Preston Stewart

Where's the line between Russian exports and Russian domestic consumption?

How does that play in here?

I think there's definitely some symbolism here.

We know how important Crimea is to Putin and to Russia.

But there's also this dilemma that Ukraine is forcing upon Russia by going after Crimea, and that's the relocation of their air defense assets, whether it's their large manufactured Tor, Pansy, or things like that, or their mobile air defense teams.

The simplest way to describe it is there are too many targets inside of Russia and not enough air defense systems.

Ukraine has been expanding the range and the quantity of their drones.

So I think there's a refinery north of Moscow got hit overnight like that hadn't.

I don't know that that had been targeted before.

Now they have to defend that.

So forcing the conversation around Crimea, opening up the roads, keeping the bridge safe, keeping the airfield safe and keeping the citizens feeling safe and supplied there is going to eat up some of Russia's resources.

And those have to come from somewhere else.

I mean, they are manufacturing new things.

They do have drone interceptors.

They do have these mobile counter drone teams, but not enough for what they have to protect.

And I think if this same situation was playing out, maybe in Belgorod or Kursk, other territories of Russia, it wouldn't have the same impact.

But it really isn't all that hard to, with drones, at least significantly disrupt the flow of supplies and personnel into Crimea.

I think it's multifaceted, but it is playing out right now.

I mean, you can see Russia struggling with the decision here.

This is why I think we're in a really unique phase in this war because you can pretty clearly see how one leads to two leads to three.