Without Firing a SINGLE Shot… New Zealand BROKE Russia

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]New Zealand didn’t need to fire a shot. It didn’t  have to provide Ukraine with weapons or take the fight to Russia directly. None of that was needed.  Instead, New Zealand just screwed Putin and his bad actors big time by hitting Russia where it  hurts the most. What New Zealand has just done for Ukraine is insane, as it has broken Russia  and left Putin with a threefold problem. Cyber operations, illicit payment channels, and  third-country supply channels have just been taken out of the game. This is huge for Ukraine.  New sanctions are inbound, and they’re different from anything that we’ve seen New Zealand create  before. On May 7, the news broke that New Zealand had introduced a new raft of sanctions that are  specifically targeting around 20 individuals and entities that the nation says are involved  in some of the most damaging actions taken to support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.  Announced by New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, the sanctions amount to the 35th  round of punitive measures that the nation has put in place to punish Putin and his cronies  for the Russian invasion. Only, it’s not just about punishment this time around. This latest  raft of sanctions has been designed specifically to counter bad actors who enable cybercrimes  and other aspects of the invasion that simply wouldn’t be possible without the individuals  and entities New Zealand is targeting. Cyber platform operators that enable Russia’s hackers  and cyber criminals are being targeted. So, too, are the providers of alternative payment services  that have helped Russia to skirt around other sanctions and the restrictions that traditional  payment platforms have put in place. New Zealand is also taking aim at third countries, which act  as intermediaries for Russia by purchasing and then selling on the components and other equipment  that Russia isn’t able to buy directly anymore.

[00:01:40]Putin just got royally screwed. New Zealand  didn’t have to fire a single bullet. We’ll be digging into all three of the target categories  for New Zealand’s latest sanctions package. But before we do, Peters has made it clear why  he targeted the 20 individuals and entities that will be horrified to find their names in  New Zealand’s latest list. “Those who misuse online platforms to support Russia’s war against  Ukraine will face real consequences, including sanctions,” Peters declared, before adding, “We  are targeting the payment infrastructure that has helped enable Russia’s war against Ukraine.”  What we’re seeing here is New Zealand doing its part to shatter the military-industrial complex  that makes Putin’s entire war machine possible.

[00:02:18]Bad actors from countries like Iran and North  Korea are being targeted, New Zealand says, as the nation builds on the 2,000-plus sanctions  that it has already implemented by taking aim at Russia’s supply chains and platform providers  at the source. Speaking of building, New Zealand has been coming in hot and heavy with its sanction  packages in recent months. It was only in February that the nation implemented a round of sanctions  that targeted 23 individuals and 13 companies from Russia and Iran. New Zealand also used that  opportunity to stick it to Putin on the oil front, as it followed the European Union by creating  a new price cap of $44.10 on Russian oil. To add salt to the wounds, New Zealand also  used that February round to sanction 100 vessels that are part of Putin’s shadow fleet.  That time around, the individuals and entities targeted were members of Russian intelligence  agencies, a trio of Iranian citizens, including one involved in manufacturing drones, and the  leaders of the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange that has helped Russia to keep cash flowing in  for the Ukraine invasion. The latest raft of sanctions builds on New Zealand’s attack against  Russian crypto and financial fiddling. But they do so much more than that. At this point, you may  have some questions. Chief among them is the most obvious – why do these sanctions matter? It’s  a reasonable question to have. New Zealand’s 20 new sanctions may seem like a drop in the ocean,  especially given that Castellum AI reports that Russia is already the world’s most sanctioned  country. Putin, his cronies, and those helping Russia with its invasion are already dealing with  26,665 sanctions, 23,960 of which have been put in place since the invasion of Ukraine began.  Why should 20 more make much of a difference?

