Welcome to the PDB situation report. I'm Mike Baker from your eyes and ears on the world stage. And yes, thank you again for noticing I am back on the road. Let's get briefed. First up, new reports suggest us that Russia and Chinese companies may be helping Iran sharpen its targeting of American forces across the Middle East. Open source intelligence analyst and great friend of the show Ryan Macbeth. He joins us for more on that. Later in the show, Russia holds parliamentary elections as we get. Oh, I wonder who's going to win. With growing strain from the war, but virtually no opposition, of course, to Putin's ruling party. We'll be joined by a good friend of the show, Konstantin Samoyla, of the YouTube channel inside Russia for some insight into that. But first, today's situation report spotlight. This week, new reports emerge that Russian and Chinese companies may be helping Iran improve its targeting of American forces across the Middle East, basically providing intelligence or targeting data to make the Iranian regime's attacks more lethal. Most recently, investigators found that 14 Russian satellites passed over Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia in the days before an Iranian strike that wounded US personnel and damaged key American aircraft. That follows separate reporting, linking Chinese satellite imagery to another Iranian attack on US forces in Jordan. So what exactly is Iran getting from these foreign partners and how much of a difference could it be making on the battlefield? Joining us now is great friend of the show. I didn't say good. I said great. Ryan Macbeth. Now, you know, I'm right. Ryan's an open source intelligence analyst. He won't tell us what that actually means. You can check out his YouTube channel. It's at Ryan Macbeth Programming or at sub stack. He also won't tell us what that is. It's at Ryan Macbeth dot sub stack dot com. If you're not paying attention to Ryan, I don't know what you're doing with your time. Ryan, thank you, man. For being back here on the situation report. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's always a great time. Yeah. Wow. Look at you going and spread out of the gate with a compliment. I'm pretty good. I'm going to Florida today. I'm going to a cigar factory in a couple hours to shoot a commercial. Life, uh, life isn't so bad right now. The boat airing begins stop messing with our video connection. We would have been able to do this a half hour ago, be out smoking cigars. Yeah. No, you know, you're not wrong about that. Yeah. But I got to tell you something. Normally you're the guy with the most interesting backdrop, uh, in podcast land. And, uh, so that explains that you're traveling right now, which explains why your backdrop is is is so generic, uh, as opposed to mine, which yeah, you know, I got, I'm not a go to Daryl on, uh, I got to go to Daryl this weekend. I got to go to Tampa next weekend. You know, uh, us guys up and for me, we we have to work for a living. We can't just steal gold bars from our employer like you do it lightly. And I'll send you off. Well, tell me, tell me about it. You know, look, it's this people don't think that people work at the agency simply for patriotic reasons. It's really because we can just scondle with anything. You know, you walk in, you say, you, you need a couple of high-end luxury sports cars for an operation. And they say, well, why do you say it's secret? Can't tell you. Next thing, you know, you got $40 million in gold bars stashed away at your home. Yeah, that's a story in a half right there. We'll talk about that some other time, possibly over a drink and a cigar, but first, you know, there's some stuff going on out there in the world, man. And we should talk about that. Uh, what do you know? And what can you tell us about, uh, Russian Chinese targeting support for the Iranian regime? That's a, that's a very good question. I can tell you that the, there is a non-zero chance that Russia and China are providing targeting assistance to, uh, Iranian, uh, partners. The question becomes how actionable is that intelligence? Because if I, if a ship is moving at 30 knots, and I get information that, hey, we have the USS Abraham Lincoln at this location, but that intelligence is an hour old. Well, that ship has moved somewhere in a 30, 30 mile circle in the, in the time it's taking me to get that information. Now I got to get that information out of the targeting cell. And I have to get that information out to the launchers. And I might be at an hour. And now you have a 60 nautical mile circle. Now for buildings that are sitting exactly where, where they, you know, buildings don't tend to move. So if Russia or China has some good intelligence that, hey, this is where, uh, a fleet commander is, this is where a big logistics note is, or, hey, we got a hit from a guy using his garment at the base gym. We know this guys are cartel and we know what building he is likely to be in when he's doing his workout. Let we can hit him there. Then that targeting information becomes useful. However, I don't believe that Russia and China have officers that are embedded with the IRGC working with them directly. Even IRGC officers that are in Russia or China, uh, we're relaying this information. I think they are more likely just going out on the public internet buying, uh, the satellite data from China. Are you gonna get synthetic aperture radar from, uh, from private sources? And you can grab that and run a line for the Ryan, Ryan, we shouldn't let that one go by for the uninitiated who aren't experts in synthetic aperture, uh, surveillance. Can you explain that in 30 seconds or less? Oh, boy. I don't know if I can. Uh, so instead of a visual picture, you have a radar picture that comes down from a satellite and you can even bounce it inside of things like buildings or