, has sat across
00:51:30from Putin and flat-out told him to end the war he started in Ukraine.
00:51:34The conflict should be frozen, the Kazakh president said, adding that the reasons for Putin's war are not understandable.
00:51:42Putin, sitting ashen-faced as he was dressed down by an ally, could only sputter that he would explain the
00:51:48details of the war to Tokayev later.
00:51:50All of this happened on live television.
00:51:53It also happened in the wake of a record-breaking strike against the Omsk oil refinery in Siberia, showing us
00:51:59that Russia's Central Asian allies are now getting very wary about what Putin's war could mean for their security.
00:52:05Returning to the South Caucasus, we're also seeing that Armenia's neighbour and long-time enemy, Azerbaijan, isn't happy with Russia.
00:52:13Bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have been in trouble ever since December 2024, when Russian air defences shot down
00:52:20an Azerbaijani civilian jetliner.
00:52:22That incident happened on Christmas Day, and it resulted in the deaths of 38 of the 67 people on board
00:52:29the flight.
00:52:30Azerbaijan responded to this by shutting down the Baku offices of the Russo-Trudnich-Yestvo agency, which Russia uses to
00:52:38exert its soft power inside Azerbaijan through humanitarian work.
00:52:42This particular rift seemed to be on the mend in 2026 until August 27, when Azerbaijan complained about what it
00:52:50saw as a Russian provocation outside the Azerbaijani embassy in Moscow.
00:52:54Azerbaijan also accused Russian media sources of waging a dirty and biased campaign against the country.
00:53:01Armenia and Azerbaijan are now holding peace talks after years of conflict, which Russia has been more than happy to
00:53:06fuel.
00:53:06If those two nations can come to an understanding, Putin's tactic of divide and conquer fails, and yet more of
00:53:13the proxy empire collapses.
00:53:14Even in Serbia, we're seeing signs of another traditional ally of Moscow turning its back on Putin.
00:53:20Back in August, Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic welcomed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to Serbia.
00:53:26But I just hope, without any real facts behind these hopes, that this will end tomorrow, Serbia's President said, marking
00:53:33yet another supposed ally of Russia, calling for an end to Putin's madness.
00:53:37About a month later, Ukraine welcomed Vucic for a state visit, and according to Euronews, Serbia is seeking membership of
00:53:44the EU, just like Armenia.
00:53:45Over and over, we see the same thing, allies distancing themselves from Russia and decrying Putin for his actions.
00:53:52The sole bright spot that Russia has as it watches its proxy empire crumble, comes from the former Georgian territories
00:53:58of Abkhazia and South Asia.
00:54:00Both have declared independence from Georgia, and Russia has supported those calls and essentially recognizes them as sovereign entities.
00:54:07Finally, something is going right for Putin.
00:54:09He has two relatively new territories he can manipulate into the Kremlin fold.
00:54:14Only, that isn't going quite how Putin envisioned either.
00:54:17Russia wants deeper integration with these two territories, to the point where it's given one of the Kremlin's most senior
00:54:23officials, Sergey Kiryenko, the job of overseeing Russia's interests in Abkhazia and South Asia.
00:54:30Kiryenko has met with new leaders, and he wants to ensure that Russia can both maintain military bases in these
00:54:35two territories, in return for Moscow continuing to finance them.
00:54:39However, opinions within Abkhazia and South Asia remain very mixed.
00:54:43Protests have happened in the former, in response to the Kremlin attempting to push through legislation.
00:54:48Those protests have even been strong enough to bring down local governments, reports Georgian Abkhaz Context.
00:54:54South Asia is a little different, being a much smaller territory, and much more dependent on Russia.
00:54:59But the same outlet points out that South Asia is often wracked by corruption scandals, often linked to Russia's financial
00:55:05assistance.
00:55:06There is no smooth sailing going on here.
00:55:09And if George Machedlishvili, who is an associate professor at the European University in Tbilisi is to be believed,
00:55:14it's just as likely that these two territories will reintegrate into Georgia, as they are to fully fall under Russia's
00:55:20sway.
00:55:20He points to the wise plays made by the Georgian government, as it welcomes people from their territories and even
00:55:26provides them with free medical treatment.
