Where is the ring of power?
Our analyst looks at the chaos in the world and how it’s affecting Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and us
“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
That was J.R.R. Tolkien’s couplet, describing the dark source of all power in Middle-Earth, a source that drove all the characters in the worlds he created in his trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings.”
To Alexander Smukler of Montclair, it’s the always-hidden, ever-shifting power that the characters in this real world seek.
“And at the end, we are writing fiction,” he said. But his goal, now as always, is to “analyze the situation in the Russian war in Ukraine, and in the Middle East, based on logic.
“So let’s start to figure out where the ring of power is today.”
Mr. Smukler left Moscow in 1991, just months before the Soviet Union crumbled; he’s maintained many contacts there and in Ukraine, and he’s used those sources, as well as his access to many experts, to analyze the situation for us.
“A lot of what has happened in the last month,” since our last story, “Dividing the skin of the unfortunate bear,” on March 6, “has been pure chaos,” Mr. Smukler said.
As we look at the world as it unravels, “let’s start with the military conflict in Europe,” he said. “President Trump promised that he’d stop it even before he got to the White House. I predicted that it would be impossible to stop that war quickly and resolve all the issues between the two countries in just one day. Of course, Trump or somebody from his team said that Trump’s promise was just sarcasm, and of course the president did not mean what he said. Obviously, everybody understood that the situation was much more complicated.
“The Trump administration had no plan or roadmap to stop the war before he got to the White House.”
During the last month, “the Russians have been advancing on the front lines in Ukraine,” Mr. Smukler said. “From their point of view, their biggest success was pushing the Ukrainian army from the Kursk region.”
Kursk is in Russia; last August, Ukrainian forces entered Russia and occupied part of the Kursk region. “Everyone thought that they would hold it for a very short time,” Mr. Smukler said. “There was a discussion about why the general staff of the Ukrainian army decided on such a suicidal move, crossing the border and going so far into Russia.”
But that was eight months ago. “At some point, the Ukrainian army occupied almost 600 square kilometers,” he continued. “They were approximately 525 kilometers from Moscow.
“Months later, it became clear that this invasion had created an enormously painful situation for the Russians.”
Now, the Russians have gotten almost all the Ukrainians out of the Kursk region, but that turned out to be an astonishingly hard job. “It is amazing that it took them so long to push them away,” Mr. Smukler said. “A small Ukrainian brigade kept between 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers from the Russian side there, instead of going to the front lines. The Ukrainians kept the Russians busy.
“Now we know that they used almost 12,000 North Korean soldiers; 4,000 of them were killed or wounded. Some sources say that the Russian army lost almost 30,000 soldiers who were either killed or wounded. It was a meat grinder” that ate up and spit out Russian soldiers and their mercenaries.
But the tide turned around the beginning of March. “The Russians slowly, slowly pushed the Ukrainian army away,” Mr. Smukler said. “The Ukrainians still control a small part of that region. The Russians claim, and Trump repeated, that a group of 12,000 Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded by the Russian army.
“But we know that’s not true.” In fact, it was a lie.
“The Ukrainians were able to withdraw their brigades successfully. Now, though, the Ukrainians’ big problem is that Russia has about 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers who can be relocated to Ukraine.” Those soldiers got on-the-job training on a highly lethal battlefield, so they will know what they’re doing when they get to Ukraine.
“And military experts know that Ukraine lost not only men, but also military equipment, including tanks and military vehicles,” Mr. Smukler said. “Just now — and probably more in the future — military experts will be discussing whether it was successful, and what its real purpose might have been. In the meantime, Russia is moving its troops to the main front lines.
“On another part of the front, the Russians were advancing, slowly, slowly, very slowly, to major points on the Ukrainian defense lines, to Kupiansk, Pokrovsk, and Toretsk. The Russians already invaded and took Toretsk, which is very important in Ukraine’s defense line, but during the last month the Ukrainians were able to push them away a little bit, and now the battle is in a very hot stage.
“So despite the debacle that took place in the White House between Trump, Zelensky, and Vance, the Ukrainians were able to fight, and basically nothing major or strategic happened on the front lines. At the same time, the Ukrainians declared that they will accept almost every demand that the U.S. administration asked of them, particularly in terms of the minerals, and they will sign the agreement. We talked about this in ‘The Skin of the Unfortunate Bear.’
