//The Wire//2300Z March 17, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: UNITED STATES BEGINS LARGE-SCALE BOMBING CAMPAIGN IN YEMEN. SWATTING INCIDENTS CONTINUE AROUND THE UNITED STATES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Red Sea/HOA: Over the weekend the United States began a large-scale bombing campaign in Yemen, targeting the Houthi government. Following this escalation, President Trump also took to social media to state that America's policy going forward will be to treat every shot fired by Yemen as a shot fired by Iran. AC: This is probably a pivot to increasing tensions with with the Iranians. The war in Yemen has been going on for many years, despite the Saudis bombing Yemen fairly regularly over the past decade. Much like the campaign against ISIS in the Mid-Euphrates River Valley (MERV) in Iraq and Syria, a mostly aerial campaign against insurgent groups (or even governments) in the Middle East is a challenging style of warfare that hasn't worked out well in the past. In short, continuing to bomb Yemen probably won't do very much in the long run to provide security for the region, though it does divert from the reasons as to why the Houthis are waging this war in the first place. Germany: This morning German officials announced a €300 million aid package for Syria. This brings the total European Union support to Syria to roughly €5.8 billion. United Kingdom: Plans to deploy British soldiers to Ukraine continue to go ahead, with PM Starmer stating in a virtual summit that up to 10,000 soldiers will be slated to deploy to Ukraine as part of a joint "peacekeeping" mission along with 35 other nations. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - Much controversy has continued regarding a variety of actions in Washington over the past few days. Up first, D.C. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg issued an emergency order to stop the White House from deporting illegals to El Salvador. As the aircraft were already in the air, it wasn't logistically feasible to radio an in-flight aircraft regarding a court order that was issued, so the aircraft continued it's deportation flight. The second controversial development involves President Trump's remarks on the pardons issued by President Biden in his final days of the Presidency. Specifically, Trump has called into question the legality of Biden using an autopen digital signature on pardons, and has openly stated that he thinks the pardons are not legally binding because of this. AC: While entertaining, this autopen debate probably doesn't carry much weight since the use of digital signatures on government documents is a common standard used by government officials everywhere. Central USA: Following a series of severe storms that ripped through the central and southern regions of the nation, recovery efforts are ongoing. So far, 42 fatalities have been reported as a result of these storms. Most of the fatalities have taken place in Missouri, Kansas, and Mississippi, ranging from those being killed by debris, and pre-existing medical conditions, to high winds causing pileups on interstate highways causing multiple fatalities. Substantially high winds also inflamed hundreds of wildfires throughout Oklahoma, which has so far resulted in over 170,000 acres burning due to these storms. USA: Around the nation the Swatting of pro-Trump influencers and social media figures continues. Many of those swatted have provided surveillance footage confirming that such events did take place, however many have not provided the specific details of their swatting incidents for security reasons. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Of note, several police departments have elaborated that in many of these swatting incidents, the caller making the fake threats will stay on the line with 911 operators for a long time, making statements that attempt to escalate the situation to lethal force. Several cases also have involved the malign actor calling a police department's non-emergency number, which is a common tactic for swatting as non-emergency numbers are standard phone numbers that can be called from anywhere. So far, this does not appear to be a simple prank phone call, then an immediate hang up. The caller(s) know the exact magic phrases that will trigger a higher-level response from police, and they are engaging in a more deliberate effort to create an elaborate story with the end goal of violence. As with the previous swatting incidents, those who have been targeted in such manner may be prioritized for such malign action due to affiliation with the Trump administration. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z March 6, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GULF WAR CONTINUES AS THE WAR OF LOGISTICS BECOMES PARAMOUNT. AMERICAN BASES THROUGHOUT MIDDLE EAST CONTINUE TO BE TARGETED BY IRANIAN FORCES. TERRORISM CONCERNS REMAIN IN THE HOMELAND AS THE WAR CONTINUES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Persian Gulf: The war continues as before, with Iranian drone attacks remaining constant throughout the region. Dubai alone has been averaging around a hundred munitions being observed each day, nearly all of which are intercepted. Flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been able to increase somewhat, as Iranian drone attacks have shifted to targeting American military installations and petroleum infrastructure around the region. Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait have been primary targets for Iranian missiles/drones, with significant targeting efforts taking place over the past 24 hours. Concerning American targeting efforts, bombings continue in Tehran and other major cities. Most military infrastructure throughout Iran has been destroyed, and President Trump has stated that no deal is sought, as only unconditional surrender is demanded. Analyst Comment: This has been the blanket statement since the start of the war, but it's not entirely clear as to whom Iranian military forces are supposed to surrender to. Right now, any Iranian who wishes to stop fighting doesn't really have any way to declare that intent. As the United States and Israel rather confidently keep assassinating any sort of political leadership within Iran, it's not known who would even have the authority to sign surrender papers at this point. -HomeFront- USA: Various counterterrorism and law enforcement agencies have been progressively increasing security measures at critical sites around the nation, due to the increased potential for terrorism to take place within the United States as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. NORTHCOM has raised the force protection posture at most North American military installations, with the Trusted Traveler program being temporarily halted while terrorism concerns are elevated. Analyst Comment: Right now, the risk of Iranian government-sponsored combatants engaging targets within the homeland is fairly low. However, due to the prevalence of 5th Generation Warfare being common in the modern world, what is much more likely is the co-opting of the Gulf War by other unrelated groups for their own gain. In short, there probably aren't that many Iranian sleeper agents in the US, but there are dozens of other groups seeking to make a name for themselves, or otherwise hijack national attention for their own gain. As always, predicting when and where security threats will pop up is hard, so increased vigilance is recommended. Washington D.C. - DHS Secretary Noem has been transitioned to a new role, with Senator Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma being slated to replace her within the next few days. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Of note, the satellite imagery company Planet Labs has imposed a 96-hour-delay policy with their satellite imagery, so as to prevent their imagery from being used for targeting purposes. As this is an American company, this makes perfect sense at first, as the modern world of commercial satellite imagery within the civilian space has the possibility to impact the war. However, this move is almost certainly not to prevent the Iranians from obtaining targeting data, and implementing this policy a week after the war began (and after American radar sites have been targeted), is akin to shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. The Iranians are being fed targeting data of their own from the Chinese, who have been all to happy to highlight American losses with their own satellite constellations, which the United States does not control. And though it is always suspect due to the trustworthiness of the source, the Chinese have been focusing on highlighting specific targets for the Iranians to strike....and there's nothing the United States can do about it. Concerning the next phases of the war, indications and warnings are mounting of the operation shifting into the next phase. This morning the USS *FORD* CSG transited the Suez Canal, heading south into the Red Sea. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the hospital that is the main medical hub for the CENTCOM AOR, confirmed that all prenatal care has been suspended until further notice, so that the medical center can have flexibility in treating combat casualties. On the political front, rhetoric concerning a potential boots-on-ground phase of the operation has sharply increased over the past few days, though no specific decisions have been made public. In short, this could all be nothing, or it could be something. These very thin data points could be the early indicators of the war expanding in scope. In Washington, absolutely zero sentiments indicate that the war will be over anytime soon, and combat operations throughout Iran are expected to remain constant over the next few weeks at minimum. It's been seven days since the war began, and the USS *LINCOLN* CSG is still holding well outside the Strait of Hormuz, which is a solid indicator that the despite the overwhelming strikes throughout the country, enough risk remains to prevent bringing a carrier into the line of fire more directly. The arrival of a second aircraft carrier in a few days may change this, but as of right now, the Iranians are able to strike American bases and petroleum facilities just enough to indicate that risks remain constant throughout the region. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 1, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: MASS WAVES OF MIGRANT CRIME REPORTED THROUGHOUT EUROPE. UNITED STATES CONDUCTS ADDITIONAL TARGETING OF IRAN, IRANIANS RESPOND BY TARGETING KUWAIT AGAIN. STABBING ATTACK REPORTED ON TRAIN IN ATLANTA. HENRY NOWAK MURDER BODY CAM FOOTAGE RELEASED.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Persian Gulf: Over the weekend, more mutual targeting efforts continued throughout the region. The targeting efforts began after an unidentified drone entered Iranian airspace, which was downed by the Iranians. Around the same time, the United States conducted an airstrike on the radio tower at the Iranian base on Sirik Island in the eastern Persian Gulf. An unidentified location in Gerak was also struck as well, which CENTCOM claims was serving as a drone launch site. After this wave of attacks, the Iranians launched two ballistics missiles toward the airbase that the attack was launched from, which they claim was Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait. CENTCOM claimed that both missiles were intercepted. After the tit-for-tat targeting efforts were conducted on Saturday and Sunday, the United States and Iran continued their targeting efforts this morning. One merchant vessel (the MSC SARISKA V) was struck by an Iranian munition in the northern Persian Gulf, off the coast of Kuwait. Several hours after this first strike, the *SARISKA* reported being hit by a second munition, which caused a fire. Strait of Hormuz: Following the suspected mine detection off the coast of Oman that was reported on Friday, Omani Naval forces made visual contact with the mine, confirming it's coordinates at grid: 40RDQ3450820703. The mine appears to be a Maham-1 type device, a moored contact mine domestically produced within Iran. Lebanon: This afternoon President Trump stated on his social media accounts that he conducted a phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu, which resulted in Israeli forces halting their advance to Beirut. Analyst Comment: It is extraordinarily unlikely that the advance has actually stopped, however the reference to Beirut itself is odd because the IDF is currently nowhere near the city and there was no indication that they were headed there anyway (the invasion has so far been confined to mostly the areas near the Israeli border, with the main line of advance crossing the Litani a few days ago). It would be no surprise whatsoever if the Israelis actually did want to occupy the entirety of Lebanon (as this has been stated by politicians many times). However, aspirations are harder to achieve on the battlefield and the IDF has been getting hit hard by FPV drones for weeks. Likewise, the large-scale bombing of Beirut has been the main retaliatory measure for these FPV drone attacks, and regardless of President Trump's phone call, the war continues as before. About 20 minutes after President Trump's post, Hezbollah launched rockets and Israeli forces bombed targets in Lebanon again, with neither side expressing interest in halting the fighting. France: Mass civil unrest broke out over the weekend, following the UEFA Champions League soccer match resulting in a win for France. Large scale riots were reported throughout Paris, which carried on into Sunday evening. Dozens of assaults were reported, including some reports of individuals being dragged from their vehicles by mobs of migrants and assaulted. Austria: Yesterday a woman was attacked by an unidentified assailant on a train in Vienna. Local witnesses state that a woman of foreign origin attacked a local Austrian woman in an unprovoked attack while on the subway. No arrests have been made so far regarding this attack. Germany: This morning a migrant mob attack was reported in the small town of Tuttlingen. The mob attack was reported in the vicinity of a bus stop in the town, and resulted in a mob attempting to beat a man to death in the street. The status of the victim remains unclear. Analyst Comment: Extreme levels of violence have become very common in small European towns, even quaint villages tucked away in the foothills of the Alps. Many of these towns are now serving as an above-ground railroad of sorts, funneling migrants en masse northward into Germany. Tuttlingen has become one of these such towns. The bus stations at many of these villages are now effectively no-go areas for many locals, as large volumes of migrants tend to congregate at the facilities as they are transported by NGOs throughout the continent. United Kingdom: This afternoon the bodycam footage of the murder of Henry Nowak was leaked. The footage is worse than what was described in court, and has already resulted in increased calls for police accountability regarding this case. Analyst Comment: While everyone is rightfully calling for police accountability in this case, it is important to remember that people who directly caused the murder are still free. Only the murderer and the chief accomplice (Digwa's mother) were convicted. Per the official press release from the Southampton Constabulary, two other people were arrested that night; Digwa's family members that even the police have admitted lied on the night of the attack, causing the delay that contributed to Nowak's murder. These two other family members have not been charged with any crime. -HomeFront- Georgia: Over the weekend another subway murder was reported in Atlanta. Local authorities state that one assailant stabbed a woman to death on a MARTA train in the vicinity of Oakland City station. The victim died at the scene, and locals claim it was an unprovoked random stabbing attack. The suspect has been identified as John Elijah Matthews, who was arrested at the scene shortly after the murder. Florida: A street takeover mob attack was reported in Clearwater Beach over the weekend. One individual shot another individual during a street confrontation on Coronado Drive, wounding one person. Analyst Comment: Other than the shooting, roving bands and mobs swarmed through Clearwater over the weekend, which is likely to get the attention of much more substantial crowd-control efforts due to this area being a very big vacation area at the height of tourism season. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, a pattern is beginning to emerge with regard to American targeting efforts in the region. CENTCOM is now conducting "self-defense" strikes on targets that are really stretching the definition of "self-defense", as per all prior CENTCOM targeting guidance. CENTCOM is claiming that since a radio tower was used at some point to support a drone strike, they can strike it in self-defense. The drones that are being launched by the Iranians throughout the region are very likely not being controlled from Sirik Island, but this outpost is probably being used by forward observers. This site was also probably used as a radio base to communicate with merchant shipping, and issue notices from the Iranians via radio. More broadly, these more recent targeting efforts also serve as an indicator for what the United States might be trying to do at a more strategic level. Within the past few days, the United States has twice launched offensive targeting efforts, while claiming to conduct a strike under "self-defense" criteria. This has now slipped into more of a "mowing the lawn" approach to targeting Iranian infrastructure, whereby every couple of days the US bombs something, then the Iranians counterattack, and the US clutches pearls and pretends like CENTCOM didn't start it in the first place. How long the Iranians will put up with this is purely up to them, but they also know that these smaller targeting efforts by the United States are probably intended to provoke a knee-jerk reaction and re-ignite the large-scale bombings of the war. Right now, the Iranians have a very powerful position, so they might not want to jeopardize kicking things off again based on a handful of strikes, but that option is always on the table. How things progress from here is anyone's guess, but every bomb that lands in Iran, and every missile that lands at an American base, is another step farther from the negotiating table. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 1, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: MASS WAVES OF MIGRANT CRIME REPORTED THROUGHOUT EUROPE. UNITED STATES CONDUCTS ADDITIONAL TARGETING OF IRAN, IRANIANS RESPOND BY TARGETING KUWAIT AGAIN. STABBING ATTACK REPORTED ON TRAIN IN ATLANTA. HENRY NOWAK MURDER BODY CAM FOOTAGE RELEASED.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Persian Gulf: Over the weekend, more mutual targeting efforts continued throughout the region. The targeting efforts began after an unidentified drone entered Iranian airspace, which was downed by the Iranians. Around the same time, the United States conducted an airstrike on the radio tower at the Iranian base on Sirik Island in the eastern Persian Gulf. An unidentified location in Gerak was also struck as well, which CENTCOM claims was serving as a drone launch site. After this wave of attacks, the Iranians launched two ballistics missiles toward the airbase that the attack was launched from, which they claim was Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait. CENTCOM claimed that both missiles were intercepted. After the tit-for-tat targeting efforts were conducted on Saturday and Sunday, the United States and Iran continued their targeting efforts this morning. One merchant vessel (the MSC SARISKA V) was struck by an Iranian munition in the northern Persian Gulf, off the coast of Kuwait. Several hours after this first strike, the *SARISKA* reported being hit by a second munition, which caused a fire. Strait of Hormuz: Following the suspected mine detection off the coast of Oman that was reported on Friday, Omani Naval forces made visual contact with the mine, confirming it's coordinates at grid: 40RDQ3450820703. The mine appears to be a Maham-1 type device, a moored contact mine domestically produced within Iran. Lebanon: This afternoon President Trump stated on his social media accounts that he conducted a phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu, which resulted in Israeli forces halting their advance to Beirut. Analyst Comment: It is extraordinarily unlikely that the advance has actually stopped, however the reference to Beirut itself is odd because the IDF is currently nowhere near the city and there was no indication that they were headed there anyway (the invasion has so far been confined to mostly the areas near the Israeli border, with the main line of advance crossing the Litani a few days ago). It would be no surprise whatsoever if the Israelis actually did want to occupy the entirety of Lebanon (as this has been stated by politicians many times). However, aspirations are harder to achieve on the battlefield and the IDF has been getting hit hard by FPV drones for weeks. Likewise, the large-scale bombing of Beirut has been the main retaliatory measure for these FPV drone attacks, and regardless of President Trump's phone call, the war continues as before. About 20 minutes after President Trump's post, Hezbollah launched rockets and Israeli forces bombed targets in Lebanon again, with neither side expressing interest in halting the fighting. France: Mass civil unrest broke out over the weekend, following the UEFA Champions League soccer match resulting in a win for France. Large scale riots were reported throughout Paris, which carried on into Sunday evening. Dozens of assaults were reported, including some reports of individuals being dragged from their vehicles by mobs of migrants and assaulted. Austria: Yesterday a woman was attacked by an unidentified assailant on a train in Vienna. Local witnesses state that a woman of foreign origin attacked a local Austrian woman in an unprovoked attack while on the subway. No arrests have been made so far regarding this attack. Germany: This morning a migrant mob attack was reported in the small town of Tuttlingen. The mob attack was reported in the vicinity of a bus stop in the town, and resulted in a mob attempting to beat a man to death in the street. The status of the victim remains unclear. Analyst Comment: Extreme levels of violence have become very common in small European towns, even quaint villages tucked away in the foothills of the Alps. Many of these towns are now serving as an above-ground railroad of sorts, funneling migrants en masse northward into Germany. Tuttlingen has become one of these such towns. The bus stations at many of these villages are now effectively no-go areas for many locals, as large volumes of migrants tend to congregate at the facilities as they are transported by NGOs throughout the continent. United Kingdom: This afternoon the bodycam footage of the murder of Henry Nowak was leaked. The footage is worse than what was described in court, and has already resulted in increased calls for police accountability regarding this case. Analyst Comment: While everyone is rightfully calling for police accountability in this case, it is important to remember that people who directly caused the murder are still free. Only the murderer and the chief accomplice (Digwa's mother) were convicted. Per the official press release from the Southampton Constabulary, two other people were arrested that night; Digwa's family members that even the police have admitted lied on the night of the attack, causing the delay that contributed to Nowak's murder. These two other family members have not been charged with any crime. -HomeFront- Georgia: Over the weekend another subway murder was reported in Atlanta. Local authorities state that one assailant stabbed a woman to death on a MARTA train in the vicinity of Oakland City station. The victim died at the scene, and locals claim it was an unprovoked random stabbing attack. The suspect has been identified as John Elijah Matthews, who was arrested at the scene shortly after the murder. Florida: A street takeover mob attack was reported in Clearwater Beach over the weekend. One individual shot another individual during a street confrontation on Coronado Drive, wounding one person. Analyst Comment: Other than the shooting, roving bands and mobs swarmed through Clearwater over the weekend, which is likely to get the attention of much more substantial crowd-control efforts due to this area being a very big vacation area at the height of tourism season. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Middle East, a pattern is beginning to emerge with regard to American targeting efforts in the region. CENTCOM is now conducting "self-defense" strikes on targets that are really stretching the definition of "self-defense", as per all prior CENTCOM targeting guidance. CENTCOM is claiming that since a radio tower was used at some point to support a drone strike, they can strike it in self-defense. The drones that are being launched by the Iranians throughout the region are very likely not being controlled from Sirik Island, but this outpost is probably being used by forward observers. This site was also probably used as a radio base to communicate with merchant shipping, and issue notices from the Iranians via radio. More broadly, these more recent targeting efforts also serve as an indicator for what the United States might be trying to do at a more strategic level. Within the past few days, the United States has twice launched offensive targeting efforts, while claiming to conduct a strike under "self-defense" criteria. This has now slipped into more of a "mowing the lawn" approach to targeting Iranian infrastructure, whereby every couple of days the US bombs something, then the Iranians counterattack, and the US clutches pearls and pretends like CENTCOM didn't start it in the first place. How long the Iranians will put up with this is purely up to them, but they also know that these smaller targeting efforts by the United States are probably intended to provoke a knee-jerk reaction and re-ignite the large-scale bombings of the war. Right now, the Iranians have a very powerful position, so they might not want to jeopardize kicking things off again based on a handful of strikes, but that option is always on the table. How things progress from here is anyone's guess, but every bomb that lands in Iran, and every missile that lands at an American base, is another step farther from the negotiating table. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z March 7, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GERMANY BEGINS REARMAMENT CAMPAIGN ALONG WITH POLAND. FACTIONAL VIOLENCE ESCALATES IN SYRIA.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Europe: Rearmament campaigns have intensified over the past few days among most Western-oriented nations. Germany has announced plans to double their defense budget, raising their defense cost to roughly €100 billion per year. This is in addition to a €500 billion investment in their infrastructure. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the implementation of a nationwide training program to prepare all adult males in the country for war. AC: As this announcement was rather surprising, many questions remain on what PM Tusk is planning to implement. At the moment this doesn't appear to be a traditional military draft or general mobilization, but a mandatory training plan/curriculum that all adult males of Polish nationality will be required to complete. Tusk also announced that he plans to more than double the size of the standing Polish military, from 200,000 to 500,000. Syria: Following the fall of the Assad regime a few weeks ago, the establishment of a new regime by HTS has resulted in the situation deteriorating further. Groups of HTS militants have descended into engaging in random violence, often times with no clear end goal other than the murder of their perceived enemies. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In Syria, the situation remains fairly complicated. However, right now the extreme levels of violence can mostly be summed up as the new HTS regime eradicating their enemies or anyone that challenges their rule. Some anti-HTS social media accounts have indicated that the Alawite community is being ethnically cleansed from Syria, with much evidence supporting the mass execution of primarily Alawite communities. However, as usual in the Middle East, much investigative effort will be required to verify the details as claimed on social media. What is abundantly clear, however, is that many people are being systemically murdered en masse by the HTS regime in Syria, mostly in the form of mob violence which is becoming increasingly more organized and deliberate. Other points of consideration are the steadily-increasing border incursions from neighboring nations. As a reminder, both Israel and Turkey openly invaded Syria during the collapse of the Assad regime (taking advantage of the chaos of the HTS advance). Though details are impossible to verify with any veracity, some data (from Israeli sources) suggest that the IDF has consolidated a substantial border expansion into Syria, which in some cases may be dozens of miles. Likewise, in the north the Turkish incursion continues. However, far less information is available to determine exactly how much of Syria that Turkey has carved out for themselves (This is also complicated by Turkey's long history of creating a buffer zone in the north, which was somewhat agreed upon when Assad was in power) However, in response to both incursions, HTS has done nothing at all. This is probably out of fear of poking the bear too much. However, as time goes on (and the incursions into Syria continue), this dynamic will be interesting to observe. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z May 04, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: VBIED ATTACK CONDUCTED IN OREGON. NAVCENT PUBLISHES TRANSIT PLAN FOR VESSELS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ, WITH MIXED SUCCESS. IRAN CLAIMS TO TARGET US NAVY "PATROL BOAT" IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ, CENTCOM CLAIMS TO SINK 6X IRANIAN GUNBOATS IN GULF. VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK REPORTED IN GERMANY.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Strait of Hormuz: Major developments have taken place in the Strait over the weekend. Last night, President Trump announced the creation of "Project Freedom", a plan to allegedly "guide" third-party commercial ships out of the Persian Gulf, so as to at least get non-affiliated ships out of the combat zone for humanitarian reasons. Today, the details of the plan became more clear, and it also became clear that the Iranians did not agree with this plan, nor were they notified ahead of time. Early this morning, the United States revealed that the plan was actually the publishing of an alternate traffic scheme for merchant vessels to transit the Strait using Omani territorial waters. Immediately after this plan was published, two merchant vessels made the crossing attempt, both of which were either struck with Iranian cruise missiles or drones. Later on, a third vessel was reportedly on fire in the Strait, though the cause of the fire is not yet known. Following this incident, the IRGCN released a new map of the Strait, with two no-go barriers depicted to the east and west, further stressing that the Strait is closed. At some point throughout the day, the United States has claimed that two unidentified vessels were able to make it out of the Gulf, though the names of these vessels have not been released yet. Separately, kinetic targeting between the United States and Iran appears to have resumed on the high seas. After the United States announced the implementation of Project Freedom, US Forces conducted kinetic strikes on 6x Iranian gunboats patrolling either the Strait of Hormuz, or the Persian Gulf itself. On the Iranian side, the IRGCN have claimed to have targeted what they describe as an American Patrol Boat with two cruise missiles during the earlier strikes on merchant vessels. The Iranians claim that these missiles were not targeting the vessel, but were serving as warning shots to prevent the US vessel from proceeding further. Analyst Comment: Due to the linguistic and cultural barrier, all Middle Eastern nations tend to use doctrinally incorrect terminology when referring to American warships. In this case, "patrol boat" might not refer to an actual Riverine Command Boat (RCB), but might refer to a Destroyer (DDG) or maybe a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). CENTCOM issued a carefully worded statement confirming that a ship had not been hit, but did not address the claims directly. On the other hand, the Iranians have been known to make outlandish claims regarding the targeting of American warships, so it's equally possible that the Iranians tried to sink the vessel, then claimed that the missiles were "warning shots", so as to save face from successful interceptions. However, last night the sky over Hormuz was filled with munitions, and multiple hulls are burning in the Strait as of this morning, so out of all of the prior claims made by the Iranians, this one is the most plausible situation where the Iranians might have actually come close to hitting an American vessel. United Arab Emirates: After this morning's scuffle in the Strait, four Iranian drones/cruise missiles were reported in Fujairah, as Iranian forces targeted the large oil refinery complex which has been used to circumvent the need for merchant tankers to transit the Strait. The UAE indicated that three of these munitions were intercepted, but one made it through to it's target, with several large fires being reported at the refinery this afternoon. In response to these attacks, the UAE has begun to re-closed their airspace for the next week. Southern Atlantic: An outbreak of Hantavirus has been reported onboard a cruise ship which is currently moored off the coast of Cape Verde. Three passengers have died from the virus so far, and two other passengers are reportedly symptomatic. The vessel remains under quarantine while the extent of the illness is investigated. The vessel had previously departed Argentina, and the full ship's itinerary included stops in the Falklands, South Georgia Island, and a few other smaller islands as part of an Antarctic tour. Roughly 150 passengers and crew remain onboard the vessel. Europe: This afternoon a vehicle ramming attack was reported in Germany, after one assailant rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people in Leipzig, near a strip mall at the southwest corner of the main town square. Two individuals were killed immediately during the attack, and three others remain in serious condition at a local hospital. The assailant was detained at the scene, but has not yet been identified, other than authorities stating that he is a 33-year-old male from Germany, and at the time of his detention was verbally incoherent. -HomeFront- Oregon: Saturday morning a Vehicle-Borne IED attack was conducted at a gym in Portland. One former employee of the Multnomah Athletic Club rammed his vehicle into the main entrance to the facility, before detonating a series of explosives inside the vehicle. The explosives were comprised of several propane tanks, along with unidentified materials. The devices failed to produce a high-order explosion and instead mostly burned, consuming the vehicle. The suspect was the only person killed during the attack, and several other explosive devices were discovered in the vehicle that did not detonate during the fire. Analyst Comment: Local authorities have specifically stated that they are not treating this incident as a case of domestic terrorism, even though this incident meets most traditional criteria for a Complex Coordinated Attack (CCA) due to the attacker using multiple weapons during the attack (the vehicle ramming, and the IED detonations). USA: Around the nation, fuel prices increased substantially over the weekend once again, with a total of 8 states reporting diesel prices over $6.00 per gallon: Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, and California. Nationwide, only two states are below $5.00 per gallon for diesel (Texas and Georgia). Analyst Comment: While many citizens are beleaguered by high gas prices, keeping an eye on diesel is even more important. Diesel prices are directly tied to the consumer market, as everything from food to medicine is transported on trucks and trains that use this fuel. Many commercial-goods companies instituted price control measures two months ago when the war in Iran first began, with Amazon for example instituting a 3.5% surcharge for all third-party sellers on their platform, to cover the cost of rising fuel prices. As the price of diesel and other distillates climb higher, these fees are certain to increase as well. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Persian Gulf, wishing does NOT make it so. It is unclear as to what decision making process has been used by CENTCOM in the creation of Project Freedom, and it is hard to imagine that the plan really is indeed what has been implied. It's always easy to armchair-quarterback the war, and criticism of the operations so far has been plentiful all around. However, there's no way to sugarcoat this situation...intentionally putting civilian lives at risk without offering sufficient protection is...something. Telling ships that the US will "guide" them through, but this guidance essentially just being a roadmap and no substantial support, is hard to believe...but it sure looks like that's what happened this morning. As with this entire war so far, every single event will be analyzed and debated not just in terms of effectiveness, but also of intent. On the more nefarious end of that scale, one of the more plausible theories for the events of the day is that the goal was to not really open the Strait, but to get the Iranians to fire first, break the ceasefire, and thus justify a resumption of the bombing. Granted, the US doesn't really need a reason to continue the war, but sending a couple of Destroyers into the Strait (if they actually did that, which isn't confirmed) to provide the bare-minimum "security" in order to convince a handful of ships to cross, is not in accordance with traditional naval doctrine. Especially since the wording of the notice announcing "Project Freedom" confirms that NAVCENT clearly stated that they haven't cleared the mines, but that their route takes ships through the minefield. Consequently, using merchant vessels to clear a minefield by driving through it is an interesting choice that will result in cost savings for the US Navy, but is not likely to result in companies trusting the United States. CENTCOM claims that US Navy vessels are in the Strait and protecting merchants from Iranian targeting efforts, but if they are indeed in the Strait they are sailing with their transponders off, which is not exactly indicative of a safe situation. Plus, the two (possibly three) successful Iranian strikes in the minutes after Project Freedom began cast doubt on the success of those escort efforts. One of the critical requirements for warships escorting merchant vessels is to actually protect merchant ships from harm, and if this cannot be guaranteed there's not much confidence in the overall mission. As with any war, there are knowns and unknowns. Deception and obfuscation are critical parts of all warfare, and in this case military deception has been used on all sides to achieve military objectives. Granting CENTCOM leadership as much charity and leeway as reasonable in their planning efforts, it is possible that what is transpiring in the Strait cannot be observed with total certainty by outside forces; it's possible that one or two ships are sneaking through with their transponder turned off. It's also possible that a larger operation is brewing. The US has a lot of tools in the toolbox of deception, but the grand question is how much deception can actually work in such a tight space. Maritime chokepoints and the terrain of the battlespace offer finite parameters to work within...it's a small Strait, and a dude with binoculars perched on any point of 500 miles of Iranian coastline can clearly see any merchant shipping attempting to cross it at any time. Weather is nearly perfect in the region year round, and day or night, there is zero way to conceal a large vessel's transit through the waterway. Considering all angles, it's theoretically possible that the US Navy has actually secretly cleared (or at least marked) many mines, if not from above the waves, then from below. The US certainly has the technical ability to get one or two ships out, but getting traffic back to the pre-war numbers of 100+ merchant ships transiting the Strait every day is not going to be possible without the Iranian's cooperation. Sneaking two ships out successfully (while also losing the same number to missiles), is what most would call a pyric victory at best, and since there are roughly 2,000 merchant vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf right now, this Project has gotten off to a rocky start. From the perspective of the commercial maritime industry, there's simply no way to know beyond all doubt what threats remain, and what the United States and Iran will do. But therein lies the problem...insurance companies and merchant mariners alike don't make decisions based on *all doubt*, but rather *reasonable doubt*. And right now it is very reasonable to not want to transit the Strait due to the risks, which remain insufficiently mitigated by western forces. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z February 13, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK STRIKES GERMANY. STABBING ATTACK REPORTED NEAR TURKISH CONSULATE IN LONDON. US NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER COLLIDES WITH MERCHANT VESSEL IN EGYPT.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Germany: Early this morning a vehicle ramming attack was conducted in the city of Munich, resulting in the wounding of 28x people who were participating in a labor strike protest demonstration. Two people remain in serious condition, which are a mother and small child. The suspect, who has been identified as "Farhad N.", is an immigrant from Afghanistan who was allegedly already marked for deportation due to prior criminal offenses. AC: Of note, American Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy were scheduled to meet in Munich for a security conference. As this is a developing situation this morning, it is not clear as to how this terror attack may impact the scheduling of the security conference. Middle East: This afternoon the USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75) was involved in a collision with a commercial vessel in the vicinity of Port Said in Egypt. The TRUMAN collided with the M/V BESITKAS-M, a bulk cargo carrier flagged out of Panama, and did not experience any flooding. AC: Very few details have come to light regarding how an American aircraft carrier can even be involved in a collision (due to being surrounded by escort ships and host to extreme levels of security), however it's possible that the collision took place in the very busy waterways leading to the Suez Canal. Even taking into account the challenges of maritime navigation through these waters, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which a collision with an aircraft carrier can occur. United Kingdom: Limited reporting on social media this afternoon indicated that an incident took place outside the Turkish Consulate in London. A man approached the Consulate and set a Koran on fire while standing on the sidewalk outside the compound. A random passerby promptly stabbed the man. AC: Absolutely zero British media has covered this story, or even mentioned that it happened. As such, no details can verify that this incident actually happened, beyond video evidence posted on social media. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The horrific attack in Munich is made more poignant in the context of local German political activity. Three days ago, a very large demonstration involving an estimated 200,000 Germans was carried out in Munich, specifically in opposition to both the AfD political party, and various immigration issues. Three days later, one of the "immigrants" that those people were protesting to keep in their nation, rams his vehicle into a crowd. As a result (and very likely intended to get ahead of this tragedy reigniting immigration issues), outgoing Chancellor Scholz immediately called for the attacker to be punished and deported, a sharp departure from Germany's very pro-immigration stance across most of the nation. Scholz's very likely replacement, Friedrich Merz, echoed the same sentiments while on the campaign trail, stating that "something has to change in Germany". However, all of this rhetoric is very likely to be more of a knee-jerk reaction rather than a genuine change of heart or policy. For instance, immediately following his statements this morning, Merz announced a new targeting effort aimed at Elon Musk, for allowing Merz's political opposition (yet also very likely to be a coalition partner, the AfD party) to have a presence on Twitter/X. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//1500Z September 9, 2025// //PRIORITY// //BLUF: ISRAELI FORCES BOMB QATAR TO KILL HAMAS LEADERSHIP WHICH ARRIVED FOR PEACE TALKS. NEPALI GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN AS PM RESIGNS AND PARLIAMENT BURNS. BLACKOUTS REPORTED IN BERLIN DUE TO TERRORIST ATTACKS ON ELECTRICAL GRID.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Germany: This morning power outages were reported throughout Berlin, as multiple insurgent groups conduct coordinated attacks on electrical infrastructure around the city. Local authorities state that two separate transmission towers were set on fire by malign actors, and several cable cutting attacks may have also been undertaken (though that is uncertain at this time). Analyst Comment: Right now no definitive confirmation on who conducted these attacks, but historically these types of attacks are conducted by ecoterrorists, which have conducted arson attacks (and cable-cuttings) on electrical infrastructure around Europe for some time now. Middle East: This morning Israeli forces conducted strikes in Doha, widening the war to now include engaging in hostilities in Qatar. Israeli officials have confirmed that they carried out a strike on Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader in charge of the delegation sent to conduct peace talks in Doha. The American Embassy has issued a shelter-in-place order for American citizens throughout the country. Analyst Comment: This is a big deal. It's one thing to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, but it's a major escalation to bomb a nation with serious power throughout the region. Bombing the country that is currently mediating the war they are fighting also effectively eliminates any chance of peace. Nepal: Overnight the Nepalese government was overthrown in chaos after widespread demonstrations broke out regarding corruption issues in government. In the span of just a few hours, these demonstrations expanded to include demonstrators breaching the Parliamentary compound, which resulted in security forces opening fire on the crowds, killing 19x people. A few minutes after these shootings, more demonstrators stormed the Parliament building and set it on fire. Most of the residences of high ranking government officials were also breached and burned. Several high-level Ministers were severely beaten, including the Finance Minister, who was observed being dragged through the streets. One of Nepal's former PM's was also beaten severely, but for now is still alive. Current Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli has resigned and was able to escape Kathmandu via helicopter. Most of the government has resigned, and many cabinet ministers remain unaccounted for. Flights out of Kathmandu Airport have been halted due to the unrest, so flights out of the country will be unavailable for some time. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The events in Nepal bear the hallmarks of non-organic regime change, though for what purpose (and by whom) remains unclear at the moment. These demonstrations did not spring up out of nowhere, they were organized by Hami Nepal, an NGO that is so new that their own website is not yet finished. This organization appears to mostly be active in earthquake disaster relief, so organizing a political protest is not within their missionset as described on their website. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

This is Wire 4 2300 Zulu, May 4th, 2026. Precedence is routine. Information cut off is 2200. Bottom line up front, VBIED attack conducted in Oregon. NAVCENT publishes transit plan for vessels in Strait of Hormuz with mixed success. Iran claims to target US Navy patrol boat in Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM claims to sink six Iranian gunboats in Gulf. Vehicle ramming attack reported in Germany. Beginning with international events in the Strait of Hormuz, major developments have taken place in the Strait over the weekend. Last Trump announced the creation of Project Freedom, a plan to allegedly guide third-party commercial ships out of the Persian Gulf so as to at least get non-affiliated ships out of the combat zone for humanitarian reasons. Today, the details of the plan became more clear and it also became clear that the Iranians did not agree with this plan, nor were they notified ahead of time. Early this morning, the United States revealed that the plan was actually the publishing of an alternate traffic scheme for merchant vessels to transit the Strait using Omani territorial waters. Immediately after this plan was published, two merchant vessels made the crossing attempt, both of which were either struck with Iranian cruise missiles or drones. Later on, a third vessel was reportedly on fire in the Strait, though the cause of the fire is not yet known. Following this incident, the IRGCN released a new map of the Strait with two no-go barriers depicted to the east and the west, further stressing that the Strait is closed. At some point throughout the day, the United States has claimed that two unidentified vessels were able to make it out of the Gulf, though the names of these vessels have not been released yet. Separately, kinetic targeting between the United States and Iran appears to have resumed on the high seas. After the United States announced the implementation of Project Freedom, US forces conducted kinetic strikes on six Iranian gunboats patrolling either the Strait of Hormuz or the Persian Gulf itself. On the Iranian side, the IRGCN have claimed to have targeted what they describe as an American patrol boat with two cruise missiles during the earlier strikes on merchant vessels. The Iranians claimed that these missiles were not targeting the vessel, but were serving as warning shots to prevent the US vessel from proceeding further. Analysts comment, "Due to the linguistic and cultural barrier, all Middle Eastern nations tend to use doctrinally incorrect terminology when referring to American warships. In this case, patrol boat might not refer to an actual riverine command boat, but might refer to a destroyer or maybe a littoral combat ship." CENTCOM issued a carefully worded statement confirming that a ship had not been hit, but did not address the claims directly. On the other hand, the Iranians have been known to make outlandish claims regarding the targeting of American warships, so it's equally possible that the Iranians tried to sink the vessel then claimed that the missiles were warning shots so as to save face from successful interceptions. However, last night the sky over Hormuz was filled with munitions and multiple holes are burning in the strait as of this morning, so out of all of the prior claims made by the Iranians, this one is the most plausible situation where the Iranians might have actually come close to hitting an American vessel. In the United Arab Emirates, after this morning's scuffle in the strait, four Iranian drones or cruise missiles were reported in Fujairah as Iranian forces targeted the large oil refinery complex which has been used to circumvent the need for merchant tankers to transit the strait. The UAE indicated that three of these munitions were intercepted, but one made it through to its target with several large fires being reported at the refinery this afternoon. In response to these attacks, the UAE has begun to reclose their airspace for the next week. In the Southern Atlantic, an outbreak of hantavirus has been reported on board a cruise ship which is currently moored off the coast of Cape Verde. Three passengers have died from the virus so far and two other passengers are reportedly symptomatic. The vessel remains under quarantine while the extent of the illness is investigated. The vessel had previously departed Argentina and the full ship's itinerary included stops in the Falklands, South Georgia Island, and a few other smaller islands as part of an Antarctic tour. Roughly 150 passengers and crew remain on board the vessel. In Europe, this afternoon a vehicle ramming attack was reported in Germany after one The rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people in Leipzig near a strip mall at the southwest corner of the main town square. Two individuals were killed immediately during the attack and three others remain in serious condition at a local hospital. The assailant was detained at the scene but has not yet been identified other than authorities stating that he is a 33-year-old male from Germany and at the time of his detention was verbally incoherent. On the home front in Oregon Saturday morning a vehicle born IED attack was conducted at a gym in Portland. One former employee of the Multnomah Athletic Club rammed his vehicle into the main entrance to the facility before detonating a series of explosives inside the vehicle. The explosives were comprised of several propane tanks along with unidentified materials. The devices failed to produce a high order explosion and instead mostly burned consuming the vehicle. The suspect was the only person killed during the attack and several other explosive devices were discovered in the vehicle that did not detonate during the fire. Analyst comment, "Local authorities have specifically stated that they are not treating this incident as a case of domestic terrorism even though this incident meets most traditional criteria for a complex coordinated attack due to the attacker using multiple weapons during the attack, the vehicle ramming and the IED detonations." Around the nation fuel prices increased substantially over the weekend once again with a total of eight states reporting diesel prices over $6 per gallon. Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, and California. Nationwide only two states are below $5 per gallon for diesel, Texas and Georgia. Analyst comment, "While many citizens are beleaguered by high gas prices keeping an eye on diesel is even more important. Diesel prices are directly tied to the consumer market as everything from food to medicine is transported on trucks and trains that use this fuel. Many commercial goods companies instituted price control measures two months ago when the war in Iran first began with Amazon for example instituting a 3.5% surcharge for all third-party sellers on their platform to cover the cost of rising fuel prices. As the price of diesel and other distillates climb higher these fees are certain to increase as well. Analyst comments for this wire: In the Persian Gulf, wishing does not make it so. It is unclear as to what decision-making process has been used by CENTCOM in the creation of Project Freedom, and it is hard to imagine that the plan really is indeed what has been implied. It's always easy to armchair quarterback the war, and criticism of the operations so far has been plentiful all around. However, there's no way to sugarcoat this situation. Intentionally putting civilian lives at risk without offering sufficient protection is something. Telling ships that the US will guide them through, but this guidance essentially just being a roadmap and no substantial support is hard to believe, but it sure looks like that's what happened this morning. As with this entire war so far, every single event will be analyzed and debated, not just in terms of effectiveness, but also of intent. On the more nefarious end of that scale, one of the more plausible theories for the events of the day is that the goal was to not really open the strait, but to get the Iranians to fire first, break the ceasefire, and thus justify a resumption of the bombing. Granted, the US doesn't really need a reason to continue the war, but sending a couple of destroyers into the strait, if they actually did that, which isn't confirmed, to provide the bare minimum security in order to convince a handful of ships to cross, is not in accordance with traditional naval doctrine. Especially since the wording of the notice announcing Project Freedom confirms that NAVCENT clearly stated that they haven't cleared the mines, but that they're route to take ships through the minefield. Consequently, using merchant vessels to clear a minefield by driving through it is an interesting choice that will result in cost savings for the US Navy, but is not likely to result in companies trusting the United States. CENTCOM claims that US Navy vessels are in the strait and protecting merchants from Iranian targeting efforts. But if they are indeed in the strait, they are sailing with their transponders off, which is not exactly indicative of a safe situation. Plus, the two, possibly three, successful Iranian strikes in the minutes after Project freedom began cast out on the success of those escort efforts. One of the critical requirements for warships escorting merchant vessels is to actually protect merchant ships from harm, and if this cannot be guaranteed, there's not much confidence in the overall mission. As with any war, there are knowns and unknowns. Deception and obfuscation are critical parts of all warfare, and in this case, military deception has been used on all sides to achieve military objectives. Granting CENTCOM leadership as much charity and leeway as reasonable in their planning efforts, it is possible that what is transpiring in the strait cannot be observed with total certainty by outside forces. It's possible that one or two ships are sneaking through with their transponder turned off. It's also possible that a larger operation is brewing. The US has a lot of tools in the toolbox of deception, but the grand question is how much deception can actually work in such a tight space. Maritime choke points and the terrain of the battle space offer finite parameters to work within. It's a small strait, and a dude with binoculars perched on any point of 500 miles of Iranian coastline can clearly see any merchant shipping attempting to cross it at any time. Weather is nearly perfect in the region year-round, and day or night, there is zero way to conceal a large vessel's transit through the waterway. Considering all angles, it's theoretically possible that the US Navy has actually secretly cleared or at least marked many mines, if not from above the waves, then from below. The US certainly has the technical ability to get one or two ships out, but getting traffic back to the pre-war numbers of 100 plus merchant ships transiting the strait every day is not going to be possible without the Iranians cooperation. Sneaking two ships out successfully while also losing the same number to missiles is what most would call a pyrrhic victory at best, and since there are roughly 2,000 merchant vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf right now, this project has gotten off to a rocky start. From the perspective of the commercial maritime industry, there's simply no way to know beyond all doubt what threats remain and what the United States and Iran will do. But, therein lies the problem. Insurance companies and merchant mariners alike don't make decisions based on all doubt, but rather reasonable doubt. And right now, it is very reasonable to not want to transit the strait due to the risks, which remain insufficiently mitigated by Western forces. This concludes the wire for 2300 Zulu, May 4th, 2026.

