Now, we've got to talk about Russia because we've got the Financial Times, a reporting of potential attacks getting set up on Western infrastructure outside of Ukraine. We've got to talk about that because that would essentially be inviting World War III Unless of course it was done under the guise of sabotage. We'll see, we'll see, but tensions continue to rise and we've got a big Catalyst coming up in three days, which is already starting to set up over today. Actually, we've got a top Diplomat from China who just arrived in Moscow about an hour ago.

that's this morning here on February 21st. And what's remarkable about this is the timing lines up with the three-day Catalyst that we have the one year anniversary for the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Why that matters is because China is actually widely seen as potentially trying to broker peace in offering a peace deal in three days. Maybe that peace deal is already being negotiated now, since the top Diplomat has just arrived uh in Moscow.

But this is coming at the same time as we have warnings that there could be potential attacks on Western infrastructure. We'll talk about those attacks in just a moment. But first, let's talk about this piece right here. Here's a Wall Street Journal piece where, uh, the Wall Street Journal makes this case that China is worried about potentially losing one of their strongest allies one of their strongest trading partners.

Obviously, China is widely trying to reduce its Reliance on the west. Uh, and they're already sort of engaging in a different style of warfare with the West, not only with uh you know the drama over the nonsense of the the weather balloon or spy balloon, but also via the theft of our Trade Secrets. We just had another massive theft over at Asml chip Manufacturing Company by Chinese individual, uh, and uh and and this is partly because of uh, well, essentially programs and and rules where the United States has passed laws like the Chips Act Banning China from using Advanced manufacturing technology. So China now steals the information and then tries to copy it.

This is similar to what they've done with for example, our fighter jets. The plans for our F-35 fighter jet were stolen by China and then China a few years later ended up coming out with a very similar looking jet a Gen 5 jet. Now, most of China's Fleet is still the older Gen 2 Gen 3 stuff, but roughly about 50 percent according to Bloomberg of China's Uh Air Force is still the older generation the 1990s vehicles. I I don't know.

I mean they're certainly not spending as much on defense as we are in America. By some accounts, their estimates are that China would spend somewhere around 250 million dollars on defense or as we're spending closer to a trillion dollars on defense closer to maybe 900 billion. but still, that's roughly 4X what China is spending. But anyway, obviously Russia is very important to China And there there was even talk that potentially Putin scheduled his incursion into Ukraine around the Olympics were, which were held in Beijing last year.

Which what's remarkable about that is it. It somewhat suggests that how convenient, right after the Olympics in China were over what happened, the incursion comes uh, and there's almost this sort of uh, deemed respect from from Russia uh to China and potentially vice versa. And this Wall Street Journal article gives us a little bit of insight into maybe why. So what they talk about is Beijing potentially fearing a really weak Russia after this war and how the war is starting to maybe weigh on Russia's capability of actually being a supportive trading partner for them.

And as a result, China is potentially considering helping Russia end this war either by brokering a peace deal or because becoming a weapon supplier for them. Now, they're already deemed to be supplying things like aircraft equipment, jamming equipment, but they're in recent days talking about potentially supplying actual lethal weapons to Russia. Now the West sees that as an escalation in Beijing. The way they're trying to spin the narrative is basically saying Hey Look, if we start providing weapons to Russia, Russia becomes more reliant on China and if Russia is more reliant on China, China potentially has the opportunity to twist Russia's arm into brokering a peace deal between Ukraine and and Russia and there is the potential that China could pull that off and that'd be fantastic because I think everybody wants this war to end.

But listen to this. You do also get harsh rhetoric, right? example: China's foreign Ministry on Monday hit back against U.S Allegations that providing lethal weapons would really provoke a World War III and they say it's the U.S side not the Chinese side that's providing an endless flow of weapons to Ukraine. The U.S isn't qualified to point fingers at China or order China around. We would never accept Uh U.S Criticizing Chinese Russian Relations Well, yeah, of course I mean that that is a fair point.

The U.S criticizing China for potentially supplying weapons to Russia is a little ironic. Obviously, the U.S is going to do that and be angry about it because they want Ukraine to to win and this war to end. Uh. And that was really characterized by Joe Biden getting on a train for 10 hours to hang out in cave in a in you know, a secret uh, secret visit uh to the capital of Ukraine and and reiterating this unending support for Ukraine which is also evidenced by the Uh you know, nearly 100 billion dollars of of U.S money that's gone to support Uh Ukraine Now uh, this Wall Street Journal article Dives in a little bit more on potentially Beijing now trying to step up the negotiating Uh posture to end this war.