00:55:28Some of them come to Georgia and are surprised that no one is going to kill them.
00:55:31No one is going to persecute them, Machedlishvili says.
00:55:35That's the sort of approach that will soon lead to residents of Abkhazia and South Asia asking questions.
00:55:40Chief among them being, is it worth it to be independent when Russia is trying to turn you into a
00:55:44proxy, and Georgia is so willing to reintegrate you, if you're willing?
00:55:49Putin is watching all of this with horror. The strategies of control that worked in the past are no longer
00:55:54effective, in large part because Russia has proven itself weaker than anybody thought against Ukraine.
00:55:59The Kremlin can no longer threaten and cajole in the same way that it did before.
00:56:03What has happened in Iran and Venezuela also proves that Russia can't protect its proxies, and those that are under
00:56:09the Kremlin's influence will have taken notice.
00:56:11Russia is getting desperate to keep hold of the crumbling vestiges of its puppet empire.
00:56:16That's why we're seeing Putin escalate, both in Ukraine and in Russia's hybrid campaign against NATO.
00:56:22As it loses more stable allies, Russia is also turning to more dangerous states such as North Korea, to cure
00:56:29its increasing isolation.
00:56:30And though the situations in Iran and Syria don't look great for Russia, Putin is playing the waiting game and
00:56:36hoping that things will work out for him in the end.
00:56:38Still, none of these are the actions of a strong leader.
00:56:41They're the actions of a president who has seen most of his efforts fail as the global spiderweb he created
00:56:46gets ruined.
00:56:47The puppet empire is no more. By trying to build on that empire with victory in Ukraine, Putin has done
00:56:53nothing but set the stage for the empire's collapse.
00:56:57It's big, it's bold, and it's blowing up Russian oil at a remarkable rate.
00:57:04Ukraine's refinery shattering strategy is hardly a revelation at this point.
00:57:09Deep strike drones have been devastating Russian oil for a couple of years now, but this strategy is working better
00:57:16than anybody could have expected.
00:57:18Russia, most of all.
00:57:20More capacity is going down, more problems have arrived for Putin and his cronies.
00:57:25Ukraine is taking everything away from Russia, as it has sapped the country's most valuable resource to the point where
00:57:32close to half of Russia's refining capacity is offline.
00:57:37That's according to Ukraine's general staff, which published an illuminating Facebook post.
00:57:43The Facebook post itself was interesting. A week in review, it showcased a mind-boggling number of Ukrainian strikes against
00:57:51oil refineries, Russian equipment and military facilities, all in Russia and the other occupied territories.
00:57:57But the most important morsel of information was tucked away right in the middle, almost hidden within a single statement.
00:58:03As of 21 September 2026, following the strike on the Moscow oil refinery, more than 45% of Russia's projected
00:58:11oil refining capacity has been put out of operation, Ukraine's general staff said.
00:58:16That figure should be shouted from the rooftops, but for Ukraine, it almost seems like another day at the office.
00:58:23It isn't, though. Russia losing 45% of its oil refining capacity is having massive ramifications, both domestically and in
00:58:32terms of Putin's ability to wage war.
00:58:34But before we dig deeper, everything you see here is researched, verified and produced by real people.
00:58:41If you value that, subscribe, comment below and consider becoming a member for access to exclusive content.
00:58:47This capacity loss is the result of a non-stop barrage of Ukrainian strikes against Russian oil refineries,
00:58:54with many of those refineries being hit several times in quick succession to make repair efforts even slower and costlier.
00:59:02We only need to look at the weekly review of refinery strikes, which the general staff declares is an exercise
00:59:08of Ukraine's inherent right to self-adherence under Article 51 of the UN Charter to see that.
00:59:15The week beginning September 15th has seen Ukraine hit three Russian oil refineries.
00:59:21It started with the Sizran refinery in the Samara region, where Ukraine's drones destroyed an AVT-6 primary crude distillation
00:59:30unit along with a tank farm on September 15th.
00:59:33That refinery has a capacity of 8.5 million tons of crude oil per year.
00:59:38Two days later came a strike against the Slavnev Yanos refinery in Yaroslavl, which saw Ukraine destroy the refinery's AVT
00:59:46-3 distillation unit.
00:59:48That's a refinery with a 15 million ton capacity taken offline.
