The PDB Situation Report | October 17th, 2026: Ukraine Is Taking the Fight to Russia's Critical Infrastructure & China's Growing Taiwan Threat

Mike Baker (0:07)

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage, coming to you from my very posh wood paneled office somewhere in our secret compound. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Russia and Ukraine continue trading blows against critical infrastructure, while new questions emerge about American support for key.

John Hardie, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Russia Program, stops by to give us his insight. Later in the show, China is stepping up its military activity around Taiwan, raising fresh concerns about Beijing's intentions. We'll be joined by Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation for more on what that could all mean. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight.

The war in Ukraine is entering another period of uncertainty. President Trump announced an energy ceasefire, he kind of announced it unilaterally, between Moscow and Kiev, but the agreement never materialized. Well, in part because Moscow and Kiev didn't know about it, and in part because Russia continued its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have reported sudden restrictions on the American satellite network that they rely on for critical battlefield operations, disrupting drone missions and raising questions about Washington's support. So, where does the war stand, and what should we make of these latest developments? Well, those are good questions. For more on this, let me bring in John Hardie. He's the Deputy Director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Russia Program. John, welcome back, man, to the Situation Report. Really appreciate you being here.

John Hardie (1:47)

Thanks for having me back.

Mike Baker (1:50)

Well, let me ask you this, to start with. Is it possible to have a ceasefire if neither party to the ceasefire knows that there's a ceasefire?

John Hardie (2:00)

Well, I think we've seen President Trump's best shot at doing just that, and so far it has not been working out very well. The Ukrainians showed that they were willing to at least see how it went, but obviously the Russians have been just striking harder than ever against their power plants, gas production, you name it. So I think it's just unrealistic, frankly, to think that Ukrainians are going to sit on their hands and just let that happen without some sort of retaliation.

Mike Baker (2:28)

It does seem odd when, after all these years of Putin's invasion, one of the few things that has really worked in Ukraine's favor is to target Putin's energy infrastructure and his oil refineries.

And to your point, you know, Zelensky said, well, fine, we'll stop. And they did stop attacking Russian oil refineries for, I think, three, four days, a little bit longer. And Russia just kept on pounding their infrastructure ahead of the approaching winter. So again, to your point, yeah, what's, I guess you could ask in simple terms, you know, what's in it for Keith?

John Hardie (3:08)

Right. And when you think about the Russians have developed just very detailed plans and put the munitions production against it to execute them going after not just energy, you know, not just heat and electricity, but also even water.

And so it goes down to like, you know, which particular substation gets, you know, which munitions and of course they've increased production of, you know, Iskander ballistic missiles are kind of cheaper ballistic missiles that are fired by actually air defense systems to kind of complement those more powerful Iskanders. And then you also have the drones, the Garand, these days, four and five. So jet powered, you know, faster, harder to shoot down for Ukraine's kind of cost effective systems.

And so you think Ukraine really has its hands full right now. And as you know, the winter's coming, it's already getting colder. And I think the Russians are just trying to turn that brutality really of thinking about like a senior citizen in their flat and key, who doesn't really have the means to go elsewhere, and they just have to tough it out. And so, or a kid who basically has their entire school they interrupted by air sirens, because it's not just nighttime strikes anymore, it's also daytime. And so, you know, Putin thinks that he can use this brutality to try to bend Ukraine to its will, to his will. And I think he's wrong about that, but it's going to be very, very difficult for Ukraine.

Mike Baker (4:39)

Well, the Kremlin's implied that their goal here, leading into the winter, is to basically drive people out of the urban centers, you know, to leave the cities, I mean, to depopulate the cities. What do you make of, you mentioned the Iskander, the ballistic missile launches, what do you make of the recent situation where the Ukrainian military and government said, you know, the key was targeted by, I believe it was five Russian ballistic missiles, and they were unable to get any warning of the launch.