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

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. President Trump's plan to crush Iran's economy may put Washington on a collision course with China, Tehran's largest remaining oil customer, of course. Joshua Phillip joins us to explain whether Beijing will cooperate or whether they'll continue keeping the Iranian regime alive. Later in the show, Russia pounds Kiev with 168 drones and dozens of missiles, killing at least 16 as Ukraine's air defenses run short. John Hardy, 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 a far larger confrontation with America's most powerful adversary. For more on this, I want to turn to Joshua Phillip. Joshua Phillip is a senior investigative reporter at the Epoch Times and the host of the Josh Phillips Show. You can check him out on YouTube at the Josh Phillips Show. Josh, it's great to see you again, man. Thank you for taking the time to be with us here on the SITREP. Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Thank you. Well, thank you. Even if you don't mean it, you know what? I appreciate that. I appreciate the effort. So let me ask you this. Economic D-Day. Okay. 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, starts to do any business with Tehran, they're going to 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. I think 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, you know, the next day comes around, 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 Bess in 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 Iranian leader, because some updates on this, they actually have managed to 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 oil. And China needs that, right? They 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. 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 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 Strait of Hormuz. This should not technically affect us. But it's affecting oil prices here because, hey, 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 insane. That's for everybody. Josh, I don't, I don't, I'm sorry for keep interrupting, but I'm fascinated by this. That's the U.S., right? And our allies, too. It's because the global markets are the global markets. So if China starts buying from the same pool as everybody else, if China has to dip into the same well, then yes, I think you're 100% right. Prices are going to skyrocket, but they're going to skyrocket for everybody, including the U.S. Yeah, no, they probably will. I mean, the other possibility with 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 from the United States. fast enough to replace that. I know one of his long-term goals. I mean, since before he was even thinking about running up 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 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 game of chicken, basically. Because, you know, for like, for the United States, it is something we could ride out. We could ride it out a lot more effectively than they could. We could even tap tech. The problem is Biden drained most of them and then didn't replace them. So, you know, we're kind of in a tough spot. The real, the real timeline for the U.S. though is the midterm elections. And then I think for, you know, Iran, what they're seeing is there's this new rising, you know, far left in the United States, the democratic socialists. And, you know, they're, 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, 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. And especially these new candidates are running on the platform of, you know, economy and affordability. Yeah. I don't think the, I don't think the Iranian regime is unsophisticated. I certainly don't think the CCP, Xi Jinping and that crew are unsophisticated. They've spent a long time watching politics. I don't, in the U S I don't believe they honestly think the DSA is going to somehow ride in and take over the, the, the political landscape in the U S. 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 and Democrats won't have the patience, right? And they're probably guessing there's going to be a change in, in control of the Congress after the midterms. So I don't think they're worried about the DSA taking over. I think, but 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, you know, Bernie Sanders. I think 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, 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 Democrat and 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 government effectively. Yeah. Um, but, but, but I think you're right. But I think from, I mean, I guess from my perspective, I think that I could be completely wrong here, but look, I I'm all in favor of this, this, uh, increased economic sanctions. I think it's the one thing that, um, really hurts the regime really makes them, uh, concerned, right? They know they can withstand more munitions, right? And they believe to some degree they can push the economic pain down to the people, right? That it's, it's not like that the senior IRGC commanders aren't going to get paid. Right. Uh, but I think that they feel as if 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 mean this this whole process could take longer than we imagine so i guess but let's let if we could go back to china because it is a fascinating aspect of this um if china doesn't play ball if they look at this and go look i have you know we you know maybe we do care on one level but the reality is this is in our best interest to continue dealing with iran not to somehow uh you know concede the white house's points what impact does that have on this whole process and i think that's a really important question and i think that's a really overall pressure effort is that sufficient is china's support to iran and also to some degree russia's i suppose sufficient to negate to a significant degree this economic pressure that's a long question i'm 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 russia's not going to bail out iran by buying their oil you know just plain and simple uh china china can india to an extent but mostly china right and so the chinese communist party is like is that is the factor propping up their economy right now without china there is no iranian economy right uh and part of that is because of sanctions part of that is because iran can't sell