00:59:52On September 20th, Ukraine finished off its week of refinery ruination with the strike against the Moscow refinery that the
00:59:59general staff mentioned.
01:00:01The Gazprom-Nef Moscow oil refinery went up in flames as Ukraine took out an AVT-6 unit, an isomerisation
01:00:08unit and the refinery's integrated crude processing unit.
01:00:12The mentions of specific units and pieces of equipment shows us how well Ukraine's deep strike drones have evolved.
01:00:19In the past, we'd been telling you about fires at refineries with no specifics.
01:00:24Now, Ukraine's drones are insanely accurate.
01:00:27Ukraine is targeting specific units and equipment in Russia's refineries that it knows are hard to repair and even harder
01:00:34to replace.
01:00:35An entire refinery doesn't have to go up in smoke to take it offline.
01:00:38If just a few pieces of key equipment get destroyed, the whole operation ends up collapsing until Russia can carry
01:00:45out repairs.
01:00:46Heavily sanctioned Russia.
01:00:48Russia which is quickly running out of the components it needs to make those repairs.
01:00:53The Moscow strike was important for other reasons, as it served as a timely reminder to the city's residents that
01:00:59Ukraine can reach the Russian capital with its drones.
01:01:02That reminder came as Muscovites were heading to the polls to cast their votes on the final day of the
01:01:08State Duma elections, making Ukraine's message even more pointed.
01:01:12We mentioned earlier that Ukraine has a tendency to hit regions that host refineries several times in quick succession.
01:01:19Well, you can add Samara to that list.
01:01:22On September 22nd, the news broke that a Ukrainian drone swarm had struck the Samara Oblast once more, triggering a
01:01:30massive fire at the Kuibyshev oil refinery.
01:01:34Astra has already shared a photo of the refinery, which is engulfed in a massive blaze.
01:01:38The same outlet has also geo-located the strike, confirming that it was indeed the refinery that was hit, rather
01:01:45than some vague industrial enterprise, as Samara governor Vyacheslav Fedoryshev tried to put it.
01:01:51This particular refinery has a processing capacity of about 7 million tons of crude oil per year, and it produced
01:01:58about 800,000 tons of gasoline in 2024, the Kyiv Post reports.
01:02:03The second strike in Samara in a week also represents the second strike against this particular refinery, as it was
01:02:10hit back in June, forcing a temporary suspension of its operations.
01:02:14If you're a Russian fuel company right now, you must feel as though Ukraine's strikes are never-ending. That's the
01:02:20point.
01:02:20The second Samara strike makes four attacks in seven days, all of which are part of Ukraine's plan.
01:02:26A relentless bombardment of key facilities that clearly don't have the defenses that they need sends a message to the
01:02:32Kremlin, and it utterly ruins Russia's attempts to profit from its refined oil products, and, as you'll soon learn, also
01:02:39causes some serious domestic issues.
01:02:41The scale of Russia's refinery problem is outlined by the International Energy Agency.
01:02:47It points out that Russia has 32 major oil refineries, which collectively have a capacity of 6.5 million barrels
01:02:55per day.
01:02:56That makes Russia third in the global list of producers of refined oil products, ranking behind only the US and
01:03:03China.
01:03:04Ukraine's approach is to hit as many of Russia's refineries as often as possible, ensuring that Russia can't approach anywhere
01:03:10near its maximum refining capacity.
01:03:142026 has been a banner year for this strategy.
01:03:16In the first eight months of the year, Ukraine carried out a strike against a Russian refinery once every three
01:03:22days on average.
01:03:23We might be seeing Ukraine accelerate this strike rate.
01:03:26Four strikes in seven days means Ukraine is now carrying out a refinery attack once every 1.75 days.
01:03:34Russia's refining has plummeted to 3.8 million barrels per day, though that may sound like a lot.
01:03:40It represents the lowest level of refining for 20 years, and it's about 30% less than Russia's daily output
01:03:47in 2025.
01:03:49Diesel production has dropped by 30%, gasoline production by 20%.
01:03:54And none of the emergency measures that Russia is putting in place are helping because the Kremlin can't solve the
01:03:59biggest problem that it has.
01:04:01There aren't enough air defences to go around.
