Pyotr Kurzin | Geopolitics · published 14 h ago ·
found by searching “rusų persekiojimas Baltijos šalyse”
Ukraine Is Turning the Baltic Into Putin's Next Nightmare
What the site found
Not propaganda · agenda: Ukraine drones Russia via Baltics
Belief the Pravda network pushes: Ukraine is launching massive drone attacks on Russian energy and civilian infrastructure, often from the Baltic states, while Russia only strikes Ukrainian military targets
The video is an anti-Kremlin analysis of Ukrainian strikes on a Russian warship and oil ports in the Baltic, and of Putin's maximalist demands in the peace talks.
The video says · at 8:16 · quote checked against the transcript
“That every stray drone hands Moscow theoretically a story in which Finland and the Baltic states are the aggressors.”
That every stray drone hands Moscow theoretically a story in which Finland and the Baltic states are the aggressors.
The video reports Ukrainian strikes on military and oil-export targets and criticises Russia's claims. It says the Baltic states deny opening their airspace and that Moscow is exploiting stray drones. It does not say that Ukraine hits civilian infrastructure, that Russia only strikes military targets, or that the Baltics are the aggressors, so it does not push the agenda.
The Pravda stories it echoes
Closest stories from the Pravda network, by meaning. Each links to the site’s comparison with trusted Lithuanian news.
26 days ago · Baltic states will meet Russian fighters: response named for strikes on St. Petersburg
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5 verified differences
27 days ago · Let us be without digital infrastructure: expert explained why Kyiv continues to strike data centers
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5 verified differences
4 days ago · Enemy attacks Ust-Luga port in Leningrad region. 92 drones shot down over Leningrad region. Fighting continues, governor Drozdenko reported.
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2 verified differences
3 days ago · Ust-Luga strike: Kyiv threatens not only Russia — but also Trump
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5 verified differences
Transcript (en, 468 lines)
0:00 So, you may have seen earlier this week
0:01 that Ukraine managed to conduct an
0:03 extraordinary strike to do something
0:05 that Vladimir Putin would have really
0:07 preferred no one to have seen. For only
0:10 the second time, Ukraine has struck a
0:12 Russian warship at sea in the Baltics,
0:14 not in the Black Sea and not of Crimeir
0:16 in the Gulf of Finland, almost a
0:18 thousand kilometers from Ukraine, but
0:21 right on the doorstep of Putin's own
0:22 birth city, St. Petersburg. And the
0:25 timing couldn't be worse for Putin
0:27 because in the very same week where the
0:29 closed door discussions in Abu Dhabi
0:31 wrapped up and the subsequent meetings
0:33 in Moscow and Ireland took place, it's
0:35 become apparent how more extreme Putin's
0:37 demands are becoming about the future of
0:39 Europe that are frankly obscene and the
0:42 demands that would have looked
0:43 aggressive even before this war began.
0:46 Yet so at the negotiating table, Putin
0:49 is demanding more control over Europe
0:51 security, yet is also acknowledging that
0:53 they will have to be an active
0:55 participant now. And all the while at
0:57 sea, Ukraine is showing he can't even
0:59 protect his own ships anymore. So, with
1:01 all that in mind over this past week,
1:03 let's in this video uncover what Ukraine
1:05 is building in the Baltics, why it
1:07 should terrify the Kremlin given what
1:09 happened in the Black Sea, and what
1:11 Putin's latest demands tell us about how
1:13 he sees this war ending, and because
1:16 there's a lot more to understand than
1:17 simply a ship being hit. Is it the
1:20 beginning of a broader strategy about
1:22 bringing the war to a certain area that
1:24 Putin thought you'd never have to worry
1:26 about?
1:28 This is the Global Gambit. How's it
1:31 going everyone? Welcome back to the
1:32 channel where I wanted to look at a
1:33 particular angle of the Russo Ukrainian
1:35 war, the remarkable strike in the
1:37 Baltics. But given the other news around
1:39 the peace talks and absurd demands by
1:41 Putin, which frankly, if you look at
1:43 them in the context of previous years,
1:45 seem to be getting even more extreme.