[00:03:56]The answer comes down to what New Zealand has  targeted with its 35th package, as this is where we’re starting to see a big shift. It’s not  just the major players that are getting sanctioned anymore. New Zealand is taking aim at anybody who  helps Russia in its attempts to unleash hybrid warfare against Ukraine. We’ll start with the  cybercrime sanctions. While all of the weapons and manpower that Russia has sent into Ukraine capture  headlines, it’s often what Russia’s shadowy army of cybercrime groups is doing that damages Ukraine  the most. Those groups, though decentralized, have a common goal – the complete destabilization,  and eventual destruction, of the very fabric of the cyber networks that hold Ukraine together.  Anything that helps to make Ukraine a cohesive nation is targeted, from logistics systems to  state registries and energy networks. These cybercriminals help Putin to keep Ukrainian  citizens in the dark, sometimes literally, and they have a secondary task of spreading  misinformation throughout the West that is designed to limit the support that Ukraine gets  from its partners. Operating from the shadows and always anonymous, these shady cyber cronies  take advantage of hidden Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses and platforms that provide them  with anonymous access to command servers, NewsSky reports. It’s these sorts of platforms that New  Zealand has targeted. If the cyber criminals are going to stay hidden, New Zealand is going to do  whatever it can to complicate the work that they do by stripping them of their platforms. With its  new sanctions, New Zealand forces Russia’s army of hackers to look for new and more expensive ways to  bypass the protections that Ukraine has in place for its web-based systems. The hackers who fail  can’t do anything. And that’s the entire point, because what Russia’s hackers have been doing  for the last four years is extremely damaging, not just to Ukraine, but to the entire West.  Those cyber criminals didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere when Putin invaded Ukraine in February  2022. They had been operational for a long time before, having started to implement and refine  their tactics during Russia’s initial campaign of aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Even ahead  of the full-blown invasion, and specifically in January 2022, these hackers were using the types  of platforms that New Zealand has sanctioned to launch cyberattacks against critical Ukrainian  infrastructure, the Atlantic Council reports.

[00:06:00]Since then, Russia’s cyberwar against Ukraine  and its allies has only escalated. Often, Russia accompanies its kinetic strikes with a  cyber component, using a combination of malware, phishing, and general disinformation to gain  access to systems that Russia can use to weaken Ukraine’s defenses ahead of drone and missile  strikes. Ukraine has its own army of cyber warriors attempting to defend against Russia’s  hackers while executing cyberattacks of their own. Dubbed the “IT Army,” Ukraine’s hackers are  decentralized and work tirelessly to stop Russia in its tracks. But they aren’t enough. And we see  that from the rate of Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine during 2026 alone. According to NewsSky,  international cybercrime monitoring centers have reported a 34% increase in cyberattacks against  Ukrainian facilities during the first quarter of 2026 when compared to the same period in 2025.  Most of those attacks came from Russia itself or from third countries that offer Putin’s hackers  technical support. What we see here is Russia leaning into a strategy that is working. New  Zealand’s latest sanctions are designed to take away the tools that the Russian cybercriminals  are using, which should, in turn, reduce the number of cyberattacks that Ukraine has to deal  with. But it’s not just Ukraine that has to worry about the Russian hackers. Where this gets really  serious is that Russia is expanding the scope of its cybercrimes to encompass much of the West. But  before we go deeper into this, you’re watching The Military Show. There’s a lot more where this comes  from, so make sure you subscribe to the channel if you’re getting value from our content. If the  2014 cyber campaign against Ukraine amounted to seeds being planted, those seeds have grown into  devastating plants in 2026. University College London published a piece in which it suggested  that the Ukraine war may be the first full-scale cyberwar that the world has ever seen. Hacking  and cyberattacks are nothing new in war, the college says. But what we’re seeing in Ukraine and  much of the West is a far more coordinated cyber campaign than anything that has come before. “For  alarmists, the potential consequences of cyberwar are dire: disruptions to power grids, financial  markets, or military communications could lead to chaos, economic collapse, or even loss of life  on a large scale,” the college’s paper says, adding, “The speed, anonymity, and global reach  of cyberattacks contribute to this sense of alarm, as these factors make it difficult to attribute  attacks and respond in a timely manner.” That difficulty in response is the major problem.  The West is feeling that as much as Ukraine.

