PDB Situation Report | August 22nd, 2026: Trump’s Iran Crackdown Could Trigger a Collision With China

I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show Kappy Army, but we go beyond simply just telling you what happened in a war, we actually investigate deeper into the why and how. At Kappy Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average US Army infantryman in Iraq, and a war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Just search Kappy Army on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports and remember to follow today. I'm Megan Kelly. Every day on the Megan Kelly show, we bring you the news and this summer we're bringing you something extra. Before I was a journalist, I was a lawyer. I've spent 20 plus years now covering crime and the law. So I built a true crime series that I always wanted to listen to. We're calling it MK Confidential. And there we cover cases that you've heard about like John Bene Ramsey, Sean Relivi, the DC snipers, Scott Peterson, and some that you haven't. One case per week, five episodes Monday through Friday. New episodes every weeknight, search for the Megan Kelly show where every listen to podcasts and you will find MK Confidential. Welcome to the PDB situation report. I'm Mike Baker from their eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. The President Trump's plan to crush Iran's economy may put Washington on a collision course with China, Chuck Iran's largest remaining oil customer, of course. Joshua Philip joins us to explain whether Beijing will cooperate or whether they'll continue keeping the Iranian regime alive. Later in the show, Russia pounds key with 168 drones and dozens of missiles, killing at least 16 as Ukraine's air defenses run short. Not already, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Russia program, he stops by to give us his insight. But first, today's PDB spotlight. President Trump is promising the most crushing economic campaign ever launched against Iran. But its success may well depend on China. Beijing purchases more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil, making it Tehran's largest remaining economic lifeline. If China refuses to cooperate, Trump must then decide whether to sanction Chinese banks and refiners and shipping companies, obviously risking any far larger confrontation with America's most powerful adversary. For more on this, I'm going to turn to Joshua Philip. He's a senior investigative reporter at the Bok Times and the host of the Josh Philip show. You can check him out on YouTube at the Josh Philip show. Josh, it's great to see you again, man. Thank you for taking the time to be with us here on the sit rep. Yeah. It's always a pleasure. Thank you. Well. Thank you. Even if you don't meet it. You know what? I appreciate that. I appreciate the effort. So, let me ask you this. Economic D-Day. He's got up to the president is talking about punishing severe consequences, huge consequences. If countries don't cooperate, if they continue to do business of any sort or banks and whatever it starts to do any business with Iran, they get a suffer severe consequences. Do you think China cares? They do care. They care a lot. I think the question is whether Trump is willing to deal with the possible repercussions of it. You know, so basically what's happening right now, you know, for a long time, Trump keeps saying, you know, Iran, this is your final warning, you know, tomorrow your whole country will cease to exist and, you know, so on and so on. And then the next day comes where he's like, hey, I changed my mind. You know, we had conversations and everything's fine now and we're going to make a deal and then it doesn't happen. Right. He's been going back and forth like this, like pretty often. The latest is something very different though. What he's saying is he's announcing, you know, Scott Besson, Treasury Department, right? They're announcing the largest ever sanctions. And basically this is not just sanctions on like effectively the entire Iranian economy, probably every, every Iranian leader because some updates on this, they actually have managed trace even all their hidden wealth, which they couldn't do before. But what they're doing beyond it is they're even going after countries that are economically supporting Iran. And so one of the big ones would be China. China buys about 80% of Iran's and of Iran's oil and China needs that. They'd, they'd mostly get their oil from Russia, Iran, and formerly Venezuela. Russian oil doesn't flow as like it used to, Venezuelan oil is American oil now, I guess. And you know, the Iranian oil is heavily sanctioned. So you know, if Trump moves forward with this, he's going to cripple the Chinese economy and the Chinese economy is going to have to decide what they want to do. But am I wrong in saying that China, they don't have to do that. They got a little intoxicated on discounted oil from Russia and from Iran, but they can buy from the same global markets that everybody else does, right? They can technically, so that there's going to be two different issues with that. One issue is they're going to be pulling from the same squeezed pool as everybody else. You know, for the United States, we don't get a lot of oil through the, the, the Australian four moves. This should not technically affect us, but it's affecting oil prices here because they guess what? You know, global oil prices are effectively set. If China starts buying from the same pool as everybody else, you're going to watch oil prices go probably higher than at least in my lifetime we've ever seen them. This is going to be utterly unsafe. That's everybody. Josh, I don't, I don't, I'm sorry for keeping interrupting, but I'm fascinated by this. That's for everybody. That's the US, right? Well, it's too, it's because the global markets are the global markets. So if, if, if China has to dip into the same well, then yes, I, I, I, I, I think you're on upset right? Price is going to skyrocket, but they're going to skyrocket for everybody, including the US. Yeah. Not that they probably will. I mean, I mean, the other possibility, but this is that Trump could maybe pressure Iran to move quickly enough on it. I don't know if that's going to happen. The other possibility is, you know, Trump maybe thinks we can get Venezuelan oil flowing fast enough to replace that. I know one of his long term goals. I mean, since before he was even thinking about running a for president, he was still talking like Oprah Winfrey, right, which is that, you know, why don't you run for president? He was saying, look, America could become one of the largest oil powers in the world. You know, we could become the Saudis, we could become rich, why aren't we doing it? Maybe that's a long term plan, but, but I don't think he could start that within even the next year, like that that's not something I think he could do overnight. Well, here's what I'm wondering. I guess the reason why