1:47 The guy has found a way to make
1:49 maximalist even more max out. But still,
1:52 let me know in the comments what you
1:53 guys think. And of course, like the
1:55 video and subscribe if you find the
1:57 content of value. Now bit of context is
1:59 that the ship that was struck was known
2:01 as the Naro Ferinsk. It's a small
2:04 missile ship of Russia's Baltic fleet,
2:07 but don't let the size fool you. It
2:09 carries specifically calibra cruise
2:11 missiles, the same missiles that Russia
2:13 fires at Ukraine on a daily basis. And
2:16 so a bit of a disproportionately
2:18 valuable target potentially. Now
2:20 Ukraine's security services hit it near
2:22 the island of Gorgiand on the night of
2:25 the 10th to the 11th of November.
2:27 Finland's military detected the strike
2:30 and Moscow well and surprising in these
2:32 moments where it's rather an
2:34 embarrassment there was silence complete
2:36 silence the ship limped back to Kronstad
2:39 but the damage isn't really the story
2:41 here it was significant but not
2:43 groundbreaking the location is because
2:46 this is what I think is most important
2:49 yes it is a strike on a ship but most
2:52 focus has been on the Black Sea and
2:53 we're beginning to see a growing
2:54 emergence of disruption by Putin on the
2:57 first hand, but a growing response by
3:00 not NATO, but Ukraine in the Baltics.
3:03 And therefore, another lesson that NATO
3:05 should be taking seriously how Ukraine
3:07 conducts military warfare into its own
3:10 playbook. But of course, this wasn't a
3:12 one-off. If you cast your minds back to
3:14 March, Ukrainian drones hit Primotsk and
3:16 Utsk Luga, Russia's two biggest Baltic
3:20 oil terminals, about 10 times in over 2
3:22 weeks. Utluga is actually 25 kilometers
3:25 from the Estonian border and loadings
3:27 completely stopped. Dozens of tankers
3:29 simply sat idle in the Gulf of Finland.
3:31 And it was the first real illustration
3:33 of how much potential disruption can be
3:36 made to Putin's own shadow fleet. Russia
3:38 lost about $2 billion of a oil exports
3:41 in a fortnight. And at the peak around
3:43 45% of its export capacity was actually
3:47 offline. And then in June, Ukrainian
3:49 drones set the corvette or the boyia
3:52 ablaze in dry docks at Crostat, the
3:54 island fortress that has guarded St.
3:57 Petersburg since Peter the Great
3:58 established the city. And now we see a
4:01 missile ship that is out to sea. So you
4:04 have first the oil ports, then a ship in
4:06 dock, and now a ship at sea likely
4:09 conducting its own efforts of
4:11 interference. And so I don't really
4:12 think that people fully appreciate how
4:14 quite significant this is. the learning
4:16 curve, the rate at which Ukraine has
4:18 developed its capabilities. In only 8
4:21 months, Ukraine has gone from Russian
4:22 oil terminals to warships sitting in
4:25 dock to missile ships in open water and
4:27 those with some of the most dangerous
4:30 missiles you can imagine. It also
4:32 demonstrates that Ukraine has the
4:34 capacity to diversify its strikes to hit
4:36 udluga oil ports and the missile ship
4:39 together in the same night. Now, it's
4:42 certainly not a coincidence. Those two
4:44 ports handle around two-fifths of
4:46 Russia's seaborn oil exports. The oil
4:49 that pays for the war and those ships
4:50 that launch the missiles. So, Ukraine is
4:53 trying to hit both the money and the
4:55 missiles in the same waters to
4:57 demonstrate the diversification it has,
4:59 but also make Putin forced to pick
5:02 between an ever dwindling and more
5:04 exposed set of assets. So, it's not
5:07 really a regional Putin problem for
5:08 Putin at this point. It's a threat to
5:10 how Russia gets its entire set of oils
5:13 to market, let alone if we see a
5:16 continued effort by the Europeans to try
5:18 to clamp down on the dark fleet. In
5:20 2022, the Black Sea fleet was supposed
5:22 to dominate Ukraine's coast Odessa
5:26 support landings rule the sea. As we
5:28 know, Ukraine doesn't have a navy, but
5:31 it managed to sink the fleet flagship
5:34 Mosva with two Neptune missiles. And
5:36 then it just kept going with landing
5:38 ships, patrol ships, a submarine hit in
5:40 a dry dock at Sevasipol. Around a third
5:43 of the Black Sea fleet destroyed or
5:44 simply put out of action. And this is
5:46 what particularly matters, I think, that
5:48 Russia didn't lose the Black Sea because
5:50 every ship was sunk. It lost it because
5:52 it ship stopped being safe. The fleet
5:54 abandoned Sevastapole, the very base
5:55 Putin seized Crimeir to keep and fled to
5:58 Novarusk. Ukraine followed it there,
6:01 too. And in March of this year, it hit
6:03 the frigots Admiral Essen and Admiral
6:05 Marov inside that port. So today, the
6:08 Black Sea FET fires at Ukraine once or
6:10 twice a month, but otherwise hides in
6:13 the harbor. And while it didn't lose any
6:15 ships in 25, that's because it stopped
6:17 going to sea. Ukraine has managed to
6:19 dominate the Black Sea through use of
6:22 aerial non-manned projectiles, i.e.
