The Russian deal with American consequences

We wrote over four years ago that Ukraine would lose this war, and the longer it fought, the more it would lose. Now, in October 2026, that is exactly how events have played out.

In recent weeks, Russia has accelerated its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, transportation networks and command facilities. Russia has also bombed bridges over the Dnipro River, which runs from Kyiv to the Black Sea and is the major dividing line between eastern Ukraine (where the ground war is taking place) and western Ukraine (which is now being attacked from the air).

Russia did not attack these bridges earlier because it wanted Ukraine to be able to send troops to the eastern front, where they would be destroyed in what amounted to a Russian meat grinder. Now that Ukraine’s troops have been badly depleted, it’s time to close the trap, isolate the troops left in the east and complete the takeover of Donetsk and Luhansk. That was always in the cards.

But the failure of the Ukrainian military dictatorship under Zelenskyy to understand this has resulted in Russian advances in Sumy, Kharkiv, Odessa and Kherson, which will ultimately result in much larger losses for Ukraine.

Now Zelenskyy accuses Elon Musk of degrading the usefulness of Starlink satellite telecommunications systems by choking down speeds at which Starlink can detect incoming missiles.

But that’s false. Musk has not changed Starlink parameters. It doesn’t matter anyway because the missiles are detected by a separate system called Starshield, which is a SpaceX product, but it’s run by the US military, not by Musk personally. Ukrainian air defences, which are badly depleted in any event, are useless without the Starshield spotting data.

As a result, Russian attacks are far more effective and doing far more damage to Ukrainian infrastructure. Zelenskyy also accuses Trump of favouring Russia with a diesel deal that relieves sanctions on Russia and allows Russia to export far more diesel to world markets. The walls are closing in on Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime.

Ukraine has been blowing up Russian refineries using swarms of drones that are relatively easy to manufacture. Russia is a major exporter of refined products, as are the Persian Gulf countries. Damage to Russian refineries, combined with limited exports of Persian Gulf refined products, is reducing the world supply of diesel and keeping the world price high.

In turn, higher diesel prices get passed through to everything because almost all tangible goods and inputs move by truck. This is the real source of current US inflation and is a huge political problem for Republicans in the coming midterm elections.

Trump wants Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries. That’s ironic because Ukraine is using geolocation and satellite intelligence supplied by the US to launch its attacks.

If Trump simply cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, that would go a long way toward stopping the Ukrainian attacks on Russia because Ukraine lacks satellite imaging and targeting information of its own. Trump recently threatened to do just that.

The US is finally moving on the diplomatic front to reach deals with Russia. One deal would allow US investors to buy assets of Lukoil, a major Russian energy company with a retail gasoline and diesel network.

The US could offer partial sanctions relief so that Lukoil energy output in Russia could be sold downstream to the Lukoil distribution network. That’s another step in the direction of lower prices for gasoline and diesel at the pump.

Another deal under discussion would allow US investors to invest in the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. These are pipelines that bring natural gas from Russia to Germany.

This relatively cheap natural gas was critical to Germany’s success as a manufacturing and export powerhouse after Germany stupidly shut down its nuclear and coal-fired energy plants in the early 2000s as part of the green new scam.

A covert operation, probably conducted by the CIA and MI6, blew up a section of Nord Stream in September 2022 as a way to choke off revenue for Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine. Russia did not suffer (it sold its gas elsewhere), but German manufacturing became globally uncompetitive due to high energy costs.

Getting US investment in Nord Stream could lead to repairs of the pipelines and get natural gas flowing back into Europe from Russia. In exchange for allowing these investments, Russia would get sanctions relief from the US.

The net effect would be to increase the supply of diesel and natural gas and to lower world prices. Ukraine would be a big loser, but they’re losing their war anyway.

Some kind of détente between Russia and the US would help get the Ukraine war over with sooner. As an added bonus, Russia could help the US put pressure on Iran to end the war there also.

In addition to Ukraine, another big loser would be China if the US and Russia join hands to isolate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). One of the big impediments to this kind of multipart deal is Western Europe and the UK, which seem to have a death wish to go to war with Russia (they would lose).

Investors should understand how all of these matters are connected: energy, money, sanctions, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, China and the US are in a multitiered, multivector mélange that could bring peace and prosperity if handled diplomatically.

Trump is on the right track, but a positive outcome could be stopped in its tracks by Democratic victories in the midterm elections. We’ll know a lot more in the next 24 hours.

Until then, stay liquid … and stay nimble.