Trump Raises Heat on Russia with Belligerent New Threats
In the last report we had the first inklings of Trump’s now-revealed approach to “ending the Ukraine war”, but now he has finally clarified it in full in a series of new statements, which included first and foremost this Tweet:
There are many things to be said here, but first let’s lay out all the statements on the table to see them as a whole. Here Trump begins to get even more belligerent and threatening than the post above—he very seriously threatens Russia with all kinds of “massive” taxes, tariffs, and sanctions if they don’t end the war “immediately”:
So the big question becomes: how does Trump intend to put such devastating economic pressure on Russia, exactly? He mentions tariffs and taxes on imports, but this is almost an intentional joke: Russia and the US have virtually no trade turnover whatsoever; there is very little of any consequence from Russia that Trump could tax or tariff. The few things there are, like Uranium, are critical to the US which the US can’t get from anywhere else in the same quantity and timelines, and thus would be shooting himself in the foot.
Regarding Trump's threats...
Russian -US trade turnover is miniscule since 2021...
At the end of June last year, the volume of exports of Russian goods to the USA fell to the lowest level since 1996 - only 186.7 million dollars.
According to the Federal Customs Service, the United States was not even included in the top 10 largest trading partners of Russia for the period January-October 2024.
China is in first place with a share of 33.8%, and Uzbekistan on the tenth with 1.4%.
Trump announced possible sanctions on those countries that continue to buy products from Russia.
It's hard to imagine that the US will be able to get Beijing to stop buying Russian oil and gas.
👉The only significant effect would be if they manage to block Russia's shadow tanker fleet.
So: as per the above, we know Trump is either lazily deluded, or is smarter than we think and is throwing an intentional deflection dart for his enemies. The real mechanism by which Trump aims to bring Russia to its knees is outlined below in two new statements stitched together in this video:
Firstly, an important point must be made: Trump is extremely condescending to Saudi Arabia in the first statement above. Not only does he narcissistically remark that they should have already preemptively lowered oil prices as a kind of genuflection toward his new ascension to power, but then even outright blames the Saudis for starting the Ukraine war—a pretty outrageously extraneous remark. How exactly do you demand various tithes and tributes from a country to the tune of a trillion dollars, all while belittling them?
Needless to say, this alone marks a not-so-optimistic start to Trump’s war-ending plan. Trump appears to be under the impression that he’s still ruling in a previous bygone era—but times have passed him by, other countries are no longer as beholden nor fearful of the US and its big braggadocio threats. Putin has since developed closer ties to the Saudis and it seems hard to imagine they would skip and jump at Trump’s beck and call so easily all to spite Russia, with whom they now have good relations, highlighted by Saudi Arabia’s recent inclusion into the BRICS fold. 1
The way Trump has roared onto the scene, demeaning and bullying every country left and right, leaves one to ponder how truly effective his tactic will be in this new world. Denmark, Panama, and Mexico, for instance, have already rebuffed his wild threats, although some reports now claim Denmark is internally in turmoil politically vis-a-vis Greenland.
All in all, it’s still questionable what results Trump’s extremely grating and disrespectful approach will yield, and one surmises that the general concensus of countries treated thusly by Trump will reveal the overall state of the world and direction things will take in the short to medium term. If Trump’s now ‘mythic’-level stature is enough to push countries around all across the globe, it will denote a new muscular American era of global hegemony. But if countries resist, and there begins to be a kind of herd mentality courage that develops, with each subsequent country inheriting boldness from the previous one which demonstrated resistance, then Trump’s new American century may fall flat and be exposed as nothing more than a cheap machismo PR campaign; that of course would subsequently bode very poorly for Ukraine.
But let’s just say Trump’s plan to hit Russia on oil and gas works to an extent, whether through OPEC price reduction or the combination of that and a renewed targeting of Russia’s oil tanker ‘shadow fleet’, would this really “instantly end the war” in one day as Trump claims?
Firstly: even if Russia lost vast amounts of oil revenue, how could this possibly end its war effort “instantly”? Russia has one of the highest foreign exchange reserves in the world, not to mention various materials and commodities. Even such a hit as envisioned by Trump could not slow Russia’s war machine for quite a long time. But even that proposition is a big “if”.
Last time I reported that according to Bloomberg Russia’s revenues—which include mostly non oil and gas—have surged to record levels:
Total revenue in December reached more than 4 trillion rubles ($40 billion), up by 28% compared with the same month of the previous year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Finance Ministry data published late Tuesday. That’s the highest level recorded in ministry data that starts from January 2011.
From the article, read the underlined very carefully:
Bloomberg admits Russia has such high-flying economic growth that revenues are soaring even without counting oil.
“The volume of non-oil and gas revenues in 2024 significantly exceeded estimates in the 2025-2027 budget law, including from the largest tax sources,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
That’s not to mention the Ruble has been steadily rising against the USD again, now at 98 after spending weeks at around 102-103.