in the broader market and china's 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 uh their economy is imploding the sanctions have hit them a lot harder than people are acknowledging you know about a third of their economy was real estate they overproduced it they have ghost cities uh real estate's 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 uh they overproduced on on manufacturing which is why they're trying to use this in propaganda and so they're trying to dump it onto foreign markets and why even europe and canada trying to block that from happening uh you know companies are pulling out of china to the extent that the ccb has banned them from leaving china uh 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 pulling out all stops with them and in other words the the the economic pillars of china are gone like they're gone right now and their only hope now is that they're going to be able to internal kind of politics and internal stuff. And then of course, infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America. But even there, a lot of these countries have been getting 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. The problem we have is they have monopolies in a few key areas. For example, certain pharmaceuticals, they have a monopoly. Rare earth minerals, rare earth 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 are, see how I did that. That was very good. Very smooth, wasn't it? If you'll stay right where you are, we'll be back with more from Joshua Phillip, 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? I know it's kind of a personal question. But as a result of your snoring, did somebody, maybe your partner, hand you a CPAP machine? And then did you just at some point stop using it? Right. CPAP users know the mask never quite seals. The hose is tugging at you every time you roll over. And eventually, like the rower and the exercise bike, the machine ends up sitting abandoned in a closet. Well, here is your answer. Excite OSA works a different way. It treats a root cause instead of just managing the noise. And you use it while you're awake. It's an FDA cleared prescription device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. Look, 20 minutes once a day. That's it. While the coffee, bruise, maybe while you're watching an episode and then daily for six weeks. A lighter routine to keep it. Most people notice a change in four to six weeks. In clinical studies, 90%, 90% of patients saw a reduction in snoring. And getting started is straightforward. Look, there's no sleep lab. There's no appointments, no sitting around a waiting room. You answer a few questions online, a licensed provider reviews them, and it ships to your door. Bob's your uncle. Maybe Bob's not your uncle, but you know what I mean. Easy peasy. See if it's right for you. Get Excite OSA. It's spring sleep. dot com slash PDB and use code PDB for 20% off. Again, that's Excite OSA at spring sleep.com slash PDB. And of course, thank you, the spring sleep for sponsoring this episode. Disclaimer, Excite OSA is an FDA cleared prescription only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. It's not for everyone. Individual results may vary. Check out the risks and benefits at spring sleep.com. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining me once again is senior investigative reporter at the EBOC Times, Joshua Phillip. Josh, thanks very much for sticking around with us. Very much appreciated because, you know, if we had come back to this shot and you weren't there, that would be really awkward. That'd be bloodier, yeah. It would be weird, wouldn't it? People would 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 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 this, the idea of social unrest in China, which I always. I always find fascinating. Talk to me about that. What are you seeing and, you know, how is the CCP, how is the Communist Party working to prevent that sort of social, civil unrest? The CCP. Okay, a couple points on this. So when Trump was president of the first term, or 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, semiconductors by themselves. And when Trump cut those off and was hitting them with 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 that unrest, they crushed it in China, and then what did they do? Well, COVID, you know, whether miraculously for their sake, for its salvation, or, you know, as a tool came out, and then they used that to lock down everybody. If you went and protested, they turned your health code red and threw you in the gulag. And 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, lock down your economies, lock down all the businesses, lock everybody in their homes, and, you know, the whole nine yards. And then the rest of the world did it, you know, 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, we're basically back at that point, right? The CCP is facing very similar issues, and there ain't no COVID-19 to bail them out, at least hopefully not. And that's where we're at. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, I don't want to put you 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 for the next pandemic, because we failed to learn what we could have learned had they been transparent. And of course, they haven't paid really necessarily a price for it. Anytime anybody complained about it, it was like, well, you're just xenophobic, right? So that was it. That's exactly what they did. Yeah. 