The Duran Podcast
West exhausted, Ukraine losing, NATO refuses peace
All right, Alexander. Let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine. Maybe we start with what is happening on the front lines. More collapse is happening across the entire front line. And we now have the Zelensky administration talking about negotiations hinting at the possibility that Ukrainians will have to accept territorial loss. And they're talking about a second peace summit, which will have to include Russia. Though Russia, they're not taking any of these statements from the Zelensky regime very seriously at all. But let's start with the front lines, and then we'll talk about what's happening in Kiev. Indeed. And can I just say, just on the eve of making this program, there's been pretty dramatic use from the front lines. There's now reports that the supply roads, the main supply road to the 45-town of Wugliddar. In the south of Don Vass has now been cut. The Russians have broken in, taken control of very large stretches of the road. And it looks as if Wugliddar is likely to be effectively encircled within a few weeks, or even at the rate the things are going in a few days. So that's one major development. There's another major development on another part of the front lines, which is in the close to the strategic city town of Pakrosk. Pakrosk is a town in central Don Vass. It's not-- it's in the sort of general area where Avdevka, the place that the Russians captured in February, is located. It's the major logistical hub of the Ukrainians. So it's where the supplies that arrive from the west, they're sent across the Nipur from Nipur, they're then sent to Pakrosk. And then from Pakrosk, they're distributed amongst the various military forces along the front lines. Ukrainian defense forces along the front lines. Anyway, the Russians are now literally a few kilometers from Pakrosk. And this morning, there are reports that a Ukrainian force has been encircled close to Pakrosk in a village called Jelanya. If the Russians capture Pakrosk, it will be an absolute disaster for the Ukrainians. Not only will they lose their main supply point in Don Vass, but there are even some commentators who are saying that, in effect, the entire Ukrainian forces in Don Vass will be split into two. The Russians will, in effect, divided them. And beyond Pakrosk, the way is basically open for a further advance towards the Nipur, which I've discussed in many programs, what a catastrophe it would be for Ukraine. If the Russians were to reach the Nipur, in this area, a central Don Vass. And then further north, there's the fighting in this town, this city of Torresk, major coal mining town, close to Donnet City, very heavily fortified by the Ukrainians. Resistance there seems to be collapsing. The Russians have captured all the outlying villages around Torresk. And it looks as if Ukrainian defenses in Torresk are disintegrating as well. And further north still, we now have lots of reports that the Russians have managed to capture a significant part of the fortified town of Chassafjard. And that brings them close to another key city still under Ukrainian control in Don Vass. Which is, of course, Kramatorsk. Now, that's all terrible news. Ukraine's still losing ground all the time. Ukrainian troops unable to resist, apparently, Russian advances. But even more dramatic in some ways, and even more significant and telling about the state of the war, is that the Russian defense ministry has now claimed that over the course of July, Ukraine lost 60,000 men killed or wounded on the front lines. Now, we don't have full independent corroboration for this, because the Ukrainians don't release their casualty figures. But I read a report in Reuters a couple of days, about a week ago, which was discussing other things. It was discussing sharp reduction in the United States. But it gave some information about Ukrainian casualties, which actually tallied with the numbers that the Russians are giving. And 60,000 men killed or wounded in a month is irreplaceable. Ukraine cannot replace them. They're claiming that their mobilization is resulting in them finding 30,000 men a month. Some people doubt that number, by the way. But even if it is 30,000, it's only half the men that they're actually losing. And that, I think, explains why they're losing ground so rapidly along the front lines in the way that they are. And just to say, the Russians have been on the offensive continuously since October. This has been a steady, grinding offensive. Remember, at one point, I referred to it as aggressive attrition. I think we've gone well beyond the point of meritration now. The Russians are now closing in and capturing important places, strategic locations. And I think that there is a grain possibility that we're going to see a complete collapse in Ukrainian defenses in eastern Ukraine, east of the Nipa River this year. One Russian general, up Di Halaldin, of who's actually a Chechen, is actually predicting that that's precisely what's going to happen. And it's difficult to see what can be done to turn this around. What do you make of the talk that Ukraine might be preparing another counter-offensive? With what? I mean, you're still getting that discussion. From various Ukrainian circles, officials that are saying, just give us a little more time. We're putting together 2025 counter-offensive. And all will be good. What do you make of it? Yes. I mean, again, it looks to me a little bit like spinning. Trying to sort of persuade people that Ukraine is somehow still in the fight. Now, you remember last year when Ukraine had its counter-offensive and it became increasingly clear by September, early October that it wouldn't be sustained. There was talk there, and I can remember it. I can remember it very, very well, that Ukraine would put its offensive on pause in the autumn, rebuild its forces in the winter, and go back on the offensive in the spring, the spring of 2024. Well, we're now in the summer of 2024, and the people who have been on the offensive throughout that time have been the Russians. I remember those discussions. They were appearing in the media in the West as well. Then a few weeks ago, in Kharkov region, when