hangers to get a picture of what's going on inside that building. I think that that's, is that a good way of describing it? Yeah, look, look at you. You know, that was very good. There was in 30 seconds or the last. Uh, okay, so let me, let me, let me, let me stop you there for a second. So you don't, you don't buy the idea that this is, uh, an official Kremlin effort or CCP or the PLA and China to provide the Iranian regime with intelligence with targeting data, using their going out and perhaps acquiring this from perhaps Russian or Chinese companies, but it's not an official act of the Russian government or the Chinese government. I don't totally buy it mainly because the Iranians are very, very good at what they do intel wise. And if they had partnered with Russia, then Russia would give them targets that Russia wants to see destroyed, not necessarily targets that Iran wants to see destroyed. So, uh, let me, to put that it for way, uh, Russia might see some, uh, American radar system that it knows we've considered selling to the Ukrainians. Russia might say to, uh, uh, Iran, hey, there's this new radar system, you should destroy this. And so now you're getting targets, and now you're becoming an air and boy for Russia because they want to see how that system performs. They're not actually trying to help you. And hitting that target, I mean, I can, I see what you're, I see what you're saying. I just think that, um, I'm going to push back a little bit, uh, and just, because I think that perhaps the Russians and, and the Chinese are a little more sophisticated, and that they're probably, if they were, if they were doing this, not saying there, but if they were, if they were providing intel support, uh, specifically some form of targeting data, that they would be a little bit more sophisticated than saying, you know, what we want is to destroy X. So you destroy X. I think they might look at it a little bit more from a, from a, a more layered approach in terms of what benefits your audience regime in a, in a sense of the periphery is going to benefit the Chinese Communist Party, right? You're, you're creating additional chaos. You're, you're keeping, you know, the US with skin in the game because that, that distracts them, et cetera, et cetera. I, and so, but again, I, I see what you're saying. Do we have any credible from your perspective? Do we have any credible intelligence that supports the idea that it's not the Kremlin or it's not the inside Beijing itself providing this level of support? I don't think we have any credible evidence either way at my level right now or at like an open, unclassified level right now. And nobody's going to come out and say that, right? You just have to, you have to look at things from the standpoint of if, if you were an Iranian, you would probably be suspicious of any intelligence coming from, uh, coming from China or coming from Russia because you have to wonder like, all right, these guys are, these guys are using us to see what capabilities the United States has. Doesn't mean China Russia is saying, oh, here's our target to us a favor. But they
They might selectively give you information to see what you would do with it, just so they can grab information on the performance of an American system, more electronic warfare or counter drone system. And as Iranian dude with very little satellite capability, you're probably going to take that information with a grain of salt and have a conference and say, okay, this is what the Russians are saying we should hit. What do you guys think now the other end of that, you look at stuff that you can buy in the open market, well, now you get a whole plethora of satellite imagery. And you might have the Russians or Chinese might have human intelligence sources at some of these bases, right, people who clean or whatever that that might provide a little additional information, but if you're an Iranian guy, I would personally rather buy satellite information from a publicly traded company like, like we've seen China doing for these guys there. Let me buy information about the region. Okay. Hey, this matches up with our intelligence work that we did tracking the fit bits and garments of soldiers. This is likely a gym. Let's hit that. Whereas the Russians might want you to hit some kind of new radar. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting there and certainly has been enough discussion, right. Again, you've right at a certain level that I can release sources and methods. So, but in terms of just, you know, Chinese companies, for making satellite imagery available to the erotic regime. And then some new reporting coming out talking about, you know, the, the, the, the Russian satellites passing over Prince Sultan Air Base, you know, just before and an after the erotic and strike that that wounded what a dozen US personnel and folk out some assets, including, I think, an EC3. So, you know, I, I'm not, I'm not ready to go there yet to say that the, that the Kremlin or, or Beijing's not involved in this because they will do whatever's in their best interest. And right now, the best interest, I think, is to keep the US tied it up in this. And they certainly have shown in particular, look, China's Iran's largest trading partner, right. They've kept them in the game and, you know, just like China's kept Russia in the game it away in your, in your crane. So, I'm not willing to absolve them yet as, as officially providing this sort of support. But I take your point and, and we, you know, at best, we just have to really say we're speculating in that regard because we don't have access to the classified information that would prove it. But all right, let's, let's, let's pivot if we, if we could, just because I know you've got to get to that cigar factory, I want to be mindful of your time. What, what, what