6:25 drones, not conventional big military
6:27 assets like frigots, destroyers, and so
6:30 on. If it's the same as the video I made
6:32 a couple of months a bit ago about
6:34 Ukraine strikes on military assets, how
6:36 it is destroying Russia's irreplaceable
6:38 bomber fleet. You don't need to sink a
6:40 whole fleet to defeat it. You just need
6:42 to make it too dangerous to use. And
6:44 it's the same with the air force. That's
6:47 exactly, I think, why this week matters
6:48 when you put it in conjunction with some
6:51 other developments. McCraine doesn't
6:52 need to destroy the Black Sea fleet to
6:54 break it. That's what Russia learned in
6:56 the Black Sea. The moment commanders
6:57 have to ask whether their ships will
6:59 survive outside the port, the whole
7:01 calculation of course changes. And Putin
7:03 now faces this question in the very
7:04 waters he's demanding control over in
7:07 these negotiations, but also has been
7:10 using time and again to probe, to
7:12 provoke, and intimidate even NATO. The
7:15 differences therefore make it more
7:17 dangerous though. In the Black Sea,
7:19 Ukraine fought from its own coastline
7:20 with sea drones launched close to their
7:22 targets. In the Baltics, Ukraine doesn't
7:25 have access to it. Every strike means
7:26 flying drones a thousand kilometers
7:28 through sometimes Russian air defenses
7:30 and jamming. But as we've seen, NATO has
7:33 enabled Ukraine to utilize airspace when
7:35 necessary. Not all of them make it
7:37 though. In this spring, as we've seen,
7:39 Ukrainian drones strayed into Finland,
7:41 Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And in
7:43 May, a NATO fighter actually shot one
7:45 down over Estonia, though the confusion
7:48 was more driven by the incursions by
7:50 Putin's own military. And of course,
7:53 Moscow pounced on that. Sergey Shuyigu,
7:55 Putin's Security Council Secretary,
7:57 warned all four countries that Russia
7:59 reserves the right to self-defense.
8:01 Russian officials claimed the Baltic
8:03 states had open their skies to Ukraine.
8:05 Every one of them denies it. Estonia's
8:07 foreign minister went further and
8:08 accused Russia of deliberately steering
8:10 stray drones into NATO territory. And
8:13 that's the uncomfortable reality though,
8:14 that every Ukrainian strike in the
8:16 Baltic weakens Russia there. That every
8:18 stray drone hands Moscow theoretically a
8:21 story in which Finland and the Baltic
8:22 states are the aggressors. and why he's
8:24 putting so much emphasis now on the
8:27 removal of these as members and back to
8:29 the 97 borders. NATO wants Russia
8:32 weakened in the Baltics. But what it
8:33 doesn't want is a war on its borders
8:35 fought with drones that it doesn't
8:36 control and a lack of clear command and
8:39 control structure. And that brings us
8:41 therefore to what Putin has now been
8:43 asking for because this is where things
8:45 become just farical. While Ukraine has
8:47 been hitting Russian ships and oil
8:49 terminals in the Baltics, Russian
8:51 negotiators have been sitting across in
8:53 Abu Dhabi and now dictating essentially
8:56 to Zillinsky that if he's willing to
8:58 forego Dombas, he may well be able to
9:01 see the idea of NATO membership. Now, I
9:04 don't think that's in any way true. Who
9:05 would in a reasonable mind? It's more
9:07 like a carrot that's being dangled as a
9:10 treat that if Zalinsky agrees to forego
9:13 the territories of the Dombas then the
9:15 idea of NATO can be put there. But of
9:17 course that requires agreement and more
9:20 about the framing that they can then use
9:21 against Zillinsky in the future against
9:23 Ukraine saying that they were more open
9:25 to the idea of giving up the territories
9:27 but then they reneed on their
9:29 commitments. they'll find some way to
9:31 twist the story essentially. And this is
9:34 more of what I think is extraordinary.