I keep I keep asking this question is because, you know, the calculation I think is that the White House believes with this economic D day, with this increased sanctions and pressure that they can get the regime to fold because obviously they're, you know, very focused on concerns over civil unrest, you know, getting people back out in the street. Not that they're worried because I think they've got enough ammunition to kill thousands more. But I think that's the calculation from the White House, the calculation from the regime in Iran appears to be, we can ride this pain out and we don't think you can, meaning you being the White House and Americans. It is, it's a, it's a game of chicken, basically, because, you know, for, like, for the United States, it is something we could ride out. We could ride to not a lot more effectively than they could. We could even tap technically the strategic oil reserves. The problem is Biden drained most of them and they didn't release them. So, you know, we're kind of in a tough spot. The real, the real timeline for the US, those are the midterm elections. And I think for, you know, Iran, what they're seeing is there's this new rising, you know, far left United States Democratic Socialists and, you know, they want to defund the Department of Defense. You know, their whole narrative is, is economics. They want to have the president appointed by the House of Representatives and they want to abolish the Senate. Like, you know, if they can get, if they can get political victories, that's long term victory for, you know, the enemies of the United States. And so I think on one side, China and Iran, they would love that, frankly, they would really like that, especially these new candidates are running on the platform of, you know, economy and affordability. Yeah. I don't, I don't think, I don't think Iranian regime is just unsophisticated. I certainly don't think the CCP she's being in that career on sophisticated, they've spent a long time watching politics. I don't, in the US, I don't believe they honestly think the DSA is going to somehow ride in and take over the political landscape in the US. So, but I take your point. They probably look at that and think, okay, I think they probably feel like that is the indicator that overall in the, in the landscape of politics, generally speaking, the Republicans of Democrats won't have the patience, right? And there could be, that they're probably guessing there's going to be a change in control of the Congress after the midterms. So I don't think they're worried about the DSA taking over. I think what they, they do look at that as an indicator that they believe they're right by thinking the White House is not going to have the patience to keep this going, meaning the economic pressure. And that's what they're probably banking on because they're seeing this, this adjustment in the landscape. Well, I think what they're banking on is not like, you know, Trump being replaced by, you know, AOC or something like that or Bernie Sanders. And then what they're banking on is the DSA could win enough house seats that they could overturn a lot of Trump's policies or and of course, you know, Democrats tend to march in lockstep. So if they just get enough DSA members in, they can influence the rest of the Democratic party. In the, in the DSA platform is not to like take over the Senate and everything else. They want to control the house and then use the control of the house to basically negate the other forms of, you know, the other branches of government effectively. Yeah. But I think you're right. But I think from, I mean, I guess I'm wrong. Yeah. From my perspective, I think that I could be completely wrong here. But look, I'm all in favor of this, this increased economic sanctions. I think it's the one thing that really hurts the regime, really makes them concerned, right? They know they can withstand more munitions. And they believe to some degree, they can push the economic pain down to the people. It's not like that, you know, senior IRGC commanders aren't going to get paid, right? But I think that they feel as if the, the, the White House, right, maybe not even because I think leading up to the midterms, I think they probably feel that there's enough self-interest on the part of the Republican party that they're going to get nervous enough that they're going to pressure the White House as well to say we got to come up with a solution here and it's not writing out this economic pain of the sanctions for the next six to twelve months. I definitely, this, this all process could take longer than we imagine. So I guess, but let's split. If we could go back to China because it is a fascinating aspect of this. If China doesn't play ball, if they look at this and go, look, I, you know, we, you know, we do care in one level, but the reality is, this is in our best interest to continue dealing with Iran, not to somehow, you know, concede the White House's points. What impact does that have on this overall pressure effort? Is that sufficient? Is China's support to Iran? And also to some degree rush, as I suppose, sufficient to negate to a significant degree, the economic pressure. That's a long question. Oh, sorry. Absolutely. So, so there's a, there's a few moving parts with this. So first of all, Iran needs to sell oil. Russia also, you know, makes its business mostly by selling oil. Now, Russia's not going to bail out Iran by buying their oil, you know, just plain and simple. China, China can India to extent, but mostly China, right? And so the Chinese Communist Party is like, it's the, is the factor propping up the economy right now. And China, there is no Iranian economy, right? And in part of that is because of sanctions. Part of that is because Iran can't sell in the broader market and China is buying, you know, sanctioned oil basically. On the other side, China is facing a lot of really bad internal, internal issues also. They're terrified of social unrest right now, like they're terrified of it. Their economy is imploding. The sanctions have hit them a lot harder than people are alleging. You know, about a third of their economy was real estate. They overproduced it. They have ghost cities, real estate is going for nothing there. I know the CCP is trying to use this in propaganda saying everybody can afford a house in China. It's because the real estate industry imploded, you know what I mean? They overproduced on, on manufacturing, which is why they're trying to dump it onto foreign markets and why even Europe and Canada are trying to block that from happening. You know, companies are pulling out of China to the extent that the CCP has banned them from leaving China. But you know, and then the US, Trump called them out now for interfering in the 2020 elections, Trump's going after a lot of spies. And I think Trump's kind of pull it out all stops with them. In other words, the economic pillars of China are gone, like