01:04:04If there were, we wouldn't be seeing Ukraine's drones penetrating Russia's refineries on what is starting to approach a daily
01:04:10basis.
01:04:11A strike every 1.75 days, or even a strike every three days, doesn't happen without the systematic collapse of
01:04:18air defences,
01:04:19combined with Ukraine's drones getting faster, stronger and rangier than they were before.
01:04:25The impact is clear. We see it all over Russia.
01:04:28And thinking that it had gotten over the hump of its 2026 gasoline crisis earlier in the year, Russia has
01:04:34plunged headlong right back into another fuel shortage that is racking the country.
01:04:40Since mid-August, gasoline rationing has been reintroduced at gas stations across Russia, after a July when restrictions were briefly
01:04:48eased.
01:04:49If you're an average Russian citizen, your day now involves trying to track which stations have fuel using apps that
01:04:56may not work because your president keeps ordering internet shutdowns.
01:04:59If you find a gas station, you have to queue, often, for hours just to get to the pump.
01:05:05And once you get there, assuming the pump has fuel, you're paying more than you've ever paid before to keep
01:05:11your vehicle running.
01:05:12At best, you'll be able to get 30 litres of gasoline at a price that is, on average, 21%
01:05:17higher than it was in December 2025.
01:05:19We're in mid-September now, and according to UNN, gasoline has straight up disappeared from up to 53% of
01:05:27Russia's gas stations.
01:05:28What a situation for Russia to be in.
01:05:30One of the world's most oil-rich countries, and the third most productive in terms of refining.
01:05:37Can't produce enough fuel for half its gas stations.
01:05:40And this is just the start of Russia's fuel problems.
01:05:43Before we explain more, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.
01:05:48If this kind of insight into the many problems Ukraine is causing Russia is what you want to see,
01:05:53make sure that you're subscribed to the channel and have notifications enabled so you never miss a video.
01:05:58If Russia is having so many issues trying to keep its domestic fuel supplies up, you can only imagine what
01:06:04this means for its fuel exports.
01:06:06Don't forget, Russia makes billions of dollars a year selling gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products.
01:06:13Along with basic crude oil, these products are a key financial artery pumping cash into Putin's war chest.
01:06:20Naturally, if Russia can't even keep domestic supplies high enough, it absolutely isn't going to be able to sell fuel.
01:06:26Indeed, there are export bans on gasoline and diesel that apply to every retail company in Russia.
01:06:32Back in July, Russia extended these export bans through to January 31st, 2027, on top of banning jet fuel exports
01:06:39until November.
01:06:41Refineries were spared some of these restrictions.
01:06:44A refinery was allowed to export diesel directly, though other retailers couldn't.
01:06:48Refineries could also sell ship fuel and gas oil abroad again, only if they did it directly, but they couldn't
01:06:54sell gasoline.
01:06:55And they couldn't go down their usual route of selling to retailers who then sell their refined oil products on
01:07:01for a profit.
01:07:01That exception didn't last for long.
01:07:04On September 16th, the New Voice of Ukraine reported that there is now a ban on domestic producers exporting diesel,
01:07:11which will run through to the end of October at least.
01:07:14It appears that even Russia's attempts to make exceptions so it can still pull in tax money from diesel sales
01:07:19are falling apart.
01:07:21Ukraine seems to have noticed all of these diesel problems that Russia is having, and it's turning the screw.
01:07:26By September 16th, Ukraine seemed to have started placing a focus on Russian refineries that produce diesel.
01:07:33According to the Kiev Independent, Russia has six major diesel-producing refineries,
01:07:38and three of them have been forced to either slash or outright halt their diesel production as a result of
01:07:43Ukraine's strikes.
01:07:44None of these refineries, which include facilities in Siberia, Permkrai, and Leningrad, are on the list of four strikes Ukraine
01:07:52carried out in the single week that we mentioned.
01:07:54But that isn't a bad thing.
01:07:56It shows us that Ukraine is still taking aim at gasoline-producing refineries.
01:08:01Still, Ukraine clearly sees that Russia has a diesel problem, and it's going to make sure that problem only gets
01:08:06worse as it sends yet more drones into Russian territory.
01:08:10Shortages and export bans mean that the money is drying up for Russia.