[00:08:19]King's College London suggests that Russia’s  cyber campaign is a threat to the very fabric of democracy itself. Russia’s state-sponsored  hackers spread misinformation throughout the West via social media and similar channels, all  while launching more direct attacks against the institutions that protect Western democracy.  The information space has become a “geopolitical battleground,” says the Vice President  of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, and it’s hard to argue with her. During the  period between November 2023 and November 2024, there were 505 separate incidents of what King's  College dubs “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference,” or FIMI. These FIMI incidents,  which happened at a rate of almost 1.4 per day, targeted 322 organizations across 90  countries, involved the creation of 68,000 pieces of disinformational content, and leveraged  38,000 channels or accounts across 25 different platforms. FIMI only covers the disinformation  space, yet these numbers are more than enough to showcase the sheer scale of Russia’s cybercrime  and hybrid hacking enterprises. There is a shadow war raging against the West, and particularly  against the European Union. Cybercrime is one part of a much larger collection of tactics  that range from sabotage to airspace violations, and all of this is being done to harm Ukraine.  How? Russia uses its cyber strategies to punish nations that support Ukraine, with the idea that  the constant stream of “punishment” will add up to become so severe that those nations decide  that supporting Ukraine is more trouble than it’s worth. In Putin’s perfect scenario, the chaos  that his hackers create would be enough to cause Ukraine’s allies to pull back on their support,  which ends up leaving Ukraine vulnerable. Only, that isn’t happening. And New Zealand just proved  it. So, while the sanctions alone are important, especially when tackling Russia’s cybercriminals,  the message that those sanctions send is just as vital. New Zealand is telling Putin, without  ever firing a kinetic shot in his direction, that Russia can’t manipulate the nation into not  supporting Ukraine. Not only that, but New Zealand is going on the attack against the very platforms  that make Russia’s cybercrimes possible. The scale of those crimes, and the cost to conduct them,  will increase, which protects Ukraine directly, while also helping Ukraine’s allies to ensure  that the support that Putin is so desperate to stop doesn’t dry up. All of this will sting  Putin. His cybercriminals will be crying out for new platforms to continue their hybrid warfare.  But the even larger problem for Putin is that New Zealand has also used its sanctions to take  aim at the payment channels that Russia uses to skirt sanctions. NewsSky reports that New Zealand  has created an entire block of sanctions squarely aimed at one company that is providing Russia  with alternative payment solutions. The idea behind these alternatives, the outlet reports, is  to allow Russia to go outside of the traditional banking system so that it can get paid for its  exports. The money that Russia has been earning via these alternative gateways inevitably gets  pumped into Putin’s war machine, through which it is used to purchase the components that Russia  needs for its weapons from third countries.

[00:11:12]There’ll be more on those countries in a few  minutes. But what we see here is a direct link between the payment platforms being targeted and  the pain that Putin is inflicting in Ukraine.

[00:11:21]Russia has been banging the alternative payment  platform drum for years. It had to. Western sanctions stop Russia from receiving money for  the sale of sanctioned goods when that money passes through the traditional banking systems.  As far back as 2017, Russia had developed the System for Transfer of Financial Messages, or  SPFS, ostensibly as an alternative to SWIFT. The reality is that this is a Russia-centric platform  that AA reports had been used by 400 financial institutions by 2023. Russia also created the Mir  platform as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard, and it has pumped a lot of resources into  developing the BRICS Bridge e-payment platform.

[00:11:58]The messaging is always the same from Russia:  more non-dollar and non-euro transactions are needed. And of course they are. Putin knows  that these Western currencies are much easier to freeze in their tracks than the currencies that  Russia wants to work with. On the currency front, Russia has also been leaning heavily into  cryptocurrency since Putin launched his invasion. In Moscow sits the Federation Tower,  which The Forensic Archive says is home to the world’s most advanced sanctions-evading network.  The contents of this single tower had given Russia a $200 billion financial lifeline up to October  2025, the archive says, and that has been made possible because it supports a vast network of  shady crypto transactions via privacy mixers.

