Russia’s Shadow War Is Spreading Across Europe

Hey everyone, it's me Sam Stein, managing under the book, and I'm drawn by Mark Palmeropolis, co-host of the forthcoming port in the spy. It's going to be great podcasts. We're kind of like getting there. It's going to launch. It's going to be fantastic. Mark's on Sunday, usually Mark refuses to work on the weekend because he's got a beautify. But there's too much calamity happening across the globe, and so we had to do an emergency pod here because there's like, I don't know, three or four different theaters that we're going to talk about here. The big one, I think we're in agreement here, is what's happening in Saudi Arabia. So over the weekend, the Houthis launched a number of attacks, including Inriata going after oil facilities. They hit the airport in Saudi Arabia, a dramatic escalation that is for boating, really. I mean, it's an expansion of what's happening in the Middle East. I'm not an expert on what's going on here, but I am very curious for Mark. What do you sort of big picture take away? So Sam, as you kind of said it perfectly, the world is unstable. There's multiple conflicts all over the place. We have someone who our Bullwork colleague, George Conway says, needs a neuropsych exam. That's the president. And so this is kind of the witch's brew of bad and national security. And let's start again, as you said with the Houthis. And why this is important is that this is the possibility that everything escalates again. And that's because the Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia. This is not some kind of like small skirmish. The Houthis hit the airport and re-ad a place I have flown in many times. And so what is everyone is waiting for is a huge decision from President Trump on whether the US will intervene militarily. And I have actually very strong feelings on this because whatever you think about Saudi Arabia, it's a critical golf ally. The world is watching our allies in the Middle East are watching. And so far, President Trump has refused to commit US military forces, which I think is a big mistake and is going to have profound really effects down the line because we are not acting as a reliable ally. So let's see what happens. Yesterday, Twitter was a buzz. X was a nightmare because everyone thought there were so many signals that military action was imminent. It did not occur. But there was a meeting. I can't David. And there were alerts put out all over the Middle East from US embassies, security alerts. But boy, I cannot imagine if we do not assist our allies the Saudis, that's going to be really, really problematic down the line. Okay, well, let me ask, I guess we should back up a tiny bit, why are the Hutis doing this? So my God, the Hutis and the Saudis have been fighting for a considerable amount of time. The Hutis, of course, took power, I believe, was 2014. And so there's been an ongoing war starting in 15, a seven-year war, which was pretty violent between the two sides. Now, this is a border area. You're talking about, and the Hutis, of course, are Shia, the Saudis are Sunni. So in some ways, you can say it's kind of contained to that area, to that region, except that this is where most of the world's oil passes through. But it doesn't go after Riyadh before like this. No, that's the thing. No, they've hit the sites at Saudi energy facilities in Aramco. That's the Saudi kind of national energy consortium. But hitting Riyadh is a really big deal. And again, that's a signal that the Hutis, in fact, feel what? They feel emboldened. They have the Iranians backing. The Hutis don't necessarily -- they're certainly a proxy of the Iranians, but they don't listen to everything the Iranians say. They certainly are equipped with them. But in this case, they are doing the Iranians bidding, and the U.S. is really in a bind right now. And the Saudis are freaking out. I mean, I just had got off calls from people in Saudi Arabia. There's an apoplectic reaction here, because where's the United States? We're supposed to be their guarantor of security. President Trump actually said no to Mohammed bin Salman's request. And so what do you do now? The airport's been hit. And one more quick thing. I think back to my time working at embassies overseas. We have something Sam called the country team meeting. That's when the ambassador gets the CIA station chief, the defense attaché, the political chief, the economic chief all around, and you kind of discuss what's going on. These are not good meetings right now at U.S. Embassy Riyadh, because the Saudis are looking at us and saying, "Where are you guys? This has been the foundation of our relationship over the past several decades, and we're not coming to the rescue." Not yet, at least. Maybe Trump will make a different decision over the next several hours. Right. I guess the question a lot of people have is, "Where were the Saudi defense forces?" Why was this a lot to happen? Do they not have the capabilities to repel these types of attacks? Like, what gives? Yeah, it's a great question. And something I've been asking all day to my contacts there as well. And I think it goes to the kind of the nitty gritty