Russia is losing the war!
I have just said this on my morning interview with News X World (podcast to be posted here when it becomes available). And I repeat the point now in writing: Russia is losing the war.
Those who listen to Scott Ritter, to Colonel Macgregor, to Larry Johnson on their nearly daily podcast appearances and believe that the inexorable progress of Russian forces on the line of contact in Donbas, moving towards the Dnieper and conquest of the entire Donbas mean RUSSIAN VICTORY are being deceived. As I have been saying for some time, loss of the Donbas, even loss of Odessa will not force Ukraine to capitulate and will not put an end to the ever more damaging Ukrainian attacks on Russian critical infrastructure in the energy sector.
Moreover, those attacks deep inside Russia directed against infrastructure could just as easily be directed against President Putin, against his family, against the State Duma. In a word, the Russian Federation is now as vulnerable to “Ukrainian” attacks as is Kiev to Russian attacks. In that sense, the war is now at a stalemate and is going against Russia, because Kiev is waging all-out war while Russia is still holding one arm behind its back while seeking the approval of progressive humanity for its forbearance and humane behavior.
Why do I come to this conclusion? I was prodded to it by the latest news that the broadcaster wanted me to comment upon, namely a successful drone attack on a major refinery near Samara. Look at the map: Samara is more than 1,000 km southeast of Moscow in the heartland of European Russia. It must be close to 2,000 km from wherever in Ukraine these drones were launched. This strike was most likely using highly advanced drones supplied from Europe which are guided by military intelligence provided to Ukraine by the USA. In short, Russia is under attack from NATO, for which the Ukraine is only a dummy warrior.
Today’s New York Times has an article on a secret factory in Germany now providing AI controlled drones to Ukraine. This is a state-of-the-art attack system and it makes Germany a co-belligerent just as the formerly proposed delivery of its Taurus missiles would have been.
The consequences of these infrastructure attacks, on attacks on Russian oil tankers inside Russia as well as on the open seas, is that Russia has severe fuel shortages in many regions. It has now banned export of diesel fuel so as to compensate for shortages at home. Vice Prime Minister Novak has just announced that Russia is importing refined petroleum.
This situation is no longer just an inconvenience for car owners in one or another locale. It is going to cripple Russian industry, including military industry if it continues and escalates, which now seems likely.
Note that until recently Russia accounted for 12% of global diesel exports. That loss now is driving up fuel costs globally.
But for Russia, there has to be a response appropriate to the now developing existential threat: the factories producing these drones, wherever they are, in Germany or elsewhere, must be destroyed. Now! If Russia fails to act, it is going to lose the war and to lose its sovereignty, regardless of how many speeches President Putin makes calling his citizens to sit tight and ignore what is happening to them.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
Gilbert, this is extremely worrying news and really not understandable why Mr.Putin is so dam hesitant, in the current state, if not mistaken what is the risk for Russia seems very controlled in the response from NATO due to the dire state of the various EU Armees, of course the US Army is a different matter, but then does Trump want to take the risk of dragging the US into a boots on the ground war in Eastern Europe?, bet No!
In the meantime you have said as well as Solowjow it is the support of Palantir and Starlink which makes these awful Drone attacks possible, clearly Trump should intervene if he doesn't than his is the warmaker instead of the peace maker, ! It means also that Trump notwithstanding his feather ruffling has not leverage on the US Deepstate his financiers as wells on the EU leaders.
I sincerely hope you are wrong and trust your message gets through to a large part of the Russian population and leading intelligentsia including Mr.Putin, somehow somewhere there must be a reaction from the Russian leadership, otherwise the Nuclear button will be pushed if it gets to the dramatic point of no return to avoid an annihilation, that's also what Wladimir Solowjow tells us! Thus keep up your good work of warning over and over again, the good will ultimately prevail.
I know Helmer was exceedingly rude to our host in the past, but this latest podcast shows that he and Doctorow are now in almost complete agreement. Helmer finally understands what happened in Kiev at the beginning of the war, which is that it was an attempt at a quick overthrow of the Zelensky government with installation of Medvedchuk (a la the West), which failed miserably due to very bad intelligence. He also realizes, which I have been saying for years, is that a 'war of attrition' against an enemy with 1 billion people is a bad idea. And he agrees with Doctorow that Russia must act more forcefully INSIDE Ukraine, before thinking of attacking the Europeans directly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R4_bD4EcHs
These 4 1/2 years have put Russia and Putin in a tight place. There is a saying that 'fortune favors the bold'. Trump has taken this too far, but you can see that boldness has an effect, which has led to some successes for Trump, where reason would tell you it could only fail. I am not responsible for the lives of 150 million people, so it is easy for me to say, but it seems Putin needs to take some risk and try SOMETHING unexpected.