//The Wire//2300Z May 04, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: VBIED ATTACK CONDUCTED IN OREGON. NAVCENT PUBLISHES TRANSIT PLAN FOR VESSELS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ, WITH MIXED SUCCESS. IRAN CLAIMS TO TARGET US NAVY "PATROL BOAT" IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ, CENTCOM CLAIMS TO SINK 6X IRANIAN GUNBOATS IN GULF. VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK REPORTED IN GERMANY.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Strait of Hormuz: Major developments have taken place in the Strait over the weekend. Last night, President Trump announced the creation of "Project Freedom", a plan to allegedly "guide" third-party commercial ships out of the Persian Gulf, so as to at least get non-affiliated ships out of the combat zone for humanitarian reasons. Today, the details of the plan became more clear, and it also became clear that the Iranians did not agree with this plan, nor were they notified ahead of time. Early this morning, the United States revealed that the plan was actually the publishing of an alternate traffic scheme for merchant vessels to transit the Strait using Omani territorial waters. Immediately after this plan was published, two merchant vessels made the crossing attempt, both of which were either struck with Iranian cruise missiles or drones. Later on, a third vessel was reportedly on fire in the Strait, though the cause of the fire is not yet known. Following this incident, the IRGCN released a new map of the Strait, with two no-go barriers depicted to the east and west, further stressing that the Strait is closed. At some point throughout the day, the United States has claimed that two unidentified vessels were able to make it out of the Gulf, though the names of these vessels have not been released yet. Separately, kinetic targeting between the United States and Iran appears to have resumed on the high seas. After the United States announced the implementation of Project Freedom, US Forces conducted kinetic strikes on 6x Iranian gunboats patrolling either the Strait of Hormuz, or the Persian Gulf itself. On the Iranian side, the IRGCN have claimed to have targeted what they describe as an American Patrol Boat with two cruise missiles during the earlier strikes on merchant vessels. The Iranians claim that these missiles were not targeting the vessel, but were serving as warning shots to prevent the US vessel from proceeding further. Analyst Comment: Due to the linguistic and cultural barrier, all Middle Eastern nations tend to use doctrinally incorrect terminology when referring to American warships. In this case, "patrol boat" might not refer to an actual Riverine Command Boat (RCB), but might refer to a Destroyer (DDG) or maybe a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). CENTCOM issued a carefully worded statement confirming that a ship had not been hit, but did not address the claims directly. On the other hand, the Iranians have been known to make outlandish claims regarding the targeting of American warships, so it's equally possible that the Iranians tried to sink the vessel, then claimed that the missiles were "warning shots", so as to save face from successful interceptions. However, last night the sky over Hormuz was filled with munitions, and multiple hulls are burning in the Strait as of this morning, so out of all of the prior claims made by the Iranians, this one is the most plausible situation where the Iranians might have actually come close to hitting an American vessel. United Arab Emirates: After this morning's scuffle in the Strait, four Iranian drones/cruise missiles were reported in Fujairah, as Iranian forces targeted the large oil refinery complex which has been used to circumvent the need for merchant tankers to transit the Strait. The UAE indicated that three of these munitions were intercepted, but one made it through to it's target, with several large fires being reported at the refinery this afternoon. In response to these attacks, the UAE has begun to re-closed their airspace for the next week. Southern Atlantic: An outbreak of Hantavirus has been reported onboard a cruise ship which is currently moored off the coast of Cape Verde. Three passengers have died from the virus so far, and two other passengers are reportedly symptomatic. The vessel remains under quarantine while the extent of the illness is investigated. The vessel had previously departed Argentina, and the full ship's itinerary included stops in the Falklands, South Georgia Island, and a few other smaller islands as part of an Antarctic tour. Roughly 150 passengers and crew remain onboard the vessel. Europe: This afternoon a vehicle ramming attack was reported in Germany, after one assailant rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people in Leipzig, near a strip mall at the southwest corner of the main town square. Two individuals were killed immediately during the attack, and three others remain in serious condition at a local hospital. The assailant was detained at the scene, but has not yet been identified, other than authorities stating that he is a 33-year-old male from Germany, and at the time of his detention was verbally incoherent. -HomeFront- Oregon: Saturday morning a Vehicle-Borne IED attack was conducted at a gym in Portland. One former employee of the Multnomah Athletic Club rammed his vehicle into the main entrance to the facility, before detonating a series of explosives inside the vehicle. The explosives were comprised of several propane tanks, along with unidentified materials. The devices failed to produce a high-order explosion and instead mostly burned, consuming the vehicle. The suspect was the only person killed during the attack, and several other explosive devices were discovered in the vehicle that did not detonate during the fire. Analyst Comment: Local authorities have specifically stated that they are not treating this incident as a case of domestic terrorism, even though this incident meets most traditional criteria for a Complex Coordinated Attack (CCA) due to the attacker using multiple weapons during the attack (the vehicle ramming, and the IED detonations). USA: Around the nation, fuel prices increased substantially over the weekend once again, with a total of 8 states reporting diesel prices over $6.00 per gallon: Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, and California. Nationwide, only two states are below $5.00 per gallon for diesel (Texas and Georgia). Analyst Comment: While many citizens are beleaguered by high gas prices, keeping an eye on diesel is even more important. Diesel prices are directly tied to the consumer market, as everything from food to medicine is transported on trucks and trains that use this fuel. Many commercial-goods companies instituted price control measures two months ago when the war in Iran first began, with Amazon for example instituting a 3.5% surcharge for all third-party sellers on their platform, to cover the cost of rising fuel prices. As the price of diesel and other distillates climb higher, these fees are certain to increase as well. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In the Persian Gulf, wishing does NOT make it so. It is unclear as to what decision making process has been used by CENTCOM in the creation of Project Freedom, and it is hard to imagine that the plan really is indeed what has been implied. It's always easy to armchair-quarterback the war, and criticism of the operations so far has been plentiful all around. However, there's no way to sugarcoat this situation...intentionally putting civilian lives at risk without offering sufficient protection is...something. Telling ships that the US will "guide" them through, but this guidance essentially just being a roadmap and no substantial support, is hard to believe...but it sure looks like that's what happened this morning. As with this entire war so far, every single event will be analyzed and debated not just in terms of effectiveness, but also of intent. On the more nefarious end of that scale, one of the more plausible theories for the events of the day is that the goal was to not really open the Strait, but to get the Iranians to fire first, break the ceasefire, and thus justify a resumption of the bombing. Granted, the US doesn't really need a reason to continue the war, but sending a couple of Destroyers into the Strait (if they actually did that, which isn't confirmed) to provide the bare-minimum "security" in order to convince a handful of ships to cross, is not in accordance with traditional naval doctrine. Especially since the wording of the notice announcing "Project Freedom" confirms that NAVCENT clearly stated that they haven't cleared the mines, but that their route takes ships through the minefield. Consequently, using merchant vessels to clear a minefield by driving through it is an interesting choice that will result in cost savings for the US Navy, but is not likely to result in companies trusting the United States. CENTCOM claims that US Navy vessels are in the Strait and protecting merchants from Iranian targeting efforts, but if they are indeed in the Strait they are sailing with their transponders off, which is not exactly indicative of a safe situation. Plus, the two (possibly three) successful Iranian strikes in the minutes after Project Freedom began cast doubt on the success of those escort efforts. One of the critical requirements for warships escorting merchant vessels is to actually protect merchant ships from harm, and if this cannot be guaranteed there's not much confidence in the overall mission. As with any war, there are knowns and unknowns. Deception and obfuscation are critical parts of all warfare, and in this case military deception has been used on all sides to achieve military objectives. Granting CENTCOM leadership as much charity and leeway as reasonable in their planning efforts, it is possible that what is transpiring in the Strait cannot be observed with total certainty by outside forces; it's possible that one or two ships are sneaking through with their transponder turned off. It's also possible that a larger operation is brewing. The US has a lot of tools in the toolbox of deception, but the grand question is how much deception can actually work in such a tight space. Maritime chokepoints and the terrain of the battlespace offer finite parameters to work within...it's a small Strait, and a dude with binoculars perched on any point of 500 miles of Iranian coastline can clearly see any merchant shipping attempting to cross it at any time. Weather is nearly perfect in the region year round, and day or night, there is zero way to conceal a large vessel's transit through the waterway. Considering all angles, it's theoretically possible that the US Navy has actually secretly cleared (or at least marked) many mines, if not from above the waves, then from below. The US certainly has the technical ability to get one or two ships out, but getting traffic back to the pre-war numbers of 100+ merchant ships transiting the Strait every day is not going to be possible without the Iranian's cooperation. Sneaking two ships out successfully (while also losing the same number to missiles), is what most would call a pyric victory at best, and since there are roughly 2,000 merchant vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf right now, this Project has gotten off to a rocky start. From the perspective of the commercial maritime industry, there's simply no way to know beyond all doubt what threats remain, and what the United States and Iran will do. But therein lies the problem...insurance companies and merchant mariners alike don't make decisions based on *all doubt*, but rather *reasonable doubt*. And right now it is very reasonable to not want to transit the Strait due to the risks, which remain insufficiently mitigated by western forces. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for March 23rd through the 29th, 2025. As the title indicates, today I'm going to spend most of the time talking about some issues around the globe that are going to be of strategic concern, indications and warnings of impending conflicts and so on. So let's start off with the slide that I hope will not get very much use, which is essentially a World War II tracker. Staying at the very wave top level, let's briefly touch on some of the issues that have come to light over the past week. First of all, in North America, the trade disputes have continued between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, largely without very much notice. There have been some developments over the past week or so, just tit for tat things back and forth between the United States and Canada. A lot of rhetoric, a lot of shouting back and forth, but nothing really uh to sink our teeth into with regards to how this might affect the economy. Once again, we know that the economic situation globally is really just kind of in shambles at the moment and kind of hanging by a thread in many regards. So, it's hard to tell if a diplomatic spat between the United States and Canada or between the US and Mexico is is actually resulting or translating into higher prices at the grocery store. There are just too many things going on with the economy that could be contributing to high prices or low prices or low availability or logistics issues. It's just too hard to to nail down to one specific data point. This week, the White House has also increased the rhetoric with regards to Greenland, making it very, very likely that the United States will obtain Greenland in some form or fashion. Of course, many Greenlanders are quite upset about this uh because they may end up paying higher taxes than they already do and other reasons as well. Greenland is a very complicated diplomatic zone. It's not really an independent nation. Technically, it's legally counted as a county in Denmark and it is uh treated as such. However, the Kingdom of Denmark has really given a lot of autonomy to Greenland, but not autonomy with regards to things like diplomatic relations. So, for instance, the Greenlanders can't get together and make a treaty with another nation. That's going to be kind of like an international thing. So, really, Greenland has just kind of been left to their own devices. However, some of the rhetoric from Danish politicians has really taken a very interesting turn uh in that a lot of Danish politicians have brought up the the essential fact that the United States more or less already does own Greenland. We have freedom of maneuver there. We can do whatever we want to in Greenland. They've already granted permission going way back to the 50s in the Cold War, right? So, just shooting from the hip, it seems like a lot of the Danish politicians are taking the perspective of so what I mean, you guys already own it. Like, what do you what more do you want? Clearly, the United States wants a little bit more formalization of of Greenland, either becoming a state or a protectorate or a territory in some way, probably to increase things like missile defense. I mean, we already do that. We already have a sub substantial Arctic presence in Greenland, but it seems like we're we're trying to formalize that a little bit more with regards to the diplomatic status of that. So, this will be interesting to see as time goes on. But again, in the context of a large superpower annexing a historic territory that they've had influence over for a long period of time. This is a little bit ironic in in the grand scheme of things as we can see uh moving forward. Moving over to the United Kingdom, our friends across the pond have had a a bit of a rough week uh with regards to both domestic and international issues. Domestically, the United Kingdom is facing a formalization of their two-tier legal system to allow minorities and other protected classes of citizen to have formally lighter sentences. So a judgment was was passed by or or a policy was passed by the sentencing council of the United Kingdom to formalize lighter sentences for certain protected classes of citizen mostly uh along racial demographics. So this has obviously been a very very hot button issue over the past few years really or even decades if you if you want to go back that far. But recently this has become a very palpably difficult topic for the United Kingdom over the past few weeks. So hopefully they will get things ironed out, but it's not looking good for the formalization of a two-tier justice system in the United Kingdom. Internationally, the United Kingdom is still pressing the uh deployment of British soldiers to Ukraine uh for some reason. This is a personal initiative of Kier Starmer, the prime minister. However, there are a lot of citizens who do support this idea. A lot obviously do not, but a lot still do. So online, it's kind of hard to determine how popular of an idea this is. I can't imagine it being very popular among citizens, especially considering how the war has gone so far and we are kind of at the 11th hour at this point with the war in Ukraine. But we shall see how it goes. Hopefully, this is not something that is going to actually come to fruition, but it may. I I don't actually know. Of course, most nations in NATO have sent troops to Ukraine in some form or fashion, either as quote unquote advisers or special forces or things like that. But in terms of deploying an actual conventional army in any force uh not in a training role but to fight that is a lot different of a story. So we will have to see how that works out but hopefully it's just rhetoric at the moment. Speaking of Ukraine uh situation in Ukraine has not gotten any better. It some may say it's gotten worse uh with regards to a diplomatic situation. However, like I pointed out in the wire, a lot of positions are becoming a little bit more clear. So many people can say that's probably a good thing for all the world leaders to involve to kind of you know cut the nicities and let's just get right to the meat of the matter. That seems to be where uh Vladimir Putin is at especially at the moment. So Putin has made it very clear that he wants regime change. He's not going to be making a deal with Ukraine in any form or fashion as long as Zalinsky has a future uh as Ukraine's leader. Of course for many people who are on the pro- Ukraine side of things, they're going to say, "Well, of course he's going to say that. Of course he wants Zinsky gone." However, Zalinski and Ukraine, as as shocking and challenging as it may be to hear for some, uh Ukraine does not really have a say in in their future at this point, this is most certainly a conflict between the United States and Russia. And negotiations are going to be conducted between the United States and Russia without very much input from Ukraine. So, it's really all up to whether the United States wants to keep Zalinsky on board uh and protect him for a bit of time or if they want to horse trade around a little bit and see what they can get from Russia because it really as as bad as it sounds, Ukraine really doesn't have a say in any of this. So, this is uh all on what the United States will see fit and I guess we'll have to see what the United States says because um Russia has made their position quite clear at the moment and uh we'll see how close we can get to some kind of deal over the next couple of weeks. Moving down to Africa, I wanted to touch on the conflict in the Congo. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there's kind of a civil war going on there now. I think we can safely call it a civil war. And really, it's not going super well. So, uh, the leadership of the Congo, I'm not sure if you could call them democratically elected or not, but the leadership of the Congo, the formalized government of the Congo, has essentially just kind of cut all pretenses and invited the United States to come in and eliminate the M23 rebels. In exchange, the United States gets to keep all the minerals in the Congo or some sort of mineral deal. So, at least that's a little bit of a refreshing change of place. Purely a mercenary style uh conflict. I very strongly doubt the United States will take up the Congo on on that. Nobody really has the appetite to go into subsaharan Africa at this point, but I found it kind of interesting that warlords and democratically elected warlords are really just kind of openly vying for power at this moment and not really going with any pretenses for what they're trying to do. So at least that's kind of interesting. Moving over to the Middle East and the South China Sea, there are a significant amount of developments going on, which I will touch on in just a moment. But essentially, the United States is staging an awful lot of resources throughout various bases in the Middle East, most notably at the very infamous CIA black site at Diego Garcia and also at the more well-known base Aluded in Qatar. So, we'll get into that in a moment. And also in the Far East, the Chinese naval activity has been increasing with regards to Taiwan. They're conducting a lot of drills, a lot of flyovers, a lot of maritime exercises, things like that. So, something to keep an eye on. Not a whole lot of uh indicators for an imminent invasion of Taiwan, but China is most definitely uh interested in that for sure. And they are making moves uh to continually prepare for that as they have been doing for well over a decade now. So, that's really the global situation at the moment. Let's get into it a little bit more specifically and let's start by taking a look at a few data points that I have been updating throughout the week. The more astute of you may have noticed that I uh throughout the week have been updating the various Tesla vandalism or incident attack sites on the SIPOP map, the ArcGIS map project that I'm working on. I know it seems rather underwhelming. Uh however, these are the Tesla vandalism incidents that have occurred that I have been able to find and geollocate with pretty good accuracy. I think over the past couple of months, I didn't go back uh to 2024. This is really just this year, so January until essentially now. Most of these it's very hard to geollocate because when someone posts a video of their Tesla being keyed or set on fire or something, most of the time people do not uh actually post where it is. So I have to spend a few hours trying to geollocate where a lot of these attacks are taking place. So, so just as a reminder, generally speaking, when it comes to the world of, you know, open- source intelligence, really, it's it's going to be very very hard. It makes it makes it very hard when people post a video and say, "Look at this. This is outrageous." And then they don't tell me where it is. Uh it would be very very helpful if there was a street address or something because most of the time they're just posting like, "Oh, okay. Well, there was a Tesla that got keyed in Kansas City." And then I have to go and find where it took place. So, it's hard to find a lot of these sites, but uh I will continue updating this tracker. Really uh I I don't want to uh over focus on this too much because really this is more along the lines of a low inensity conflict kind of thing. However, this is a way for me to kind of demonstrate some of the uh tools that I have and more importantly build templates for myself for later. So, so please don't think that uh I think this is a a hugely World War II level concern for me. No, no, no. It's it's certainly not. Um it's it is a concern. Obviously, vandalism incidents are a specific kind of low-intensity conflict that I think will personally continue on in the future. But right now, this is really just an exercise for me to uh document some of these things because it's an easy data point to analyze and feed in uh to a create layers on my own and then push those to the web map. So, when it comes to the main battle tracking map, the main SIP cup map, uh I will keep the I will keep this data flowing and try to document this as best I can because as far as I know, there isn't one central repository for for all of this data, but you can download it as an Excel spreadsheet. I think I'll have to double check that from from the website, but oh, and also I forgot to mention, so when you click on each one of these pucks on the map, you can click each one of these icons and uh see a clickable link for the source. It may not work on your phone. I mean, it should work on phones, but it maybe a little bit easier on a desktop browser or something like that. So, this is just kind of again a reminder of some of the more data intense things that I'm working on. Again, I'm not really sure how helpful it is for everyone, but getting the the workflow down pat on my end is is a little bit more helpful for me. Uh, and I think it may it may bear fruit in due time. Same thing with the dashboard. Uh, when it comes to this specific data set, like, you know, Tesla attacks by day and type, I can actually graph that. So again, I'm I'm really not sure if this is helpful or useful for anybody. It's probably going to appeal to not that many people, but uh that's okay. But for the dashboard product that I have, as we can see, I can put charts in there uh and move things around and change things up. This may change by the time the video comes out, but as we can see, the very rudimentary uh primitive chart that I can bring into the map to analyze these data points. It makes it a little easier to see that attacks are increasing. these vandalism attacks and incidents are uh becoming a lot more frequent and a lot more each day when they do happen. So, but yeah, a little bit more helpful than just looking at a raw map. If we can actually take these data points and put them into a chart, this helps sort of build the story uh that we're trying to tell here. So, I have many many many more data layers uh that I'm working on right now that I have not published and pushed to the map yet. I hope to have a lot of that finished by this uh next week, but who knows? So you guys know um working with any kind of GIS system, it takes a very very long time to get anything done. But I will continue pushing on for those that uh find this stuff helpful. So moving over to Western Europe, I wanted to mention two incidents this week. Again, the terror attacks have continued. Unfortunately, it's already becoming a very hot year for that sort of thing. In Germany, there was a a sort of questionable event uh which is is it's not entirely certain if this was a terror attack or if this was more along the lines of just a a murder uh situation. The mainstream media is reporting that essentially a teenager was approaching a a vehicle checkpoint. Didn't have a license, was kind of joy riding around and he panicked and tried to turn around before he got to the checkpoint. Ended up ramming into a crowd of people. I'm not entirely certain if you would classify that as a traditional terrorism attack or if this was just a careless uh not really caring about anyone uh else around him kind of thing. Of course, in either situation, the driver took deliberate actions to harm people. However, it's the circumstances and context behind that are still up for debate. Of course, Germany uh really does try to take care of their criminals. So, it's really hard to find any sort of data on any criminal after any attack occurs. You're you're really lucky to get what you get. So, I don't expect to get any more details on this one, but I will definitely keep an eye out. Similar situation in the Netherlands where there was a mass stabbing. This was uh most certainly a more deliberate terror attack. There were five people stabbed in Dam Square in Amsterdam a couple of days ago. Once again, the Dutch really like to uh cover up the identity of the attacker, so we're probably not going to get a name or any status for a while. However, there are rumors circulating, and I want to stress these are rumors, but there are rumors circulating that the asalent was a Ukrainian refugee. We do have pictures of the guy. We have video of uh bystanders taking the guy down and detaining him at the scene. However, you I mean, you can't really tell uh from any of the stuff that that I've seen so far. But anyway, we'll have to see how this develops, but I don't really have high hopes for any kind of information to come out from this either. Now, moving over to the Indian Ocean, uh as many of you have kind of noted over the past week or so, there have been substantial strategic indications and warnings of a major impending military conflict. Now, I do not say that lightly by any means, but there have been up to nine B2 Spirit strategic bombers stationed at Diego Garcia. And as we can see from this exceptionally blurry and cloudy image, this is sentinel imagery from March 28th. So, we got really lucky and got a good uh well, not good, but a better than nothing Sentinel imagery. This is open source satellite imagery that can be downloaded by the general public. These are just screenshots from their website and we can actually manipulate the image on the website itself. So, uh, we can take a look at the false color. And if we take that screenshot and manipulate it just a little bit using very rudimentary tools, we can increase the contrast and increase the saturation. And we can see that there are possibly at least five for sure, but possibly six B2 Spirit bombers parked on the south parking apron at the uh, airfield on Diego Garcia. So, what does this mean? What's the bottom line here? Well, very generally speaking, uh, for deployments of bombers usually mean we're going to bomb something. And B2 spirits because they are stealth bombers. These are could also be B-21 raiders. It's hard to tell. You can't really determine the difference in this imagery. Uh, however, generally speaking, deploying these types of assets, stealth bombers instead of B-52s, stealth bombers being deployed to Diego Garcia is a major indicator, a very significant indication and warning of a war with a nearpeer asset. So, what does this mean? Well, really what I'm trying to say is if we narrow down the potential adversaries in this region that uh B2 spirits would be used for, what I'm trying to say is that we don't necessarily need stealth bombers to be dropping bombs in Yemen. We've been doing pretty good so far without uh any kind of stealth assets, but we probably would need stealth bombers to drop bombs in Iran. So, the bottom line is that this could very well be, again, indications and warnings. It's not proof, but this could very well be staging for an impending war with Iran. Once again, I do not see that lightly. I do not want to panic anyone too much, but I'm just giving you the straight dope here. And this is uh something we would see if we're going to go to war with Iran. A lot of people have mentioned maybe China as well. Uh I would disagree. Uh generally speaking, we would not be deploying assets to Diego Garcia specifically unless we're trying to target Iran because Iran the Iranian missiles and most of Iranian weapon systems are just conveniently out of range for Diego Garcia. And that's still a long flight. If we were going to go to war with China and we were trying to forward deploy assets for that, you guys can do the research uh to determine what we might do uh with regards to the three islands chain doctrine. This has been very well thought out over the past 40 50 years or so. And generally, if we were to see these bombers at Guam or somewhere in the Marshall Islands or even in the Philippines, I would say, yeah, okay, that's probably an indicator of something going on with China. But Diego Garcia for me means Iran. Now, thinking big picture here, just to cover all bases and, you know, make sure that we're all examining this from a higher level, you know, more even-handed perspective, this could very well be a continuation of essentially speak softly and carry a big stick doctrine. Though, in this case, it would be speak very loudly and carry a big stick as well. This could be posturing. It could be what we call in the business power projection. Move a lot of bombers around. Make sure the Russian and Chinese satellites get a real good look at them. make sure the Iranians are very well aware that we can, you know, strike their country with arguable levels of success, right? Could be that the single phone call can bring all these bombers home like nothing happened. Uh they don't have to stay there permanently. They are for deployed for a reason. They can all just tomorrow by the time this brief gets out, we could get a new satellite image and they're all gone. That's just the way aviation works. However, this is out of the norm. This is not something we normally do. And most notably, there has been absolutely zero communication about this from the White House and the Pentagon and no journalists have been asking about this at all. So, it kind of makes me a little bit more concerned that that nobody said, "Oh, there's a drill going on or an exercise." As far as I know, there isn't an exercise going on. I may be wrong about that. There may be an exercise, but this many assets is is a little bit uh interesting. So, again, indication of warning of war. I hate to be the bearer of bad news on that, but this is what we have so far. Now, just to add a little bit more credence to this idea, there have been an increase in uh fuelers strat tankers and general air-to-air refueler assets moving into Aluded air base. So, for anyone who spent some time at the deed, they know that Aluded air base is a very big uh regional hub for logistics, right? An aircraft landing at Alud is certainly not an indicator of very much, right? They have strata tankers stationed there normally as you can see in the the purple boxes. These are all of the assets that are on the ground right now as this as I'm recording this brief uh on the 29th of March. So, we can see that there are a lot of uh you know tankers uh refuelers that are stationed there normally. One thing to note, however, is that last night uh a flight of four KC46 Pegasus tankers took off from the United States and flew all the way to Aluded. So, there are four additional KC46s there, and that's a lot. That's a pretty big deployment of resources. Uh, and once again, just as a general strategic indication and warning, you don't typically need this many for a drill or an exercise. So, moving four tankers from the United States all the way over to the Middle East, where they already have plenty, uh, is again, it's an indication. I can't say for certain that this means things are about to kick off, but it's it's definitely um definitely an indicator. So, so I will definitely keep an eye out. Uh and uh I know a lot of aviation watchers are going to keep an eye out. Uh and I'm also going to keep an eye out for other indications that maybe point to there not really being much going on. For instance, another thing that you might want to keep an eye on are ship movements or have there been deployments of ma major navy assets. More carriers than usual departing uh port. And so far, nothing's out of the ordinary with regards to the Navy. So, clearly this is more along the lines of an Air Force kind of show going on right now. But yeah, it's not a good look. I hate to be the mirror of bad news again, but uh B2s don't move around that much. Uh they don't forward deploy. They're very expensive aircraft and they're very secret aircraft as well. So, we tend to not forward deploy them too much unless there's something serious going on. So, half a dozen B2s and a handful of refuelers making their way to the Middle East is uh not a really a good sign. But once again, hopefully this is just posturing. Hopefully, this is just a big exercise I didn't tell anybody about. Hopefully, this is nothing at all and next week we can all uh just kind of breathe a little bit easier. But right now, it's something to be certainly aware of for sure. Not like any of us can do anything about it, but it's definitely something to be aware of for sure. So, switching topics significantly, let's talk about the earthquake in Burma. For many of you who do not know, a very significant earthquake hit the nation of uh Myanmar or for those of us who like to go with the old ways, Burma along with Thailand. So, this was a very large earthquake. We can see that centered along a fault line here. You can just look at the map and see, yeah, that's a on a fault line there. So far, I've seen estimates that state that 17 million people are potentially in the affected area. Even though we're not hearing very much from Burma at the moment, we can see the devastation is quite significant. I don't know what's going to come of this. I don't know how many casualties there are going to be, but I right now the official count is something like 100, a little over 100 casualties, but we're seeing skyscrapers come down here or or being impacted in some way. So, I I just don't know uh how this is going to go, but I will uh continue doing research and updating in the wire throughout the next week as recovery efforts start to get going. One of the things that's going to be very challenging is communications. So, as many of you who have been following the war in Burma know, uh really the Myanmar government doesn't really exist. Uh the country is being run by a military juna or honta depending on how you wanted to pronounce it. So, it's being run by a military council and it's technically in a state of coup. There has been a civil war going on there or I guess an attempt at a revolutionary war going on there and internet access has been very unreliable. When it does exist, it's been censored. So, you know, they're blocking the internet access to a lot of these major cities in Burma. So, it's hard to determine what to do. In that context, I think that makes a rather unfortunate segue to the Ghostnet reports for this week. For those of you who don't know, I'm sorry I keep forgetting to mention what this is. And I'm sure a lot of you who have recently kind of uh tuned into these briefings, you probably don't know what this is. So, just a brief overview, the Ghostnet is an HF radio network that I've kind of established here. Really, it's just a communications plan. It's nothing that I've invented new. It's just a kind of a shared way of exchanging information using highfrequency radios or shortwave radios. Some of you have maybe seen some of my content on shortwave radio and and how if the internet goes out, if you know, we lose power. Shortwave radio is really the only way to communicate uh off-rid without using someone else's infrastructure over long distances. Again, shortwave or HF radio is a whole other animal from, you know, the classic Bow Fang or handheld walkie-talkie kind of thing. But, uh, this is the the best shot I think we've got for now. It's going to improve over time. I've got other elements coming in, but this is really just a shared last ditch kind of ad hoc plan that we've kind of thrown together over the past year or so. And I think it's quite helpful for exchanging a lot of information completely off-rid. So from my receiver here without using the internet at all, I can pick up reports such as this. So these are random people around the United States and some parts of Canada that have uh decided to uh share information. So, as we can see, there are a lot of uh reports on things like wildfires and uh people checking in to see how many stations they heard. It's a it's a whole thing. So, uh it's really complicated to kind of explain, but the general gist of it is that this is a very very important part of communicating in a grid down sort of situation where access to the internet might not be a guarantee. So, uh thank you all for participating. Those of you who transmit and share information, you will get out of the ghost net what you put into it. So, uh, for many of you who are listen only, that's perfectly fine. That's what it's kind of intended for. But really, the guys out there who are the allstars are the ones who are putting in the work to to get on the air and share information from their local area. So, this is your chance uh to to share as much information as you can and keep others around you informed in a very safe and secure and reliable manner. That's pretty much all I have for today. Thank you guys all for watching. Here are the sources as usual. There are a plethora of links in the description as always, so you can get access to all the maps, charts, and all that kind of stuff just by checking out the links below, especially things like my research notes, and my sources throughout the week. Those are primarily on my Obsidian page. So, once again, thank you guys all for watching. Thank you for your support. It's been a busy week, and it's going to be a busy summer. I can already tell many of you already could probably agree with me on that. So, hopefully we'll uh be able to do a lot of good work this summer. But for now, thank you for all of your support, and we will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shape.

