Jake Broe: The Road to How Russia Loses in Ukraine

Jake Broe: The Road to How Russia Loses in Ukraine

[Music] Jake it’s great to see you today thanks for having me Jason glad to be here Jake you’re an American Veteran and you’re also a well-known commentator about what is going on now in Ukraine so I want to ask you a couple of questions recently the Russians attempted a new offensive in K what do you see there how’d that play out well we’ve been bracing for this we’ve known since the Russians took AB divka uh early early this year uh that they were playing another major offensive somewhere we were expecting it maybe in luhansk or denes because that’s their stated objective getting the entirety of these four oblasts but Russia wanted to do a change up and they decided to reinvade the harke oblast and I’m convinced that the Russians thought this was a brilliant idea because of the restriction policy because the White House for the last 2 and a half years has been saying Western weapons or American donated weapons can’t be used on the territory of Russia well the Kremlin saw this as a cheat code and they thought this is great we’ll use their own uh red lines against them we can build up and have our fuel warehouses ammunition Depots command posts troop concentrations on our side of the border and then we’ll surprise them we’ll knock them on off guard and there there are there are speculation that Russia kicked off this summer offensive before they were ready but because Congress passed uh the aid bill in late April they were trying to get ahead of these supplies reaching the front lines so there is an argument that they went in before they were ready but it’s been an absolute disaster I think it’s been over two months now since Russia reinvaded the har oblast if we want to go strictly off map updates Russia controlled a lot more territory two and a half years ago they lost harke in September of 2022 they then lost her son they were kicked out of the North in the first two months of the war the Black Sea fleet has retreated from the Black Sea but Russia was convinced this was a brilliant idea and they committed a lot of resources and a lot of Manpower and they’ve just gotten stuffed they got 5 km deep their goal had to have been at least 30 km and they falling flat on their face taking huge casualties so the decision to remain there the decision to keep committing more metal and men to this failed offensive it’s political they just don’t want to admit this was a huge mistake and with the reversal policy from the White House and Western weapons can now be used on the territory of Russia we we prevented a reinvasion of turnah and of Sumi I I don’t see this happening Russia doesn’t believe it’s to their Advantage anymore so looking ahead though do you anticipate that Ukraine will have a breakthrough and a military Victor on the horizon that will liberate all the territories how do you think that Russia will finally be ejected from Ukraine every day Ukraine gains more capabilities as uh funds that were allocated this is just how the Western defense industry operates you allocate money we get this announcement of an aid package it’s fantastic news but then you you get the behind the scenes reports that this equipment won’t show up for a year or something ridiculous but we’re two and a half years now into this war so every day stuff that was allocated maybe a year ago by Finland or by France or whoever every day more metal and equipment and capabilities are getting into ukrainians hands with the passage of this 60 billion in aid from the United States with this breakthrough in the blockage from the G7 uh taking Frozen Russian assets and at least using the interest to help Ukraine’s war effort Ukraine’s doing a fantastic job on the battlefields but even if they’re eliminating 1,000 Russian soldiers a day 30 40 armored uh infantry fighting vehicles or Tanks A Day shooting down a Russian plane every other day it’s it’s not enough if Russia can still regenerate all of their lost combat capability inside of Russia so on my channel since the very early days you can go back and look at my videos I was saying for Ukraine to go on the offensive and retake all lost territory that would be a tremendous cost for Ukraine the faster and easier way is for there to be some kind of political or economic collapse inside of Russia I think that’s the most likely ending scenario for this war Russia loses the ability to regenerate their combat capability there’s a crisis at home all the guys don’t want to be in the occupied territories anymore and they just go back to their own country but Jake when you look at the Russian economy what sticks out to you it seems to me that there’s a lot going on the interest rates just keep going up and it’s becoming harder and harder for the average Russian so Western components continue to be found in newly manufactured missiles and weapons people are saying sanctions don’t work sanctions have no effect but that’s not true sanctions do work and that they make the cost of business more expensive for the Russians so rather than just being able to buy chips directly from companies like AMD or Texas Instruments they now have to go through a medium an inter an intermediary uh in Central Asia or southeast Asia or whatever but there’s a 200 or 300 or 400% markup so the real war map is how much money does Russia have left when Putin came back into power in 2012 he he reassumed the presidency he had already made up his mind that he wanted the old Soviet territories back and he wanted to rebirth the Russian Empire so Putin committed to austerity for the Russian people going back to 2012 saving this war chest of $600 billion that’s $600 billion that could have been spent on new infrastructure and hospitals and schools and growing the Russian economy and he said no I need I need a I need a war chest so that when I invade Ukraine or invade the baltics or invade the caucuses or invade Central Asia we can survive the sanctions Putin new sanctions were coming sanctions were placed on Russia in 2014 but they were relatively minor Europe continued buying gas like nothing happened and and this war will end when Russia runs out of money and they just have to print to pay their soldiers and when you’re just printing to pay your soldiers welcome to hyperinflation Russia Central Bank can go ahead and raise their per Central rates to 20% or whatever it doesn’t matter who’s who’s borrowing money in Russia at 20% APR to start a small business or to purchase a home like Russians are deferring these everyday transactions that you and I take for granted in the west complaining about the Fed rate being at five or six% or whatever so this war will end when there’s an economic crisis at home and ordinary Russians with their take home take-home pay can’t even purchase a week’s worth of groceries for their families so do you see any indicators at this point that the Russian economy is getting closer to the point that there would be so much stress so much pressure that Putin is not able to continue the war any longer at the moment it’s a sugar rush and Russians inside of Russia are feeling the benefits there’s so much pressure being put on Russian men to sign these contracts from Village Elders parents spouses because it’s $2,000 a month to to go fight for you know the glory of the Empire fight for Putin but that but that guy s sitting in a trench in denes is not getting $2,000 a month to enjoy his life it’s going towards his spouse it’s going towards his children his parents whoever Ian Putin smart to impoverish a significant percentage of his population and then dangle these contracts $2,000 a month in front of them because that’s a big stimulus to that household to that family to that local community and that’s what we’re feeling right now the Russian economy is growing GDP is increasing in Russia but what happens when the runny mons out runs out and and Putin has to Prince