Europe’s Winter of Starvation, Ukraine Collapse Underway | Stas Krapivnik

Europe is entering a season in which war, climate and economics intersect to create a risk of acute social and political stress. The conversation with Stanislav Krapivnik paints a picture of cascading vulnerabilities: disrupted Ukrainian exports and surging fertilizer and diesel prices threaten harvests across Europe, while battlefield dynamics in Ukraine and shifting political currents in Europe feed one another. What emerges is not a single cause of instability but an uneven, accelerating process in which shortages, sabotage and technology are remaking both the battlefield and the home front — with potentially explosive political consequences if relief does not arrive before winter. ## Europe’s food and fertilizer pressures The discussion highlights how intertwined global inputs — fertilizer, diesel and water — have become liabilities for Western food security. Fertilizer prices have roughly doubled for many buyers, driven by sanctions, supply-chain shifts and the high cost of natural gas used in production. European fertilizer production has effectively atrophied because elevated gas prices made domestic production uneconomic; that structural dependency left import-dependent countries exposed when alternative suppliers declined or became politically fraught. On top of supply disruption comes climate. A severe drought over much of Western and Central Europe reduced yields and constrained river transport. Where barges once moved grain and coal along the Rhine and Danube, lower water levels forced reduced payloads or suspensions, constricting the internal logistics that keep markets supplied. The result is a squeeze from both production and movement. Then add diesel shortages. Diesel is not a luxury; it is the lifeblood of modern agriculture and logistics. Restrictions on Russian diesel exports during sowing and harvest windows, plus price-management policies that create hidden scarcity, mean trucks cannot substitute for rail and sea at scale. The combined effect — less fertilizer, less water and less diesel — looks set to depress European harvests and limit the ability to move whatever grain there is to market or store it for winter. That is the tight nexus behind the warning that parts of Europe could face severe hardship this winter, particularly among lower-income groups who are more sensitive to food-price shocks. ## Strikes on Ukraine’s ports and railways A central vector of the emerging crisis is the campaign against Ukraine’s export infrastructure. Targeting ports in the Black Sea and key rail assets has not only degraded Ukraine’s ability to generate foreign exchange but also blocked a major source of global grain and vegetable oil supply. With maritime channels under threat and ports repeatedly damaged, Ukraine’s export profile has become heavily dependent on land corridors — many of which require long-haul rail freight or truck convoys. Sabotage and asymmetric attacks on locomotives and rail nodes complicate those land routes. The conversation emphasizes both conventional strikes and partisan activity: trains have been derailed or burned, and locomotives selectively targeted. This is significant because rail is typically the most efficient way to move bulk commodities like grain inland; when rail is removed or made too risky, trucks become the fallback — but trucks demand diesel. The knock-on effect is immediate and compounding: damage to port and rail infrastructure reduces export capacity, which elevates prices and further pressures diesel supply as truck convoys try to fill the gap. For food-importing countries across Europe, this constriction matters more than the absolute tonnage. Grain and vegetable oils are fungible globally, but the sudden re-routing and bottlenecks increase transaction costs and delay deliveries, creating localized shortages and price spikes that feed social discontent. The conversation suggests that Western policymakers counted on Ukraine as a backstop to offset poor harvests elsewhere; with those export routes impaired, the backing disappears at exactly the wrong moment. ## Germany’s AfD and Russia relations Political repercussions are already visible. The electoral surge for the AfD in parts of eastern Germany reflects a broader public unease about policy choices that are perceived to harm living standards: energy decisions, migration, and foreign-policy stances that are seen as amplifying economic pain. The AfD’s growth reveals regional differences — eastern Germany’s electorate is distinct in its history and outlook — and also exposes fissures within parties that are nominally pro- or anti-Russia. Krapivnik’s reading is cautious: while AfD’s performance signals a shift, internal divisions within the party and across the wider right-left spectrum mean that a clean, durable reorientation toward Moscow is unlikely to materialize overnight. Additionally, other