have you seen in terms of the Iran conflict, let's say over the past week or two, that has you, I'll let you, I'll let you kind of take it from here, but I'm going to give you options. When has your most alarmed? What surprised you the most? You can go in and either direct, oh boy, I guess, I guess the answer to both those questions, what surprised me the most, what's has me most alarmed is the hooties, which are tangential to the conflict, the hooties actually, they, they were able to eat themselves to the, across to the, the Red Sea capture two islands inside the Red Sea and basically put a stick in the eye of Saudi Arabia, if you look at Saudi Arabia's military, two hundred and ninety thousand troops, excellent equipment and some of the worst leadership on the planet. And the Saudi Arabia couldn't do a damn thing about this and this kind of adds me concerned because when, when you look at why did Saudi Arabia buy all this capability, jet fighters and ballistic missile systems and laser systems that can shoot down the roads, they bought it because, you know, the Saudi military needs to be tough enough that you don't mess with them, but not so tough that they overthrow the government. That's the issue you have with any palace guard army. And palace guard armies are the, the norm, not the exception in most of the Arab world. And I would say some of the Asian world, palace guard armies exist to protect the ruling family. You want multiple units, each of which is an overlapping functions, but no joint operations that control everything. You also want to put family members in certain positions of command, whether they're competent or not. And I think the biggest concerning thing, and it, I'll say another concerning thing. When the Houthis took over Param Island, which is an island, it's kind of in the middle of the Red Sea, close the bobblement up straight, it started over Saudi Arabia went to the United States and asked President Trump, hey, can you, can you kick these bad guys off the island? And Trump said, no. And that, that is almost 50 years of American relations with Saudi Arabia. I'm not saying gone, but I'm sure the Saudis are looking at their phone and they're going to say that he was saying up on me, if I use, once Ryan, hold it, hold it, hold it right there, hold it right there. Don't go, don't, don't carry another thought of this. I got to be mindful of time. We're going to take a quick break, all right. Well, I'm going to come right back to that conversation because he touched on a very important point. We'll be back with more from the great Ryan McBeth. They are on the situation reports, so stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here with a pro tip for managing your personal finances and investments. Now, let me ask you a question, have you ever found yourself sitting up with your laptop late at night, just staring at investment information or tax advisor, googling to fight out what exactly a Roth conversion is? Look, you work too hard to be trying to figure out complex investment decisions on your own. 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Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining us once again is the great Ryan McBeth, you know, let me love him, you can check out his YouTube channel, that's @Ryan McBeth programming, and add on his substack when they were going to find out what that is, substack.com/@Ryan McBeth, substack.com/@Ryan McBeth. And links to both of those on the show description. Ryan, thank you, man, after that introduction, we have no more time, so drive safely. You raised a really interesting point just before we went to break, and that is that the Saudis, you know, did come to the White House to say, can you give us some assistance here with the Hookedies? And the White House basically said, oh, and so they said, we will continue offering intelligence support and, you know, a bat on the back. Now, what that did is there's been some reporting that just talks about, I don't want to draw a direct line between that event and this, what I'm about to say, but you have to imagine there's something there, the Saudis turned to the Chinese for some support. And that shouldn't be surprised. Well, look, for almost 50 years, we've had this deal with the Saudis. We will protect you, just buy our weapon systems, and that way we can earn some money. And then we'll use Americans to defend your borders, and your military can be for show. And then when they actually freaking need us, the first time since 1990, we turn her back on them and say, yeah, we're a little busy right now. We're not going to help. And that is a departure from 45, 50 years of relationships with the kingdom. I think part of it's that we can manufacture our own oil now. We were as dependent on the foreign oil as we were back in 1990, because look, let's get real here. if Kuwait's main export were strong berries, we have
given a crap about them in 1990, right? I think what this really tells us is how we might behave with Taiwan. So you have a bubble and a straight where 15% of world shipping goes through that. You have Taiwan where 90% of our chips are made, right? If China decides to take Taiwan, could this administration say, "You know what? We can build our own chips." Now that was certainly hurt, but if the factories that manufacture those chips are destroyed during the fighting, if you're looking at this from a very pragmatic view, and I'm talking like you watched that movie very bad things with Christians later, and you have a 1 to 5 round problem that has to get set, move from play to play B, if those fabs are destroyed during the fighting, is there any reason to support Taiwan anymore from a strictly transactional standpoint? And you have to question that. You have to wonder whether Taiwan, we can tell Taiwan, "Listen, without chips, you basically