01:08:14In truth, we've been seeing that pattern for several years.
01:08:18According to United24 Media, Russia made $133.8 billion in revenue from oil and gas sales in 2024.
01:08:26In 2025, which is when Ukraine's refinery strikes escalated in earnest, the number was down to about $100 billion.
01:08:34That was at a time when Russia's only saving grace has been the impact of Operation Epic Fury on oil
01:08:40prices,
01:08:41which has at least helped it to plug a gap a little in 2026, as it could sell crude oil
01:08:46for more money.
01:08:47But even with that short-term boost, Russia's federal budget deficit is now almost $77 billion,
01:08:53and it's clear that losing out on the ability to export gasoline and diesel is having a marked effect on
01:08:59the country.
01:08:59Do you want to know how bad things really are for Russia as a result of Ukraine's brilliant and bold
01:09:05strategy?
01:09:06Even US President Donald Trump is publicly telling Putin that Russia's oil industry is in shambles.
01:09:12In a September 21 Truth Social post, Trump declared,
01:09:17Russia has unfortunately lost control of its diesel oil industry due to its war with Ukraine.
01:09:22A large number of their diesel refineries have been blown up and are at least temporarily out of commission.
01:09:29He made a call for the war with Ukraine to end, noting that some 25,000 people are killed as
01:09:34a result of the war every month.
01:09:36Putin didn't respond, at least not publicly.
01:09:39But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky saw the message and took to X to agree with Trump.
01:09:45However, Zelensky pointed out that there will be no stopping refinery strikes until Russia stops hitting Ukraine's energy sector.
01:09:52Right now, there is a dialogue with President Trump and America.
01:09:55There are also ideas on the table for bringing peace closer, starting with strong de-escalation steps.
01:10:01Ukraine's energy sector, crucial infrastructure and our food exports must stop being targets for Russia,
01:10:08and this will lead to matching de-escalation steps on our part, Zelensky said.
01:10:13Right there, Putin should see a solution has been put on the table, but he won't accept it.
01:10:18Trump seemed to believe that he had negotiated a halt to energy strikes earlier in September.
01:10:23He claimed on September 14 that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to halt strikes,
01:10:28even going so far as to blame Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries for rising diesel prices.
01:10:34The ceasefire didn't stick. It might not have existed in the first place.
01:10:38According to The Guardian, Trump's next plan may have been to press Zelensky to stop Ukraine's drone strikes
01:10:43when the two leaders met face-to-face at the United Nations this past week,
01:10:47and he'll likely have made the same argument about diesel prices.
01:10:51But none of this matters if Putin isn't going to stop Russia's attacks.
01:10:55As long as Russia hits Ukrainian energy, Ukraine will hit Russian refineries.
01:11:00It's tough to figure out where Trump really stands on all of this, outside of his calls for the war
01:11:05to end.
01:11:06On one hand, he seems to be trying to address Putin directly, encouraging him to stop the war.
01:11:12On the other hand, he seems to be trying to pressure Zelensky into stopping Ukraine's strikes,
01:11:18perhaps under the mistaken belief that a serial liar like Putin will follow suit and declare a ceasefire.
01:11:24If Putin thinks that this means that Trump might be coming down on his side when it comes to Ukraine's
01:11:30refinery campaign,
01:11:31he has another thing coming.
01:11:32Trump just poured water all over that particular bonfire.
01:11:36As he calls for the war to end and the energy strikes to stop,
01:11:41Trump has also signed into law a sanctions bill that was championed by deceased Senator Lindsey Graham.
01:11:47Trump put pen to paper on September 18th after the bill passed through both the House and the Senate.
01:11:53And what this bill means is that Russia may soon find that it's unable to rely on the crude oil
01:11:58sales
01:11:59to plug the revenue gaps left behind by the country's inability to sell fuel products.
01:12:04Under this 48-page bill, sanctions have been placed on Putin,
01:12:08along with several other senior figures in the Russian government, several Russian banks and tankers in the Russian shadow fleet.
01:12:14But the thing that has the potential to hurt Russia the most is that Trump now has the ability to
01:12:19levy tariffs of up to 100%
01:12:21on the top five purchases of Russian oil and gas.