of how the Houthis are launching these ballistic missiles. And they're using launchers. And the Saudi Air Force, they don't believe they can actually hit the launchers without our assistance. Now, we're providing them intelligence, but they do need U.S. military assistance, essentially U.S. air power. And so there are nuances involved here. It's not to say the U.S. is going to take over the whole fight, but the Saudis do believe that they need U.S. assets. And I think there's also some symbolism here as well. I mean, the idea Trump says no. And let me, one of the huge thing here is he also announced today, I think it was with Fox News, that we're talking to the Houthis directly, and that there's some type of non-aggression pack that's still in place. It's been there for a couple of years, but that's because the fighting stopped. And so basically, Trump said, well, if the Houthis don't hit U.S. targets, we're kind of okay with this. And the Saudis are like, what the fuck does that mean? That's insane. And by the way, the Houthis are a designated, what's it called, an FTO, a foreign terrorist organization. Part of their slogan is death to America, yet we seem to be able to cut a kind of a quick deal with them. And so, we hit them in, we hit them in 2025 under Trump. Yeah. A couple of yeah. And then he quit. So we actually had a campaign against the Houthis, it wasn't going poorly, but he just got Trump got sick of it and said no more of this because it's a military engagement that might take too long and he doesn't like that. Right. I guess the other component here is the sort of Saudi Trump relationship beyond just military assistance, obviously, MBS, South of up very closely with Trump. They've flushed the Trump family with resources and investments. Their expectation is that this is a two-way street. And if Trump doesn't come in to help them with his defense, what would they do in response? Yeah, that's the big question. I mean, not only was Trump's first trip overseas, the first term was to re-ad, but there has been just this extraordinary amount of Saudi investment in the United States. I mean, the numbers they use are not real, whether it's a trillion, it just doesn't make any sense. But also, there's these business ties with the Trump family. I mean, it's gross. So essentially, there's huge correction. The Saudis have bought, they thought, the Trump's loyalty. And so now, they're, I think they're certainly having some buyers remorse. Now I think a lot of us would have told them he's going to kind of screwed you no matter what. Who could have seen that one coming? I mean, the funny thing is- I have a partner. Right. I mean, so Trump is accused of doing the bidding in the Israelis. Yeah, that's not really true. Then the accused doing the bidding of the Saudis. Well, actually, Trump does whatever the hell he feels like doing. He has no, there's no loyalty to anybody other than himself. And so at this point, or I think a lot of the concern is, where do the Saudis, where do the Gulf allies turn to now? In some ways, they probably will start cutting deals with the Iranians because they feel they have to. But then there's the big kind of behemoth out there as China. And the Chinese are going to be ready to kind of swoop in and provide perhaps things that the U.S. won't do. And so it's just this reassessment that our allies are going to make national securities a team sport. I mean, I've said that at CI/CI, we have great unilateral penetrations. I'll go recruit a spy if the Russian presidential. But what else we do is we work with partners and allies. And it's enormously value added. And Trump has thrown that completely to the garbage now. And the Saudis are living it right now. Yeah. Well, just to that point, I'm reading this post piece on what's happening in the strains to the Saudi-Trump relationship. There's two officials from Yemen who are part of the Saudi support of government's book and condition anonymity because the sensitivity of the situation said the request made to Washington for assistance have gone unheeded. This is the quote, "The government is indeed disappointed by the Trump administration's lack of willingness to participate in the ongoing battles against the Houthis." One of the officials said adding that requests for help appear to quote "unheard" and "unnoticed" in Washington. Let me just ask. And then we got to move to, I mean, there's like, there's like three massive things happening simultaneously. Let's say, I know your position is we need to get in there. We need to help the Saudis because of the cascading problems that would happen if you don't stop the Houthis now. Aren't there cascading problems if you do go in and help this, I mean, like we are already strained, our munitions are depleted. You're risking an even further escalation of the war, I guess, you know, energy, I guess the energy crisis can go on in two ways. But what are the paint the picture for the bad stuff that happens if we do get engaged? Yes. I mean, the Houthis do what they've been threatening to do, which has cut off kind of another huge choke point of global energy, which is the bevelment of the call of the Bam. There's all