WWIII Is Coming. Russia Will Bring It.

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow.

He did so unannounced, on a military transport plane that took off from Joint Base Andrews, made a stop in Riga, and landed in the Russian capital before anyone in Washington said a word about it.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly a secret. 

News broke and the Kremlin itself confirmed he met with his Russian intelligence counterparts.

The question is what was discussed.

Unlike the agricultural market, there’s no shortage of beef between the United States and Russia.

Russia’s close ties with Iran, for example.

No doubt, aspects of that relationship — from trade to intelligence sharing to nuclear cooperation — were discussed.

But there’s also another more dangerous, and potentially disruptive, possibility that Ratcliffe was scrambling to head off…

An attack on NATO that could sow chaos throughout Europe and trigger Article 5 of the alliance’s charter.

Desperation Strikes Deep

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the nation’s army packed ceremonial uniforms for what it thought would be an imminent victory parade.

But here we are 4½ years later and Russian forces are still bogged down in the eastern third of the country as casualties continue to mount.

Furthermore, Ukraine’s determination, ingenuity, and technological advances have improved its capabilities, allowing it to strike key assets deep inside Russian territory.

So far this year, Ukraine has recaptured 745 square kilometers of and 26 villages across Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia.

It’s the first sustained territorial reversal Russia has suffered since the 2023 counteroffensive.

And yet Ukraine’s aerial offensive has been even more devastating.

Besieged by an adversary that outclasses it in size, population, and manufacturing capacity, Ukraine has become the world leader in military drone technology.

It’s not the United States. It’s not China. It’s Ukraine.

Make no mistake, Ukraine may have spent the past four years begging for Western aid, but it’s no panhandler. 

This country is hard-nosed, resilient, innovative, and determined to outlast its foe.

And that drone technology edge has done something its hardy-but-humble infantry never could — bring Russia to its knees.

For months, Ukraine has been blasting away at Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, its highways and railways, and its vast network of logistics hubs.

Given Russia’s lopsided dependence on energy production, the strikes on oil, gas, and refining assets have had the biggest impact.

Russian oil refining fell to roughly 3.6 million barrels a day in July — the lowest level in more than two decades and about a third below the seasonal norm.

Two-thirds of Russian regions are now reporting fuel shortages.

Desperate Russians are now waiting in line for gasoline, if they’re able to get it at all. And the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula has been fully isolated to the point of crisis.

Russia’s size has long been its advantage, but Ukraine has turned it into a liability — a mass of territory that simply cannot be defended from drone and missile attacks.

It’s gotten so bad that Vladimir Putin is threatening to seize private businesses. And Russian citizens are scrambling to pull their money out of banks for fear that it, too, will be confiscated.

It’s all that can be done to rescue Putin’s flailing war effort. 

And it’s only getting worse.

Sensing blood in the water, keenly aware of U.S. disinterest, and still worried that a desperate Putin will take desperate measures, Europe is finding ways to help Ukraine end the war for good.

The U.K. has agreed to give Ukraine classified missile technology so it can manufacture British weapons domestically (similar to the way President Trump gave Ukraine license to produce Patriot missiles, though that initiative has been held up).

Additionally, the European Commission just approved a fresh 6.1 billion euro defense-procurement package for air-defense systems, radars, and ammunition.

Moscow is livid.

But rather than abandon this foolhardy invasion, the growing fear is that Putin will triple down by attacking NATO.

The Point of No Return

The unfortunate reality for all of us is that there may be no way out of this war for Vladimir Putin. 

Neither he nor Russia can simply abandon this war and expect to survive. 

So, repeatedly, to the detriment of everyone, Putin and the country he controls have been kicking into the quicksand.

Russia has moved to year-round conscription for 2026, targeting 261,000 draftees under a continuous intake system that replaced the old spring-and-fall draft.

And its rhetoric toward Europe has grown increasingly menacing. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Britain of “participating in the war” and “pouring fuel on the fire” over the missile tech transfer.

Russia’s embassy in London has warned that the deeper the U.K.’s involvement, “the higher the price it will pay.”

And that rhetoric is translating to tangible action.

NATO’s eastern flank is now being hit with hybrid attacks on a daily basis.

A few weeks ago, an explosive-laden drone was found on the tarmac at Leipzig/Halle Airport — a critical NATO airlift hub also used to move Ukrainian cargo planes.

Two more drones turned up nearby in the following days, both laden with explosives.

It’s the escalation of a pattern long ongoing.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies has tracked 144 drone incursions into a dozen NATO countries’ airspace since August 2024.

Romania alone has logged 33 since the invasion — 18 of them this year.

A Russian cruise missile crashed in eastern Poland last month, 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.

This is Russia probing the alliance’s threshold for response. And it may not be much longer before the Kremlin decides it’s time to spread its full-scale war beyond Ukraine’s borders.

That could be why Ratcliffe was really in Russia. 

After all, then-CIA Director William Burns made a similar trip to Moscow in 2021 — just three months before Russia launched its initial invasion. 

Pay-Day

Why am I writing all this?

Because Wall Street hasn’t caught on.

For all their foresight, fancy computers, and insider information, hedge fund managers and brokerages live a bit of a la-la land. 

They never think the worst case is actually feasible until it walks up and slaps them in the face.

But this is real — and investable.

European military spending surged 14% last year, to $864 billion, according to SIPRI — the fastest annual increase the continent has seen since 1953.

And NATO members are now working toward a 5%-of-GDP spending target by 2035. That’s a monumental jump for a group that struggled to meet its 2% spending objective just a few years ago.

So what happens if a desperate and cornered Putin attacks a NATO country?

Say a drone strike kills someone on alliance territory…

Or an “accidental” missile doesn’t land in an empty field (like they have so many times before) but instead hits a key military installation.

What happens to European defense spending then?

EUAD — a European defense ETF — spiked 9% this month.

The large-cap primes would be the first beneficiaries.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), RTX (NYSE: RTX), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) could be next.

They all sit at the intersection of exactly what Europe would need overnight: Patriot and air-defense systems, artillery and munitions production, and the radar and detection infrastructure that just got exposed as years behind the threat.

But the bigger multiples wouldn’t go to the primes.

They’re too large and too diversified to move on a single catalyst.

The real torque is in the smaller companies building the missile-defense architecture this exact scenario would put a premium on — the AI-driven targeting, edge compute, and signal intelligence systems that sit underneath the big, publicly announced programs like Golden Dome.

Small. Under-the-radar. Positioned to move a lot further than a Lockheed or an RTX if Europe’s spending spree suddenly turns into a scramble.

You can get the full rundown in my latest report — I’d recommend starting here.

The drones over Germany and the CIA director’s plane on the Vnukovo tarmac are both telling you the same thing.

This war was never going to stay neatly inside Ukraine’s borders forever.