01:12:24In other words, the U.S. can now present Russia's crude oil buyers with a dilemma.
01:12:29They either continue buying Russia's discounted crude and get slapped with tariffs,
01:12:34or they stop buying Russia's oil and get to keep a strong trading relationship with the U.S.
01:12:38For Russia, this means that its two biggest customers, China and India, have become targets for the U.S.
01:12:46Together, those countries have accounted for 87% of all Russian crude exports between December 2022 and August 2026, the
01:12:56BBC reports.
01:12:56The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air shows us that these percentages didn't change in August when examined
01:13:03alone,
01:13:03even as Russia's seaborne crude oil export revenues have fallen by 13%.
01:13:08This is pressure that Putin does not need right now, and it may be paying off.
01:13:14China has so far been defiant about America's bill.
01:13:17Its spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guajai Kun, declared,
01:13:21China systematically opposes extraterritorial jurisdiction, which lacks a basis in international law
01:13:28and does not have the authorization of the United Nations Security Council in the wake of the bill's passing.
01:13:34Still, this condemnation isn't an outright statement that China isn't going to do what the U.S. wants.
01:13:40And at least for China, it gets oil from the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline system, as well as from
01:13:46seaborne sources.
01:13:47So it's able to weigh the benefits of that cheaper oil against the U.S. threats of tariffs.
01:13:53India isn't so lucky.
01:13:55Practically all of the crude oil it buys from Russia arrives via the sea, meaning it has an even tougher
01:14:00choice to make.
01:14:01And though India has also condemned what it sees as American interference,
01:14:05its refiners are already preparing for a future where they can't import Russian oil.
01:14:10That's according to a September 21st report by United24 Media,
01:14:14which points out that deliveries of Russian oil to India in September have already fallen to 1.9 million barrels,
01:14:21which is the lowest level they've been at since April.
01:14:24India's refineries are now actively looking for alternative sources for their November purchases, the outlet adds.
01:14:30As oil price points out, India now has a problem on its hands.
01:14:35It could drastically cut imports of Russian oil down to 15% or less of total imports,
01:14:40which is a condition laid out in Graham's bill.
01:14:43If a nation gets 15% or less of its energy from Russia, it won't face tariffs.
01:14:47If India manages that, it avoids U.S. tariffs, though it will be paying more for its oil from places
01:14:53like Saudi Arabia.
01:14:54Or India could continue buying Russia's oil at high enough volumes to make itself vulnerable to the new American bill,
01:15:01meaning it has to deal with sanctions that impact its trade relationship with the U.S.
01:15:05Ukraine will be watching all of this with glee.
01:15:08Its refinery strategy has focused on Russian fuel,
01:15:11which has led to Russia banning the export of fuel products,
01:15:14thus cutting off a financial artery for the Kremlin war machine.
01:15:18Crude oil sales were propping that machine up.
01:15:21If Russia couldn't sell gasoline and diesel, it could at least sell the crude used to make those products.
01:15:27Now, that may no longer be the case,
01:15:29especially if China and India land on the side of avoiding tariffs by cutting their oil purchases.
01:15:35And all the while, Russia isn't just losing money from sales.
01:15:39It's also being forced to spend money.
01:15:41Between January and August, Russia has imported 866,000 tons of gasoline from Belarus,
01:15:48which is 23 times more than it imported during the same period in 2025.
01:15:54Diesel imports have also increased 5.4 times to 570,000 tons.
01:15:59That amounts to billions spent on a product that Russia can traditionally make for itself,
01:16:04all because of Ukraine's long-range strategy.
01:16:07Putin is feeling the squeeze, and that squeeze may just be tight enough to choke Russia.
01:16:12After all, it's not just the volume of Ukraine's refinery strikes that is the major problem for the Kremlin.
01:16:17It's the range.
01:16:19Earlier in September, Ukraine pulled off a record 2,800-kilometer attack against a Russian refinery in Siberia.
01:16:28More targets are opening up for Ukraine, and you can find out all about it by watching our video.
01:16:32But before you head away, if real, human-made military reporting matters to you, subscribe and tell us what you
01:16:40think below.
01:16:40You can also become a member for exclusive content while directly supporting the work behind this channel.
01:16:46And thank you, as always, for watching.

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