Kellogg, by the way, also echoed Trump’s plan in a new interview:
"Russia makes billions of dollars from oil sales. What if the price dropped to $45 a barrel?" Kellogg said.
So: what exactly is Trump talking about? Russia is quite well shielded against any possible sanctions he could dream up. So that leaves the only possible question: what is Trump prepared to do if and when his “plan” utterly flops?
This is the big question—will Trump’s ego lead him to turning Ukraine into his Vietnam, as Bannon sharply warned about days ago? Could Trump go “all out” and try to scare Russia by supplying Ukraine with everything, including moving past Biden’s old red lines and allowing Ukraine total deep strike authority into Russia, particularly with a slew of new weapons systems like JASSMs? Needless to say, such an action would gravely damage Trump’s “peace maker” hopes, nor would it ultimately have any real effect other than merely making Russia more angry.
Trump wanted to pull 20,000 troops from Europe—so it makes little sense that he’d do a 180 reversal and then commit major forces to Ukraine as a last ditch threat. As such, it seems Trump has few real options, and the war will likely continue being prosecuted under Russia’s timeline. Russian Duma member under Putin’s United Russia party Elena Panina said precisely this:
Listen to what she says at the end:
“Now our task is to calmly move forward, occupy territory, liberate further, not yield to any provocations or blackmail, and understand that today we are in a stronger position than we were even three years ago.”
But I had mentioned in the opening that Trump’s threats seemed so almost unbelievably misguided that they could be perhaps read as deliberate misdirection rather than serious plans. Is this a possibility? Could Trump perhaps be merely going through the motions of what he’s “expected” to say by allies and the deep state in order to throw them off the scent, when in reality his real plan is to subversively cut off Ukraine and bleed it dry until capitulation? This would be a more conspiratorial “Q-Anon” level reading, but perhaps it’s possible, though the chance is likely low.
After all, a much more underratedly keen Trump would know not to show his hand too early before more of the deep state establishment was cleansed. As such, a plausible plan would be to “carry on the status quo” so as not to arouse too much suspicion at first, in the opening stanza of his administration, but then as his power is secured, begin progressively switching to a more anti-establishment position on Ukraine.
A new WSJ piece agrees that Russia is not afraid of Trump’s threats, claiming Russia is able to fight on for “another year”—summary below:
Russia is not afraid of Trump's threats of "super sanctions" and is ready to fight for at least another year, developing its successes on the front, - Wall Street Journal.
▪️Moscow believes that it is successfully resisting sanctions and is capable of withstanding at least another year of conflict.
▪️At the same time, Russia has an advantage on the front, advancing towards Ukraine’s important logistics centers.
➖“...the situation is not so acute as to demand the cessation of all military actions... We are able to insist on our demands... and if Ukraine’s defense continues to collapse, as it is now, it would be wiser for the other side to agree to our conditions,” said HSE expert V. Kashin.
▪️Therefore, Trump's statements "appear to be too few to force Russia to change its core demands." The Kremlin is more likely to view the US president's threats as "posturing before negotiations."
➖"Putin perceives these statements as part of a political game. He does not take them seriously... He is prepared for any scenario and has no illusions that a deal will be reached quickly," says Tatyana Stanovaya, a political scientist at the Carnegie Center.
▪️“Analysts say Putin is seeking a summit with Trump where the two leaders could hammer out a settlement acceptable to Moscow by pushing aside the Ukrainian leadership, which Putin rejects as illegitimate.”
▪️Experts believe that Trump's threat to impose new sanctions reflects his understanding that the deal could be delayed. At the same time, such behavior could "push Russia away from the negotiating table."
▪️“Russians always want to be spoken to directly; the Kremlin was already irritated by his communication style in his first term… This is not how to communicate with Russians,” said Oleg Ignatov, an analyst at the International Crisis Group on conflict resolution.
RVvoenkor
But the next biggest question is what will Trump do for now regarding Ukrainian aid and weapons shipments? Various “headlines” went around today claiming all foreign aid was stopped—except for Israel and Egypt. But this was apparently quickly addendum’d into:
“A Pentagon official confirmed that Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid applies only to development programs, not security assistance to Ukraine.” -VOA
So, according to the above weapons aid to Ukraine continues on, but presumably at a much reduced clip.
So with nothing major changing, and Ukraine’s collapse only accelerating, Ukraine needs some big internal change to have any hopes of surviving this year. And the only thing capable of producing that is of course mobilization of the 18-25 cohort.
Now there have been increasing reports about this happening soon:
This AP article notes that:
Ukraine is in the final stages of drafting recruitment reforms to attract 18- to 25-year-olds who are currently exempt from mobilization as it looks for ways to bolster its fighting force, the battlefield commander recently appointed to the President’s Office said.
