The Great Gas Pipeline Caper of 2025

coming to a theatre near you

(blue=Ukrainian control, orange=recaptured by Russia, yellow=current fighting, red=Russian incursions into Ukraine) h/t to Kalibrated maps on X.

This is the most astounding thing I have heard of in a long, long time. It almost is too fantastical to believe. If it happened here, it would be all over the front pages and on every newscast. Agents would be angling for the movie rights. What am I talking about? Briefly put, 800 Russian special ops marched 12 km. (7.2 miles) through an abandoned gas pipeline, came out the other side, and in conjuction with other Russian troops, closed the trap door on Zelenskyy’s Kursk misadventure.

A bit of context: last year the EU closed the door on purchasing cheap Russsian gas, which flowed out of Russia underneath Ukraine and into Europe. Zelenskyy obligingly cut it off on his end. No matter that you ruin your economies and your citizens don’t have enough heat in the winter by buying the much more expensive LNG from the U.S. (or ironically, the gas that Russia sells to India who sells to the U.S. who sells, with 2 markups, to Europe.) That is a small price to pay, I suppose, for all the virtue you can signal by not purchasing that nasty Russian gas directly. Anyway, there remained a enormous gas pipeline, now completely empty, and the Russians saw an opportunity.

How did they do it? I get much of my real news from Telegram channels. This is how one explained the plan:

1) The gas pressure pumps were stopped and the gas was sucked out

2) Oxygen was pumped into the pipeline

3) Diggers dug out rooms for assembly and toilets were installed

4) Water, food and ammunition was brought in to these assembly rooms

5) 800 soldiers went through the pipe to the assembly rooms

6) The soldiers waited 4 days in the assembly rooms and in the pipe close to the exit

7) When the signal was given, they ran out and went into the industry zone of Sudzha

8) The Ukrainian army was surprised to see such a huge force in their rear, they began to panic and became disorganized

9) Russians liberated many settlements in Kursk region, due to this

My standbys, Alexander Mercouris and Alex Chistoforou have much to say about it here.

My question to the diehard pro-war deadenders, is this: how exactly do you plan to prevail over a country whose soldiers would do THIS? Stop shooting, get to the negotiating table as quickly as possible. It won’t be as good a deal as you could have received even last summer, and it will be magnitudes worse that the deal both sides had agreed to in March 2022 ante the Clown (Boris Johnson.) But it is time to take a deep breath, admit failure, and look at the world the way it really is.