Russia’s Black Sea blunders could lead to NATO meddling

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. We had some interesting news yesterday on April 13. The Ukrainians claim that they shot a couple of their own domestically produced missiles at a ship called the Moskva or the Moskva, uh, which is the, the flagship, the pride of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Uh, the Ukrainians are saying they hit it and they disabled it. Uh, the Russians of course have countered said, no, no, no, no, no, no. We were not taken out by a weak missile. No, no. We had an accident that started a fire in our ammunition stores which blew up and forced the evacuation of the ship. Now, whether you believe the Ukrainian story that the most advanced ship that the Russians have, can’t stop a couple of missiles or the Russian story where sheer incompetence led to the destruction of the most advanced ship that they have, it’s kind of a null point. 

The point is that the Russians just lost their flagship on the Black Sea. Uh, they only have 12 surface combatants. This is the second one they’ve lost in the war. And the Russians are now showing an extreme, inability to use their Naval vessels to do very much because if they get near shore, they get shot at. In addition, NATO is in the process of supplying the Ukrainians with more advanced anti-ship weaponry. So we are already past the high point for what the Russians can do with their Navy in the war. And we should start thinking about what it’s going to look like when the Russians don’t have a Naval presence in the Black Sea, because we’re probably gonna be there in a couple of months. Now the Russians have multiple fleets in multiple places. And so in theory, they can take ships from one theater to relocate to the Black Sea, to reinforce for the Ukraine war.

But one of the problems the Russians have always had in being in Naval power is that the, their literals are not connected. Uh, this isn’t like the United States where you can have a North Pacific or a South Pacific fleet or an Indian Ocean fleet and they can sail around Africa and get to wherever they need to go. No, no, no, no. These are completely separated. The two closest theaters that the Russians could fear theoretically reinforce from are the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Sea. 

[FULLSCREEN ANIMATED MAP] – The Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is surrounded by NATO members and getting from the Baltic sea to the Black Sea requires sailing by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania the currently, but maybe not for much longer non-aligned countries of Finland and Sweden, through the Danish Straits, by Norway, by France and the United Kingdom by Spain and Portugal, by France, again by Italy and ultimately having to go through the Turkish Straits, another NATO country, in order to the Black Sea. 

So that is, that would be asinine. Just completely idiotic to think that all these NATO countries would just like, “ha ha ha yes, you can sail your little ships by.” No, no, no, no, no. Uh, the Arctic sea fleet, uh, the Northern fleet as the Russians call, it is usually the most powerful of the Russian forces because

It is so much more removed from potential NATO forces. So that’s where the Soviets concentrated. That’s where the Russians have concentrated, but we’re seeing absolutely wretched levels of ship management, especially if you want to believe the Russian line on what happened to the Muskova and the terrain and the climate in conditions in the Northern fleet above the Arctic circle are the most extreme in the world. So to think that the ships up there are even capable of sailing en mass might be a reach. And just like with the Baltic Sea fleet, it’s 6,000 miles <laugh> to get to the Black Sea. So that’s really not on the table. Either. 

The final fleet is the Pacific fleet, but to get from the Pacific bases to the Black Sea, it’s an 11,000 mile sale around at least two continents. And that even assumes that they can use Suez. If they can’t use Suez, and they have to go around Africa, even longer. So this is it. The 12 ships, well now 10 ships that the Russians have to fight this war, they’re not gonna last much longer. The more advanced ones are already gone and more advanced missiles are soon going to be targeted as what is left.

I’m having flashbacks here to the Cold War. Uh, we’re getting to a position very soon where NATO is gonna have some interesting decisions to make. NATO has not moved any forces into the Black Sea. They have tried to avoid conflicts with Russian forces wherever they can so that there’s no risk of escalation, but pretty soon there aren’t going to be Russian ships in the Black Sea. And in that scenario, putting a few vessels into the Black Sea to either interact with the Turkish ports that are on the north side of Turkey, south side of the black sea would be diplomatically provocative, but there’s nothing military going on there. It would certainly give the Russians heartburn. If I were in charge, I’d say, you know, this is a great time to make port visits to Georgia and sail by Sakuey, which is an occupied city, the or well occupied is the wrong term.

The Russians created a secessionist enclave in Northwest Georgia. Back in the 1990s. It still has Russian troops there, but the Russians have been pulling troops out of it in order to reinforce in Ukraine. So it’s not that I think that NATO’s gonna make a grab for it, but sail within sight of it, it’s certainly is gonna make the Russians panic and anything that divides Russian forces among multiple locations is gonna be something that’s very bad for the Ukraine war effort. Or, we could start dropping off supplies in say, Romania and ship ’em across the border into Ukraine. There’s a lot of options here that are about to become available steps that are short of war and steps that are short of a direct confrontation that the Russians have proven that they can’t do anything about. Uh, we may be on the verge of a new phase in the war where outside intervention isn’t happening, but outside meddling absolutely is.

Alright, that’s it from me for today, until next time.