export strawberries." And we really don't care what happens to you after that. So I think that it's a really key point that I think sometimes seems to go missing. And it's a relatively simple point, is that everything is interconnected, right? So, and one of the main by that is, we tell the Saudis, I don't want to say we told them to pound sand, right? But we didn't offer any assistance that they were looking for, we're at a time when they are getting squeezed from both sides in terms of their ability to move oil into the global markets. And that doesn't go unnoticed, right? The Chinese look at that, they're studying that, they're studying the American response at any given time, whatever administrations in charge. The Taiwanese are looking at that, right? The Russians are looking at that. Everything has a knock on effect. And so, when the Saudis, and again, look, I get it from a White House perspective like, "Oh my God, we're six months into the Iran War, right? Do we really want to broaden this conflict out? Do we really want to get embroiled in this problem?" We got our own emissions problem, right? In terms of depleted resources. Is that really what we want to do? We got the midterm elections in two months. So, I get it, you can understand that, but this, it doesn't happen in a bubble, right? So, this is going to have a larger impact. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And well, thank you. It's, it's very, here. I can say this. I've always been ambivalent about the president, but he, one of his superpowers and one of his disadvantages is Borishness, right? The Borishness is what makes him play well to his base, but it also makes people very, very mad at him. And if the president's approval rating rate, 80% right now, I'm sure we would be on that island, piram island kick him, it would be off. Unfortunately, some of the choices you make at a personal level are why you end up in certain kinds of situations. And if you don't have the public's backing, if you don't have a mandate from the people and they don't understand why this choke point is necessary, then yeah, they're going to look at that and go, well, we wouldn't send our children to die for piram island. And ultimately, that kind of works its way up into the administration of, hey, sorry, guys, you're out of luck. And the same time that that influences the decision, the decision of, well, we don't want the voters paying $2 more gallon for gas going into the elections. I mean, this, it's a, again, this is not a, you know, statement of rocket science, but we do tend to simplify the Middle East to an incredibly frustrating point, right? So, and I want to get your opinion on this development as well. Uh, reportedly, the, the administration, the US administration held a secret meeting or a series of secret meetings with Cootie mediators. Now the Cooties obviously are a Rodney and proxy group. They've been supported, trained, resourced, uh, guided by the Iranian regime for quite some time. So the US meets with the Cooties and reportedly the Cootie mediators basically say, look, we're not going to attack US ships. We won't even attack Israeli ships. I, we're not going to attack commercial vessels in the Red Sea. We want to maintain this, this ceasefire, this agreement that we have with the US, but, you know, the caveat is we're going to continue attacking the Saudis, right? Now, so the White House, it almost seemed like the White House was like, look at this, you know, we got this great conversation going on with the Cooties. The Looties are being told to do this by the Iranian regime. Right? It just seems, I've already sometimes that we, we, we never learned our lessons in the Middle East and we never see the layers or the complexity or the connections that are involved. I think I would be more worried if we actually believe these guys that, oh yeah, don't worry, we're never going to see the American ships like, thank you. All you need is some breakaway faction or, you know, people can change their minds. They can change their mind. I feel like shit, American ships today. So I mean, it's, it's great to have a deal, but you know what works really well in a deal is when the, the, the enemy is afraid of you. When they're thinking, you know what, we, let's not change our mind because we're going to have the entire entire brigade from the 82nd Airborne fold on top of our heads. You know, that, that motivate you to stick with the deal. So it, it is kind of funny looking at, like, hey, we have a deal. Yeah, benefits, huh? This isn't great about Saudi Arabia, but, you know, I, I guess right now it's kind of the, the, who do we want to be friendly with right now? Because in some ways, we need Saudi Arabia less than we need the Uthes to not be shooting at our ships because we can make our own oil. Yeah, but whatever, again, I guess my, my concern is I just hope and I'm sure they do that, you know, but I just hope that the, that the, the White House or, or the State Department of whoever is driving this bus, you know, when they, with the sitting down, talking to the hoodies, that they understand that they're not really talking to the hoodies. They're talking to the Iranian regime and the Iranian regime as a lot invested in this. And there's no upside to them, right? To have the U.S. dragged in to the Houthi conflict just yet, right? Because if they can keep the U.S. out of that and the Houthis can continue to make gains against the, you know, Saudi-backed Yemeni forces as they have been recently going up and down a Red Sea coast, then that's good for the Iranian regime. And I just, you know, again, we don't seem to sometimes connect all the dots when he comes to the Middle East. And Ryan, I am now going to get off my soapbox and I'm going to say, thank you, man. Is there anything else going on in the, in the short time