additionally what they’re spending money on isn’t isn’t isn’t an investment in Russia’s future spending all your M money on tanks and bombs that are just expended and lost in Ukraine that’s not going to help your economy when you’re not spending money on hospitals schools tunnels Bridges modern airports uh Putin is very careful to keep everything polished and shiny in Moscow and St Petersburg those are the propaganda capitals those are where the the inner Elites reside those people need to be Pro protected for Putin to remain in power but for everywhere else in Russia the money has to become worthless where $2,000 a month the equivalent in Russian rubles doesn’t mean anything it doesn’t buy you what you need to survive anymore so if Ukraine or the West wish to put more pressure on Russia namely economic pressure what do you think they should be doing right now well I think Ukraine has found uh the Silver Bullet I think going after all these refineries has Putin the most freaked out all of this commotion it’s it’s gotten actually really weird the last two weeks with the Russians constantly signaling they’re open to talks they’re open to a ceasefire if they just get everything they want but why now why is Putin himself in a press conference talking about ceasefires when he wasn’t doing it a year ago when he wasn’t even doing it six months ago and president zinski just last week said 30 or 40 or something ridiculous Russian oil Depots and refineries have been struck in the last six months we’re about to go into a Russian winter and winter in Russia is quite brutal but we’re about to go into a winter in Russia where probably greater than 50% of their Refinery capacity will be offline can Russian Society make it through winter comfortably or acceptable some kind of acceptable level of suffering with without kerosene without diesel without gasoline they’ve gone from a net exporter as of December of last year to now a net importer relying on their neighbors and every day it’s just going to get worse Ukraine has to keep going after these refineries and it’s shocking because initially people’s reaction was this will cause the price of gasoline here in the United States to go up before the November election when in reality it’s actually lowered the price of oil for other refiners if Russia can’t refine it itself it’s forced to export that’s the global Supply doesn’t matter if they’re putting their oil on tankers and it’s going to India India has excess refining capacity the United States probably has excess refining capacity at the moment so we just need things to slush around and for Russia to not profit the world still needs Russia’s oil that’s that’s the hard truth to accept but we can knock their refineries offline and then increase capacity at other points in the world in order to smooth out this Supply so you’ve seen in the new sanctions that have come out the different sorts of pressure that the United States is trying to put including sanctioning secondary Banks and Banks and even in China that Russia has historically used to get around sanctions what do you think about that and what other sort of sanctions do you think the West should be seeking to introduce to put the most pain on Russia this is fascinating because uh the article I read explaining this it’s really hard for uh the United States government to enforce sanctions because the way that corporations structure themselves the exact same person in the exact same location doing the exact same function can just create a new shell company rename himself and he’s a brand new company that you have to then add to the sanctions list but there’s a but the United States is basically deputizing banks in China to be the enforcers saying we know what you’re doing we know it’s the exact same people in the exact same place doing the exact same thing say buying chips from whoever and then selling it to the Russians to help their war machine so if we catch you doing business with the exact same people in the exact same way in violation of sanctions but under a new name just because they created a new shell company in the Cayman Islands or whatever well now we’re going to sanction your bank and you won’t be able to uh do transactions in dollars or get clearance for large transactions through the treasury Department or whatever and I do think there are Chinese Banks concerned about this because it’s not easy for them just to rename themselves to avoid secondary sanctions so this is having a huge impact this is this is actually working to get Chinese Banks to comply with sanctions that have already been placed on individuals or companies helping Russia’s War efforts uh so yeah more of this I mean it’s hard I know I know it’s hard for Western governments to threaten Banks because uh that could potentially hurt your economy for example we’ll just walk through the example of the 300 billion in frozen assets uh belonging to Russia in Western Banks if that money was seized taken out and then given to Ukraine well this would Panic authoritarian regimes or dictators around the world that love keeping their money in Western Banks and I know a lot of people are saying why do we do that why do we even do business with the Saudi regime or dictators in Africa or whoever and I don’t have a good ethical answer for that but we do and if we stop doing business with them uh then it’s our economies that’ll shrink it’ll be a run on our banks with our own citizens with deposits freaking out causing credit Swiss or whoever to go bankrupt again we don’t want that uh so this compromise of the interest with the G7 I I do think ultimately in the end Ukraine will get access to that 300 billion in Frozen Russian assets but there’s going to be a court process uh Russia will have representation Russia will participate and and whatever government replaces Putin’s regime they’re going to accept the ruling they’re going to say yeah we’re at fault for this war the money that was frozen in Western Banks that’s going to go towards Ukraine’s reconstruction Russia’s going to agree to that in exchange for sanctions being lifted and diplomatic relations being normalized let me ask you just one last question how do you foresee the Putin regime Fallen what would that look like what do you think how that would play out well every day we wake up there is a chance somebody put a bullet in pun’s head H that’s unfortunately how a lot of dictators uh lose their lives somebody conducts a palace coup and you got to get rid of the guy at the top before you think you can make your own move uh so the the probability of a bloodless transition in Russia in my opinion is zero perian I think just pulled the trigger too soon if perian had just waited another year I think he would have had more sympathizers he would have had more collaborators and he might have been successful and everyone else is pretty darn careful to keep a low profile because if you’re the nail that sticks out you’re going to get hammered who is looking for these people that might threaten or challenge him a good uh explanation why Putin appointed this economist as defense minister is he doesn’t have any military experience if you’re paranoid about being overthrown by your military leadership then it’s actually pretty smart of Putin to put Eon an economist with no military experience in the job at defense minister so that’s the fastest scenario the slower one is things get painful civil unrest rioting protests these terrorist attacks in the caucuses this is a symptom of the Russian State weakening their security apparatus to keep this multiethnic empire together involves surveillance and brutal oppression but every human has their breaking points every human even a Russian will say at some point this is intolerable rolling the dice and seeing if we can get get a different Zar might be my best option Jake that’s really fascinating thanks a lot for your time today thanks for having me Jason [Music]