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the intel update for sunday the 10th of july 2022 and it is being recorded the day prior on the 9th of july so let's get right to it up first as usual our infrastructure incidents and concerns and we're going to kind of breeze through these a little quickly because there haven't been too many that are worth talking about in the infrastructure category this time around but up first in the northeast in connecticut there was a grocery store that caught fire and burned down in the early hours of the morning of july 4th really no information on this whatsoever just wanted to point out that it did happen uh it's kind of a smaller grocery store it's not a national chain and grocery store fires are unfortunately quite common so i don't know if this one is more to fairies or not just wanted to kind of put it out there moving down to the southeast uh i'm sure there was something that happened of note but i haven't quite found it yet so uh through my several hours worth of digging i haven't really found anything worth talking about for the southeast so we'll just go ahead and go to the east central midwestern region which of course again not very much going on this time around but there was a fire metal processing facility i think this one is very vague again more some of the more industrial fires in uh smaller townships don't really get a whole lot of press uh if they get any press at all so even the local news agency for this one out of white house ohio didn't know what in the sam hill was going on with this one so it looks like it was just a small fire at a metal processing facility uh the cause is unknown and of course the investigation is underway so it is this one looks like more more of your routine ones but but you can't really tell of course because there's just no information on it again keeping michigan in our minds we have the abbott laboratories flood recovery no news on that front so we're still waiting for an update from abbott laboratories moving to the west central midwestern region same story nothing really new to a report i'm sure something happened but i haven't found it for this time around so let's go down to the southwest in which case there was only one thing of note and it was of course again a liquid natural gas pipeline fire so this was out in fort men county texas there was a decently large as they always are pipeline burst in the middle of just a farmer's field so i don't know if somebody clipped it with you know some kind of agricultural implement as is extremely common because for those of you who don't know most pipelines are pretty they're not very deep underground they're only a few feet in most cases sometimes less than that so people hitting pipelines is not exactly an uncommon thing to have happen in in a lot of areas but again this one was in such a remote area and there wasn't any apparent construction going on in the mid immediate vicinity so there's no real telling uh what the cause of this was but again since it's a pipeline burst explosion type thing we're probably not going to hear about what the cause of this was and finally for the west again nothing significant to report so let's go ahead and move to the suspicious fires really only have two fires to add for uh this briefing and that is on july 1st in paterson new jersey the greater assembly house of prayer caught fire this one have no information on it whatsoever moving on to number 10 we have on the 8th of july in waverly tennessee a fire at the glenwood church of christ this one is we have a little bit more information on but still very sketchy not a whole lot of information gets put out there with regards to church fires specifically church fires but the local authorities have been kind of hesitant to say that this is under investigation for arson but the even just the local sheriff kind of commented that this is just one of seven or eight suspicious fires in the local area over the past few weeks so it looks like there might be something going on there in waverly tennessee but again we have seen this this kind of behavior pop up in various places around the country just these kind of arson style incidents right so again we're really probably not going to hear a whole lot about these suspicious fires that have been occurring around the country because we can call them suspicious but you know if a local jurisdiction calls them non-suspicious fires then you know where are we gonna what are we gonna do you know there's if that's kind of where the investigation stops you know the investigation stops right so uh we'll move on to the more unfortunate slides which are the kinetic incident trackers now i had to change this uh quite significantly because i did not have nearly enough room to make these all make these fit all on one slide so we're gonna have to break these down again by a region so we'll start again with the northeast region and talk about some of the more kinetic incidents that have occurred over the past 90 days or so really the two newest additions to this unfortunate uh tracker come to us from worcester massachusetts and they are two centers uh that were the target of jane's revenge in roughly the same kind of area and those were the problem pregnancy which is a clinic and again a clear way clinic as well so two pro-life clinics or resource centers or however you wanted to word it were attacked again by jane's revenge who claimed these attacks on their websites moving down southeast we have quite a diverse arrangement of terrorist attacks for this cycle uh beginning with the new additions for this time which are on the 3rd of july in hillsborough north carolina the holy family catholic church was vandalized no agency has claimed this particular attack but it was most likely antifa due to the graffiti they left behind this is just again one of many different church vandalisms that has occurred over the past 90 days the next day on july 4th also in north carolina in asheville north carolina there was an ied attack uh on a local statue or what the site of a former statue so again this is not particularly surprising asheville north carolina has a pretty solid antifa uh sort of left-wing militant presence and it would make a lot of sense because asheville actually took down a lot of their statues remember when last year or the year before last where all of the you know every government agency was looking to destroy any kind of history they possibly could of the civil war or things like that asheville north carolina had a lot of statues that they tore down and it looks like a couple of dudes affiliated with antifa or some other leftist group tried to build some homemade pipe bombs to blow up basically the the base of where a statue used to be so there wasn't a statue there anymore the the government had already destroyed it or removed it these guys were just trying to do to make again some kind of stupid attack on the site of where a statue used to be but again they were arrested of course and um i guess we'll see how that goes probably will be bailed out almost immediately uh but on on the same day in richmond virginia there was a mass shooting that was actually thwarted by a local citizen so this is a very interesting case that of course has been blacked out by the media because the two guys who are planning on conducting mass shootings against soft targets at july 4th celebrations uh these two guys were illegal immigrants so of course the mainstream media would not report on this kind of thing but i thought this was a very interesting case because the attack was thwarted very interestingly of course the richmond virginia police claimed 100 of the credit uh but it was actually stopped by a concerned citizen who reportedly overheard their plans to conduct a mass shooting so i'm very interested to see what the details are because overhearing a terrorist attack being planned is that almost never happens so was this were these guys literally like discussing their plans like in their house and their neighbor heard them or were they discussing it in a public location and someone overheard it i'm not entirely sure but either way this concerned citizen reported uh what they heard to the local authorities who then searched their place and got them to confess slash found all of their uh the weapons they were planning to use yeah very interesting case of domestic terrorism uh being thwarted on u.s soil again by concerned citizens so very interesting case indeed and finally in georgia one of the more interesting cases that i'm sure has swept all the way through the bottom depths of the internet by now uh this is the ied attack on the georgia guidestones so this is a very very very interesting case depending on how far you want to go down the rabbit hole of weird stuff on the internet and so for those who don't understand why this is such a polarizing slash interesting event it really surrounds the georgia guidestones themselves which are a very controversial monument that was put up a few years ago by unknown secretive groups slash agencies slash individuals right uh and this you can go read the wikipedia page before it gets deleted from the internet about what the georgia guidestones actually said um but it's depending on how strange you want to get into it what's undeniable i should say let me just start there what's undeniable is what the tablet says said it's a stone series of stone monuments kind of like an american version of stonehenge right our stone monument outdoors in the middle of nowhere that has some really weird inscriptions on it uh basically ten commandments so to speak for humanity i guess but the reason why this has been so controversial is what the commandments are so what's undeniable is that these tablets endorse things like mass genocide population control medical tyranny eugenics and things weird things like that right so of course it's going to get a lot of press when something like this gets blown up a lot of people have in the past attributed this as like a a monument to like either satanism or just like a sign of the antichrist or something like that like a world economic forum thing it's really hard to kind of put this into words what this thing actually was i think the most interesting part about all of it is not really the the rabbit hole stuff that you can go down on the internet but the the fact that this was attacked using uh ieds right in the past the the georgia guidestones of course based on the controversial things that these that's inscribed on these tablets these have been the subject of attack for a long time they've been vandalized graffiti has been they've been sprayed up with graffiti a lot this is this is nothing new what is new is someone using explosives to try to blow them up so yeah pretty interesting um i think though what's more interesting is the fact that there was pretty good security at the georgia guidestones like perimeter uh due to the past attacks that have kind of happened uh they put up a lot of security cameras and they've got a pretty good like you know security perimeter i won't say it's great but it looks to me like from what i've seen uh pretty decent and especially for in the middle of nowhere georgia and yet this kind of thing still happened i think though what is the most interesting part about the entire thing is that this ied attack occurred in the early hours of the morning on july 6th so way right in the middle of the night uh on july 6th well by the end of that day after the detonation had occurred they the guidestones were dismantled and destroyed people noticed construction equipment out there tearing down the rest of the monuments so from what i know about investigations of ied attacks on u.s soil i'm very highly suspicious that the site of an ied attack where you're trying to conduct chemical forensics and and conduct an investigation gets dismantled in just a few hours right after this idea attack happened like you would think there'd be crime scene tape around this sucker for at least a week or so while people are trying to figure out what happened and maybe go after the people because you know id attacks are not they're not common here in the united states especially against you know like a hardened structure like a stone tablet right so i don't know i think that the destruction of these guide stones immediately following the the explosive attack on them i think that's sketchy though i don't really know what else to think about it but again this is kind of a more weird one but since we don't really get to talk about ied attacks too often uh you know except in the context of like antifa or somebody i thought i'd mention it and especially considering i know that people are going to have a lot of questions about it so i guess we'll see what comes of it but my guess is due to the highly suspicious and secretive nature of the the guide stones themselves uh my guess is we're probably not gonna hear much about this uh anymore so i don't know we'll see though moving to the east central midwestern region we really just have three additions for this time three different terror attacks uh all three of course claimed by jane's revenge and all three are vandalism so the first one was in detroit michigan where a pro-life center a pregnancy center again was vandalized as expected and as you can see on the slide there numbers four and five occurred on the 22nd of june in jackson michigan both of them occurred they they shared an office so one of these uh places that was attacked was a pro-life center the jackson right to life center and the other one was interestingly enough a congressman's office so republican congressman tim wahlberg's office was vandalized along with the right to life center there it's a small building they kind of shared the same structure and people uh graffitied it up pretty good and damaged some of the facilities there so so again not really surprising this is kind of the mo by now for a lot of these leftist groups but again just wanted to mention it because we're seeing these attacks increase all over the nation moving to the west central midwestern region we have two new editions for this time both of them vandalism both of them claimed by jane's revenge again pretty standard by now uh one of them was a pro-life center in saint paul minnesota uh which was uh the birthright center uh company there just is kind of like a pro-life center uh they were attacked on the fifth of july and then going back to the second of june i forgot to mention this one on the last last time this is in des moines iowa an organization called dsm street medics which is a like a pro-life resource center they were also vandalized and again claimed by jane's revenge moving to the southwestern region we have a whole lot of nothing i haven't been able to find any in the states of arizona new mexico texas or oklahoma though i'm sure different attacks have occurred i just haven't found them yet so a lot of these are very much buried by the media and i'm sure that you can understand how hard it is to find these uh digging through the depths of the internet these days but again we'll keep an eye on the southwest but usually we're not really going to see too much just because of the climate and the nature of these attacks right so so for the western region we have two new additions for this slide this time both of them occurred on the 27th of june uh the first one was in portland oregon uh the mother and child education center it was like a pregnancy center was vandalized again by jane's revenge now i should note that this one is very interesting uh the local locals seem to think that this might have been an accident because the mother and child education center is they have not picked a side on the roe vs wade thing so they are not pro-choice and they are not pro-life at least according to them it's really hard to kind of say why they were targeted because they don't i'm not entirely sure if they offer abortions at this facility it seems like they're more along the lines of just just an education center and they kind of appeal to everyone at this particular place a lot of these pregnancy centers you're going to find are very much pro-life as you would expect but this one is more more center of the road which is a little confusing to me but it is portland right so it kind of makes sense in any case i looked at the photos of this facility's vandalism and it seems like it it could very well be a case of mistaken identity because this the name of this place is mother and child education center and if you look at the logo of the agency it looks very much like a pro-life facility so my guess is that the roaming bands of antifa members who have basically nested in portland over the past decade or so probably just saw the sign and said you know what we're gonna we're gonna attack that place so so yeah either way this one looked like it was more of a target of opportunity rather than a deliberately planned uh coordinated attack and on the same day on the 27th of june in longmont colorado a facility called life choices which is a more of a pro-life center education center type type thing uh it was set on fire and that is currently being listed as arson so so again not a lot of this is surprising unfortunately but still got to keep a keep an eye on this just so that everyone's aware of the the levels of terrorism that are going on around this country before we moved on i briefly wanted to mention that there has been some congressional interest in all of these attacks that seem to be popping up all over the country for instance senator chuck grassley of iowa sent a letter to the fbi last week urging the fbi to investigate the more than 40 pregnancy centers that have been attacked since the roe vs wade leake this is in addition to the letter tom cotton sent to the department of justice last month also urging the fbi to do their job the fbi has responded by saying that they are instigating excuse me investigating these attacks and have again encouraged citizens to report suspicious activity to their various hotlines but until something is done the average citizen is having to take a crash course in counter-terrorism in a nation which arrests people for trying to stop terrorist attacks on u.s soil so not exactly an easy task but this is certainly a great time for the average citizen to educate themselves and remain vigilant and when it comes to future terrorism we have really one just kind of warning to go out there and that is that several groups affiliated with antifa your more leftist militant groups uh have been offering bounties or encouraging the attack of supreme court justices in washington dc so far uh bounties have just been offered up for public sightings of brett kavanaugh specifically uh with bonuses for if he's still at a location when uh the the terror groups when the terrorists arrive so again they're looking to target supreme court justices deliberately and openly now uh which again is not surprising unfortunately but what is kind of interesting is places like the white house press secretary deliberately uh egging this kind of stuff on so the precursor to to this is uh brett kavanaugh being swarmed uh while he was out trying to have dinner at a dc restaurant so this kind of spurred these more leftist groups iww antifa uh any kind of communist party of you know whatever city these groups are really looking for for blood quite literally and are openly encouraging violence against public officials so my guess is that due to this latest event involving brett kavanaugh the conservative justices at least will be hidden away in secure locations for the foreseeable future uh and almost certainly they were probably looking at doing this before the roe versus way decision was released the leftist terror groups around this country are really predictable at this point but with leftist politicians again to include the white house press secretary openly encouraging these kinds of attacks we have to assume that these attacks will probably be used on conservative politicians or public figures as well so it will probably expand beyond just supreme court justices right when it comes to leftist groups in this country they're really only whipped up into action to do politicians bidding for them every few years or so i mean of course you're going to have your your classic um communist groups that are pretty much in well not pretty much they are in every single city in this country uh at this point but usually they're really kind of small groups uh your more deliberate terroristic kinds of attacks like your jane's revenge type stuff that only really occurs uh ever so often once they've kind of get their resources back or they get their funding uh the reason that i think we're seeing a lot of this now is because of course roe vs wade was a hugely uh motivating uh recruitment tool for them for one and it also allowed billionaire politicians to funnel this money into supporting their their demonstrations their protesting and especially their bail funds so as far as what all this means for the average citizen uh really the takeaway is to remember that while politicians have taxpayer-funded armed security for protection which have zero legal implications to think about you do not and you most certainly do not want to be collateral damage so if you're at a location that might be a target for leftist terror groups remember that defending yourself against these terrorists will in all likelihood result in you being the one prosecuted uh we've seen this in new york very recently uh and in texas but this sentiment has been echoed in pretty much every state around the nation in sporadic cases right uh i of course don't mean to be overly pessimistic on this but i just know that i myself do not have the budget to spend years of my life going through a kyle rittenhouse style show trial i would rather egress from an establishment that is undergoing a mob style attack rather than let the terrorists force me into action that's of course just my own opinion but i always think it's important to remind everyone of the way things are right now within our multi-tiered justice system high-ranking politicians might have security but if you are dining at the next table over what do you think is going to happen their security team is for them not for you and the legal implications of you being forced to defend yourself are not of their concern either no politician is going to bail you out of jail or pay your legal fees because their presence near you caused a mob to target you and you had to defend yourself so please keep this in mind as we move into a time in which politicians of one party are allowed to openly encourage the harm of their enemies and government agents arrest citizens for defending themselves or their families again not a pleasant thing to think about but i think it needs to be said constantly especially since genuine domestic terrorism is becoming a norm in the united states moving on to significant governmental actions we'll keep the peachy mood going and talk about ups so ups united parcel service has apparently gone absolutely insane and is now not only canceling their contracts with gun parts companies such as brownells but they are now openly stating that they will be opening and stealing your packages if their scanning sensors detect that you have ordered something they do not like and if this sounds vague it's because it is ups has not been clear about any of this the gun community has rightfully expressed outrage over this especially considering that ups is going above and beyond to create their own laws i guess that this is surprising to a lot of people that a company would confiscate packages that even the atf says are completely legal but for those of you that have been following us for a while you know that we here have been focused on companies that create their own laws for a long time now like i've said many times before this is a huge problem and i don't know what the solution is i think that the classic argument of they are a private company so they can do what they want uh is kind of ridiculous at this point there are only a tiny handful of postal carriers in this country and all of them are heavily federally subsidized with your tax dollars and in many cases directly controlled by federal government we all know how social media companies have put political regimes into power and how defense contractors have taken your tax dollars to develop technologies that they then refuse to sell to u.s taxpayers so ups doing this is a little surprising because of how quickly they made this decision especially at a time when so many companies are going broke because of their wokism ups is neck and neck with their competition and they decide you know what we're gonna do we're gonna go above and beyond full steam ahead on the woke train to follow laws that don't even exist when you control the mail you control information i say good luck with that ups and let's see how that works out for you but my guess is that people are going to be focusing on using other shipping options the one or two other options that they have for shipping gun parts around the country moving on to number two this is kind of the incident that has been highlighted by many a conservative news agency over the past couple of weeks and this is a story that the biden regime has sold about a million barrels of crude oil to a company that is owned by the communist party of china not only that but this oil came from our strategic oil reserves so we quite literally uh emptied out our reserves of at least a million barrels of oil to sell to china that alone is pretty damning but it gets better the company in question is sinopec this is indeed completely owned by the chinese state government but in 2015 a private equity firm called bhr partners purchased 1.7 billion dollars worth of shares in that company sinopec bhr associates was created by the bank of china and you guessed it hunter biden as if that is not delicious enough for you it gets even better hunter biden to avoid any hint of impropriety announced that he would be resigning from bhr partners during joe biden's presidential campaign but guess what as of the second quarter of 2020 after the election mind you hunter biden was still listed as a board member so pretty interesting i was not able to independently verify whether or not hunter biden is affiliated with this company still but i would stake my entire existence on the entire biden family being up to their neck in this rampant and blatant corruption i think it's pretty clear that that's exactly what's going on by now so i guess we'll see what happens with this case but my kindergarten level assessment is that nothing will happen at all as a result of this corruption but we may see a few republican congressmen get upset for a bit but that probably won't result in much being done uh in the long run and since hunter biden was recently caught smoking crack cocaine while in detox for smoking crack cocaine uh detox that his father paid for i think that this hunter biden saga is just going to keep giving us very interesting tidbits as we move on down the line clark that's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year so let's wrap things up with a few international issues first up is the netherlands like i mentioned uh the dutch are still protesting in quite significant numbers uh the police have actually fired several live rounds at least once during the demonstrations at farmers so it's really unclear as to to what's going on with regards to these smaller spot protests that have kind of popped up around the nation this is very much a nationwide protest at this point and the demonstrations are becoming a bit more lively uh with more and more people joining the demonstrations as people start to realize just what the the world economic forum controlled dutch government is trying to do to its people uh similar protests have popped up in various spots around europe as well such as in france for the same reasons so i guess we'll have to see how kinetic things get as more and more european citizens start to realize what their governments have done to them or are trying to do to them as one might expect the farmers specifically in the netherlands have gotten a lot of support from people who realize that farming is kind of an essential activity and their government's efforts to restrict it are kind of not a good thing so we'll have to see how this develops my guess is that these protests will probably grow quite significantly based on the severity of these draconian climate change policies that are far too numerous to even mention but are kind of popping up everywhere around europe moving over to germany germany's largest housing group a company called vanovia has announced that they will be involuntarily turning down the thermostats in their rental units the retail units that they own for the foreseeable future during the hours of the night when things get the coldest so a company smokes person said that from the beginning of the next heating period the plan is to throttle the heating between 11 pm and 6 am so that heating only heats up to 17 degrees celsius which is about 63 degrees fahrenheit at night for those that are unfamiliar with this company vinovia is a very infamous company in germany it's probably one of the most hated corporate entities in the country uh because they are a they're very well known for unethical business practices so this is not a surprise at all however they own over half a million apartments so they're not a small company whatsoever so again i would expect this trend in germany to become very commonplace uh however we might actually see the german government start trying to ration natural gas uh probably very very soon uh they're kind of floating that idea right now there's a lot of rumen to a lot of rumors flying around regarding rationing natural gas because of germany's own decisions and their reliance on russian natural gas which is now not an option for them so that's going to be interesting to follow as with most things it does present a few other considerations though wood-fired stoves and other heating appliances have completely disappeared from store shelves as german citizens race to prevent their government from freezing them to death this winter this presents a lot of problems the energy crisis in europe specifically in germany uh has presented a lot of problems mostly due to how most people on earth are completely inept when it comes to basic survival skills the same people that think chocolate milk comes from brown cows also probably think that their home is heated by magical fairy dust so you're going to have a lot of people who are completely confused as to why their home is freezing cold and these people who have never even thought about basic things like energy and heating are suddenly having to figure out how to heat their home when their government or their company decides to restrict their heating modern caveman moments like this are likely to cause quite a few problems as inexperienced people race to keep their homes warm this of course is not to cast shot and florida on the germans this is certainly an american thing too the number of people that are somehow baffled every winter when their pipes freeze and burst is quite astounding when it comes to heating in the winter though there are a lot of other issues as well winter time is when people tend to buy some of the more unsafe heating appliances like cheap chinese space heaters which then burn their house down and guess what time of year is most difficult to fight fires in wintertime injuries for firefighters usually spike during the winter hydrants and hoses freeze ice and snow present challenges of their own and all of this happens at the exact time of year that residential home fires spike it is a tale as old as time and one of the main reasons for murphy's law not only will everything go wrong that can go wrong but it often does so at the most inopportune times or when it is most difficult to fix the issue such as residential home fires in the winter so for any german citizens out there please be careful with your heating methods this winter you've had this pair of extra gloves this whole time yeah we're in the rockies jumping over to the pacific in japan the assassination of former prime minister shinzo abe has grabbed a lot of headlines this week i don't really have much to say about this one but we do not often see the assassination of high-ranking politicians so i did want to mention it abe was very much a controversial figure mostly due to his political ideology which some would describe as ultra-nationalistic we here in the u.s hear that and think well alright then but we have to remember that what is nationalist or ultra-nationalist in other countries is not exactly the same definition as here at home but yeah he was still a very controversial figure in japan the west supported him because of his hard-line stance on china which won him support for many japanese citizens as well not much is known about the attacker just yet i'm sure lots of media agencies are doing profiles on the guy by now but for sure various antifa elements are celebrating this assassination as expected so who knows what is interesting is that crime especially gun crime is pretty much completely unheard of in japan this is not something that is easily understandable by a western audience much like lots of japanese culture i guess it's kind of hard to explain but i will say that it's pretty clear that this assassination has rocked the nation for sure stuff like this especially with an improvised firearm are completely unheard of in japan i think what kind of sells this idea is this photo from the assassination which reminds us that the security detail for a former prime minister carries revolvers so yeah that kind of points out how different the culture is in japan with regards to firearms and law enforcement moving to sri lanka the situation in sri lanka has deteriorated to about as close to a full-blown collapse as i think we're going to see protesters stormed the presidential palace yesterday in order to demand the president's resignation and generally voice their displeasure at the government causing them to starve the prime minister has agreed to resign and allow the formation of a new government and the president actually just a few minutes ago as i'm recording this also announced that he will be stepping down as well although even with these resignations it is unclear if anything can be done at this point to stop the economic collapse and mass starvation moving to our friends across the pond in the united kingdom the news this week has been the resignation of boris johnson this follows a several months saga for boris starting with the party gate scandal and ending with his covering up of his appointment of a serial sexual predator as deputy chief whip so yeah not a super great past few months for old boris thus his resignation we shall see how the conservatives handle his resignation and who might replace him but no real news on that front moving to our friends to the north up in canada there have been quite a few issues regarding telecoms this week mostly stemming from the rogers communication incorporated outage rogers communications is a major telecoms sort of conglomerate that offers a lot of services they handle everything from normal citizens cell phones to 911 networks to to credit card transactions to wi-fi they handle a lot of different things and they have had a widespread outages since yesterday rogers has issued statements late yesterday evening that they should start having some services come back online as of the evening of the 8th although today is the 9th and it's there's still a lot of different outages particularly with things like 911 call centers and things like that so it's really hard to tell when they're going to be fully recovered from this but yeah again canadians figuring out exactly uh how vulnerable it is to put all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to telecommunications here in the united states we see this frequently like just last time i briefed uh we had an outage with our unemployment services and this one company which managed the website for unemployment or unemployment benefits you know websites to where you apply for that kind of thing that one company provided services to over 40 states and because they went down they took 40 states unemployment systems down with them so again we're finding out just how vulnerable it is and how little of these systems are not networked you would think that a lot of these systems are either air-gapped or on different networks or somehow not completely vulnerable to one thing bringing the entire nation down but i think we're finding out these days especially over the past couple of years with the rise of cyber attacks that this is most certainly not the case and systems which should be air-gapped like 9-1-1 call centers most certainly are not and finally in afghanistan it has been a while since i mentioned something with afghanistan and i wanted to end on something that doesn't really have much intel value but is utterly fascinating to me and that is the unearthing of mullah omar's vehicle from its hiding place in afghanistan for those that don't know who this is muhammad omar mostly just called mullah omar was the founder of the taliban in afghanistan and has been an almost mythological feature in afghan culture over the years back in the early years of the war he went into hiding and remained so until he died reportedly of tuberculosis in 2013 and now a few days ago we've learned from pictures posted on social media that his followers have unearthed his personal vehicle that he had placed into hiding during the initial invasion his followers posted photos of themselves digging up the vehicle that he used to escape from the 2001 u.s invasion apparently this was the vehicle that he used to drive from his home in kandahar to his hiding place in zabel where he remained for the majority of the war in hiding sometimes just a few hundred meters away from american fobs and outposts based on these photos it's clear that he and his team had buried his toyota corolla wagon underground in the event that he needed it again and now that the taliban have their victory they are now starting to literally unearth some of the items important to the history of afghanistan and their own history as the taliban as distasteful as it may seem to even have the slightest respect towards one of our nation's most vicious enemies especially with the fall of afghanistan and all of the pain that caused i myself can't help but be fascinated by the history of stuff like this and i hope that in the coming years we get to hear some of the stories from the other side of the wire so that we may better understand how we lost that war for now i think that a simple toyota being dug out of the ground illustrates that we cannot possibly begin to imagine how much we don't know about that war the exact same thing happened with vietnam too general nguyen zapp the head general in charge of the nva survived the war only to remain a mystery for the most part and mullah omar like general zapp remains an enigma to the west despite both of these men having a huge role in being the leaders of the only organizations to ever topple multiple superpowers i just think that if western military leadership isn't really interested in learning from their enemies i certainly am and i would be especially interested to learn the stories from the other side of the wire lest we repeat the same mistakes again mistakes that cost us dearly anyway i didn't mean to get all philosophical i just thought that was interesting and i really can't wait to get started on some more of the warfare studies sort of content that we've been researching for the past few months so thank you again for watching everyone and thank you again for all of your support i really do mean it especially for those of you who support us out there on patreon on youtube you guys are just really awesome and helping us out that way allows us to keep bringing this kind of thing to you i think we're going to be pretty busy trying to track a lot of these more kinetic incidents that have occurred here in the united states here at home and also overseas in the international arena definitely going to be a busy next few weeks and months unfortunately so we'll keep an eye on that and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for February 7th to the 14th of 2026. It's been kind of a quiet week by comparison, I guess. Only a few major terror attacks to be aware of, so basically everything is fairly standard for this week. But anyway, we've got a lot to talk about, so let's get right to it. Around the world this week, things have been pretty busy on multiple fronts, but nothing entirely new. Here in the homeland, the civil unrest that flared up in Minneapolis and other major cities has simmered down for a couple of weeks now, although some cities have been host to an increased baseline of violence. Overseas, several investigations have been initiated in conjunction with the Epstein document releases, and civil unrest appears to be popping off in some major cities in France due to recent clashes between protesters and activist groups. In the UK, stabbing attacks continue as before with about three or four stabbings being reported in London more or less every day. Same story in France and Italy, whereby civil unrest and domestic terrorism has bloomed into season a bit earlier this year. As the Olympics are ongoing in Italy, many different terrorist cells have been sabotaging rail lines in a few different cities. And in France, French nationalists are fighting French anarchists in a few major cities after protests have become intense riots over the past few days. Otherwise, in the Middle East, the situation is heating up yet again, and the US is starting to dump military resources into the region once more. Timeline-wise, we're looking at a couple of weeks before any potential happening is on the menu. Unless the Pentagon just wants to bomb a few targets like they did last time and make me look like an idiot, both of which are always likely. Keeping track of airframes and ships is basically a full-time job for a whole team of people, but at a very wave-top level, the US has been observably pumping more resources into the region at a steady pace over the past few weeks. So, overall, a lot of things to keep on the lookout for over the next few weeks. Switching things up a little bit, let's move to Western Europe before we get into the actual homeland for this week's, and and let's talk about some developing incidents that are going on right now throughout France. The spotlight has been on France in the headlines over the past few days due to a couple of different incidents which have recently uh a lot of attention. The first incident is the stabbing attack that took place yesterday at the Arc de Triomphe by which a known and convicted terrorist conducted another police stabbing uh wounding one soldier at the uh flame lighting ceremony for their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is a fairly standard ceremony, I think. I'm pretty sure they do it every day at 6:30, but either way they end up, you know, rekindling the flame at their uh Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and there's usually a small crowd or uh either of tourists or people who, you know, want to you want to pay their respects and things like that. And last night an assailant tried to uh stab everybody at this event. So, the attacker has been identified as Brahim Barrir, who was also tried, convicted, and imprisoned for doing the exact same thing in Brussels back in 2012. So, he used to be a pretty high-ranking member of a lot of different extremist cells throughout Paris and was kind of uh a figurehead for a lot of things. Uh maybe not so much a public figurehead, but he was very heavily involved in a lot of extremist uh groups and things like that in Paris over the past, well, decade or so. Back in 2012, he actually traveled from Paris, where he was known to be an extremist, to Brussels specifically to target police officers, which he did. So, he got caught, tried, and convicted for that and at some point he was either let out or just mysteriously appeared back in civil society once again and conducted the stabbing attack again last night. So, not entirely a great look, especially considering the hard times that seem to have fallen upon Paris over the past few years, but down south in France a much more serious situation is underway, which has involved of civil unrest. So, in the town of Lyon, Antifa has gotten quite a bit upset over the past few days after anti-immigration activists in the south of France have started to kind of voice their opinion a little bit more and that's just made uh Antifa quite a bit upset and a lot of these French anarchist groups upset. They have the same same kind of cellular arrangement that we have here in the US when it comes to our far-left extremists. They've got the same thing in France, except their guys are a lot more violent in in case. So, they actually beat a man to death, one of the security guards or uh an activist who was serving as an inner security role for a French feminist movement group was trying to conduct a protest and you know how in the US we have a lot of protest and then counter protest. Well, the same thing in France. So, a few days ago or a couple of days ago, one of the French feminist groups who is more along the lines of stopping violence against women from the immigrants. That's kind of the way these groups are starting to form. One of these groups was mobbed by Antifa and it turns out one of the guys that they had gotten to help protect them, one of those guys got beaten pretty severely and unfortunately he passed away last night. So, as a response to this, the French nationalists have come out and a lot of nationalist groups have come out to oppose Antifa and suffice it to say things are going to get pretty spicy over the next few days. So, we'll be watching this pretty closely simply because there are a lot of parallels between France and the United States and of course, you know, France is Europe, right? It's Western civilization, right? So, they share a lot of the same societal goals that we do even though our cultures are very different, it's still still the same thing. It's all Western Europe and the United States. So, we're all in the same slop bucket together. So, a lot of times we have the same adversaries and same enemies and that is certainly the case in France, the UK, Germany, wherever you want to name it. So, keeping an eye on these things is going to be important over the next few weeks. Similar story throughout Western Europe in terms of the Epstein files. So, while many here in the United States may be lamenting the fact that nobody's really been arrested kind of at all with regards to the names that have come out of the Epstein files in Europe, they actually have been doing something. Now, I think many Europeans, like many Americans, don't exactly have a whole lot of faith in their judicial systems, but at least they've done something. So, Norway has actually launched a criminal investigation and I think they actually dropped criminal charges on a former prime minister of Norway for his association with Epstein, but the the crimes that they're all that trying to prosecute are all corruption based, so they're not like human trafficking based. So, that's kind of how Europe is handling it right now, and so far they've got three major diplomats in Norway, which are implicated and are being investigated. So, at least they can say that they're investigating their guys. Now, they probably won't be arrested or anything, but I don't know. Who knows? Hard to say. There are grumblings and rumors of the same thing, same kinds of investigative processes being undertaken in France and also in Slovakia. Again, hard to say how all this is going to work out, but I wanted to mention it in any way because a lot of people here in the US are saying, you know, nobody's been arrested, nobody's even been questioned or interviewed, whereas in Europe they actually kind of are. So, that's kind of interesting, but again, the bar could not be any lower when it comes to getting some sort of accountability or justice for the whole Epstein thing, but we'll get into that in just a moment. Here in the homeland for this week, the big flare-ups have died down a bit, but the violence has continued as far left activists continue to figure out that terrorism actually works. Ever since ICE pulled out of Minneapolis, or technically reduced their posture there, far left activist groups have perceived this to be a victory, especially since the FBI has basically ignored all the terrorist groups which have been running rampant in Minneapolis for years. So, as of right now, the mood among many far left groups is that of sheer unchallenged victory. They certainly think that they have won by kicking ICE out of their city. Now, is that entirely true? Uh, probably not, but that's up for you to decide. It's certainly complicated. What is very clear is that the inaction of the feds, not just ICE, but say like other law enforcement groups which are in charge of maybe, I don't know, counterterrorism, in many cases this inaction has encouraged far left groups to think that violence, arson, vehicle ramming attacks, and terrorism in general is an acceptable line of effort to achieve their goals. Even though it certainly is not, they certainly think it is. Thus, the middle-aged women who should be picking up their kids from school rather than trying to firebomb empty buildings without even trying to conceal their identity. So, we've got that going for us at least. Otherwise, the situation remains pretty much the same as before nationwide. Locals in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. have reported that the stench in the air has become palpable and there's also a major sewage leak as well. Almost a month after roughly a billion gallons of raw sewage was dumped into the Potomac, locals have been advised to avoid all contact with the Potomac. Unless you're from Mumbai, then you should be all right. But, for the rest of us, the levels of E. coli are few thousand times the safe limits. And if you've been fishing or boating in the river over the past month, you probably have some kind of giga turbo aids by now, which is interesting because when the spill was first announced, the local water utility claimed that the levels of E. coli were at safe levels. But, it turns out they messed up the decimal point because, of course, they did and it was actually 100 times what they initially reported, which is slightly suboptimal news for anyone living in Northern Virginia or Maryland who has been in or around the river over the past month. And speaking of foul toxins from whence there is no escape, the Epstein files situation continues to grow more and more as investigations start putting pieces together. Right now, it's been pretty hectic as there's a disconnect between the big voices talking about the Epstein files and those little voices actually doing the legwork to look through the Epstein files. An influencer or politician finds one document and shouts about it on the internet only to look like an idiot because they didn't understand the overall context. Yes, Epstein's network did very bad things, but if we actually want to eventually make progress towards stopping the harm, we have to have some sort of structure, which is what I'm working on myself. I'm just warning everybody that over the next few weeks, the headlines are going to flash by in a blur with everyone jumping from one conclusion to the next without any weight added to the outrage. So far, there has been a severe under-reaction on the Epstein case simply because I think a lot of people either can't or don't want to understand the scale of it all. I mean, Epstein was a very bad dude, but I personally