they're gone right now. And their only hope now is internal kind of politics and internal, you know, stuff. And then of course, you know, infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America, but even there, a lot of these countries are beginning ripped off for so long that it's not working. On the US side, China could disappear tomorrow. And we would be financially better off at that. The problem we have is they have, they have monopolies in a few key areas. For example, certain pharmaceuticals, they have a monopoly, a rare if minerals bringing a rare of elements, they have a monopoly. And so unless we can break dependence on those, we kind of need them. But the long-term track run right now is actually kind of like economic disengagement. So this could actually speed that up. That leads us to a whole series of other questions, but it also Josh leads us to a break. So if you'll stay right where you see how he did that, that was very smooth, wasn't it? If you'll stay right where you are, we'll be back with more from Joshua Philip right here on the situation report. Stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a minute to talk to you about an incredibly important subject. It's absolutely the key to your health and I'm talking about sleep, how to get good sleep. So let me ask you a question. Do you snore? 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At Kappy Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average US Army infantryman in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Just search Kappy Army on Apple Podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports. And remember to follow today. Welcome back to the PDB situation report, joining me once again is senior investigative reporter at the about times Joshua Philip, Josh, thanks very much for sticking around it, very much appreciated because if we had come back to this shot and you weren't there, that would be really awkward. Yeah. Be bloodier. Yeah. It would be weird. It'd be, it'd be, people'd be talking about it and we go viral for all the wrong reasons. You brought up a lot of important issues here in the previous segment related to China again, kind of focusing on on the White House announcement that they're going to engage in this economic D day, they're going to put sanctions and consequences on countries that continue to do business with Iran that don't work with the White House in this economic D day against the regime. And so we've been talking about China. You brought up the idea of social unrest in China, which I always find fascinating. Talk to me about that. What are you seeing and, you know, how is the CCP as a Communist Party working to prevent that sort of social civil unrest? The CCP, okay, a couple of points on this. So when Trump was president of the First Turner, his first term in office, the Chinese Communist Party was also on the brink of economic collapse, you know, the trade wars he had with them. This is before they had the ability to fully produce, you know, semi-conductors by themselves. And when Trump cut those off and was hitting them as sanctions, the Chinese economy almost collapsed like they came really close to it. And then what happened? You had the uprisings in Hong Kong, right? You had mass civil unrest in Hong Kong and that started spreading into China. The CCP was terrified thinking, basically, this was, you know, the end of the road. And so they crushed those, they crushed that unrest, they crushed it in China. And then what did they do? Well, COVID, you know, whether miraculously for their safety, for his exhalation, or, you know, is a tool came out and then they used that to lock down everybody. If you went in protest, did they turn your health code red and threw you in the gulag? And then that's how they did it. And then what they did is they exported the economic crisis. So China was facing mass economic crisis. They then advised the World Health Organization, you know, we have the solution to COVID-19 locked down your economy. days, locked out all the businesses, lock everybody in their homes, and the whole nine yards. And then the rest of the world did it, thanks to Fauci and the WHO because we were following World Health Organization recommendations. We shut down the global economy and then China said, hey, we fixed it. We solved COVID, we're open for business, and people poured money back into China. China was bailed out by foreign investment during that time and they used COVID-19 to do it. Now, they were basically back at that point, right? The CECP is facing very similar issues, and there ain't no COVID-19 to bail them out, at least they sold Polina. Well, not that, and that's the trouble, that's the rapid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to put some care down this rabbit hole, but of course the Chinese Communist Party never provided any transparency or any support, any efforts to work with the international community to understand the origins of COVID-19, which of course leaves us. Um, in danger for the next pandemic because we, we failed to learn what we could have learned had they been transparent, but they, they, and of course they haven't paid up really necessarily at price for it. Um, anytime anybody complained about it, it was like, well, you're just xenophobic, right? So that was it, that exactly what they did, yeah, and they, they even, they even sanctioned government officials in other countries like Australia when they called for investigations. And now we're finding out that Dr. Fauci and his private notes and, you know, 11, a 10 of the 12 people in the proximal origins, papering natural origin, actually did believe it came from a lab in China, you know, so that, that raises a lot of questions here as well. It's, it's wild stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And again, I, I go back to the, the, the crime here is that we haven't learned what we could have learned. Right? Because there will be another pandemic, and regardless of its origin, or where it comes from, there will be another, and, you know, it would have been nice if the Chinese Communist Party would have stepped up to the plate and worked with the rest of the international community, but that just wasn't going to happen. With, you know, you also touched on, you briefly mentioned, um, uh, Trump kind of shining a light on, on Chinese espionage efforts. I know why I'm going to go with this. Talk to me about Fangfang, which just sounds like her own about the owners of the Washington Zoo. Yeah. Yeah. Get a, get a little Christine Fang, Fangfang, Fangfang, Fangfang, the caller, right? Yeah. So, uh, today, of course, or, you know, recently, I guess I should say, uh, Eric Swalwell was rated by the FBI. So Eric Swalwell, of course, former representative ran for governor of California, dropped out because of, you know, allegations of rape. Um, you know, innocent till proven guilty. But hey, it looks pretty bad. He has now been