European populist figures and parties that were once touted as likely to restore pragmatic ties with Russia have compromised positions. In practice, many parties that campaign against military escalation still support arms transfers short of troops, a middle-ground that sustains the conflict’s logistical needs while appearing restrained. Yet the political signal is unmistakable: voters are prioritizing bread-and-heating economics. As shortages bite, elite narratives that once framed sanctions and isolation as moral necessities look less persuasive to those who face immediate material deprivation. The more acute the winter squeeze, the greater the political pressure to change course — or at least to seek negotiated reductions in the conflict’s economic spillovers. ## Energy policy and its trade-offs Energy policy sits at the heart of the cascade. Decisions to phase out carbon-intensive domestic sources and to decarbonize have long-term rationales, but transitions require hedges and redundancy. The premature removal of domestic nuclear generation and the reliance on imports for balancing capacity created vulnerabilities that manifest when external supply is constrained. In some cases, European leaders substituted imported electricity and gas rather than maintaining diversified domestic capacity. The trade-offs are stark: attempting to reconcile climate goals with energy security demands careful sequencing and significant storage or alternative fuels. When shortages occur, governments sometimes hold down consumer prices for political reasons, which can exacerbate physical scarcity by encouraging hoarding and leaving suppliers with no market signal to increase flows. Diesel is a prime example: price controls can stabilize pocketbook politics in the short term but worsen physical supply constraints that farming cycles cannot absorb. The conversation also points to geopolitical side effects. Where energy interdependence once encouraged engagement, sanctions and decoupling have produced new fault lines — and made it harder to orchestrate rapid policy pivots. In short, energy choices made in one policy domain (climate, public opinion) interact with military and trade decisions in ways that politicians may not anticipate until shortages and outages force hasty adjustments. ## Diplomacy and Moscow’s ceasefire stance On diplomacy, the conversation reframes recent Western urgings for talks not as purely humanitarian or high-minded but as urgent reactions to systemic vulnerability. European institutions and the United States are now actively pushing for a cessation in maritime interdictions and strikes that threaten global grain flows, because the EU’s own food and energy security are at stake. That political urgency explains the recent flurry of diplomatic backchannels. Yet from the Russian perspective as described, Moscow’s incentives are asymmetric. A ceasefire that preserves territorial gains or secures denial of Ukraine’s export capacity could be presented as victory. The exchange suggests Moscow is unlikely to accept simple ceasefires that lea

Europe’s Winter of Starvation, Ukraine Collapse Underway | Stas Krapivnik Stanislav Krapivnik discusses Europe’s food and energy pressures, arguing that fertilizer costs, drought and disrupted Ukrainian exports could deepen hardship. He and Pascal Lottaz examine Germany’s AfD, divisions within European opposition parties, and the limits of renewed diplomacy with Moscow. Turning to Ukraine, Krapivnik assesses manpower shortages, Russian advances, seasonal fog and the changing role of drones. He argues that new defensive technologies may restore battlefield mobility, while Pascal questions whether local breakthroughs could develop into a broader military collapse. Stas’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrSlavikman Stas’s Substack: https://zmeigarinich.substack.com Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop 00:00 Introduction 00:52 Europe’s food and fertilizer pressures 06:35 Strikes on Ukraine’s ports and railways 12:20 Germany’s AfD and Russia relations 18:24 Energy policy and its trade-offs 22:48 Diplomacy and Moscow’s ceasefire stance 29:54 Weather, manpower and Russia’s next advance 35: 39 Tanks, drones and battlefield mobility #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies today with an update from Russia with our friend and colleague Stanislav Krapivnik. Stas, welcome back. #Stanislav Krapivnik Thank you. Always a pleasure. #Pascal Thank you for coming back online, because a lot of things happened actually in Moscow and in the Russo-Ukrainian U.S. proxy war, because the Americans seem to be very desperate in getting some form of agreement from the Russians to stop the war, to stop winning. I guess that's what they want: to stop winning. #Stanislav Krapivnik They're winning too much. #Pascal -- 1 of 15 -- They sent over the CIA director. Now they sent over Witkoff