the Russians advanced into Kharkov region, we were getting all kinds of reports that Ukraine was preparing some big offensive. In Kharkov region, to drive the Russians back, across the border, and large numbers of troops were being assembled there, and the Ukrainian Air Force is becoming more active in the area close to the border, and the US gave permission to use shells and missiles and rockets to attack Russian positions across the border in this area, presumably in the expectation that this would all happen in conjunction with this offensive. The offensive never happened. They made an attempt to capture one village, and it failed. For a capture, I should say one village, and it failed. So, we are talking about offensives next year, but all of the trends tell us that no such offensive can take place. Ukraine appears to be losing soldiers faster than it can replace them. And yes, there are reports that they finally obtained a small number of F-16s, but allegedly there's only six pilots who can fly them. There's said to be another 22 training, but nobody really seriously expects that this is going to make any difference on the battle fronts. And if we're talking about the war in the air, even as the Ukrainians have managed to put together their F-16s, the Russian Air Force has got an order of magnitude stronger. So, I think that this talk of a future Ukrainian offensive next year is just talk. I don't believe anybody takes it seriously. If the Germans are halving the military aid, they're supplying to Ukraine next year, not because they want to, but because they basically run out of what they can supply. The US apparently the same. We discussed in recent programs how the stories about shell production, that there was this big boost in shell production in the West, that that hasn't materialized, both in the United States and in Europe, targets have been completely failed to be met. In Europe, they're already producing around a third of the shells. They said they would. In the United States, this interference plateau, which they can't surpass and won't really surpass for several years. And the attackers have proved a failure. They've not changed the situation on the battle lines. The patriots are not available in sufficient numbers. Attempts to increase production of patriots have also been unsuccessful. So talk of an offensive is just nonsense. I mean, it has no reality behind it. It's just a story that's been spun to keep everybody thinking that the war can go on. - Talk of peace from Olensky. Let's talk of negotiation, talk of a referendum, talk of Ukrainians, voting, whether to give up territory for peace. What do you make of all of this? - I think that this is actually, that there's actually some reality to this. I mean, Zelensky and the people around him, I suspect that they're probably not fully aware of the whole critical state of the situation on the battle fronts, but they must have some sense of it. There's a story going around that Zelensky wanted to go to Harka Frisian and to visit the troops on the front lines in Volchansk and the other places where fighting in Harka Frisian is going on. And he was told that he couldn't go, that it's too dangerous. It was the first time he's had to call off a visit like that. So I think even Zelensky has some understanding of how bad the situation on the front lines is becoming. And the fact that the West has basically exhausted what he can provide. So I think the Ukrainians are starting to sense that something has to be done and it has to be done diplomatically. And we've had a whole cluster of articles in the Western media, which suggest the same thing. We discussed with Levant the other day and in a live stream that we did with him. A recent article that appeared in Develt, Port and German newspapers say that everybody in Brussels, which means NATO and the EU, realized that Ukraine is never going to recover. It's lost territories. In other words, that the objective of the war that Ukraine is fighting for cannot be achieved and that they all expect that there's going to be negotiations in six to nine months. So they all understand too that Ukraine is going down. But every indication is that though they are now very, very grudgingly prepared to accept that the Russians will continue to control territory that they now occupy, I think that there is still an absolute refusal to entertain the idea that more territory, like Zaporogio and Herson City, will be transferred to the Russians, which Putin has said is a minimum condition for negotiations. There is an absolute refusal to agree to the actual legal transfer of these territories to Russia. Zelensky continues to rule that out. He says, "We will one day recover our last territory, "is it just that we might not be able to do that by force? "We'll just have to wait and somehow one day negotiate "a solution whereby just as East Germany, "eventually joined West Germany, "these territories will be returned to us. "So they don't want to recognize "that these territories are Russian." And most concerning of all is that apparently they still insist that Ukraine be allowed one day to join NATO. This remains, as far as I can tell, for the Western powers, a red line. They are absolutely not prepared to agree under any circumstances to a situation where the Russians, as they would say, have a veto on a country's NATO membership. They would rather, I think, see Ukraine defeated than concede this principle that they have created for themselves, which, by the way, just to reiterate, has no substance. It is not there in the Washington Treaty. It has no basis in international law, but it's something that the NATO bureaucracy, the people in power in Washington, the people in power in London, that they are absolutely adamant about, that they will never, under any circumstances, agree to any situation where Ukraine's membership of NATO in the future is ruled out. And the Russians have made it clear that that is an absolute condition. And I can't see the Russians. I can't imagine the Russians ever conceding that. - Yeah, not bad for the NATO bureaucracy. Maybe bad for the NATO business. Like you could say, you know, I mean, bad for business. You know, what do the member states