these great acronyms now, the Bam. And so ultimately, that certainly can occur. Now, I would argue it's going to probably happen anyway. I mean, so let's say we cut some kind of weird deal with the Houthis now with this non-aggressive attack. Which is what it seems like Trump's trying to do. That's what it looks like, right? Right. You know, why is that going to be lasting? And so, you know, you have to kind of tackle the problem, and again, he's trying to get through the day like that's what he's trying to do. And by the way, you know, what are gas prices in Michigan right now? $4.93. I mean, that's what a lot of this has to do with domestic politics. They're looking at this because, you know, they're kind of the GOP line that you keep hearing is that the US is energy independent. Well, we are in some cases, but still the oil supply, the choke points do matter for US energy prices. matter if we are buying something from the Saudis or not, the global energy, you know, the way the world works is that, you know, gas prices are going to go up. And so they're going to go up anyway. And so Trump might think that this is going to kind of save them for a little bit with this kind of non-aggression pack of the Houthis, but we're going to have to tackle this. And again, it's our ally. It's the Saudis. We can't betray an ally. And that's what we're doing. And again, I'm one of those practitioners. My job was to sit with foreign governments like the Saudis and promise them that if you are attacked, if you're a fricking airport is attacked, we will come to your rescue because I actually believe that would happen. So again, I kind of have some pity on my colleagues at the embassy in Rio right now who are probably not having a good day with their counterparts. No, definitely not. All right, we have to switch theaters here because when we woke up this morning, I mean, some incredible images out of Moscow. The Ukrainians launched a series of drone strikes on the Moscow region last night. Oil industry again targeted. It looks like there are other facilities beyond just the energy infrastructure there. I mean, you see smoke rising. You see explosions. You're seeing videos uploaded showing drones just diving in. It was pretty remarkable to see. It led me to think that this is yet another escalation from Zelensky and maybe defensively so. But getting into Moscow like that was a real sign. And I'm curious how you feel. It's going to shake out. Yeah. So I mean, you probably would not be surprised. I'd like this. I'm one you probably heard me many times. I was screaming years ago about the attackums, missiles, and you know, and that we weren't giving Ukrainians enough. So this is the Ukrainians taking it to the heart of Russia to Moscow at a time where there's parliamentary elections. Let's not forget there's some symbolism here. We can talk about that in a sec. But what's remarkable about this is that the actual weaponry, the ordinance that was used, was indigenously produced. These are ballistic missiles and drones that are made in Ukraine. And there's, I mean, they're called writing down the names, the Flamingo, the Pelican, great names that Zelensky announced. But it's incredible. These are long-range systems that a country in a time of great kind of crisis in war has managed to produce on their own. So pretty remarkable. Yeah. Here's some of the names. Hold on. We have the Vendetta, the Liyutia, the bars, the Flamingo, the Sichen, Sichen, the Pelican, the Pelianist, yeah, I don't know. The fury. This is going to come up with these. I was getting fired up about this. But here's, and so Sam, here's where the really interesting nuances. So the Ukrainians have this capability of hitting Moscow. And they're doing so. How are they doing so? They're doing so with our support. The intelligence community, this has been well-reported. So I'm not saying anything secret or new, but the New York Times, Adam Antues, there has done incredible reporting on this. Deep dives into CIA's providing targeting packages to the Ukrainians. Now, why we're doing this at a time when President Trump is kind of so wishy-washy on Ukraine. That's a whole other kind of strange issue. But we are doing it. Yet, when we do these things and hit energy infrastructure inside Moscow, then Secretary Bessent and Trump complain to the Ukrainians. So it's a government. This is a government pursuing weird policies almost contradictory to each other. And I think the Ukrainians are just like, okay, keep complaining, but keep giving us these targeting packages. Help us get through the Russian air defense. That's what we're helping them with. So we can do these really dramatic. And let's also not forget that the Ukrainians are heading into a winter in which they're going to get pounded. There's going to be, and it's not militarily significant, but psychologically, there's going to be huge civilian carnage from these Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure. And so I think there's a morale piece of this, too, that Zelensky's saying, hey, to his population, you know, we're going to fight back and we're going to fight back right in the heart of Moscow. And again, throw that on