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 10 of the 12 people in the Proximal Origins paper saying natural origin, actually did believe it came from a lab in China. You know, so that that raised a lot of questions here as well. It's it's wild stuff. Yeah, yeah, it is. And again, I go back to the the crime here is that we haven't learned what we could have learned. And 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, you also touched on you briefly mentioned Trump kind of shining a light on on Chinese espionage efforts. You know, I'm going to go with this. Talk to me about Fang Fang. She just sounds like one of the painters of the Washington Zoo. Yeah, yeah. Good old good old Christine Fang, Fang Fang, Bang, Bang, Fang, Fang, the caller, right? Yeah. So so today, of course, or, you know, recently, I guess I should say, Eric Swalwell was raided by the FBI. So Eric Swalwell, of course, former representative, ran for governor of California, dropped out because of, you know, allegations of rape, you know, innocent till proven guilty. But, hey, it looks pretty bad. He has now been raided by the FBI. They took different devices from him. And alongside this, the FBI released 150 pages on good old Fang Fang. It turns out that Fang Fang was not just sleeping with him. Fang Fang was also planting interns within his campaign. And it turns out Fang Fang was also getting illegal illegal campaign donations, at least according to the FBI, you know, innocent till proven guilty. So we can't say for sure. But she's accused of getting illegal campaign donations. What she was doing, allegedly, is she was offering. She was offering positions in exchange for campaign donations. And that raises questions over, well, who are these interns then? Not only that, but she was doing this to other politicians. Ro Khanna actually is one of them. There's the two two former mayors in California, several local representatives in California. All were tied in with Fang Fang. And what it what had happened effectively was Fang Fang was 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 now we've we may never know the whole story on Fang Fang, but 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 Intel asset. You know, she she was more than a cooperative contact of the PLA Intel apparatus. She was her. Her family is Chinese. Communist Party, and she's suspected by the FBI of being tied to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. So there are some smoke. I can't tell you. She was writing up all of these contact reports. She had a she had a handler, 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 this. I mean, this is not rocket science. Right. And so. It is remarkable. I think Swalwell did he he started in Congress in 2013, maybe I think something like that over the year. But then but then would have been within that time frame, because I think Fang Fang was active between, I believe, 2013 and 2015. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that was I think I 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 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. But, you know, I just it just shows the naivete, the ignorance, the stupidity, however you want to refer to it of of somebody like Swalwell. They're in Congress and they're not bright enough to to spot this potential problem. And so it is. It's fascinating, but I guarantee you it goes on constantly. The Chinese Intel apparatus is incredibly aggressive. They're persistent. They've got a long view. So if anybody thinks this was somehow Fang Fang was some sort of an outlier, says, oh, I can't believe they did this one case. That's nonsense. This is going on even as we speak. Oh, absolutely. You know, I'd point to a couple of cases. You know, Rose Pack, I think, needs to I think the entire legacy of Rose Pack needs to be investigated. So in San Francisco, there was a woman named Rose Pack. She was a known Chinese Communist Party agent. Like it was known 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 had the blessings of Rose Pack. Personally, I think that every single politician who got into power with any contact with her whatsoever needs to be investigated. Like, absolutely. And I point to it also that, you know, the former mayor of Arcadia admitted to being a Chinese spy, pled guilty to it. California has a spy problem. And I'd imagine this is the whole country. You know, this it's not just not. Yeah, no, it's not. It's not just that. It's also an academia. It's it's an academia. It's in private sector. You know, it's everything. They just and they have a million ruses in terms of how they go and approach individuals. For information, you know, some researcher reaches out to some researcher in a U.S. company and just says, I'd love to open up a channel of communication where I'm working on a project. And I read your paper and it's fascinating. And, you know, so people 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. Will. Engage in further sanctions against China should they decide not to play ball with this economic D-Day announcement of President Trump's. I believe that even outside of this, the United States needs to, based on what Trump has alleged of China interfering 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 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 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 how we respond to these kinds of things. One last question, Josh, I've got to be aware of time here, but how do you. How do you assess Xi Jinping's current grip on power? Very delicate, but also very tyrannical. 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. There are typically different different pillars of power within China, and Xi Jinping conquered all of those. 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 that he was battling with internally. But but on that note, Xi Jinping is also not respected. He's not looked well upon in China. You know, you're talking about like a high school dropout. He's he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, so to speak. And so he's he's ruling right now with an iron fist is the way he's going about it. Purging people, saying that even if you're suspected of questioning the economy, you can get purged. He's very aggressive with it. So he's ruling by fear right now. Does he have a 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, you know, basically took up most of the Iranian military. When Trump captured Maduro, took out the Iranian military. China, Xi Jinping, they just absolutely cleaned house 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, you know, the J-20 crash. And he said, basically, they're ripping them off. They found out that none of their weapons work the way they were supposed to. And Xi Jinping was like livid. He has purged so much of the military leadership. It's questionable if they could even fight a war right now. And so, yeah, she could say that he gained control over it, but he did it in a way that like it kind of crippled their military and also crippled a lot of their military development. Yeah. And 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. Yeah. And so but but it also sounds like so part of it is part of it is true within the Chinese military that there was a great deal of corruption. And to your