As I wrote this weekend update, more and more it veered to the divergence between European powers, particularly Germany, and the USA when it comes to supporting Ukraine. This week might have brought home more than any other that while the US government will do what needs to be done for Putin, the Europeans are coming to understand two rather different things. The first is that the fate of Ukraine is crucial to their own fate and, second, that Ukraine brings much more to the table than they previously understood. Indeed, more and more some European states are transitioning from seeing Ukraine as a supplicant in need of aid into a new center of gravity for European defense and security.

This is heartening (though still maddeningly incomplete) as it comes at exactly the time with the Ukrainians have stopped lying about having any confidence in the USA. I’ve discussed this phenomenon twice recently, Here and Here, and you might have also seen an article released in The Atlantic Yesterday which actually built on these earlier pieces.

See, being a reader gets you the best analysis before anyone!

Anyway, here is a gift link to the Atlantic article, entitled Ukraine Has Finally Given Up On Trump.

The interesting thing that comes out of this Ukrainian pivot is that they are not doing it out of desperation. Had this been in early 2025, it might have been sign of a crisis and led many to say that Ukraine was doomed. The Ukrainians are making the change now not because they are happy with what is occurring, they definitely are not, but because their position is such that begging the USA seems pointless to them and moreover because they believe that Europeans understand more and more about their importance. As the last paragraph of the article said:

But Ukrainians do not believe that losing American support will inevitably lead to their defeat. They see how they have sustained the war effort, using their own resources and with the help of European partners, even as the U.S. has moved away. Writing the United States off as a friend might once have been a sign of doom for Ukraine. It isn’t anymore.

Beyond this story, a fascinating development this week involved a successful Ukrainian machine-only attack on Russian forces. After that story came out, the Ukrainians talked more about their new units which are deliberately constructed to minimize Ukrainian casualties and let the machines take the risk. That deserves comment.

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Germany Raises The Pot For Ukraine

Often two European countries signing defense production deals does not generate a great deal of coverage. However, on April 14, Germany and Ukraine signed ten different deals or understandings, a development that made some people stand up and take notice. These agreements covered a wide range of issues, but if there was one overriding theme, it was that Germany was not just supporting Ukraine, it was in many ways betting on and aligning with Ukrainian military/technological production.

This document released by the Ukrainians has a point by point description of the key agreements. Their total value was significant, with Defense Minister Fedorov tweeting that they were worth $4.6 billion.

I will not them list all 10 in the text (please do read them yourself), but I will highlight a few that show just how interesting this all is.

First, one of these agreements was to allow Ukraine to help Germany, by providing a new framework for Ukraine to share its world-leading, real-life defense data with the Germans. The Germans will thus get up to date information on what works in combat, what does not, growing trends and growing obsolescence. This will not only help the Germans as they scale up their own production, it will help German producers in making the weapons they are making for Ukraine. In a particularly interesting tidbit, the Ukrainians said in the press-release that one of the key elements in this exchange is to help the Germans and Ukrainians to jointly work to “train and enhance AI models and develop analytical solutions.”

Note: This is exactly the kinds of collaborations that Europeans need to be doing amongst themselves as they try to establish European resilience in manufacturing while freeing themselves from reliance on the USA.

Second, there was specific and concrete plans to jointly develop and produce both long-range and medium range drones/missiles. That was one of the big things that Fedorov was referring to above. And we have some specifics too. There was a specific agreement for the Germans to work with Firepoint, developer of some of the most well known Ukrainian missiles including the FP-5 (Flamingo) and the lesser known but cheaper and maybe more important FP-1 deep strike missile. The Ukrainians, btw, released information on both this week as part of their publicity about their own armament production achievements.

In the annex to the agreement we also know that the systems to be produced include long-range Anubis strike drones and mid-range Seth-X drones. We even have an idea of the scale of production as Fedorov said it was to produce at least 5000 new systems this year.

Note: the agreement also made reference to making some of these systems available for sales to third parties—this is what I mean about Europeans understanding more and more what Ukraine is bringing to the table for the continent. Ukraine is now an asset in winning overseas contracts.

Third, there will be a major investment in the development and production of anti-air systems, most prominently the Iris‑T air defense system made by the German manufacturer Diehl. There will also be a major initiative to buy more Patriot missiles to help Ukraine deal with what seems to be a looming shortage.

Note: this is a little bittersweet. European states should have been working more on their own advanced anti-air systems to be not so reliant on Patriot. They are playing catch up here—but at least they are doing something.

And there was more. There were agreements for investment on Ukrainian defense infrastructure, investment in Ukrainian mineral extraction (a real agreement not the sham one with the USA), even collaboration on social policy.

In other words, these are a pretty broad series of agreements brining Ukrainian and German cooperation up a notch and making it more a two way street than a one way handout. Militarily it means more and better help for Ukraine this year. If this can result in thousands more mid and long range drones/missiles, and more effective ones at that, it will further bolster a growing Ukrainian strength. It will also mean more and better production in the future.

And it also means that Germany is “getting it”. After years of hesitation and timidity, and a reluctance to do anything that might result in tension with the USA, the Germans are moving to stronger and more complete support for Ukraine. Do not underestimate this. As things stand, Germany is arguably the only state that can lead Europe effectively. Britain and France cannot do it for reasons (Britain not in the EU, France not actually ramping up defense) but Germany is both investing, becoming more serious about defense, and is getting increasingly worried about Russia while understanding that the USA is moving towards Putin. Oh, and it remains the largest economy by far in Europe and has the largest population.

Now Germany cannot do it all alone. It was extremely heartening to see that the Norwegians also pledged $1billion towards military production and the British announced that they would deliver at least 120,000 drones to Ukraine in 2026. However Germany has become the key. And the fact that they are betting on Ukraine, both to give Ukraine help but also Ukraine to help Germany, makes this arguably the most important story of the week.

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The USA Boasts, Bluffs And Then Folds

We saw a rather extraordinary few days this week when it came to US support, or lack thereof, for Ukraine and US protection for Putin’s Russia. It showed that while the Ukrainians get what is happening and are speaking the truth, too many Americans are refusing to admit what the country has become.

Let me start with JD Vance. In a meeting with Turning Point USA, a MAGA hardcore group, Vance was asked which Trump administration policies he was proudest of so far. He immediately responded that it was the stopping of aid for Ukraine, which by the way lead to more Ukrainian deaths than would have been the case otherwise. Here was Vance’s exact quote:

“One of the things I’m most proud of as a member of this administration is that we told Europe: if you want to buy weapons, buy them, but the United States is no longer buying and sending weapons to Ukraine. We’re out of that process,”

Now, as Vance intended, that comment caused outrage, with many people rightfully attacking him (which he wanted, because he believes it appeals to MAGA and the tech bros, etc). However, these attacks, while understandable, actually miss the main point. Vance did not make this decision. Trump was the person and really the only person responsible for cutting aid to Ukraine. Vance was undoubtedly supportive, but Trump made it happen and supported it as much if not more than Vance.

Savaging Vance is fine, but if means people lose focus of what the real problem is, Trump actually benefits.

Then the reverse process happened the day later. It started on April 15, when, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, in a press conference stated unequivocally that the sanctions relief given to Russia during the start of the US-Iran war would not be renewed. Cross my heart and hope to die. Here was his exact quote.

“We will not be renewing the general license on Russian oil, and we will not be renewing the general license on Iranian oil. That was oil that was on the water prior to March 11. So all that has been used,”

Needless to say some of the pro-Trump voices who were spreading lies for more than a year about how Trump might help Ukraine piped up and trumpeted the news.

It was brave of them.

For only two days later (not even two weeks) the Trump administration came out and quietly extended the sanctions relief on Putin. So much for the iron clad assurances of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Now, part of this is actually pantomime. Countries such as India had already concluded that regardless of sanctions being reinstated or not, they were going to buy what they wanted from Russian sources. The Indians came out after Bessent’s statement and said that henceforth they would do what was in the best interest of the Indian economy. And China, Russia’s biggest oil consumer, could not care in the least what the US does on this. So even the reintroduction of the weak sanctions would not have made any real difference.

However even then Trump could not bring himself to reinstate the weakest of sanctions. Doing so would not have affected the oil market in any real way and would have allowed him to look tough on Putin. Even then, he could not pull the trigger. Bessent had bluffed, gotten two days of good headlines for the administration and led the usual suspects to bleat, but then Trump as he always does with Russia, folded.

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More On Ukraine Fighting Men With Machines

Early in the week the Ukrainians released some details about how, using only unmanned systems on the air and ground, UAVs and UGVs, they had taken a Russian position and captured some Russian prisoners. I included information including a video of the assault in the free part of this Substack article which came out late Thursday.

Btw, I think this is an important piece—as it shows just how the USA is at sea in its understanding of war and why Ukraine, and the rest of Europe for that matter, need to free themselves from the deeply flawed and harmful US analytical community.

Now some people were skeptical, saying that this might have been a one off assault and we have no idea how common it will become. And when it comes to all machine assaults, they may have a point. However, it is worthy of note this week that the Ukrainians came out an announced that they were organizing new units with a minimum of human soldiers, supported by UAVs and UGVs, to make more such assaults.

The Ukrainians called them “Drone Assault Units”. The Ukrainians were explicit in the announcement that the move was to keep their own casualties down to a minimum while allowing newer technologies to take the risks. And it needs to be understood that these are not old units with lots of unpiloted vehicles bolted onto them. They are completely new units built around the new machines and what they can do—with humans focusing on doing only specific things that machines as of yet cannot do.

There was even a range of the new UGVs discussed. There were some of the logistic carriers and human evacuation ones that I mentioned weeks ago and which Bohdan Zhelobchuk and I discussed. And the Ukrainians released pictures of some of their newest ground assault robots including the ‘Liut,’ which is equipped with a 7.62 mm machine gun.

Other UGVs have grenade launchers or mine laying capabilities.

It is worth thinking about how these technologies are in a very short period of time broadening out and changing the fighting. And it further reinforces the point I made in the substack above. The American advice. given pompously to the Ukrainians, was that it was foolish to wait for such technologies but that they should draft their 18-24 year old males and send them to the front ASAP. It is hard to think of a more stupid and retrograde move.

Thankfully Ukraine rejected the advice, and more and more we see why. They will create these new units long before the US military has the wisdom to do the same. Though it probably will not stop the Americans lecturing the Ukrainians about the state of their war.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone!

The USA is facing a serious crisis in its analytical understanding of war. I thought it could not get any worse than it was in 2022, when practically everyone from the President on through the Pentagon, the IC and the think tank community judged that Ukraine would be conquered swiftly by some awesomely powerful Russian military machine. However, what we are continuing to see from the USG and the analytical community makes it apparent that things are no better and might be worse. Fundamental mistakes are being made continually, as we see in the present war with Iran.

However, maybe the greatest mistake of the last few years (which I will break down in much more detail below) has been in not understanding how the war between Ukraine and Russia was developing. What we have seen repeatedly is a desperation to hold onto past, failed notions of how US policy makers and analysts believed war should be fought. They first kept assuring us that tank-led assaults were the key to military success, even when tanks were getting massacred by their thousands by cheaper systems. Then they assured us that Ukraine really did not need ranged systems, F-16s, etc, etc, all of which, once deployed have turned out to be vital to Ukraine’s war effort.

While these were all bad, maybe the most catastrophic US error, one that had Ukraine listened to it could have led to Ukrainian defeat, was the widespread insistence that to deal with personnel shortages, Ukraine needed to draft its 18-24 year old males in mass and send them to the front. This was a widely spread narrative, from the top of the USG through the think-tank community. Indeed, it was regularly used to cast aspersions on Ukraine’s war strategy and even to try and press Ukraine into ceding more territory.

Well, thankfully Ukraine disagreed. It protected its younger population and instead invested heavily across society in drones, UGVs, and other unmanned systems to try and reduce the number of soldiers on the front and save their population. That effort is now paying massive dividends and the world is sitting up and taking notice. In the last week, the Ukrainians even seized a Russian position using machines alone, and more and more European leaders are talking about the war heading in Ukraine’s favor.

Quite why the US has failed repeatedly to understand war is one of the greatest questions/problems we face. Instinctively I believe that fighting a war is too easy for the US, but that means the US has lost the ability to distinguish between fighting and winning. At the same time, the US with its massive military machine, huge IC and inflated think-tank community, has confused being big with being smart. Actually too much of this groupings thinks it understands war because the US is so strong. This arrogance has led it to being probably the worst community for understanding war in analytical history.

To outline this problem I will talk a little about the Ukrainian machine-led assault, what it means, and then contrast it to what we were hearing, ad nauseum, from US sources over the last two years. The disconnect is jarring, but needs to be faced. If the US does not improve its understanding of war, it will continue to fail in the terrible ways that it has now for decades.