Ukrainian Rada member Roman Hryschuk complains that a new law has created a loophole to allow the mobilization of ‘previously exempted’ students and teachers:
Students and teachers may begin to be mobilized as early as this summer, says Rada deputy
▪️MP Grishchuk stated that the new Cabinet of Ministers resolution leads to uncertainty in the position of teachers in the summer and the possibility of students being called up for service during the holidays.
▪️According to the document, students and postgraduates can receive a deferment for 1 semester, but not more than 6 months.
➖ "According to this resolution, the deferment is granted until the end of the academic year, that is, May-June. What then will happen to teachers in the summer months? The same risks apply to students themselves."
RVvoenkor
Meanwhile, Rada member Goncharenko reports even advanced NATO AD Iris-T technicians are being mobilized to the front, such is the manpower drought:
This was followed by reports even a Lvov military band is being press-ganged:
A new British Times piece summarizes all of these issues:
It notes:
More US weapons would be welcome in Kyiv, which has complained about the West’s grudging approach to military aid. However, that promise is accompanied by a US demand that Ukraine extend conscription to include men aged 18 to 25. For President Zelensky that would cross a red line. He has protected his country’s youngest men from a conflict that is draining its limited manpower. Draft dodging is rife as war-weariness takes hold. Extending the call-up could be politically fatal.
As a further demonstration of Ukraine’s loss disparity, another exchange of dead bodies has occurred with a reported 49 Russian bodies to a jaw-dropping 757 Ukrainian ones:
You’ll recall I previously deep-dived these exchange reports here, proving they are real and even recorded in Ukrainian sources.
Last time the ratio ended up at:
Russian losses: 331
Ukrainian losses: 2,790
Ratio: 8.43 to 1
With the new numbers, we are at:
Russian losses: 380
Ukrainian losses: 3,547
Ratio: 9.34 to 1
That’s almost a 10:1 kill ratio.
This is interesting given the new NYT article:
Which reveals:
Calculating the scale of the casualties, and therefore the war’s trajectory, is difficult: The information is a state secret in both countries. The Ukrainian government has been especially secretive, restricting access to demographic data that could be used to estimate its losses.
Western intelligence agencies have been reluctant to disclose their internal calculations of Ukrainian casualties for fear of undermining an ally. American officials have previously said that Kyiv withholds this information from even the closest allies.
The most hilarious part of the article states that Russia is suffering higher losses than Ukraine, but the gap in manpower between the two continues to rise, with Ukraine “only having 250,000 men on the frontline”, and Russia 400,000+. How can the side which is taking much higher losses possibly be pushing the manpower gap further in its favor? Well, according to the Times’ sophistic calculations it merely comes down to Russia’s higher recruiting power—sure. If Ukraine was winning and morale was high, it wouldn’t be suffering a recruitment crisis. But Ukraine is losing—why? Because it’s taking far higher losses; logic prevails.
While Western yellow press makes up stories to comfort their audience, Russia continues to collapse Ukrainian lines. Now the powerful stronghold of Velyka Novosilka has been split into a cauldron:
It’s uncertain if any, or how many, Ukrainian forces are trapped in that southern half—but the town in general does not seem likely to hold for long.
Meanwhile Chasov Yar has been almost entirely captured:
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A last important article alarmingly laments that Kiev has lost its major drone advantage:
It says Russia has been jamming their drones with increasing effectiveness. What’s interesting about that is how it ties into the recent screed penned by a Ukrainian officer, which lambasts Ukraine’s fatal over-reliance on drone tech, and how it has gradually eroded the importance and value of regular grunt infantry, which are now treated as second class soldiers:
A few last items:
Putin’s responses to Trump for those interested:
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An important clarification: a lot of reports are circulating about Russia’s Tartus port being shut down by ‘new’ Syrian authorities. But as Izvestia finds, this does not currently affect the Russian military portion of the port but rather the contract with Russian company Stroytransgaz:
The authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic have terminated the agreement on the management of the Tartus seaport with the Russian company Stroytransgaz. At the same time, the agreement on the logistics support point of the Russian Navy, concluded in 2017 between the governments of the two countries, continues to operate. According to Izvestia sources familiar with the situation, there is no talk of a complete withdrawal from Tartus yet. However, experts call the incident a wake-up call. About the prospects of our presence and possible options for providing our fleet in the Mediterranean Sea — in the material "Izvestia".
And:
"This agreement concerns the commercial use of the port, its development, but not our MTO (Marine Terminal Operator) point," said Vasily Dandykin. — Nevertheless, this is an unpleasant scenario for us. We still have interests in the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. Our bases in Syria occupied key points. Of course, we do not have a full-fledged naval base in Tartus, but a base point. Nevertheless, there are berths where our ships and submarines operating in the Mediterranean Sea were moored. They went through some types of repairs there. There you can replenish fresh water and fuel supplies, so as not to carry them from afar. Of course, they can be purchased in Algeria, for example, but it takes time to solve this problem.
