Targeting Problems in Ukraine || Peter Zeihan

Hey all, Peter Zin here coming to you from Colorado. Uh the news this week in

from Colorado. Uh the news this week in Kazakhstan of all places is that the United States is starting to point its finger at Ukraine about the targets it's supposed to attack in Russian territory.

Uh the issue is that over the last several months, Ukrainian drones have gotten more effective with better range and more explosive capacity and better accuracy and they're now regularly

targeting Russian infrastructure uh several hundred kilometers uh on the other side of the international border.

And several of those attacks have struck an area called Novarosis, which is an oil loading facility on the Russian part of the Black Sea. Uh the issue that

apparently the American government has is upstream of that pipeline on the other side of another international boundary with Kazakhstan. We have some investments by American super majors and

those super majors have gone to the US government and said hey and so this US government has gone to Ukraine and said no no no. Um the two projects in question are called Tengeis and

Kashagon. Now, Tengeis is the original

Kashagon. Now, Tengeis is the original foreign direct investment project by Western companies into the former Soviet Union. So old that actually predates the

Union. So old that actually predates the fall of the Soviet Union. It was

negotiated under Gorbachev. Uh and then Kazakhstan got an independent and uh it became a Kazak project. Uh it is a consortium that involves uh Chevron which has a 50% share, Exxon Mobile

which has a 25% share and then a series of local and Russian firms. Uh it produces about let's call it 700,000 barrels a day on a

good day. It's considerably below where

good day. It's considerably below where it was supposed to be. But the problem with that project is the pipeline. See

the pipeline comes out from Kazakhstan goes around the Caspian Sea crosses into Russia and then uses a lot of old repurposed Soviet section. So it's kind of jigsawed together before it gets to

Novais. And so the Russians have

Novais. And so the Russians have insisted that they be able to put their crude into the pipeline as well. So

while you do have a signal field that does produce a large volume, it's kind of capped at what it can do because the Russians demand access to the pipe for the rest of the capacity. Uh the second

project, Kashagon, is much more difficult. It's offshore in the Caspian

difficult. It's offshore in the Caspian Sea. Uh you only have one American

Sea. Uh you only have one American company involved. That's Exon Mobile.

company involved. That's Exon Mobile.

They have about a 16th share. Um it's

not doing nearly as well, but even it is getting up over 400,000 barrels a day.

So you put it together, you're talking over a million barrels a day. This is

this is real crude. and the Novik's terminal can handle it and then some.

But it's impossible for the Ukrainians to attack the Russian energy infrastructure that ends in Novosis without it also being perceived by American companies that it's impinging

upon their uh economic interests. And so

the Ukrainians have basically told go attack something else and that is exactly how the Ukrainians have interpreted it. Not don't attack energy

interpreted it. Not don't attack energy infrastructure like the Biden administration used to tell them. don't

attack energy infrastructure for which American interests are involved. Uh

[sighs] how this is going to go is going to get really interesting because when something loads up at these port you don't necessarily know what it's loading

up with and as soon as Ukraine started going after shadow fleet tankers more and more tankers are refusing to even go to Novaros. So this is one of those six

to Novaros. So this is one of those six of one half dozen another. How do you define it? how you going to enforce it?

define it? how you going to enforce it?

Uh, but the bottom line is is that the United States is no longer contributor to Ukraine's military defense and in the way it used to be. It used to be that the United States was the majority of

the military aid and provided very little economic aid. They left that to Europe. After a year of Donald Trump,

Europe. After a year of Donald Trump, the United States is still providing no economic aid, but is now providing no military aid at all. So, how talks evolve among the Ukrainians, the

Americans, and the Russians is going to determine how the Ukrainians decide to leverage their military technology here.

There are a number of ways that the Ukrainians could go after pumping stations on different projects. for say

the the Drewusba pipeline that used to bring in lots of crude into Germany. But

those attacks target facilities that supply crude to Hungary and Slovakia, which are two countries in Europe that are extraordinarily pro-Russian at the moment to the point that they're even shutting off fuel and electricity

deliveries to Ukraine because they want to make sure they can still get Russian oil flowing through Ukraine. So, it's

we're still dealing here with the detrious of the Soviet collapse because it's not just one empire anymore. It's

25 different countries across central Europe and the former Soviet Union proper. All of them have chunks of

proper. All of them have chunks of infrastructure that were designed for a different era and a different political reality and Ukraine is just in the unfortunate part of being in the middle

of it while under attack. Uh there's no such complications however further north. Uh there's another major pipeline

north. Uh there's another major pipeline system, the Baltic pipeline network that terminates near St. Petersburg which is just as big as what's going on in Novarosis. And as we've seen in recent

Novarosis. And as we've seen in recent months, that too is now within range of Ukrainian drones. More importantly, we

Ukrainian drones. More importantly, we have the Europeans that are in the process of negotiating how to go after the shadow fleets directly. So we could actually have a number of NATO countries, 10 of them, who border this

latoral who could all of a sudden all decide on the same day because they tend to coordinate policies uh that no more.

And then you've got have Denmark, Britain Norway Sweden Finland Estonia Latia Lithuania Germany and Poland all at the same time saying, "Nope, it's over." And there is no way

to redirect that crude somewhere else.

Uh, and if you want to talk about something that's going to hit Russia's bottom line, that's the way to do it.

And now the Ukrainians are in a position where they may be forced to concentrate all of their long-range attacks on one specific system. I would not want to be

specific system. I would not want to be running that system.