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Ukraine And The War Today

A few days a notable event happened in the course of not just the Russo-Ukraine War but also in modern, machine-defined war. The Ukrainians assaulted and took a Russian position using only machines—both UAVs and UGVs (drones and pilotless land vehicles). Not a single Ukrainian soldier was put in harms way, while the Russians ended up losing humans, some of which were even filmed surrendering to the Ukrainian machines. Here is a screenshot from a video of a surrender incident which you can watch here.

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Well we have reached Midweek Update #6. What is interesting is that, though the US just announced its new blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the markets do not believe it will be around long and a deal will be reached. And much of this comes from Trump signaling, some of which was made just a few hours ago. The real question, however remains the great unknown and that is the state of Iranian government. What is fascinating is that the markets seem to believe that they know what the Iranian government is up to. That is quite a gamble.

Two other stories. There now seems to be a new consensus, being pushed by Vance and Trump, about why the war is being fought. There is now only one strategic goal for the USA. It is an important change, and what is interesting is that it shows how the negotiations between the US and Iran will succeed or fail. Its not whether the US gains anything definite, its more whether a specific case can be made and sold to the public.

Lastly, there is way too much congratulation going on about US and Israeli bombing and its supposed surgical or precise nature. It was considerably more destructive to civilian life than Putin’s attacks on Ukraine last year. This reality is not being acknowledged anywhere, and I think its time it is time that we face it. We have normalized many terrible things recently—and deceiving ourselves is one of them.

Let us get to it.

The Blockade: Fact And Fiction

The USA Blockade of all shipping, from Iranian ports, went into effect a day and a half ago. At first there had been confusion as Trump had implied the US would stop all shipping, but later it was specifically stated that it was to stop ships emerging from Iranian ports. Here is the announcement from Central Command.

And yesterday, the shipping companies behaved very much as if it was serious. Very few vessels transited the Strait, and of those that did, six, if US sources are accurate, turned around and did not proceed, presumably because they had been to Iranian ports.

If this continues it does mean that the US and Iran are now going to combine in a joint blockade and almost no shipping will get through the Strait. The Iranians will only let out the shipping they want, and that is exactly the kind of shipping the USA is determined to stop.

If this happens for any length of time, as I wrote in my blockade primer of a few days ago, it will have a major impact on the world economy. Here was how I summarized that in the primer.

If no oil gets out of the Strait because of the US/Iranian blockade, we will see much higher prices than we saw in the past weeks. That is 20% of world oil supply completely shut off. And the Iranians could go back to attacking the Saudi pipeline which brings oil away from the Gulf area (which had been operating at full capacity). They would have incentive to burn the whole house down.

The same goes, btw, for world nitrogen and helium supplies. These will skyrocket in price if no shipping gets out of the Gulf. This means serious economic harm as prices around the world shoot up. Its worth noting that stock futures for the USA are already dropping strongly.

The most notable thing so far is that the markets, which were first spooked by the Trump announcement of the blockade seem now to believe that it cannot last. Here is just one example, the per barrel price for Brent Crude (a common European benchmark) first skyrocketed when the blockade announced, but since then it has returned to below announcement levels

And the US stock market absolutely believes that this blockade will not last, as it continues to rise. The S&P 500, NYSE, etc etc, all have risen steadily in the last two days since the blockade was announced.

So they believe the blockade as a long-term threat is a fiction. And Trump is feeding that narrative with a vengeance. In an interview just given to Fox News, he was extremely upbeat about the chance of a deal being reached soon—which means that the impact of the blockade would never be faced. The NY Times reported that Trump told Fox about the war:

“I think it’s close to over, yeah, I mean I view it as very close to over,”

To reinforce how little states actually want this blockade to last, the Saudi Government reportedly yesterday asked Trump to end it ASAP. So there is a widespread recognition that any long-term blockade would have massive implications, and the markets have decided that it is unlikely.

The strange fact remains, however, that the US cannot dictate the end to this war—even if it calls off its own blockade. And what we still do not know is the state of Iranian government and its actual position. The Iranian government is continuing to be definitive that it will control shipping getting in and out of the Strait regardless of what Trump does. Just in the last hour, an Iranian statement was released threatening to control shipping not just in the Strait of Hormuz, but also in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea if the US continues its blockade.

So either this is a big bluff on both sides and we are on the edge of a deal, in which case the blockade was for show, or the markets are terribly miscalculating and we are about to witness a major economic event as the double blockade, which both the US and Iran say is in effect, continues on.

All I can say is that I hope the optimists are right, but I have no idea what the Iranian government really wants. And if you do not, I would urge caution.

There Can Only Be One

Since the start of the US bombing of Iran, there have been a number of different, malleable lists of reasons given for the bombing. From the first night onwards, when Trump called for the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their rulers, the administration has trotted out different justifications. These have been expansive or extremely limited depending on the moment and, possibly, the amount of stimulants being ingested.

At times, the administration went for the smallest possible strategic goals, such as this State Department claim that it was about destroying the Iranian Navy and Iran’s ability to make and launch missiles.

Then there was claims about destroying or weakening Iran’s support for outside actors or its entire military industrial complex, etc. I just went and looked back and discovered a number of different pieces in which I outlined all these different objectives. Here are just two.

However yesterday, vice president JD Vance basically threw out all the earlier lists and said that the war has one and only one purpose, which was to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon through destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

And Donald Trump has reinforced that today. In his very hopeful interview in which he said a deal would be reached soon, the only victory criteria he mentioned was stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon—which he reinforced twice.

He added that the economic crisis touched off by the war was “worth it” to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

This is a fascinating and important change. It shows what the administration has decided that it needs to do to declare victory, it needs a concession from the Iranians on their nuclear program that it can sell to the American people as a victory.

The dilemma that they face, is that the US had an agreement negotiated by the Obama Administration (JCPOA) which had as its purpose delaying any Iranian nuclear program, and Trump tore that agreement up. He now must be able to come up with something he can say is better than the Obama deal. That seems to be what stands between the US and Iran on some deal—assuming the Iranians really want a deal.

However it explains a great deal. If something is agreed it will depend on sellability (sp?) more than reality. The administration will need to sell the deal as a massive concession on Iranian nuclear weapons. If the can do that—then they might very well declare victory.

It also helps explain the exuberance of the markets. If the US administration gets anything that it can sell as a nuclear concession, Trump can/will do what he has desperately wanted for weeks, which is to declare victory and go home.

At least now we know the threshold.

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Do Not Pretend This Has Been “Precise” Or “Surgical”

Defenders of this war of choice, both inside and outside the administration, like to describe US and Israeli bombing of Iran as being “surgical” or “precise”. In early March, Secretary of Defense Hegseth went on about US precision, and contrasted to what he said was Iranian terror bombing. Here are quotes from the briefing on March 4.

The US was precise.

Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down, which is exactly how it should be.

While the Iranians are imprecise and attacking civilians.

We're precise in that assessment, and we call balls and strikes in that assessment – we take that matter seriously. Iran, on the other hand, has been indiscriminate and more imprecise in their attacks. They've fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones, striking innocent civilian targets throughout the region.

The White House also likes to talk about how accurate and precise the USA has been, boasting in its press release announcing the ceasefire on April 8, that the US had fought the war with “lethal precision” (see underline).

Supporters of the campaign also like to describe what the USA and Israel are doing as “precise” or “surgical”. It figures regularly in the reports released by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, such as in this evaluation of their opening strikes.

The problem with this analysis is that the evidence is not there. Actually, the US and Israel have killed what seems to be a shockingly high number of Iranian civilians so far. The US Based Iranian group, Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that between February 28 and April 7, the US and Israel killed at least 1701 Iranian civilians in its air strikes, including at least 254 children.

Btw, HRANA is NOT an Iranian government organization, it is considered a fair and honest group for data collection and its figures are used widely, such as in this Reuters report.

To try and put this figure in context, it means at a minimum the US and Israel in six weeks have killed almost three times as many Iranian civilians in their long-range strike campaign as Russia has killed Ukrainian civilians in their long-range strike campaign in all of 2025. In 2025, Russian long-range strike (the equivalent of what US and Israel have been doing to Iran) was responsible for 682 civilian deaths in Ukraine according to the UN. Here is a quote from the source.

Even looking at all civilians killed by the Russian in Ukraine, the US and Israeli killing of civilians in Iran looks appallingly high. In all of 2025, from all causes, the Russians were said to have killed at least 2514 Ukrainian civilians (almost 50 per week). That is much lower than the more than on average 280 Iranian civilians killed each week by the US and Israel since February 28, 2026.

When the US and Israel are killing Iranian civilians at a higher rate that Vladimir Putin was killing Ukrainian civilians in 2025, that requires some serious acknowledgement and reflection. This has been a terribly destructive campaign which seems to have little purpose other than achieving some as yet unachieved victory condition for Donald Trump.

And this casualty toll has probably been something that hurt the one actual thing that might have made the campaign worthwhile—regime change. It must be hard for the Iranians to believe that the US actually wants to help them free themselves, when civilians are being killed like this.

Just remember that when you read about boasts about surgical or precision strikes. The US is going to have to have a reckoning for its open embrace of war crimes. Btw, Trump just re-boasted about the to Fox News, once again talking about how he could destroy all Iranian power plants and bridges in “one hour” if he wanted.

Destroying all power plants would cause massive civilian casualties of the kind Putin can only dream about.

Admitting what we have become is the only way to correct it.

Sorry for sending this piece out as I know it has been only 12 hours since I sent out my Weekend Update. However a few people have asked me to discuss what exactly President Trump’s announcement of a blockade against shipping from Iranian ports means, why he might have done it, etc, etc, and so I thought it might be useful if I put together this primer for subscribers. It will cover a few areas including what is not important, and what is important (in 4 main points) as well as something we must watch.

My guess is that, similar to the initial bombing, Trump has not fully thought out the implications of his actions and this can work out very differently than intended. Also, he might see the real-world economic impact of this blockade sooner than expected (markets are already showing real worry) and thus he could end it sooner than you think. Also, please pay attention to China and Russia.

So here goes.

What Does Not Matter

A few people have pointed out that a blockade is an act of war and this might change things in Congress. It is undoubtedly true that a blockade is an act of war and in a normal Congress this could make a difference. However, bombing a country’s leadership, military facilities, power plants and university departments are also acts of war, and so far that has made no difference whatsoever.

I asked a very knowledgeable Republican source if the electoral devastation just visited on Viktor Orban (yippee!!) might embolden Trump-skeptical Republicans to stand up to the President on issues such as Ukraine or Iran. I received a one word response—NO. This is still Trump’s party and Trump’s war, and Republicans in Congress will protect him as he wages it.

So, do not think legalisms will make a difference.

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What Really Matters (1)

The most important thing to understand about this Blockade is that it shows how desperate Trump is to avoid the use of US ground troops in the war. As I tried to point out in my primer on possible uses of US ground troops, none of the options were good and all carried great risks.

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This is a week in which the Trump administration is finding out how hard it is to run a war, while the Ukrainians are showing what they have and are learning. A few hours ago, the US-Iran talks broke down without an agreement, leaving the Trump administration in a self-created dilemma. Do they go back to bombing? Escalate? Walk away? They have fought this war in an almost dream-state, assuming that what they thought would happen would somehow magically occur. Remember, clicks your heels together and say “I think I can” and the Strait of Hormuz will simply open “naturally”.

The Ukrainians have never had the benefit of magical thinking. They have had from the start an enemy that was determined to destroy them. That being said, they have had hope and unrealistic expectations at times, particularly of the USA but also of some European partners. This was the week we can say all of that hope was publicly put aside. Ukraine started talking to the USA and Europe in a different language and that alone is worth note.

Other stories, A few people have asked me to judge how Trump’s decision to bomb have helped the Russian economic situation while the Ukrainian attack on Russian oil production has hurt it. Here is a rough calculation—do not tell Paul Krugman or I will lose my Nobel Prize in Economics.

Finally, the Russian Spring Offensive is now more than 3 weeks old and still we have what seems to be a Russian net loss of territory. This is not the Battle of the Somme, this is closer to

The Ukrainians Stop Pretending

I sent out a piece just on Friday about how President Zelensky, arguably for the first time, spoke honestly about how the US was acting in league with Russia.

Not long after it was published, Zelensky went even further. In a tweet that was pointed and directed at European policy makers, Zelensky said Europe needed to plan for its own defense relying on European resources without the USA. To prepare for such a world, Zelensky called for some pretty radical measures to create new and expand existing structures. Fascinatingly, he called for Turkey to be added to the newly energized European security structure (which seems to be some kind of more unitary European Union) The whole statement is worth a close read.

That was not all. Then as part of the same tweet thread, Zelensky stated the the USA was trying to force Ukraine to give up the Donbas, while at the same time casting aspersions on the idea of any US security guarantees meaning anything. What did the Ukrainians get for giving up nuclear weapons under earlier US pressure? Nothing.

