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RUSSIA VIEW OF JASON JAY SMART ... MAY 27th, 2025 JasonJaySmart: Putin's Helicopter Nearly Hit by Ukrainian Drone: Kremlin's Control in Question PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roy6PTvB3I Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I have archived several of the video posts from Jason Jay Smart related to Russia and the war against Ukraine. My impression from the news flow that I am reading is that Ukraine is doing a lot better in the war against Russia than a lot of the world media is reporting. I hope this is right. I am reading a lot more 'fake news' at the moment than I have in the past ... probably due to a serious weakening of the content monitoring by major Internet organizations that are in control of the system! The recent trend is not good! Peter Burgess
Putin's Helicopter Nearly Hit by Ukrainian Drone: Kremlin's Control in Question Jason Jay Smart May 27, 2025 73.1K subscribers ... 44,028 views ... 4.3K likes #Navalny #Putin #Authoritarianism 📍 On May 20, 2025, Ukrainian drones penetrated Russian airspace and came within striking range of Vladimir Putin’s helicopter convoy during an unannounced trip to Kursk. This wasn’t speculation—it was confirmed by Russia’s own Air Defense Commander. This moment didn’t just shake the Kremlin. ... It shattered the myth of Putin’s invincibility. In this exclusive analysis, Jason Jay Smart—a political scientist and Kyiv Post correspondent with two decades of experience studying authoritarian regimes—explains why Putin may be closer to collapse than at any time in his 25-year rule. You’ll learn: How Ukrainian drones reached Putin’s convoy deep inside Russia Why this signals a major breach in Russia’s security doctrine How Russia’s economy is collapsing under the weight of sanctions, oil losses, inflation, and a frozen central bank rate of 21% Why military losses nearing 1 million are tearing apart Russia’s regions How dissent is growing even under brutal repression, with over 20,000 protest arrests What Putin’s admission of a succession crisis means for the regime Why dictators like Hitler, Ceaușescu, Gaddafi, and Tsar Paul I fell the same way: when insiders turned on them This is not just a warning—it’s a clear historical pattern repeating in real time. From military collapse to economic decay to regime paranoia, Putin’s grip on power is breaking. And history shows: when strongmen fall— they fall fast. 📢 “The longer Putin stays in power, the more damage he will do to Russia—and the world.” — Garry Kasparov 👍 Like this video if you value independent, fact-based analysis. 🔔 Subscribe to follow the unraveling of one of the world’s most dangerous regimes. 🗨️ Comment below: Is Putin’s fall inevitable—or will he cling to power through force? Follow Dr. Jason Smart: YouTube: / @jasonjaysmart Substack: JasonJaySmart.substack.com X: x.com/OfficeJJSmart Facebook Personal: Facebook.com/JasonJaySmart Facebook Work: Facebook.com/OfficeJJSmart LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/JasonJaySmart Mastodon: @OfficeJJSmart@DefenseOfLiberty.Social BlueSky: Bsky.app/profile/JJSmart.bsky.social Web: JasonJaySmart.com 🔥 SEO-Optimized Hashtags for 2025: #Putin #Ukraine #RussiaCollapse #JasonJaySmart #DroneStrike #PutinFall #RussiaEconomy #Authoritarianism #RussianMilitary #Geopolitics #WagnerGroup #Navalny #EndOfPutin #KyivPost #WorldNews Transcript 0:00 putin is no longer untouchable on May 20th Ukrainian drones came within striking distance of Putin's helicopter in southern Kursk Russia near the Ukrainian border and what makes that really sort of amazing is that this is not Ukrainian propaganda this is the Russian air defense commander Yuri Dashkin who made a statement about this and why this matters is more than just the fact that the Russian leader came so close to his own demise but because there's another element to this the illusion of control that Putin has had for a quarter of a century is shattered and it's a very historic moment it would happen now of all the times because for Vladimir Putin this very well could be just one more black swan when we look back to see what his demise look like because currently the 1:01 walls are closing in on Vladimir Putin his economy is buckling the military is bleeding out and his regime is cracking both from the inside and the outside my name is Jason Smart i'm a political uh scientist and a special correspondent for the key of Post and I've spent the past couple of decades studying authoritarian regimes and why they fall specifically the Putin regime so if you'd like to understand why Putin may be next and that his days may very well be numbered please like and follow this channel your support helps me to amplify the truth but let's look at Kursk first this wasn't some drone crashing into a field this is a coordinated assault on the convoy carrying the head of the Russian state in Russian political culture where power is projected through fear invulnerability being godlike this is 2:00 devastating putin's invisibility and the security that goes with him is about more than just him is representative of the social contract that he has had with the Russian people since 2000 when he came to power it is one that has allowed him to be a dictator but in exchange for taking away all their civil rights he guaranteed security and protection but now if God can no longer protect himself is he God the myth is fractured and the idea that Russia is impenetrable is lost russia's own airspace in Kursk Russia was shot through by Ukrainians almost killed a Russian leader now Kursk is the name you undoubtedly recall because it's also been shown to not be so secure for the past year it is the region that Ukraine has been occupying famously the regional hub of Soua is 3:02 under current Ukrainian occupation i should say the Oblast is the city itself is returned to Russia at this point so what does this mean it means little Ukraine with an active population in for Ukraine of about 22 million people is occupying territory of a country of 140 million people and Russia cannot force them out how is it possible the Russian