Ukraine to Belarus: Kick Out Russia, Or You're NEXT!

[00:00:00]Every jiu-jitsu athlete worth their salt has been to a tournament where you watch the other matches in your bracket and you see some dude who's just buzzsawing people. And the worst feeling in the world is of course when you look and realize you've got him next. Well, that seems to be happening to poor Bellarus who's watching what's happening to Putin's Russia and saying, "I think I'm on the wrong side of this one." because Ukraine is literally telling them, "Buddy, we're coming for you next."

[00:00:30]Zalinsky has gone straight to Lucenko in Barus and said, "Listen, you need to remove Russia's military equipment from your border." Zalinsky has thrown down the gauntlet, accusing Lucenko of having Russian military equipment in the Ukrainian border. Now this military equipment is not staged or uh simply equipment there as a defensive measure.

[00:00:56]In fact, it is actually a re-transator.

[00:01:01]This is a a uh communications relay helping to guide Russian drones into the Ukrainian territory. And this is a well a huge problem because again this is active equipment that has almost no defensive purpose. It's meant because it's a re-transator. It is literally taking signals being sent from Russia bouncing them through Bellarus and allowing drones and other reconnaissance equipment to operate to feed those signals and receive commands from Russia. It's a way to literally pull Bellarus into the war without well literally pulling Bellarus into the war.

[00:01:46]And so it makes sense that Solinsky says, "Listen, if you're going to put this equipment right next to my country and use it to guide strikes to my country, well, you become a valid target." And by the way, that logic uh tracks well pretty carefully actually with the conflict in the Middle East where both the um Israelis say that be that Iran is valid is a valid target for Hezbollah because Iran enables Hezbollah with ballistic missiles and weapons and gear and training and support. But also Iran says we have a right to strike third party countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE because they are willing to host US forces and US air bases. So this is a pretty standard and irrefutable logic for conflict in the modern era where globalization has meant that bases, equipment and and all sorts of of military adjacent and literal military infrastructure end up in a variety of countries.

[00:02:53]And so the threats from Zalinsky are actually also directed at Bellarus's refining capability because as Zillinsky points out that the uh Russian refin or excuse me Bellarussian refineries uh and petroleum suppliers provide provide key fuel to the Russian military and he argued that Lucas Shenko actually has the power to halt those deliveries if he so chooses.

[00:03:28]Again, Zillinsky said, "We are doing everything possible to prevent Russia from selling oil and supplying fuel to its armies." He continued, quote, "Today, Lucenko and Bellarus is one of the main suppliers for the Russian army.

[00:03:38]Can this be stopped? I'm convinced it's within his power. This is something he controls." Because remember right now in Russia there are massive massive lines for fuel and huge restrictions placed on on fuel within Russia. But but Putin is very secure in his power base. He's popular among Russian ultraists. Lucenko cannot say the same. He simply doesn't have the cult of personality that Vladimir Putin does. And that's a huge problem because while Putin can weather some pretty unbelievable economic storms, Lucenko knows he cannot. A million dead Bellarussians, a tripling of Bellar Russian gas prices is going to end with Lucenko in handcuffs being put on trial. So he knows that he cannot afford uh even a fraction of the disruption and losses that uh Russia has suffered. But I think it's also interesting that the gas crisis in Russia is actually way worse even than you might realize. It goes way deeper because I want to show you guys this one here. Uh this is the price of Russian gas, right? Notably Eur's crude. So here is the Euro's crude price. And as you can see, uh, part of the sanctions regime was meant to cap certain purchases of euro's crude at the, uh, at $60 a barrel. And as you can see, right now, it is actually trading at 61. Now, $60 a barrel was a very carefully chosen number. The reason it was selected is because at $60 a barrel, Russian refineries still are profitable. They can still run and make money, but the money they make is tiny. So, if you sell a uh $60 barrel of oil as a Russ after you pay the maintenance cost on your refinery, after you pay your workers, after you pay everything else, they're probably making maybe 1, two, or 3%.

[00:05:44]Maybe as much as 5%. But we're talking about two or three dollars a barrel.

[00:05:48]Whereas you can see that that same barrel of oil went from making two. You can double your profits. Essentially, if it goes from 60 to $63 a barrel, you're talking about 10 or 20xing your profits when you're seeing a $124 a barrel for a barrel of of euros crude. So, the one person who's lost in this global oil crisis has or has won through this global oil crisis has been Russia. and the fact that even with Russian oil at unbelievable levels of profitability, you're still seeing euros crude uh you're still seeing massive shortages inside of Russia and you're seeing the now the price of euro's crude is plummeting which means that Russia is going to be even receiving less revenues than before. So their weakening position is now going to be in basically freefall. In fact, that massive oil spike was actually subsidizing uh Vladimir Putin's continued mistakes because the little bit of oil that was still being produced, about twothirds of of Russia's refining capacity remains operational, that 2/3 was still turnurning out very profitable oil, but now it's not even doing that.