top of, there's elections for the Dumas. It's kind of a silly election, because the elections are ridiculous. It isn't, but it's not like Putin's power is going to recede at all. But Putin Putin's kind of theme on the elections. This is kind of almost a referendum. It's going to win by gazillion percent, but a referendum on the war. And so look what Zelensky's doing. I mean, when it comes to kind of these kind of psychological operations, I mean, the Ukrainians are just brilliant at this. You know, they're very good, but you know, the flip side is that, you know, we're seeing, you know, the Russians are obviously escalating in Ukraine, too. I mean, all the steel plants in Ukraine are non-operational, right? They cannot produce their own steel because the Russians are going further and Keeva obviously is getting pounded. It doesn't strike me. I mean, yes, escalation, but to what? Where is the diplomatic offering here? Who's going to, who's actually going to do it? Should there even be one? Those are serious questions that I don't see, I mean, what, how many years are we in now? 22. It's been since this 22. Yeah, three years. I know you're right. Yeah, three years. It's, it's endless. But there, there was no diplomatic offering. I mean, that's a, that's a fallacy. I mean, that's, that's in Steve Whitkoff's or Jared Kushner's kind of real estate p-brains. And so to divide your point is the dip and back off ramp is Putin saying, okay, you know, I have to have some sort of fig leaf resolution to this. Well, and I would say that more increased pain on the Russians. I mean, I have been very kind of frank about this. And so the way to get Putin to bend is to send more Russians home in body bags from Ukraine, period. We should be arming Ukraine to the teeth, the more Russians who are killed, that is the amount of pressure. That's the pressure that's going to be required. And, and they're doing so successfully. But the idea, there's some kind of diplomacy. I mean, that's a fallacy. That's because it's a fallacy because Putin's not, at this point, is not ready to quit. And until we make it painful enough to him. And, and that's why these strikes, perhaps, on energy infrastructure targets in Russia are a good thing. So we got, we have the, we have hunger coming up this week that's the joint assembly meeting in New York. And the Zelensky will be there. There's reports just a few minutes ago from where we're telling this that he and Trump are going to talk. They have talked and they're going to talk in New York later this week. It's impossible to predict what mood Trump will be in on this at any given day. Again, the through line is domestic politics and considerations. And he gets mad at Zelensky because Zelensky is struck Russian oil infrastructure. I mean, he basically banked on them saying, although I convinced the Ukrainians are not going to target the diesel in Russia or something like that, this is obviously a big middle finger to that idea. So if you had to, you know, take out your magic eight ball and figure this one out, how's that conversation going to go? Well, we all have PTSD from that horrible Oval Office session. And so, you know, we always go in there thinking like, good God, let's not have that happen again. And, and, and of course, I think, as much as I don't fault Zelensky for what happened during that, they have learned very smartly from that. And so they know how to play to Trump's ego. I mean, Trump is such a narcissist. It's, it's not hard for Zelensky himself or the Ukrainian intelligence services to kind of give a playbook on exactly how to manage Trump. And that's why so many of these, you know, bilats by lateral meetings that have occurred since that have gone fine. And so at the end of the day, this, you know, hopefully is just something that no one expects anything. But it's, you know, as long as no disaster, that's the way the Ukrainians look at this. As long as there's no disaster, it's a victory. They're not expecting anything. And in fact, look, you know, you can just pass the, you know, the, the Graham sanctions bill. And so I have problems with that. I do too. But, but, you know, but so, but that's still, it's a more positive thing rather than negative. And so, you know, there was, there was a kind of a snippet that landed in the press a couple days ago that the State Department kind of okayed the sale using European funds of significant amounts of air defense. Yeah. Just pulling that up. Two points, six billion years to go back to go back to like spring 2025. No, no, I'm saying the idea that we would ever do the sale then seems like far fetched. They would never signed off on that. So it doesn't seem like the administration has relented a little bit on this. Yeah. And I think that the Ukrainians are smart. You take this, I mean, you take a small win. Any, any time you can get it, but never count on Trump to actually be there, you know, in times of existential crisis. And so, and the essence is to hold on as long as possible until they can get their house in order, Europeans house in order in terms of air defense equipment. And so, you know, that's where we are now. But, you know, look, the Zelensky and