Buckle up for one of the wildest 24 hours yet out of Moscow — this is RH 12.3.25 | Russia: Putin’s Peace Fail, Pokrovsk Fights On, Nukes Fizzle, and Black Sea Boils — and it’s everything you love about global chaos wrapped in one power-packed episode. 

This week’s Restricted Handling Podcast dives straight into the Kremlin’s high-drama, no-progress “peace” summit. Remember those talks we teased yesterday? They finally happened — and surprise, surprise, Vladimir Putin tanked them. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent five grueling hours across the table from Putin in the Kremlin trying to sell a shiny new peace proposal, and the result was pure geopolitical theater. Putin rejected every meaningful offer, demanded Ukraine disarm and surrender, and then capped it off with a threat to Europe that sounded like it came straight from a Cold War B-movie. 

From there, we dig into Russia’s latest flex on the battlefield — the so-called “victory” in Pokrovsk that’s more illusion than reality. We’ll walk through how Putin’s declaring triumph in a city that’s still under fire and how Ukraine keeps grinding back, using drones, ingenuity, and sheer willpower to hammer Russian fuel depots and logistics hubs across the border. It’s propaganda versus persistence, and the truth is a lot smokier than Moscow wants to admit. 

Meanwhile, the Black Sea is heating up again — literally. Ukraine’s navy has gone full Jason Bourne with sea drones, hammering Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and hitting Putin right in the wallet. Moscow’s crying “piracy,” threatening to blockade Ukraine’s ports, and trying to intimidate global shipping, but the truth is, Russia’s navy isn’t what it used to be. Think Titanic, but with worse leadership. 

And don’t miss our breakdown of Putin’s economic fantasy hour. At his “Russia Calling!” forum, he claimed inflation’s at seven percent and the economy’s “stronger than ever.” Meanwhile, the Central Bank’s dumping gold reserves just to keep the lights on, inflation’s triple that, and Moscow’s importing North Korean labor. It’s not strength — it’s survival theater. 

We also cover Russia’s nuclear embarrassment — that “superweapon” Sarmat missile that crashed seconds after takeoff — plus new missile deployments in Belarus that put all of Europe on edge. Add in a spy drama straight out of Netflix (a British instructor accused of assassinations, a Polish crypto-saboteur network, and Kremlin disinformation campaigns flooding social media), and you’ve got one electric episode. 

It’s fast. It’s sharp. It’s darkly hilarious in all the right ways. Tune in now to The Restricted Handling Podcast — your daily dose of global security, high-stakes diplomacy, and the madness of modern geopolitics, straight from the front lines of power.