we got left? Is there anything else going on that you wanted to highlight for our listeners? Boy, I, I, I, I know that was a big playing field right there. It is, it is a master playing field. I think that the one thing I would highlight is how Russia took a bunch of drones and armed them with explosives, put them at a German airfield and everyone in Germany just kind of shrugged and set Russia strongly worded letter. Whereas if Russia had done this four years ago, we would be bombing by now. And it's just kind of interesting how Russia's tactic of hybrid warfare with a slowly turning up the temperature and the point where actions at A would have been unthinkable four years ago is now becoming almost commonplace. Yeah, that's a great, great point to end with. And that's exactly what we're going to pick up the next time that Ryan, we have you on the show because we haven't even touched on the latest updates from Ukraine. We're going to go over there the next time you come on. So that means you have to come on the next time. Ryan McBeth, again, thank you very much for joining us again today. All right, coming up next Russians head to the polls this weekend for a parliamentary election that comes as the war weighs on the country. But with few real challengers to Putin's grip on power, meaning there's really no opposition on the ballot. Stay with us. Hey Mike Baker here with a pro tip for dudes who want to dress well without breaking the bank. Look, September is the perfect time for our closet reset before fall really settles it. And the best way to restock and replenish that wardrobe is with quints. 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as cashmere sweaters, they're super soft and luxurious. Again, all of the amazing prices. By partnering directly with ethical factories, Quince cuts out the middleman, pricing items, 50-80% less than similar brands. Discover Quince today for wardrobe essentials. Upgrade your everyday fit. I think that's what the kids say nowadays. Your style, your fit, your duds. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/pdp. Get free shipping on your order and get this. They've got a 365-day return policy. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E. Quince.com/pdp. Russians head to the pulses this weekend for the country's first parliamentary election since Putin's invasion of Ukraine. And there are signs that the war is taking a toll on the population. Public anxiety is rising, the economy is under pressure, and even Putin's approval numbers have slipped real somewhat in recent months. But, well, don't expect any dramatic political upset. The Kremlin has spent years squeezing out genuine opposition with most anti-war candidates either barred from running, jailed or pushed to the margins. Putin's United Russia party already dominates parliament they control about two-thirds of it, and it is widely expected to maintain that control. Of course, it is. For more on this, I want to bring in good friend of the show, Konstantin Samoylov, a Russian expat, who now runs a very popular YouTube channel at Inside Russia. You can find that, of course, by going to YouTube, so get over there and then search up at Inside Russia. Offers commentary on the current situation with Russia, and he's now here on the situation report. After very relatively exciting, I believe, past few weeks. Konstantin, it's great to see you again, Matt. Thank you very much, Mike. It's been very stressful time. Exciting, yes. But the most stressful and exciting, yes, I'm back to you too. Tell us what happened, because it has been quite the saga, and you're in a new location. Yeah, let's take it from wherever you want to take it from. Well, I'll try to be brief, because that's quite a long story. I'll have interviewed by a very big ex-Blogger, Mario and the Fall, last November, and that got me on the radar of Alexander Duggen, who's friend and the ideologist of Russian world, you know, philosophy. And I started noticing increased pressure since he threatened me on his account, and he commented about my interview. I started noticing more and more following in real life by the Russians. And there wasn't a talk on my YouTube channel, a big one, and I got proof, someone contacted me with the proof of that. And I started feeling mounting pressure, starting, you know, beginning of this year. And, you know, a combination was in July. I started not feeling well and I ended up in a hospital, and as I was hospitalized, as I was moving into a ward, I got a call from Russia, from the agency saying, "Hey, Constantine, I have feeling buddy. I hope everything is okay with it, you know." So anyway, they kind of hinted that they wanted me to operate with them, or if it's very fused. And then they started, after I checked out of the hospital, they started following even more. One of the agents showed up at Tashkinberg for a club, Russian community, that I found this in Tashkin. As I was live streaming for Patrons, and he was sitting right next to our group and listening to what we were saying. And it wasn't just me noticing, everyone noticed, and everyone got very scared. Welcome to my world. Anyway, I also got a warning from the local intelligence saying, "Castine, you know, you're okay here, we know we're here, we know what's going on, but don't overstay or welcome that type of thing." So we backed up and we left, we're in Luxembourg now, and we're trying to settle. So I feel much safer. I always spoke freely, and these shows as well, but I was going to be just much more talking, okay, because I won't entire world to hear the story, and I wouldn't entire world to hear what's really happening in Russia. So it kind of moved into essentially harassing surveillance, why you were still there in Luxembourg, and how's your health now? You got out of the hospital, how you doing now? I still