military once said to be the second greatest military in the world proven to have now only be the second greatest military inside of Ukraine and within Russia it appears is being occupied by Ukraine so Russian citizens when I was in Kursk which was only a few months ago I can tell you I asked people what they thought how they saw the situation i talked with them about how they saw the war how they saw being invaded by Ukraine and they were surprisingly open 4:00 and the reason I think that they were sincere was for a few things one of course I wasn't doing it stand next to Ukrainian soldiers uh but because I would ask them for secondary views of this how it's affected their family how it's affected their children where their children were when was the last time they heard from them and they're mostly older people their children had fled um but they said you know it's Vladimir Putin's fault we didn't need this this doesn't make our lives better we were doing just fine before we had enough problems here domestically why do we have to have new problems and now we're under occupation who'd ever seen that coming this isn't blame Putin for the start of the war now obviously I'm not surprised that once the dictator falls everybody will blame the dictator and nobody will say that they had anything to do with it but as it's been said before many people talk about the millions killed by Stalin but very few people like to talk about the millions of people who pulled millions of triggers during the period of Stalin and per his orders we like to look past that 5:00 and just look at the dictator but at this moment in history what we care most about is that the Russians increasingly turn against the Putin regime so what we see though is this attempted assassination of Putin is that it opens opens up another door a different door and it's a door that you would not necessarily guess but Russian history shows it's a very special door it's called the door towards betrayal and why that is is undoubtedly the competing factions within the Putin regime will be using this in their own interest against each other each one will try to blame the other one for being part of the reason that Putin almost got killed and that's something that we've seen happen transpire before in Russian history so we look back Zar Paul I was murdered by his own guards in 1801 how that happened well some people saw the opportunity and they took it conspiring with his guards stalin's 6:00 inner circle purged itself after his death on March 5th 1953 how'd that work out well despite the fact that they'd all somehow taken advantage of the fact that there was Stalin in power for years and they all tried to be near him they all realized he was a terrible dictator and they used it to their advantages but they realized that he was no longer there to met out peace and justice when the ruler looked the weakest that is dead or in the case of Stalin laying in his bed after a massive stroke for a couple of days dying slowly and making noises uh then the knives come out and let's talk about why the knives would come out first there's an economic reason for that always goes back to money the GDP growth for 2025 is forecast just to be about 1 to 2% by the Russian central bank now keep in mind that inflation though officially about 10.2% others like economist John uh Steve Hanky for John Hopkins University have estimated 7:01 that it's actually closer to 27% based on monetary expansion and rising consumer cost and if you want to see how bad that is uh in Moscow as an example yearon-year dairy prices have increased by 36% and interest rates nationally set by the central bank are effectively paralyzing all borrowing investment entrepreneurship because they're at 21% keep in mind Russia says its interest rates about 10% sorry it's inflation rates about 10% that's obviously false why would you possibly have a key interest rate of 21% and by the way if you want to get a loan for something such as a personal loan or for a car or for mortgages it exceeds 30% now oil and gas revenues as we've discussed many times make up about 354% of the Russian federal income but that's down 10.3% this year the Ministry of Finance is the one who announced this by the way who says that the 2025 budget deficit's going to increase from 0.5% to 8:02 1.7% of GDP due to a 24% shortfall in energy revenues wild huh well why is 8:10 that well obviously there is the factor that oil prices have fallen and also China is diversifying its energy imports and sanctions moreover have begun to the shadow fleet and if you look back at history when did Russia see something similar to these conditions playing out with oil prices collapsing a problem selling their oil well it mirrors the late Soviet Union oil declined there's unsustainable military spending and internal stagnation have brought the USSR already to its knees but this combined is what really kicked in to overdrive the collapse and fall of the Soviet Union but history we see repeats itself not just in economics but in the 9:00 military so as of today it's estimated that Russia has exceeded a million casualties that is both those who were killed on the battlefield or injured on the battlefield to put in perspective how much that is keep in mind total US losses in Vietnam was about 58,000 people total British losses during World War II were about 383,000 canada lost about 45,000 australia New Zealand 66,000 russia's casualties exceed all of those nations losses in those wars combined and it's amazing just think about that massive losses and what has Russia gained russia since 2022 has lost territory in Ukraine they are still running a deficit at the cost of over 400,000 casualties they took a territory less than the size of Los Angeles Cali County California just imagine that lost over 10:00 400,000 troops the Americans played a significant role in liberating Europe in World War II think about the amount of territory that was the number of battles against Germans comp contrast that to what the Russians have achieved a territory less than Los Angeles County California they've killed off a lot of their