“So the Ukrainians still are fighting. Most military experts say that if Ukraine were to receive a similar level of military support to what they had been getting, they probably can sustain their front lines without total mobilization for about three to four months. They probably will hold the front lines during the summer campaign.
“But on the other hand, remember, the Russians now have the opportunity to relocate their very well-trained brigades from the Kursk region to another part of the front lines.” Mr. Smukler estimates that there are about 50,000 to 70,000 of them. “And also, I think, based on different sources, that they have accumulated about 200,000 pieces of fresh cannon fodder” — newly signed soldiers — “to throw on the front lines during the summer campaign,” he added.
“The cannon fodder signed contracts. All of them will be ready to start by the end of May.
“And just a few days ago, Putin signed a decree. They will draft 160,000 young soldiers between the ages of 18 and 30. It’s called the spring draft. That will increase the Russian army to 1.3 million people.”
In another decree from a few months ago, Putin arranged to increase the standing army to 2.39 million. That will include 1.5 million soldiers. The rest are service personnel. It is a 36 percent increase in size. Before the war, Russia had approximately 900,000 soldiers and about 1.5 million people on the payroll. It will be a giant army. About 2.3 percent of the Russian people will be in the army permanently.
Given all that, “I am 100 percent sure that the Russians are planning their summer campaign in detail, and they will start it very soon,” Mr. Smukler said.
Mud season, which had held back summer campaigns every early spring since the war began in February 2022, is just about over by now, Mr. Smukler said. And the trees will be in full leaf very soon there, as here; that provides the fighters with the camouflage they need. “The only thing that will slow down the Russians’ advance is that they are still trying to figure out how to negotiate with the Trump administration,” he said.
How can Putin pay for that? According to his sources, Mr. Smukler said, Putin had enough military equipment and ammunition to continue the war for about a year, possibly a year and a half. Not forever.
“That is why I have been saying for some time that Putin and Trump will try to finalize the negotiations and reach at least a temporary ceasefire before May 9 of this year, when Putin will conduct a major military parade on Red Square, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Russian victory in the Second World War.”
But now, Mr. Smukler said, the idea that the war can be settled, at least temporarily, seems less likely. In fact, he said, “it seems to me that it is not going to happen. The issue, for Trump, is far more complicated than he had thought, simply because Putin wants too much, and the request is impossible for the American administration to satisfy, at least without agreement from European leadership and Ukraine itself.
Putin wants the sanctions on Russia lifted, but Trump can’t do it by himself. “He can’t unfreeze the money. About $5 or $6 billion was frozen by American banks, but most of the money is in Brussels. That’s almost $250 billion. The total of the frozen assets was about $300 billion. Most of it is controlled by Europe, and Europe will not agree to unfreeze it.
And there’s more. “I can imagine that the White House is busy with other stuff,” Mr. Smukler said. “Basically the issue of Ukraine is not primary, or even secondary, at the White House right now.
“So it seems to me that we are not going to see any ceasefire before May 8, and if it doesn’t happen, Putin won’t miss the summer campaign, since he has such a huge opportunity to advance. So I’m afraid that we’ll see a serious escalation on the front lines, and that will mean very bloody battles in Ukraine.”
This has human consequences, Mr. Smukler said, with emotion. “Not many people in the United States know — and this is just one example, one among hundreds — Russians have been using ballistic missiles and hit civilian targets in the city of Krivoy Rog just a few days ago, on April 4. That’s where Zelensky was born and raised. It is a very industrial town, and according to Russian sources, the Russians tried to hit a restaurant where military commanders were meeting, but instead, according to Ukrainian sources, they hit a heavily populated civilian district and killed nine children and 14 adults. About 50 people were wounded, among them nine or 10 children.
“My point is that this is just one single night,” Mr. Smukler said. “This happens basically every day and every night, but we don’t see anyone talking about it. The media is silent about it.
“When I see demonstrations supporting Gaza and protesting against Israel, I keep asking myself what kind of absurd world do we live in. Why is nobody speaking about those children who die in Ukraine almost every night?
“I am talking about this missile attack because it happened just a few days ago. It’s just one example among hundreds. We don’t see anyone demonstrating against the Russians, or supporting the Ukrainians, or blaming Putin for genocide against Ukrainian children.