don't think he was the worst. I think there's far worse out there. I don't even think his network was the biggest. I think the reason he got rolled up is because a competitor got a hold of it and started to chip away at his own network. So, it would be wise to operate off of the assumption that there are very big and bad fish out there that we have got to do something about. I mean, think about Epstein's network like a big Fortune 500 company, right? I mean, when Enron went under, all the dudes who worked for Enron at the like the middle management and you know, lower levels, they went on to work for other companies, right? So, the same thing happened with Epstein's network. Yeah, you may get the head of the snake. You may get Epstein and Maxwell and a few others at the very top, but the middle managers, the dudes who facilitated all the stuff and the low people on the totem pole, all those people escaped and got away along with all the the big whales and the big fish out there that were the clients. So, we've clearly got our work cut out for us, which is why you might see a lot of hesitancy to prevent the Epstein files from being released. I mean, they're not just trying to cover up past crimes, they're trying to cover up current operations. At least that's my own opinion and right now opinions don't matter a whole lot in a court of law. So, we've got to be able to prove a lot of this stuff with data. Like we all know what was happening with the Epstein network. We all know who was running it. We all know who was behind it. Okay, maybe not all of us, but some of us know. But in terms of actually getting some traction and shutting these networks down, we've got to have a lot more data. We've got to have a lot more to go off of. We have to have an overwhelming burden of evidence here and that's going to take a lot more than just some guy with a comically large microphone on a podcast yapping about it. It is very clear that Epstein did not traffic people to nobody. He trafficked people to somebody. And those somebodies met those kids at a geographic point on Earth. And that, dear friends, I can plot on a map. Knowledge is half the battle and we don't just need to know names, but we also need to know places. Again, knowledge is half the battle and I don't want to be too biased here. I know this is quite self-serving cuz I work on a lot of map stuff, but the reason I do that is because I really do think it helps to visualize where these things are taking place. But anyway, enough about Epstein. More information's going to come in time. The goal right now is to add some method to the madness and not get caught up in the whirlwind of gotcha journalism on this sort of thing. These people aren't going anywhere. They are quite proud and very smug with the fact that they got away with it. They don't really care that their names are in the files, right? Well, we'll see about that in due time, but for now a lot of long nights crunching numbers are ahead, and that's what I'm going to work on at the moment as safely as I can. Moving down to the Southwest for this week, I wanted to briefly touch on what happened in El Paso a few days ago because this was kind of an interesting item of note that came about a few days ago, which has brought about a lot of rumor and speculation regarding what in the Sam Hill actually happened. And here's what we know so far. Just before midnight on February 10th, a series of two airspace closures went into effect in El Paso, one of which was centered on the El Paso Airport and grounded all of the aircraft at the airport for some time. This, of course, freaked a lot of people out because shutting down one of the most heavily trafficked airports in the United States for 10 days is not something that is done lightly or on a whim. The complete lack of notice whatsoever also adds to the seriousness of this event. When the NOTAM dropped, routine flight operations were being carried out, and there were even aircraft on the taxiways preparing to take off with the air traffic control personnel being just as confused as everybody else when the airspace closure went into effect. For about 7 hours or so, rumors were the only things flying during the ground stop, and speculation still abounds regarding what this was all about. After a few hours uh shortly before sunrise, the White House officials stated that this airspace closure was implemented due to cartel drones breaching US airspace and presenting a threat to aircraft in El Paso. But beyond this vague explanation, not much else is known with reasonable certainty. It's certainly possible that this is the truth. However, cartel drones have come over the US border like daily for the past, I don't know, 10 years or so. However, if this was a cartel drone or a swarm of cartel drones trying to smuggle drugs over the border or cause some kind of mayhem at the airport, which is a kind of a long way from the border, but anyway, if that's what it was, then clearly it's something that was different from the nightly drone flights that are usually picked up every single day along the border. So, clearly it was an anomaly of some kind and I very highly doubt we'll ever know what it is. Now, once daylight broke and everybody was trying to figure out what had actually happened that night, another potential theory came out, which I'll I'll mention even though it's completely unsubstantiated rumor, but I'll mention it just in the context of wider situational awareness. So, some politicians and other officials, which have leaked this to the media, they've made the claim that nothing actually happened the other night, but this is actually the result of a personal vendetta by FAA Director Brian Bedford, who was upset that the US military was testing a laser-based directed energy weapon for shooting down drones at Fort Bliss last week and they were doing that without telling the FAA about it. All of this is kind of coming out now. It wasn't really talked about that much in the media when it actually happened, but last week the US Army downed you know, they shot down what they thought was a drone. Turned out to actually be a party balloon from Fort Bliss and when they did it, they didn't actually tell the FAA about it. So, again, this is all rumor, but this would explain what might have happened. The FAA personally intervened to drop a NOTAM on top of El Paso solely to piss everybody off and hold the El Paso airport hostage and thereby drawing attention to his personal gripe about coordinating with the military. Anybody who's ever worked in government knows that this is a possibility. After last week's laser weapon use, the FAA probably made the passive-aggressive decision to drop a blanket NOTAM on El Paso the next time a drone was spotted, which took place a couple of nights ago. So, if this is what happened, it would be the most embarrassing, yet least surprising outcome. But, again, this possibility is solely based on the whispers of journalists and not any real concrete data. So, there are probably many details that are false. Another theory, which has gotten some level of traction on the internet, is especially amongst the, you know, quieter communities out there, is that this was actually not really a drone, but maybe something else. El Paso, specifically, has been ground zero for a lot of new and developing cartel tactics and activity due to Juarez being a major port of entry. And El Paso was at the center of the concerns of smuggled MANPADS 2 years ago, a case which faded into obscurity with nothing more than assurances being made via the telephone game of, "Well, I just heard that got resolved." Which is why a lot of people are theorizing that this was about MANPADS instead of drones. For the record, I don't think this was about MANPADS. I think if it was, the NOTAMs would have been a lot larger, I think. Plus, there are a few other things I would have expected to have seen. I know a lot of people are bringing up this MANPAD theory because the format of the NOTAM made many people think, myself included, that the NOTAM was trigger-based. As in, something got detected on some mystical system the US government has, and this NOTAM was either issued automatically without a human involved in the process, or somebody hit that big red button on the wall to shut everything down while they were figuring out what was going on. This part of the theory is quite accurate, I think. The format of the text NOTAM was non-standard and very quickly typed out. None of the usual national security airspace verbage was put in there. It was It was basically just a hand-typed very short notice. The fact that this notice did not have any deconfliction information, no frequencies to contact, or any exceptions for medical aircraft is a strong indicator that this was a custom NOTAM built for something, and was probably triggered upon a certain event happening. Now, was this event a handful of cartel drones, or a man pad or was it just a personality spat between Fort Bliss and the FAA? That I don't know and I don't think the public will ever know with any certainty. So, something to keep an eye on, especially since the other NOTAM, the trapezoid-shaped one to the west of the city, that one's still active and it's going to be active for a while. So, most certainly something to keep an eye on, especially as the situation around the country gets hot and stays hot. So, that pretty much wraps us up for this week. I've run out of time today. I wanted to talk about more about you guys know how it is. I've been troubleshooting a lot of things that I've been working on over the past couple of weeks and there are just not enough hours in the day anymore to do all the things I want to do, but but that's okay. Some weeks are like that. I know the past couple of weeks have been a random assortment of world events, but that's the way it goes sometimes. So, wrapping things up with the Ghost Net Reports for this week, it was a good net all around. This week I switched up things and chose a web SDR located out in the middle of the country to try to pick up different stations exchanging information on the airwaves this week. And I got a few here and there, but not as many as I usually get on the East Coast. So, that's just the way that it works sometimes. Some of the more remote areas of the US have web SDRs and not a whole lot of people live there. So, you're not going to get a whole lot of messages. The range on HF radio is always farther than you think, but it's never far enough, is it? So, sometimes that kind of gets in the way of things, especially if you're out in the middle of nowhere like middle of the Dakotas or something like that trying to get on HF radio. You might need to choose a different frequency and different antenna arrangement, but all in all the work continues on and boy, do we have a lot of work ahead. So, let's get after it and do the best that we can. So, that's all I have for today. Thank you again everyone for sticking around and we'll see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.

hello again everyone welcome back to the underground uh this is the update for the kabul situation uh the situation in afghanistan for august the 25th uh this is the evening edition already did one this morning but uh there this is the evening edition this is being recorded at 2200 eastern standard time to get the information out as quick as possible so let's just jump right into it with the biggest update and this is the guidance that is coming from the us embassy is for personnel who are not within the airport perimeter right now avoid the uh the airport uh the embassy is stating that there are significant threats to personnel at both the north gate and the abbey gate and also the east gate as well and really the baron hotel complex as well so the embassy is advising people to just not uh not come to the airport now this is a couple this is the second time the us embassy has stated this and the department of state has stated this so and they they flip-flopped on it before so clearly the situation is not really settled clearly some people probably disagree about this threat assessment and i don't want to really spread rumors or anything but this this announcement has to be viewed with a little bit of skepticism considering the situation the united states is leaving they're they're drawing down their troops right now so it's almost like i imagine i'm a person on the ground and i'm not inside the airport and i'm standing outside waiting to get in and they're they're you know they're not letting me in and they're saying oh now there's a threat on the gate now go back home go to your safe house go sit down and wait for us to come get you and uh they radio you the message as your as the last plane is leaving afghanistan oh by the way we can't come get you now like that's almost like what it seems like um so i i really don't want to tell anybody what to do on this or give any advice on i'm just saying that if i was on the ground i would be viewing this with a lot of skepticism you know i at this point in time if you stay in afghanistan the risk is extreme you know if you stay at the airport the risk is extreme the risk is extreme either way but one way could involve you leaving the country and not sitting in a hotel room and watching the president give a speech about how all i wish we could have gotten everybody out you know so it's kind of frustrating to sit here from an analytical perspective and see these kinds of statements going back and forth even if there is a genuine threat i think people would be willing to to face that threat at this point and considering the taliban are manning every inch of the gate and isis is their adversary they've been fighting isis for a very long period of time it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to to say this and this kind of ties into the next point which is the united states has been observed to be forcibly evacuating reporters from the grounds uh several foreign uh not u.s reporters several foreign reporters were reportedly forced onto aircraft against their will and forcibly evacuated from the from the airport now granted these are journalists right so they look to sensationalize everything so it could be just as simple as some guy in a uniform saying hey you guys should probably leave now this is getting kind of spicy out here and they take it as a you know oh we had to get on the aircraft at gunpoint we don't really know because reporters are not really trustworthy so it does however the the fact that this does seem to have happened to some degree the united states most certainly learned from the first evacuation okay we have to realize that that the united states screwed things up the first time and rather than do the right thing and fix the problem by getting aircraft for people out the united states is taking the policy of well let's just make sure that there aren't any cameras to record people falling off the aircraft this time you see that seems to be what they're doing now granted that is a that is a leap but it's not a really huge leap and if i was on the ground i would definitely be thinking that's the case um ever since this thing this whole thing started the us government has has constantly made the wrong decision constantly so one has to look at the removal of reporters from the situation with a lot of apprehension about the about the immediate future and continuing on with the evacuation of personnel uh most u.s forces are continuing to retreat there has been a lot of talk about how the personnel the civilian personnel on the ground that were flown in to process visas are now gone that's every country is handling this differently and it's hard to say i haven't seen any any positive information either way to indicate whether or not the united states is still processing visas and still getting people inside or not but it does seem like they're not the united kingdom has announced about 12 hours ago that they're going to be evacuating within the next 24 to 36 hours and they've already evacuated most of their personnel so you know everybody's trying to beat this deadline with time to spare norway just announced that they are shutting down the field hospital so the field hospital is no longer going to be active now of course there are aid stations and things like that but the hospital that's been treating people this entire time and they've also been looking after children who's whose parents are were nowhere to be found so i think they said they had 35 kids so don't quote me on that but they shut it down and they brought everybody back uh to norway the polish special forces guys have already pulled out of there also germany is withdrawing as well they uh germany's having a hard time with it because they uh they're fighting political strife within their own country right now but germany has made statements to to the effect that hey the united states is leaving we're going to beat them out of there because we can't stay unless the united states stays um and this is coming all on the same day that there are reportedly this is just this is numbers from a lot of different people us government other nations they're stating there are about 10 000 people still inside the perimeter as of right now hard to say if that number is accurate i would say that probably no number is accurate we probably don't even know how many people have actually been evacuated so far but there are definitely still people on the ground there are a lot of people inside the airport perimeter there's a lot of people outside the perimeter and there are a lot of people in the city and in the rest of the country so that's unfortunate and especially unfortunate because congress sort of spilled the beans there's a lot of mainstream news news articles going out around from confidential congressional staffers right that are talking about the clandestine rescue efforts that have been undertaken now we've been on the lookout for this kind of stuff and we're not going to talk about it too much but i will state that there are not there have not nearly been enough clandestine efforts been undertaken to get people out and that directly ties into the next point which is u.s politicians lying or distorting or whatever you want to call it the number of americans that are left so they changed the estimate from 15 000 people 15 000 people abide in regime was saying was still on the ground in just a kabul area yesterday and today they're saying there's only six thousand left in the whole country so that's puzzling i mean i get it evacuations have been taking place that would you know obviously the number is going to reduce we're getting americans out that's good right but flights have been slowing down to a crawl for the past 24 hours uh and the military people are evacuating they're evacuating their own personnel like we can do the math we know how many people can fit on an aircraft like in an emergency right we the first numbers that came out of afghanistan there were 800 people on those aircraft and let's just assume that we're going to keep those extremely cramped numbers which they didn't keep for the majority of these evacuations they're not loading that many people on these aircraft but let's just say they did for a second we know how many aircraft are transiting in and out of the country and we can count we know that there aren't any really clandestine efforts coming out of the country because pakistan won't let anybody fly through their airspace with their transponder off so there isn't like some kind of secret flight path that thousands of aircraft are taking per second to leave the country no like it we're doing the math here and it's not really adding up now to walk this back and to put things in perspective we obviously here are not on the ground and we do not have or nor will we ever have the full picture of what's going on so the intelligence gap uh the this chasm of things that we do not know is pretty big but we can close that gap quite a lot using our ocean skills and everyone else who's in this sort of ocean world can do the same thing too but anybody who's in that community will tell you that ocean is a valuable tool but it can't tell you the whole picture right however based on what the world has seen the world of ocean is very strongly indicating that hundreds or or even thousands of american citizens will be left behind unless significant changes are made right now some could argue that we've already passed the zero barrier right and it's really it's too late and from the analytical side of the house it certainly does unfortunately look that way but even though our politicians and current senior military leadership are running away from this problem like a stabbed rat uh we're not going to let this go until everybody's back home so we're still working on things and despite the taliban stating that they are going to agree to let afghans leave after the august 31st deadline we don't really have a whole lot of faith for that so if anyone the taliban in the beginning let's remember stated that we're not going to let afghans leave because we need their talent that's what they said um and from the top perspective of the taliban it kind of makes sense you don't want all of your subjects to leave the country so it makes sense for the taliban to restrict afghans from leaving um however i don't think that the art of the deal was done and we gave the taliban anything i literally think the taliban are lying in order for the americans to just leave and then they're going to do what they want i know we're all shocked shocked i say right to to hear that the taliban might be telling a fib but it certainly seems like i would be very surprised let me put it this way i would be very surprised if the taliban actually let any aircraft take off after august 31st that would be very surprising and i would be very surprised if they let any aircraft land after august 31st as well also i didn't put it on the slide but i did want to speak to it there are a couple of a couple of rumors going around that i just wanted to touch on and did let people know to kind of look out for uh first off is the rumor of fuel shortages a lot of people are complaining that there are very there's very little gasoline for vehicles left in kabul which kind of makes sense you've got a sharply increased demand everyone who had a vehicle has transited they've used it in the past week or so shuffling people around and things like that so the demand has been sky high way more than normal granted that's been balanced out by people not exactly using their vehicles to go to work or anything so you know it kind of balances itself out but i do find it interesting that the taliban has taken efforts to try to increase uh the oil and petroleum deals between iran over the past 24 hours that kind of signals that there's probably a problem there so it makes sense that fuel will be in short supply it's it's a third world country so the fuel situation is not exactly going to be a positive one and also the other rumor is that some people probably saw this a couple of days ago but there was a rumor that a ukrainian plane was hijacked and flown to iran from what we can tell this is not true the iranians say it's not true but of course they're not trustworthy right but also the ukrainians say that there's that this didn't happen either one the the source for this i should mention is russian state media so this came from the etar tess or i think they're just called tas now which is the one of their three or four main russian state-sponsored media so it would make sense for russia to spread disinformation about ukraine particularly ukraine during a time like this this information is going around all the time propaganda is a thing now so uh it's been kind of worked out everybody's kind of glossed over it but just in case anybody sees anything and as we look back on this event years from now i just wanted to mention that we know that that a ukrainian plane did not get hijacked let's go ahead and jump to the map and i'll show you the very minimal updates i have for the rest of the area on the ground alright so on the map really there haven't been many changes at all except the situation has gotten worse traffic has gotten worse this stretch of road airport road as usual has been blocked by the taliban main gate is closed hard closed no one in or out this stretch of highway here along along the perimeter to abbey gate still very very congested and actually we did get some more imagery through open source open source means we went ahead and georeferenced it so let me see if i could swing the map around and show you the uh the number of people still left now these people you might be confused as to why they're on this side and why are they in the sewage canal there this is the hotel baron complex and since the cat's kind of out of the bag i guess i can talk about it now this has been one of the main areas for getting civilians and u.s personnel out so the afghans figured that out and as you can see they are heavily uh invested in getting out of here because they could see helicopters moving back and forth and they know they're landing over here so i just thought i'd point that out because like i mentioned the cat's kind of out of the bag for better or for worse and let's talk about the north gate north gate situation much the same uh i do have imagery that but it's not in this kmz i didn't load it in just yet traffic here along russian road is still very very bad uh life is returning to normal as normal as it can be under the taliban's uh regime here uh throughout the rest of the city uh it's really hard to tell what's kind of going on because social media posts have taken a sharp decline i don't know if that's due to internet outages or anything like that it might just be people not wanting to participate in social media and also we have noticed that in some some respects the crowds have gotten kind of smaller uh but it's hard to tell if that is due to people getting in on the base and and getting on an aircraft and getting out or if it's because people are just they're they're losing hope and they're going back home i personally think that it's probably the latter but hopefully it's the more optimistic uh the more optimistic choice there as far as the northern alliance goes i don't have hardly any updates i i do know a couple of things that have happened in pan shear the taliban have entered a state of siege and they have stopped all food shipments and really all traffic into and out of the main panshire valley area that's significant because the taliban knows that they're uh they're in for a prolonged fight it might not be a large fight but it's going to be a prolonged fight to get some of those last guys out of there which they almost certainly will do in the next few days to weeks the first few waves of taliban soldiers that have made their way up to panshir have gotten absolutely slaughtered by the guys up there and they have taken the taliban has taken devastating losses but they've also given some losses as well to the north northern alliance guys so really the situation has not changed as of august 24th it's too dynamic to chant to to call uh i don't even feel comfortable uh saying that these districts are in fact taliban or northern alliance held it's really just unclear at this moment at least at least from what i can see but hopefully uh this will at least provide some kind of resistance for afghanistan moving forward and that's pretty much all i've got for today kind of a short one not really much to talk about other than a lot of geopolitical stuff which isn't really helpful to people on the ground but we're constantly updating the kmz we are we're working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes maybe not stuff that's particularly effective right we're facing the law of diminishing returns right with every day that goes by we're able to be less and less effective not more and more effective so our efforts here are not being as effective as they used to be if they were effective in the first place we don't know but in any case we are working on a lot of stuff we're brainstorming we're thinking we're trying to put ourselves in the shoes of any americans or people in general in afghanistan who are trying to leave and myself and the rest of the team here are trying to figure out ways of getting out right now it doesn't look super positive like i mentioned before this could end up very well being a situation like a civilian version of seer where we're quite literally going to be watching people hike on foot or on vehicles that are still running or even on horseback or whatever through the mountains to a neighboring country hopefully that won't be the case but we'll see we're going to plan like it is and if we're pleasantly surprised by some kind of miraculous uh evacuation efforts then all the better but for now we're going to keep our keep our ear to the ground we're going to continue developing out the rest of the country we've been working on developing out not just the kabul region but the rest of the country and we're going to be pushing that out as soon as we have something that is tangible so hopefully that was helpful for everyone again just wanted to show this slide for anyone who is uh who has not seen our previous briefings on on the subject we've been cranking out these briefings pretty often and we've been updating the kmz that i just showed you on the map uh quite consistently several times a day for about a week now and everybody remember to just keep your head up keep your chin up and we'll uh we're going to get everybody out of there regardless of what happens we're going to make sure that happens so just keep telling yourself that and keep moving forward and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is a special topical intelligence update for the seemingly imminent ukrainian war for friday the 21st of january 2022. as always this brief is being recorded the day prior on the 20th of january let's start by covering some international events that have taken place in europe over the past 24 to 48 hours the larger one that actually occurred a couple of weeks ago but is rapidly becoming more of a pressing issue is the submarine cable that has been cut between the mainland of norway and the svalbard archipelago so for those of you who don't understand what the significance of this is 99 of all communications on planet earth take place uh over undersea cables quite literally very large cables that are strung between nations between continents that actually carry information these cables serve as a vital link of information from country to country and serve as really a basis for the internet as we know it we can't really send information from one place to another quickly via wireless methods such as satellites so we have to rely on these what are essentially bottlenecks in the form of submarine or undersea cables and just a couple of weeks ago norway found out that one of their cables between the mainland of norway and the svalbard archipelago was cut this cable was of somewhat military nature it was really for their satellite communications network for their space program and things like that but i'm sure it also had a military use they used this cable to send and receive information from that massive satellite communications facility now i should mention this in the context of the ukrainian conflict because this is a very significant event russia since the end of the cold war has really looked at different ways of asserting power and dominance over the western world as one might expect in a post-nuclear age meaning that russia has nukes the united states has nukes were set on the nuclear front but russia has spent a very large part of their military their naval budget to create a special directorate which is meant to map and tap and destroy undersea cables this is evidenced by their really their naval efforts and their submarine technologies over the past a few decades but re as of late we're starting to see a lot more of this technology come into the open and russia has made it a significant part of their naval mission to conduct intelligence operations on a lot of these cables that are on the sea floor either quite literally sending a little mini submarine down from a larger submarine to grab on with little mechanical arms to grab onto these cables and quite literally drill into them to try to tap the information so there's an intelligence gathering thing russia also recognizing that the majority of internet traffic goes through these cables in a wartime setting their mission would be to not just to tap these cables to try to get the information that's in them but all but try to destroy the cables effectively decapitating most military communications and civilian communications without ever firing a shot this is a big deal for europe as well as the rest of the world the united states as well russia themselves do not have a very large uh need for submarine cables for undersea cables because russia is of course the largest nation on the planet they span what 12 time zones or something like that so they have a large land mass with which to send and receive information from one side of their empire to another and almost all of russia's allies border russia themselves so it's quite an easy a little bit easier for russia to have a solid communications infrastructure whereas the united states europe the united kingdom places like that have to rely on these undersea cables to maintain communications so the reason that this submarine cable being cut is a big deal is that um we don't know if this has ever happened before we know that the russians have we've got pretty solid concrete evidence that the russians have successfully or at least tried to tap undersea cables before we've got evidence of that that's become public knowledge lately we know that they map things we know they practice trying to set explosives on these cables to sever them but we don't know if they've i can't personally think of any ins if any case where a cable has actually been severed intentionally and a norwegian shipping or rather a cable laying company who of course once again once this cable was cut they sent a repair team out that repair team discovered that it had been very deliberately cut so we here in our very very limited uh intelligence picture of the geopolitical sphere right we think that this is probably a warning to europe essentially russia saying hey don't mess with us in ukraine let us do what we got to do in ukraine and we won't cut any more of your cables this sounds very much like something putin would do it sounds very much like the senior military leadership like lavrov would say this sounds very much like russian doctrine at this point but again this is very much speculation but i did want to bring this up because a submarine cable and undersea cable being cut is a very very significant event that we need to pay attention to the other big bit of news has been the significant russian naval activity over the past 24 to 48 hours a large flotilla of russian landing craft and amphibious assault ships has left port in the baltic sea with the destination unknown technically but presumably the black sea so far the ships are as follows the minsk the kaliningrad the korolev the olenagors goroniek the georgie hobodonazets and the peter morgan of have left port and are again like i mentioned presumably headed to the black sea the first three ships make up the bulk of the baltic sea fleet when it comes to their amphibious assault craft and the other three ships are much older craft but still capable that are on loan from the north sea fleet moving on to sweden this is something that might be unrelated but it might also be a very significant again threat to the rest of europe is that sweden has observed several significant unmanned aerial vehicles in the vicinity of several of their nuclear power plants as of the past day or so this is something that is currently being currently being investigated no one's really quite sure what's going on but again with all of this significant military activity within europe it's really something that that should be noted additionally the three nations of estonia latvia lithuania have been offering weapons to ukraine they just need to get through their various political systems to you know sign the sign the bottom line to make sure that happens again lithuania latvia and estonia uh coming to ukraine's aid in the form of military shipments they're probably not going to be able to offer very much but a lot of european nations are stepping up to supply ukraine with military arms if they cannot provide troops for their defense on the opposite side of the spectrum germany has refused all aid to ukraine they're not giving them any weapons whatsoever and it's very much a germany has slammed the door in ukraine's face when it comes to military equipment uh also relations between poland and ukraine are not super great right now uh historically uh poland and ukraine have not really gotten along so well uh as one might expect due to the fallout from the the cold war and that you know decades of of back and forth on that but recently as in the past couple of days there has been a significant uh significant problem on the border with regards to rail logistics so both poland and ukraine have been trading accusations at each other over this poland states that or accuses ukraine of stopping all train traffic uh rail traffic from ukraine into poland all trade what's uh shutting it all down um and that hurting the polish economy well the ukraine has stated that poland has not abided by their agreements when it comes to trade and things like that so it's really hard to tell who started this but there's a little bit of a spat when it comes to rail logistics between poland and ukraine now this matters because poland's got to be sweating right now i'm sure that their military forces have deployed uh quietly a lot of uh troops to the ukrainian border because essentially if russia invades ukraine depending on how far russia goes uh poland might be the last the last bastion ukraine is definitely the only thing keeping russia off poland's border and that's got to be upsetting poland quite a bit likewise rail problems if there are rail logistical problems if ukraine has stopped shipments into you into poland if that is true that means that the rail logistics are undergoing some kind of uh upset right and this is going to be a huge problem for anyone trying to egress from ukraine you know during this war that's you know many people ourselves included think is about to break out so for those people who are in ukraine and think oh well i'll just hop on a train to poland well you might not be able to because of the railway congestion due to this little diplomatic spat between the countries so again this that might be a remote possibility don't really know but again logistics is one of those things that people often forget or discount in times of conflict and this could be a very big problem in the future i also wanted to touch on kazakhstan for a minute the russian deployment to kazakhstan has come to an end and the airborne troops that took part in that are now being relocated either around russia or into belarus or places like that for those of you who weren't following the kazakhstan event it was basically over as soon as it started there was a small coup that occurred in kazakhstan the the dictator was attempted to be overthrown by a smaller contingent of politicians and and things like that and the the coup was put down with the aid of russian airborne troops and other forces that that came to kazakhstan's aid to help quell that rebellion kazakhstan's had a dictator style relationship in the political sphere in kazakhstan for a while now so it's not surprising but this for sure did one of two things for russia one it allowed their airborne troops to again get one last little training exercise with live rounds if you know what i mean uh for airborne operations but it also uh maybe pushed back the timeline that russia had for uh invading ukraine if that is in fact what they're going to do yeah the airborne units the russian airborne is going to be very very much needed when it comes to securing key um key locations like airfields as well as the assault for uh kiev here in a minute so that's really all i've got for significant events outside of ukraine let's go ahead and take a look at some reference material that we're going to need to know uh when this conflict kicks off and that is the composition of the standard russian battalion tactical group the btg concept was created much for the same reasons that the united states bct or brigade combat team was created for regional conflicts around the world russia has historically not been super great when it comes to expeditionary things so unlike the united states military whose main goal has been expeditionary ventures russia has really not structured their military around that so much but we can talk more about russian military doctrine later really what i wanted to focus on is some terms and graphics for specifically the btg because the btg is what we're going to be talking about a lot this is the main style of unit that is being used in that has been used and will continue to be used in ukraine if this conflict gets any more kinetic than it already has so let's go over what exactly a btg is and what kinds of units uh subunits are inside one right so symbology for a battalion tactical group btg it's a smaller style unit it's not really the upper echelons and organizational structure for btgs is very interesting russia likes to use these btgs in very small areas independent of one another so rather than deploying entire regiments or cores or armies around russia they prefer to cherry-pick btgs from all over the russian federation and send them to a specific area to work together so it's more of a it's i i don't really know how to describe it other than maybe it's a little bit more autonomous than the traditional uh russian style of command structure but essentially this is supposed to be the swiss army knife of russian military units so within a battalion tactical group within it within a btg the main meat and potatoes is the motor rifle company in other words mechanized infantry so one motor rifle company consists of usually two motor rifle platoons and a weapons platoon now the weapons platoon can of course be anything from heavy weapons to some kind of towed weaponry that we can get into a minute this can vary quite a bit right um but usually usually this is the basic uh composition and there are usually three of these motor rifle companies per btg up next is artillery so this is a very significant part of the battalion tactical group they not only have their mechanized infantry but they also have artillery on board to handle any kind of support actions for those infantry and this is a very significant part most russian artillery is in the form of rocket artillery but the btgs have been observed to be using 122 millimeter self-propelled howitzers as their main force for btgs again like i mentioned this can be swapped out so we can have a lot of mrls or multiple rocket launcher systems being used in in lieu of the normal howitzers that we might see but for the most part again this is the basic complement within the artillery battery there's also a specific mortar platoon and then also again a couple of platoons of towed guns now again in the russian military doctrine they have a very long history with sort of anti-tank guns and towed guns and things like that these can be mounted so we might see some kind of track based guns we might see the normal toad guns towed behind like a normal truck usually the russians like to have these in uh direct fire mode so we're talking like um anti-tank uh guns that are being used in direct fire mode in an anti-tank role but these also can function uh in an indirect fire roll so uh for engaging targets uh at a longer distance up next we have various uh different kinds of platoons that kind of fall underneath the the structure and they can go wherever they're needed first up is recon so again the one of the downsides of the btg is that it doesn't really have the ability to project power beyond its own footprint so much but they do have a very small reconnaissance effort organic to the btg so that's interesting also they have an asg 17 platoon typically for those that don't understand what that is that's typically like a an automatic grenade launcher platoon similar to the u.s mark 19. also russians again have a very long history of using flame projection platoons usually these are uh rocket based or rocket propelled flame throwers some some weaponry that is again unique to the russian russian military doctrine we don't really tend to use that so much in the u.s doctrine anymore but again the russians do use that and again they also have a specific the russian doctrine calls it a machine gun platoon but think of this as your weapons platoon again uh just taking into account various different kinds of weaponry that can either be dismounted or mounted so again these guys all kind of work together they're not really going to be operating so much as an independent platoon for different things and then finally a very small ada detachment we're talking maybe a couple of dudes with uh with some sa7s so some man pads just for localized very short range air defense and then finally we have various support functions we have signals supply engineers maintainers and medical so again just like a very very much similar to a western style structure uh with regards to the support functions so that is the basic structure of the battalion tactical group as used by russia in the you know recent times like i mentioned again this can vary so much this will vary widely when it comes to support units and what other units are going to be working in conjunction with various btgs to accomplish their mission some btgs will get an extra grodd style mrls system we might see you know trench diggers being used we've already seen pictures of those being attached to various btgs we might even see a btg get thrown in with an electronic warfare outfit or or a very large high level a high altitude sam site or even maybe a ballistic missile site so sometimes this can this can vary so much that you can't even really discern the original uh the original btg so just keep that in mind when we're talking about these kinds of units this is kind of the baseline that we're working with all right so jumping to the map to show a kind of overall projection of the russian forces that are currently deployed now i feel the need as many intel analysts uh do feel sometimes to put a lot of caveats on what i'm about to show because uh this is very very significant if this is in fact true uh the units that i'm about to show are from ukrainian estimates that are as of november but i'll show you the product they came from here in just a second but these ukrainian estimates look something like this now for those of you who are familiar with military structures and the operational terms and graphics this slide should make you slightly queasy because that's a lot of men that is an extremely large amount of forces that are spread all the way around ukraine now again i do want to kind of caveat again that much of that comes from this particular slide that has been widely circulated by um your average ocean analyst to your mainstream media alike this slide was taken from a larger series of slides from the ukrainian government as of last november and it's a combination of actual units and projected units so this is kind of this might be a little bit misleading because we can't actually sit here and independently verify that all of these armies and and brigades and divisions are where they are right we can't verify that so this is of course again coming from the ukrainians now i should also mention that if there's anybody who has the motive to overestimate russia's you know forces that are on their border it would be ukraine right um because so so there is an element of well how much do you trust ukrainian intelligence and i don't know from my very very limited experience working in this kind of area and doing a lot of research from what i've been able to tell the ukrainian intelligence is pretty spot on and it's very close to what u.s intelligence estimates are so sorry i can't give you more than just a hey trust the ukrainian intelligence but but unfortunately our own internal estimates are actually quite a bit worse so this is what we have estimated being used in the theater within at least the next couple of weeks some of this is confirmed these units are confirmed to be in this locations other places other units are not so we'll get into this when we talk about actual when we go to each front here in just a minute but right now the official us government estimates that have been either leaked or intentionally released to the press are that roughly 60 btgs are right now on the border or are maneuvering to the border uh with ukraine either in belarus or you or russia proper now from what we've been able to tell that's a very low ball estimate we've seen ukrainian sources and a lot of other open source sources thinking that maybe that number is around 80. so we're talking maybe 60 to 80 btgs online right now now as far as what's the magic number a lot of people in the intel world think that the magic number is 100 so when russia gets about 100 btgs online and and ready to roll that's when they're going to start rolling across the countryside but again that's just speculation although a lot of this is just guess work when it comes to the a lot of the intel work that's being done by us and by others as well some of the big dog additions uh that the ukrainian slides and the ukrainian intelligence products have not had but we have observed being in the area roughly in these positions actually are the s 400 ada detachments and battalions now this is a big deal these are very high level very sophisticated surface-to-air missile systems and that's roughly where they're located but again we can talk more about that when we get into it a little bit later we also as of this morning we're able to confirm one uh bm27 oregon mrls battalion being in that area maybe a division i don't really know just yet but i guess we'll have to see and then also in addition to that we also have the russian government actually doing us a favor and confirming that they are sending 25 su-35 fighter aircraft and all related support equipment and vehicles to belarus in that deployment now it is important to note that russia and belarus have half-heartedly declared that they are simply conducting a training exercise that's the reason for all of this deployment and i say that that's a half-hearted defense because that excuse is almost certainly a joke honestly because most of the deployments that have been confirmed by local sources have not been anywhere near the declared training areas for this exercise right and most of the units that have been observed are not officially a part of these so-called exercises so it's kind of a farce to say that this is an exercise that's kind of a half-hearted attempt so the softball assessment is that of course russia and belarus are using this exercise as an excuse to get men and equipment closer and closer to the border without nato doing too much we're also hearing rumors via the social media accounts of russian soldiers that are actually being deployed for this that russia has left their conscripts behind so they will not be taking part in these quote unquote exercises right now this is a big deal because conscripts are a really large part of russian military doctrine russia a while back after the fallout soviet union wanted to go with a more volunteer they wanted to go with an all-volunteer army but that wasn't possible not enough people were volunteering for military service um because you know the russian military is kind of a um it's a very tough organization i should say