have a couple things, but generally, okay, I'm going to go to a local doctor to get thorough examination, check up, but generally, okay, couple things are still lingering. I believe I was, I can't say I was poisoned because I don't have hard evidence, you know, but I believe something was, I was influenced in one way or another, you know. And by the way, I forgot to mention, right before I fled, it left Uzbekistan, they called me again, and they openly offered to cooperate, and they offered me, said, we have very good financial offer for you, so I wasn't a big help, and I ran basically with it as fast as I could. Yeah, so I was not tell you why we're very happy to see you in Luxembourg now. It's a great, great place, by the way, and I look forward to sitting down over some beers and catching up with you here during the next trip out that way, but well done. I'll be fantastic, so I'll be from post. Let's get down to some of the latest developments. Okay, first of all, you know, the parliamentary elections, such as they are in Russia. Talk to me about, you know, the election process, what you think will likely happen. Again, it doesn't appear to be any serious opposition on the ballot, but give me your impressions of the election process here. Not only I can give you the impressions and forecasts, I can act as Oracle, you know, for this weekend. You're friendly neighborhood Oracle Constantine. Russia, the thing is once Putin gained power, seized power, once he was made the president, he started building the vertical of power, and the elections is a huge part because in the system that Putin was building, he needed his loyal people. He didn't need any competition, political competition whatsoever. Instead, by step, he was eliminating it. He started with disbanding, well, eliminating governor's elections in Russia. Just like that, you know, governors were elected, and then that said, they were appointed by the Kremlin, by the president, himself, which they later changed, 10-plus years later, they changed, but they made it very controlled, alleged governor elections. So then, they started changing the ways that people can get elected. Before, it was free election, just pretty much like in the United States, any citizen could, you know, run for a seat, and then they eliminated that, now only political parties registered. Political parties could nominate their own members to run for the parliament, and then they made it very hard for smaller parties, more flexible parties to get on the list. So basically, they weeded out political competition, and now there's one major party called the United Russia Putin's Party, and there are a few controlled opposition as they call it. Basically, it's the politicians that pretend to be independent, but they made the deal with the Kremlin. Kremlin allowed them to be part of the political process in exchange for behaving well. Let's put it this later. So we have come to 2026 in the situation where there's no political competition whatsoever. On paper, everything looks legit. On paper, there are different parties, but in reality, it's not even the United Russia. They're not calling the shots. It's one million makes a decisions. Yeah, and it's interesting because that that fell obviously. As come out and said, look, it's almost saying it's the, you know, the Russian, you know, voters obligation to come out and support the troops, right? Support the Russian military as they carry out Putin's invasion going on almost five years at this point. And, you know, is there any, from your perspective, is there any, any option for the voters? I mean, obviously, there's a variety of parties. They all basically support Russia's, you know, war policy, currently that Putin's policy. But is there
any way for them to express their dissatisfaction with either Putin or the invasion, the war, other than just not showing up to vote. Well, not really, they cannot influence the election process. That's why I offered myself in the role of Oracle, because the election results are already known to some people, and they'll be just announced in three days from now. But Russians can vote against the United Party of Russia. That's how they can show their disagree-linked with what Putin is doing, because the United Russia is Putin's party. That's their official affiliation, and that's how they project, that's their image. So voting for one of the smaller parties, like the Communist Party of Russia, the new people, those are absolutely pro-Kremlin as well, they're controlled, but I think that's the best Russians can do to show that they're against what Putin is doing to Ukraine and to Russia, as well. That's pretty much the only option I have. Russian opposition and exile here in Europe, in the United States, there are some politicians. They call for Russians to go and have flush moves at certain time. That's again, that's projecting a signal, but the disagree, acting a certain way, or simply tearing up the bill, and things like that, but that's not going to change the official result. Yeah, and likely not going to happen, given the concept of mass protests is probably not going to take hold there. But I want to come back to this point, Konstantin, but first, we need to take a quick break. So if you'll stay with us, we'll have more from Konstantin Samoilov, and you can check out his YouTube channel. Again, that's @insideRussia. We'll be right back here on the situation report, so you know what I'm going to say, stick around. Welcome back to the BDB situation report. Joining me once again, Konstantin Samoilov. You can check out his commentary on his very popular YouTube channel. That's @insideRussia. Konstantin, thank you very much for sticking around. We've been talking about the Russian elections, parliamentary elections, the lack of any real opposition on the ballot. So as you pointed