ethnic minorities in doing so because that's who they send most to the front people from Buriatia Dagistan Matuva who by the one by the way are the ones who are feeling the most resentment towards the government but Russia has failed dramatically as a military pattern there is nothing that is going well for it militarily this is bad for Russia on many levels aside from the fact that all of us here in the west are watching this and is somewhat amazed by how messed up the Russian military is have no doubt the Chinese are watching this very carefully russia's other so-called 11:00 allies like Iran and Venezuela Nicaragua Cuba Bkina Faso Mali they're watching the situation saying 'Really this is the best you could do look how effective the Russian military was just a few months ago in preventing the decline and fall of the Assad regime.' It's very clear that Russia does not have the wherewithal to win major battles within Ukraine let alone prop up regimes in other countries that's why even in the case of Venezuela according to conversations I've had recently it seems that the Russians are playing less and less of an active role there one they can't afford to but two they're not sure that they can really do much to prop up the Maduro regime but let's go back to what's going on with the internal cohesion that is fracturing within Russia so as you recall the Wagner rebellion in 2023 led by Prigoian was a major point a major flash 12:01 point and it's a major flash point where we saw it just start to burn over the total divorce of Vladimir Putin from what was going on in the war was becoming obvious wagner's leader was coming out saying 'Look we don't have enough weapons for our men our men are dying needlessly our officers are corrupt this not fair and Putin never responded and increasingly over time it appears that Putin probably had no idea that this was occurring though it was widely covered in the US and Western European press as well as of course the Ukrainian press were this leader of Wagner who was a very bad guy he would not stop going on and on about how the Russian military was abandoning its own people and that gives insight to something else well one the fact that Putin had him assassinated by blowing up his airplane a couple months later was probably not surprising at all very very predictable but at the same time it says something else this was somebody who was speaking out at least the public perception was though he was he was merciless and he 13:00 would send his men off to die totally needlessly and had no concept whatsoever of military strategy any heard or there he was somebody Bgoian was somebody who at least in the public perception public consciousness was speaking out to defend the Russian soldiers and Putin had him killed and did little to improve the situation of the Russian soldiers but this is probably not a good idea Ignoring your soldiers disrespecting your soldiers showing that you really just don't care what happens to them organizing the meat assaults probably not a great way to endear yourself to You remember in 1905 Russia's humiliation during the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 lost to the Japanese remember Japan didn't produce enough uh did not produce steel did not have the raw materials necessary for warfare was importing a ton of things including food russia remember how big it is on a map compared to Japan got beaten badly and 14:02 the result of that was mass uprisings within Russia in 1917 World War I military defeat military failure disaster directly triggered the Bolevik Revolution that brought upon the end of Nicholas II and family and Putin more than just losing soldiers is losing legitimacy before them and his own population and we hear the sounds of that rage though it's very quiet and tapped down we can hear it so in early 2025 when Alex Navali who was one of the opposition people was killed in prison 387 people were arrested in 39 cities across one day now you might say it's a very small number it is a small number i agree with you but if you know that you can face 10 years in prison for going to a protest would you know 387 people wanted to go to a protest for the Americans who complain so much about foreign affairs or the US 15:00 president how many people do you know getting life sentences for going to protest against him and how many people do you know that would so it's not so easy but we can see a lot of secondary signs that things are going the right way we saw that recently aside from the journalists that are fleeing and Gregory Milketss who received a 5-year prison sentence for trying to seek transparent elections was his crime we see that Russia's top faces the most famous people many of them are unwilling to come out publicly and to support what the regime is doing russia makes a very big deal whenever a belister comes to say that he backs the war supports the troops or perform a concert they'll make a very big deal but if you actually look at the names the biggest ones a lot have left the country a lot of them have fled to other countries where they can receive citizenship such as Israel and we see a lot of them are making public statements now which could only be read as saying 16:02 they don't want to be in the country that's like Putin's Russia so let's look at other secondary infants so there's a Telegram channel as you're probably familiar Russians Ukrainians uh love to use Telegram it's a social media service similar to WhatsApp that has group chats about different topics a lot of it's breaking news so if you use Telegram uh Twitter a lot of what you read on Twitter about breaking news is actually coming from Telegram if you're following the war but one of those that's huge I mean literally having millions of followers is one called uh we can explain and it's run by a guy named Mikovski who's formerly the head of Luke Oil which is today Gasprom remember his business was taken from him by Putin and he spent about eight years in prison before getting released but we also see that there's protests that are picking up and the protests the government has a 17:00 very big problem stopping