So in the space of a few hours, Zelensky implied that the US was working for/with Russia on getting rid of sanctions on Russia, on trying to get Ukraine to give up the Donbas in exchange for meaningless security guarantees, and that Europe needed to start imagining a defense future that did not involve the USA.

This can only be seen as a pretty complete change in tone from Zelensky, casting the US no longer as a reliable and crucial partner for Ukraine’s future, but now as a deeply unreliable partner who seems to be colluding with Russia while threatening the security of all of Europe.

And Zelensky was hardly alone. During the week his Chief of Staff, Kyrylo Budanov, not only also rejected US pressure to stop the Ukrainians attacking Russian oil facilities (details in the piece sent out Friday and linked above), he also publicly questioned the US as a negotiator—implying that the Trump administration seemed to be in a hurry to get a deal that Putin wanted.

This open Ukrainian skepticism about the USA and the Trump administration seems to be operating far beyond the top of the Ukrainian state. European diplomats speak more generally of Ukrainians having serious doubts about the usefulness of any security guarantees coming from the USA. And this kind of skepticism about the USA in general and Donald Trump in particular, seems widespread in Ukraine.

In a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology study released in early 2026 but based on research from late 2025, it is fascinating to see just how faith in the US had collapsed over the course of 2025—while faith in Europe remained or even grew.

When it came to Trump the decline was even more stark.

Note—its rather shocking to see that 54% of Ukrainians at the end of 2024 believed Trump would be good for Ukraine. Its a sign of the massive deception operation (some witting and some unwitting) that was run by pro-Trump supporters to hide the fact that he was a tool of Putin. These voices are still out there peddling their wares—but they did vast damage and the hope that Ukrainians had at that time attests to it.

We can only imagine what the figures for trust in Trump and the USA in Ukraine would be after the last few weeks when Trump has bent over backwards to publicly help Russia, but they are probably worse.

In the past this might have been devastating for Ukraine, but what we are seeing now is not a country that cannot handle the truth. I cannot understate how important this is. As someone who has studied states at war for my entire career, one of the greatest problems they all face is when they, particularly their leadership, see the war not as it is, but as they desperately want it to be. There is a massive pressure to make your enemy into a caricature that you believe you can control/defeat. My enemy is weak, will eventually collapse, will sue for peace, etc. Putin still seems to be inhabiting such a self-constructed world of hope. All I can say is that such hope often leads one to a miserable end in a bunker under a Berlin garden or on some non descript Italian street.

It is a good thing that the Ukrainian people understand the truth and the Ukrainian leadership is speaking the truth. It means that they are fighting the war as it is and not as they wish it to be.

Definitely the most important story of the week.

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Costs And Balances In Russian Oil

The US bombing of Iran started six weeks ago (February 28) and there is a fascinating contrast in how it, and the Ukrainian ranged campaign against Russian oil facilities are interacting.

The positives for the Russians from Trump’s actions are a much better environment for generating cash from oil exports. The price of oil not only skyrocketed immediately, even with the present US-Iran ceasefire it has stayed very high and might not return to pre-war levels for a while. Here is the benchmark Brent Crude price over the last 3 months to give you an idea. Even with the recent dip, prices are up by about 50%.

To go along with this, the Trump administration basically not only ended all sanctions on Russian oil, they signaled to the rest of the world that it was open season on Russian oil purchases. The Indians, for instance, have jumped back into Russian oil purchases with a vengeance, and are saying that no matter what happens in the future, they are not going to stop buying. And why should they, as the Trump administration is making it clear that they will not reintroduce any sanctions on Russian oil.

The income advantages of this looked depressingly large in early March. It was calculated that in the first two weeks of the US bombing, the result was almost $7 billion in extra revenue for Russia.

Then the Ukrainians really went after Russian export facilities on the Baltic with more attacks on Russian refineries, shipping, storage tanks, etc. This did not stop, but did severely reduce the amount of extra money Russia could get. Here is a piece that discussed that campaign.

Now this Ukrainian campaign nipped some of the Russian windfall, but did not end it. Russia still is exporting, but at a slower rate. When you add the economic advantages for Russia (much higher prices and easier sales) to the drawbacks (reduced export capacity and repair costs) this is a pessimistic calculation I have come up with for Russian monthly income generation.

This is not stable, needless to say. The Ukrainian campaign can do more damage going forward, and the price of oil could continue to decline. However Donald Trump did a major favor for Putin, which the Ukrainians are working hard to eliminate.

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The Russian Spring Offensive Three Weeks In

The Russian Spring Offensive Started around March 20, 2026. The Institute For The Study Of War, opted for March 21 as the exact start date, saying this was when the Russians began a concerted assault on the Ukrainian fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast.

The net amount of territory gained by Russia in that times seems close to nil, or actually a net loss. During the first week, Russia gained about 40 square kilometres (17 square miles). During the last week, the Russians if anything lost territory. It was not much, about 1.5 square miles (1 square mile). However it is notable that three weeks into a large offensive, when one would have thought that Russian mass and manpower advantage would be telling on what we have been told are Ukrainian defenses with no soldiers, that the Russians are losing territory.

And when you add this to the fact that in March as a whole, the Ukrainians gained more territory than they lost even with the Russian Spring Offensive starting for the last 10 days or so, it is worth noting that overall the Russians are still losing more than they are taking.

I could throw up maps of the front from Deep State, but what is the point? The lines have barely shifted. To show changes you have to zero in so closely that you lose perspective about how small the territory is.

This is not the Battle of the Somme, it is something else entirely. It is four years into a war (by which time the two sides should have figured out different things about the battlefield) and the larger and supposedly more powerful side seems to have no answers and cannot move.

Zelensky even said that the Russians are taking what seems to be a major risk, and committing their strategic reserve to try and make up for their massive losses and inability to move forward. Here was a quote from one of his press conferences.

“In general, we are seeing an interesting situation: in a month we destroy as many invaders as they mobilize, but at the same time the size of their grouping in Ukraine is increasing. We believe they are expanding their force in Ukraine by bringing in personnel from the strategic reserve,”

“We believe this is a risky move for the Russians, because by doing so they are weakening their borders with other countries, and the situation there is not simple for them. Nevertheless, they have gone ahead with it,”

If he is right, this should be what Ukraine wants. The willingness to sacrifice their own people without regard has always been the Russian way in this war. If that tactic no longer works, and in throwing away reserves they prove it, it will mean that the Russians do lack an answer to Ukrainian defenses at present.

We are not yet at Mussolini’s Offensive into Greece in 1940 (which resulted in an almost immediate loss of territory by the attacker), but if the Russians are using their reserves and they gain them nothing, the initiative will return more and more to the Ukrainians. This failure was a direct result of Mussolini seeing the Greeks as he wanted them to be, not as they were. He believed that they were weak and divided, and after a few weeks of fighting he would have his victory parade in Athens. There are echoes to Putin planning his 2022 victory parade in Kyiv.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

I am starting this piece with one of the more remarkable tweets of the last few years. Yesterday evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky dropped this little bon mot on the world.

Zelensky really wanted this message out. It was a quote from an interview he had just given to Italian radio, and he was making sure as many people read it as possible.

In a nutshell, Zelensky was telling the world that Donald Trump is working with/for Vladimir Putin. He posed a very simple question—if sanctions were placed on Russia because of the US-Iran War, now that the war was open, would those sanctions now be reimposed? Of course the tweet made it clear that he has little hope for this, but instead he understands that what has happened is that the US and Russian governments are aligned. Indeed, he said that the whole lifting of sanctions had nothing to do with the Iran war in the first place, but that was just a convenient excuse for Trump to work with Putin.

Finally, the truth.

And this statement followed hot on the heels of another slap in the face to Washington.

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Will this be the last of these? Maybe not, but there is a real chance. Donald Trump yesterday showed how few cards the USA had to play in his war of choice, when he went from threatening to destroy Iranian people, culture and history, to agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and talks based on an Iranian ten point plan. The details of this plan (see below) amount to a comprehensive US defeat. If this indeed is the end of the war and that Iranian plan is the basis of a deal, it makes this if not the longest war in US history, the most pointless and a complete waste. Iran looks on the verge of emerging stronger, with the ability to generate massive new income, while the US looks, in a word, a busted flush.

This is no run of the mill TACO. This is complete US strategic failure.

Here are the key developments.

The Iranian 10-Point Plan.

Donald Trump’s announcement of a two-week ceasefire referred to the existence of a 10-point plan for peace that Iran has offered. It is notable how positive Trump was about the plan, calling it a basis for negotiations. I have underlined the key sentences in his tweet about it.

Trump mentioned the one semi-concession by Iran in the ten points, but, revealingly, did not discuss the points themselves.

Taken together, they are what one might call, Iranian victory terms.

Here is the Iranian version of the 10-point plan, and it is worth breaking it down. This list was compiled by the Wall Street Journal.

To understand these points, I will break them down as follows:

Iran Security Clauses

Points 1, 9, 10 are what might be called the Iranian security clauses. The war ends, not just for attacks on Iran, but also Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Houthis in Lebanon. So, the US must use its power to rein Israel in. However that is not all, the Iranians want the US to withdraw from the region (terms to be negotiated) and to guarantee Iranian security going forward. In other words, the Iranian regime gets to keep its power, will not be attacked, and the US defends the theocratic regime’s position.

So much for regime change—this cements the present regime.

Strait of Hormuz/Iran Reparations Clauses

That is not all, the plan provides the economic power for Iran to rebuild and even get stronger. This starts in points 2 and 8. Now there are a range of readings of these, but the consensus seems to the following.

• Iran promises to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to traffic.

• Iran gets to continue charging a toll to that traffic.

• Oman may or may not get part of that toll.

• Iran demands this right as its reparations for the war.

So, this means Iran is in a much stronger strategic position than it was on February 27, 2026. It now will have US recognition of its right to charge tolls (which have been described as high as $2million a ship) to go through the Strait. One recent JP Morgan report estimated that Iran keeping tolls on shipping in the Strait could amount to a yearly windfall for the Iranian government of $70-90 billion. That is completely new, fresh cash, in perpetuity. That would make this one of the richest reparations packages in history; could be more one trillion dollars in fewer than 12 years.

Iran End Of Sanctions/Diplomatic Isolation Clauses

These are points 4, 5, and 6. Basically all primary and secondary sanctions which have been on Iran for decades are now ended and US security council resolutions on Iran are rescinded. This puts Iran in a far superior situation to where it was on February 27. It can develop as it wants free of sanctions, which makes the last two points one of the greatest US humiliations in modern diplomatic history.

Iran Keeps and Develops its Nuclear Technology

Much of the fighting between the US and Iran for years has been predicated on one thing—trying to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Well, if you look at points 3 and 7, Iran is telling Trump that is over. The US has to start treating Iran as a normal nuclear energy power, and there will be no more detailed attempts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Remember, all this started by Trump back in his first term, when he ended the Obama Administration’s JCPOA with Iran because he said it was not tough enough on the nuclear question. That was discussed in detail in midweek update #3.

As that piece guessed, what we are looking at here is Obama-minus. Indeed it makes the Obama agreement look like an excellent deal.

So add it all together, and Iran has basically proposed a detailed plan for its victory and Trump has accepted it as the basis of negotiations. Now we will see how those talks go, but it looks like Iran is in an excellent position to improve its security, secure massive reparations/tolls, end its diplomatic isolation and improve its nuclear technology.

Its hard to think of a more comprehensive US strategic failure.

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Trump Threatens Genocide

The day started with Trump getting so desperate that he threatened to commit one of the greatest war crimes in history.

A “whole civilization will die tonight” seems to me that the US President is threatening genocide Now, thankfully, Trump did not follow through, but that actually makes what happens not less sobering. Trump made this claim, and much of the US political discussion normalized it. Some shrugged their shoulders and said: Its only Trump being Trump. Others said that it was not great, but….

There were Republican criticisms of Trump’s threat, but they were surprisingly mild and interestingly did not rebuke the President personally. They were against the US committing genocide (hardly a strong position to take) but used deflection. Here are some:

Ah, just a little good old Trump “bluster”. Remember that Johnson quote for the last piece, btw.

The problem was not Trump, the problem was the reaction. The US did not commit genocide, but it has normalized the US president threatening it. That is a long way down a dark road, and all Americans need to face that.

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The Iranian People

The losers in all this are the Iranian people, many of whom have fought for years and many of whom have lost their lives trying to end the Iranian governments harsh, theocratic rule. Trump, as I am sure you remember, has on numerous occasions justified his actions as a move to bring freedom to Iran. It was fascinating to see Senator Johnson trotting that line out even yesterday.

But it was all a mirage. The Iranian government has recently restarted and stepped up the pace in its executions of its enemies—many young protestors. I would have supported the removal of the Iranian regime, had that been achievable and a key part of US policy. But it never was. This was a war to change dictators in Iran (like in Venezuela) it was never to bring freedom to Iran—and now that is clear.