and Kushner. And those guys are now out to Ukraine, or were out to Ukraine, 24 hours after they left Russia. The bombings continued. Do we have any updates on that, where we stand at the moment on these negotiations? #Stanislav Krapivnik Oh, we'll add one thing. This isn't just the Americans. The EU is desperate right now because the EU is facing actual something that may threaten not just their prosperity, but their existence. You see that because the European leadership suddenly is like, "You've got to get the Russians, you've got to get the Russians to negotiate." The very people that all summer and spring and the previous year were like, "No, no, no negotiations with Russia." Of course, what they want is a ceasefire, particularly a ceasefire in the Black Sea. What we have here right now in Europe is a catastrophe. Not only a multi-layered catastrophe, it's going to lead to starvation, at least among the lower classes. And food prices are already starting to spike. What you have is a crop yield that's looking to be about 40% lower than last year's. There's several major factors involved. One, fertilizers went up two and a half times in price. And while the Americans buy Russian-made fertilizer—Russia's something like 30% of the world's fertilizer for sale— the U.S. buys Russian fertilizer, and the cost of that fertilizer went from $650 million last year to $1.3 billion this year. A lot of American farmers couldn't afford fertilizer. Well, the Europeans, the European Union countries, they don't produce their own fertilizer, not since 2020, 2019, because the price of gas just went up too high to be used in the production of fertilizer. A, B, they staunchly refuse to buy Russian fertilizer. So their main fertilizer supplier was Qatar. And we know that Qatar is no longer in that game and won't be for quite a while, if and when finally the Straits of Hormuz are opened up. And the Iranians are already saying they're ready to go to the end of Trump's term, so another two and a half years at this point. Well, the other problem, the second problem, was the drought, this massive Europe- wide heat wave. Except that massive European heat wave stopped somewhere in Warsaw, and the other 45% of Europe, the one that's controlled by Russia and Belarus, there was no heat wave. It was actually a relatively cold summer. I know people sitting in Paris or in Berlin are going, "Really?" I'm like, yeah, it was actually pretty cold. It was one of the colder summers I can remember. It was rainy enough, and Russia's first harvest was a bumper harvest, a record bumper harvest. Second harvest is being collected right now, so it's looking—it's probably going to be also a bumper record harvest. So Russia is flowing in grain, and so is Ukraine to a degree. But the West—so now you have two issues: you have fertilizer, you have drought, and then you have the third issue: diesel. Diesel is in short supply all over Europe. I've talked to various people, for example, John Laughland, who's living actually in Paris, and he's working for the Freedom Forum Party in Belgium. And he was telling me, you know, while prices for diesel in France haven't gone up since spring, they went up 40% after Trump started his little escapades in the Persian Gulf. But after that, the -- 2 of 15 -- government's holding the prices down, but there's just no diesel. You have shortages. You have shortages because the prices are officially held low. People are buying it up as they can, but there's a shortage of diesel. You have to go to multiple stations, fueling stations, to find diesel, and it's in limited supply. So who eats a very large chunk of diesel besides the military sector? Oh, the agriculture sector, which is why Russia doesn't export diesel between late March and about early October, because that's the agricultural section of the year. In the south, they start sowing at the beginning or middle of March. In the north, they're sowing in May. Just in the north, it's almost 24-hour daylight, so it's a short, intensive growth period. You get maybe three months of warm weather in the farther north, but it works for grain, which is basically just grass. In the south, you get two, three harvests a year because the days aren't that long, but it's a very warm, black soil and very warm climate. So when the West was looking at all of this, they were counting on Ukraine being their backup granary. Well, here's the problem. The West decided to go into the 40 days of deep strikes to force Russia to its knees, collapse the Russian economy, bring the pain to the people. Which, by the way, most of the pain to the people is because they're actually hitting apartment buildings with a lot of these drones. It's pretty hard to hit refineries these days because there's gun trucks all over the place shooting down. There's actually cages finally being put up in a lot of places. And plus, again, when you get the technicals, you get