the protests being led by the mothers and the spouses and children of soldiers in the Russian military who have not been able to return home now in years they're demanding answers and they're demanding transparency and we saw this in the Soviet period and trust me it was very not good for the Soviet Union and Soviet leadership what we see now is it's becoming less and less fringe and though it's very dangerous it is spreading now Putin has done something else recently that works against his own security which is that though he admits that the topic of succession is always on his mind reading deeper we should understand that that is not a sign of strength but rather a red flag when there's no clear successor or no obvious hair that means that there's no transition plan and when there's no transition plan when we talk about what happens after me it means that we're 18:01 opening huge risk you see in dictatorships if you are not on the right side of who comes to power after the dictator dies there's a very good chance that things will turn out badly for you that is there's different factions remember after Joseph Stalin died Barriia was arrested within a very short period almost immediately and shot within two months when Zar Paul the first uh died guess what happened huge internal violence before Alexander the first took the throne brev did take the power after his predecessor died but it led to huge amount of uh uh stagnation and what ultimately triggered probably the end of the Soviet Union which is just he he entered the incurable economic problems that further just worsened but in the case of Russia specifically like every other country people have studied and we do study how dictatorships are likely to end so Barbara Gds who is a political scientist has been studying dictatorships for a 19:01 long time and her internal conclusion of how they typically end at least in 68% of the cases is due to internal coups the fear turns inward things the situation compounds as the ins insiders realize that it's getting bad and start to jump ship and when people realize that it's not going to work out well for me or for my clan I better get out of here they get out of here no who those who don't get out of here get killed and that's why I've argued before that I think that is a very reasonable chance and game theory and economics should argue it would be a wise decision to be the one who physically ends the Putin regime and why is that so if there's no clear successor after Putin you should probably assume there's a reasonable chance that one of your opponents will come to power putin is 72 years old any day he could just not wake up it happens and if he doesn't wake up let's imagine that one of the 20:01 other factions which you oppose which you're not part of takes power you can be absolutely certain that they will eliminate you and your family and take all of your assets be certain 100% chance so if that's going to happen at some point in the next couple years what's smarter to sit and wait see how it turns out for you you're already definitely sanctioned you can't really go to the west or would you be wiser to be the one who pulls the trigger or be a part of the plot to do so you can be sure that you consolidate power with your friends and it's you taking assets from your opponents and making their families disappear what's better for your own longevity sitting and waiting to see how Putin's heart turns out is probably not a wise decision being the one who takes the initiative is most likely to survive but let's imagine that Putin's heart has strength and it keeps ticking 21:01 along the history shows us in our own lifetimes how people like Chuchesco in 1989 were caught totally offguard ended very badly gaddafi 2011 he relied on this this loyalty over competency and what was the downfall exactly that he didn't have a perception of how bad the situation had become i mean even Hitler in 1945 before it got to the very end was counting on people who kept telling him there was a way to pull it through when it got to the very very end it was already lost but he still had hopes that somehow despite the fact that Berlin was nearly about to be taken that there would be a strategy to still work things out that Germany could still fight back the West and that was simply not true but ultimately what we can be sure of is as Gary Kasparov has said which is that the longer that Putin stays in power the more damage he does not only 22:00 to Russia but to the world entire and at this point many people might say oh but you know you've said before that Putin's in decline or a fall true I have but you know what you have to understand how these things work history works as a continuum so for Vladimir Putin for 72-year-old Vladimir Putin are things looking like they're in the Senate and he's got another 25 years ahead of him maybe 45 or is he running out of time and it's going to go down i'm betting on decline and what happens when things are in decline is the fun part what do people do what actions do actors take to secure their own well-being in light of the fact that they see time take on and Putin move every day closer to the grave along with the Russian economy and 23:00 millions of its soldiers putin is losing ground in every arena militarily he cannot win economically he cannot survive and politically he's simply running out of allies and time he can't protect himself as we've now seen from the drones he can't protect the ruble from collapse and he can't even protect himself from his own inner circle which increasingly is running the risk of turning against him not because they're great patriots but because of self-interest and fear of others in the oligarchal circle in which they live and the bubble in which they exist history tells us very clearly one thing which is that when strong men fall they fall very fast and the question is not how soon or how it's how hard will they fall soon we may find out please follow my channel i really 24:02 appreciate it and as always thank you for watching and thank you for supporting Ukraine

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