point about that. The you know, some of the weapon systems just not functioning the way they're supposed to. So so this is the big picture of what's coming out. The the. U.S. intel community is planning to release, at least is 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, you know, 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 U.S. intel community has public reports saying they're going to do this. So, you know, we'll see if they actually do, you know, 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, it's just shocking that they would be amassing wealth, personal wealth. And by that, I mean, no, it's not shocking at all. Yeah, when is a godless leader ever done this? Yeah, I know. Who would, 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, using the word delightful. But, you know, I mean, I always appreciate your insight, your experience. And I hope when we give you a call, you'll pick up the phone and come on back. It'd be my pleasure. Thank you. Outstanding, man. Thank you. All right. Well, later in the show. Vladimir. 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 Kiev runs dangerously low on Patriot interceptors. We'll 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? Of always being available. Because you missed calls. Well, they can mean missed potential clients, and that could mean lost revenue. You know what I'm talking about 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 in minutes and sync your CRM effortlessly. But Quo isn't just a phone system. It's a smartphone system. Their AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and flags. 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 slash PDB. Once again, that's Quo, Q-U-O, Quo.com slash PDB. Russia launched one of its largest attacks on Kiev. In weeks, firing 168 drones along with cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles. Now, at least 16 people were killed and more than 40 injured. President Zelensky says Ukraine intercepted most of the drones and cruise 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 Defense of Democracy's 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 Kiev? 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 Shaheds and what have you, Ukraine does pretty well, shoots down the vast majority. It's really the ballistic missiles that are a challenge, driven by this global paucity of Patriot missiles. And so, Russia has been trying to exploit that with the help of increased production of Iskander RM-48U missiles, as well as help from North Korea. Okay. It's interesting because, I mean, I guess the follow-on question is, how does Kiev resolve this, right? If there's, as you said, a paucity, if there's a problem with everyone's pantry running bare, whether it's in the U.S. or EU allies, what's the solution on this? Right. So, I think trying to shoot down Russian arrows is just not working because of the lack of that capacity. So, really, Ukraine's next best option is to go after the proverbial archer. So, Ukraine has been trying to lobby Elon Musk for access to his Starlink satellite internet service inside Russia. So, since 2022, the Ukrainians have relied on Starlink for their military communications. They use Starlink-controlled drones, what they call middle-strike drones, basically medium-range drones for strikes on dynamic targets. It's in the occupied territories. So, it's like logistic trucks, air defense systems, what have you. What they want is permission to use that system inside Russia proper, where it's restricted. And that is where the Russians are launching almost all of those ballistic missiles from. So, if that restriction were lifted, the Ukrainians could use Starlink-controlled drones to hunt for those Russian launchers and related assets and strike them either with drones, or 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 reporting, and also, actually, Mikhail Fedorov, Ukraine's erstwhile defense minister, who was just fired by Zelensky a few weeks ago, and is kind of the Ukrainian go-to Musk whisperer, he's been in contact with Elon Musk, he says, in recent weeks, but is just not having much luck. I think he would. 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 biting. 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 four-plus-year invasion of Ukraine? I think that's his concern, is that it's an escalation. You'd be having these startling controlled munitions going into Russia, and he wants, you know, decides to focus on trying to find a peaceful solution. I think 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 is not worth because of these kind of maximalist demands that Putin is sticking to. Ukraine is regularly 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 negotiation. Well, you need to start taking away his cards, and Ukraine's going to do the job of that kind of at the tactical level. Right now, one of the last cards Putin has, the last invasion he has, is into these ballistic missile strikes. So, you know, taking that away, maybe you get a little closer to peace. Yeah, I think 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 maybe being reluctant to say, look, I don't want to be responsible for an escalation, a further escalation. Or escalation of this grinding, you know, brutal war of Putin's, but if what you want 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 ride this out. So, I think Ukraine, relative to last year, is in overall a better position this year with the important exception of missile defense. So, you know, Russian gains have become even more anemic and costly. Ukraine has kind of stopped bleeding manpower as much. They've improved their command and control of new corps. They've got the middle range strike hit notice we mentioned. You know, the Russians are still making some gains in certain areas, but overall, their prospects for a breakthrough are pretty much nil. And so, actually, Ukraine has even clung back some territory in some places. They've got a new team in the military led by General Tripati. You'd think it's going to do a really good job. So, overall, things are looking up. The problem is, I think, for Putin, whether because, you know, he's 73 and just kind of is stuck in his ways or he's getting fed kind of bogus information from his top brass, probably some of both, you know, that kind of changing prospects on the battlefield are not translating into kind of