Trump meeting is a good thing. There's nothing wrong with that. And, and Ukrainians know how to, how to deal with this in a much better fashion. Usually, and usually happens is whenever there's a Zelensky meeting, he will inevitably get on the phone with Putin right after. Of course. Yeah. So, don't, don't, don't be surprised that happens. Last before I get to this, obviously, we're getting to the colder months. Everyone always talks about, you know, the winter like bogs it down or makes it harder. Like, can you just talk through that? Like, what, what, what exactly is the expectations around the winter campaigns on each side? Well, in terms of, well, first of all, you know, in, in, in kind of classic warfare, that hurts the ability for armies to maneuver. Now, that's not as significant because the lines are so static. And Ukraine and the, the advent of drone warfare and things like that. Like, what lines don't matter and whether it doesn't quite matter as much when you don't. No, but I'm talking about when it's freaking cold outside. And, you know, the Ukrainian power grid goes down because the Russians have hit power plants and Ukrainians are freezing. And so I think there's, it's not militarily significant, but it's terrible for the population. So, it's going to be a difficult winter. Yeah, I wonder about that. And I'm way out of my depth here. So pardon, but like, we're in a global fuel crisis. I mean, we're, and it's getting worse when you have attacks on East West pipelines in Saudi Arabia, when you have attacks on other fighters in Russia, when shipping lanes are throttled. You need heat to live. You need to burn fuel to live. And Because when fuels harder to come by that matters, and you can see a situation where this actually does have real impact on a winter campaign like this. Well, I mean, again, the people I talked to were really smart in the Ukrainian military and say it's not going to have an effect on the military itself. And so, you know, this is not decisive. It's just more of a terror weapon that the Russians are going to use to make the Ukrainian population miserable. Now, you can then make an argument that will then affect Zelensky's popularity, but that's a whole separate podcast that you need some Ukrainian experts, because that's a bit of a mess and there's corruption allegations. Yeah, but it also has to affect the Russian side, too. I mean, they don't even feel as well. Well, I know there are petro-state, but there's mass lines at Russian gas stations. You see that all over social media. That goes, again, the question of how to assess Russian stability. And that's very difficult. You know, it's obviously a police state. It's an autocratic country. The Russians have this propensity that they love to kind of talk about in law of suffering. I'm not so sure that's as true. But the Russians are going to kind of feel this as well, and that's the goal of the Ukrainians to make this painful, to bring the war to the Russian people because, for a long time, it did not have that type of effect in now, especially now with the casualties. And the last piece in this, too, let's just flip back to the Russian, the Duma elections. The idea that one of the fears people have is that Putin is going to get a referendum, many will win the referendum or whatever the hell it is. It's the idea of a mandate for mobilization. And so does he need more troops to fight? There's some thinking that there's going to be a mobilization, and that just means the war goes on for some time. Thought Trump was going to solve this in 24 hours. Last one is Europe, which seems to be waking up to Russian meddling and fearful of it. The thing that really caught my mind that that was like a OSHIT headline was the far right party in France, National Rally, condemning Russia for these hybrid attacks. This is Marie Le Penz party, which is the party that's kind of playing footsie with Russia the entire time. So it's clearly, it's clear bubbling up. You and I talked about this with respect to Germany, but it's clear that something is happening. And Europe has got its back up, waiting and bracing for a Russian incursion into some NATO territory. And we can say they've already kind of done it, right? They just not to a place where it's crossed some sort of threshold for retaliation. But what's the current state of play there? So having just returned from an overseas trip to Europe, and the Europeans are freaking out about this. They're absolutely out of their mind. For a couple of reasons. One is what's happening on the ground. There was that failed drone strike at the airport in Leipzig and Germany. It could have been a match casualty event. There was an arson attack in Estonia. There was, I have a whole list here. There were some arrests in Denmark of Russian saboteurs. And then there was an armed drone shot down over Lithuanian. So the Russians are, you know, we call it the term in my world in the IR International Relations World, National Security is hybrid warfare. But I think it's gone past that because these are actually kinetic attacks. It's amazing that there has not been a tremendous loss of life there. So the Russians are playing a dangerous