[00:12:37]Russia is essentially laundering its dirty  money using crypto that can be made untraceable, as it passes through shell companies to be used to  either pay Russia itself or purchase what Russia needs from third countries. These types of crypto  networks made sanctions effectively useless. And that’s what New Zealand is looking to counter by  screwing Putin with its massive 35th package. By sanctioning a key platform, New Zealand lets  everybody who might use that platform to make payments to or accept payments from Russia know  that it won’t abide the sanctions skirting. Putin doesn’t need that. He doesn’t want to see anybody  going on the attack against the methods that Russia uses to pay and get paid because he has  already led Russia into an economic black hole.

[00:13:16]According to Reuters, Russia’s economy contracted  0.3% in the first quarter of 2026, which marks the first contraction seen in Russia since 2023. That  is just a symptom of much wider economic issues that have resulted in a cost-of-living crisis  and Russian businesses faltering as Putin puts all of Russia’s eggs in the military-industrial  complex basket. Other countries have shown that New Zealand’s new approach works. Back in 2025,  Canada and Australia created similar sanctions that enabled them to freeze assets valued at over  $180 million, NewsSky reports. New Zealand will hopefully be able to get a similar result. At the  very least, it has cut off another avenue that Russia uses to get paid. The more of those avenues  that are closed down, the worse the effects on Russia’s economy become. And with no money,  Putin can’t provide the weapons and equipment his soldiers need on the front. Finally, there  are the third-country actors that New Zealand has sanctioned. We’ve touched on the third countries  already. They’re able to use the alternative payment platforms that Russia has set up to  pay and be paid by Putin and his cronies. It’s possible that Russia also has third-party hackers  operating against Ukraine’s interests. But where these now-sanctioned third-country individuals and  entities do the most damage is that they enable Putin to support Russia’s military by providing  him with access to the components that Russia needs to build its equipment. Here’s how it works.  Russia needs a lot of materials and components, especially when building its missiles and other  advanced tools of warfare. Rare earth minerals, software, and microchips are all essential  to Russia’s military machine. So, naturally, these are the sorts of products that other nations  sanction. Unable to buy these materials directly, Russia often relies on third countries to buy  them and then sell them on to Russia. The third country makes a purchase, ostensibly for itself.  Then, it sells to Russia, often being incentivized by Russia paying above the going rate for the  product, which allows Putin to skirt sanctions.

[00:15:02]The alternative payment platforms we’ve already  mentioned come into play here, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Russia’s cybercriminals  are also involved in obscuring the nature of these transactions. It’s not always the third countries  themselves that are to blame, outside of perhaps making it too easy for people and entities to make  these kinds of transactions. Not every nation that is part of Russia’s complex web of a supply  chain is like Iran and North Korea, which are both happy to help Russia directly. But what ends  up happening is that profiteers in third nations, be they individuals or entire businesses, buy from  sanctioning nations and then sell on for a profit, thus becoming some of the chief enablers  of the Ukraine invasion. All of this is murky, and purposefully so. There are  shell companies, shadow fleet vessels, and cryptocurrency involved. But as with its  other sanctions in its 35th package, New Zealand is cutting through the mire and going straight for  the source. The individuals and entities that it has sanctioned are part of Russia’s third-country  trade network. New Zealand is hitting those it has sanctioned directly in their pocketbooks, which  is the entire point. If making more money from selling to Russia is the incentive, taking away  even more money than is earned using sanctions will be enough to take Russia’s third-country  enablers out of the picture. This is all about blocking channels for Russia. With little more  than the swoop of a pen and a dry statement delivered to the public, New Zealand has hurt  Russia’s cyber arm, its financial network, and the complex and shadowy supply chain that it has  built all around the world. Putin has just been screwed. And now, New Zealand is likely looking  out for the next individuals and entities that it can sanction. While New Zealand didn’t have to  fire a shot to make Putin bleed, other nations are providing even more direct and…kinetic…support  to Ukraine. Sweden is one of them. It has provided Ukraine with Odin’s Magical Spear. Gungnir  has arrived in Ukraine, and it is tearing Russia’s forces apart. Watch our video to find  out what Gungnir is, and why it’s so important to Ukraine. And if you enjoyed this video,  make sure you subscribe to The Military Show to see more of our coverage about the work that  Ukraine’s allies do to put Putin in his place.