more flexibility at the negotiating table. But to me, that mismatch is the biggest kind of impediment to peace. And it has. It has been for some time. Well, but if he understands, 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, in 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 um but you know if if on the other hand if he feels as if if his intel is solid and he feels like kivas is running you know uh low on on interceptors i i don't see how he wouldn't view that as a real you know plus in in the in the old win column i i don't i don't see how unless unless keith gets what they need in terms of interceptors uh it would seem unless unless we just don't know i mean what's the intel i guess i'm sorry for rambling 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 few years have put them in a place to be able to exploit it so they've you know increased uh production of iskander m the 9m723 ballistic missile series for iskander m system uh you know 500 kilometer range or so 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 um they've you know got over 100 ballistic missiles from north korea earlier they look to be getting about that same number this year according to reports um and they've also had this this missile i mentioned earlier rm-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 those um more purpose-built ballistic missiles and then you add in a bunch of others um so i i don't think it's going to have the strategic effect putin hopes you know in the past we've seen some tough winners for ukraine this will probably be hardest ukraine has proved resilient uh and i expect them to continue to do so but i don't think it's going to have the strategic effect putin hopes certainly putin is is trying to cling to every piece of leverage he can get you know not only the the air situation but also pounding ukraine's um kind of effective blockade on ukrainian grain and metals exports to the greater odessa area that's another way putin is trying to get leverage over key yeah i mean i take your point about ukraine's resiliency um it's been remarkable but that was when they had sufficient supplies of interceptors to also protect key cities and infrastructure um russia's ballistic missiles so i guess that's 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 u.s or with nato allies yeah so i think this is the number one ask that ukrainian officials make to their western counterparts um i think that they will probably still get some level of uh support in this area from the united states mostly united states and maybe also a few missiles from the europeans but you know the coverage are pretty bare uh in most in most capitals and um i think especially the iran war that that kind of strain on stockpiles it's made washington i think more reluctant to part with that many more missiles you know production is increasing it's supposed to grow from here roughly 600 650 or so per annum now maybe 2 000 a year uh in the coming years but i think you know that'll be too too too late to kind of save ukraine for for this winter so i think the the unfortunate reality is for this winter there's really not an answer when it comes to intercepting the arrows you really have to hit the archer to at least reduce the threat but it's going to be tough no matter what yeah um yeah i tend to be a fairly cynical person um and you know i i don't see i don't see any sort of diplomatic off-ramp that that putin's been looking for uh so i would i would look at this and think okay he's he's he's been engaged in this for years now now is not the time when he's going to say when he knows there's this imbalance right between their interceptors and his ballistic missile stockpile i don't don't see how we would imagine that somehow he's going to say ah okay i'm good with the sitting down and coming up with a a peace plan uh unless he gets what he's wanted all this time right so um but that does make me sound very churlish and very cynical i tell you 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 defense of democracies stay with us right here on the situation report welcome back to the pdb situation report 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 uh what do you make of the the increasingly public feud uh 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 um you know i think a lot of things you know we talked about the air defense challenges but other than that you know the things were kind of looking up for ukraine um and i think that decision kind of stalled that momentum a little bit at least in kind of the the narrative war um that being said it did produce a good outcome in the sense that it led zelensky under popular pressure to uh install a new uh top general mahalo japadi who unlike his predecessors is you know widely respected and and uh 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 force management allocation of resources between units um kind of you know western style mission command type version of leadership where you delegate more responsibility rather than concentrating in the general staff so um you know i think you know some of those problems some of those especially cultural issues will be tough to solve like the mobilization uh piece is especially um problematic and it's you know not just his it's not just in his hands but i think you know zelensky got to a good answer if maybe not for all the right reasons do you think fedorov uh has his eyes on zelensky's job well i think at this point um you know fedorov your listeners may be familiar with you know fedorov'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 in kiev in recent weeks vote so they of course did not do that um so i think fedorov maybe got a little desperate and i think frankly didn't make the best decision uh when he you know released that statement at this point he's kind of thrust himself into direct uh confrontation with zelensky rather than you know kind of being a victim in the public's eyes of a bad decision by zelensky you know if i if i were advising him by you know not advising to do that um you know if for no other reason than the fact that right now there isn't really a good way for ukraine to practically hold uh safe and secure elections with the involvement of both people on the front line and you know the millions of refugees living abroad so um i think what he called for maybe is not the most constructive idea yeah and