out correctly, we know what's going to come from this. And what's there, any real concern, because out here in the West, we've talked about, we've highlighted the fact that the Ukrainian drone campaign, for instance, has been able to impact to some degree the Russian population, right? They've been striking deeper into Russian territory, they've been hitting everything from where else is to energy infrastructure. So it is, in a sense, bringing the war home to the Russian population. But I think in the West, maybe we imagine then that, okay, that means there's going to be this great level of dissatisfaction amongst the Russian population, and that for, there's going to be some sort of negative result for Putin. People are going to turn against Putin, or they get, where exactly are we, and was Putin in your perspective, in your assessment, has he ever been really worried about that? Or does he just believe he's got this kung fu like grip on power, and it doesn't really matter what the population thinks? Like now we are descending into a very deep philosophical discussion about Russians, who Russia really are. And here I would like to, I'll try, I promise I'll try to be very brief, I will, I would like to point out that Russians are unlike Westerners, and a lot of people in the West, they judge by their own standards, by themselves. For example, if gas goes up in price, a great deal, than the popularity of current majority in the Senate, and current president drops, right, and people start protesting, speaking up, and things like that, that doesn't happen in Russia. They think that Russians will do the same, but it doesn't happen. Ukrainians have done tremendous damage to the Russian economy and the Russian society. This past few months, now Russians go under, go under, the biggest fuel crisis, the biggest crisis ever since 1991. Its economy is in the ruins. When I talk about the economy, I say Russian economy is in free fall, okay, it's gonna hit the ground hard, and that is not going to make Russians go and try to take their faiths into their own heels and try to change something, their professional suffers. Your generations have been conditioned, engineered into a being, and that's what they're doing right now, and the biggest outcome of the summer for me is that at first, when the Russian started running into problems, huge problems with gas, a simply shortage of gas, and the prices have skyrocketed, they started complaining loudly for a few weeks, and then they got used to it, they adopt it. And now they made this, a few lines, you know, the higher budgets fulfilled. They made it part of their lives, you know, it's to them, it's like, what can we do? This is our life now, we just have to live with it, we have to, and then the authorities keep feeding them, oh, just wait a little bit, everything will get better, just light is around the corner, you know, just vote, vote United Russia, you know, just like you mentioned in the beginning, you know, United Russia equals Putin equals victory in Ukraine. So if you want victory, if you want good life, come and vote for United Russia, because if you vote against, you are with our enemies, you know, that type of thing. So Russia's a professional suffers, and I'm not going to let this, this problems definitely have made the lives worse, but they're not going to, yeah, at least for now, they're not going to ignite protest, ignite, you know, that are civic, civic conscience of the speak. Yeah. It's a great point, and I think you're right. And I don't want to say it's a uniquely American thing, because you see it in the West at times outside the US, but Americans in particular tend to be very good at mirroring their values or putting their thought process onto other cultures, and whether we're talking about Russia, China, or Middle East, in particular, is another good example of where we just, we have a hard time understanding that other thought process and the way that people make decisions and we tend to mirror our values and think, well, if we just do this, and this is how they'll behave, this is how they'll react, because that's how we would react. So it is a significant issue that just never seems to change. Let me ask you this with the, with, once the elections are over, there had been some talk that perhaps Putin was waiting for these elections to wrap up before he then would announce a new mass mobilization, possibly of some 300,000 or more or so now to shore up the military, which has been suffering some fairly staggering losses for quite some time. Do you think that that might be at play? It's not a question of might be it's going to happen and it'll happen starting one day. I have tons of signals coming from Russia. Quite a few inside information, whether it be pieces of inside information in my general understanding of the society of the economy, just give you a couple examples. The tariffs, they, you know, Russia, Russian state owns natural gas, owns most of the power plants, so the utilities, they come from Russian state and Russian state, you know, sets the tariffs through provincial governments and so forth. So usually they increase once a year in July and they increased from different provinces from seven to 22%, imagine your utility bill goes up in one year, almost a quarter, but they decided to postpone from July until October 1st. The wait after the elections are over, okay? So the utility hike starts very soon in a couple of weeks and it was supposed to start in July. Now a lot of people inside the government are evacuating their families and their assets because they know that they have been orders already for the mobilization. I have an insight in that this is the first time I'm voicing it online. My insight says 1.8 million Russian men will be mobilized, at least they will be aimed. That number is the aim of mobilization, 1.88 out of different numbers, but this is what I come up with. This is not if this is when and the women is next week. But if we go back to 2022 or the last time there