that and uh it's not very popular people didn't really want to join it so russia has kind of had to go with this hybrid hybrid sphere of uh having volunteers uh run a lot of the more sophisticated equipment and be in more of the elite units whereas conscripts being deployed as basically um just support roles and things like that now you'd think that it would be the other way around you'd think that the conscripts would be basically cannon fodder well that's not that's not the way it's worked out because the political leadership in russia vladimir putin specifically has been very hyper attentive to this to make sure that the russian people the russian public doesn't they they really the russian public really does not like it when conscripts get killed in action so it looks much better in the papers if if you know any combat deaths that are seen are from volunteers so that's something that the russian government has most certainly been hyper attentive too but again they've left their conscripts behind for this deployment which points even more to this not being a training exercise because if it was a training exercise you'd bring your conscripts along but you don't want your conscripts to get killed in any frontline fighting because that just brings morale down within russia all right so let's talk scheme of maneuver for a bit uh the general theory of maneuver is going to be as follows most and and this is not our assessment this is really just a culmination of assessments from a lot of different organizations and people who have been talking about ukraine for a very long time there are a lot of assumptions being made about the russian way of war and what's going to be done and whatnot i'm just going to give you the very broad brush strokes of of what is roughly the theory as to what's going to happen most people think that there's going to be a northern and southern push along several fronts so and this this can happen in different orders but most likely we're going to see a push from the east to the deneba river really early on in conjunction with a push from the south up through crimea we're also expecting a push from the north through kharkiv all the way down and also a concerted push for kiev additionally forces uh stationed in moldova in the essentially what's a russian puppet state they can provide supporting roles that can provide locations for staging uh things like radar and electronic warfare and stuff like that we're not really going to see too many troops being deployed from moldova or too many russian troops being staged there but this will be yet another front that the ukrainians will have to fight on if it comes to that my guess is they're probably going to hold off on using moldova as a base until they see how the rest of this goes additionally from the from the northwest we're going to see most likely a lot of airborne units being staged in belarus for taking out or securing various targets again airborne's mission especially the russian concept is to land in areas without transiting over the land right so parachute down into areas to hold and secure a specific objective until the land forces can come and and support that role as well so we might see airborne units being used all over ukraine to secure various airfields there's a lot of airfields in the west that are still being used so we might see that occur as a way to prevent the ukrainian air force what's left of it from ever getting off the ground in the first place we're also going to see significant dominance in the form of aerial superiority being used to blanket ukraine to make sure that not even a paper airplane gets off the ground so moving down to the specific eastern front as we see it right now this is the incursion zone this is uh where the invasion has already occurred like i mentioned donetsk the donbass area luhansk really is where the front line is you can see that red line that shows where the current front line is as of well right now now we have uh ew platforms being templated again i should mention this is all speculative we don't really know where these ew units are but it will be fairly easy to find them because the russians have been very very very instrumental in developing the field of electronic warfare the russians have put a lot of time and effort into developing out their electronic warfare capabilities and using that in war and we have seen ew units very large significant ew units being used in years past roughly where these units are templated now so we're just going to assume that they're there for now and once we get a better location for it we'll update you there as far as other units goes we don't really have any specific locations just yet but again we'll update you on that moving down to the crimean front the southern front this is of course where the crimean again the crimean incursion slash invasion has already occurred now let's talk amphibious stuff for a minute now the six ships that are inbound from the baltic and slash north north sea fleets they are most likely a lot of people are thinking that odessa is going to be a major target odessa is a major port town significant um significant cargo offloading capacity in odessa it will be a great place for an amphibious landing somewhere around there so that they can use those amphibious troops to hold the city for the crimean uh soldiers to come across and uh take that as well uh and support that so i i don't know if that's going to be the goal i think that it's it's kind of who knows this might be all trickery we might see them being dropped up uh in the aids of uplands you never really know until it happens i suppose remember the russians are masters of of military deception they call it maskarovka right so they like the chinese are very instrumental in the field of military deception the russians are as well once we get a better idea of where the the ships are going to be located we'll template them there um they're not obviously they're not there yet they're not in the black sea yet they just passed through the english channel this morning so again we'll we'll figure that out once once uh once we figure out where they're going they might stop at sylvester poll uh in crimea and unload some troops we don't really know if they've troops have been unloaded already it would be kind of an unpleasant journey if these guys were already loaded on board and they're you know sailing halfway around the world just to get to this location but i guess we'll see how that how that works out in either case we'll have pictures of these guys going through the turkish straits to get up to the black sea anyway moving up to the northeastern front we don't really have too much templated just yet this is kind of a blank map we'll have to wait and see where these units actually pop up but i can tell you that most of the staging activity that we have seen either people recording videos of trains unloading or offloading or or stuff like that that's in going to be in bryansk so that's where a significant portion of troops are being staged presumably for the northern thrust for kiev and sidestepping a little bit to cover the belarussian border this is the northwestern front like i mentioned significant more intelligence on this front so far because we've been able to just pick up a lot more uh information from bilateral media so the first big addition is really the first mrls unit that we have seen move really close to the border really there's somewhere in the gomella region we haven't been able to specifically geo-locate them down to a specific lat long yet but we were able to identify them as the 165th artillery brigade so that's the that's the flash that we'll use on them for now there's also at least one uh btg in the town of yeltzk belarus a local tv station actually went out and interviewed the guys so um we'll have to follow back up on that but that is very very close uh to the ukrainian border so that's all we have for the fronts this time we'll continue using this format depending on how things go again this may all be a farce we might just be fooled again and russia decides to pull out and not launch the invasion this time due to the uh weather who knows but i whatever happens we'll uh we'll let you know what goes on so again thank you for tuning in and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground so this is going to be a quick and dirty update uh for the 24th of february 2022 on the invasion of ukraine we are recording this at 0-100 juliet time which is eastern standard time and which is also the same as 0-800 bravo time which is ukraine's local time as usual most likely by the time this brief gets out things will have changed very drastically so as always take everything i'm about to say with a grain of salt because things could quite literally change in just a few minutes so let's get right to it i had planned to cover quite a lot of international events that have occurred in the past 24 hours we were right in the middle of actually finalizing a brief to push out because the invasion seemed quite imminent as it's already happening right now so what i'm going to do is not really talk about what has happened i'm going to talk about what is going to happen by the time most of you start watching this video so um by the morning of the 24th of february in the eastern time zones we fully expect a lot of things to happen roughly around the same time and that is really to to do with the financial markets uh right now we're already seeing specula speculative uh trading not looking super good so as one might expect invasion occurs markets crash right i don't know if it's going to be that magic c word the crash you know i don't know if it's going to be quantify or qualify as a crash but i would expect markets to dip quite significantly so pre-market trading has kind of indicated this already along with energy prices starting to skyrocket in various places around the world so just remember that if you see a lot of people you know spreading fear or you know the skies falling types of rhetoric in the financial sector on thursday morning uh just be advised this is to be expected uh no it's not good um russia openly declaring that they're invading another country and it's a full and total invasion it's you know it's not a minor incursion uh that's not good for markets obviously and um you know it's going to be a kind of a very turbulent time with that regard we're also seeing as anyone with two brain cells can see that cyber attacks will probably occur in various places around the world we've already seen over the past week a lot of mysterious unknown actor cyber attacks occur in places like germany and ukraine and you know obviously ukraine and other nations around the world even here in the united states we had amazon web services go down right for no apparent reason so uh stuff like that's probably going to happen i don't know if it's gonna be like extremely dire nobody really knows nobody can guess how bad this stuff's gonna be but i would venture a guess this is just my gut feeling is that we're going to see a lot of cyber style events because vladimir putin has very much signaled that he is not interested in any kind of nato actions he's not interested in considering what nato might do with regards to ukraine he's just saying you know screw it invade fully right we went from this is just a drill right four or five days ago to now we're invading and we're going to demilitarize ukraine so that's kind of a huge jump in rhetoric and um vladimir putin has pulled out all of the stops i don't think he has done anything this significant in a long time this is even more more open uh and more um more dedicated than the original invasion of ukraine which was done with a lot of secrecy while the world didn't really care about it but anyway i'm digressing on that too much as far as sanctions from the west or what the west is going to do over the next few days first of all i would rule out any kind of of military action the united states nor the rest of europe is going to get involved in this conflict we're just going to watch it on cnn like everybody else militarily that is so we we've done everything we possibly could as a nation at the nation level to let the world know that we are not going to uh militarily intervene in ukraine beyond of course the the special dudes who are going to do what they do no matter what um but as far as conventional stuff no we're out we're done we're just gonna watch this on tv for the most part as far as sanctions goes anybody with again any common sense can see that sanctions are kind of laughable at this point but the united nations might give it a half-hearted effort but again i would not expect any kind of significant sanctions europe and the united nations as a whole is far too dependent on russia and russia is far too determined russia's determination to take ukraine outweighs the united nations give a damn factor if that makes any sense so the united nations has long been kind of recognized as being a useless entity other than the occasional um you know political moves and things like that but really for the most part sanctions wise we're not going to see too much we might we're going to of course see we saw the other day nordstrom 2 be sort of canceled but my guess is that nordstrom 2 will miraculously and quietly begin the process of being certified again after a few months after things have cooled back down and ukraine doesn't exist anymore but i guess we'll have to see on that so again not too much coming from the west not too much is going to come from the west we'll probably see as we have already seen every nato navy vessel is going to be on high alert and checking out what the russians are doing every military unit in europe is most likely on high alert right now but other than that we're not really going to see too much at least that's what we think moving on to the naval updates i don't have too much for the north sea i'm gonna have to come back to this one later in the med similar situation other than to again say that pretty much every single naval vessel in europe is on a high alert right now so um again things like this kind of bring up those old skull old school cold war mentalities of hey look when everybody's on alert at the same time we have the potential we have the potential for accidents and accidents are very dangerous in a situation like this right accidents can start things and start events into motion that spin out of control very quickly so we have to be mindful that even though the united nations and nato and the united states is not really going to do too much we also have to remember that everybody's on pins and needles right now and the tiniest mistakes can have very long lasting effects so let's get to what everybody here wants to talk about and that is the combat actions that have taken place over the past few hours just a quick overview we are seeing uh combat actions occurring along all of the fronts including the moldova in front that didn't make it onto this slide but we just got the word in that explosions and and lots of combat actions are taking place in transnistria along that front as well so let's dive into each individual front and talk a little bit about each on the northeastern front a lot of the combat that has taken place over the past few hours has been in the vicinity of kharkiv we're assessing based on what open source information we can get which is very few and far between at this point that it looks like the russian russian forces were using vladimir putin's speech at 0-400 local time to conduct coordinated shaping fires along the entire front from kharkiv all the way down to the eastern front as well so we're seeing again russia use pretty standard military tactics of before you roll your armor into the into a nation before you begin your invasion uh you use your artillery in this case russia's rocket artillery to uh conduct what's called pre-shaping fires right or some other term that i forget right in order to take out things like air defense right air defense is very crucial if you're going to be using a lot of helicopters and bomber aircraft so take out the air defense take out military targets such as command and control air fields that you're not planning on using later things like that in order to make sure that if the ukrainian air force can get off the ground they probably can't land again so this is something that russia has been doing over the past few hours and they have been using an impressive amount of artillery the ukrainian government has also confirmed that russian troops have been confirmed to be on the ground across the ukrainian border and armored columns are advancing on the city of kharkiv so we'll see how this works out again by the time this video goes out karkiv might be in a state of siege we don't really know how this is going to work again i just want to let you know that as of right now russian forces are advancing on kharkiv along the eastern front we have seen fighting uh taking place uh for many days now as you can see here we've been building this slide out because this has been building on the eastern front at least for a couple of days now fighting renewed around 24 to 48 hours ago and really along the entire eastern front combat actions were undertaken shelling very heavily with you know conventional howitzers and things like that a few occasional garage strike here and there but as of right now we're starting to see russian forces advance on the city of marapol so ukrainians have been observed to be engaged in combat in moropol i don't know right now if it's within the city or if it's still in the outskirts of marapol of course the russian pro-russian sources are claiming that marple's already fallen don't know about that haven't seen anything from the ukrainian side and probably won't but we'll have to call that there's also rumors right now again i should stress rumors that there are amphibious landings occurring in marapol that has not been confirmed we'll talk about the other amphibious landings that have happened but marapol again would be a prime target for amphibious landings but again misinformation is is just really way out of control from all sides on this so it's really hard to get a beat on what's actually going on moving down south the proverbial first shots of the renewed ukrainian invasion occurred at kalanchak specifically the kalanchak outpost which was hit at zero four zero four there's a screenshot of the ukrainian security cam that was online that allegedly captured the the opening salvos of that attack but since then we've confirmed that russian troops have been moving north through the crimean peninsula there also i should mention here on this slide odessa has been confirmed over the past few minutes here the ukrainian government has confirmed that the essentially the entire ukrainian naval surface fleet has been destroyed in port in odessa and russian landing craft have made amphibious landings in the vicinity of odessa that's a big deal don't know where the where this occurred at uh we'll have to find out exactly where the landings occurred again don't know which ships uh took place in this landings i just put all of them here on the slide to kind of get everybody in the mindset of understanding how many landing craft russia has in this sort of theater and how many could be taking place in this amphibious landing so just to kind of give a rough idea but again we'll refine that once we know how many troops landed and where they landed at and what their goals are moving to the western front here in transnistria again not much to to know uh there have been confirmed to be lots and lots of air defense artillery firing lots of gunshots being heard by locals in transnistria don't really know what that's about don't know if this is an attack or it's one of those things where it's a fog of war thing people are shooting things off because they think they're under attack i i don't really know transistory is pretty remote even the areas where russian troops have been known to to occupy it's a pretty low population area so um it's really hard to say exactly what's going on but my guess is by the time the sun starts coming up in earnest over there we'll get a better idea as to what's going on but again there really aren't that many troops in transnistria um they're definitely well i shouldn't say definitely there have been observed in the past to be around 5 000 russian troops those estimates came down a few years ago even as of last year some analysts were thinking it's like maybe even less than a thousand obviously if russia was planning this from the very start they probably would have funneled in a lot of troops into transnistria if they considered that to be an inadequate front but my guess at this stage my gut instinct is that transistory is really just an alternative front to keep ukrainians busy potentially a good site for um air defense uh and surface-to-air missile capability to keep the ukrainian air force busy um that would make sense for russia to do but again hard to say this is all speculation with regards to the transit history at this time we'll know more in the morning though and finally up north kiev is most certainly on the menu when it comes to russian attacks here it seems like i mentioned before that the idea of a minor incursion is completely off the table we're now we're now talking total invasion here at least that's what it seems based on vladimir putin's own rhetoric as of the past few hours and the fact that troops uh russian troops are now advancing through the chernobyl exclusion zone uh it is unclear as to if the chernobyl exclusion the chernobyl um you know power plant itself uh the historically you know relevant location that that is it is unclear as to if any combat has been you know taking place there because there are a lot of things in chernobyl that don't really react too well to explosions and bullets so that would be something that we're going to keep an eye on as best we can but right now it's it's unclear there's been a heck of a lot of shooting up there though and russian forces are currently advancing through the area again uh like i mentioned the chernobyl exclusion zone is is for military only right at this stage it's an exclusion zone you can't go up there if you're a civilian so it's not likely we're going to have some guy you know with a smartphone you know getting us a good video for twitter here it's going to be military only forces and they're going to be kind of occupied with the people that are trying to kill them so again once russian forces get a little closer to kiev we'll probably know exactly what's going on there this could be everything from a full-scale thing through full-scale invasion through the chernobyl exclusion zone this could be a probing attack who knows i also wanted to mention on this slide in kiev the kiev airport there's some stuff going down there there hasn't been any information for a while but apparently the airport out to the east of the city has had some small arms fire been heard by a lot of locals a lot of gunfire a lot of explosions at this airport so there's everything floating around again speculation is everywhere right uh but a lot of people are either thinking that the airport was attacked in some way or that russian ground troops as in special forces soldiers who had infiltrated into ukraine are trying to take the airport and seize it as a way of keeping that airport open remember ukraine is a very large nation right and this is the problem that that occurs just in the field of warfare if one nation is trying to invade another nation the person doing the invading is not going to want to destroy everything in that country because they're going to need to use that stuff too right so even though we are seeing russians target military hardware and critical infrastructure it's going to be really interesting to see what russia chooses to keep and not go full scorched earth on this thing because again russia is invading ukraine right for a number of reasons one of those reasons is resources so it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to have kiev a city of millions right a city of millions of people and have their only airport or one of their only you know bigger airports at least uh to be completely destroyed like donetsk right donetsk airport it was was you know a different story than the one right now so it's something to keep in mind as we see the battle for kiev get underway here in the next few days and before we conclude today i briefly wanted to touch on evacuations so we're going to get a lot of questions i know a lot of people are going to be asking about okay how can i egress from ukraine well uh right now we're kind of waiting for the smoke to clear right it's very very unlikely that russian troops will be able to completely and totally take the entire nation of ukraine in a day right it's going to take several days uh but at the same time you need to be moving with purpose if your goal is to leave ukraine belarus is not an option belarusian the belarusian border is already closed they've closed all rail and the ukrainian government itself said they were closing all land borders as well so something that's not really not really feasible if you feel like you can make it then go for it but most people seem to be heading west to poland poland or moldova poland being the obvious choice but moldova being another choice as well just due to geography right now we're seeing a lot of reports of russian aircraft in ukrainian airspace we can confirm via the radio networks that have picked up strategic bomber uh communications platforms and the q the uh basically the com frequencies the bombers use to get uh strategic messages those are hot right now so i know that's kind of gibberish to those of you who aren't intel folks but basically this means that russia is probably going to begin strategic bombing or launching a lot of cruise missiles at places in ukraine most likely critical infrastructure within the next few hours probably before this brief goes out so again subject to change who really knows what's going on but that's where i put my money in any case this is going to affect evacuation efforts because right now the highways are clogged ukrainian military vehicles are going to be stuck in the same traffic jams that all civilians are stuck in for the most part there's obviously you know the military's going to take priority of course but when it comes to like traffic control and things like that but for the most part there aren't that many roads and west so and the kiev traffic is already starting to stack up so again it's trying to weigh do you want to stay and wait for russia to finish their pre-invasion bombing and striking and cruise missile launching or do you want to risk going out in that because time is of the essence and you know soldiers are coming your way it's it's really going to have to be a call based on people on the ground any average person on the ground in ukraine is going to know more than we do right now but one more tidbit of information i wanted to pass on which is cyber i would fully expect the internet to go down or be complete or be spotty uh cellular coverage to be denied um and uh things like inner basic internet connection will most likely be very very very much restricted also you might have trouble with gps stuff we do know russian units possess the capability to jam gps signals so you might not even be able to rely on your gps again another lesson why having physical paper roadmaps is vital so again there's multiple ways that this can happen we're talking uh russian like physical kinetic strikes as in you know russian bombs blowing up power stations can take power out uh they can take cell phone towers down things like that uh you're also talking electronic warfare stuff jamming can be a can be a factor as well and then also just on top of that everyone in ukraine's on the phone right now everyone in ukraine is on the internet right now trying to figure out what's going on so just simply even if there wasn't any kinetic actions right now the the sheer number of people overloading an already pretty bad communications infrastructure is going to just overwhelm the system right so please keep that in mind and please be prepared um don't go somewhere don't leave a safe cover unless you know where you're going and how to get there and an alternative route an alternative route if you can't make it stuff like that basic stuff i know that anyone there is is probably going to not exactly be relying on us to be a huge help but we're going to do what we can to try to kind of at least map where russians are at so that we can hopefully hopefully get some civilians out of there so that's all i have for right now everyone thanks for sticking with us this is going to be a rough next few days again i would like to remind everybody that when it comes to these relatively real time updates just keep in mind that you're either getting speed or quality but not both so we're going to have a lot of updates with regards to our slides and the information we're presenting because things are changing so fast and the fog of war is a real problem it's a real problem not just for us but for everybody else so so thanks again everybody for your support and and remember to to always keep things in perspective right even though this situation does not look good uh it doesn't really look very positive for the future of ukraine or or really for europe for that matter um but just try to keep things in perspective try to try to not let all of the things you're going to see over the next few days scare you too much but a little bit of fear right it is good and motivating you to change your own ways right so if you can learn a lesson from the atrocities that we're already seeing in ukraine that will at least be something good right so try to do that try to try to focus on the good things and try to focus on the good improvements that you can make in your own life moving forward at least that's what we're going to try to do so thanks again and we'll see you next time and as always fight in the shade

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the Intel update for the 20th of December 2022 and as always it is being recorded on the day prior so let's get right to it uh first up I wanted to address some of the updates that we've had following the Moore County North Carolina critical infrastructure attack uh the attack on the electrical substations down there so so as many of you know this incident uh has had many different challenging aspects to it for one there has been the actual attack itself the circumstances surrounding the attack the details of what exactly was attack and how attacks were carried out and then the other side of things are the responses to it so there are two major groups of concerns there so let's first talk about the actual electrical substation attack itself uh really not much more is known uh it has been kind of an information black hole since our last briefing on this incident the only really thing that we have to update are the responses to the situation right so speaking of the actual attack itself we really don't know much more there haven't been any arrests there have been several warrants issued at least according to the local sheriff down there but those warrants are sealed so we don't know what they pertained to so there have been multiple uh Financial incentives being offered uh totaling as last I checked up to 75 000 which in that part of North Carolina to be you know kind of indelicate is is a pretty pretty big sum so uh the fact that no one has come forward yet even with this uh pretty substantial reward being offered for any information pertaining to the attacks that kind of tells me that there's the authorities are kind of struggling on this one to kind of figure out what happened just my gut feeling is that since this is such a remote part of the country I mean Southern Pines itself is not really that remote I mean it's a city right uh but you know where these attacks occurred it's it's rural North Carolina and there's really not a whole lot of State you know either state or federal government surveillance down in that area I am absolutely certain that you know as with every electrical substation in the world or at least in the United States there's probably surveillance footage of who conducted these attacks however it's probably so inconclusive that no one can really get any information from it cell phone data is almost certainly being surveilled down there as well and I can guarantee you that everyone in Moore County probably has had their cell phone data pulled by the FBI at this point again that's just a hunch but I mean hey look at the kind of surveillance that we're living under nationally you know every day the fact that there still hasn't been an arrest and there still hasn't been anything it's kind of like um the whole situation with a missing person right if someone goes missing and there isn't and they're not recovered within you know 48 Hours the chances of them being recovered are pretty substantially low the same kind of thing applies to attacks like this is that as time goes on if we don't get an immediate arrest uh you're probably going to be very hard-pressed to find someone now even though I'm sure a lot of people don't really want to hear this I must talk about the potential for who could have done this attack and really it could have been anyone uh however I do want to address the main concern that I've seen kind of floating around out there and it's just kind of the the elephant in the room at this point when we see infrastructure attacks and that elephant is people thinking that this could have been the government doing this as a way of either sending a message or trying to knock off critical infrastructure in areas where they know there is going to be significant resistance to their actions these General sentiments are are real right there this is not something that we're just you know seeing you know being made up this is a real sentiment tensions are very high and these sentiments these feelings these atmospherics right the situation on the ground gets made a lot worse by the County's reaction to this electrical substation attack so let me just cut right to the chase with that and explain what I mean so here's what we had we had a critical infrastructure attack two electrical substations were attacked specifically with the intent to cause damage and bring the power offline for whatever reason we don't know the full end goal I suppose but we do know that somebody somewhere wanted the power out in Moore County North Carolina and they knew exactly how to do it following this incident which is bad enough as is the local government went and did a lot of weird stuff and what they did was the the first thing they did as soon as the power goes out curfew there we go right the the attack occurred uh on around seven ish seven to eight ish I think on the third of December by that by the next morning the fourth of December curfew was in effect and it stayed in effect for several days while the crisis was you know kind of working its way through the problem with this is that that's not all that's not all of what they did the local government the local County officials shut down tattoo parlors because literally the county officials stated the reason why they didn't want tattoo parlors open is because it's a good idea it's not a good idea to give people tattoos in the dark like what in the Sam Hill is going on down there the other thing that was also concerning is the local Health Department uh also shut down every single restaurant or establishment that lost power during the crisis they shut down those restaurants and they only let them reopen if they could prove beyond all doubt to the health inspector that they their food was safe that they didn't uh you know like lose Refrigeration or something like that and uh the food spoil while you know sitting in a hot refrigerator so a lot of weird stuff happened this is not typical like power goes out all the flipping time all around this country all around the world and there is very rarely like I can't remember any situation where a health inspector literally says you cannot serve customers until we come in and reinspect and make sure that your food did not spoil during the power outage like that's just utterly ridiculous uh to me so we had a lot of weird stuff happen down there it's almost like as soon as the power went out every single authority figure even at the smallest most unimportant level uh immediately became tyrannical and they wanted to wield their power as much as they possibly could like when was the last time anybody body who regulates tattoo parlors was any had any kind of relevance in the world whatsoever I mean I hate to phrase it like that but that's the truth so yeah a lot of weird stuff happened a lot of what we might consider to be tyrannical stuff uh instantly occurred as far as the local government uh you know was concerned at the lowest possible levels and like I mentioned these thought processes get Amplified because what is the first thing that happened right there have been power outages all over this country and and uh electrical substations attacked all over this country right we had an IED a vehicle-borne IED detonate in downtown Nashville a couple of years ago no information since then but no curfew was announced when there was an actual no kidding IED attack in the United States of America and really nothing happened because of that they cleaned up the debris and everyone went about their day like it never happened right here in North Carolina the power goes out in five minutes later the sheriff's declaring a curfew everyone stay in their homes right that's a huge deal right you have to look get things like that and you know I'm I'm really sorry for the people who can't see the writing on the wall for what this means because sure you want to catch the bad guys you want to catch the guys that did this but at the same time you've also got to think why am I getting why am I getting punished for this when there's why the why the extreme overreach here we've got so many law enforcement like all of these electrical sites had the entire County's law enforcement at them right also infuriating to see are is the local response to it I mean there were so many people um that that thought oh the curfew is perfectly fine the sheriff's doing a wonderful job this is great yeah nobody needs to make tattoos in the dark despite the fact that most tattoo artists actually use headlamps routinely during their job but despite that fact there were a lot of people that thought that the local authorities were doing a good job and that these tyrannical measures were not tyrannical at all they're just you know trying to keep our community safe only other hand you've got a lot of people down there that are smart enough to see the riding on the wall and say hmm yeah curfews not a good thing the damage has already been done you've already got you know your entire police force uh stationed outside of every other electrical substation in the county you know why the curfew here what's the big deal so there are a lot of people I just want for for people who aren't aware of this because this brief goes out to you know a lot of people people who aren't in the area might not understand that people in the area people in Moore County a substantial number of them cannot see the writing on the wall as to why this was a bad thing right they look at the power going out and they think that's the biggest issue that's not the biggest issue the biggest issue is your local authorities trying to tyrannize you during a crisis so now you're not just fighting the crisis but you're up against you know authorities who you know have guns and that's not a huge it's not a good uh thing so a lot of people don't realize that they're really up against three major groups of adversaries when it comes to things like this now you know it used to be man when I was growing up when the power went out you know the local authorities were were you know helpful they they do what they can they may not be the best well-equipped but nowadays man what is what has been the response the response is the authorities you know pointing guns at the citizens who didn't do anything wrong you know that's kind of the the attitude that that comes out of this that a lot of people especially in you know places where these kinds of things happen don't realize they don't realize the adversarial nature of the relationship and because they don't understand the adversarial nature of the relationship they're going to get you know kind of you know bad things happen to them and they're they're going to realize it far far too late so the next time this thing happens right because let's face it as we get further into this brief you're going to realize that electrical infrastructure attacks are on the rise like you would not believe now every time there's a substation attack throughout the country you have to be prepared no matter where you're at in the country you have to be prepared for your local police officers to keep you in your home that's the precedent that's been set you have to be prepared for a curfew at any given time and so few of us remembered that over the past couple of years of curfews if you know what I mean but also your next door neighbors could quite literally be your adversary because you dared to oppose the creation of a curfew so I think I've talked this one to death we'll move on now to uh the actual Regional updates uh but I really just wanted to make sure that we kind of ironed things out and talked to this one out a little bit more with regards to what this attack means this is a very severe incident that requires a significant amount of reading between the lines to understand the impacts of so let's move on to the Northeast region so far I haven't found anything for the Northeast there have been a lot of things that have occurred right I don't want to again I want to remind everyone that just because it's not on the slide doesn't mean that it hasn't happened it's just I haven't gotten to it yet and I haven't run it to ground with a bunch of different sources right these things take time so uh I haven't really focused on the northeast just yet so we'll go ahead and move on to the Southeast region so moving to the Southeast region we can kind of see why I think this is worth talking about a little bit more because even in North Carolina the latest attack back on the third slash 4th of December in Southern Pines that attack was not the only one uh there have been several others uh there was one uh back on the 11th of November in Maysville North Carolina this one really didn't get any news because it didn't really affect any customers the power was able to be rerouted successfully and even though the substation was offline for gosh a considerable amount of time I think a couple of days at least while the repairs are being conducted the customers didn't really feel the impact of it so again this is rural North Carolina and there's just not a whole lot of information in some some of these places right I think the interesting thing so far is that North Carolina is a very uh heavily militarily Centric State and I find it very interesting that two electrical grid attacks have occurred immediately outside or in the general vicinity of we have the Duke Energy attack in Southern Pines North Carolina taking place just outside of Fort Bragg or really rather Camp McCall the special side of uh things and we also have this attack in Maysville which is is sort of in the general vicinity of Camp Lejeune and also Cherry Points not too far away technically I guess so there's also a few Coast Guard bases down there but I'm not sure if you'd Factor those into the to the thing but I do think it's very interesting that these attacks are occurring outside of or in close proximity to military bases I don't know that's just kind of my gut observation here I don't know if there's any kind of you know link there investigatively you'd think that investigators have to be thinking about that but I guess we'll see as time goes on moving down to Florida a very interesting series of attacks occurred in the sort of Tampa Bay area and I say area because six at least six as of now electrical substations have been taken offline or affected in some way by vandals and or people seeking to attack the facility now again I have to be super vague about this because not a lot of the details are public and we just don't know the details of what these attacks looked like we do know that Duke Energy has disclosed that there were multiple quote unquote intrusions to their facilities throughout the area now it being Tampa Bay you know the Tampa area being Florida we have to kind of remind ourselves that a lot of electrical sites are tampered with broken into um affected in some way by copper theft right with the economic situation in the country being super you know not great at the moment we had we were realizing that things like catalytic converter theft copper theft purchase metal theft is at an all-time high you know it's not helped by the markets I guess either way but we have to think about that um I think that's a possibility so I wanted to mention it right up front but I also think that it's probably not very likely you don't have six different electrical substations attacked or vandalized you know within a very short time frame I don't really know what to think about this it's just one of those things I wanted to bring up in the context of our you know National infrastructure electrical infrastructure being under attack like in unprecedented numbers so I I thought that since it occurred after the North Carolina attacks uh and those North Carolina attacks were so high profile I thought maybe it was copycats and that that could also be a theory as well but really we don't know hardly any details about these attacks in Florida so I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see moving to the East Central midwestern region uh kind of an interesting one this is uh this got kind of viral news because it was yet another food production facility that caught fire slash exploded uh this was at the Star of the West Milling Company in Kinto Ohio just outside of Cleveland uh this one is a little complicated uh to to kind of talk about because I'm not entirely sure if the facility actually is functional because when you when you try to Deep dive on these things you can read the headline you know Star of the West Milling Company catches fire right but when you actually start looking into this facility you start finding news articles from you know months and years ago stating how operations have ceased at this facility so I don't know if this facility was actually active at the time we do know that it was vacant and there were no workers at the time of the fire sound familiar to literally all the other briefs that we've you know talked about these facilities are always vacant at the time of the fire interestingly enough but also it was labeled as a historic site because it's a very old historic building you know in Kent Ohio so I'm not entirely certain if this facility actually produces food I saw several news agencies claiming that you know several hundred thousand pounds of flour you know this is what this produced but I I don't know if that's what it currently produces whether or not the building was actually occupied and producing food at the time of the incident is really important and it matters a lot because if the building was you know vacant and it had it wasn't producing any food and there was just kind of an abandoned building well if you know a building that catches fire that's abandoned we can just kind of chalk that up to a normal arson kind of event however if it was a functioning facility we really start after thinking in terms of all right this might be a more deliberate attack on critical infrastructure so again we'll keep an eye on this I'm sure someone out there who goes by the facility and knows maybe it's both maybe it is a historical site and maybe it did do some kind of limited production of flour or or grain processing of some kind uh but yeah I just wanted to kind of talk about this one because even the local media doesn't seem to know what this facility was actually doing at the time of the fire other than you know being vacant with no workers at it so kind of interesting and we'll again have to wait and see what the details are on this one moving over to the West Central midwestern region two incidents of no um two of which are quite interesting so let's start with Kansas back on the 7th of December uh TC energy which is a company that maintains uh the flow of of product through the Keystone Pipeline the original Keystone Pipeline I detected a leak of roughly 14 000 barrels which spilled interestingly enough into a local Creek in extremely remote Washington County Kansas the pipeline was offline for a significant amount of time about a week or so as far as I can tell while repairs were being made but right now really no one has disclosed the company hasn't disclosed nor have government agencies disclosed what the cause of this leak was was this a deliberate attack or was this some kind of you know maintenance error again when we're looking at critical infrastructure attacks I know I've said it multiple times but let me reiterate that it doesn't necessarily have to be nefarious a lot of times these critical infrastructure incidents are purely maintenance right and we'll get to that here uh when we're when we talk about Iowa in just a second but we don't necessarily have to look at things from a from a purely nefarious Viewpoint right these could be legitimate incidents that are really just maintenance issues now that doesn't mean that they're that they're all you know hunky-dory and everything's fine no we have seen over the past couple of years a sharp increase in maintenance issues because of supply chain issues causing parts to wear out more quickly and they're not being replaced things are being used past their life cycle and we've got a whole just a mess of a you know chain of causation of really bad incidents right so the potential for really bad stuff to happen is very very high right now and it's not just because we're all thinking that there are you know deliberate attacks on our critical infrastructure which there most certainly are but a lot of these are are just purely mistakes now I wanted to say that uh with regards to this one because when we swing over to Iowa we can talk about the C60 Factory slash recycling facility uh incident now this was a very high profile sort of I guess we should call it an incident rather than an accident uh which was a large explosion at that facility now this facility is a recycling facility they primarily focus on recycling shingles back into oil or petroleum products of some kind now this incident I'm sure will make every Osho uh official just absolutely cringe because it's almost like they went down the list of everything you should not do at a facility and they did all of those things for instance at this facility at the time of the fire slash explosion the sprinklers were not functional at all throughout you know the whole facility also the facility had a long history of fires in fact there had been several Fires at this facility involving diesel fuel uh the day in the days prior to this uh explosion and local and the actual employees of the facility were putting out these diesel fires with uh hand fire extinguishers so you know that tells you something right there also employees had not actually been paid there were few employees who noted that they had not been paid for oh they had a backlog of about a month's worth of pay they were missing from this facility again another huge red flag uh and there were other complaints too stuff like employees complaining that the facility management refused to provide them with literally the absolute