The Duran Podcast
Zelensky's final act of desperation
All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Ukraine, and let's start things off with the Russian advances into many areas in Dombas. Are you surprised at the speed of the Russian advances, the way they're capturing villages, the information that we're getting, towns, villages, settlements, whatever you want to call it, the information that we're getting, which is basically saying that the Russians are capturing a lot of areas without much of a fight from the Ukraine military. Does any of this surprise you? Do you believe that this is what's going on, and what is your assessment of things? It is indisputably going on. Is any doubt about this at all? I mean, it's not just a question of, you know, looking at maps and getting information from Russian sources, the Ukrainians are saying the same. I mean, when towns and villages fall, I mean, that isn't, that isn't fake news. It's fact we have pictures from most of these towns, or nearly all of these towns. Eventually, you see the Russian soldiers putting up their flags. There's no doubt at all that over the last couple of months, there's been a massive increase in the tempo of the Russian advance. Now, has it surprised me? I'm going to put it like this. I could see that things were speeding up from about March, which is the month after of deaevka fell. Every single week, you could start to see that the Russians were advancing a bit faster, and after the village, the key, very important village, Crossroads village, of Oceretino fell, you started to see the advance quicken. But having said that, though, you know, it was clear to me that an advance was happening, and that it was happening fast, I have been taken by surprise by the speed of the events of the last three weeks, which are unprecedented at any point in this war. The person who's putting it best, in some ways, is this dissident Ukrainian MP, Mariana Bezuglaya. She's going around, she's saying, look, we're giving up one fortified position after another across Ukraine. We're doing so without a fight. It looks as if the entire Ukrainian army is just going through the motions in many places now of fighting. In some places, they are still fighting fiercely. There is fierce fighting continues in places like Chassafyar in the north around Civersk, in Volchansk, in Hardikov region. The battles there continue to be this, you know, long, difficult, grinding battle that we have seen. But in other places, in Torek, in southern Donbas, and of course, most importantly, in Pacrosk, it looks as if we are looking at a rapid collapse. But remember, this is what happens in attrition wars. We discuss this many times in many programs that with attrition wars, things are very slow for a very, very long time. And then the collapse is sudden. And in a kind of a way, we are looking at that kind of sudden collapse, not right across the entire front lines, but specifically along the most important one, which is the one in central Donbas towards Pacrosk, and in the town of Torek, which we'd been led to believe was this very heavily fortified place. Now, it has to be said that first the Russians and then the Ukrainians did something, each of them did something which has accelerated the collapse. Firstly, the Russians launched that operation in Hardikov region back in May. We said at the time it was partly intended to divert Ukrainian troops from Donbas, which it did. That has accelerated the collapse in Donbas. That was the Russian plan. It worked. Then, utterly bizarrely, and I think we were amongst the very first to say this, the Ukrainians did the same thing to themselves, because they launched this offensive in Kursk, apparently hoping to achieve many things, capture nuclear power stations, nuclear weapons facilities, but also to get the Russians to divert troops from Donbas. And instead, of course, what they did was that they diverted even more troops from Donbas, and weakened their front lines even further, and that also has accelerated the collapse. So, a massive act of strategic folly, which is what the Kursk operation has turned out to be. We said it right at the moment when it began, and we are now seeing the results. Yeah, everyone is saying that this is a failure, even Cersky itself. Well, the latest stories that are spreading, and again, we must be very careful, is that when he was told about it, he didn't know anything about it until almost the last moment of Zelensky, and his American friend sprung it on him, and he was so shocked that apparently he almost resigned. But this is a story that's about spreading. We don't know exactly whether it's true or not. But anyway, he's clearly now trying to distance himself for the whole affair. My own view is that Cersky's days are numbered now. He's going to be Zelensky's next. You know, victims, Zelensky is going to blame the whole thing on Cersky. Cersky is going to blame the whole thing on Zelensky. As George Washington once famously said, victory has many father's defeat as an orphan. Yes, Cersky will be easy to get rid of. He won't be like Zaluzhny. Zaluzhny was difficult to get rid of because Zaluzhny had a lot of support in the military, and also amongst the Ukrainian population. Cersky is not liked by anyone really, so he's going to be very easy for Zalensky to pin this on, and that's exactly what he's going to do. Bakhrosk. The situation in Bakhrosk, is this going to be an Adevka-Bakhmuth difficult area to capture, or is this also going to fall very quickly? It does seem like Ukraine is starting to fortify Bakhrosk, but the question that I have is that this is coming pretty late. I mean, Bakhmuthan Adevka was already, from what I understand, is like Toretsk was already very well fortified for many, many years, going back from 2014-15, but Bakhrosk is not in that situation. It does look like Ukraine is fortifying it, and they're bringing in whatever they can into Bakhros to defend it, because they understand the importance of it. Poroshenko commented about how important Bakhrosk is just the other day, but is it too little, too late? They've left it far too late. I mean, they will put up some kind of a fight in Bakhrosk, but not only have they left it too late, but they've lost their operational space. The Russians are clearing up all the villages and all the towns around Bakhrosk, at lightning speed. Bakhrosk itself will be isolated very fast. The troops that they're sending to try and garrison Bakhrosk are nowhere near the kind of elite troops that they used to fight in Bakhmud and in Uvedevka. As you correctly say, Bakhmud and Uvedevka