rated by the FBI, uh, they took different devices from him. And alongside this, the FBI released 150 pages, I'm good old Fangfang. Uh, it turns out that Fangfang was not just sleeping with them. Fangfang was also planting interns within his campaign. And it turns out Fangfang was also getting illegal, illegal campaign donations, at least corner of the FBI, you know, innocent till proven guilty. So we can't say for sure, but she's accused of getting illegal campaign donations, uh, what she was doing allegedly is she was offering, um, she was offering positions in exchange for campaign donations. And that raises questions over, well, who are these interns then? Uh, not only that, but she was doing this to other politicians, uh, Rokana actually is one of them. Uh, there's the two, two former mayors, uh, in California. The local representatives in California, all were tied in with Fangfang. And what had happened effectively was Fangfang was, uh, was known. She was monitored by the FBI, they tried converting her into a double agent. She left to China and she never came back in 2015. That would have been the Obama administration. So, no, we've, we may never know the whole story on Fangfang, but that, that's what happened. Well, I think we can, we can probably fill in the gaps, look, I mean, that's, it's classic methodology for, um, until the asset, you know, she, she was more than a cooperative contact of the PLA intel apparatus. She was, you know, her, her family is Chinese Communist Party. And she's, it's suspected by the FBI being tied to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. So there are some smoke. Oh, I can't tell you what she was writing out all of these contact records. She had a, she had a handler, uh, you know, she had, you know, there was, there was a desk back in China's intel offices, you know, reading her contact reports and sending her back tasking. Uh, there's not, I mean, this, this is not rocket science, right? And so it is remarkable. Uh, I think, well, did he, he started in Congress in 2013, maybe, I think something like that, uh, come over the year, but then, but then would have been within that time frame, because I think frame, family active between I believe 2013 and 2015. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was, I think that was right. I think he, so she knows, I mean, again, and then look, this is, you know, having, having worked in, you know, the intelligence organizations, you know, you have an access like that. You've got a contact who has access to potentially valuable information. That's a big deal. So she did quite well. I suspect she got promoted out of that. Um, but, you know, it just, it just shows the naivete, uh, the ignorance, the stupidity out of you want to refer to it of, uh, somebody like, well, well, they're in Congress, and they're not bright enough to, to spot this potential problem. Uh, and, and so it is fascinating, but I guarantee you, it, it goes on constantly. The Chinese intel apparatus is incredibly aggressive, uh, they're persistent. We've got a long view, uh, so if anybody thinks this was somehow, thank, thank was some sort of a outlier, oh, I can't believe they did this one gaze, uh, that's nonsense. This is going on, even as we speak, uh, absolutely. I, I, I'd point to a couple cases, you know, Rose Pack, I think needs to, I think the entire legacy of Rose Pack needs to be investigated. So in, in San Francisco, there was a woman named Rose Pack. She was a known Chinese Communist Party agent, like it was known, uh, she was called the Kingmaker of San Francisco. I mean, she's, she's dead now. She got a bad organ transplant in China, died from it, but, but she was called the Kingmaker of San Francisco. You could not get into politics in San Francisco unless you have the blessings of Rose Pack. Uh, personally, I think that every single politician who got into power with any contact with her whatsoever needs to be investigated, like, absolutely, uh, and, and I'd point to it also that, you know, the former air of Arcadia admitted to being a Chinese spy blood guilty to it. Uh, California has a spy problem, uh, and I, I, I'd imagine this is the whole country, you know, this, it's not just, uh, not, yeah, no, it's not, it's not just, I don't, it's also an academia. It's it, it's an academia. It's in, in private sector, um, you know, it's everything. They, they just, and they have a million roses in terms of how they go and approach, uh, individuals for information, um, you know, some researcher reaches out to some researcher in a U.S. company and just says, I, I'd love to open up a channel of communication. We're, I'm working on a project and I read your paper and it's fascinating and good, yeah, and, you know, so people, they, they know what they're doing. They also obviously feed on first and second generation Chinese Americans. That's been a favorite of theirs for a long time. But, you know, do you, do you get the sense that the current administration, uh, will, uh, engage in further sanctions against China, should they decide not to play ball with this economic D day announcement of, of, of President Trump's? I, I believe that even outside of this, the United States needs to, based on what Trump is alleged of China into freeing on our elections, based on what he said about them paying journalists to write hit pieces and mess with, you know, political discourse, based on what he said about the Chinese Communist Party, uh, feeding and funding, you know, far left unrest all across the United States to affect our elections. If you let that go unpunished, if you say we don't sanction you for this, like what kind of message are we even sending? So I, I think even aside from Iran, yeah, Trump needs to do something based on what he's exposing on China, or it's just, it's making a mockery of, of how we respond to these kinds of things. One, one last question, Josh, I'm going to be aware of time here. But, um, how do you assess Xi Xi Bing's current grip on power, um, very delicate, but also very tyrannical. Um, he, he's basically, he's, he has basically walked in the footsteps of Mao Zedong. He's, he's effectively the chairman of the CCP. Um, there are typically different, different pillars of power within China. And Xi Jinping conquered all of those. Uh, he, he also destroyed most of his main rival faction, which was, you know, formerly under Jiang Zemin. And, you know, he's dead, of course now, but you know, Jiang Zemin's whole faction, uh, that he was battling with internally. Uh, but, but on that note, Xi Jinping is also not respected. He, he's not looked well upon in China, you know, they're talking about like a high school dropout. He's not the, the sharpest tool in the shed to, so to speak. Um, and so he, he's, he's rolling right now with an iron fist is, is the way he's going about it. Purging people, saying that even if you're suspected of like questioning the economy, you can get purged, All right. that