the pickups with the 7.62-millimeter machine guns on them. They're very effective against drones coming in and much cheaper than the drones. But apartment buildings, you can't defend apartment buildings. You can't defend single-family homes. And that's been the main target. Well, Russia counter-escalated, as we know, and Russia counter-escalated by destroying the seven ports in Odessa, including the Odessa port, taking out everything coming in and out of those ports. They're effectively making Ukraine landlocked. Russia further escalated by making locomotives an endangered species. And this is being done by the Russian military and by Russian partisans from the population in Ukraine, inside Ukraine. Because at the end of the day, most of the population in Ukraine is Russian, whether they want to admit it or not, or they're afraid to admit it or not. But there's a lot of partisan activity. Just in Odessa province, this is no big secret. I'm not giving away a big secret at this point. Between 2023 and 2025, three NATO trains were derailed and set on fire. Really? By sabotage actions? By sabotage. By partisan actions in Odessa province. These partisans are all over the place, and they're burning locomotives or identifying locations of locomotives for the Russian military to destroy. So now you're down to what? You're down to trucks, and that's if you have enough diesel. It's been estimated that at most the Europeans can get 6% of the grain and the sunflower oil. If you don't have oil to cook on, you have problems. You can boil things. That's about the most you can do. You can't really cook anything without oil, so that becomes a secondary problem. Well, 6% of the grain is all you can get out by truck, and again, if you have -- 3 of 15 -- enough diesel. So Europe is looking at, or the European Union is looking at, starvation. Starvation, food prices skyrocketing, and hungry people are mean. And hungry people watching their children starve and possibly freeze get really, really mean. And telling them to eat cake doesn't work. We've tried that before. Well, at least the French did, anyways. Not to say Antoinette was an evil person. She was just very airheaded enough to say, "Yeah, we eat cake. Why don't they eat cake?" So, you know, no bread, there's always cake. #Pascal And this is the driving force. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. #Stanislav Krapivnik See you there. #Pascal I haven't heard yet of the—I mean, the fertilizer crisis is clear, and also the fuel shortage is clear, but that it might hit Europe with such a severe kind of food shortage, that I haven't heard yet. Is that something that you—the prognosis is like a couple of months out, for like January, February, or? #Stanislav Krapivnik It is. I mean, there's still food on—I'm not saying countries are going to go into famine. And don't forget the drought. I mean, there's a massive drought throughout most of Western Central Europe. That's true. The Danube went down so low they had to shut down nuclear power plants. And a couple of nuclear power plants that were on lakes, they had to shut them down anyways because the water was so hot coming in, it wasn't really cooling the reactors. So there were massive issues. The Rhine—they couldn't get coal down the Rhine because the barges were flattening out because the water level had dropped so much. Or where they could get through some of the channels, they had to lower the volume of payload down to about a third of what it was carrying just to keep it buoyant enough above the sand dunes. So yeah, this is a massive issue. #Pascal No, it is, it is. And this summer I heard about it in Switzerland, how friends of mine have problems finding food for their cows. And those are milk cows, right? And then you don't have enough. What do you do? You have to slaughter one or two cows in order to make sure the rest has enough, because they need to be healthy and fed for good milk. So, yeah, and that will probably only get worse because the drought also meant less hay, right, to be collected, which means that all of the -- 4 of 15 -- foodstuffs that these cows have to eat and the animals have to eat in winter is now severely down. So your prognosis at this point is that—no, no, I mean, this is going to be very serious on the food supply side for Europe. #Stanislav Krapivnik Look, you know, for the poor people, the lower classes in Europe, it's already been difficult. I was talking to Lucio, who's a political professor, a professor of politics in Italy, and he was telling me a year ago how a lot of the lower classes were having problems feeding their families come the end of the month. There were a lot more days than there was money in their budget. And that's without food prices spiking. I think the middle class will be able to survive. They're just going to get much poorer paying for food. Upper class isn't going to notice, particularly at the very to