And in the end, the people who will really suffer are those Iranians who want a different, better future. Their government will come down on them now with greater and greater force.

Courtesy of the USA.

So the US has failed strategically and weakened itself. However the real price to be paid is in Iran.

As I have been arguing for years, the US brings little positive to the table in the Middle East. It is time to withdraw.

Stay well everyone.

An article of mine just appeared in The Atlantic. It is one of the more depressing, from a US point of view, that I have published there (or anywhere to be honest). The whole point of the article is to argue that what we have seen so far in the US war with Iran points to rather serious problems with the US projecting power in the Western Pacific. To put that piece in a nutshell, strategically, organizationally, diplomatically and in overall military terms, the United States has put itself in a position where it has little or no chance to successfully fight in one of the most important regions of the world. Here is a gift link to the article if you want to read more.

The article built on some ideas that I debuted in this Substack of three weeks ago.

That piece argued many of the same themes that appeared in The Atlantic for the first time. I thought that for paying subscribers I would now get a little granular (I have come to understand how many of you really like the more technical pieces). In this case, there is a really interesting concept which has been discussed for a while, which if I am right, has now turned ominously against the USA.

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Sending this out Saturday, as Sunday (Easter) looks busy. Hope you do not mind.

Before we get into the heart of this update, which will focus on what seems to be an even more pronounced shift on how casualties are being inflicted on the battlefield, I just wanted to thank all the readers who donated to Come Back Alive after the Substack Live with Bohdan Zhelobchuk. The two are actually related. What Bohdan discussed was how the Ukrainians are developing and using Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) to do much of the dangerous work on the battlefield. With humans increasingly easy to detect and kill, it is imperative for the Ukrainians to push forward in this area. These UGV do a range of tasks, from delivering supplies (logistics), to hauling out wounded soldiers and even direct fighting with the enemy. Here is a picture of Bohdan with two of the logistics vehicles.

I am so gratified to say that through the donation link that was provided, more than UAH 675,000 has been raised. This is more than enough to provide for two of the vehicles you see above, and close to the cost of a medical evacuation UGV. Once again—you have saved Ukrainian lives. The people from CBA, and myself, are so grateful.

Why this particular program is so important, as I mentioned above, is that the battlefield in 2026 is becoming even more deadly for human beings. With the number of drones/UAV is the skies growing constantly, humans are often quickly found and killed/wounded. For the Ukrainians, this means that their plans to try and reduce the numbers of soldiers at the front and replace them with UGV has become even more important. As such, I will start with an update focused around Russian casualties in March, which were reported two days ago and are truly staggering.

Two other stories will be discussed. The first of these is that the Ukrainians are still going after Ust-Luga and other oil facilities. There is no let up, when in the past there might have been. And attacks on the Russian oil system overall is having cascading impact. Overall, it could be said that more and more the initiative in the war is switching to Ukraine.

Finally, a little bonus. More and more other outlets are talking about UGV developments (you will hear far more in the coming weeks and months). So here is a little taster of some stories if you want to know more.

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Russian Losses In March And UAVs, A Shocking Statistic

On Friday both President Zelensky and Defense Minister Fedorov, in quick succession, sent out tweets about Russian casualties in March. Here they are, the Zelensky one is long but worth a full read. The Fedorov tweet has a video of just how relentlessly UAV are being used to hunt down human soldiers.

Now, the release of these messages, within a few hours, was clearly coordinated and the Ukrainians were trying to get out a definite narrative—or we might say two definite narratives. One is that Russian casualties are not only extremely high but are at record levels (more than 35,300 in March). Moreover, these loss rates are rising and being inflicted at rates higher than the Russians can replace. The Ukrainians are still talking about reaching their target of 50,000+ Russian casualties a month, which I originally thought would be almost impossible to reach in 2026 (something else I might have been wrong about).

To try and back up their claims, the Ukrainians say that each loss has been verified by their ePoints verification system. In other words, they are saying that have a picture or video to back up all/almost all of these losses.

Note: Zelensky also released a very high statistic for Russian anti-aircraft system losses in March, at 274. So the Ukrainians are clearly trying to degrade Russian capabilities here which will further increase the effectiveness of Ukrainian UAV. Though no breakdown was given on the kinds of anti-air systems destroyed, that certainly would be destruction at a rate above replacement manufacture as well.

This in and of itself would be an important story—rising Russian losses at rates above replacement level is a terrible trajectory for Putin. The war is now more than four years old (since the full-scale invasion) and that, btw, is often the time or indeed after the time when generating new soldiers becomes very difficult. The Red Army in World War 2, for instance, peaked in strength before the war reached its fourth year and was actually on a downward trajectory in 1945.

However this is only part of the story. Maybe even more remarkable, is the claim of how the Russian casualties were inflicted. Zelensky said that about 96% of Russian casualties were caused by Ukrainian UAV. That means everything else, from artillery, to tanks, to small arms, to mines, etc, accounted for only 4% of Russian casualties in March. I do not know if I have ever seen such a lopsided claim in modern industrial war.

What this means, if true, is that the Ukrainian drone wall seems very much a reality and a growing one. Ukrainian drone production is set to rise steeply in 2026 compared to 2025. Basically the Ukrainians are hoping to almost double production in 2026 compared to 2025, which was itself almost double that of 2024.

Here is an excerpt from one story on the rise:

Ukraine plans to make 7 million military drones in 2026, deputy defense minister Serhiy Boev said at NATO’s Operational Force Development Framework (OFDeF) conference.

So far, Ukraine has been able to roughly double its drone manufacturing count each year, producing at least 4 million in 2025, 2.2 million in 2024, and 800,000 in 2023.

And, btw, Russian UAV production also seems to be rising steadily—which is why the Ukrainians need to reduce the number of troops on the front lines.

Is this a historic shift?. Well, if you are looking at the transformation from 2024 to today, the answer is definitely yes. To say that during the course of a war that a system that was not considered important at its start is now inflicting 96% of casualties has nothing that I think can compare to it.

Thankfully, the Ukrainians understood this historic shift before the Russians. Indeed, it is notable that Ukrainian sources are publicly speaking about how, even though the Russians are the ones who have recently launched another one of their mass offensives, it is now the Ukrainians who actually are showing greater initiative.

And if the Russians have no alternative but to try and advance with humans against UAV, more and more they will continue to lose that initiative. March could be a harbinger of what is to come.

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Why Do You Need To Disable A Whole System? Think “Clogging” Effect

Well, if there was a historic shift in March in Russian casualty infliction, there was also confirmation about how air power can be used strategically. More and more, it is apparent that the Ukrainians are learning how to wage a true strategic air campaign—and the evidence can be seen in the word “clogging” (which in this week’s context was a new word for me).

Last weekend in the update and in a special piece for subscribers I said that the most important development is that instead of attacking individual refineries, the Ukrainians seemed to be going after Russia’s oil producing and exporting “system”. Here was the specialized piece.

Systems warfare is more complex intellectually but also far more effective than battle-centric warfare. It means trying to disable or shut down an entire interlinked system of your enemy (from logistics, to production, to command/control) etc. In my recently released book War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why, I discuss why attacking systems not only is key to disabling an enemy now, it will probably become more so in the future. Here is the last paragraph of the opening of Chapter 7.

Since then, the ability to engage has extended even more – to thousands of miles away, with extraordinary precision. The appearance of computer technology, added to advances in efficient propulsion, has meant that targets can now be identified, prioritized and then fired upon by someone a continent away. Moreover, the growth in technological capabilities has meant that it is never a single weapon that matters; rather, the ability to integrate many weapons and even systems within a fast, complex operation is what separates an efficient military from a plodding one. In other words, it’s not about the number of tanks, aircraft or artillery pieces. It’s whether you can integrate the actions of all of these, in different combinations, that becomes one of the ultimate tests of an advanced power at war.

The Ukrainians before the last few weeks seemed not to fully grasp that. They went after one element in a system (such as refineries) to try and damage Russia. Now, however, they are going after a range of targets in the Russian oil production and distribution system, causing a range of challenges and interlinked problems, which are proving far more difficult for the Russians.

Lets look at what was attacked in the past week. Well there was a range of attacks against the oil export hubs on the Baltic (Primorsk and Ust-Luga) which you have heard so much about lately. In both of these facilities, one of the key targets seemed to be the large storage tanks which are used to hold the oil before loading it onto ships for export.

Overall, this means Russian exporting capacity continues to be disrupted. Here was how one story summarized it:

The Ukrainian strikes have already produced results. Bloomberg, which continuously tracks Russia’s seaborne oil exports, reports the following figures:

• At the Primorsk port, only 4 tankers were loaded instead of 10.

• At Ust-Luga, only 2 tankers were loaded instead of 8.

• The total volume of Russia’s seaborne oil exports fell from 4.1 million to 2.3 million barrels per day.

So far, btw, it is calculated that the Russians have lost at least $1billion in revenue from these attacks.

However these attacks were far from all that went on. The Ukrainians also went back and started attacking the refineries and distribution points that feed these export facilities. They went after crucial depot storage tanks at the ports, and larger refineries (even ones that are 1400 kilometres from Ukraine).

These attacks on a range of parts of the Russian oil system is now having some cascading impacts. One is, that Russia is having problem storing oil. They cannot export as much as they were planning and lack the storage capacity to hold the oil in tanks because many of the tanks are gone. That means that the Russians are having to store more and more oil in the pipelines themselves.

Now, storing oil in pipelines is usually not a big problem when one refinery is hit, but if you hit the refinery, port and storage tanks all at once, that is a problem. Pipelines fill and cannot hold any more oil. The result might soon be that Russia has to stop pumping and refining oil that they could handle, because there is no place to put the product. As one story put it:

“That means some oilfields will have to reduce their output to avoid flooding the system further,” the report said, citing sources.

And there are more and more reports of this type.

This development can be referred to as clogging Russia’s oil system. And that is what I mean about the effectiveness of attacking a whole system instead of one part. Effects can cascade as pressure builds up, and fixing cascading problems is far harder than fixing one.

Maybe most heartening was that the Ukrainians seem to get it now and are speaking openly about the need to come back and back and keep this system broken (or clogged). Here was how one official Ukrainian story put it.

Ukraine’s challenge is to ensure that this infrastructure remains out of service for a long time, or cannot be restored at all. Russia’s challenge is that it cannot reroute Siberian oil in such volumes—there is simply no way to do so and nowhere to send it. In that case, production will have to be reduced, and with it, revenue will be lost.

If the Ukrainians can meet that challenge, the Russian economy will face serious troubles. Here’s to more clogging.

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More UGV Stories

Just a little taster as we end. It has been heartening to see that more and more is being written about Ukrainian UGV developments. I thought I would link to a few free, interesting and important stories, so that you can read more about what is happening.

One of the best, recent reports is from March 9, and comes from the Modern War Institute at West Point. Entitled “Networked For War”, it provides some interesting details about how challenging it is to operate at UGV in combat/battlefield conditions. It has some fascinating data (80% of Ukrainian logistics deliveries to forward units are now being done by UGV) and is worth a read. Another interesting fact it quotes was that even more than a year ago, Ukrainian UGV were playing a major role reducing Ukrainian casualties. If they were doing that then, they must be saving many more now.

There is also this piece from a Ukrainian outlet from earlier in 2026, which discussed the rise in UGV only missions. It states that in January 2026 alone, more than 7000 logistic operations were entirely done by UGV.

Finally, there was this Guardian story which was released only a few hours ago and discussed the increasing combat role being taken by UGV. It had an interesting schematic of what different models look like.

Get ready for more of these.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone!

For the last few days, much of Europe and the USA has been gripped by a discussion of whether the USA under Donald Trump will withdraw from NATO. He has spent the last weeks (actually the last decade) bashing European NATO states as freeloaders, bad allies, basically all around terrible people. As part of his attack on NATO, he has increasingly floated the idea of withdrawing from the alliance, even discussing the supposed benefits such a move would have for Vladimir Putin. Here was Trump two days ago speaking to the Telegraph about withdrawing from NATO.

"Oh, absolutely without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me? ... I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way."

The thing that Trump is obsessing about now is how European states are trying to distance themselves from his war against Iran, which he started without consulting with them and which he is running very much for his personal benefit. He has regularly lashed out at NATO states for being bad allies about Iran. As part of this, Trump is trying to convince the American people that NATO is a…"one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe, but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights."

Btw, this is just a slight ramping up of Trump’s rhetoric for well over a decade. When running for President in 2016, in an interview for the Washington Post, Trump slammed the North Atlantic alliance saying that "NATO was set up when we were a richer country. We’re not a rich country anymore... It’s costing us a fortune.". Not long after that, in a campaign speech, he described NATO as “obsolete”.