[00:07:11]Now, we're hearing the Kremlin for that reason probably signal that actually maybe we were a little fast to dismiss those talks. Now, I want to be clear, Russia has been on the negotiations carousel for the entirety of the Trump administration for over a year. And this carousel has gone nowhere, right? You you get on the horse. Trump gets on the horse. Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner get on the horse sitting the wrong way of course.

[00:07:43]Uh Zalinsky is made to get on the horse.

[00:07:46]And of course Russia and Putin get on the horse. And then they drive in circles. The horse the circles go through Alaska. They go through Saudi Arabia. They go through Switzerland.

[00:07:57]Around and around they go. But the thing that they don't do is make any progress.

[00:08:01]So the fact that Russia is saying that they're willing to get back onto a zero progress format is not actually the the the when you think it is, but it is saying something that Russia claims that suddenly actually we have always been interested in negotiating Russian COPE, but the fact that they're even expressing a sort of appetite for talks is not nothing. It's not insignificant.

[00:08:29]Now, this is also interesting because Trump is starting to learn, huh, you know, negotiations work a little better when you can deliver some leverage to the other party. This is crazy because, well, they could have just asked anyone who watches this channel and been like, "Yeah, dude, you need to change the calculus of both parties there where peace for both sides looks better than continued conflict." And well, the Russian uh the fact that the American government is actually coming around to that is kind of shocking. According to a report by The Economist, uh now that the Iran war appears to be wrapping up, or at least Trump's involvement in it, uh the Americans seem inside the White House seem to be saying, "Huh, you know, I think Ukraine isn't just a good guy because they're a fellow democracy and they view us as an ally, but I think they may actually be a winner." And if there's one thing we know about President Trump, it's that this dude loves winners. That's one of the reasons he loves Vladimir Putin because he wishes he were more like him.

[00:09:42]Well, having just lost a war to Iran, I think Trump looks at someone who can win a war and says, "Damn, these guys must be the real deal." So, there's another bunch of uh sort of flimsy uh peace deals being proposed. One is kind of a joke. Again, a sort of demilitarized zone on either side of the front line and then some kind of a broader agreement to be reached later. This is obviously a total joke because as we've seen the de peace now deal later uh format it really it [ __ ] Gaza. Uh the Gaza reconstruction fund doesn't exist.

[00:10:23]Um the Israeli military is annexing more of Gaza, pushing themselves closer in to uh Gaza and putting more Gazins under occupation, you know. And of course, the Iran deal is the Iran deal total trash and almost being fed into a shredder as we speak.

[00:10:42]But uh you know, maybe it'll work in Ukraine. The most important thing to take away is that the Washingtons uh the the Washington insiders are starting to realize that, hey, Russia can't be trusted and Ukraine is actually a winner, not a loser. And this is of course validating what Secretary Dan Driscoll has said basically the entire time that in terms of battlefield information integration, AI integration into a military, it's surpassed that of the US military, which increasingly looks like a pretty low bar. And Defense Secretary Pete Hgsathth actually acknowledged the US had learned so much from Ukraine's drone operation. coming for Pete Hegsath. That's [ __ ] wild because Hegath literally wore a Russian tie to tell Zalinsky that they were pulling funds and that he should, you know, take watch out, be careful out there. Um, truly what you want in an ally. Uh, some people think Donald Trump has learned something from humanized Zalinsky or gave him empathy for Zalinsky, Iran has. But again, President Trump has never shown anything other than the ability to um follow money. Whoever offers him money will get his loyalty. So, I don't believe that for a second. But Trump can still be coerced, as we've talked about, by just about anybody, including people inside his administration. But certainly, this Iran war may have actually changed the disposition, at least of the smarter people inside the Trump administration.

[00:12:14]And maybe they're starting to realize that they can't let an 80-year-old man uh with a history of bankruptcy uh run any more wars or set any more policy.

[00:12:24]And maybe we'll see some cooler heads start to say, "Hey, why don't we help out the winners here?" And by the way, uh if you want to help out the winners and do your part, uh well, we're partnered with Ukraine Aid Operations, a US registered 501c3 charity. So, your donations are taxdeductible and we are helping out Ukraine's unmanned systems units get the ground drones, heavy lift transport drones, mid-range drones, and more that they need to take the fight to the Russians. And more importantly, guys, a lot of these drones save lives.

[00:12:54]They get medical supplies to places where no human being can get to. They evacuate casualties along routes that no human being can navigate. Literally, there is a video from the 25th Airborne of how our drones have saved lives already. So, if you want to do your part, you can contribute. Uh the links in the description there for people that donate over $200. There are a whole bunch of different reward tiers. And thanks to all you guys that that have done so, including Anar Bujornson, uh Lisa Lisa Ena, uh bunch of Norwegians, man. [ __ ] yeah. Uh ouch. Common veteran news may not be as successful as Jake Bro. Okay. Listen, listen. There's a lot of metrics for success. All right. All right. Don't be a hater. Uh I love Jake. He's great. Uh Hussein Boyd and more. So thanks to all you guys that donate. Uh even those of you that are trolls. U links in the description.

[00:13:49]Also huge thanks to guys like Brennan Alfred, Peter, Mike, William, Thomas, Deborah, Paul, Jeff, and the Lieutenant Folks. See you guys. Cheers.