Baseline of Osha mandated stuff like hard hats and reflective vests so you start to get kind of a bigger picture here um of a more negligence kind of incident right as if things were not bad enough the facility is now a Hazmat Zone because the chemicals that they use or something at this facility is now leaking into both a local River sort of tributary thing and also into the ground so that's not good for the local environment so the reason that I wanted to bring this one up is because again we have to keep in mind that right now is really really risky for a lot of Industry right if we're not trying to take out Bad actors or monitor deliberate attacks on our infrastructure we're doing it to ourselves right so just gross negligence is a huge problem right now and we have to keep in mind just like what I said uh you know a couple of briefs ago I think we really really really have to be vigilant so if you are a factory worker or if you work at an industrial site please please please be careful because here's the bottom line we all know how vulnerable our system is right now our entire Global infrastructure is just cripplingly dependent on everything going right at all times it is so so easy to completely disrupt and destroy a lot of our critical infrastructure and no one has really paid attention to any of this stuff until stuff starts happening unfortunately so we have to make be vigilant and understand that government agencies don't even really care until after the fact right and a lot of times they don't even really care even if an incident does occur so it's really down to you the average everyday worker to make sure or at least be aware if something's going on now I I understand a lot of people work in places where you know OSHA violations are a huge thing and there's really not anything they can do about it because you know do your job or you're fired kind of thing I get that but you don't want to be that guy who works at a facility and it gets you know impacted in some way under mysterious circumstances and you knew you could have done something right you knew that the thing that got attacked was the thing that you knew was vulnerable the whole time you don't want to have that happen and uh I think that these two incidents here both the pipeline incident and the the recycling facility incident really highlight and drive home these really really important issues that there's really no one here coming to save us right we know this but we also need to start thinking about that in terms of Industry as well so let's move on to the Southwest now this is a rather empty slide because I am still trying to figure out how to talk about this issue and this is the Border crisis down on the southern border between the United States and Mexico mostly the border between between Texas and Mexico because Texas is really one of the the only States down there that's actually burying kind of the brunt of uh the the immigration crisis down there I'm not really sure like I mentioned how to start talking about this because I could do a whole two-hour brief on just this issue alone but for those of you who are not aware of what's going on down at the border the situation is pretty bad I understand that immigration is more of a political issue than it is an everyday daily life issue for most of America like I get it so I really think what's needed for Americans to understand what this issue is is a a rephrasing and a more eloquent description of what's going on down there at the border and why it matters for someone living in a state not even close to the border right people who hear immigration they they don't they think of it in terms of a national gross you know large political issue right something that gets talked about during political debates and not really something that affects them on a day-to-day basis and I really really want to stress that the immigration issue is not just a political issue this is a huge huge problem and it is affecting the daily lives of millions of people right we're not just talking about from a welfare standpoint or a taxes standpoint or a job standpoint the crime that is coming along with this and other socioeconomic factors are a very very big problem and I'm not doing a super great job at expressing why it's a it's a big problem so rest assured I'm going to get a little bit more deliberate when I talk about this later on so again I just really wanted to draw attention to the southern border and remind everyone that I am not ignoring this deliberately I just don't know how to summarize and break down this very very large issue uh I can say generally that we have seen a huge influx of people and you you know you see these numbers on TV right you see the numbers either on social media or on some you know website or something and you just you just can't put into your mind how many people that actually is uh you you think you just see a number and you can't understand that you know ten thousand people coming across a border in a day that's a that's so much more than you could possibly imagine right these are a lot of people and they're going to go somewhere uh one of the facilities that they're going is actually the Fort Bliss Don Yana facility uh I think that's just over the Border in New Mexico actually uh but it's still I think technically Fort Bliss I'm sure somebody knows out there when I went through Fort Bliss a couple of years ago the doniana facility was still just kind of like a vacant facility nobody was really at it um but since the Afghan crisis occurred they actually stood that facility up and that's where all of the Afghan refugees or most of the Afghan refugees have been since that incident uh before they you know quietly were shelf to other parts of the country right so I know people forget about you know hey the Afghanistan crisis was a huge thing but there's a reason that we covered that incident with such you know such detail it's not just because of you know my own personal connection to Afghanistan but because these facilities were stood up and now shocker look these facilities are now being used to house illegal immigrants coming across the border so the village as it's colloquially called is now being used to house immigrants that have come over in these recent waves of new and new people coming over so uh as far as how they're going to stay there or how this is going to work nobody really knows again we try to think of this a lot of people at least try to think of this in terms of a large political issue but since it's a political issue there are differing opinions on what should be done with you know these tens of thousands of people coming across the border uh if not you know millions of people over the past few years and because of that nobody is really getting down to the nitty gritty details of how the everyday management of this crisis is happening for instance we've kind of briefly mentioned this a while back when we were covering you know the actual the the Inception of operation Lone Star uh but the the operation uh including I think six different units or six different commands uh command structures to Halt the uh immigrant waves coming across the border from from Texas's side of things uh that's really been a mission that is highly highly controversial a lot of people particularly troops on the ground have expressed that this is a garbage mission that they're being mistreated very strongly by the state they're either when this mission was first stood up they weren't getting paid they're being taken away from their families and activated you know for a mission that is you know what they feel is kind of pointless with regards to how they're employed in the mission so there's a lot of discontent there conditions for troops are have gotten better uh but they're still I mean it's it's the southern border it's really hard to describe there's nothing there a lot of these places are just not super great places to be I mean you know no offense to anybody living in El Paso but you know I've been to El Paso several times and it's not exactly a fantastic fantastic place so so yeah you've got it's just a whole nothing about this is good right you've got you know your liberal National leadership that is kind of turning a blind eye to this and pushing the buck off to everybody else but you also have your conservative State leadership perfectly fine with mistreating troops for political gain which at least it's not my words these words from the guys down there and a lot of these a lot of these cases so you see how this is a no-win situation for anyone and a lot of people are down there trying to make the best of this situation and try to do some good but unfortunately it doesn't really look like there's a whole lot of good to be had with this whole mission so so again I know I'm kind of rambly today but I really wanted to to talk about the southwest region particularly the Border crisis and I want to talk about it in much more detail as we go along this is kind of like the heads-up notice of hey even if you're not affected by the border crisis you you really you really are uh so even if you don't live near the areas where the Border crisis is occurring uh trust me it's it's rapidly becoming your problem problem as a lot of these people are filtering to other parts of the country so start getting spun up on this area start reading and start understanding what's going on why is this such an issue and why do why is it worth talking about so much and you'll start understanding the socioeconomic factors and the the cultural factors that make this a very significant problem that affects the country as a whole right so again we'll talk about this more in depth and I'll be a little bit more eloquent next time but for now I just wanted to remind everyone hey border crisis is getting worse and um you might want to start paying attention to it and finally moving out west we can wrap things up for the United States again with more electrical grid attacks so many of you know that I personally lived in the Pacific Northwest for a few years there uh some some years ago so I tend to you know this is my own personal bias I'm trying to kind of overcome but it's really hard to to describe the Pacific Northwest to someone who has not lived there it is real it might as well be a different country um you know I was born and raised on the East Coast to you know down in the southeastern United States and I moved out there and talk about culture shock I got less of a culture shock going to the Middle East than I did going to the Pacific Northwest um so I say all of that to say look electrical grid attacks in these areas are pretty standard uh particularly in Portland OR Seattle every single day there is somebody doing something to some critical infrastructure in those cities either it's deliberate or or an accident or something these cities might as well be Gotham City at this point because these places are just absolutely horrible places uh so when you know I hear of an electrical substation attack in Portland OR Seattle I basically ignore it I don't even include it in the briefs you know I probably should but it's like okay what else is new this is a very common thing so why am I talking about it now well because there are uncommon electrical grid attacks being undertaken in the Pacific Northwest so there have been six different attacks over the past two to three weeks in Oregon on the Oregon side of the border and I think there were a couple in Washington as well I need to double check that but these attacks have not been inside the city limits of Portland or Seattle or or even Olympia or Vancouver or anything uh these attacks have been at really seriously remote places like in the middle of nowhere like drive four hours and you get to these sites and interestingly enough these attacks bear a striking resemblance to the attacks that occurred in both Florida and in North Carolina recently in which case there were there was limited breaching occurring uh you know Gates were forced to open or like chain link fences were cut or or something to that effect again we don't really know exactly how the attacks occurred because the authority is not going to release that data but the attack style was very very similar to what we've already seen somebody breaching a perimeter you know a fence around a substation and conducting Small Arms attacks on specific equipment now this is a pretty pretty big deal because a lot of these places again like I mentioned are remote and that may not sound like much but that's really the whole kind of thing if I'm not mistaken one of these attacks actually occurred at the Bonneville Dam complex I don't know if it was uh the substation that serves the dam or whatnot but uh the Bonneville complex is a huge huge hydroelectric uh Dam facility that provides a lot of electricity to the state of Oregon and really the West Coast in general so anytime anybody comes close to one of these big facilities we gotta stop and look at this right and there have been six of these different attacks throughout the region really really close together so these I don't I mean again with with things being the way they are these could be copycats these could be deliberate attacks I literally don't know and no one else knows either we can only assess right and like I've mentioned a few times before you know it sounds kind of callous to say and you know you know kind of nonsensical to mention but the the honest truth here is that a lot of people are not really going to Care uh who conducts the attacks whether it's antifa or the FBI or the CIA or some you know bubble with a rifle or something nobody really cares at the end of the day they just flick the light switch on the wall no power now they're gonna you know be affected in some way because of that right of course we here try to be at least a little bit more analytical than that uh when it comes to these kinds of attacks which is why you know we're talking about it but the sad truth is is that we really just are not going to get the information all we're going to have is some news report from some local news media station that barely gets National coverage saying oh this electrical substation was offline for a couple of days due to an unknown incident or or my personal favorite weather concerns because weather is like the number one thing that takes out electricity across the country and uh just my just my hunch is that a lot of the a lot of the weather that we're seeing isn't really weather but again that's just me theorizing uh with no evidence whatsoever to back it up but you have to start thinking about these things uh in terms of being a little bit more deliberate especially if you start thinking about well you know who do electrical outages you know impact they impact the general population because everyone that has Authority in this country is going to have a generator from your local Police Department to the hospitals to you know the White House they're all going to have generators so you're not really harming anybody by taking power offline but yourself so you really have to wonder who's behind these attacks um even though each individual attack is its own case study so so now that I'm completely all over the place today let's go ahead and close things up with the United States and move to Europe and really today I want to talk mostly about Western Europe so uh sorry Eastern Europe we're going to talk about you another time because Eastern Europe is getting kind of spicy right now uh down uh down in the Balkans um but I need to get a little bit more data on that before I start talking about that potential conflict so let's start with the United Kingdom our friends across the pond there you guys have had quite a bit of problems with uh two main concerns which again are not new we've been talking about these for weeks and months and years now uh but the two biggest concerns have been food and energy prices mostly uh the price of these two things are becoming a huge problem for citizens though The credibility of most statistics on the planet is very questionable right now uh many British mainstream media sources have cited recent studies claiming that one-third of single parents are skipping meals uh regularly perhaps most disturbingly there is limited unconfirmed reporting out of Wales that people are being reduced to consuming pet food in Cardiff again we all know how the media loves a sensational story so there's no telling how true these reports are but many citizens throughout Europe are posting about their own food insecurities on social media so that does lend some credibility to these reports you know I hate to drop kind of a bomb like that and then just kind of walk away and say well maybe not maybe maybe it doesn't matter but that's how it is you know with mainstream media these days you see something really shocking and then you kind of have to balance it out with a lot of reason and unfortunately with regards to the food energy crisis throughout Europe we're not going to find a whole lot of Reason these days to balance out the bad news unfortunately so so food and energy have been a huge problem for residents of Great Britain and a lot of Western Europe as well jumping to Mainland Europe there in the Netherlands the world economic Forum continues to wreak havoc on the Dutch food supply with Farmers being forced to only use a fraction of the fertilizer that they need in order for the wef controlled government to meet their climate goals look I'm just going to be honest with you today the the Straight Dope is that throughout Europe there is a concerted effort to reduce the global food supply and the Dutch government is among the top offenders in the humanitarian crisis that is currently underway the Dutch government has cut livestock production by 30 percent across the board and has shut more than 3 000 Farms down and confiscated the land because those Farms are quote Peak polluters right look we we all know what's going on and we all know what we need to do get really good at farming and living without electricity while at the same time your government is hunting you I I can't really mince words on that one because it's the truth at this point we have been given the advantage of Prior notice and it doesn't take a genius to predict how severe these things will likely become and I understand that European viewers like watching an American cover European news it much it must be a bloodbath to be honest but at the end of the day I think that maybe an outsider's perspective is probably a little bit more helpful than you might think because we're dealing with a lot of the same issues here and let's be honest a lot of the problems in Europe are being created by or heavily influenced by or encouraged by you know very powerful Americans so so when I say that the culture in Europe is much different than the culture in America like trust me I understand that that's the understatement of the century and I also understand that the culture of literally every single European nation is extremely different from every other European nation I understand that I know but when I say really strong things like you know what I just said about the Dutch government it's it's not meant to be you know unnecessarily Americanized you know dramatic right these are some serious issues here and we've got to stop mincing words at some point so when we're talking about these issues in Europe people understand that they're serious and we see the same thing happening here in the United States so I just wanted to put that out there for uh the average person out there who might be thinking you know well this is just an American's opinion on things well yeah it is but I also think that you know hey it's pretty clear as to what's going on the good news with all of this is that we've got a lot of time to get creative with Solutions especially throughout Europe where electricity has become temporary and food has become a luxury the same kind of seriousness for lack of a better term applies to the energy sector as well while most nations are grappling with both shortages of and high costs of food the other main issue for Europeans uh is energy both the extreme High Cost of energy and the lack of availability in many areas this is already a huge problem for a good chunk of Europe right can handles for instance are sold out throughout most of Germany Finland has told citizens to not plug in their electric cars on cold mornings and uh Britain's National Grid operator has indicated that blackouts will be a major possibility and once again average citizens are left holding the bag with all of this uh German political leadership has fortunately scrapped the plans to shut down Germany's last three nuclear power plants and several coal-powered plants have been brought online out of mothballs to meet Germany's power needs will this be enough to prevent blackouts I highly doubt it I mean I'm no energy expert but it doesn't take a genius to see that Germany's actions much like the actions of most other European nations are far too little far too late however we shall see what the creativity of the citizenry will bring about now is the time for Europeans to start taking interest in their own Survival and reduce the Stranglehold their governments have over them even if their governments do not desire that outcome seeing as how Germany has been an example of companies involuntarily turning down thermostats for climate reasons now would be a pretty good time for everyone to perhaps remove their smart thermostats electric wheel companies not letting you charge your electric car well maybe now it's time to rethink that purchase or at least take measures to fully own your technology and be able to charge your vehicle off of solar panels or other means that governments cannot control these things may seem simple in retrospect but right now this is what average citizens are being faced with around the world including here in the United States so we shall continue the tradition by ending on that foreboating note and we'll have to talk about some more stuff next time I know that there there has been so much news and so many incidents that have occurred over the past well since the last briefing that there's just way too many for me to talk about and I've just kind of got to take a step back and and reassess what's going on here so for those of you who think oh there's nothing going on now trust me there's there's stuff going on uh it's just it's just overwhelming uh to cover all of this stuff so try trying to kind of pick the stuff that I've already kind of thought about quite a bit and um and we'll go from there as a side note uh I'm really trying to avoid these briefings becoming a sort of I told you so because we've been talking about a lot of this stuff for a very very long time and it's from I know it's it's it's probably annoying for you but it's definitely annoying for me when I basically talk about the same thing over and over and over again because the same exact things are happening over and over and over again you know there's there's nothing I can do about that but I'm trying to find ways of making these briefings a lot more efficient and a lot more useful rather than you know me just reading you the news but as you all know these briefings have been kind of a Meandering experience over the past few years so I guess we'll keep Meandering a little bit further thank you again to everyone out there for watching us and supporting us over the years and more than that thank you for supporting yourselves as we all know you know chances are if you ended up watching this video then you know you know how things are going we don't really need to to preach or tell you what's going on in the world you can plainly see it for yourself and I really do appreciate the amount of innovation the amount of dedication uh and the amount of hard work that we have seen people you know undertaking uh in these tough times and you know to prepare for the Times uh that are about to get tougher you know right now we're just at the beginning of this Global goat Rodeo so here's your motivation to keep getting better keep getting fitter and keep learning and take all of the hardship that you've experienced so far and put it to good use turn your disadvantages into advantages even if for right now we have to fight in the shade

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the ukrainian war intelligence update for monday the 31st of january and as always it is being recorded the day prior on the 30th of january before we get into the geopolitical update i briefly wanted to touch on a challenge that ourselves and a lot of others are going to have to deal with that we're already dealing with now with regards to finding out accurate information regarding what's going on in ukraine this will make the rest of the brief make sense so i thought i'd mention it now in this challenge is what we call circular reporting circular reporting is a mainstay of most journalistic agencies these days but for the intelligence group or the ocean analyst it is the bane of our existence so here's how circular reporting works the first step is for someone to post something on a social media platform in this case we'll go with twitter right somebody posts a tweet about something and then that tweet gets seen by a lot of people so he gets seen by one person who is who then talks about the particular event and then it gets seen by a third person and that third person now says hey we've got multiple sources confirming this information is true like we like to throw that word confirming out a lot which i don't think a lot of people know what confirming actually means confirming does not mean you read two tweets on the same topic it means that you you went through an actual process to verify that the information is true but nevertheless we have a lot of people going around saying that oh this is confirmed this is confirmed well what does that even mean but in any case you have a third entity a group usually a journalistic agency which now sees this entire conversation taking place on social media and now they're starting to spin things out of control right and now they see ah we've got multiple sources confirming that world war iii is about to break out right when in actuality really you can circle all of this back to the original tweet which isn't verified it's not anything special it's just somebody saying something so this is a huge problem it's not just a problem for the ocean world this is really a problem for the human world as well you know person a tells person b a story who tells person c a story and then person a b and c show up at your shop wanting to get paid for human intelligence and they're all sharing the same exact story so you can't really say that's three sources right because they all heard it from the same person we see this all the time in the intel world both on the professional side and on the ocean side of things it's just a huge problem that not very many people are interested in addressing because circular reporting is a great way it is a fantastic way of coming to the conclusions that you want you can cherry pick information you can say that you've got multiple sources when really it's just going back to the same guy so you can get whatever narrative that you want to push by using circular reporting so please keep this in mind when you're taking in information regarding this ukrainian situation uh even we here have become bogged down with circular reporting over the past week or so and the fighting hasn't even really kicked off in earnest yet if it ever will so with that out of the way let's jump into the geopolitical update first up is norway and finland uh so both of these nations as well as the rest of europe honestly but mostly norway and finland have been undertaking a lot of civil defense actions with regards to any potential uh actions with russia a lot of nations around europe are dusting off their old civil defense manuals and starting to either refund or um take civil defense seriously again uh since the cold war and norway and finland have been undertaking a lot of steps to do so over the past few days for norway specifically we are seeing circular reporting or rumors stating that the official government has sent out letters to 4 000 residents of norway informing them that their vehicles have been identified by the military as a potential wartime asset so if norway goes to war with russia the army is going to come confiscate their vehicle now again i should stress that's just rumor at this point we haven't seen a copy of this letter if it exists and if you do any searching for it online the reporting is very circular and you can't really find anything about this it's not on any of the official press releases of the norwegian civil defense force or the army so i don't know so until we get a copy of the letter we're just gonna have to treat this as rumor but it does make sense likewise similarly in finland the finnish military has been observed to be emplacing lots of air defense artillery surface-to-air missile sites and things like that around key political locations key cities critical infrastructure things like that so basically dusting off a lot of their old cold war civil defense plans this makes sense considering russia's actions in the region but we also have to remember that this could also just be another posturing attempt both norway and finland and really every other nation in europe knows that russia sees what they do so if finland is observed to be putting up sams around their capital and norway is sending letters to their citizens this is a message to russia that you know they're getting ready right so uh it might be more of a psyop than it is a legitimate civil defense concern however with the amount of russian posturing in the region it does make sense for a lot of legitimate civil defense plans to be reignited and people start taking civil defense seriously again speaking of preparations being made germany has also announced that they have are going to evacuate non-essential personnel from their embassy in kiev as well uh this actually hurt a while ago almost immediately after the united states declared that we're going to bring our uh people out of our embassy that the non-essential personnel and stuff like that so the reason i want to talk about these embassies is because this is actually a very big deal you might not think that closing an embassy is kind of a big deal but it really is closing an embassy like fully and totally closing it is essentially in the international arena telling the world that there is no diplomatic solution left um so that's a big deal and even though the united states has not totally closed our embassy and germany hasn't either even the action of getting non-essential personnel out of the area is signaling to the world signaling to ukraine signaling to russia and the rest of europe that the united states has no hope for fixing this diplomatically and we're trying to get our people out you know the rats are jumping off the ship right because we know it's going down essentially embassy actions are a really great way to kind of figure out what governments are going to do clearly the united states thinks ukraine is a lost cause same thing with germany and i guess we'll have to see how many other european nations feel the same way moving to russia an interesting note that has come out recently regarding russian preparations for this invasion surround the stockpiling of blood in ford areas limited reporting has come out recently indicating that russian forces have begun to stockpile uh fresh whole blood and other medical supplies in front-line areas historically when we're talking about the doctrine of warfare this is a last-minute logistical preparation that takes place right before a major conflict this is not unique to russia this is just hey if they're stockpiling blood this means that this is serious and it's pretty much imminent right as such the forward staging of blood and other medical supplies is a very strong indicator of an impending conflict so this is just another check in the column of russia being serious about invading ukraine this time however this report is coming from the u.s government right so take that with a huge grain of salt literally no one on the planet has more motivation to lie about intelligence regarding ukraine than senior u.s military officials who are personally heavily financially invested in the military-industrial complex so any reporting coming from the u.s and coming only from the u.s that cannot be verified by any other means right is kind of suspect uh this might be a lie from the united states to make the situation look more dire in order to profit financially even more i mean just look at what lockheed martin's stock has done over the past three months so war is very big business for some people but for us down here it just adds another layer of complexity it's another reason to why it's difficult to find accurate information that we can use to make decisions and speaking of us troop movements the united states has recently announced that they will be sending several thousand troops to the european theater we don't really know where they're going to go yet most likely a lot will go to poland uh hungary has already stated that they will take 3 000 so we'll see how this all works out but what does this mean a lot of people are seeing troop deployments and they're they're going into full freakout mode because they don't want uh us troops to be involved in a conflict with russia which is a valid valid argument mostly this is what would be considered a proportional response according to the cold war playbook russia gets a bit aggressive and the u.s sends a few thousand troops to poland it's a tale as old as khrushchev it literally goes back that far russia expects us to do this this is what they're planning for and the rest of nato expects us to do this as well what is not going to happen is troops being sent to ukraine itself that's not going to happen in any significant numbers remember the us has had a training mission in ukraine for years now so there are small numbers of advisors in ukraine already but it's not any significant number and of course the beardy dudes with nice pants have been in ukraine doing stuff for years now but by and large we're not going to see massive deployments of conventional troops within ukraine that would be a massive escalation of force one that the united states and nato is not prepared to back up with any other forces and we also have to consider that the united states rhetoric has been that we're we're not going to defend ukraine so so as scary as it is to start sending thousands of troops over to europe uh this is not particularly out of the ordinary now if we start seeing the rhetoric being changed to include the defense of ukraine now we'll have to change our assessment on that because if we start sending conventional us troops to defend ukraine well you know this shooting match might be over before we even get a brief around to talk about it honestly so i guess we'll have to see how that works out also within russia we're seeing media outlets pushing the narrative that panic buying is occurring in kiev i wanted to point this out because it's kind of spinning out of control in russian media and this is blatantly not true life in kiev is what i would consider to be disturbingly normal there's really not a whole lot going on in kiev of course a lot of people are trying to leave right now the people who are trying to get out like foreigners and americans and things like that but it's really not in any kind of panic mode there's no there aren't any shortages of anything that we can find on the grocery store shelves like russian media stating it's there's really not much going on in kiev with regards to the civilian populace you know being panicked and whatnot but we can talk a little bit about the attitude in ukraine a little bit later because that's a whole other can of worms also within ukraine i did want to mention that there was an insider attack at the southern machine building factory in denipro a ukrainian conscript who hasn't been named yet killed four of his fellow service members a few days ago no more details other than that though with the world on pins and needles looking for the telltale russian false flag attack incidents like this draw a lot of attention likewise over the past few days there have been protests in kiev regarding a new tax law that requires vendors to use cash registers so that they can be more easily taxed this is an interesting little domestic issue right but again with the world on the lookout for russian assets destabilizing ukraine's government any kind of anti-ukraine or anti-ukrainian government protest or riot at this point is highly suspicious no matter what it's about right then again who knows just because there are what a hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand two hundred thousand russian soldiers on you know the ukrainian border doesn't mean that domestic issues magically go away but considering that this kind of thing is right out of russia's playbook for destabilizing a government we have to watch events like this closely moving on to the naval update for the mediterranean sea the task force of six russian ships has made it into the med they pass through the straits of gibraltar a couple of days ago so they are on their way to the black sea we don't know exactly where these ships are at in the med because they're out of ais range but once they start getting closer to the black sea and they start going to the turkish trades then we'll know exactly where they're at so we'll keep you updated on that moving up north a little bit to the gi uk gap and the north sea uh for those of you who don't know what the gi uk gap is it is the body of water the geographic area it's kind of a nomenclature for the body of water in the north atlantic between greenland iceland and the united kingdom very common nomenclature when talking about russian submarines and the routes they take when trying to transit down to the american east coast or conduct operations in the north atlantic and speaking of russian naval operations the russian government has declared that they will be conducting a live fire exercise in the areas depicted on the slide off the coast of ireland right there the russian naval ships surface vessels we don't know which ones yet we'll be participating in a rocket firing exercise in the square box and the circle the circular box there is the landing area for where the rockets are supposed to land so the big question is why would russia do this in this particular area well the obvious answer is political pressure right russia wants to make the united kingdom well aware of the fact that they are an island nation and the russian navy is quite powerful but i think there's another reason this area is not new this is the same area that last year a russian tu-142 was observed to be circling and flying around presumably communicating with a submarine so russia has done a lot of activity in this particular area they did a lot last year and they're again signaling they're going to do some more and if we overlay this next chart i think you'll understand why this is the map of all of the undersea communications cables in the area and as you can see the training area right for their rocket exercise right and heavy air quotes is directly over a series of cables that runs uh from the united kingdom to new jersey so gee i wonder what russia is going to be doing in their exercise right it's almost like russia is going to be conducting this exercise to have an excuse to have uh surface ships in the area for submarine activity down below of course this is speculation russia has not declared that submarines are going to be taking part in this exercise but we can pretty well guess that that's what's going to happen and this kind of makes sense honestly because russia has for those of you who don't know russia has a very long history of losing submarines they have lost more subreins at sea than any other nation and as such usually when russia is doing some kind of risky behavior like going down to the sea floor or something like that when they have a submarine operating in an area they usually have a surface based reef rescue vessel nearby so if we start to see russian submarine rescue vessels the vessels that we know do this will know that there are submarines in the area but honestly you can just look at the map here and pretty much guess this is what russia is going to be doing now i know what a lot of you are thinking is this a way for russia to start cutting cables between the united kingdom and and the united states uh i personally don't think so yes there are very strong indicators that the last cable that we talked about the cable between norway and svalbard that cable was cut actually was a piece of it taken out and it's almost certainly russia right but i don't think that they're going to be cutting cables this time i think they're probably going to be mapping or training or something like that or even better if this is yet another political move to let the united states and the united kingdom know hey we have this technology now and it wouldn't be a shame if we cut your cables kind of a way of politically pressuring the us and the united kingdom again so again i don't think russia is going to be cutting cables this time if they were they wouldn't be declaring a training exercise they'd just be sneaking out and doing it right or planting explosives on multiple cables to sever them all at once right so by declaring a training exercise in this specific area this is almost certainly a political message more than it is an actual military exercise right but i thought it was interesting this uh this kind of thing when it comes to russian submarines and cables this gets the attention of a lot of very high ranking people in the military and in the political structures around the world so you can rest assured that even though this sounds like kind of a small issue this is a very big deal and a lot of very powerful people are getting a lot of briefings on this i would be willing to bet so for those of you who want to learn more and get the grids for this actual training area there are a few grids going around on the internet but i'm not quite so sure how accurate they are i haven't pulled the actual grids from the russian government but here is the no tam for it again highlighting how important no tams are we can actually get the corner grids for both the firing area and the operational box for the russian surface vessels so this might be subject to change this might this box might be larger or smaller this is just for aviation assets to allow to um let aviation assets know that they're not going to be uh able to fly in this area due to the rocket launching so when we get better grids for where this operational box will occur we'll update you then i also want to mention that there's a little bit of a diplomatic issue between ireland and russia over this uh irish fishermen and other fishing groups have stated that they will be protesting this uh this military exercise the fishermen have agreed to abide by a safety standoff of a few miles but we will in all likelihood be seeing fishing vessels shadowing whatever russian assets make their way down for this exercise and as we can see this exercise takes place at least the no tams are in place for the third and the fourth of february so again once we get more accurate information about this and once we actually do confirm that these no tams are for the naval exercise this might be a totally different exercise because this is a common firing area i should i should mention we'll provide that update when we get more information before we move on to the actual fronts i wanted to talk a little bit about some climatology data and the weather again we're seeing a lot of information being talked about in the mainstream media and so we just wanted to offer a little bit of clarification with regards to the data itself so this is a chart showing the average uh temperature in kiev during the month of january last year and this is february of 2021 as well as we can see the temperature kind of fluctuated a lot but it did get a lot warmer towards the end of february but it also remained cold up until the midpoint of february so that's last year now if we look at the chart for this year this is the month of january 2022 we can see that really on average uh the month of january has been quite warm or at least warmer than it has been in the past so that's why people are saying that ukraine's winter has been unseasonably warm this year ukraine actually hit a few records with regards to temperatures high temperatures over last year so that kind of makes sense now we can kind of project what february is going to be like based on the averages so this is a chart showing the average temperatures by month from 1985 until 2015. so not super helpful but it just kind of gives you the gist of what what the deal is so what i wanted to talk about is does this even matter that much yes weather is one of the most important factors for planning military operations and is usually a critical factor for the success or the failure of a military objective we've talked a lot about weather over the past couple years on our channel and how important it is for military operations and that is true it is uh it is a very big factor when considering military operations planning and things like that but it's not the only factor and in the specific case of russia invading ukraine before the spring thaw sets in i'm not sure if frozen ground will be enough of a deciding factor for whether or not to begin this military campaign a lot of mainstream sources a lot of think tanks and ocean sources are are holding on they're grasping onto this the ground temperature as if it's the only factor for whether or not russia is going to invade and i don't know if it is i don't know that and no one up to and including the joint chiefs know that and honestly i don't think that even most russian military leaders know what the final decision factors will be either it's all guesswork based on history and what we know about russian military doctrine but things can change and even most russian soldiers are probably asking themselves is this for real this time so when it comes to weather it's all a gamble russia might decide to wait and see if conditions get colder in the early part of february and allow much of what is now muddy terrain to become frozen but that's a gamble because if february turns out to be mild just like january was they will be even more disadvantaged than they are right now then again all of this can change in a single day with the arrival of a freak cold front that brings temperatures down for a couple of days usually it takes a couple of weeks of cold temperatures for the ground to freeze within an acceptable level but who knows russia might jump at the opportunity if the conditions are right in any case we do know this climate conditions even right now are less than ideal for a ground invasion with armored elements and conditions might or might not get any better than they are right now the grand question that will remain unanswered for the time being is what conditions russia will deem to be acceptable and whether or not those criteria will need to align with other factors that are also important for the invasion moving to our overall theater slide the theme for all of the fronts today is going to be there are a lot of updates but not a lot of updates that we can put on the slide so we're seeing a lot of reinforcements reinforcing pretty much every unit that we have seen so far but not a whole lot of them that we can actually verify with any level of acceptability so let's go ahead and jump into the actual fronts themselves on the northeastern front really the biggest activity we have seen is up in brian's as one might expect pretty much every unit in the area being reinforced with supplies logistics we're seeing a lot of logistics logistical vehicles and supplies being moved into the area we're also seeing forces in belarus being reinforced quite heavily but we'll talk more about that when we get to that front moving to the eastern front there have been reports of conflict breaking out in the outskirts of moorpole as well as donetsk this is nothing major it's not a major offensive or anything this is most likely just harassing attacks that have been pretty standard in these areas over the past few years conflict on the outskirts of marpol as well as within the entirety of donetsk has really been a mainstay over the past few years so even though you're seeing a lot of combat breaking out along these fronts it's not necessarily a prelude to an invasion just yet we're watching it closely though so if we start seeing harassing fires beginning or stuff that's out of the ordinary with regards to what combat has normally been in this area we'll let you know but for now it seems to be status quo on the eastern front moving down south really the biggest update has been the reinforcements coming across the crimean bridge which links russia with the crimean peninsula there has been a lot of significant activity observed along this bridge over the past few days units have been streaming across this bridge into crimea 24 7 for the past couple of weeks so the reinforcement and staging activity within crimea continues as we move forward moving to the northwestern front like i mentioned pretty much every unit that we're seeing being staged in belarus is getting reinforcements uh the town of yeltsk has been host to a lot of these reinforcements as well as really the whole gomel region we're also seeing forces being staged at various military bases belarusian military bases around the area such as this one in the town of richista this is a normal belarusian military base highlighted in yellow there towards the bottom of the slide but we're also seeing a lot of videos come out because the town there as you can see envelops the main rail yard there so we're seeing a lot of civilians post videos of armored vehicles and being staged there in richista so we and a lot of others will definitely be keeping an eye on a lot of belarusian military bases to monitor the buildup over the next few days i also wanted to briefly touch on evacuation options so this is something that a lot of people are starting to think about i know we've touched on it very briefly in the past but i wanted to dive a little bit deeper now that the u.s government has essentially stated that u.s citizens are on your own for getting out of ukraine if and when this stuff kicks off so air travel for the most part when and if this full scale conflict begins all air travel will be unreliable at best we are expecting most major airports within ukraine to become inoperable within the opening stages of the invasion again this all depends on what russia does but i personally would not plan on aerial evacuation being a viable option it's still a viable option right now it's status quo there are flights leaving kiev all the time but when this stuff starts you've got to start thinking about other things right remember civilian airliners have a history of being shot down in this theater by russian assets so egressing by land by vehicle or by rail is a much more stable and reliable option however that also presents challenges in the worst case event of a full-scale invasion occurring i would expect trains to be either targeted by russian aviation assets or be confiscated by the ukrainian military to move troops to the front lines similarly with roads expect dozens of miles of traffic jams on every single road leading out of the country roads to the west in the more rough terrain might also be of lesser quality as well traffic through mountain passes is precarious in normal times and even more dangerous when there is a flood of people hurrying to escape the country and unfortunately another major consideration is