A US withdrawal now seems so likely that that senior European leaders are publicly discussing the possibility. The Poles have taken the lead in this regard. Prime Minister Tusk referred to Trump’s threats obliquely early yesterday. This was followed up by a much blunter acknowledgement by Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski. To make sure that this warning was being heard, Sikorski’s statement was retweeted by the Polish Foreign Ministry.

So Trump has long hated NATO, has wanted to leave the alliance for more than a decade, and now, finally he has what looks like the perfect excuse to do so.

However, I doubt that he will.

Long time readers here will know that this issue has been driving me crazy for years. I have been howling at the moon for European leaders to prepare for the US to abandon them. I started getting rather pointed about the subject in the Summer 2023 such as in this Atlantic article, which I’m including with a gift link.

Actually, I wonder now if I was wrong. Trump will probably not withdraw from NATO right now because he does not want to. He really would like to leave the alliance. No, he will not withdraw from NATO now because doing so would not not serve Putin’s interests. It is far better for Russia to have an unreliable, destructive NATO being controlled by the USA at the top, than to be faced by a European led defensive alliance planning to protect the continent from Russian aggression.

Let me explain.

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Well back for midweek update #4. If Donald Trump was actually as powerful as he likes to think he is, this might very well be the last one of these. Trump would love to be able to declare victory over Iran, end the campaign, and return to daydreaming about 30 foot tall gold statues of himself.

And yes, this picture of what is intended for the Donald Trump presidential library is real, it was part of a promotional video put out by Eric Trump.

However the statue is also an example of the strategic prison that Trump has made for himself. He started this war to have what he imagined would be some great “victory”. He would pummel Iran, kill its leaders, put in place compliant new ones, get paid, reap political benefits and maybe even have a victory parade to celebrate. It was simple, really.

If he cannot have his victory, there is no point to all of this. And here is the rub, he can declare “victory” at any time, indeed he declares victory multiple times every day with ever outlandish claims. However, if he ends the campaign and the Strait of Hormuz is not open, the Iranian theocratic regime in power, and Iran’s nuclear weapons program not being “obliterated”, he understands that his claims will be a farce. Moreover the first of these alone means that the world economy will on the point of implosion with a real chance of a world-wide recession and high oil prices. This stagflation world will be a massive problem for him and the GOP in the run up to the 2026 elections.

So, while Trump can declare victory at any time, he cannot ensure Iran recognizes his triumph. And this is the dilemma he faces when he gives his address to the nation tonight at 9pm ET “to provide an important update on Iran.”

He would love to leave but he might not be able to. In war, the enemy gets a vote.

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1000 Bombs Versus 1: Which Is Strategically More Effective?

Military metrics are some of the most abused statistics in international relations. Military power so easily seems expressible in charts/graphs, etc that they are commonly used to show how strong different states are and how wars are progressing.

Look how many tanks Russia has!

Look at how high the body count is that the the USA is inflicting on the North Vietnamese!

And yes, this question deserves a longer piece of its own.

The US Government is in full military metric mode as it tries to explain why the US is definitely defeating Iran. We hear daily about the thousands of strikes that the US and Israel have launched on Iran, and the declining fire Iran has launched in return. And the metrics are, in their own way, accurate.

Yesterday, for instance, Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, boasted about how the US had successfully attacked 11,000 targets since the start of the campaign. Moreover, they mentioned how Iranian retaliatory fire has dropped into low figures in recent days. Certainly ACLED, which has been tracking these things, has Iranian fire consistently on relatively low levels, often barely more than 20 a day. This wastheir data for March 30, the most recent update they provided as of writing.

So the US and Israel are launching massive attacks every night and Iran can launch very few. Ipso facto the US and Israel are “winning”.

If only it were so easy. The metrics do not actually tell you what Hegseth and Caine want them to.

What we see is that Iran does not need to match the US and Israel, indeed it cannot hope to do so. All Iran needs to do is convince the world’s shipping bodies, insurance companies, and markets, that it can successfully launch one bomb—and that alone seems enough for them to fight their war for now.

And last night the Iranians launched one such bomb to put the world on notice.

In comparison to massive US and Israeli fires, Iran had one hit last night—though that one hit arguably has the same strategic effect of all the bombs dropped by the US and Israel at the same time. The Iranians sent one of their simple drones and it hit a oil tanker off the coast of Dubai.

The vessel hit was a tanker called Al Salmi, and it was fully laden with 2 million barrels of fuel for export. With oil hovering just at or over $100 a barrel, that load alone was worth approximately $200,000,000—and the ship itself was worth almost as much. Building a new supertanker, classified as a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) costs about $130,000,000 these days. Buying one already built can cost even more as there is demand—some are being listed at almost $150,000,000.

So the load that the Iranians hit with that one bomb was valued somewhere close to $350,000,000. If oil prices continue to rise, it could be considerably more than this.

If the Iranians launched three successful attacks per night on VLCCs, that would be around $1 billion in ships and cargo damaged. At present, btw, there are somewhere between 200-300 tankers stuck in the Gulf (with many more that would have liked to get in and get there loads). So we are talking about a traffic worth hundreds of billions of dollars a day, trillions over weeks and months. If that traffic cannot be insured and protected, it cannot sail.

So that is the dilemma that the US faces. It does not need to simply bomb Iran. It needs to be able to stop the Iranians from threatening world shipping in the Gulf. So far, for all of its air superiority, it cannot do that. And if that dynamic does not change, Iran has a stranglehold over much of the world economy—no matter how many golden statues of victory Donald Trump builds of himself.

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Victory Conditions, We Don’t Need No Stinking Victory Conditions!

The Trump administration is engaged in a constant PR battle to come up with the right list of victory conditions so that they can claim victory when the time comes. Its fascinating to watch the evolution of the list in just the last 24 hours, as it shows the different political pressures that the administration is feeling and how they try to wrestle with them.

We should start with what can be called the minimalist conditions. These are ones that have been regularly trumpeted by the State Department, including just over one day ago when they put out this list.

Now this is not a list of actual victory conditions. It is a list of things that the US could plausibly say it has done, or helped to do, which it is now claiming is the needed conditions to declare “victory” and go home. If that indeed is what Trump does in a few hours—which is still very much in question.

These conditions are not victory ones, in some cases are irrelevant and they actually spell defeat. To whit.

1. Iran’s air force was already functionally destroyed before this campaign started. The Israelis did that last year.

2. The Iranian Navy was not a real strategic threat to the USA. It is now sunk/immobilized and the US cannot open the Strait of Hormuz.

3. The “severe diminishing” of Iran’s missile launching capacity means that Iran will be left with the ability to make and launch missiles. So that means the status quo.

4. The “destruction of their factories” is truly bizarre. This can be read as one of the greatest war crimes in history (destroying all Iranian civilian means of production) or very limited (the destruction of their missile building factories). If its the latter, they can be rebuilt quickly with lessons from this war, so it is “mowing the grass” is the most limited sense.

So these four conditions could all be said to be met now and the US can celebrate, woo hoo! The only problem is that the actual victory conditions that Trump talked about at the start of the campaign and repeated yesterday, are nowhere to be found in this list. These are Regime Change in Iran, and, the Destruction of Iran’s Nuclear Program.

Just last night, for instance, Trump went on at great length about both, saying indeed that both steps had already been achieved—or almost achieved, or would be achieved. It was rather hard to say. On Air Force One, while speaking to reporters, this is what he said about regime change.

"We've had regime change. If you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They're all dead. The next regime is mostly dead. And the third regime, we're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before. It's a whole different group of people. So I would consider that regime change."

When it comes to nuclear weapons and Iran as a victory condition, Trump has been all over the place. On March 27, he claimed that Iran was only two-four weeks away from having a nuclear bomb.

“They were two weeks away,…If we didn't knock the hell out of them, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two to four weeks.”

Then yesterday he seemed to declare that Iran’s nuclear capability was destroyed, or might soon be, by burying it further under the ground.

“I don't even think about it. I just know that it's so deeply buried it's going to be very hard for anybody (to reach it).”

So for Trump unlike the State Department, both regime change and destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities seem very much strong and active victory conditions.

However one area he is desperately trying to walk back is making the Strait of Hormuz open again (which it was when he started the bombing). Yesterday, in both statements and tweets, he floated the idea that he might just walk away and leave the Strait as is, with Iran controlling the shipping allowed in and out. In that case, other states would have to take on the responsibility of cleaning up his mess. He singled out France and the UK in this regard.

"There's no reason for us to do this (reopen the strait) That's not for us. That'll be for France. That'll be for whoever's using the strait."

Now the rub. He clearly wants to walk away from the Strait as a victory condition—but this might be the one that he cannot avoid regardless of his wishes. I’m sure he can convince his base that he did regime change when he did not, or that he has destroyed Iran’s nuclear capacity. However if he walks away from the Strait, and Iran still attacks shipping, that is a colossal strategic failure no matter what he says, and the US consumer will have the bills to prove it. And remember this is not just at the fuel pump, this will influence food prices (nitrogen), computer equipment (helium), etc.

So while the US government desperately scrambles around to find the right victory conditions, there is one that they cannot avoid, no matter how much they try. And that is opening the Strait to traffic.

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What Are The Gulf States And Saudi Arabia Thinking?

One thing that needs far more attention than it is getting, is the position of the different Gulf States and the Saudis on the ongoing campaign. There have been public reports that some of then, including the Saudis, are pressing the US to continue on and do as much damage as possible to Iran, even press for full scale regime change.

Btw, Israel seems to have a clear strategy too—very much along these lines. The Israelis see this as an opportunity to have US airpower, etc, do a mother of all “mowing the grass” campaign against Iran. And at the same time, Israel does the same to Lebanon and allows some terrible things to happen in the West Bank. Personally, I think this is a massive strategic mistake, and Israel is lining itself up in the USA as a part of MAGA. But that is an Israeli decision, however strategically terrible it might be.

The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, however, are facing a huge strategic problem. They clearly lack the capabilities to open the strait themselves. If Trump does walk away, they would be left with no recourse but to accept Iranian dictation to open their trade (for states such as Kuwait and Dubai, there will be no other alternative).

However, the problem they face is that they cannot trust Trump. Indeed, as they now look very weak, Trump is doing what he always does in such a case, which is insult them. Its hard to think of a more ill-timed insult this week than the one that Trump aimed at Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). He portrayed the Saudis as weak supplicants who have to kiss his ass.

"He (MBS) didn't think this was going to happen. He didn't think he'd be kissing my ass…he thought I would be just another American president of a country going downhill."

To further rub Saudi noses in it, Trump went on to say that they had to be extra nice to him now, because, one assumes, Trump is so awesome and powerful.

"But now he has to be nice to me. You tell him he'd better be nice to me. He's got to be."

I have no sympathy for these leaders. Many have bribed Trump and showered his family with money. They simply made the great mistake of thinking that this lucre would make him reliable and willing to always serve their interest. They are now learning the opposite. If he does pull out, they are, to put it kindly, screwed.

Remember, Trump is only loyal to himself and Vladimir Putin. Everything else is transactional. And tonight at 9pm he will do whatever he has concluded is in his personal best interest. The USA and US allies are irrelevant.

So, what are the Gulf states thinking?

Like many of you, I am hearing that the Trump administration is on the verge of ordering some kind of ground operation against Iran. Now, he could still back off. However, he has painted himself into the mother of all strategic corners. Publicly he has been boasting like the Iranians have been negotiating seriously, have been offering him gifts, have been defeated fully, etc. Just a few hours ago, he claimed that the Iranians have accepted most of his demands, saying to the press. “They gave us most of the points. Why wouldn’t they?”

Unfortunately for Trump, the reality does seem to rather different. There might be contacts going on through the auspices of Pakistan, but the Iranians are not making major concessions or on the verge of giving in to Trump. So all of his boasting is boxing him in. Either Iran must throw in the towel or he must do something to force them to do so. The latter option, which the White House is also leaking furiously to the press lasting for weeks even months, involves serious ground operations somewhere in Iran.

The problem here is that the US does not have the forces nearby for any major invasion of Iran (more on that below—there is a 50,000 figure being bandied around, however deployable, fighting soldier numbers seems far below this). As such, Trump is left contemplating more limited operations to try and compel the Iranians to give him something. And that minimum something is reopening the Straits of Hormuz (which were open and moving before he started his bombing). With that in mind, I have put together this description of 4 possible uses of ground troops, based on conversations I am having with people. These are speculative and one, the last, is rather difficult to imagine. However, as we are living in a world without any consistency or even logic to much of US strategy, they all need to be considered.

So, where are we?

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What Forces Could The USA Use?

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Before I start this update, I wanted to bring to the attention of those who might have missed it, that on Thursday March 26, I held a Substack Live with Bohdan Zhelobchuk of Come Back Alive.