“It’s an interesting question. Why do we see such massive support for Gaza, but no one supporting the Ukrainian people and requesting aid for their defense?”
It seems likely that Ukraine is suffering from a lack of antimissile systems, Mr. Smukler continued. It looks like its leaders are trying to husband what they have, saving them for the country’s most important places. “I see that Russia is using Iranian-made Shaheed drones and ballistic missiles against civilian targets,” he said. “That’s the result of not getting enough help. That shows me that the Ukrainians are suffering, because they feel” — and in fact they are — “undefended.
“So basically the situation in Ukraine is deteriorating, and that’s because of the ongoing negotiations between Russia and the United States, and at the same time Putin is accumulating massive, incredible military power to start his summer campaign. And nobody can predict the result. He can notch serious strategic advances during the summer campaign, because Ukraine has a deficit in equipment, and also, and very seriously, in manpower.
“Zelensky is extremely reluctant to draft kids between 18 and 25. Up till now, he has refused to sign a decree that would draft those boys.”
So everything seems incredibly dire for Ukraine. But maybe not so fast.
“Now we are getting signs that the Russian army, and especially the Russian economy, is starting to have major problems,” Mr. Smukler said.
“To start with the one that everyone is talking about, tariffs, and the effects that Trump’s tariffs have had since April 2, when he announced them, and April 9, when they were fully implemented, and that crushed the American market and world markets.
“I don’t want to talk about it in depth, because I don’t consider myself an expert, but I do know that it brought the Russian economy into chaos.”
Russia was one of the few countries in the world that did not have tariffs levied against it — unlike, say, Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, off Australia, whose sole residents, penguins, would have to deal with tariffs were they to try to sell their guano — but still the impact was extreme.
“The price of oil, and particularly the Russian oil brand called Urals, went down.” Usually it goes for about $75, Mr. Smukler said, but after the tariffs were announced it dropped below $50. That wreaks havoc on the country’s budget, which assumes, until now with good reason, the higher price. “It’s an enormous hit on the Russian economy,” Mr. Smukler said.
“Although Trump announced that he wasn’t tariffing Russia because Russia is under sanctions anyway, the impact of the tariff war is that world oil prices went down drastically, because the markets predict a global recession.
“If this continues, Russia will suffer major economic turmoil, which probably will end in its defaulting. It will be similar to what happened in 1998. It is mostly China, India, Brazil, and Russian satellites like Iran and North Korea that mostly buy Russian oil, but such low prices will not allow Russia to actively continue to buy the equipment that they need and to import the parts they are buying from China. Russians will start suffering from the deficit of hard currency.
“We are not discussing whether tariffs are good or bad,” Mr. Smukler cautioned. “We’re just saying that the chaos that came from it means that if prices stay low, Russia will come close to a major economic crisis and default.
“But I don’t think that will happen.
“I think and I believe and I predict that the United States and Israel together are preparing for a major attack against Iran, which will take place in the next few weeks. If that happens, the price of oil will jump up, because of the major turmoil in the Middle East.
“I believe that Trump now had a major window of opportunity. He now has a chance to finish off the Iranian nuclear program. I hope that the Trump administration will not lose the chance to destroy the Iranian nuclear industry by hitting them severely. The previous administration lost this chance. It had the opportunity after Iran conducted a severe attack on Israel in October. But it didn’t take that opportunity. And the American administration did not allow Israel to do it.
“But now I understand from several sources that the United States has accumulated enormous military capacity in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Middle East, including an air force that is completely prepared. We know that the Iranian leader, Ali Khamenei, just announced a full alert for the Iranian army. I think that the reason that Netanyahu flew to Washington was not to discuss the tariffs — reports are that they did not discuss them, and they are not the most important thing to Israel now — but to finalize the details of the operation, which I believe will happen in the next three to four weeks.
“So what about that ring of power that we started with?
“It’s lost. Everybody knows that Trump launched a global war with the tariffs. I don’t understand why he did it, why he shot his friends, his allies, and some of his enemies, why he shot in every possible direction. But he did start it, and we have no idea where it will go, and how it will develop, and what impact it will have. But obviously, because the war is going in every possible direction, affecting the Middle East and Europe and Asia as well as us here in the United States, affecting the entire world, we can definitely say that nobody knows who has the ring of power.
“We live in a world of chaos. Who knows where the ring is now?”
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