jab status quite simply you might not be able to escape ukraine if you are not jabbed depending on what country you're trying to go to i know this sounds outlandish but here is an email from the us state department that has been circulating on social media talking about this exact topic we've had to censor certain words so that youtube doesn't delete our entire channel but this email covers the regulations for entry into the nations that border ukraine as we can clearly see evacuating is not as simple as one might think again for those that think that these regulations will change in the event of a war breaking out that's fine if you want to think that but that's a gamble and we have to remember that a precedent has been set with regards to evacuations and jab status remember when cruise lines refused to rescue islanders from saint vincent when a freaking volcano erupted people literally had to choose between living on an erupting volcano and getting the jab to escape so there is already a very strong precedent for governments private companies and other agencies to deny life-saving evacuations or medical treatment based solely on your job status so keep that in mind when considering evacuation plans as always with massive events like this which draw the world's attention there is a time in which the waters become muddy with regards to information like we've mentioned personal politics get involved and this makes it very difficult to find accurate information we have a lot of powerful players saying a lot of things about the ukraine situation and this heavily influences the risk management actions of individual people to explain this let's take a look at the political situation in ukraine a bit of political strife has emerged between the political leadership in ukraine and the political leadership here in the united states ukraine's leadership has publicly taken the position that this overwhelming buildup of russian troops along their border is not as big of a deal as the united states is making it out to be whereas the united states and other nato members are in panic mode now trying to cut through all of the political posturing and other bs surrounding the ukrainian conflict here's what i think the cultural difference is everything ukraine's leadership is both weary of the past eight years of war and at the same time completely understanding of the situation regarding a potential full-scale invasion ukraine has been living with an invasion for a long time now so even though we americans might look at ukraine's statements of everything's just fine and think wow they're crazy the threat of an invasion just doesn't carry the weight that it does with americans you will constantly hear stories all over social media about how ukrainians and kiev are just going about their daily lives and acting like nothing is wrong and in many cases these reports are true i myself would agree that this is a bit perplexing to me as well but that's me a westerner who is not living in that situation now all of this being said i do want to caveat that by pointing out that there is a significant civil defense effort underway in ukraine there are a lot of ukrainians arming themselves and preparing defenses so i don't want to make it out to look like the ukrainian people are completely naive as to this invasion potential there are efforts being undertaken the larger point that all of this illustrates is the political turmoil that is currently present among the political leadership of all parties involved the ukrainians are accusing the us of overhyping the threat and accusing the political leadership of not understanding that this conflict has been going on for some time meanwhile back here at home you've got military leadership salivating at the prospect of sending someone else's kids to get killed in a war so that their raytheon stocks will go up and on the other hand you've got people who don't support the military-industrial complex and don't want to fight a war that isn't our own but also recognize that russia is a powerful entity and one of the very few entities that can affect your life here at home so it's probably not a good idea for them to freaking invade europe meanwhile we've got pundits and political groups using their politics as their metric for what their opinions are rather than the situation on the ground all of this political stuff is frustrating and there are a lot of strong opinions out there about ukraine already but unfortunately this is a big factor in determining how this ukraine situation will affect our lives here at home so thank you for sticking around as we try to provide information and intelligence on this incident especially as it applies to the 20 000 plus americans that are still in ukraine as well as the people here at home as we all know international incidents like this have a way of coming to our doorstep extremely quickly so even though most people don't care about this stuff we will keep on the lookout for information and lessons that we can learn so as to avoid a repeat of history here at home so thanks again for watching thank you for your support and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. Today we're going to continue our series on structured analytic techniques by covering everyone's favorite link analysis. So get ready to channel your inner skitso and let's get started. So what is link analysis? Well, in simple terms, this is just a way of visualizing relationships between entities. So a very broad definition. You can think of this as more along the lines of the game six degrees of separation but for nerds, right? Every time The Field of Intelligence is featured in Hollywood, we inevitably have that one scene. One of the main characters standing alone in a dark room brooding over pictures or pieces of paper that are tacked all over their wall. All of course connected by red string or some other kind of uh fairly messy arrangement. And that's generally what we think of when we think of link analysis. And to some degree, this is a general rough idea of how it works. The main discrepancy is that link analysis is not really the face of intel work like it is in Hollywood. So, of course, Hollywood tries to play this up and try to make it out to look like link analysis is way more important and way more of a central focus point than than it actually is. But having a super spy scroll around Microsoft Word all day doesn't really look too good on camera. So link analysis, even though it's just one of the many tools that are used, tends to be the face of intel work in Hollywood. And because of that, even intel guys can sometimes place a little bit more importance on link analysis than there should be. So what are the main advantages of conducting link analysis? Well, for one, link analysis is a fantastic way to determine what you have already researched. It is easy to look at a graph and see, oh well, this one point here doesn't have any links to it, so maybe I should research that and see if I can link some of this stuff together. It's very easy and quick to see these missing links and either make the links yourself or conduct research in other ways, which we'll get to. Because of this, it helps to identify details that may have been missed earlier. It's really, really easy when you're juggling around a lot of random information. It's really easy to miss something. So, if you start off by organizing your thoughts and kind of doing a mind map, which is a form of link analysis, if you were to put all of this information just right onto a graph, even if you're not making any links, if you just put it down on paper somewhere, it makes it a lot harder to miss something later on. And as we know, investigations and intel work and even just research is not necessarily a linear path a lot of the times. And a lot of times, you're going to circle back around to details that you may have missed in the beginning. you're going to have to adjust priors, right? Such as in the case of more basian thinking. And link analysis is a way to reduce bias by putting everything down on paper so that we don't just ignore details that we haven't figured out. Often times during the investigative process or the intel cycle or whatever, often times we will have information or pieces of the puzzle that we can't really fit in just yet, right? We're trying to assemble a picture. We're trying to put together a puzzle and sometimes we've got to set pieces aside for a second because we don't know how they factor in just yet. Well, if you were to use another analytic technique, it may be easy to forget details or subconsciously or even intentionally forget details that you haven't figured out. Human beings naturally want to be biased in this way. If we can't see how something factors in, we just ignore that detail. And when it comes to investigations, that's maybe not the best way to do it. So link analysis forces us to keep details that we don't understand yet right in front of our faces until we can figure out a link later on. So what about the disadvantages? Are there any reasons why link analysis wouldn't work or maybe isn't the best fit? Well, it really depends on the type of data that you're working with. So if you have the wrong kind of data, then maybe link analysis isn't isn't the right solution. But one of the main disadvantages that I have come across personally over the years is that link analysis because of the Hollywood factor like I mentioned even professional intel analysts want to look at stuff like this sometimes and they might not understand that this is not the right tool. Sometimes it's better to understand that link analysis is not the tool that you need rather than try to spin your tires and just bog down and not actually get any work done at all. And we'll talk about that in a bit as it becomes a little bit more clear how it's very very easy to go way down deep in rabbit holes that aren't necessarily the most useful. But we'll talk about that in a moment because it's easier to have an example in front of us. Just know that for right now, one of the main disadvantages for link analysis is it's very easy to get trapped and sucked into one rabbit hole and go all the way down and follow that rabbit hole all the way to the very end only for you to have wasted a lot of time investigating something or researching something that actually isn't very helpful at all in the grand scheme of things. So that's the basic definitions of what link analysis is and the advantages and disadvantages of it. Now, when it comes to actually conducting link analysis, we don't actually use paper and string a lot of the times like in Hollywood. It's pretty rare these days, but I have done it the old-fashioned way. What is a far better solution, however, is to use software. And to broach a very highly controversial topic, here are two of the main software solutions that are used by the open- source community for link analysis. The first one is Maltiggo. This is usually what I prefer to use myself simply because of one little known detail. Maltiggo is basically identical to Palunteer, specifically Palanteer Gotham. Now, I know that this name will be very, very inflammatory to even mention because of the recent context of data security and data privacy and it's a very inflammatory company and I get it. It's not without good reason. But hopefully today by using Maltiggo a little bit, I can show you exactly what Palunteer is all about. Palanteer is a company that was built around one idea, link analysis and linking together a lot of databases. So if you want to be concerned about Palunteer, you absolutely should be. But you can only understand how and why to be concerned if you understand how the system works. Palanteer is of course a closed uh ecosystem, right? They only uh sell their product to government and military sources, law enforcement, things like that. And because of this, the only people who know what Paler actually is and what it does are people who have used it professionally. And trust me, that's a pretty short list. And I can tell you that as of 2025, Maltiggo is it's very it's much simpler. It doesn't have as many databases to pull information from. And it's obviously not tapped into the feds or anything like that. Maltiggo is basically just an open-source version of a lot of the feeds that Palanteer has organic to them. This distinction is important because of the extreme levels of fear surrounding Palanteer and people not actually understanding what it's all about. Palanteer Gotham is their version of a link analysis software suite. That's what it does. It was always suspected by myself and those who I knew who were Intel analysts at the time that Palunteer actually stole the idea from analyst notebook, which is the same thing, right? It's basically just a graphical software program that allows you to put dots on a chart and link them all together. It's a little bit it's a little bit antiquated nowadays, but you have to understand that's what Palanteer makes their bread and butter off of. They make their money. And the reason that they're such a a very influential company is not because they've developed Skynet, at least not yet, but because they're able to take a 20 or 30year-old software program, modernize it, make it slick and easy to sell to the government. Now, of course, this will change. They'll get better feeds. They're going to start incorporating AI into it, which is what Maltgo, I think, is going to do as well, but you see how it's all about building relationships and building links between entities. That's where the real fear comes in, not just with Palunteer, but Maltiggo and Analyst Notebook and some of these other platforms that are getting started, such as the other open-source alternative called Link Scope. I wanted to mention this one because one of the main benefits to Maltiggo is that it's commonly used. It's fairly uh available for everyone to kind of download for free. However, Maltiggo has gone the way of the government contractor idea, which is basically to jack up your prices by like 5,000%. A professional license to Maltiggo used to be pretty cheap. Now, it's over €6,000 a year just for a basic professional license. That's not even all they have to offer. So, it's out of the range of everyone, including myself. So, I just use the free version of Maltiggo. Now, understandably, there's a little bit of a social factor here. If you don't like what Maltiggo is doing, if you think it's pretty dirty and you want an open- source alternative, there is one. It's called Link Scope. There hasn't been that much development on it lately, but it's very similar. If you install Maltiggo and you install Link Scope and you compare the two, you're it's going to be very familiar. Once you learn how to use Link Scope, Maltiggo, Palunteer, Analyst Notebook, they're all basically within the realm of the same kind of ecosystem with each other. So, for my link analysis software of choice, I prefer to use Maltiggo when I do uh link analysis, which is not often, but I think I'm probably going to start getting more into it simply because I think that Maltiggo will work very very well with the notetaking and research application that I use, which is uh Obsidian. They don't talk together and they don't work together. It would be great if there was a plugin for either one that would allow you to bring in notes or search a database of notes. There may be. I haven't looked into it, but anyway, I use I like to use Maltiggo for more visual representations of links and link analysis and things like that, whereas I prefer to use Obsidian for roughly 99% of what I do. So, that leads us to the best use cases for using something like Maltiggo to visually represent networks on a map. For me, there are two main ways that I use Maltiggo. The first way is the most common way, which is just simply visualizing research in real time. I can throw a bunch of ideas on the graph. I can throw a bunch of entities, names, locations, addresses, phone numbers. I can throw it all on the graph and start working uh the network from there. And like I said at the beginning, it's also helpful for knowing what I've researched already. So if I've got a list of names and associations, and I have one on the list that hasn't been researched, I can very quickly see that uh both in a list format and also on a on a graph like you can see here. The second use for using Maltiggo specifically goes back to why it's important to understand what Palunteer does and what Link Scope does and what Analyst Notebook does, right? All those other platforms because Maltigo is not just a big whiteboard that you can scratch uh notes on, right? You can actually highlight things and use what they call transformations to conduct analysis of data points that you've put and an analyze relationships between the two, pull in information from the web and things like that. Again, this is why it's important to understand what Palunteer does because Maltiggo really relies on third-party API access. So, if you want to conduct a lot of research and you want to use specific tools, there's probably a plugin for it on Maltiggo. It's got a lot of resources, but you need to bring your own API key in a lot of a lot of cases. Once you've done that and once you have accounts with these other commercial companies, you can then ingest their data into Maltiggo. I know a lot of cyber security guys love this kind of thing and you can look at the plugins that are on Maltiggo and see that it's really heavily invested in the cyber security crowd. For me, I really just like visualizing the data. So, I don't use transformations as much as I probably should for a couple of different reasons. One, uh most of the links that I need to make between entities are manual links. So, I'm not really using Maltigo to its fullest potential, which is okay for now. We'll talk about the basics uh today and get into more of the advanced features at a later time. But the second reason is because it's not free. Uh you're going to consume credits. They have a credit based system, right? Like a lot of software companies are going to. They have credits that you get uh in your account. If you have a free account, you get I think 200 credits a month, which is not a lot. Anyway, that's more of an advanced thing. Let's stick with the visual stuff today. Let's stick with the documents and photos on a on a wall with string connecting them all. uh use for this platform which is fairly fairly helpful by itself. And to do that, let's get to a practical example. But before that, let's spend a little bit more time outlining the way that we need to think about things. I know it's annoying. Why don't you just get right to the chart? Well, this is important to understand because in the world of intelligence, there are few things more important than staying organized early on. You really want to organize your information early on so that you don't waste a lot of time. Time is not necessarily money, right? In the world of Intel, time is security. Time could be someone's life on the line. So, you want to make sure that you're approaching this with the right framework. Again, to prevent that disadvantage I listed way back at the beginning, going down rabbit holes that are not going to be helpful and may waste your time. You want to have a good starting framework and understand what you're doing before you get into it. more than any of these other analytic techniques. You really need to be cognizant and self-aware of what you're doing here. Trust me on this. I have wasted so much time myself going down endless rabbit holes that have been completely fruitless and now the day is gone and you know, you don't have anything to show for it. So, the starting framework that I like to use for link analysis is generally one of two things. In the Intel world, you're going to get two you're going to get tasked with things in two main ways. One, you're going to start with a question that needs to be answered. That's the easy one, isn't it? Somebody comes and asks you a very specific question, maybe even a vague question. Who knows? But they're going to ask you a question and you need to provide an answer for that. That's what the field of intelligence normally does. But more often, more commonly, is you're going to have a starting point that is not really tied to a specific question, but that starting point is going to allow you to find the answer later on. Raise your hand if you have ever been told by your boss, I don't know what I need to know, but I need you to figure it out kind of thing. So starting from a you don't know what you don't know perspective that's like your whole intel career for the most part or at least for most people your customer your client your boss whoever you're working for in the prepared citizenry community even you know your close family members or your community itself they're not going to know what they need right so you have to start with a lot of loose assumptions and bring that stuff together to kind of formulate the importance of what needs to be asked later on again this will make more sense when we get to the graph now you need to have a little bit of intuition here. I'm sorry. This is just something that you can't really teach. Uh the only way that you can figure this out is experience and and just working on this and working through this. You need to understand and you need to be able to identify when link analysis is beneficial to use. Otherwise, you're going to want to use link analysis for everything and it's a slow process and honestly from for a lot of the stuff you need to be researching and a lot of the information and intelligence you need to be processing, it's going to be a waste of time. So when is link analysis not a waste of time? When is it beneficial to do? Well, really anytime you have networks of people, places or things that can be linked together? If you've got a person and a business and a business address and a phone number and you've got a lot of that type of data, you can run it through your link analysis software. If you're tracking a terrorist, if you've got a terrorist and his buddies and their phone numbers and you've got it all tied to an address or a series of addresses, these kinds of data points are very very helpful. It doesn't necessarily need to be tied to a specific geographic coordinate. That would be helpful, but it's not necessary at this stage. Just know that when you see a lot of, you know, names, addresses, phone numbers, contact information, uh, data points that we can put on a map, lots of different numbers that you may not see any pattern to, but there may be a pattern, right? That kind of stuff. Uh, that's when you're going to really get the most bang for your buck out of link analysis. When you don't want to use link analysis is when you're just doing a basic research project where there's going to be very very complex ideas, theories, concepts, philosophy, anything to do with that, that's really not going to be useful for link analysis because you're going to put one point on your graph and then there's going to be everything linked to that one point. Right? If you're trying to examine who's this guy's friends and who are his friends and the friends of friends and what about their family and where they work, do they work in the same building? You see how we're starting to think analytically and think along the lines of making links? Yeah, remember when I said that uh link analysis was pretty simple? Well, it can get pretty complicated. So, if that doesn't scramble your noggin enough, let's actually look into the specific example I wanted to cover today, which is the Harender Singh murder investigation. So, let's walk through this. I'm going to walk you all the way through this and show you what I have done over a period of I don't know 8 to 10 man hours and we'll see exactly what information I can do and how I can develop out this problem set. So for those of you who are watching this in the future, uh the brief summary of this incident is that last week, last Tuesday, this individual was involved in a fatal traffic accident on the Florida Turnpike. Three people were killed due to his uh negligent driving tactics where he was trying to pull a U-turn on on the interstate and a minivan was not able to stop in time. Three people uh dead at the scene. Now, right up front, I personally identified this case as a good candidate for a link analysis due to a few different reasons. Right. So, overall, I have quite a few questions that I am very interested in investigating the answers to with regards to this case. I want to know what's this guy's history? Was this a preventable accident? Can we prevent similar things from happening in the future? Things like this, right? And the way to get to a lot of the questions that I may not have answers to is to start somewhere. So, what is the starting information? Well, we know the individual's name. Harender Singh. So, we have a name. We already have an advantage, right? You would not believe the number of times I've had to start a link analysis by using John Doe, right? The fact that we have a name to start with is something. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot. And from there, we also have crime scene photos in this case, which give us the ultimate jackpot, a US Department of Transportation number. For those of you who are not aware, semi-truckss all around the United States are required to have a US DOT identification number. Usually, it's going to be stencled or painted on the door. And this number identifies the company that uh this individual or this truck belongs to. So, right up front before we touch any kind of link analysis software, what do we have? We have the driver's name. We have the name of the company that uh he was driving for and we have the US DOT number. In this case, we also have the MC number. MC numbers, they're an old system. I think they're going to be replaced by US DOT numbers. So, you can use that. We'll put it on the chart. But really, we just need that US DOT number because then we can run that number through a bunch of databases and start to develop out this network. So, now that we have the starting information, let me go ahead and bring up Maltiggo and we can run through this investigation in real time and see what we come up with. All right, everyone. Here we are in Maltiggo. So, I want to state right up front, this is not really a tutorial on this. This is more of kind of an overview, getting our feet wet with this uh type of platform. We just want to have a general framework for understanding a general overview for how OSENT software, which is usually just link analysis software, works when it comes to conducting investigations. So, I've got Maltiggo installed. Everything's good to go. I've logged into my account. You've got to create an account with them even just to download this software, but don't worry, it's all free. You don't need to put any personal information in. You can just uh put, you know, anonymous information and you can still download it. But the reason that they have uh that login feature where you have to log in to use this platform. The reason for that is because all of these tools that you see here are going to be consuming credits when you use them. But don't worry about all of this. We don't need any of this today. We're just going to be creating a new graph. So we're going to go ahead and open up new graph. And we're going to want to save this project. So I'm going to save as. Wait for it to load. Unfortunately, this is the downside of using a Java based system is that sometimes it takes forever to load. Uh, so you just kind of got to wait on it a little bit. So, I'm going to name this one Harender Singh investigation test. I have a legitimate investigation folder. Every investigation that I do, I try to put in a folder. And this is because uh I like to organize things based on investigation names, sometimes dates depending on what it is. But for this case, this is going to be a named investigation for me. And if I'm going to use a tool like Obsidian or some other kind of tool, if I need to download PDF documents or images, I need somewhere to save them. So, I like to keep it all in the same folder. In this case, I also want to add to that same folder my Maltiggo products. Again, Maltiggo is not a one-stop shop for everything. Uh, you're going to need probably a lot of other tools which need a place to save files, too. So, I'm going to go ahead and save that. And here we are. We have a blank page. Now we can get to work. We can start our investigation. And the first step that we're going to do is vomit all of the information that we have onto this page. Right? We're just going to data dump all of the information that we have right up front. It seems complicated, but it's really not. And in this case, what we're going to do is add a lot of entities, add a lot of things that we know to this blank page. And to do that, we're going to be using the entity pallet right over here. Uh now in the case that you accidentally close this out uh a lot of the things in Maltiggo are not very intuitive. So what you need to do if you accidentally close out a window is then go over here to windows and then you can bring it back. So just bring back the entity pallet here. Remember entity pallet is all the things that you can put on your uh graph here. One of the very first pieces of information that we have is the man who we're investigating. Right? we have his name and he is in fact a person. Now once you start putting these in here, you will have a recently used uh category here in your pallet. But let's just say you didn't have that. We can just search for person, an entity representing a human. So we're just going to grab that and drag it right to our graph. Now, before we go further, uh just as a point of clarification, again, one of those little sticking things is not very intuitive unless you play around with it and figure it out is your selection tool here. So, just like selecting anything on any, you know, PC or Mac, right? You're just going to grab and drag to select things. Well, in Maltiggo, you have the option to select entities or links. So, sometimes you might find that if you click the wrong thing, wait a minute, why is my why is my thing not working here? I can't select Mr. John Doe here. Well, it's because you have to go to the investigate tab and toggle back uh to entity selection. Same thing with links. We'll talk about that in a minute. But just as a little point of frustration for those of you who recently installed this, uh that's kind of how it works. But we've got a John Doe on our platform here. And what is John Doe going to be renamed to? Uh, we can do this one of two ways. We can just double tap the name here, Harender Singh. And we've simply named it. This is very handy if we're just, you know, hand jamming in a lot of people's names if you if you have to manually add a lot of different people. But you can also doubleclick this and you can see here that is subdivided by first name, surname, and you can actually add the guy's picture, which is exactly what we're going to do because we know what he looks like, don't we? So, clicking this plus down here, we're going to navigate to the file path where I have saved his image. And again, it's Java, so it's going to take us take it a little while to come up. Uh, but now we can go ahead and select his picture. Let's see if I've got it still. Yep, there he is. And we're going to attach. And boom, there he is. Now we can click okay. And his picture has been updated. So, we actually know what the guy looks like. And we can even add notes and attachments if we want to. And I do want to add one note here. Let's add the context for why this person is being added to the to to the chart here. It's always good to add context, right? It's it's helpful especially when you've got hundreds of points on your graph here and you're trying to think and wonder why did I put this guy on here again? Well, if we have uh before we find a link to a person, we can put a note which helps us figure out exactly what this guy was doing. In this case, I'm just going to put that he was involved in a MVA, motor vehicle accident in Florida on August 12th, 2025, which killed three people. So, he is our central point of focus for now. So, let's go back to our entity palette here and let's start adding some more stuff. So, he wasn't uh just joy riding around. He had a company, right? So, we're going to drag a company. We can again, of course, search for the word company and it comes up there. But again, I've been adding a lot of these lately. So, now one thing that I like to do if you've got multiple monitors, if you like to nerd out like that, you can resize your monitors, uh, which is what I like to do. I like to kind of squish everything together and then add in a web browser, uh, right next to it. so that I can have a better workflow here. So, let me go ahead and do that. All right. So, I've got my web browser up and running. We've got a a good internet browser here to use to Google stuff and do some research. Uh we've got Maltiggo up and let me bring up one more uh just kind of minimized and that is Obsidian. So, uh again, this shows the actual investigative process. I started off in Obsidian just taking notes uh regarding the carrier this guy worked for and uh the number and things like that. and a lot of those details regarding the companies and I I rapidly realized hey this would be a good job for Maltiggo. So having a canvas in uh Obsidian or even just a text note as well that's very handy for starting your initial brainstorming and then once you realize the type of data once you're able to identify that link analysis is a good candidate for your investigative process you can then transfer over. So, I've done some minimal research here in Obsidian. But before we get ahead of ourselves here, let me go ahead and finish putting in what I know. We don't want to uh start the investigation just yet. We don't want to start looking for links just yet. We want to put down all of the information that we have. And there's two things missing. One is the company name. In this case, we know that it is White Hawk Carriers Inc. And we know that this company employed Mr. Harender Singh. So now that we have clicked off of everything right uh we don't have any entities selected we can now drag uh click and drag to draw a link between uh this company and Mr. Harender Sync. Now how you want to run the links depends on you. In my case since this company employs him he is an employee of this company. I'm going to draw it from the company to him uh just in case we have any other co-workers or any other kind of uh employees that may come up. And in this case, I'm going to label this link employee. Okay. Uh I can just leave the color the standard default color. What I like to do personally, it's all just personal preference, right? And I personally like to leave it a sort of gray color just for a routine link that I'm not quite certain yet. Uh we can see now that we have uh Mr. Hargender Singh here. to again to move uh these items around on your graph, you have to click to select it and then you can click and drag to move it around. Otherwise, you're going to start drawing links if you just grab it like that. So, uh the same thing for uh the White Hog carriers here. Click, select it, and move it around. So, uh this is how we can or start to organize things. So, what other information do we have? Well, we have that very important DOT ID number, don't we? Well, unfortunately here in the Maltiggo pallet, there is no such listing. There is no entity for DOT ID number. So, we need to create one, right? And it's very simple. All we have to do is go to entities, new entity type, and put in all of the information. In this case, we're going to make it a US do number. And you can put a description, whatever you want. And then you can choose an icon. In this case, let's click browse here to choose some of the internal icons. Let's go with transportation. Looking for a truck. Let's make this one a truck. Ah, here we go. We'll make it a truck. And then we can uh click next. And you just click through all this stuff. You don't really need to put uh any of this information. You can bring in properties from other icons. So, basically, if you have a uh an icon that that's already on your chart or graph, you can copy all those features. We don't need that. All we need to do is click finish. Now, I've actually already done this. I'm going to click cancel. And what we're going to do is search for US DO. And there it is. We're going to drag in US DOT ID number with our icon that we just chose. And now we can put in the information. So, in this case, the number, let me grab it right quick uh from my PowerPoint here. And we'll put in this number right there. That's all I need to do. You can put in other details if you want, but it's not necessary. So, now we can start making links, right? How is this truck here linked to both of these things? Well, this company owns this truck. Owned by and we can say uh this person was driving this truck driver. So now we've got a sort of three-way link here. And from here we can start to get vastly more complicated because we can now take this link and go over here to our web page and check all of the safety measurement system data for this DOT ID number. So, we put it in the search box over here and we can search. Now, look at that. White Hawk Carriers Incorporated. It has the DOT ID number there. And would you look at that? It has a mailing address. So, we can go over here to our entity pallet and we can just go to town here. In this case, I like to use location. Uh, the default is Germany. You can change that preset if you want. Now, you may be tempted to just grab this address right here and uh just put it right into Maltiggo. And I'm going to do that. But what I'm going to do first is something that I have uh learned through over the past few years of doing this, which is if you have an address, just take a peek. You don't need to do much. Just take a peek in Google Maps. It doesn't need to be much, but this again if we're bringing in some of the other things that we have learned, this is just me getting a feel for terrain analysis, right? Oftent times the analyst has to work on a lot of different things at once. And you want to start building familiarity with some of these things that you're working on, right? And one of the things that I find helps me quite a bit is just because I'm slightly paranoid, drop that address into Google Earth and or Google Maps and just see what's there. In this case, nothing out of the ordinary. It's a residential address on a corner lot. But what is right next door? A church. Church is right next door. And uh this may uh come into play later on. Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say. It's also across the street from a high school. So, you see, we don't need to put this down. We don't need to write it down anywhere. You can if you want. We don't need to be that uh crazy about it, but just take a peek and see see what's there at the address. Also, when when you drop these addresses into Google Maps, uh you get the Google coded uh street view here. So, a lot of times when some agencies or companies in other countries will put addresses in the the address won't actually be accurate and you may have to use uh the special geolocation code here. Um, but in this case, it's perfectly fine. And I can grab this, copy it, and uh double tap here in Maltiggo, drop it right in. No problem whatsoever. Right. And if you want to double double check to make sure that this address is correct, uh you can of course double click on it, see the information that is uh in there with it. And yeah, it's you don't really need much more information. You can break it out like this if you wish. Um that might be helpful for more data analysis, but for now again, we're keeping things simple. So what is the context for adding this address to this chart here? Well, again, we're starting to add links. So this is the mailing address and in this case uh it's a residential address. Isn't that very interesting? So a trucking company is registered to somebody's house. Not entirely uncommon, exceptionally common for a lot of LLC's and businesses, especially out in California. Uh but we can start to see that maybe that might become a factor later on. So if we just take a step back here, we can already start to see how how our investigation is progressing. Right? We started with this information. From that starting information, we have created links and we have conducted research to start to build out the network. Now we can add in even more information because obviously Mr. Hargender Singh here does not own this company. Who does? Well, what I can do is grab the name of this company here using the analyst favorite. Ctrl C to copy and CtrlV to paste on your keyboard. And where do I want to put this name? I want to put this name in bisprofile.net. This company, this agency allows us to search to see who owns this company. So, let's go ahead and controlV to paste it in the box. Search. And would you look at that? This is our company. Now, we want to prevent bias, don't we? We want to make sure that this is in fact the correct company. So, take a look at this. you've got the same name, but there's also, you know, other companies that may or may not be affiliated. But we can cross reference this with the registered mailing address. And as we can see here, in this case, it's 2521 Acorn Lane, the same that was registered with the DOT. So now we know that this is the right company. And would you look at that? Navit cower. We have a new person to add. So let's go ahead and drag a new person here. Navnit cower cur cower don't know how to pronounce it but either way now we have a person to draw this to now from this person we can draw a link because they are the registered agent for this company we're starting to add things out and this mailing address is associated with them so they are associated with this company at this mailing address in two different places. Right? So now we've got a this company is registered at this address and this person uh is linked there too because they used this address when they filed for uh creating that company. So maybe redundant, maybe not, but it's about making links, right? So So from here, we've got a few different options, don't we? It's all based on personal preference. Well, in this case, what I want to do because I'm more concerned not necessarily about the employee who started all of this. I'm more concerned about the person who they were working for because this guy this guy's in jail, right? And why is he in jail? Because it is assessed that he killed someone. So I can even put a crime in here such as murder. Let's see here. The template is Germany Florida Turnpike MVA and that can be the let me give it a name. It is it is being investigated as a vehicular homicide which for categorization purposes is murder. So uh we'll we'll list it there. It sounds kind of harsh but that's the way that it is right. So we will call this one involved in incident. Okay, just to draw that link there. So you can see how we have a lot of different uh things we can add to the map. Now let's turn our attention to Miss Navit Cower here. C I think is how you pronounce it. Let's grab that name and let's do a search because uh this wonderful website called Biz Profile will let us search by name as well. And when I do a quick little search like this, you can see that this person has a lot of uh businesses registered in their name. Now, this could possibly be a red herring. So, we got to we got to tread carefully uh because again, let's do this uh the analyst trick here of just googling something and see what comes up first. Yeah, a lot of people. We've got doctors, College of Agricultural Sciences, uh somebody on on Instagram, and apparently an actress. Okay, so this name is fairly common. I would assume or I can surmise rather from this Google quick little Google here that this person that this name is a very common name. So we want to use a little bit of analytical discretion, right? Use that old gut feeling that we have here. And we can see that uh the person who registered this company, White Hawk Carriers, there's somebody with the same name registering an awful lot of other uh transportation and cargo companies. So, we can see where we're going with this. From this one person, we now have a lot of different links to investigate. And you can hand jam all of these in and cross reference them. Uh but really what you're probably going to want to do is use a little bit of analytical discretion in determining which ones go on here. Now, of course, you're interjecting yourself. You're interjecting your own uh analysis and bias potentially. So, you want to make sure that you're making a good decision here, but remember, human beings are not perfect, right? So, we've got to use a little bit of analytical discretion from time to time. And for instance, uh this person here who is a registered doctor in San Diego, uh they may be the same person. Um but maybe not. I don't know. Uh this freight company in Union City, California. H that's probably more likely. American Auto and E Solutions. H probably probably more more along the lines of what we're looking for. But let's go ahead and just add the first one in here, which is another company called Schube Express. Let's see if we can just add this in real quick. Shou Express Incorporated. And again, we can add a link registered agent. There we go. And again, Shub Express Incorporated. Look at that. They have an address. Quick little uh analyst tool here. Take a look at it on Google Maps. All right, let's take a peek. Yeah, residential uh looks like single family dwelling maybe. Yeah, single family residential business here in central Oh, yeah. Central California, just south of Sacramento. So, all right, we're starting to kind of get a better picture here. So, let's go ahead and grab that address. uh drag a location over, paste the address and mailing address. Now, I know that for Maltiggo users who use this quite routinely, I may be annoying you greatly. Uh because this is all just personal preference, right? Most of this, all of this actually, I'm hand jamming in. I'm I'm putting this in my hand. I'm doing all this manually. You can, if you so choose, use Maltiga more as an investigation platform. So for instance, this is a person uh named Nevnit Cower. And if I select their name, rightclick, now I have all these transformations. I can search Google with their name. I can try to find email addresses associated with that name. I can do all this kind of stuff from within Maltiggo. Now, we'll get to that. I don't want to downplay those features of this platform because that's kind of what sells this platform and warrants the uh you know thousands of dollar subscription to this per year for big companies. But for now, let's keep things simple. Right? Let's just do some link analysis uh the old school way, just digitized. Right? Now, as we can see here, I've gotten uh quite a few links here just from based off of our starting information here. I've gotten a few different things uh that we can link to. So, uh what I can do is change the way this data is visualized by clicking these layout uh things over here. And I can choose different ways of uh organizing the data. See, I can make it seem a little bit more organized here. This is great for sharing your information. Remember, Intel is a client-based structure, right? Career. So, you've got to make your information uh disseminatable or presentable to somebody who's not an Intel person. So, if I were to, you know, uh move these things around here and kind of make it messy and uh not really professional, like what is this? This is this is stupid. Like, this looks horrible. But I can go ahead and click these different ways of visualizing this data. And depending on what the client wants or what they need, uh you can you can flex it that way. Uh so really it's just kind of an easy way, one click to kind of do this sort of stuff. What I what I like to do is leave a nice clear space over whoever I'm working on. So in this case, I'm trying to add in Nev Neat Kors businesses, right? So uh I want to uh leave some open space here. So I can just drag over and then make the links. And then every now and then just tap that uh tap the organize button to kind of put everything into perspective here. But now again uh we can just continue on because I'm trying to put in the businesses for Neav and I can show you what I' I've come up with over the past few hours uh of doing this. But again, we want to make sure that we're keeping the right perspective here. We want to make sure we're not wasting our time and just going down needless rabbit holes. If you're trying to develop a hierarchy to find out who really owns something or who's really in control, you see how the news the news media might be tempted to just stop at the driver. No, he's not. He's the end of the he's the end of the line, right? The the actual person calling the shots is probably higher. And we haven't even gotten uh past this person yet. So this is why all of this emphasis on organization and why it's necessary to talk for so long about being aware of rabbit holes because you can go down and you can start researching every little bit here, every little icon, every little thing and then just waste a lot of time, right? So what I'm really trying to find out is who's ultimately responsible for this guy and what's the deal with this? Because I've already identified many different companies. I need to put all of these in. But check this out. I can grab that address for the for the other company and say Shub Express Incorporated. Let's grab that address and put the address into Biz profile and let's see if there are any other companies registered at this address. And as we can see, yeah, there are quite a few companies registered at this address. So if you recall uh when we were searching uh Miss Navit Cow's name, American Auto India Solutions came up, right? and it was associated with her and now it's registered at the same address. Check that out. Is that not interesting? So, now we have we're starting to develop these uh companies. So, let's go ahead and drop this in American Auto and E Solutions LLC. Sounds like a board here. And and some of you may know where I'm going with this as to why this is worth doing uh here in just a second, but let's go ahead and drop in the location. It's the same address actually. So, we don't actually need a new one. They're at this address. So, the mailing address for American Auto and East Solutions and the registered agent is Navnet Cower. So, there we go. Now, we're starting to build these links here. Now, let me go ahead and click the organize button again. Do you see? We may be starting to map an enterprise perhaps. And maybe those of you who look into this, you'll know exactly where I'm going. What do we have going on here from this one guy who got into a car crash with this number on the side of his truck? We have identified, ladies and gentlemen, what I suspect to be the classic LLC shell game. That's right. It's probably a bunch of companies running under a bunch of different LLC's so they can get different DOT identification numbers. And to confirm that theory, let's just grab a name of one of these companies here. Let's uh yeah, let's grab White Hawk, the original company we started with, and let's um I want to check something really quickly. Let's instead of checking it in SMS, let's check a different database, the SAFER database. The US Department of Transportation, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Safety and Fitness Electronic Records Safer System. Wow, what a mouthful. Anyway, this is the DOT database that you can search for US DOT ID numbers. the MC or MX number again which is being phased out I think but also the name if you don't know the US DOT ID number uh you can search by name which is pretty helpful uh for those people who may not be in compliance with making their US do number very visible on the side of their trucks. So if you have an investigation to conduct into a you know logistics or trucking company and you you don't know what their DOT number is but you know their name you can search by name which is helpful. So, let's see here. We have White Hawk Carriers Incorporated out of Steras, California, which jives with the address uh that we have registered here. But there's also another one registered as Sparks, Nevada. Hm. Maybe that's something else we can look into, right? Well, let's start with this one for instance, and let's see to confirm here. Is that the same DOT identification number? It is 286642. Uh, and we can see uh all of the information about this particular carrier. So, we can confirm. Yeah, same address. Uh, we can see the number of mileage that they have, what they're authorized to carry. A lot of stuff is not particularly useful, but we've got some other names to check, don't we? And I don't know the uh DOT identification number for SHU Express Incorporated. So, let's go ahead and drop that one in. Okay, there's one in Lup, California. All right. So, there we go. Now, we've got some stuff to put in there. All right. Check it out. The address, the physical address for this company, 1793 Holborn Drive. Look at that. Same address. And now we have a US DOT identification number. Check that out. So, we can add another one. And we can give this DOT number. Oh, and look at that. We've got a phone number, too. It's pretty helpful. Got a phone number. Not a physical handset. Just the number is fine for now. Check it out. Got a phone number. What do you think the chances are of this being a cell phone number? This is just some driver's uh phone number that they've probably used for other things, too. Interesting. Uh but anyway, yeah. So, you can see how we can start adding these these things in. Let's try American Auto and EC Corporation just to see if this one comes up. It does not. So, my suspicion is that it probably has that and symbol impacting the system. Yeah, it's not there. Interesting. So, they are not a registered carrier. They may be actually like a repair place or something to do with trucking. But you can see how we're starting to develop the network now. It's getting bigger, isn't it? So, let's just take a break for a minute here. As fun and as interesting as this stuff is, we got to remember or we've got to take a step back occasionally and ask ourselves, are we getting closer to the truth or are we getting further awa