game, but they feel emboldened. And so the Europeans finally are waking up. It's actually a good thing. And so the kind of the press reports we saw over the last 48 hours with National Security Advisors from different countries doing briefings for their parliaments and everyone's kind of up and arms worried about perhaps Russian actually, you know, incursions into the Baltics, continued acts of terrorism. You know, I don't know what the intelligence says. I have spoken to people who are very close to Western European intelligence services who says it's actually not specific. The Russians are not going to cross borders and start, you know, invading anywhere, but they're going to continue on with these, with these acts of sabotage and terrorism. And so the idea that why are they doing this? I don't understand. Because and every a lot of these targets have to do with the Ukrainian war effort, whether it's a defense contract. So this is a bank shot to try to go after all of our Ukraine, 100% and to and to warn Europeans not to support the Ukrainian effort. I think it's backfiring because people are very nervous. And so, you know, it getting, having the Europeans kind of, you know, getting their hair on fire is a good thing. I mean, Sam, I say this, I spent the last several years of my career running around Europe, warning them about the Russian threat, a lot of times to no avail because the Russians were supporting some right-wing parties in Europe. And I remember, you know, a lot of this falling on deaf ears and so the Russians certainly have overstepped. Now, what Europe has to do, and I'll go back to, you know, what are the measures? Well, it's not declaring, you know, Russian diplomats persona non grata kicking them out. I think the Germans closed the consulate somewhere, a Russian consulate, you know, whatever. No, they have to actually get kinetic and the French in a statement said, yes, we understand and we're meeting this, this kind of Russian threat with force. And everyone's like, what are they talking about here? And so it's the idea, probably, I would think of supporting the Ukrainian war effort more because the only thing that Putin understands is when Russians come home in body bags. And I'll say that time and time again, there was an incident in December, not summer. In 2018, in the deserts of Syria and Derazura, Syria, a country I know very well. And which the Russian Wagner Force has challenged an element of U.S. Army's delta force. James Mattis was a Secretary of Defense and in just a matter of minutes, if not hours, the U.S. military killed 300 Russian paramilitaries. That's the way you teach the Russians a lesson. And I think the Europeans are slowly waking up to this. But the ideas of sanctions and declaring diplomats persona non-Grad is not enough. They have to meet this with force. Russia is acting as a former spy chief at CIA, used to say, Russia is a terrorist state and they are. Period. Well, Mark, the world's on freaking fire, it honestly, I know it's, we always have this like, there's like a recency bias to it, right? Like, I really feel like things are more unstable in the moment and then you look back as like I sense a bad, like, there's real, real issues happening here and like, it feels very unnerving. Well, I said it's a, it's a, the world is unstable. It's a witch's brew of bad. And we have a, you know, a not really a highly qualified national security team or a president to handle it. That's what concerns. Man, he wasn't, he wasn't camp David and that's great and he should be there. He comes back a day early. I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe he's got something going on and he's like, the people in Air Force one, er, sorry, Marine one were Gary player and Bryson Deschambo and I'm like, what the, why do you need to golfers? It's not the game. He played golf. It's not serious. He played golf today? Yeah. Yep. And so, you know, that's, that's the point is that we're not, you know, so it's, it's maddening because, you know, I as a national security kind of geek, I'm worried right now. That's why we're doing this podcast. But, you know, when we had this conversation earlier today over a kind of messaging is like, yeah, there's a lot of shit going on. This is a little unusual and so where is the national security team? We have, you know, we have, we have, sorry, we had Moscow both were hit overnight, two significant capital. I mean, like two significant cities, you have the, you know, multiple parties in Europe bracing for an attack from Russia and this dude's golfing. It's just the, the world is as much in trouble as the Boston Red Sox offense. That's where we're going to leave it. We're going to be fine. We're making the playoffs. I know, I know, I know. I'll, I'm going to, I'll be up there next weekend for the last, last home series. All right. Have a fun, buddy. Yeah. All right. That's Mark Polymeropoulos. I'm Sam Stein. This is a hybrid edition of the report in the spy. Here we go. We're going to get that show up. It's going to be great. Get people get ready. It's not launching yet, but we're, we're close. In the meantime, subscribe to the feed. Take care. [BLANK_AUDIO]