Patrick Bury

And you can have, of course, dual use of these.

They're the much smaller ones.

Then you have the longer, single-use, heavier payload, and in some cases used for basically strategic depth, so to target.

um in this example russian oil refineries uh which they have been doing to good effect so that's the development of this sort of the twin capability which has been really interesting in terms of the wider strategic impact and hitting russian oil production which of course as we're seeing the economy is increasingly under pressure um it's just a pity the iran war has happened because if that hadn't and the uh sanctions on russia had remained i think

the timescale for things getting really difficult for the Russians would have been much shorter.

Now, do we know what is actually happening within Russia?

Because obviously Ukraine is a Western-facing nation, and you hear a lot more about the damage inflicted by the Russians, you know, when they send over multiple attack drones themselves, and you see video of apartment buildings being destroyed and so on, and we hear about casualties.

Do we know much about what's happening in Russia?

The last time I kind of checked on the economic and oil output, it was down, the output and the revenue was down by about a third, which over time is very significant given their military spending, et cetera, has generally gone up and they've switched into a kind of militarized, securitized state.

The other one is since the Venezuela operation and whatever Putin has learned from that, there's been basically a internet slowdown slash back out across much of Russia.

So there's clearly a fear that whatever means was used in the Venezuela could be used against Putin again.

So I think there's paranoia there.

There's a blackout as well.

And as I mentioned, there's less likelihood of people signing up.

We'll just have to see how these kind of come together in the medium term.

But that sanctions relief is a real boon to Russia as well.

Sure, they can compensate for the lost output by increased prices of international oil.

Now, President Zelensky offered help to the Gulf states in how to combat Iranian drones.

I mean, that's something that it appears that the Ukrainians have mastered, given that the Russians were using Iranian either designed or manufactured drones against them.

But also we saw the Iranians themselves adjusting their tactics and realizing that every time one of their drones was attacked by a Patriot missile, it was, you know, $2 million worth.