he's very aggressive with it. So he's ruling by fear right now. Does he have a loyal cadre within senior military leadership? So he took over the military. He has been purging military leaders. In fact, actually, there was a whole big thing that happened on that right after Trump rolled in and basically took up most of the Iranian military. When Trump captured Maduro, took out the Iranian military, China, Xi Jinping, they just absolutely cleaned halves within the military. He had the guy who built the J-20 according to reports, had the guy executed on the spot, like had him shot because the J-20 crash and he said basically they're ripping them off. They found out that none of their weapons worked the way they were supposed to and Xi Jinping was like live it. He has purged so much of the military leadership. It's questionable if they could even fight a war right now. So yeah, she could say that he gained control over it, but he did it in a way that kind of crippled their military and also crippled a lot of their military development. It seems like he was doing what he's done in the past, which is he's hiding behind this idea of anti-corruption campaigns. But it also sounds like part of it is true within the Chinese military that there was a great deal of corruption. And to your point about though, some of the weapons systems just not functioning the way they're supposed to. So this is the big picture of what's coming out. The US intel community is planning to release, at least as what they're saying, information on all of the hidden wealth of Xi Jinping and the key leaders around him. And that will blow his whole narrative on the quote unquote anti-corruption campaign out of the water because he was using that narrative to purge his enemies. If it turns out that he's also just as guilty as all the people he purged, that's going to send some shockwaves. And the US intel community has public reports saying they're going to do this. So you know, we'll see if they actually do, whether or not they do it. I would be shocked if Xi Jinping, much like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, the leaders of Hezbollah or Hamas, you're just shocking that they would be a massing wealth, personal wealth. And by that, I mean, no, it's not shocking at all. And when is a gossilist leader doing this? I know, who would imagine? They're all about the people. Listen, thank you very much, man. It's always it's always delightful. Look at me looking at me using the word delightful. But you know, I mean, I always appreciate your insight, your experience. And when we give you a call, you'll pick up the phone and come on back. And you're a pleasure. Thank you. Outstanding. Thank you. All right. Well, later in the show, Vladimir Putin, you've probably heard about him. He exploits a growing weakness in Ukraine's defenses. Those are the air defenses launching a massive assault as Keith runs dangerously low on patriot interceptors. We'd have more on that with the foundation for defense of democracy's John Hardy when we come back. So stick around. Now I have been a business owner for years. And as a business owner, I know the importance of staying in touch with clients and potential clients, right? I'm always being available because he missed calls. Well, they can make missed potential clients. And that could mean lost revenue in our talk here. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. That's Q, U, O, the business communication system that's built. So you never miss a call. Quo works wherever you are, phone or computer. You can keep your existing number. You can add teammates and minutes and sync your CRM effortlessly. But Quo isn't just a phone system. It's a smart phone system. Their AI automatically logs calls, generate summaries, and flags next steps. It even qualifies leads and handles after hours responses. So your business stays on, even when you're off. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com/PDB. Once again, that's Quo Q, U, O Quo.com/PDB. I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show capy army. But we go beyond simply just telling you what happened in a war. We actually investigate deeper into the why and how. At capy army, everything is informed by my experience as an average US Army infantryman in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Just search capy army on Apple podcast or Spotify to get weekly open-source intelligence reports. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Russia launched one of its largest attacks on keve in weeks firing 168 drones along with crews, ballistic ad hypersonic missiles. Now at least 16 people were killed and more than 40 injured. President Zelensky says Ukraine intercepted most of the drones in crews' missiles, but its patriot systems are running short of the interceptors needed to stop the ballistic weapons. That shortage is leaving Ukrainian cities increasingly exposed. For more on this, let me bring in John Harden. He's the deputy director of the foundation for defensive democracies, Russia program. John, thanks very much. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Well, let's start maybe from the 30,000-foot level. How serious is the munitions shortage for keve? I think it's quite serious. Right now, the air defense situation, especially with ballistic missiles, is really Ukraine's biggest challenge. I mean, when it comes to subsonic cruise missiles and the one-way attack drones, the shaheads, and what have you, Ukraine does pretty well. It shoots down the vast majority. It's really the ballistic missiles that are challenged, driven by this global paucity of patriot missiles. And so it Russia has been trying to exploit that with the help of increased production. You know, Iskander or N48U missiles as well as help from North Korea. Okay. And it's interesting because, I mean, I guess the follow-on question is, how does keve resolve this? Right? If there's a, as you said, a paucity, if there's, you know, a problem with, you know, everyone's pantry running bare, whether it's in the US or EU allies, what's this solution on this? Right. So I think, you know, trying to shoot down Russian arrows is not, is just not working because of the lack of that, that capacity. So really, Ukraine's next best option is to go after the proverbial archer. So, you know, Ukraine has been trying to lobby Elon Musk for access to his Starlink satellite internet service inside Russia. So since 222, the Ukrainians have relied on Starlinks for their military communications. They use Starlink controlled drones, they call middle strike drones, basically medium range drones for strikes on dynamic targets in the occupied territory. So they logistic trucks, air defense systems what had you. What they want is permission to use that system inside Russia proper, where it's restricted. And that is where, you know, the Russians are launching, you know, almost all of those, ballistic missiles from. So if that restriction