Russia's Investment of Blood /Alastair Crooke & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis Deep Dive Merch: Etsy store

Alastair Crooke describes how the so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers allows Russia to keep selling its oil despite Western sanctions—ships simply switch flags, trans-ship oil at sea, and continue commerce with only minimal interruptions. The result is that while Russia might sell slightly less oil, the higher global price caused by sanctions offsets the loss. The sanctions, the speaker argues, are politically symbolic rather than economically devastating.

The real breach lies not in economics but in politics. Two “red lines” that Russia believed had been implicitly understood—first, that sanctions would be kept limited to allow for a negotiated political solution, and second, that there would be no attempt to freeze the conflict into a stalemate—have both been crossed. The Kremlin views a “frozen conflict” as a Western trap reminiscent of the Minsk Accords or even the post-World War I settlement, where Russia lost territory and later paid in blood to recover it. In St. Petersburg and elsewhere, even liberal Russians now express determination that the war must be completed decisively, without returning to a deceptive truce that only allows Ukraine and the West to rearm.

From Russia’s perspective, there was once a viable diplomatic path—the near-completed Istanbul agreement of 2022. That draft reportedly included Ukrainian neutrality, limits on foreign troops, and security guarantees. But Western intervention, particularly Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv, halted the process with the message that Ukraine could not normalize relations with Russia. The sticking points remain Russia’s demands for “demilitarization” and “denazification,” terms that imply not only limits on Ukrainian armed forces but also the removal of entrenched anti-Russian ideological elements placed within Ukraine’s institutions since the Maidan revolution.

The speaker traces the roots of these ideological currents to post-World War II Western intelligence efforts—MI6 and the CIA cultivating Ukrainian nationalist networks in the late 1940s and 1950s, which later influenced Ukrainian security and political structures. By this view, the West itself installed actors in Kyiv who were designed to prevent reconciliation with Moscow. Hence, when Russia speaks of “denazification,” it is not referencing generic right-wing politics but this deeply embedded, anti-Russian faction that it sees as an obstacle to peace.

Given that, the possibility of a diplomatic resolution now appears remote. The speaker concludes that a negotiated settlement between Russia and the United States over Ukraine is, at present, impossible. The West has shifted from believing Ukraine could win outright to redefining failure as success—arguing that prolonging the war will ultimately weaken Russia. To Moscow, this reasoning is delusional.

Thus, the conversation ends on a grim but clear note: there is little room for compromise, and barring an unforeseen shift on the battlefield—perhaps in the Donbas or Kupiansk regions—the conflict will likely continue until one side imposes its terms by force.