Jake Broe is well known for his dynamic, interesting, and accurate analysis of what is transpiring in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Through his battlefield map updates and articulate explanations, the war commentator has developed a strong following that regularly checks in to see what he thinks will happen next.

Broe, in this exclusive interview with Kyiv Post, takes a deep dive into not only Russia’s Kharkiv offensive, but also what internal pressures Russia is now facing that could well lead the world’s largest country to a withering defeat. How realistic is it?

More dramatically than what many people may imagine: Russia’s economy is quickly being painted into a corner, overheating as the Kremlin overprints Rubles in a reckless attempt to boost the economy of the-most-sanctioned-country-in-the-history-of-the-world.

Formerly, Broe was a Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer in the United States Air Force for six years where he was in charge of the operations, maintenance, and security of the Minute Man III intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Currently, Broe is a commentator on the war in support of Ukraine and operates a YouTube channel with 477,000 subscribers.

Follow Jake on social media:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JakeBroe
X: https://x.com/RealJakeBroe

Chapters:

00:18 Start

00:23 What is happening in Russia’s Kharkiv Offensive?

03:16 Will Ukraine be able to expel the Russian militarily?

05:15 Where do you see that the Russian economy is buckling?

10:21 How can the West break the Russian economy?

12:46 What will the new US sanctions really do to Russia?

16:31 How will Putin’s Regime end?