Bohdan works as part of CBA’s team developing Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) which are becoming increasingly ubiquitous on the battlefield. He went into fascinating depth about their roles, discussing the delivering of supplies to forward troops, the evacuation of wounded soldiers and even UGV’s holding sections of the line with no human soldiers present. Considering the speed and importance of their adaptation and development, we might soon be seeing entire engagements of UGVs fighting UGVs.

Needless to say, such vehicles are crucial to the saving of Ukrainian lives. If you do want to support CBA’s efforts in this regard (or any other) you can make a donation to them through this link. I really hope you consider it.

One of the things that makes UGVs so important in saving Ukrainian lives, as Bohdan explained in some detail, is that the battlefield has continued to become increasingly transparent and deadly for human beings. UAVs, UGVs and other systems now are ranging further and further and it is becoming much more difficult to hide, even many miles from the front. It is why the Ukrainians are determined to keep the number of infantry at the front at the smallest number possible. For the Russians, that seems impossible as they are desperate to advance and as particularly manned vehicles cannot survive for long, they need more and more human beings to try and move forward. That, however, looks even more difficult this year (see below). We are now almost two weeks into what some have labelled the new Russian Spring Offensive, and the Ukrainians have stopped the Russians dead, literally.

Other key stories this week include a discussion of the ranged war, in particular the Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil terminals on the Baltic. It makes an interesting comparison to what the Russians are continuing to do with their ranged campaign. And finally, Ukrainian expertise is showing its values to other states at war. Hopefully Europe gets the message.

Two Weeks Into The Russian Spring Offensive And The Ukrainians Have Gained Territory

Starting around March 17, there was a massive spike in Russian ground attacks in Ukraine. According to General Syrskyi, in a four day period near the start of the offensive, the Russians launched more than 600 different assaults across the front.

And we saw a range of Russian efforts, including in some instances attempts to send groups of armored vehicles into the attack. One Ukrainian corps reported that one series of Russian attacks included as many as 500 vehicles. These kinds of attacks even as late as last year, might have resulted in small but perceptible (if strategically irrelevant) gains for Russian forces.

This year, however, something rather different seems to have happened, at least to begin with. Russian gains have been in practical terms non existent, both during the last two weeks when they have been attacking, and before. Leading into March, as I am sure many of you have heard, the Ukrainians actually recaptured about 100 square miles of land.

When the Russians attacked this year, they have run into very well prepared Ukrainian defenses. There were minefields, fortifications, and, a growing and increasingly effective Ukrainian defensive drone wall.

Most interestingly, is how little land the Russians seem to be able to capture. During the first week of the Russian Spring Offensive (March 17-24) the Ukrainians reportedly regained even more land than the Russians seized. Now it was a tiny amount, about four square miles, but it is notable that it happened with the Russians trying to seize the initiative.

Btw, General Syrksyi claimed that so far, since the Ukrainians started their attacks a few months ago, that they have regained overall 470 square kilometres/181 sqare miles from the Russians. This might be somewhat overstating what has happened, but it is notable that the Ukrainians are claiming it.

Many factors seem to be interacting in the stopping of the Russian offensive. One thing that is getting more and more mention is the decreasing quality of the Russian soldier. This should not be surprising (in some ways I would have expected it to have happened sooner) but the enormous losses that the Russians have suffered, and their insatiable need to send more and more forces into the attack, seems to be reaching a point of diminishing returns.

Vladyslav Urubkov, head of the military ‌department at our good friend Come Back ‌Alive, gave an interview in which he discussed how the “low morale and poor training” of Russian troops was proving to be a major problem with the Russian attacks.

And this makes sense. Even in a closely guarded society such as Russia, news of the massive casualties, miserable conditions in the army, and poor training has been circulating. To actually raise soldiers, the Russians have to rely increasingly on those who have no other option and probably understand that they are signing up for close to certain death or serious disability. And those soldiers the Russians do raise seem barely trained. There were reports in the last week that the amount of training that Russian soldiers are getting before being sent to the front is down to one week.

And after their extremely quick training, these soldiers are sent forward quickly to make bloody assaults for little/no gain. The tactics are resulting in such high losses and low morale that the extremely nationalistic Russian milblogger community is now regularly bemoaning the present state of the Russian army. Btw, the casualty rates the Russians are suffering make this all plausible. While the week before saw two higher days, Russian casualties over the past week averaged comfortably over 1000 per day.

Here is the daily reported breakdown of Russian personnel losses as judged by the Ukrainians:

• March 28: 1,300 casualties

• March 27: 1,000 casualties

• March 26: 1,210 casualties

• March 25: 1,220 casualties

• March 24: 890 casualties

• March 23: 970 casualties

• March 22: 940 casualties

The issue with poorer quality soldiers getting less good training, is that once a ship heads in that direction it is very hard to turn it around. The losses and frustrations on the battlefield will continue to be a disincentive (to put it mildly) dissuading those from serving, and that means those men that somehow end up in the Russian army will be needed at the front sooner and sooner—which means they will get even more degraded training. You can see the vicious cycle developing.

Btw, this was one of the reasons those who for two years were clamoring for Ukraine to draft more unwilling people for the army and send them to the front were being so dangerous. Compelling unmotivated soldiers to serve in such a horrible battle area could make things worse. It is far better to reform the military you have (the Ukrainian military was/is in need of reform) and adjust to the technological realities of the battlefield than generate soldiers through force and send them to the front. Here is a piece from late 2025 which tried to walk readers through just this dilemma. The Russians decided to throw troops at the question, the Ukrainians have tried to adapt.

So, two weeks or so after the start of the new Russian Spring Offensive, Russian advances are declining compared to 2025 and Russian losses are so high that training and morale are suffering. Ukraine has a chance to put the Russian army into a spiral of decline out of which it will be hard to pull out. If only the US had not switched sides…

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The Ranged War and the Ukrainian Destruction of Russian Baltic Oil Terminals

There were some major ranged attacks by both sides over the last week. The Russians on the evening/morning of March 23-24 launched the largest ranged bombardment of the war. They first did an overnight attack with 426 missiles/drones and then followed that up a few hours later with a rare mass daytime attack with 556 drones and missiles. This combined total of 982 drones and missiles is the highest that the Ukrainians have ever recorded.

There seems to have been some method in the staggering of the attack. Much of the first wave was directed at Kyiv, perhaps to draw Ukrainian attention to the east and centre of the country while using up anti-air ammunition. The daytime attack was then focussed more on the west, with some notable strikes in Lviv where a number of historic buildings were hit.

The purpose of the attack seems similar to most Russian ranged attacks of the last winter. Many of the Russian attack systems were aimed at Ukrainian power generation, to break the Ukrainian civilian will and to damage the economy. Undoubtedly another reason for the attack was to further run down Ukrainian stocks of Patriots, as it is widely believed the US might reduce or even shut down the supplies of new Patriot missiles because of the Iran war.

So the Russians were doing what they have been doing. On the other hand, the Ukrainians opened up a new set of targets this week, which was very revealing. They attacked the same facilities three times (as of now) in five days, and these were the main Russian oil export facilities on the Baltic, Primorsk and Ust-Luga. Here is a list of the attacks.

• March 22–23: Drones struck the Primorsk oil terminal, igniting a fuel depot and damaging berths and tankers.

• March 24–25: Long-range drones hit the Ust-Luga port, severely damaging the terminal, oil storage tanks, and related installations.

• March 26–27: Coordinated drone strikes hit both Primorsk and Ust-Luga again, causing further fires and destruction to the oil-loading infrastructure.

All one can say is that this is a great indication that Ukraine is now going after the whole Russian production/exporting system and that Ukraine now understands that it takes repeated attacks on the same facilities to put them out of action. I put together this piece on Friday which delved into why this is so important.

Reports are that because of these attacks (and others) Russian exports of oil could be down by as much as 40%. Moreover, Russian exporters are on the verge of declaring Force Majeure, to many of their customers. Declaring FM is a legal shipping declaration that contracts cannot be fulfilled because of special circumstances. For the first time in 2026 (they did this in 2025 for a while) the Russians have declared that they will temporarily halt the export of all refined fuel products. That ban goes into operation on April 1.

Had Trump not started the Iran War, these Ukrainian attacks would have been a major blow to the Russian war economy and it is conceivable that Russia would have faced a hard currency crisis. However, oil prices are up by at least as much as shipments are down, and moreover oil prices look to be heading even higher, at least for the short term.

At a minimum, however, Ukraine is going to seriously limit the Trump windfall for the Russians. And, maybe more hearteningly, the Ukrainians are showing the ability to plan for and execute intelligent systems warfare. These are not the only signs. The Ukrainians are increasingly trying to threaten/control the air space around Moscow.

So the Russians are doing what they are doing (which has effect) while the Ukrainians are improving. There are certain echoes here to what we are seeing on the land war.

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Ukraine Helps The Gulf States

I was first going to make the last story about how the Ukrainians admitted that the Trump administration is trying to bully them handing over the Donbas to Putin. Zelensky came right out and said it publicly this week. That was certainly a major story, but then I thought it would be the least surprising/interesting new development for readers of these updates.

Trump is acting like a Russian agent! Shock, horror, who would have imagined!

On reflection a far more important story this week was that the Ukrainians signed a number of defense agreements with US allies in the Gulf region, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. These agreements will see Ukraine work with them on the development and production of systems to protect against drone attacks. These states are all allies of a sort with the USA, and have based their defense in the past overwhelmingly on cooperating with America. However all three of them have concluded that the USA is not the best partner for this vital work. Ukraine definitely is. Here is a list of the deals that were announced, with some details.

Saudi Arabia

• The Agreement: On Friday, March 27, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia signed a defense cooperation agreement ahead of Zelensky’s meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

• Key Focus: Ukraine will use its technological experience to help Saudi Arabia bolster its defenses against ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones.

• Future Scope: The arrangement establishes a legal and operational foundation for future defense contracts, mutual investments, and joint technological cooperation.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

• Qatar: On Saturday, March 28, Ukraine and Qatar officially signed a 10-year defense agreement. This comprehensive pact covers counter-drone measures, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the establishment of joint defense production factories in both countries.

• UAE: Also on Saturday, following talks with Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Zelensky announced that Ukraine and the UAE had agreed to cooperate on security and defense. Specialized teams are currently finalizing the specific details of that arrangement, which is expected to follow a similar 10-year framework to that agreed with Qatar.

So when it comes to one of the most pressing military threats facing states these days, the USA is not the preferred partner of choice, nor are any of the traditional European defense firms—it is the Ukrainians. Let that sink in. Ukraine is now a world leader in one of the most important strategic capabilities all states face.

It highlights something that I really hope more and more Europeans realize. People need to stop looking at Ukraine simply as a state that needs help and support. Ukraine is transforming in front of our eyes into a world leader in military tech. It is the best example of the point I tried to make a few weeks ago, that Europe needs Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs Europe.

Now, there is still a long-way to go on this. This week also the Atlantic published a story about the slow pace of adaptation in the European defense industry.

To many, it still seems like warfare is stuck in 2021 thinking, with stress on heavy, expensive and over-engineered tanks and fighting vehicles. The CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperberger, made a statement in this article that is a candidate for one of the most foolish of the war so far.

“…when I asked the CEO of Rheinmetall what that could mean for his business model, he bristled. “Who is the biggest drone producer in Ukraine?” Papperger demanded. I listed the ones that I had visited in Kyiv two weeks earlier, Fire Point and Skyfall, which make hundreds of thousands of drones a month for the Ukrainian armed forces. “It’s Ukrainian housewives,” Papperger said of their factories. “They have 3-D printers in the kitchen, and they produce parts for drones,” he said. “This is not innovation.” “

Is there a way to type a primal scream? If so, I would be doing it.

Ukraine is creating weapons for a fraction of the cost, which can destroy/damage the legacy systems upon which defense companies have constructed their past. These companies can either pretend like everything is fine, or they can adjust. They might watch what is happening as states at war turn for help from the Ukrainians and start adapting.

Europe has a chance—please take it.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

In the last few days much of the world’s attention has been on the US-Iran War. As such people might have missed arguably the most important Ukrainian long-range strikes of the Russo-Ukraine War. These started on March 23, when the Ukrainians hit the large oil export terminal at Primorsk, not far from St Petersburg. This was followed by two more attacks (the follow up nature of this wave of operations is very important to note). On March 24 the Ukrainians hit another Russian Baltic Sea oil facility, in this case the processing plant and export port at Usg-Luga. And then, to compound things, on the evening of March 26-7, the Ukrainians hit both Primorsk and Ust-Luga one more time each.

So three nights of successful attacks in four, against two extremely important targets. Notably the fires at Primorsk burned for days, and it was reported that up to six oil tankers were also burnt/damaged in the attacks. Moreover, it seems that Russian oil shipments were immediately reduced (more on that below).

So many things stand out about these attacks, from the range involved, the importance of the targets, the timing and what they mean about how Ukraine is now waging war. They also make a rather pointed contrast to what the US is now doing in Iran. The big difference is understanding enemy systems.

