Ukraine launches drones toward St. Petersburg

Welcome back into life now I'm Austin Westphal. Let's talk about the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war. Russian officials confirmed that Ukraine has launched a large-scale attack on St. Petersburg, which is Russia's second largest city. The AP says residents of St. Petersburg were told not to leave their homes because of the attack. Russia's defense ministry said its air defenses shot down 376 Ukrainian drones. They reported three minor injuries. This attack comes a day after Vladimir Putin refused an offer to meet with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The New York Post with this, saying that drone attack targeted St. Petersburg again after Putin rejected the offer for the direct talks. All right, let's bring in Al Kempfer once again. Thanks for standing by, Al. St. Petersburg, that's where Putin is from. Why is Ukraine targeting the second largest city in Russia? Well, first off, it's right because of what you said. This is where Putin comes from. He was the mayor of St. Petersburg at one time. Obviously, it's crucial, it's traditional. I mean, if you go back historically, this is their big European city. This was the city that is on the coast, close to other European countries. It's on the Baltic. So that is obviously a very important city. And it's considered more of a European type of city. So it's very high profile whenever it's targeted. So that's one of the reasons why. They've been in Moscow as well. The other was that Russia was holding an economic summit there, which was billed as Russia's version of Davos, major event, people coming in from all over the world. The Ukrainians successfully hit it earlier in the week, hitting an oil facility at the port and also hitting a ship, causing huge plumes of smoke. And then, of course, this thing kind of punctuating the end of that event, which was this massive hit, which caused everybody to be ordered to stay inside. And this brings the war home to Russians. The two big cities in Russia, this is the Russian elite. The two big cities where they live are Moscow and St. Petersburg. And Russia and Putin have been trying very hard to basically hide the war from everyday Russians, particularly in these two major metropolitan areas. And that has become impossible because Ukrainian drones and missiles, but particularly the drones, are getting through and they're causing significant damage in these cities. And they're bringing the war home to everyday Russians in ways they haven't before. And this falls on the heel of Putin's finance minister saying, look, we can no longer afford the war. We don't have the resources. We don't have the money to pay for the war. The Russian economy is shrinking. They've got huge economic problems. And the Russian elites are reportedly kind of pulling back support from Putin. Nobody's predicting a coup anytime soon. But all the stages are set for Putin really losing his position, his legitimacy, if you will, as a leader of Russia. So this is very significant. The timing is very auspicious. And I am truly skeptical of any Russian claim on shooting down drones. In fact, based on that, I think they shot down more drones than Ukraine said they sent. So obviously, those drones got through. They wouldn't have hit the things they hit if a lot of those drones weren't getting through. So makes a big statement and says a lot about that. And of course, on the heels of, and honestly, Zelensky kind of set that up. He put out that public letter saying, I want to meet with you, knowing full well that Putin would probably not meet. And then Putin said he would not meet. And frankly, Putin looks very weak on the world stage because of that. So people that have been following this war, they might simplify the conflict by saying that the Russians took an offensive posture in 2022. The Ukrainians have held a defensive posture throughout the course of the fight. Is Ukraine still on the defensive, though, if they are firing at cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg? How do you work that question out? Awesome, that is a fantastic question, and it kind of sums it up. The reality is, the only significant movement of forces on the battlefield right now are in favor of Ukraine. They've been making gains. To give you an idea of how hard Russia or Putin is trying to hide what's going on, he made some extraordinary claim, which was just complete bunk, about how much land Russia has taken. Based on the number he gave at that economic summit or that economic conference in St. Petersburg, I think it was yesterday, based on the number that he stated, and he may have just completely screwed up the way he said it. But it's actually, what he said is about three and a half times larger than the entire nation of Ukraine, mathematically speaking. But he doesn't even bat an eye when he throws that out there. The reality is, Russian troops are not making any headway. In fact, there are more Russians being medically evacuated or killed on the battlefield than Russia can raise to replace them. So that is actually going the other way. They're losing more troops than they have the ability to replace those troops. So Russia's running out of troops. That's why they have North Koreans in there. That's why they're recruiting from trying to get troops from overseas, from other countries to come in and act as mercenaries, is that they are just having a very, very difficult time. I'm not saying that Russia isn't causing tremendous damage, destruction, that they're not aggressively going after the battlefield. I would just say at this point, the Ukrainians definitely have the advantage. The much vaunted Russian spring offensive has completely stalled out and gone the other direction. And I don't know if the Ukrainians will complete a breakthrough to turn the war around anytime soon. I mean, we haven't seen them do something like that in years. But they are winning the war, and Russia's losing not just the war on the ground, but they're obviously losing the war for the hearts and minds of the Russian people. Because now you have things like St. Petersburg, and you've had other things like Moscow and elsewhere around the country. So we had that map up a bit ago, showing basically where St. Petersburg is in relation to Ukraine. Is