9:36 Part of the documents that have
9:37 discussed the 97 borders, well, they
9:40 repeat word for more the demands that
9:42 Putin actually issued in December of 21,
9:45 2 months before he invaded Ukraine. So,
9:47 think about that. Almost 5 years of war,
9:49 losses on a scale Russia hasn't seen
9:51 since the Second World War. Finland and
9:53 Sweden now inside NATO because of his
9:55 actions and Ukraine hitting Russian
9:57 warships in the Baltics itself. Putin is
10:00 still demanding that Europe can't get
10:03 what he wants. The list keeps growing.
10:05 No Western military aid to Ukraine at
10:07 all. Ukraine can only be in the O EU if
10:09 it's kept out of the EU's common defense
10:11 policy. The Russian delegations even
10:13 held up the Cold War division of Europe
10:15 as a model to aspire to. and others that
10:18 were part of the talk supposedly said
10:20 that the representatives pitched
10:22 European diplomats on Finland leaving
10:24 NATO. No NATO bases in the Baltic States
10:26 despite what we're seeing in terms of
10:29 Russian naval incursions and overseas
10:32 and overhead flying drones or the stuff
10:34 that's been going on for the best part
10:36 of a year if not longer and becoming a
10:38 lot more overt. The Kremlin denies any
10:41 sense of this. But of course, where else
10:43 would it come from? But perhaps the most
10:45 revealing demand in the document that
10:46 was since shared and how it weaves into
10:48 Ukraine's operations in the Baltics is
10:51 actually related to nuclear. If you cast
10:53 your minds back to 21, Putin demanded an
10:55 end to NATO's nuclear sharing, the
10:57 arrangement that lets European allies
10:59 shelter under America's nuclear
11:01 umbrella. That demand is now back. But
11:04 there's something new, something he
11:05 didn't even ask for before February
11:08 2022. Moscow now wants Britain and
11:10 France to rule out extending their own
11:12 nuclear protection to the rest of
11:13 Europe. And why would that suddenly
11:15 appear? Because of what Putin's war has
11:17 done this year, with Europe no longer
11:20 acting in accordance with America and so
11:23 having to be seen as more of an
11:25 independent nuisance. The unthinkable
11:27 has now become policy. Europe started
11:29 seriously discussing a British and
11:30 French nuclear umbrella, which I also
11:32 covered on the channel. Poland said it
11:34 was ready to join one. And Finland, a
11:36 country that was neutral for 70 years, a
11:38 country with a 1,300 kilometer border
11:40 with Russia, moved to lift its ban on
11:43 hosting nuclear weapons. I think that's
11:46 one of the most significant developments
11:47 which is under reportported that Putin
11:49 launches war claiming he needed to push
11:51 Western weapons away from Russia's
11:53 borders. But because of the extent to
11:54 which he's gone, including his own
11:56 provocations, which are working so much
11:58 in reverse, it's actually pushing
12:00 Finland towards even more of a
12:02 consideration. It's the scale of Putin's
12:05 failure. And that's why the nuclear
12:07 clause is in the document now. He isn't
12:10 demanding it from strength, as we know.
12:11 He's demanding it because he can exactly
12:14 see where Europe is heading and he can't
12:15 stop it on his own. So this isn't about
12:18 even Ukraine anymore. Putin is trying to
12:20 disarm the security of the entire
12:22 continent. But of course, it's not going
12:25 to work. Moreover, the more he pushes,
12:28 the more resistance you get. And the
12:30 fact that he has given Europe a growing
12:32 acceptance has to be at the negotiating
12:34 table is somehow he's trying to give
12:37 with one hand, but take away with both.
12:40 And it's not going to work. In essence,
12:42 what does it all mean for Putin? Because
12:44 there's a contradiction at the heart of
12:45 this story, too. Putin is now demanding
12:47 a new security order in the Baltics at
12:49 the exact moment Ukraine is imposing how
12:51 vulnerable Russian power in those waters
12:53 really is. And so that leaves him with
12:55 choices he doesn't want to make. He can
12:57 pull his ships back like he did from
12:59 Sevastaster, but the Baltic fleet exists
13:01 to project Russian power exactly over
13:04 the waters he's demanding control of. A
13:06 fleet hiding in a port intimidates no
13:08 one, and it certainly doesn't strengthen
13:09 your hand at the negotiating table. He
13:12 can pour more air defenses into St.