Uh, and I think I think that's a good thing Actually I mean obviously I think everybody wants to see this. this war come to an end. But it's also a good thing that makes sense. It makes logical sense for China It's doing its best to really rebuild its economy after three years of a coveted lockdown and so far things are going great in terms of travel and entertainment Spending: Subway Traffic and car congestion by some measures is actually higher than 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

So you are seeing a travel and entertainment and and really, consumerism. Rebound in China But remember, consumers only make up about a third of their GDP housing makes up two-thirds It's the opposite. in America In America, the consumer makes up 70 of of the economy. so China is really reliant on industry uh, the real real estate market and consume everything firing to actually have the growth that China is looking for.

and having a trading partner with Russia that is not crippled because it's basically destroyed itself. Uh, spending to Oblivion uh for for what feels like a very somewhat pointless War Mostly I would say the Western argument is pointless war. Of course, the the argument from Russia is that they were forced into this because of the expansion and threat of the expansion of NATO. But either way, this in my opinion and Chinese visit visiting Moscow is actually a very good positive.

uh Catalyst And hopefully there is a negotiated end. However, and unfortunately, there's still talk as running in the Financial Times today about potentially attacks by Russia on Western infrastructure. Now look, we've gone through this idea that Russia sabotaged the Nordstrom pipelines. Uh, there have been arguments from journalists that know it was actually the CIA in conjunction with with some of the Uh European navies that ended up planting C4 and Uh on these pipelines and blowing these pipelines up leading to massive methane leak.

Uh, that is a climate change disaster. And of course the United States doesn't want their actual hands on on responsibility for that, which the United States clearly denies. But there's a lot of circumstantial evidence clearly pointing to the idea that the United States was heavily involved in the destruction of the Nordstrom pipelines. But anyway, uh, the Netherlands Now warning about Russian attempts to sabotage their energy infrastructure.

with the Dutch intelligence authorities warning that Russians have been essentially scouting Uh, the Uh, the the Netherlands energy infrastructure specifically their wind farms. They're offshore wind farms and what they're what they describe in this article is essentially Uh ships that have been showing particular interest to the offshore wind farms in the North Sea and that uh, the Netherlands are stepping up their security and and they've been escorting multiple ships out of their particular you know, economic zones and regions and and they believe that Russia could potentially try to attack Uh, some of the energy infrastructure uh of of Uh, the West in particular to force them to rely more heavily on Uh, potentially re-established relations with Russia uh and Russian gas or Russian oil As a way of saying no, no, don't go renewable, continue to rely on Russia Now of course that makes sense on one hand that Russia might do so. Of course, the last thing we want is the expansion of of a potential world war three. This is why the sooner this war ends, the better.

But look at the way you've got these axes setting up right. You've got Russia loading strategic nuclear missiles, uh on on their warships. something they haven't done since the 70s. You've got Iran building suicide drone factories in Uh Russia just 600 miles outside of Moscow uh, that just announced by the way, so not built yet.

but but Iran's been selling weapons uh to Russia You've got the United States taking uh weapons stolen essentially from Iran and and or I should say seized uh and and potentially being delivered against U.N Conventions to Ukraine Uh, you've got Russia Now stepping out of the Stark treaty which limits how many Icbms you can produce, you've got uh, of course the belief that Uh Japan and Taiwan and the United, Kingdom and NATO are all supportive of Ukraine on one side. On the other side, you've clearly got Uh China, Russia, uh, and Iran heavily working together to support Uh Russia And and we'll see Uh, but but so far, things are very, very much brewing in negative directions and it seems like every day there's more negativity around the potential trending towards a World War III which which is terrible. Obviously, that would be the worst case scenario. So hopefully in this segment we've been able to cover that there's at least hope because it does not seem like the West or Ukraine uh, have really been able to propose anything that's remotely interesting to Russia And hopefully China can pull off some form of negotiation to actually make that happen because otherwise we're trending towards World War III and it's scary.

so hopefully that comes to an end. Uh, we'll see anyway. Uh, that. uh, that's uh, that's my piece on Russia.