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Let us start with the attacks.

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Well midweek update #3 is here. There is a chance that there will not be a 4th of these, but it is not a likely one. That is because while the Trump administration, and the president specifically, is keen, almost desperate, to get out of this war that it/he has started, they still cannot guarantee that Iran will let them leave. And that is the big story of the week. For now, Iran possesses much of the power to determine when and how any negotiations conclude. As long as the Iranians control access to the Persian Gulf/Straits of Hormuz and the IRGC leadership exercises authority over the Iranian military, they hold a very strong set of cards in any negotiations. The only way for the USG to change that equation is to forcibly open trade into and out of the Gulf (more on that below) or to put in place an Iranian government that is willing to do so for them.

So that is the dilemma the US faces. The US must escalate or admit that the Iranians are in a very strong position in any talks. Trump seems to understand this, which is why he is desperately and publicly trying to create the narrative that he has already won. He wants out of this war, but if he cannot convince himself that people will believe that he has won, we might still have escalation.

For now, of The Two Wars I outlined last week, the Iranian one is proving more effective. If the US way of war is going to have any chance of success, it will require escalation and that is fraught with risks.

Also, before getting into this Midweek Update, I just wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow (Thursday March 26) at 4pm UK time/noon EST, I will be hosting a Substack Live with Bohdan Zhelobchuk of Come Back Alive. Bohdan is a Ukrainian veteran and is a key members of CBA’s initiative to develop unmanned land vehicles to save Ukrainian lives. I think you will find what he says fascinating.

Now, back to the subject at hand.

For Now, This Looks Like Obama-Minus (And Trump Minus-Minus)

One of the most revealing ways that Trump shows he is really worried, is that he starts talking about major concessions that have been made to him by other parties. And that was a huge part of his narrative over the previous 24 hours when he, without the slightest sign of actual agreements, went to great lengths talking about the amazing concessions Iran was making to him. It was quite an impressive list that Trump devised in his own mind, Iran wanted “very badly” to make a deal, was already making concessions to him personally on traffic in the Gulf, was plying him with gifts and all while he had already defeated the Iranian government and brought about total regime change in Iran.

Here are some of Trump’s exact quotes from yesterday.

"They (The Iranians) did something yesterday that was amazing actually. They gave us a present and the present arrived today, and it was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money."

When asked who would control traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, Trump responded: "Maybe me. Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah, whoever the next Ayatollah…”

When discussing the outcome of the war Trump said: "We have, really, a regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones we started off with that created all these problems.”

So in Trump’s rich internal dialogue he has already won and the Iranians are giving him everything for which he could ever have hoped.

Of course the reality is very different. What seems to have happened is that with this extreme use of military force, Trump has set the US up to get a much worse deal than that that had been negotiated by the Obama Administration and much, much worse than the one he said he wanted in 2018.

During the Obama administration the USG led the way in negotiating what came to be known as The Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. It was a plan, agreed in 2015, that would have prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons well into the future in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and allowing Iran to start purchasing weapons only on the international arms market. You can read much more about it here. It was far from a perfect plan, but it put in actual safeguards that would have slowed Iranian nuclear weapons development and it left the possibility of US military moves still in the background. In other words, it was a deal that the US secured without using military force, so it had that (dangerous) card to play in the future.

Trump hated the deal, probably because it was considered an Obama-success. So, once Trump became President he withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. When he did, Trump outlined a series of policy goals towards Iran that he was determined to see enacted. It was far more sweeping than the JCPOA, and included very strict limits on Iranian missile technology, freedom for the Iranian people, etc. Here is the White House’s exact list of Trump’s goals that he was demanding from Iran in 2018.

• President Trump is making clear that, in addition to never developing a nuclear weapon, the Iranian regime must:

  • Never have an ICBM, cease developing any nuclear-capable missiles, and stop proliferating ballistic missiles to others.

  • Cease its support for terrorists, extremists, and regional proxies, such as Hizballah, Hamas, the Taliban, and al-Qa’ida.

  • End its publicly declared quest to destroy Israel.

  • Stop its threats to freedom of navigation, especially in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

  • Cease escalating the Yemen conflict and destabilizing the region by proliferating weapons to the Houthis.

  • End its cyber-attacks against the United States and our allies, including Israel.

  • Stop its grievous human rights abuses, shown most recently in the regime’s crackdown against widespread protests by Iranian citizens.

  • Stop its unjust detention of foreigners, including United States citizens.

That set the stage for where we are now. Iran felt emboldened, indeed was incentivized to start working on developing nuclear weapons, longer and longer range missiles, oppressing its own people. And once the US under Trump played its military card as it did on February 28, the Iranians closed the Persian Gulf to trade.

It is also worth noting that the Iranians never stopped supporting Hezbollah/Hamas, etc; never publicly repudiated its pledge to destroy Israel, never stopped supporting the Houthis. In other words, Iran at this point has rejected every single requirement that Trump called for it make when he rejected JCPOA.

The reality is that the US is now, after using military force, set to get a deal from Iran that is far less satisfactory than the JCPOA, let alone the ambitious policy goals laid out by Trump himself in 2018.

We do know that Trump’s opening gambit to Iran, which was contained (reportedly) in a 15-point peace plan that the US had proposed, was basically the JCPOA. The New York Times and other outlets reported on the proposal, and it was basically a plan to get the straits open (remember they were open before Feb 28), and in exchange Iran will get total sanctions relief and accept limits on its nuclear program. There was some talk about limitations on Iran’s missile program, but these seemed very vague.

If you boil it on down, the opening US negotiating ask is at best the JCPOA and probably worse. The US has actually lost leverage over Iran’s nuclear program and in getting other things because the US has given Iran a major bargaining chip in desperately needing Iran to open the straits (and the fact that the war itself is becoming more unpopular in the USA).

Arguably the political aspects of the war should push Trump to make more concessions to Iran. Polling remains terrible. The Economist/Yougov poll taken March 20-23 revealed that Americans are deeply skeptical of this war. Most tellingly, a majority thought that Trump personally might benefit from the military action but a large majority (59-30%) also believed that the US as a nation would more likely suffer.

And actual election results look ominous for the GOP. Yesterday the Democrats seized the state House of Representatives seat in Florida in which Trump’s own Mar a Lago house sits. This is a district Trump won by 11 points in the 2024 elections.

Note: I wrote “should” push Trump to make concessions because I do not want to make the mistake of assuming Trump will ever do anything in the national interest of the USA. For all we know, he might get desperate and look at bad political news as a reason for massive escalation—to try and secure some great victory. It is not inconceivable.

So here we are, almost four weeks after one of the largest US military interventions of the post Cold-War era, and the US is trying to get Iran to agree to a deal very similar to that Iran accepted in 2015. However now Iran has something that the US definitely needs, so the odds are any eventual deal will be worse for the USA. It does not matter how much Trump talks about Iran offering him gifts, the US will either have to escalate massively or offer Iran a gift the Iranians did not previously have.

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The Risks Of Seizing Kharg Island

One of the most commonly discussed escalation moves that the Trump administration is actively leaking to the press is for the US to seize Kharg Island. Kharg Island is located very near the far end of the Persian Gulf, and serves as Iran’s key distribution point for oil sales. Here is a map from last week so you can see its location (the black circle).

On the surface, there seems to be some brutal logic to this. Without Kharg, Iran would lose the ability to export its oil, and if the US levelled the facilities on Kharg, it would take years for Iran to rebuild the facility. In other words, its the perfect kind of mafia threat to make to Iran.

Do what we want or we crush you economically!

There are huge ethical/war crimes issues with that threat, but I will not even address that now—see below.

The US forces being sent to the region also seem far more geared to a seizing-Kharg type of operation than trying to seizing Iranian territory around the Straits of Hormuz. We are hearing of 2500 Marines being sent to the area, and yesterday it was said that “at least 1000” troops of the 82nd Airborne Division were also on their way. This kind of smaller but effective force would be ideal for Kharg. It is a small island which the Iranians could not supply.

The problem is that if the US seized Kharg it would be taking two big gambles. The first gamble is that the Iranians would actually make concessions to get it back. What if Iran says no? The Iranians seem to see this as their opportunity to get major concessions, and they might very well dare the USA to do something rash.

If the Iranians do not make concessions, what does the US do? Does the US then, out of spite, level all the economic facilities on Kharg? That could easily boomerang back in American faces. It means oil prices skyrocket even more and stay high for much longer. It also means Iran will be incentivized to shut down the traffic in the Straits for even longer. If they cannot get their own oil out, why let anyone else’s. Finally, it means an even more “wild-west” list of targets for the Gulf States and Israel. Do the Iranians go even more to attack everyone’s oil exporting facilities, which are very difficult to defend? Do they attack Israeli desalinazation plants?

Seizing Kharg can be likened to taking a hostage that the US really will not want to hurt. It arguably gives the US far less leverage than it understands.

And the second US gamble is that they can protect US forces on Kharg. Kharg is very close to the Iranian coast, a few minutes of flying time for Iranian drones and missiles. US forces would also have to be supplied while the US could not get ships up the Straits. The US will be putting its forces is a very vulnerable position and it will have to get in supplies. Think of a Persian Gulf version of Dienbienphu.

That is certainly an extreme analogy, and I do not things would be that bad for US forces on Kharg. However they, and the supply forces trying to reach them, will be inviting targets for the Iranians. And do not think the Iranians are not learning. Notably, even though Iranian ranged fires are down from the first week of the war, the accuracy of their fires has risen considerably. Here is a rather sobering story on the subject.

So taking Kharg and holding Kharg are two different things.

Just remember, taking military action always seems much easier in the hypothetical stage. Yes, the US could seize the island, however that will only start a cascade of effects that the US might find it cannot control.

This should hardly need to be stated after the last 4 weeks, but it does.

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The Worst Threat In US Military History

Last Saturday, Donald Trump made the worst threat in US military history. He threatened to destroy Iranian power plants if the Iranians did not open the Straits of Hormuz within 48 hours. Here was the text of the threat that he tweeted out.

Now there was some discussion about whether this was a war crime. Attacking an economic target is not automatically a war crime if it can be shown that it is integral to the functioning of a nation’s war machine. However in this case the US president was making a blanket threat against all Iranian power generation, not selective targets. Moreover, he threatened to start with the largest, which again was not justified on any grounds other than punishment. To me, this was a clear war crime threat.

It was also a terminally stupid move. In much the same way that seizing Kharg might not get the Iranians to back down, attacking their power generation would also probably fail. Such a move would incentivize the Iranians to keep the straits closed as they could see how desperate Trump was becoming. Indeed, they probably read that tweet as a sign of real weakness and panic in the Trump administration.

Trump eventually understood how he had boxed himself in with that criminal, self-harming threat, and it was one of the key reasons for his pivot of Monday when he said talks were ongoing. He seems to have exaggerated the extent of the talks so he could justify backing down.

It is a textbook example of how not to run a country in the middle of a war.

Have a good rest of the week everyone.

Update After Trump Announcement.

Note: I just sent this out and then Trump announced a cease-fire of sorts. It is not clear if he is saying for 5 days military operations will be significantly reduced or whether just attacks on power plants will not occur. So we need to be careful. Here is a link to the BBC reporting.

Two things from this announcement. If this really is Trump looking for a way out, it proves the point of the piece. This will be the most expensive and pointless example of “mowing the grass” in history. The US is now pretty much guaranteeing the Iranian regime stays in place and can rebuild smarter and more effectively,

Secondly, be warned that this announcement does not guarantee an end to this war. This could be Trump walking back his really stupid threat to bomb Iranian power generation. He gave himself a deadline of later today for Iran to back down (which was not happening) or for the USA to commit a war crime. This was about as stupid a move as he could have done.

As part of the war continuing, this could also be an attempt to calm the markets that have been freaking out. Stock markets have been dropping strongly around the world this morning and oil prices have been rising steadily. It was not a sustainable situation so maybe Trump was looking for a reprieve.

If so we could be back to mowing the lawn sooner than you think. The one thing that this announcement shows, which the piece also makes clear, is that regime change seems 100% off the table for the USA. In other words, there is no victory condition in prospect that makes this worthwhile.

Now back to the original piece!

The US Strategic Goal Seems To Be “Mowing The Grass”

The basic inability of the US government to say exactly why it started the bombing of Iran and what would represent a positive strategic outcome for from the operation, remains very much in force. The United States government from the President on down has constantly changed the supposed strategic purpose of the bombing, usually so that they can declare “victory” at any point and try to go home.

Over the last year having clear victory goals has been a problem for the USA. Only 9 months ago, for instance, we were assured that the victory goal for Trump’s first attack on Iran was the complete destruction or obliteration of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

What we are seeing now is that this did not happen, as the Trump administration, in its constantly shifting victory conditions today, talks again about making sure Iran nuclear capabilities are destroyed. If they were obliterated last June, that would not have to be the case.