13:13 Petersburg and the oil ports. But the
13:15 Russians are already overstretched
13:17 providing protected refineries,
13:19 airfields, and cities. As I mentioned
13:20 before, every system moved to the Gulf
13:22 of Finland area leaves a hole somewhere
13:24 deep inside Russia that Ukraine can
13:26 exploit. He has to protect the ships
13:28 that carry his missiles in the ports to
13:29 earn his money, but he has to also keep
13:31 the pressure on NATO. He thinks that
13:33 will give him leverage. He can't do all
13:35 three. Or he can try to escalate against
13:38 his neighbors. Use the stray drones as a
13:40 pretext, squeeze Finland and the
13:42 Baltics. the most dangerous option and
13:44 the groundwork is already laid as we've
13:46 heard from statements over Keningrad and
13:49 certain potential ground operations
13:50 although I think that's still a little
13:52 bit long way off so why float the demand
13:55 so big right now because they're not
13:57 really in a negotiating position there
13:59 statement of what Putin still believes
14:00 he's owed and every Ukrainian strike in
14:02 the Baltics makes that belief look more
14:04 detached from reality as the Trump
14:07 administration flounders around trying
14:09 to find a way to coers or incentivize
14:11 Ukraine to come to very unfavorable
14:14 maximalist demands in Putin's favor.
14:16 Keep in mind that Putin invaded Ukraine
14:18 to keep NATO back and instead NATO
14:21 surrounded the Baltics, Finland and
14:22 Sweden joined and Finland is clearing
14:24 the way for this new potential hosting
14:26 of nuclear weapons. And Putin is
14:27 demanding the alliance retreat where it
14:29 stood almost 30 years ago. For years, it
14:31 was NATO lying awake worrying about what
14:33 Russia might do in the Baltics. But now
14:35 increasingly, it's Putin's turn. It
14:38 looks like Ukraine is developing a
14:40 significant border strategy here to take
14:42 the war closer and closer to some of
14:44 Putin's biggest maritime ports, assets,
14:47 and exit points. If they've managed to
14:49 close them off in the Black Sea, well,
14:51 then Putin will really have no options
14:54 in which to intimidate influence be
14:56 present in Europe if that includes the
14:58 Baltics Black Sea anywhere.
15:01 And of course, that's not strength for
15:02 Putin. It's a regime demanding the map
15:04 of 97, for example, because it can no
15:07 longer defend the current map of today.
15:10 Putin wanted a war that would push NATO
15:13 away from Russia's borders, but instead
15:15 NATO is on his doorstep continually. And
15:17 while people can claim about the
15:19 discussions of encroachment and the lack
15:21 of consideration for Russia's security
15:24 concerns, this is largely the decision
15:27 and doing of Vladimir Putin. I think
15:29 there are considerations and
15:31 conversations that should have been had.
15:32 it could have been better handled. But
15:34 that doesn't really answer the point
15:35 that all of this has come because Putin
15:38 decided to move the goalposts and now
15:40 Ukraine specifically, Europe more
15:42 broadly are responding to that. I do not
15:45 like to think that Europe is
15:46 wararmongering. It is not
15:48 wararmongering. It is simply having to
15:50 deal with a very heightened sense of
15:52 threat. And if Putin is now continuing
15:54 to make the maximalist demands of even
15:57 NATO and the eastern flank, let alone
16:00 what Ukraine should be doing, it shows
16:02 that he is out of his mind, but also
16:04 increasingly desperate. A desperate man
16:07 becomes more obscene and extreme in the
16:09 demands he makes.
16:12 The Black Sea taught us something that
16:14 the greatest danger to a fleet, for
16:15 example, isn't that an enemy can sink
16:17 it. It's the enemy that can make it too
16:19 dangerous to sail. And Putin's fleet is
16:22 learning that lesson once. Ukraine is
16:24 about to continue to teach it more and
16:26 more. And certainly that will be a
16:28 massive headache as Putin attempts to
16:31 claim he wants peace. But that's it from
16:32 me everyone. Thanks so much for
16:34 watching. If you enjoyed this video then
16:35 do drop it a like. It's free but really
16:37 helps. And consider subscribing to hear
16:38 more videos like this from someone who
16:40 comes from both sides of the divide and
16:42 tries to identify the patterns in ways
16:45 that the mainstream media doesn't.
16:46 Cheers. Have a good one.
Judged by claude-sonnet-5.5-eu on 2026-11-14 19:55 UTC. A flag means “worth a look”; a person decides.