was a large skill mobilization, we saw how unpopular it was. And I mean, if he's doing it again, it speaks to two things. Either they're in serious trouble in terms of their personnel, as it exists currently, their headcount for the military, and/or also at the same time, it points to the fact that Putin really is confident in his position and is not worried again, going back to what we talked about just a moment ago about how the West has kind of been looking at this and thinking, "I might be on the shaky ground, you're people are getting dissatisfied, the economic conditions are bad, are they not happy with the war?" He's going to go through this mass mobilization, knowing how it was received the last time. Katatelsia, he's feeling pretty comfortable. I don't think he's feeling comfortable at all. I think quite on the contrary, that I believe that, well, I see it from everywhere in Russia, that what Putin started in 2022, not just the woman in Ukraine, but to Russia as well, Putin economy onto military tracks, going after small businesses, small and medium-sized businesses, taking away freedoms from people. This is not sustainable. You can live like this for some time until you have reserves. Once the reserves are gone and the reserves are different, are different kinds of reserves. Money, that Russian government had stashed, the savings account, the national welfare fund, the people, businesses, you can only go so long like this, and Russia has come to full store. As I mentioned, it is the biggest crisis. Russia has ever seen. People are dissatisfied. The professional sufferers, that's why they're not taking it to the streets, but they're pretty great. The money is out. The economy is in ruins, basically. Russia is spending so much more than it's earning. In it, can not borrow, because it's banned from international borrowing, and in Russia, no one has money to borrow. So the only way out is to print money that brings in more economic problems. If that's the case, I'm sorry for interrupting the cost, but I need to be mindful of time. If that's the case, then what do you anticipate? And if the intel that you've got is solid and they do start this new mobilization, new effort next week, then what do you anticipate will be the reaction from the public? First of all, little fright will hide it as much as they can. They have been mobilizing people. They were manhands in different cities, Rostolandol and Penza through the summer. People aren't reacting. Those who vet concerns them personally, or they are outraged, but Russia and from additional space is much controlled. So there's not much information if you don't specifically look for it, like I do for example, like researchers do. So they have been mobilizing already. They will definitely, they will be mobilizing unstill, that's what I used for term. And the army is absolutely not moving anywhere. There's a dead end for Russian Armed Forces. And I think the plan is that they will try to get as many people as possible and throw them into the meat drive there because the only tactics Russia has used so far is just, they call them the meat storms. They sent people and people give kill to the battlefield, but you know, they sent large numbers and then they push, you know, meter by meter they push forward. That's why I think that they need such a large number of men just to push further into Ukraine and to gain some growth because right now there's nothing to show. The frontline has been frozen since late 2022. And Ukrainians are taking more well back than these days than the Russians are seizing. Okay, so that's the only tactic they have left. And the big question for me and I think for everyone is, will Putin start escalating with the West? Will he invade or attack one of our NATO countries? The Baltics, perhaps Poland, that no one knows. I don't think the decision has been made, but that's been in the talks I'm pretty sure. So that is under the question. What is not under the question is there will be taking more Russian mail throwing them to the Libgrinder and that way they will try to gain advantage, which I don't think they will personally. That's my opinion. Well, I say no, and thank you for that, but I think that what we need to talk about next time is what you've just alluded to, which is the Russian, how we want to refer to it, hybrid war against the European Union, against NATO allies. This has been going on for some time, but it's getting increasing attention, right? And this idea that they could be becoming more aggressive towards NATO countries towards the Eastern front of NATO for whatever reason. And we are seeing that. We're seeing more incidents in Europe that are being attributed to Russian sabotage. So I want to pick that up next time that we have beyond, which implies that you need to come on next time when we call you. So I hope you will, Konstantin, I always, I love these kind of conversations. Very happy that you're now sitting in a very new location. We wish you absolutely nothing, but the best and settling in. And we also look forward very much to the next conversation, Matt. Thank you, thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon. Konstantin Samoylov, you can find his YouTube channel. I suggest you go there. It's called @insiderussia, once again on YouTube. Well, that's all the time we have for this week's PDB situation reports while I'm on the road. By the way, make sure you pay attention. Whole miss can be playing L.S. you on Saturday. You won't want to miss that. If you have any questions or comments, that hoddy-toddy or humorous anecdotes, just reach out to me at
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