it kind of feeds into not that fedorov would be a you know the favorite candidate of putin but it certainly feeds into putin's desire to see zelensky gone and let me let me switch gears just just a little bit slyly i want to go back to this this idea of the of the weapon stockpiles um president trump in the u.s has pushed back hard as has the pentagon on the idea that the u.s uh 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 just to prosecute uri and saran i think you know absolutely we do um if we're talking about readiness vis-a-vis china or other kind of global contingencies with a you know a major power um you know 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 saran operation um so the good news is i think that the panic induced by you know uh getting to where we are now has maybe spurred us to go into overdrive in a way we should have already been 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 um in in one respect in terms of china uh are you getting the impression though that say over the the course of the past whatever four to six months that there have been um meaningful significant changes in the way that the government is contracting with um you know whether we're talking right the honor you know north of grumman or anyone else uh 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 uh you know uh agreements for increased production of whether it's patriot bad tomahawk what have you as well as kind of some of these um newer lower cost kind of more basic long-range uh missions and that we are changing we are moving towards uh both quantities of the of these kind of more cost-efficient munitions. It's important to note the caveat that some of these recent agreements are sort of on paper, they're kind of pledges to have agreements, they're not necessarily contracts that we're moving out of line with, there's been appropriated money. So the Pentagon and Congress still have work to do on that front. Where does the U.S. stand from your perspective on drone warfare, right? Production of drones, technology of use of drones, where are we in the list of us and our adversaries? Sure, I think so. If we're talking about not the kind of legacy, you know, Reaper, Predator, things like in the kind of global war on terror era, unmanned combat systems, we are behind the Ukrainians and the Russians right now. They have the most experience with kind of what we think of when we think of the Ukrainian war. You know, tactical unmanned aerial systems, UGVs, USVs, in the case of the Ukrainians. So I think we have ways to go to kind of catch up there. There's a poor caveat that, you know, we are not going to fight the same way as the Ukrainians necessarily. I think even if you look at, you know, the way the Russians are fighting now with their employment of UAS at 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, the 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 haven't maybe fully embraced the Ukrainians, who, you know, after all, have the most to teach us in this area, maybe as we should have. So perfect example, you know, Iran war. We had, you know, you know, Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO's company, bringing autonomy, had been producing this system called Bear Ups for 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 had started to dabble with it, too. But we didn't really have that ready to go for Iran, which, by the way, is using the same drones that Russia is using against Ukraine, where we had this parental autonomy system working. So, you know, maybe. In some of those areas, we could have maybe learned from others' mistakes rather than repeating the same mistakes ourselves. But I think, you know, I think we all are starting 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, out of his 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 the stadium back and kind of allude to the fact that this is very sensitive technology. You want to make sure it's done right. I think there's a question of which variant, the Patriot missile, Pac-2 or the more advanced Pac-3 Ukraine's going to build. You know, how do you control that technology? You know, we have some of these, you know, kind of license production agreements with, you know, 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 does in some form, I don't think it's going to be a years long process. So it's not going to be ready for time for this winter or probably perhaps not even this war. So, you know, depending on how long it's not, 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, this is a very speculative question. What, 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 take something up, then John, right, right. Every time I think, you know what, you know, Putin's got to realize, you know, this war isn't going to end. It's not going to do anything for him. It's going nowhere. It's time to cut, cut bait and just, you know, live to fight another day, you know, maybe recharge and attack Ukraine again. Hopefully that doesn't happen. It may well happen. You know, every time I think that, you know, the war drags on. So I think, you know, on the current trend, Russian recruitment is, is down, you know, from where they want it to be. It's maybe just a median or just below their 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 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 there'll come a point where you realize that that's not going to happen. And then, you know, then we'll see 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, all right, it's time to just, you know, get what I can get at the table and live to fight another day? I don't know. Now, knowing him. I think he'll probably try to escalate in some ways, but, you know, hopefully we can deter him from making a really bad decision like, you know, attacking NATO or something. But 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's engaged in against NATO, against EU allies in the U.S., but it sounds like what you're saying is Ukraine is going to have a brutal winter. A very tough winter, 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. Well, on that cheery note, John, listen, I want to say thank you very much, man. Really appreciate you spending your time with us here at Situation Report. And like I said, we look forward to the next time as well. All right. Thank you. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care.