were lifted, the Ukrainians could use Starlink control drones to hunt for those Russian launchers and your related assets and strike them either with drone score with a follow on missile. Is it correct to say that so far though, Musk has said, no, he's not going to do that. Yeah. So this is the reporting it. And also the, actually, the federal, hello, federal, Ukraine's erstwhile defense minister, who was just fired by Zelensky a few weeks ago. And it's kind of the Ukrainian go to Musk whisperer. He's been in contact with Elon Musk. He says, you know, in recent weeks, but it's just not having much luck. I think he would require intervention from the Oval Office to resolve this situation. And so far, it does not seem like the White House is fighting. Okay. And the reasoning behind it, is it that Musk is worried that if he allows that system to be used for this purpose, that it could escalate. What essentially is Putin's, you know, four plus year invasion of Ukraine. I think that's his concern is that, you know, it's the escalation to be having these Starlink control munitions going into Russia. And he wants, you know, the sides to focus on trying to find a, a peaceful solution. The, the, the counter to that would be that, you know, Putin is, you know, we tried diplomacy, President Trump and his team have really put their best efforts at diplomacy. You know, Putin, it's not worth because of these kind of maxilist demands that Putin is sticking to Ukraine is ready for a ceasefire now. So if you kind of want to, you know, tilt the scales a bit, maybe get some more leverage to bring Putin to the notion table when you need to start taking ways cars. And Ukraine's going to go to the job of that to kind of the tax school level. Right now, one of the last cards Putin has less than basically has is into these ballistic missile strikes. So, you know, taking that away, maybe you get a little closer to the piece. Yeah, I think it's, it's not incorrect to argue that Putin needs to feel more pain. If you want to get him to come to the table, I mean, I understand, you know, Musk may be being [BLANK_AUDIO] them say, look, I don't want to be responsible for a, a escalation, a further escalation of this grinding, you know, brutal war of Putin's. But if what you want is, is negotiation, then I think you need to make Putin feel a little bit more vulnerable. And right now it would seem, maybe I'm wrong about this. It would seem that he feels like he's got the upper hand. He can, he can ride this out. And so I think Ukraine, you're relative to last year, it is an overall, a better position this year with the important exception of missile defense. So, you know, Russian gains have become even more, and he make and costulate. Ukraine is kind of stopped bleeding manpower as much. They're improved their command and control with new cores. They're, we've got the middle range, strike it, lotus we mentioned. You know, the Russians are still making some gains in certain areas, but overall, their prospects for a breakthrough are pretty much no. And so, and actually, Ukraine is, you can call them back some territory in some places. They got a new team in the military led by the general trappati. You think it's going to do a good job. So overall, things are looking up. The problem is that I think for Putin, whether because, you know, he's 73 and just can, is stuck in his ways or he's getting fed kind of boar's information from his top brass, probably some of both, you know, that just kind of changing prospects on the battlefield are not translating into kind of more flexibility at the negotiating table. What to me, that mismatch is the biggest kind of impediment to peace and it has been for some time. Well, but if, if he understands that he probably does because it's been all over the press, that Kiev is perilously low on interceptors, then I mean, that can turn the tide of this war. So I think, I guess, I'm trying to assess whether Putin at this stage, I mean, obviously, yes, you know, he's seen increased attacks in his own territory by the Ukrainians. They've had more and more success going after energy infrastructure or whether you're talking about wildberries, depots or whatever it is. But, you know, on the other hand, if he feels as if his intel is solid, and he feels like he is running, you know, low on interceptors, I don't see how he wouldn't view that as a real, you know, plus in the wind column. I don't see how unless, unless Kiev gets what they need in terms of interceptors, it would seem, unless we just don't know, I mean, what's the intel? I guess, sorry, for Ramley, but what's the intel that we have or the assessment that we have on the Kremlin's stockpile of ballistic missiles? Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right. The Russians are well aware of Ukraine's circles there, and they've really, the investments they've made over the past two years have put them in a place to be able to exploit. So they've increased production of its conduct at the 9M-723 ballistic missile series for its counter-empt system. 500 km range or so, a pretty, pretty big warhead fairly accurate. At the beginning of the war was maybe six per month, now it's like 60 plus. So order of magnitude, you know, got over 100 ballistic missiles from with Korea earlier, they looked to be getting about that same over this year according to reports. And they've also had this missile, I mentioned earlier, R&48U. It's a ballistic missile launched by an air defense system, but it's surface-to-surface purpose, so it kind of supplements those will purpose-belt ballistic missiles, and then you add in a bunch of others. So I don't think it's going to have the strategic effect, Putin hopes, you know, in the past, we've seen some tough waters for Ukraine. This will probably be hardest. Ukraine has approved resilient, and I expect them to continue to do so, but certainly Putin is trying to cling to every piece of leveraging yet, not only the air situation, but also palming Ukraine's kind of effective blockade on the Ukrainian grain and metals exports to the greater Odessa area. That's another way Putin is trying to get leverage over K-8. Yeah, I mean, I take your point about Ukraine's resiliency. It's been remarkable. But that was when they had sufficient supplies of interceptors to also protect key cities and infrastructure against Russia's ballistic missiles. So I guess that's kind of where I'm going. What is, what's your assessment? Where is Kiev in their negotiations to replenish their stockpiles, whether with the US or with NATO allies? Yeah, so I think this is the number one ask that Ukrainian officials make to their western counterparts. I think that they will probably still get some level of support in this area from the United States and mostly the United States, and maybe also a few missiles from the Europeans, but the coverage they're pretty there in most and most capitals. And I think especially at the Iran War, that kind