of NATO say when Ukraine collapses and loses to Russia? With all of the NATO money and the NATO weapons, and then NATO poured everything into this conflict, everything. NATO gave everything and then some that they could to Ukraine. Demilitarized various NATO member states, and they still got hammered by the Russian military. What do the member states conclude from all of this? That NATO is not as strong as everyone perceived it to be thought of us. - Well, some of the NATO states-- - That's what they're gonna say. - Some of the NATO states are going to think that. I mean, bear in mind that several of them, I mean, they still have, I mean, Germany, for example. See, there's an enormous vested psychological interest in pretending to itself that NATO is still strong. I mean, I didn't, Mary, talk about Germany. I should stress, I mean, the German political class. For them to start doubting NATO would be, you know, an impossible shock. Countries like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, they might start making, drawing all kinds of conclusions of their own. So might the Baltic states, perhaps one day, Lavrov, as you pointed out in a program we did recently, actually hinted at that, that, you know, the Baltic states might realize that actually NATO is not as strong as they believed, that when they thought they were supporting backing, joining the winning side, they have not done so. But, you know, beyond what countries in Europe might conclude from all of this, there is the wider picture across the world. Because most of the world has seen this war, most of the world has seen that the West has pulled out every stop to break and defeat Russia. They have seen that the West, the mighty West, you know, the Hegemon, the hyper power and all of that, were unable to do so. And in Kuala Lumpur, in Johannesburg, in Brasilia, in all kinds of places, they'll be saying to themselves, the West isn't as strong as we were all there to think. And that's perhaps even more consequential. Already, you're seeing countries queuing up to join the breaks. So Putin went on a tour in South Asia, Southeast Asia. He visited, as we know, Vietnam and Thailand. Thailand has definitely signaled it once to join the breaks. So apparently, there's Vietnam. Lavrov was in, Lavrov and Wang Yi and Jai Shankar were all in Laos, where Jai Shankar and Wang Yi had a very productive meeting, apparently. Laos also sniffing at the idea of joining the breaks. Malaysia has now formally applied to join the breaks. Apparently, they've told the Russians they want to join the breaks. And most consequential of all, the President-elect of Indonesia has just visited Moscow, he's talked about how Russia and Indonesia have close friends. He spoke about the very strong connections which existed between the Soviet Union and Indonesia in the 1960s. He's referred to Putin as his friend, and his personal friend, and of Indonesia and Russia as friendly countries. And the signals are that Indonesia is also now thinking of joining the breaks. So you can see that all of this is directly a product of the conflict in Ukraine. People are, countries around the world are starting to say themselves. The West is not as strong as it looked. It's not as organized as it looked. His leadership looks chaotic and disorganized and somehow unconvincing. Let's go with the rising sun instead of the setting sun. Yeah, absolutely. That's why, if you're NATO, if you put yourself in NATO's shoes, it's better for them to allow Ukraine to disintegrate. And you play to your strength if you're the collective West, allow Ukraine to disintegrate, never allow Russia to dictate which countries can become members of your alliance. And construct a narrative where you present Ukraine to the public, your public that will believe you. And there are a lot of people that will believe NATO and the collective West. A narrative which says that Russia somehow lost or suffered huge losses in this conflict and Putin suffered terrible defeats. Yeah, Ukraine disintegrated, but at the end of all of this, NATO came out the winter somehow, or maybe you pin it on Trump or pin it on delay in weapons deliveries in Congress. A combination of things perhaps, but you spin this as some sort of NATO victory whoever believes you, believes you, but that's a much better outcome if you're the NATO mafia than actually having to negotiate with Russia and take NATO membership off the table. I agree, I think that's what it's gonna go. I think that they will sniff around and see whether they can get the Russians to negotiate because I think that they still don't fully believe or fully understand that the Russians are serious about their red lines, just saying. But I think once it becomes clear that the Russian red lines are there and they're not going to change, they're not going to accept that. And they would rather see Ukraine go down and lose and fail and be destroyed than compromise on what they consider now to be their central core principle. And of course there are advantages to them from doing that because they can then say, look, the Russians have devoured. Ukraine, we all need to huddle together and support each other because if we don't, the Russian bear is going to come and start eating us all up one after the other. We can have long narratives about the Russian oppression in Ukraine and there'll be stories about, you know, all the things that are happening and that the Russians are doing in Ukraine and will be having documentaries about it and films about it and people will get Oscars on the basis of those films and books will be written and the story will spread and it will then eventually acquire in the West a quality of truth and it would at least consolidate blog discipline which is now I think to a great extent what this is all about. - Yeah, exactly, blog discipline. Yeah. All right, we'll end the video there. Thederan.local.com, we are on Rumbalade to see Bitcheek Telegram, Rockfin and on Twitter X as well and go to the Deran shop, pick up some new merch like the t-shirt that I'm wearing today or a limited edition t-shirt like what Alexander is wearing today in this video. There is a link in the description box down below. Take care. [upbeat music]