Putin’s Not Winning The Propaganda War. He Is Winning The Real War.

 

I’ve said from the start that Russia will win the kinetic war in Ukraine and the global financial war as well. Of course, winning is a subjective term in both contexts.

As applied to the kinetic war, winning does not mean a complete conquest of Ukraine. That was never Putin’s goal. It means Russia will control the Donbas region in the south and east and the coastline of Ukraine, including the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Russia has already secured a land bridge from Russian territory to Crimea and likely plans to extend its coastwise control to Odessa. Russia’s occupation of Snake Island gives it de facto control of Black Sea access to Ukraine already. Russia also occupies Kherson, which controls access to the Dnieper River in central Ukraine, which is the main access to the sea from the capital Kyiv.

On the financial front, Russia is making $25 billion per month in oil and natural gas sales due in large part to higher world prices as a result of economic sanctions. Efforts to seize assets such as yachts and townhouses from Russian oligarchs also play into Putin’s hands because he had tried for over a decade to clip the oligarchs’ wings. Now the U.S. and UK are doing his dirty work for him.

Russia has also captured 55 billion tons of coal in the Donbass region of Ukraine, which gives Russia added leverage when it comes to sanctions related to oil and natural gas. Many major trading partners of Russia have remained neutral in the war including China, India, and Brazil, which gives Russia many outlets for its exports of strategic materials and energy and imports of manufactured goods.

None of this has been easy. It has been slow, brutal, and costly. Still, investors who believe the western and Ukrainian propaganda amplified by legacy media such as the New York Times and Washington Post are being badly misled.

This article written by a reporter who just returned from three weeks in Ukraine tells the story from ground level in extensive detail. The reporter is admittedly pro-Ukrainian, which means the story is not some form of Russian propaganda. (There are plenty of lies and propaganda from both sides. Finding reliable channels of information has been a challenge throughout this war).

The reporter concludes his article by writing, “The Russian Federation is not losing this war. Please do not be fooled into thinking that.” That is excellent advice not just for analysts but for investors.

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