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Milley’s “Ukraine map” portrait which I covered here has reportedly been removed from the Joint Chiefs hallway.
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Indonesia, one of the world’s most powerful rising economies, has officially joined the BRICS:
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Interesting chart of Ukraine’s energy export/import, showing the damage Russian strikes have done since the start of the war. Ukraine began as a major net exporter, and now it’s almost entirely flipped:
The assumption is the sharp rise in exports after 2015 was due to Ukraine no longer having to supply energy to the Donbass regions controlled by rebels and Crimea.
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Lastly, Russian Kalashnikov Group is reportedly presenting a new AI swarm drone system:
The write up:
Kalashnikov to Present Super-Maneuverable Guided Swarm Munition for the First Time in Abu Dhabi
The Kalashnikov Concern will present a new reconnaissance and strike system with guided munitions, the KUB-SM (SM stands for super-maneuverable), at the IDEX-2025 international arms conference and exhibition, which will be held in Abu Dhabi (UAE) from 17 to 21 February 2025.
The complex includes both guided munitions (UM) in transport and launch containers (TLC, 14 pieces in total) and a reconnaissance relay based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV-R) in a TLC (2 pieces in total).
Both types of aircraft are launched alternately from a launcher located in a combat armored vehicle. The takeoff of the drones is gas-dynamic from the TLC.
The guided munition delivers a multi-factor warhead by the UB carrier to the target for its destruction. The BLA-R performs surveillance and reconnaissance of the area, as well as relaying information from the UB to the ground control station and back.
The combat armored vehicle provides accommodation for a combat crew, one UB and UAV-R ammunition set, equipment for preparing and using the ammunition set, as well as their movement on the march, when moving to a firing position and back.
The complex is designed to conduct mobile combat operations and destroy unarmored and lightly armored military equipment, elements of command posts of divisions, battalions, batteries, battalions of anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM), including vehicles with electronic warfare equipment (ERE) and manpower in personal armor protection; air defense and anti-missile defense (AD, ABM) facilities, electronic reconnaissance and electronic warfare (ATM radars, counter-battery radars, ground moving target reconnaissance radars), rear support facilities, launch sites of enemy UAV systems, enemy aircraft (helicopters) outside shelters at airfields (sites) of basing.
The KUB-SM complex ensures the combat use of super-maneuverable guided munitions at any time of day, in simple and difficult meteorological conditions, in winds with gusts of up to 15 m/s.
That’s on top of the announcement of a new AI-powered drone already being shipped to Russian front lines by the thousands:
The first 3 thousand "Mikrob" kamikaze drones with artificial intelligence have been delivered to the SMO zone -- reported by the People's Front.
The 'Microb" has a AI guidance system. Accordingly, after the operator has captured a target, it can independently track it, no matter how the target maneuvers. The "Mikrob" has sufficient dynamic characteristics - it can fly at high speeds and overloads. According to MOD reports, only one unit, with two crews, working with 40 drones, destroyed enemy equipment for an amount, so to speak, exceeding the cost of all three thousand drones that we produced, - says the developer of the Mikrob drone, Alexander Gryaznov.
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Saudi Arabia has placed its BRICS membership under alleged “consideration” and is not yet an official full-fledged member, despite agreeing to be one earlier.
Whatever happens I want Trump to oust the EU idiots first. Maybe then we can have sane conversations AND throw Rutte and NATO under a bus.
Cry, Budanov, cry—!
North Korean troops have ben helping Russian forces as they seek to push Ukrainian soldiers out of Russia’s Kursk region. No problem, right—? In defending its own sovereignty Russia surely has agency enough to engage w/ whatever ally it wishes. The thorny part is that neither Russia nor North Korea have affirmed that North Korean troops are in fact fighting in Kursk on behalf of the Russians. Ukraine has asserted this, as has the U.S.—but there has not been hard evidence to support the assertions.
But Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov , Ukraine’s intel chief, said that in the last 3 months North Korea has provided Russia w/ 120 170mm self-propelled artillery guns and 120 240mm multiple-launch rocket systems.
No problem, right—? An ally nation providing weaponry for a fellow ally is not an unusual r’ship in any given war, whether the U.S.’s flooding Israel w/ Bunker Buster bombs to Dresdenize Gaza or the U.S. providing Ukraine w/ ATACMS to strike deep inside Russia. Neither ally, so supplied by the U.S., independently possessed weapons of such magnitude until the U.S, provided them. So concern about North Korea’s sending weaponry to Russian troops in the SMO is peculiar indeed. Is this part of the hypocrisy-based-international system—?!!?
The kettle doesn’t like it when the pot calls it black.