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground so today we've got the launch of a new mini series and uh today we're going to kick that off with the first part of that mini series so this is kind of a a branch off on on the topic uh the american troubles that we've talked about a couple of times before we've had a podcast on it a youtube video on this subject and now we're going to be talking about part three which will branch off into its own series on escape and concealment so as everyone knows usually we like to start off with the why or the mentality or philosophy behind why we're trying to talk about this topic but this time around we're going to start off with a disclaimer so of course we have to have this kind of disclaimer on this topic because this is kind of a little bit more gray area than we have talked about before so let me just go ahead and read this out so this information is provided only for legal lawful use the ester general project cannot be held liable for any misuse of this information currently the concept of sharing knowledge is a constitutionally protected right and as such no further reason is needed to explain why we are sharing this information in short the first amendment talks about covers our ability to talk about this information there's no such thing as protected information uh the only thing that kind of comes close to this is the concept of classified information but once again nothing in this series will be classified none of this information will be proprietary and none of this information will be derived from any federal state or governmental force this is all just our own private knowledge and experience gained over years of of dealing with this stuff in the field so despite the fact that we have the disclaimer we have to have another one the disclaimer to the disclaimer essentially what we mean is don't be stupid don't break laws our constitutionally protected rights are infringed on every day by various groups agencies and entities so we fully expect that certain entities will attempt to stop us from sharing this information but if they do they're going to have to take down every other lock sport enthusiast in the us lock picking is a hobby is very large in the united states and around the world to be honest and there really aren't that many laws that cover it especially what we're going to talk about today which is illegal restraints so i know that's kind of boring i know that people really don't like when we have to do disclaimers but honestly to ensure the survivability of this video series we have to kind of put this disclaimer in there to say that look this is for illegal restraints i will caveat that and say that that this is the third time we have filmed this we have 37 slides of the why behind this sort of project but we decided not really to to go down that road and just simply say look it's all right to talk about this stuff so we're going to talk about it because we think it's information that people need to know and we're just going to leave it at that now when we talk about the concept of restraint escape we really jump to the only field and the only doctrine and the only subject area in the world that really talks about this sort of thing from a practical standpoint sure as we mentioned the whole lock sport entity is is great and and the whole lock lock-picking hobby is great um but to be honest that that hobby doesn't really encompass too many um people talking about restraint escape and that's uh that's sort of what we're kind of gearing towards today which is restraint escape really the only thing that talks about you know someone's got you locked up be it a terrorist or a foreign government or something like that someone's got you locked up and get you tied down how do you get out of that and get back home well there's one field of study that is specifically meant for that and that seer the survival evasion resistance and escape doctrine from the us military um all branches have some version of this there's all different kinds of courses from the you know the you know two hour long uh online course that everybody has to take before they deploy to the actual like you know several day long you know like the week-long course uh that actually puts a lot of this stuff into practice now there are also a lot of people out there who talk about restraint escape and um they build like survival kits like sear kits like google the term sear kit and you will find a lot of companies out there a lot of small companies out there that are building these surrogates with all kinds of little goodies inside them to help get you out of an illegal restraint situation now that's great and we think that a lot of these you know private companies doing this sort of thing they you know this technology would not be available to civilians were not for private civilian companies coming up with this stuff but we also have to remember that seer as a concept isn't quite the same as escaping from a restraint situation as a civilian so let's talk about that for a little bit and i know a pretty text heavy slide but in short cyr assumes a lot of factors that are not not exactly applicable to civilians so i'll just go down the list here first of all you know sear assumes that a nation state will use every possible resource to recover a single person so in other words in the concept of seer the whole overarching dark doctrine is there will be a nation helping you um we're you know an entire military group an entire military division an entire command has been set up specifically for recovering personnel right we have satellites in space that are meant specifically for helping our you know downed aviators lost troops captured capture soldiers and and whatnot get back to civilian or get back to you know their own military's lines civilians don't have this civilians have zero resources the only resources a civilian has when it comes to escaping an illegal restraint situation is yourself right there is no team coming to get you um usually there's going to be no like nation state that's going to try to you know help you escape from these situations uh and sort of to go along with that uh seer the you know military doctrine allows for personnel to have classified military gear there are whole radios out there like the the c-cell radio is the newest one i think and other rfid tags and tracking devices and things sewn into clothing and stuff like that that the military and service members can have access to which can aid in recovery whereas civilians don't have this the civilian civilian infrastructure you know does not have the ability to classify technology from the government whereas the government can of course classify things from us so there's no such thing as owning a secret technology right the government is going to know about it one way or another another factor is that seer is a doctrine it is very heavy on assuming the capability of an aerial recovery i.e a helicopter coming to get you civilians almost never have this capability i'm sure it's possible but you know there's it's just so remote of a chance it's not even worth considering in your plan also sort of along those lines is seer as a doctrine assumes a vastly superiori superior firepower capability during recovery right so when we think of syria in the military we kind of maybe have this over romanticized viewpoint of like you know an owen wilson behind enemy line situation where the you know good guys swoop in with you know five or six helicopters and just you know lay waste to all the enemy bad guys where the you know good guy makes a jump to recovery right well civilians don't have this capability at all you know granted you know that's not exactly a realistic example but during you know a hostage recovery or during it you know some kind of you know hostage rescue team sort of incident there's they're going to be vastly out gunning the captors usually in that situation civilians can't begin to compete there's no way that civilians now in the year 2020 can outgun the government uh or or any other sort of source right civilians can barely outgun each other right as we keep finding out in the news but so if you're assuming that your rescuers are going to be able to outgun your you know captors well that's not going to happen even if it's you know like a terror cell or something another thing that people tend to tend to ignore is the criminality aspect to this so in seer if you know no criminal activity or mistakes to be charged for afterwards basically if you are in or if you are a lawfully sort of uh captured combatant in a foreign nation you know serving under you know your nation's military and you escape from that situation and you kill a guard during the escape well guess what your host nation is not going to kill you it's not going to um charge you for killing that guard right your your own nation now the nation you escaped from might but the uh your own country is not going to charge you for murder for killing a guard during an escape good luck doing that in the united states even if it's in a sort of self-defense situation even if you're being held against your will by another civilian guess what you're probably going to get some kind of charge against you the whole idea nowadays in 2020 the whole idea the whole concept the whole ideology of self-defense is up for debate right so especially from you know everybody from you know governmental agencies to uh the general public right everybody is trying to debate what this what this term self-defense really means so we don't have that luxury of you know civilians of being able to escape from a situation and causing harm to somebody else to do so another uh situation is that uh civilian or military forces have the ability for a diplomatic recovery civilians don't have that luxury uh you know no amount of negotiating with a a a domestic terrorist no amount of negotiating with say a rogue governmental agency is going to result in your release once any kind of sort of rogue governmental agency or or group gets their hands on you your there's no way they're going to let you up also there's no there will be no oversight by agency such as the red cross i mean think about from the normal criminal aspect how many times does the international red cross come in and inspect our you know disaster camps like you know after a hurricane well they don't how many times does the red cross go into canada and uh check out their sort of their uh quarantine camps right not really that many you know we can't find any documentation uh suggesting that's ever happened another aspect of you know formal cr doctrine is that it focuses on avoiding urban centers and avoiding pretty much all contact civilians basically you read any seer sort of handbook from sort of the 1970s when the concept of sir was created until today the whole chapter is basically going to say look you know avoid urban areas because if you come in contact with civilians they're probably going to turn you in or it is going to be a very rare situation that you're going to come across another human being in a serious situation and it's going to work out in your favor in the civilian sector we don't have that option usually if there's going to be a seer type of situation you know most most people in america live in or near a heavily urbanized area you know we don't have the luxury of being able to walk for for um you know tens and and you know tens and dozens of miles without seeing a road right in certain areas of the nation certainly you can like out in the midwest now you know pacific northwest and places like that you can walk for days and not see another road or another sign of a human being but on the east coast where we're located just as a concern for us personally you can't walk you know five or six miles in any direction without walking across three or four roads so even the most remote areas of the united states are having this impact come in and you know syria kind of it kind of doesn't really provide any information for that also and lastly and most importantly by far is the concept that seer as a formal doctrine relies on the ability to escape and evade back to friendly territory seer assumes you are in a hostile area and you can cross a line and be suddenly behind friendly lines right in the civilian sector in the united states we don't have anywhere else to go civilians simply don't have anywhere else to defect to there is despite all the all of the shortcomings in the united states right now there is nowhere else to defect to the united states is still the freest and it's really not that free to be honest as we all really know by now um you know civilians are going to have to make the choice of do i need to escape from my home right you're not talking about someone's you know having to eject over hostile nation halfway around the world and you know having that hope factor of driving themselves to get home well guess what civilians are home what do they do now right so this is kind of a lot of things to think about when it comes to seer and you know despite all of this sort of bad stuff that we've just talked about seer is not a perfect solution but the overarching doctrine you know might not be a good solution to the problems we face but the individual skills are sound really the only factor that that kind of changes with sierra for the civilian sector is that for civilians everything is going to be significantly more difficult require much more preparation require much more money at practice and gear so uh basically it's just going to be that you know sear is going to be a lot harder for civilians to do in or or even for service members to do while conus you know that's going to be that's going to be very hard to do because the sierra jogstream is is focused around a hostile nation and getting back to friendly lines or getting back to a point where you can be extracted well in the civilian sector who's going to extract us and where we're going to go right so these are just some things to think about that when we talk about this sort of seer stuff when you see all these seer kits online is it like yeah i mean that's all well and good essentially it's just restraint escape when we're talking about this stuff because you know where are you going to go right so before we get into restraint escape here's a few other things to think about that not a whole lot of people are thinking about right now when they talk about seer first one is money like i mentioned before if you're ever in a situation where you find yourself uh needing to use your seer skills conus you're going to need a lot of money because the money and money and funds funding is going to get you uh 99 of the way right you're also going to need a long-term support network you know it's not like we can evade for a couple weeks at the max until we can get back to a friendly or even a neutral nation in the united states we might have to wait months before any kind of thing calms down you know we're also going to have to need if we have to use these skills conus is the ability to leave everything behind you might not be able to return home you know if you find yourself sort of imprisoned in your house right and you need to escape or else something bad's going to happen to you right you also have to have the ability to have really no family or friends or the ability to bring them with you and that's a huge clincher for a lot of people you know another thing you're going to need is a new identity the the thing is is that like look you cannot be a person in you know really most nations without an extensive identity not just some cheap you know plastic fake id you know fake driver's license that high schoolers you used back in the day right we're talking about an entire identity an entirely new person new social security number new a passport new driver's license a a a career a whole set of really a whole life right and that's going to be impossible for 99.999 of everybody out there the people that can afford it probably not going to be watching this video so that's just something to keep in mind as well and then lastly which is kind of something that we're very really hesitant to talk about is the legality of all of this stuff right if you find yourself in a situation where you are going to have to escape from a situation what would a jury think and we we must remember that at the how do i put this at the at the risk of going off the deep end and sort of losing credibility immediately we have to remember that history matters right and if we look back over history we must remember that the things that human beings have done to each other the atrocities on a mass scale right pretty much every every example of genocides over time every example of totalitarianism authoritarianism basically the worst parts of every dystopian fiction novel you could possibly imagine those scenarios coming true if you know when they have come true in the past guess what that's all been legal right everything that happened during you know in in germany and poland during world war ii that was all legal under the german law because they made it so everything that was done in rwanda during the genocide there in the 90s guess what that was also all legal you know same thing with some of the crimes going on you know right now in belarus with um uh you know uh president lukashenko uh locking down and you know torturing his own civilians and things like that you know guess what it's legal because he's a dictator he's declared himself to be so so we must remember that if you're going to be using these skills you're probably going to be breaking the law and that's where we kind of get into a very gray area and that's why not a whole lot of people out there are talking about what we're about to talk about normally what people talk about is just simple restraint escape like duct tape zip ties handcuffs you know your basic handcuffs right that's pretty much all they leave it at because that's pretty much you know they don't want to offend anybody or get on anybody's radar screen by talking about something more serious but we think and this is the whole crux of this sort of video series is that like look talking about how to escape from duct tape is is drastically under representative of the skills the situations the the tools and the the circumstances that are out there in the world today right it's not like we're talking about you know a 1970s airline hijacking where they just duct tape everybody on board you know those days are gone these tools that we're going to be talking about today all of these tools were purchased by us using civilian credentials which is to say an email address and you know paypal or a credit card or something and they're all shipped right to our house none of the things we bought today and most importantly none of the knowledge that we've learned today is any remotely controlled so if we can buy it bad guys can buy it too and that's why we wanted to talk about this is because not a whole lot of people are talking about some of these more extensive restraint type systems so without further ado let's go talk let's start talking about illegal restraint escape and some of the themes and things we need to think about when preparing for this kind of situation so the themes that we're going to talk about today there are really four main points one is that preparation is crucial now some of these restraints we're going to be talking about are pretty much impossible to get out of unless you have prepared for prepared for them ahead of time most of these are like that some of these you can get out of them a few different ways but mostly if you don't prepare ahead of time you're not going to be able to get out of any of this stuff so preparation is crucial right and we're going to be talking about preparation in a separate video following this talking about all the gear you need so i know that everybody's probably going to be tuning into that one more because we all like gear don't we um but this one is the how to and the next video is going to be the gear just so you guys are aware and number two is take advantage of vulnerabilities we must remember that we're plo you know restraint escape a lot of times is like a poker game right you're not you're not necessarily playing the cards you're not necessarily playing against the tools you have you're playing against the person using them right so when we get into a lot of these restraints we're going to talk about how the human factor can sometimes be used and most importantly the laziness and complacency factors can be used to our advantage against an illegal restraint situation and then lastly think outside the box now this is something that is kind of hard to teach well i would think that's probably very impossible to teach but hopefully we're going to encourage people to sort of think outside the box when it comes to these restraints because a lot of times you've got to be very creative with how you get out of them and let's see here number four creating space during application now this one is crucial when it comes to restraints that aren't necessarily like handcuffed type restraints so uh when it comes to things like uh the first set we're going to talk about flex cuffs duct tape zip ties rope all that kind of stuff you can create space during the application process and that will aid in your release because if you're able to the way just the way you're holding your hands will prevent you from being tightened up to the point where you can't move at all you want a little bit of wiggle room inside all that and we'll talk about that here in just a second and we also have to remember the goals of the restraints themselves what are the restraints trying to do and really temporary control as any routine police officer really in any nation in the world will tell you uh restraints are temporary all restraints are temporary that's why usually there's a lot of things that go into restraints and the number one thing is never leave anybody in restraints alone it's because restraints all of them can be overcome with time and if they can't be overcome with time goals can still be accomplished so for instance even some of the most high security handcuffs in the world that cannot be picked that while you're wearing them at least they cannot be gotten out of while you're wearing them uh guess what you can still use them to assault someone and that can be uh be a goal for someone in restraints right so all restraints are temporary right we also have to remember that one of the main goals of restraints is really not to completely stop someone from escaping that's not their goal at all their goal is to slow down and escape so that by the time a subject has figured out how to escape from restraints they're already in a higher security area or they've already got higher uh they've already been swapped out for higher security restraints right um so that's something that we have to remember um as well and this is what we call uh um progressive security i'm not sure if there's an actual term for this but this is kind of the term that we think of it as it's kind of the thing we've coined ourselves so let's talk about that concept of progressive security for a second now when we're going to talk about progressive security we're going to use for an example these style standard police handcuffs now these are the smith wesson model 100 handcuffs by far the most popular and widespread uh most common commonly used handcuffs in the united states they can be bought for about 20 to 30 bucks on amazon they can be bought pretty much anywhere and shipped anywhere and they're used by pretty much every police department in the united states now these handcuffs are probably some of the least secure on the market when it comes to the features that they have and the ways to overcome them but this concept of progressive security can make these small handcuffs these cheap non-uh high security run-of-the-mill standard handcuffs uh completely unescapable and we'll go by talking about the different ways that you can escape from these handcuffs there are five main ways i'm sure there are more but these are the five that we have come up with and these are the five we have personally tested and can confirm work for this particular model so first up is a bobby pin you can simply take a bobby pin and use that as sort of like a the ability to disengage the locking pole right we'll talk about that a little bit more in depth when we get to the how to escape from these specific handcuffs but a bobby pin being used can simply be uh really discouraged by a double lock right so of course bobby pins can be used to defeat the double lock as well but guess what it's now you've doubled the things you have to do rather than using the bobby pin to sweep one way to open the locking pole you have to sweep the other way first to disengage the double lock then sweep back and and disengage the locking pawl that doubles the time that's required to get out of those handcuffs so next up is a hidden key and this is probably one of the easiest ones to identify is that guess what you know if you have a hidden key on your person which all of us do pretty much 24 7. really the easiest way to make sure that nobody has a key on them is a search right so if you search a person you search them thoroughly you do a a very thorough strip search and all that kind of stuff you can detect most hidden keys especially considering that a lot of these like you know people that are prepared for escaping from illegal restraints that people are going to have the plastic handcuff keys and things like that guess what usually they're not prepared they're usually not staged in scenarios so you're going to have all your escaping of asian equipment in a nice little plastic box or a nice little plastic bag in your pocket and all you know somebody has to do is stick your hand in your pocket oh look those are 100 of your escape tools nobody usually has them layered on their person day-to-day they only do it when they're in a situation which they might get taken right so we have to remember that even though we may have all this gucci gear we've got to take steps to make sure it's not found during a search immediately right at least by an adversarial force is not going to search that hard also being a hidden key can be overcome by putting you in a secure vehicle if you're thrown in the back say somebody's got like a like an old police car or something right and they're able to uh you know slap you in handcuffs put you in the back like even a criminal right let's just think of it in terms of a criminal trying to escape look even if they get out of the handcuffs in the back of a police car which happens by the way all of the time even if they're able to get out of the handcuffs in the back seat they still can't get out of the vehicle so so that's you know something to keep in mind as well is that like look you know and one of the reasons why progressive security just is one of those things that's easy to do uh up next is a chain break right breaking the chain and and um we'll of course talk about more talk about this more when we get to it but breaking the chain between the handcuffs is fairly easy to do especially after if you're handcuffed in front um you're gonna be able to do that about two seconds flat but an easy way to get around that is a blue box and we'll talk about that in a minute or really at the end of the series out here so that's one way to clearly make sure that nobody can break the chain and also placement if you put the handcuffs on behind somebody's back it's a little harder to do the chain break thing and all it's about is making it a little bit harder so if you double lock the cuffs put somebody in a vehicle put a handcuff behind their back you know you're really starting to to increase the security of these simple little old podunk you know really easy to get out of handcuffs another thing are shims right well shims can easily be defeated by double locks end of question there's no way to get around that right and another thing is these little these cool little micro escape saws that they can like you know they're either made of diamond or like a little tiny saw blade they can cut through even the hardest metal on the planet yeah those work and those can cut through these cuffs but it takes time and that's one of the things that you when you start adding all these things up if you slap some if somebody were to illegally detain you slap some cuffs on you double lock them put a blue box on them put you in the back of a secured vehicle and then watch you guess what you're not going to be able to get out of there because you also have to remember that being put in the back of a vehicle right impacts that as well and then also like i mentioned earlier the concept is you're never alone in handcuffs and we also have to remember that other things can be added as well putting a hood over your head like how many people out there practice restraining escape with uh with you know their eyes closed you know not that many and then how many people also have you know even own a set of like leg irons right those can be easily purchased online but not many people have them because well different reasons i guess i just don't think it's worth it but guess what instead of having to pick two locks or really just one lock if you're like us and if you're in this real situation where you have to escape you're not going to bother with doing the other handcuff just you know hang up handcuff it to your own wrist right uh so that you can get away uh who's going to go out and and do another set of leg irons right it takes time it's all about increasing the amount of time required to get out of the restraints that's all really these high security devices do is increase the time that it takes for you to get out of them increase the time so much so that by the time you figure out how to do it you're in another situation you're in a different set of restraints you're in a different holding area or whatever right because we must remember that most of these restraints are made with criminals in mind right but they can be used and are often used against regular civilians illegally as well alright so we finally arrive at our first type of restraint and these um this this is a sort of um category of restraint really that's not really worth breaking out and talking about separately because honestly these are are um while some of the most common improvised restraints honestly you can get out of these with enough time and with zero skill and zero practice so some of the things that a lot of people online and a lot of other far more qualified people in this subject area have talked about before are there strengths such as duct tape zip ties and rope those are the three most commonly used restraints by like home invaders or or terror groups or things like that and of course it is worth practicing getting out of these however once you've sort of figured out how to do this and once you've taken steps to prepare and you and and chances are if you're going to be taken captive by a group or an entity that is going to only use these tools to restrain you well then chances are they're not going to conduct a thorough search of your person and you can have so many tools at your disposal so that's why this this genre this category of escape restraints not really worth talking about far more people have already covered it already and honestly it's pretty simple to do so one thing that is slightly more worth talking about are things like heavy duty police grade military grade or whatever words you want to choose to describe very tough flex cuffs now we had originally talked about trying to demonstrate this but honestly it's really not worth it because trying to get out of these even the most um police grade uh commercially produced uh flex cuffs are still quite susceptible to this just using a buzz saw type action that pretty much every quote unquote seer expert on the internet has already shown everyone how to do this is such a common way to get out of this you can also use the popular v cutters which we'll talk about when we get into the actual kit building part of this series you can even use your boot laces you don't even really need kevlar cord if you have strong enough boot laces and they're thin enough like a normal set of military style boot laces that'll work as well paracord the the inner strands of paracord works astoundingly well even against the most thick of flex cuffs so that's kind of why it's like you know we wanted to dedicate our time to figuring out and showing how to get out of more tough to get out of restraints that hasn't quite been covered in such detail before so while yes we do use use these tools and and practice getting out of flex cuffs and things like that uh one must remember that that's once again the easiest restraint to get out of so if you're practicing the easiest thing all the time well how are you going to face the more difficult restraints so that's why we move on to more handcuffed style restraints which we're going to be talking about next all right so before we move on to regular handcuffs we must talk about kind of what i alluded to before we showed how to get out of flex cuffs is that there are a lot of different ways you can restrain somebody with handcuffs in fact just using the smith wesson model 100s or the peerless model 700s as an example there are eight different ways that these handcuffs either one of these handcuffs can be used to restrain someone and by far the most difficult one is the eighth one where you have them locked behind your back the cuffs are double locked and the key way is facing away from your hand right so up towards your arm away from like your palms and that is by far the hardest way to get out of really any handcuff and we must remember though that even though this is the hardest way that's the way we're going to show how to do it there are easier ways right people are lazy that's just a general rule out there so if you can take advantage of people being lazy and like i don't know not double locking the handcuffs well guess what your escape just became that much easier and chances are if anybody is going to be using this information that we were talking about if anybody is going to be using that information to escape an illegal type restraint chances are your person who's going to take you going to be taking you captive is not going to be looking at you with a um you know with a microscope right they're going to be probably going to be rounding up a lot of people at once and not exactly concerned about one person in particular right so that's just something to keep in mind so even though we're going to talk about the hardest way to get out of all of these there is still going to be a a good chance you're going to have the easier way of getting out and also before we move into it some of these ways you can't like with any pair of handcuffs there are eight different ways to get eight different ways to lock them on your person but for instance if you have a set of rigid handcuffs that are locked to the rear they're double locked and the key was facing away from your hand guess what there's no way you can get out of that so there are certain ways that you know unless you are a gymnast and are exceptionally flexible and unless you're able to get those cuffs to the front of your body which is what we recommend there's some ways you can't quite get out of them at all right and we'll talk about that when we get to those more high security handcuffs but right now we're talking about smith and wesson model 100s and peerless model 700s and this is what they look like so the smith and wesson on the left and the peerless on the right now we're only going to we're talking about these both at the same time because they're essentially both the same exact handcuff the only difference being kind of the general shape and the fact that peerless keyhole is in the center of the cuff and not on the on the side right with smith and wesson's now this is interesting because on the smith and wesson's that keyhole placement makes it a lot harder to get out of that keyhole being over here on the side and this other hole over here for the double lock that makes it so much harder to get out of because you can't just put your finger on the cuff and then feel around in this one area because on a peerless cuff guess what you put your finger in the center of the cuff and you're either going to feel something or you're not going to feel something right and that means okay if you don't feel anything if the side of the cuff is smooth guess what there's no keyhole there flip it over you feel on the other side oh i feel a little bump right in the middle that means or you know a little jagged piece a little a little depression in the metal guess what that's the keyhole on smith and wesson it's a lot harder to do because for one that double lock window is on both sides it goes all the way through the cuff so you've got holes on both sides and let me tell you unless you've practiced with this a lot when you're feeling around for the keyhole there is that double lock hole and that keyhole feel a lot alike you have to practice many many many hours before you're able to determine and feel the difference between the two once you've once you've practiced enough and you keep practicing you're able to feel it instantly and know instantly what it's which what is one but i remember all of us here looked like complete idiots because we spent hours trying to shove a key into that little uh double lock hole so uh that's why we're not going to talk we're not going to show you how to get out of the peerless ones or for the sake of time we're just going to go right after the hardest ones to get out of which are the smith wesson model 100s and the position that we're going to be using is a handcuff to the rear like normal right they're going to be double locked so it requires two key turns to to open them and we're also going to have the keyway facing away from the hand thus making it even harder to get that grip with a very tiny plastic key so let's go take a look at that video and i'll narrate through that all right welcome back everyone so here we are on the tabletop and we're going to be taking a look at the smith and wesson model 100s so like i said before these are some of the most commonly used handcuffs in north america by everyone from criminals to your local police department as it stands these are also some of the easiest to get out of so a lot of people get kind of caught up in the trap of trying and practicing to get out of these handcuffs and which is why you see these tutorials all over youtube and all over the internet talking about how to get out of these specific handcuffs and we're going to start off with that but the reason that we had this whole series is because these while they are the most common they are not the only ones and also they're some of the easiest to get out of so we run into kind of the sort of trouble that a lot of people in the sort of lock sport or beginning to get into the hobby of lock picking get into but like to buy their first lock pick set they'll they'll buy their first padlock and they'll start to pick it and then they'll they'll realize they'll figure out how to pick it and they'll be like oh cool this is awesome i can now pick locks well if you're practicing on a master lock which is the most common you know padlock to practice on well that's actually one of the most you know easiest padlocks as a really easiest brand as a as a company to get around in terms of lock picking they're basically the easiest locks to get out of so you know we all know the sort of analogy of you know you train to your you know lowest level you perform to your lowest level of training so uh meaning that if you could pick the easiest lock well what about the harder locks so same thing with this if you can pick these that does not necessarily mean you know how to get out of handcuffs or illegal restraints at all it just means that you you're good at one of the easiest ones now we're talking about now that that being said what we're talking about the smith and wesson model 100s because they are of the two most common handcuffs in america uh the peerless and these uh these are harder than the peerless so we're not even going to show the peerless because it's easy the differences between the two let me grab a shim right quick and i'll show you the differences uh the differences between the two is that on the pureless the key is right here key is right there in the center and that's what makes it easier because as i mentioned earlier you don't have this double lock slot here confusing your fingertip with the keyhole so that's what makes them easy and the peerless locks they uh double lock here with a with a pin so that you can take the back of the key [Music] and poke it and that will lock double lock the peerless handcuffs it also makes it harder to figure out if you've actually succeeded in picking the double lock because now right here on on this with the lessons you have a nice little window and you've got that nice little slot right there that shows you that little piece of metal that shows you uh these handcuffs are not double locked as you can see they're not double locked so like i mentioned uh before the easiest way by far to get out of handcuffs is with a key and there are many different ways of getting out of these um and uh the way we're going to show today is with the bobby pin so this is one of the most common ways to do it here's the thing with bobby pins uh with handcuffs in general um a lot of people get bent out of shape trying to figure out how to do handcuffs with these and this is of course a valuable skill that's why we're going to show it today but you also have to remember that look at what handcuff keys look like now look how small they have become this is a titanium one since the delta key of course this is the tiny inconspicuous handcuff key our personal favorite here and this is another generic [Music] i think this is a shomertech key plastic key that's been cut down it was circular but it's been cut down to be even a little bit more small so if you can get away with having this you can absolutely have this uh there's no reason why if you're able to retain a bobby pin on your person and your kidnapper or captor or whatever doesn't take this or any other small piece of metal paper clip or whatever there's a reason that they can't find this plus you've got to remember this is metal these or at least these two are plastic and don't uh cannot be found by metal detector they can only be found by physical search so honestly when it comes right down to it all of us here sure these are good to have on your person not only because they can get out of handcuffs with them but because they are can be used to fashion other tools as well but honestly if you get out of handcuffs just keep the key there's no reason to to work harder when you don't have to especially in times of duress and trust me getting out of these handcuffs with them behind your back and double locked with a hood over your head where you can your breathing is restricted guess what this is going to take a while whereas this is going to be a lot quicker so um yeah let's just go ahead and show some of the methods we could use to get out of this handcuffs so obviously the first method is using a key right so plastic key now one thing you must note about plastic keys and this is actually kind of an interesting exception right here the showmertech key here on these particular handcuffs is kind of sticky as you can see there it's a little i'm trying to push up my thumbnail it's a little sticky it's kind of hard to convey because you can't quite feel it but as you can see i'm running past a little bump there whereas if i take it's even hard to get out a little bit if you take the tiny inconspicuous handcuff key it goes in smooth but there's also a little bit of resistance right there if you take the delta key here let's just put that in there there's no resistance at all swings really smoothly [Music] and does that really well so one must that one thing you must keep in mind this is not a factor for the delta key at all but with these plastic keys you've got to be careful of the torque so if you torque that key too hard you could snap it off in the keyway that's something nobody talks about if you snap a key off in the keyway like in a in an emergency or you're trying to escape these illegal restraints uh you're gonna be in some serious trouble uh you're gonna be in some serious trouble if you're just practicing and break a key off in the keyway which we have done uh several times but yeah that's something to to keep in mind is your key strengths you're going to want to practice this kind of thing you're going to want to practice it's all based on touch and feel how how much effort is required but you know obviously you guys didn't come here to figure out how to use the key for the lock because that's not exactly getting out of it that's just bypassing really honestly or not even really bypassing just using the key for the lock you came to figure out how to use one of these bobby pins and this one i've already pre-made so let's go ahead and grab one here all right so here i have our brand new right out of the package bobby pin sorry if that's a little blurry for you guys the focus doesn't sound those cameras aren't that great so what we're going to do is separate it like this now you don't want to bend it all the way back because then it'll just snap and you need this little bit right here to hang on hang on to because you're going to have a considerable amount of leverage now i left this one like this because as you can see here there are little plastic bits on the end to protect people who use this for their hair right well if you see you've got to get those off right at least on this the straight side here and i'm just doing this and i can't using my fingernail i cannot pull that off so i have to use my teeth or another tool here so uh that is something to take in mind because guess what if you've got these behind your back can you you can't you're gonna be able to put this in your mouth to um uh use your teeth to do that so that's just something to keep in mind you might want to pre-stage these and practice this ahead of time so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna turn this a certain way because i know that this way works a lot better for me i'm going to insert this thing into the lock now a lot of people screw this up and they'll put this in and they'll push it all the way in no no no don't push all the way in just just a little bit and we're going to bend it just like that that right there that is perfect i don't know if you can see how much that bent or not but that bend is perfect let's see i've got a couple others over here this is too much this one also works but it's not perfect this one is perfect so i'm going to stick it back in there and bend it just a tad bit more there we go and basically we're turning the handcuff into our own tool to help us bend that by doing that so what we're going to do is we're going to sweep the lock we're basically putting this in trying to get it to where it's like that and then slowly sweep this way right and until we feel that locking pawl disengage so i'm going to do put it right in there and look at that just that easy that's what happens when you have the right tool in the job for instance i can try this one over here and you know this like i'm doing this i'm able to look at this handcuff keyway imagine not being able to imagine having to do this with your eyes closed with this behind your back it's going to be very very difficult to do a lot of people think i'm just going to keep bobby pins in my waistband and i'm i'm good to go right no it's going to take you half an hour to figure out how to do it so having the luxury of sight just for the demonstration here you can see how easy this works just come back in here of course it's not going to work the second time you go in there you sweep there you go locking paul disengaged and just to show you what's going on inside the lock here see if i can do this easily yep there we go i'm going to push this in sweep around and you see how that locking ball drops that locking pole disengages let's go with the teeth and there you go so that's how you get our handcuffs with a bobby king bobby pin i'm sure there are dozens of others that have shown this on youtube and easier how to do it oh before i forget uh the double lock so let me grab the key [Music] somewhere around here i've got one because you have to have the key to engage the double lock so [Music] ah here it is all right so same way with the double lock so as you can see here i'm gonna put in the background so you can see there's a little piece of steel right there that means these are single locked i'm going to put that in there and push that feeling you hear that big click and then now that piece of metal has been moved into here that shows that these keys these cuffs are in fact double locked right so go in and they won't go out so what you're going to do is the same exact motion but on the opposite side so if you're double locked you've got to sweep this way all right towards the outside of the cuff you got to do it with a pretty good amount of force okay almost all right boom so i swept all the way around the edge of the cuff and as y