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Two things have changed since very early January 2026 and both are notable. The first is that this was the last time that we saw a rash of stories about how Russia was advancing inexorably while Ukraine was, disastrously, running out of soldiers for the front. The second was that this was the last time that Donald Trump bothered even pretending that he might help Ukraine. This was the last time when Lindsey Graham, once again, proclaimed to the world that Trump was just about to let the Senate go ahead and vote on the Graham-Blumenthal bill. Both stories at the time did not seem notable because they have been regularly repeated narratives/gambits, for three years in the case of the former and one year in the case of the latter.

However both narratives have quietly been shelved since then, embarassingly one would have hoped for those who had invested so much to spread them loudly and widely.

In the land war there is more and more evidence that Ukraine is able to extract growing and terrible toll on the Russian army without relying on more and more infantry at the front. Instead, what the Ukrainians are talking about is their forces relying on machines, mostly UAVs, to destroy their attackers. It is, for now, a vindication of their chosen choice about how to approach the war. Of course, we are about to see a real test of this way of fighting as reports are that the Russians have started a large Spring offensive.

The last time we saw any mention of Graham-Blumenthal is notable because ever since then it might be said that Donald Trump has given up play-acting on the subject. Since early January he has made it clear that he is with Putin wholly and unconditionally and that he despises Ukraine. There have been no more pivots into pretending he might be angry with Putin, might send more weapons to Ukraine, etc. The last week made that as clear as possible, as the US has basically turned the Iran war into a wholesale effort to buttress the Russian war effort as Putin continues his attack on Ukraine.

The last story today will be about Ukrainian long-range drone attacks. While the Ukrainians have continued to be very effective in their mid-range attacks (which I have talked about the last two weeks) this last week saw them return with maybe their largest long-range assault of the war. It is certainly worthy of note.

Before we get to the meat of the update, I want to give you a heads up. This week (likely on Thursday, March 26 at 4pm UK time/noon EST) I will be holding my second Substack Live with members of Come Back Alive. This time I will be talking with Bohdan Zhelobchuk. Bohdan is a veteran of the Ukrainian army who is now part of the CBA effort to support the creation of a whole new generation of robotic land vehicles. With the battlefield becoming more and more deadly for humans, having remotely controlled vehicles that can operate in the fighting area is one of the best ways to save Ukrainian lives. These vehicles bring supplies, hold parts of the line and even evacuate the wounded. Advances in their development have been startling and more and more they are showing their worth. Please do join if you can.

As a reminder, here is a link to the first one of these that I did, with Taras Tymochko of CBA. In that one we discussed Ukrainian anti-drone technology which has become rather topical these days.

Now, let’s go to the update.

Russian Losses And Ukrainian Fighting

Over the last week, Russian losses have seen a notable spike, according to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians claimed to have inflicted almost 10,000 casualties on the Russians, which includes the two highest days of casualties that we have seen so far in the war. On March 17 the Ukrainians claimed to have inflicted 1710 casualties a record to that time and then yesterday (March 21) they claimed to have inflicted 1760 breaking that record.

These casualties show both the Russians are stepping up attacks but also how the Ukrainian defenses have evolved. One of the reasons for the increased numbers is that the Russians seem to have started a new phase of offensive operations. The Institute for the Study of War judged in its March 21 bulletin that the Russians are transitioning to such a Spring/Summer Offensive.

It does seem that what we saw last week was more larger-scale unit attacks by the Russians, complete in some cases with a number of armored vehicles. This stands in contrast to the last few months which have mostly seen Russians making their small-scale infiltration assaults all up and down the line.

These Russian assaults last week in at least one case tried to use weather as an advantage, in the way that they had last autumn. On March 16-17 (leading into the first day of record losses) it was said that the Russians were trying to use the heavy cloud cover and fog to shield their advances.

It does not seem to have worked.

One of the major reasons for these record losses, according to the Ukrainians, was the effectiveness of their UAV based units. Here was how one well-known Ukrainian commander, Robert Brovdi, call sign “Magyar”, described what happened. Note, in the Ukrainian translation the Magyar has become Madyar.

“The bet on invisibility under old military canons was supposed to work… Before midnight, the first pre-infiltrated assault ‘worm groups’, which had been lying in wait, began moving under drizzle and met a drone backfire: over a hundred enemy bodies were put face down into the ground by Unmanned Systems Forces fighters even before midnight”, — said “Madyar”.

At dawn on March 17, the enemy attempted to attack using amassed infantry, motorcycles, armored vehicles, and even horses simultaneously across more than a dozen sectors. More than 500 of them (292 killed and 221 wounded) were struck by Unmanned Systems Forces units.

“But the fog of varying density didn’t go anywhere and still persists, so the night of March 18 stretched in time, with slightly less intensity, but as of 12:00 it cost another 277 occupiers (141 killed and 136 wounded)”, — “Madyar” noted.

He described 900 enemy casualties in a day and a half as a new benchmark. According to “Madyar”, adjacent brigades also worked effectively.”

Overall, it is being estimated that Ukrainian drones caused 50% or more of Russian losses during the past week. Moreover it is indicative of how the Ukrainian way of fighting has evolved. This is not, as one astute commentator put it, the result of Ukrainians adding drones to existing units, it is because they have re-imagined their military organizationand created entire drone-based units. These drone specialists possess a wide range of different UAV capabilities. This allows them the flexibility to detect, track and destroy Russians in many different ways. In one notable attack last week, the Ukrainians claimed to have taken out an entire battery of six Russian GRAD MLRS systems near Pokrovsk.

Just one example of how this form of warfare is evolving is the use of longer and longer range fibre-optic drones. The development of fibre-optic controlled UAVs has meant that drones that can be connected by the thin, translucent cables back to their pilot, cannot be jammed by electronic warfare. It makes them much harder to stop. The Ukrainians in the last week seem to have deployed fibre-optic controlled drones in significantly greater depth over the battlefield. One report was that a successful fibre-optic attack was launched to a depth of 50 kilometres—into Russia itself. That is a helluva long cable.

We obviously need to see how this develops. The new Ukrainian defense minister has talked about inflicting 40,000 casualties a month on the Russians while keeping Ukrainian casualties down. It certainly seems that the Ukrainians are trying to make that reality. And, perhaps, the lack of stories in the western press about the supposed devastating manpower shortage in the Ukrainian military indicates that the Ukrainians were not quite so foolish as western analysts liked to think in doing so. Or perhaps western analysts were not quite so smart as they imagined.

It is worth noting that the Ukrainians themselves are starting to explain Ukrainian thinking on this matter. Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who long time readers will know is a regular presence here and whom I consider one of the most astute strategic thinkers in Ukraine, just this week published a co-authored piece on the Ukrainian manpower situation. Eschewing the hyperbole and doom that has infused western analysts over the last few years, this team outline Ukrainian thinking and actions. It is a long article, but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. Here are two paragraphs that show their thinking about how Ukraine is adjusting to the modern battlefield.

The technological character of the battlefield has changed profoundly. Unmanned systems, electronic warfare, sensor transparency, precision fires, and rapid adaptation cycles have fundamentally altered how combat power is generated and how personnel are exposed to risk. In this environment, doctrine becomes decisive. Effective doctrine is a key element of any successful capability. How forces fight matters more than how many soldiers they field. Units that adapt doctrine to new environments—integrating dispersion, concealment, reconnaissance, and unmanned systems—generate greater operational effect per soldier while reducing attrition.

Ukraine’s drone-enabled units provide the clearest illustration. They account for a substantial share of Russian casualties while operating with comparatively limited personnel exposure. Their effectiveness lies not simply in technology, but in operating concepts that focus on disrupting Russian forces’ movement and imposing continuous pressure without the need for constant physical presence. In that way, these units are able to extend the so-called “kill zone”: the area of the front in which coordinated offensives are impossible due to pervasive overhead surveillance. Ukraine’s successful operations in late 2025 in and around Kupyansk offer a vivid example. By systematically targeting Russian units through the coordinated use of drones, artillery, and other remote fires, Ukraine was able to halt and reverse Russia’s offensive while minimizing the number of soldiers required at the point of contact. This operation reinforced the criticality of technology and doctrine as manpower multipliers.

Now, I am sure the next time the Russians make any noticeable advances, someone in the western press and analytical community will return to the manpower collapse narrative. Just know there is an alternative Ukrainian analysis and so far it is showing its worth.

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Trump Has Given Up Pretending

This past week Donald Trump and the USG rolled up their sleeves and went to work for Vladimir Putin. We might say it is a culmination of what has been happening over the last two months. Ever since the last time Trump tried to pretend he might come down hard on Putin (in early January as mentioned above) he has given up the pretense that he would ever do anything to hurt the Russian dictator.

We have heard no more of Graham-Blumenthal, of lots of fancy new weapons to Ukraine, etc etc. In place of that act we just have step after step being made to protect Putin and the Russian military and war economy.

The last few days we might have seen the most extreme examples of this. Using the pretext of his decision to attack Iran, Trump pushed a series of moves designed to help Russia, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with what is happening in Iran. Here is a list.

1. The most obvious and discussed US move was the relaxation of any oil sanctions on Russia. This along with the skyrocketing price of oil, meant that Russia is already making billions more in US dollars. Ten days ago the FT reported that Russia was set to make $150 million more a day because of increased prices/sales, but this might even have been too small. Just for March, it now seems Russia is on track to make up to $5 billion (and this was based on a lower per barrel price than we are seeing now).

2. This alone would be bad enough, but over this past week we have seen the Trump administration go out of its way to help Russia under the pretense of the Iran war, but really because they just want to help Russia. My favorite example of this was the surprise move this week to lift sanctions on two wealthy businessmen who are sanctions evaders, Boris Gennadiyevich Vorontsov and Berk Turken. The laughably dishonest justification for this move, which sadly the New York Times repeated without question, was that de-sanctioning these two was somehow tied to the price of energy. This is nonsense as the oil markets could not care less about these two. This is rewarding people for helping the Russian economy.

   

3. Along the same lines, the US Government went a long way to reducing existing sanctions on Belarus. In a nutshell the US opened up world trade for one of Belarus’ few export industries (potash which is key for fertilizers) while allowing the Belarussians to once again be active on world credit markets. Here is a small list of what the US agreed to do to help Belarus. Always remember, once money or goods make their way to Belarus, they can quickly be sent on to Russia so what the US is doing here is blasting open an economic corridor for Putin.

• Belaruskali & Belarusian Potash Company: As one of the world’s largest producers of potash (a critical fertilizer component), the removal of these firms from the SDN list allows Belarus to resume large-scale exports to global markets, bypassing the costly “gray market” routes through Russia.

• Ministry of Finance of Belarus: The delisting of the Ministry potentially allows for the unfreezing of certain sovereign reserves and paves the way for Belarus to re-enter international credit markets.

• Major Financial Institutions:

  • Belinvestbank

  • The Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus These banks are now permitted to resume transactions in U.S. dollars and use the SWIFT messaging system for international transfers.

4. It should also be noted that while the US was taking these completely gratuitous steps to help Russia, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth both came out and slammed earlier US aid to Ukraine and in Trump’s case actually belittled the very important support Ukraine is giving now to the USA. However, apart from the insults (which are to be expected at this time) it is most worrying the Hegseth blamed helping Ukraine for depleting US weapons stocks. It is a sure indication that future sales of aid to Ukraine are in real peril. Here is what Hegseth said on March 19:

   “We are still dealing with the consequences of what Joe Biden did—namely, depleting our stockpiles and sending them not to our own military, but to Ukraine…Every time we look back and see a problem, we get the same answer: ‘Well, that was sent to Ukraine.’”

So this week the US government really pulled out the stops to help Russia. Lindsey Graham was remarkably quiet on the subject.

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Ukrainian Long-Range Drone Attacks

This week the Ukrainians launched an almost daily wave of long-range assaults across Russia, stretching from targets 500 kms from Ukraine to those more than 1000 kms away. Here is a summary list of what I can find.

What it shows is that attacks on the Russian war economy are ramping up. To attack chemical factories, explosive plants and oil refineries all in one week shows at least that the Ukrainians are isolating what they think are key parts of the Russian economy. Of course we need to be careful about assuming too much damage was done, as we do not have accurate after action analysis yet of what actually was done.

However one of the interesting results of these attacks was the Russian admission that nowhere in Russia can be considered out of bounds for Ukrainian attack. Sergei Shoigu, long-time Putin crony, admitted that nowhere in Russia can be considered “safe” these days, and paid particular attention to vulnerabilities in the Urals—up to 1500 kms from Ukraine.

It is worth noting that the Russian government is not taking one of its normal tactics and talking down any threats. If they are admitting this is now the new reality, they are expecting more.

Will be interesting to see if they are right.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone!