hey everyone peter zion here happy fourth of july weekend uh with it being a national holiday and
all that i thought would be great time to talk about coos uh specifically one of the comments
excuse me one of the questions i get asked most often about events in the ukraine war is when is
somebody gonna off putin some major general works for ukrainian intelligence keeps uh
throwing out rumors there that putin has blood cancer and that a coup is imminent i think he's
had this like five times now in the last three months anyway uh i can't tell you whether or
not putin is sick he's clearly on some sort of steroids but that could mean anything
but that doesn't mean that a successful coup even if it did happen would change the war
from the russian point of view this is a conflict for their existential survival
russian territory is flat it's open it's difficult to defend its low value it's lightly populated
they've never been able to generate the capital that's necessary to build a good rail network
and so their military forces do not fight moving battles very well we're seeing in
that in ukraine over and over and over it's very a slow plotting force wed to rail lines which means
that should a foe ever get fast and loose in the eurasian territories in the heart of russia
the russians are screwed they've lost far more wars than they've won because
they can't maneuver their best hope is that the weather will eventually wear the invaders out
that means if the russians are going to have a forward defense it has to be way
forward not within their own territories within someone else's not just any territories a series
of very specific corridors russian strategy going back roughly four centuries has been to expand
past the russian flats until you hit a series of geographic barriers that you just can't run tanks
through so things like the carpathian mountains great buffers no one's running a tank over the
carpathians what you do is you evade around the carpathians you come in from the southwest through
the best arabian gap through poland or excuse me through romania or bulgaria or you come in
around the north through the polish gap through germany and poland so the russian position is the
russian position always has been to park static forces in those gaps there are nine of them
the soviets controlled all nine when the soviet system collapsed they went from nine to one
ukraine is just unfortunate enough to be on the path to another two and so getting back
to those gaps that's what this war has always been about and why this war was always going to happen
now we can't give the russians what they want because those gaps are either on the territory
or in between the territories of russia and the gaps are 20 odd countries with a combined
population of nearly a quarter of a billion considerably larger population than russia itself
so you know there's no way that everyone can be happy here and the russians are
not focusing on making anyone happy but that means that even if there was a coup tomorrow
that probably wouldn't change the position of the russian government in the war because this is not
putin's war this is a russian war this would have happened under any government and whoever
might be willing to take over would probably continue to prosecute the war just as it has been
now does that mean there can't be a coup for other reasons of course not and russia is famous
for being politically unstable particularly at the top politically specifically the more
ossified things become as they are quite right now it's very vulnerable to any sort of disruption
there's only one person however in putin's inner or outer circles who might have the means and
the guts his name is igor sechen he was a gun runner during the soviet days and he um he fears
very little but if there's one thing that everyone else in the russian elite agrees upon is that igor
sachin is a bit of a prick and so if he did stab putin in the back with a knife section himself
would probably cut into pieces within 24 hours so i don't think that is the coup uh scenario that
most people are hopeful of in the west anyway it's not something i see is particularly like likely
and even if it did happen i don't think it would really change the facts on the ground at all all
right that's it from me everyone have a great fourth until next time i wanted to take today
as an opportunity to discuss what's going on with russia as regards a possible coup
or secession now there have been a lot of folks especially the european union who are now actively
publicly calling for the russian oligarchs to overthrow the putin government and i thought it
was worth picking that apart there are two groups of oligarchs the first are the ones who got their
assets by robbing the state blind in the 1990s in the post-soviet collapse this group includes
folks like uh peter aven and mikhail friedman of alpha bank uh this includes michael prokhorov
of nora's nickel which is the world's largest nickel platinum palladium and copper deposit
it's like 40 of the world's palladium comes from there these folks have minimal influence over the
putin government they can't demand a meeting they don't have access to the guy whenever he calls
they come running because they cut a deal with putin back in 2000 right when he became president
putin said that you can keep your assets as long as you pay your taxes start paying your taxes and
you never get involved in politics and that deal has more or less stuck for the next 22 years so
these folks do have a few assets outside of russia and these are largely what the governments of the
west have been going around and confiscating and threatened to expropriate and it's not that i feel
bad for these guys i mean they got their stuff by stealing the state blind but they are not ones who
have the influence that would not be necessary to make a coup they're widely disliked not just
by putin but by the entire russian population and if putin wanted to get a few more points
in popularity executing a couple of these guys would probably do it for them and they know it
so they are not the kind of group that you can really turn to for any sort of political change
the second group of oligarchs are the ones who became rich because of putin putin brought them
in either they were former kgb members or folks from his inner circle whatever it happened to be
uh this includes folks like sergey chimazov who is the world's most sanctioned person he's in charge
of the military-industrial complex of russia and whenever you see equipment breaking down on the
field that's his fault because he is breathlessly corrupt uh and alexi miller of russia's gazprom
which is the world's largest natural gas concern these guys have access to putin and some of them
like chemistry are actually in the inner circle but they are blindly loyal everything they have
is because of their position next to putin and if he were to fall they would probably fall too
there's one exception there's a guy by the name of igor sechin who's in charge of rosneft which
is the state oil company of russia he used to be a gun runner during the cold war and he's got
the guts and he's got the means and he's got the access if anyone in the inner circle or anyone of
the elite is going to off putin it's going to be him but if there's one thing that the rest of the
elite whether in the inner circle or out agrees upon it's that section is kind of a jackass and
they would probably pull to their strengths to off him the next day after he got rid of putin
so i don't see a palace coup being very likely or a coup from within the inner circle or the
oligarchs in general this is just something that's going to have to go by the moral fashion
method which is wait for the state to collapse in russia the czars the leaders whoever they happen
to be they're stable until they're not and right now the lights are still on the trains are still
running and the wheat is still coming in so while there are a lot of russians who are embarrassed
or angry with certain aspects of the war we are nowhere near the critical mass that is necessary
to generate any sort of meaningful revolt so far less than one percent
sorry less than 1 100th of one percent of the russian population has participated in
protests and those are pretty much over already so if the russian government's going to change
it's not going to be via this vector at least not now okay that's it from me until next time
at this time passing zero seven zero four one four zero rtb linking via septum
you