of strain on stockpiles, it's made Washington, I think, more reluctant to part with that many more missiles. Production is increasing. It's supposed to grow from your roughly 600 or 650 or so per annum now to maybe 2000 a year, I mean, to come years, but I think that'll be too late to save Ukraine for this winter. So I think the fourth reality is for this winter, there's really not an answer where it comes to intercepting the areas, you really have to hit the archer, at least reduce the threat. It's going to be tough no matter what. Yeah, yeah, I tend to be a fairly cynical person. And I don't see any sort of diplomatic offram that Putin's been looking for. So I would look at this and think, okay, he's been engaged in this for years now. It's not the time when he's going to say, when he knows there's this imbalance right between their interceptors and his ballistic missiles stockpile, I don't see how we would imagine that somehow he's going to say, okay, I'm good with the sitting down and coming up with a piece plan, unless he gets exactly what he's wanted all this time. So, but that does make me sound very cherishing, very cynical. I'd say, John, if you can stay right where you are, we got to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more from John Hardy and the defensive democracies. Stay with us right here on the Situation Report. I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show capy army, but we go beyond simply just telling you what happened at a war. We actually investigate deeper into the why and how at capy army, everything is informed by my experience as an average US army infantryman in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Just search capy army on Apple podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports and remember to follow today. Joining me once again is John Hardy. He's a deputy director of the Foundation for Defensive Democracies Russia program. John, thanks very much for sticking around. Very much appreciated. What do you make of the the increasingly public feud in Ukraine between Zelensky and Federal? If we think back a few weeks ago to Zelensky's decision to fire the defense minister, I think it was an unfortunate decision. You know, I think a lot of things, you know, we talked to the air defense challenges, but other than that, you know, things were kind of looking up for Ukraine and I think that decision kind of stalled that momentum a little bit at least in kind of the narrative of war. That being said, it did produce a good outcome in the sense that it led Zelensky under popular pressure to install a new, uh, Todd General, Elijah Paddy, who unlike his predecessors is, you know, widely respected and really liked among the rank and file. He is, it kind of represents a new generation of Ukrainian military officers who are molded by war with Russia since 2014 rather than kind of being a product of the Soviet system. Like he's trying to address some of these kind of dysfunctional dynamics and long-building challenges. And within the Ukrainian military, whether it's, you know, forced management allocation of resources between units, um, kind of, you know, Michigan, Western style, Michigan command type version of leadership, where you delegate more responsibility embedded, but concentrating it in the general staff. So, um, you know, I think, you know, some of those problems, some of those especially cultural issues would have to solve, like the mobilization piece is especially, um, problematic and is, you know, not just his, it's not just in his hands, but I think, you know, you lots of you got to a good answer if maybe not for what the other right reasons. Do you think Ceterov, uh, has his eyes on Zelensky's job? Well, they at this point, um, you know, Ceterov, you know, this was made, maybe familiar with, you know, Ceterov's kind of explosive statement this week, basically calling for elections, you know, his hope was to get reinstated as defense minister. That was one of the demands of the protests that, you know, it in key even recent weeks, but they, of course, did not do that. Um, so think Ceterov maybe got a little desperate and, and I think, frankly, didn't make the best decision, when he, you know, released that statement at this point, he's kind of thrust himself into direct Conferred tension with Celensky. rather than kind of being a victim in the public's eyes of a bad decision by Flansky. If I were advising him by not advising to do that, for no other reason, in fact, that right now there isn't really a good way for Ukraine to practically hold safe and secure elections with the involvement of both people in the frontline and the millions of refugees living abroad. So I think what you call for is not the most constructive idea. Yeah, but it kind of feeds into not that federal will be a, you know, the favorite candidate of Putin, but it certainly feeds into Putin's desire to see Zolansky go on. And let me switch gears just a little bit slightly. I want to go back to this idea of the weapon stockpiles. President Chum in the U.S. has pushed back hard. As has the Pentagon on the idea that the U.S. pantry is running somewhat bare. What do you make of all that? Well, it depends on what you're talking about. So if you're talking about, do we have enough munitions in just the prosky or in Serhan? I think absolutely we do. If we're talking about readiness, these would be China or other kind of global contingencies with a major power, I think versus China, especially we were already years behind where we needed to be on the munitions front. And so now we've, you know, we've assumed more risk with the Serhan operation. So the good news is I think that the panic induced by, you know, I'm getting to where we are now has maybe spurt us to go into overdrive in a way we should have already been it. So I think that's, that's the silver lining. That's interesting what you say about the fact that we were already years behind in one respect in terms of China. Are you getting the impression though that say over the course of the past whatever four to six months that there have been meaningful, significant changes in the way that the government is contracting with, you know, whether we're talking right, the honor, you know, north of Grumman or anyone else, to try to ramp this up, increase the scope and scale of production. I do. I think there has been an inflection point where if you look at some of the announcements about, you know, agreements for increased production of with Patriot, bad, Tomahawk would have you as well as kind of some of these newer, lower cost, kind of more basic, long range emissions, and that we are changing, we are moving towards both more quantities of the legacy stuff and also these kind of more cost-efficient emissions. It's important to note the caveat that some of these recent agreements are sort of, you know, on paper, there are kind of pledges to have agreements that are not necessarily, you