this a reminder of Ukraine's range? The Ukrainians, I mean, you gotta go over quite a bit of territory in order to even reach St. Petersburg from Ukraine. So how deep within Russia are the Ukrainians capable of hitting? Is St. Petersburg sort of around that limit? Or what do we know about Ukraine's range limit in general? They can actually hit further than St. Petersburg. They can hit, I wanna say, about 1,500 miles with some of the systems that they have. Those are really, really long range. But they have drones that can reach out. They also have a equivalent missile to our, somewhat equivalent to our Tomahawk missile that has tremendous range as well. And so they actually, they have the capabilities now that they just did not have before. Now that Flamingo 5 missile that I was just talking about, that thing, it's got a heavier warhead than our Tomahawks carry. And they're able to fire that very far off. I don't think they can produce the quantities that they wanna produce. But in terms of drones, not only are they producing a lot of these long range drones, the ones you saw hitting St. Petersburg, the ones that have been hitting Moscow, even much further than Moscow, all the way. Basically, they can encompass the Ural Mountains. So they've been hitting far out there. They did something that didn't get as well reported as they did some massive strikes in Crimea, which is Russian controlled Ukrainian territory. It's that big peninsula that shoots down into the Black Sea. They have basically made that into not complete no-go territory for the Russians, but it's very difficult for the Russians to operate there cuz it's so vulnerable. These are all these drones. But they also have what they call intermediate range drones reaching out to a couple hundred miles. Those things have completely upended the Russian supply lines, the Russian logistics capabilities. One of the reasons they have such a tough time manifesting offensives, ground offenses, is because they just don't have the logistics to support them. So they've been doing some pretty amazing things with drones, not just long range, but actually closer in drones that have really turned the war around against the Russians. There was a time last year where Putin and Trump were meeting in Alaska. And there was at least a discussion about the possibility that there could be a bilateral or a trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Putin, and then possibly a third party being President Trump. Obviously, after the Alaska summit, nothing immediately came after that. And now you're hearing about a lot of the reports of this drone strike towards St. Petersburg. A lot of the headlines and a lot of the news articles that are writing about this are saying that this is coming in the context of Putin declining another in-person meeting with Zelensky. Is an in-person meeting between Putin and Zelensky one of the best chances possible to actually get the Russia-Ukraine war on a path to peace? Or is there another route that might be more likely? Well, you're not gonna see any peace treaty really take place or any major ceasefire without some significant leadership there. And that's been one of the things that we've been pushing is for obviously, as you mentioned, going back to last August with the Alaska summit between President Trump and Putin, where they had talked about this, they talked about follow on things. And of course, nothing much really came out of that. There was one instance, I believe it was a meeting down in Saudi Arabia or down the Gulf where Zelensky was in the area. Zelensky could have potentially shown up, but Putin never did show. And so Putin, as you know, he's got an international criminal court warrant out on the global stage. So he's gotta be very careful which country he goes to. But he is a little resistant to do that. He may be having health problems as well. There's been a number of reports that he's been using a body double for some of these meetings versus himself. And then he's got some physical problems that he may be dealing with. So he may not be as visible on the global stage as he once was. So there may be more to that than just reluctance. The other thing is, with Russia losing on the battlefield like they are, to paraphrase President Trump, Russia doesn't have as many cards in those negotiations. And so his position has always been these maximalist goals of taking over the entire Donbas, Zaporizhia, all these other places they invaded, these oblasts or provinces they've invaded. Obviously, now he can't really push out that narrative. He can't claim that they're going to eventually seize it, cuz the war's going the other way. So he can't even make that claim he's always made, which is, we're gonna win anyway, so why don't you suit for peace? He can't really make that claim, it's going the other direction. Al Kempfer with us, as always, being generous with your time on a Saturday, we appreciate you. What's coming up on the Strat Podcast? I always say Al Kempfer is the host of the Strat Podcast. What's coming out next on the podcast? Well, this weekend, I'm gonna do one and I'm gonna spend some time talking about, coincidentally, Russia and Ukraine, and talk about this dynamic which is taking place. So I'm gonna get more in depth on that. I'm gonna talk about the specifics of what's happening here, probably mention a few weapons capabilities, as I kind of referenced there. And how this has changed, and particularly that thing where they've really clogged up the logistics of the Russians to support their forces on that battlefield front. It's amazing what's happening there. And unfortunately, because of Iran, it doesn't get some of the notoriety or get some of the exposure that it probably should. Al Kempfer with us on this Saturday. You can listen to Strat Anywhere, podcasts are available. Have a good rest of your weekend, thanks. All right, you too, Austin, thanks. By the way, the New York Post has some satellite imagery of the strikes that took place in St. Petersburg. Again, Russian officials saying a number of those drones were intercepted. And at least the official word coming from the Russian government is three minor injuries on ground. Certainly, you see some destruction there on the ground, according to the satellite images, courtesy of the New York Post.