Russia Can No Longer Move Its Oil - Jason Jay Smart

[TexasTowelie]

Russia is facing the most severe oil crisis of the entire war. For years, Moscow relied on a covert network of aging tankers to move sanctioned crude across global waters. This “Shadow Fleet” was designed to keep money flowing into the Kremlin’s war budget even as Western governments tightened restrictions. Today that entire system is failing. The tankers that once sustained Russia’s economy are now stuck, uninsured, rerouted, or outright rejected.

New maritime tracking confirms that Russian-linked vessels are piling up at global choke points with no buyers, no insurance, and no way to complete deliveries. At the same time, Europe and the United States have escalated enforcement on the carriers, brokers, and financing channels that kept the Shadow Fleet alive. Every blocked shipment cuts deeper into Russia’s revenue.

This collapse comes at a critical moment for Moscow. Ukrainian strikes have degraded refinery capacity across multiple regions, forcing Russia to export crude it can no longer process domestically. Without functioning tanker routes, that crude turns into stranded inventory rather than war funding.

Oil revenue is the central pillar of Russia’s military, its patronage networks, and its internal security services. When these flows weaken, the stress moves upward through the entire political structure. The Shadow Fleet was built as a financial escape route, but enforcement pressure has now turned it into a strategic trap.

This briefing breaks down the tanker failures now unfolding across the world’s sea lanes, the specific sanctions tools accelerating the crisis, and why the collapse at sea threatens the Kremlin’s ability to sustain its war in Ukraine. The crisis is not theoretical. It is happening in real time, and the consequences are compounding rapidly.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
01:07 - Why Russia is Losing the War: A Financial Stranglehold
03:18 - The Failed Gamble: Why Putin's Shadow Fleet is a Trap
04:20 - Western Enforcement Begins: The New Strategy to Stop Ghost Ships
06:05 - The $7 Million Voyage: Why Russia's Oil Allies Are Exploiting Them
07:19 - The Ticking Clock: Financial Crisis & The Desperation in Pokrovsk
08:15 - The Strategy to Bleed Russia Out: Why Ukraine Cedes Ground
11:01 - The Internal Cracks: Kremlin Implosion & Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Fight
12:54 - The Farmer Rambo: Cutting the Budget of Terror & The Two Fatal Sieges
14:34 - Outro