know, contracts that were moving out of line with, there's been appropriated money. So like the Pentagon and Congress still have more to do on that front. What is a U.S. stand from your perspective on drone warfare, right? Production of drones, technology, use of drones. Where are we in the list of us in our adversaries? Sure. I think so. If we're talking about, you know, not the kind of legacy, you know, reverb, predator, things like in a kind of global war on terror era, unmanned combat systems, we are, you know, behind the Ukrainians and the Russians, right? Now they have the most experience with, you know, what we think of, and we think of the Ukrainian War, you know, tactical, unmanned aerial systems, UGVs, U.S.V, some of the cases of Ukrainians. So I think we have ways to go to kind of catch up there. There's a point that, you know, we are not going to fight the way the same way as the Ukrainians, necessarily. I think even if you look at, you know, the probably the way the Russians are fighting now with the employment of U.S. and the tactical level, they might not want to fight the same way in the initial period of the war with NATO as they do in the fourth year of a war of attrition with Ukraine, right? But, you know, bottom line is we do need to be learning lessons from this conflict. I think we're starting to do that, but I don't think we've gone far enough. And if you look at some of the ways that at the, maybe highest levels of government, we have to, maybe fully embrace the Ukrainian, so, you know, after all, have the most to teach us in this area, maybe as we should have. So, perfect example, you know, around war, we add, you know, you know, Eric Schmidt for where Google C, those company, Green Autonomy had been producing this system called Marrups in Ukraine, it's very well performed in Ukraine, it's an interceptor drone, system drone that crashes into another drone. And, you know, the Pentagon, it started to down with two, but we didn't really have that ready to go for the run, which, by the way, is using the same drones that Russia is using as Ukraine, where we, you know, had this, this printout autonomy system working. So, you know, maybe in some of those areas, we could have maybe lowered from others' mistakes rather than repeating the same mistakes ourselves, but I think, you know, I think we always start to recognize that now. What do you make of the White House, kind of going back and forth on the idea of Ukraine being licensed to build their own interceptors, their own patriot interceptors? Yeah, so, I was encouraged to see President Trump's initial announcement. I suspect, maybe, you know, either as a desire to help, he might have maybe gotten ahead of the policy process a little bit, because I think now we've kind of seen him walk it back, walk it in the city and back, and kind of alluded to the fact that it was a very sensitive technology. You want to, you know, make sure it's done right. I think there's a question of, you know, which variant, the Patriot missile pack two, the World Advanced Pack Three, Ukraine's going to build, you know, how do you control that technology? You know, we have some of these, you know, a kind of licensed production agreements with Germany, Japan. It takes a long time, very complex process on, you know, on logistical and kind of export control side. So if it does go forward, which I hope it doesn't send for them, I don't think it's going to be a year's long process. So it's not going to be ready for time for this winter, or probably perhaps not needing this from war. So depending on how long. No, it's not a short-term solution. I think I think you're right. It's not a short-term solution. All right. Well, well, well, finally, last question, John, I want to be mindful of our time, but this is a very speculative question. What do you think six months from now? Where are we with the Ukraine conflict? Well, my crystal ball broke a long time ago, but I will say that every time I would just accept an upland, John. Right. Right. Every time I think, you know, what Putin's got to realize, you know, this war isn't going to do anything for any of this. It's going to know where it's time to cut bait and just live a fine other day. You know, maybe recharge and attack the Ukraine again, hopefully that doesn't happen. It may well happen. You know, every time I think that, you know, the war drags on it. So I think, you know, on the current trend, Russia recruitment is down, you know, from where they want to be, it's maybe just a meeting where it just below the quota relative to losses, but you know, it's still a place where it can allow Russia to keep fighting. I think as long as that's the case, Putin's going to keep doing this because I think he's still labors under the delusion that he's going to eventually break Ukrainian forces through enough kind of continual pressure. So you know, eventually hopefully it'll come up more where you realize that it's not going to happen. And then you know, then we're just seeing what he's going to do once he realizes that is he going to try to escalate in some way, is he going to realize it's time to just get what I can get in the table and live to find on the day. I don't know. No, no, no, I think you'll probably try to escalate in some ways, but hopefully we can deter him from making a really bad decision, like, you know, attacking data or something. Well, it sounds like, well, and that's a topic for another day, John, if you'll agree to come on back. I do want to talk to you about sort of this concept of the hybrid war that Russia has engaged in against NATO against EU allies with the U.S. But it sounds like what you're saying is Ukraine is going to have a brutal winter. But very tough winner, especially if it's as cold as last year, it was exceptionally cold. This year given the air defense situation, I think it'll be really tough. So on that cherry note, John, listen, I want to say thank you very much, Matt, really appreciate you spending your time with us here at the situation report. And like I said, we look forward to the next time as well. All right, thank you. Take care. As John Hardy, the foundation for defensive democracies, very interesting stuff, great experience to behind all that. Well, that is all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. I know, sad drum bone, somewhere in the background. If you have any questions or comments, maybe you got a humorous anecdote, just reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. You know what happens every month, right? We take some of the questions and comments from you and we mash them into an episode that we call Ask Me Anything. So keep your cards and letters coming finally to listen to our show ad free. You can do that. It's very simple. Just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB premium dot com. I'm Mike Baker. Until next time, you know the drill, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. (upbeat music)