The Wire - March 15, 2023

//The Wire//1545Z March 15, 2023// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: Diplomatic tensions remain after "collision" of Russian Su-27 with US MQ-9 Reaper over Black Sea. Banks continue to crash domestically, with international financial institutions also beginning to be affected by the spread of this financial crisis. -----// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -National Events- Alaska: Biden regime approves massive oil drilling project. The Willow Project is a plan to extract over 600 million barrels of oil from the Alaskan frontier, and was a plan that was previously shut down by the Biden regime's "no more drilling" stance. Ohio: East Palestine HAZMAT crisis continues as third party testing firms detect carcinogens in water supply that the EPA either did not test for, or completely missed. Though this incident is clearly out of the MSM news cycle, the devastation wrought by this toxic spill continues to poison the local environment. Recent reporting indicates gross mismanagement among responding agencies. Many people assume that local authorities have been the lead agencies in charge of cleanup, however Norfolk Southern itself has played a much larger role than many people realize. Norfolk Southern has been in charge of investigating itself, and it was Norfolk Southern employees who were responsible for starting the fire that resulted in the large (and now viral) conflagration. Local authorities have complained that they simply did not know Norfolk Southern was going to set all 5 HAZMAT cars on fire, and other emergency officials have complained that they didn't know a controlled burn was going to happen at all. All of this occurred after Norfolk Southern lied about the number of cars that contained toxic chemicals. Economics: Fallout from Silicon Valley Bank crash continues and seems to be expanding to other banks. Internationally, foreign banks are feeling the heat, with trading halted on French bank BNP Paribas after their stock took an 8% dive. Credit Suisse plunged 30%, becoming the latest domino to fall in the long line of banks that have already collapsed, or are in the process of doing so. First Republic Bank is also in the process of collapsing, with S&P downgrading their status to "junk". -International Events- UKR: Update on RUS/USA aerial collision. What was initially reported by the American DoD as a collision between aircraft, has since been confirmed by the Russian MoD to not be a collision, but rather a unique method of international relations. Currently, vague reporting from all sides indicates that a Russian Su-27 did not collide with a US drone in a traditional sense, but rather forced it to crash land in the Black Sea. The Russian pilot allegedly flew above and in front of the American drone, and dumped fuel on it, and possibly struck the rotor blades with something, which ultimately resulted in the downing of the UAS platform. No Russians were injured in the maneuver, and the US suffered the catastrophic loss of an MQ-9 Reaper UAS platform. Analyst Comments: As more details have become public regarding the USA/RUS aerial confrontation over the Black Sea, the situation has fortunately become a lot less serious. Thankfully, initial American reporting was a bit incorrect, with this incident not exactly being a normal mid-air collision, but rather a comparatively simple diplomatic escalation. This incident is quite a strong escalation, and does signal that Russia is expanding her influence in the Black Sea on the aerial front...supplementing her command of the waves via the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. However, as serious as this incident seems, it's still what we might consider a holdover from the past, a classic case of Cold War bullying. Depending on the exact location of the downing, this could also be an indication that Russia is solidifying her control over the occupied territories...a move that would be necessary to br