had been fortified over a period of years. They were part of the great fortified lines that Ukraine created in Donbas, going back all the way to 2014. They're trying to do it this time on the fly. It's almost impossible to see how it can be done effectively. The likelihood is that Bakhrosk, which is a bigger place than some of these other places that the Russians are capturing, is a solid of apparently 20,000, 300,000 or so. Novongradivka, around 17,000, it's just taken days to the Russians to capture those places. Mihlenograd, apparently the Russians are now in the process of storming. Bakhrosk is about 50,000 people, fairly built up. They can hold it for some time, a couple of weeks perhaps, but I don't think that it will take the Russians very long to break through. The Russians are positioned all around eastern and southern Bakhrosk now. They're capturing more and more places. They're in a position to target the roads and the railway lines to Bakhrosk itself. It's going to be difficult to keep supplies sent to this town. The Russians also, and this is a key thing to understand, now that they're in the process of capturing Celidovall and have captured a place called Karolofka, which is a village that apparently fell this morning, they have a straight big motor road. One of the main highways of Ukraine leading towards Bakhrosk take all the way to that major urban and logistical centre in Don Bass, which is Donette City, which resolves any logistical issues that the Russians might have had in this area. The logistics for a Russian offensive on Bakhrosk are much easier than they were in Bakhbut and Avedevka. So the Russians can send reinforcements, they can send supplies, they can send shells, fuel, all of the things that are needed, and they can do it very fast. Up this main road, it's securely now under their control. I would have thought it would be very, very difficult to hold Bakhrosk for very long. And I think the Ukrainians know this, by the way. I think that a lot of brave talk about holding Bakhrosk, Zelensky is talking about making it the second Bakhmod. It's important to remember Bakhmod itself fell eventually and by the time the Russians actually reached Bakhmod, I mean the actual fighting inside Bakhmod, as I remember, began around February 2023 and the town fell in May 2023. So we're talking about a couple of weeks of fighting. I would have thought it would probably be at most around that amount of time with Bakhrosk, which is actually a smaller place than Bakhmod, less well defended and the Russians are much stronger now. Yeah, and a lot of the fighting work for Bakhmod, I remember, a lot of it was getting too absolute as if they could store it, but that was, that took up most of the time, is getting too to the area where you can actually store them back. That's the same with, that was the same with Devka, that was the same with Marupol and all of these other places. By the time you reach the city itself and start operations against the city, which is what the Russians are now up to, the city itself is almost already, for all practical purposes, lost because whenever the Russians have begun a storming operation inside a city, it falls very quickly. There's some bit of fighting, but it doesn't take a huge amount of time for the Russians to capture it. Yeah, so Bakhrosk, when it is captured, that's essentially the beginning of the end of Ukraine's position in the Donbas, I mean, this is one of the main supply hubs. Absolutely, if not the main supply hub, but Donbas then begins a quick fall for the Elegsky regime and for Ukraine, and that takes us to the only path to victory that Zelensky is seeing, a collective west is seeing, we're getting reports that that a lot of collective west officials, the CIA, Pentagon, whatever they are, they are also telling Zelensky, look, your only path to victory, our only path to victory is getting the long range strikes into Russia. But that seems to be the Barrell, Barrell saying the same thing. So it does seem that everyone is starting to come to the understanding, I won't say everyone, most, most people in the collective west are coming to the understanding that if you are going to maybe get some sort of negotiation started, some sort of rumbling and grumbling and regime change in Moscow or whatever, if you're going to do something, it's going to happen with permission to launch long range missiles into Russia. It's a long shot, but it's the only shot that they seem to have. And it does look like most people in the west are starting to understand this. I'm not saying they agree to it, but they are starting to understand that this is the only shot that they have. Of course, for me, this is the collective west attacking Russia. It's not really Ukraine attacking Russia. I think that's where you run into big problems. Absolutely. Well, let's first of all begin, if Bakrosk falls, I think it is the beginning of the end of the Battle of Donbas. If Donbas falls completely under Russian control, then it is the beginning of the end of the Ukrainian presence in eastern Ukraine. I mean, all of eastern Ukraine, east of the Dnieper, then becomes undefendable. I mean, what's left of Zaporogia region will quickly fall under Russian control. And the Ukrainians might try and put up more of a defense in places like Haruka and Sumi region, but it looks very, very difficult to see how they can hold on for very long there either. So we would be looking at a situation where the entire eastern Ukraine, east of the Dnieper, 40% of the country by territory, but something like 60% in terms of GDP before the war. It has come under the control of Russia. I think that's the thing to say. So this is a decisive moment. Now, let's talk about long-range missiles. This is probably what they are going to do, but it is a calculation born of desperation because there is absolutely nothing else. You're absolutely right in saying it. The collapse is coming much faster than the Americans had expected. They were hoping, as we've discussed many times, to prevent the collapse happening before the November election, there is now a real possibility that Bakros could fall before the November election with all the problems that that will create, probably an even bigger collapse across Donbas as well. So they're desperate and they're clutching at straws because this is what this is. And the latest one that they're coming up with is missile strikes. Missile strikes deep into Russia in order to try to force the Russians to negotiate. Now, there are so many things to say about this. This is such a bad idea on so many levels. First of all, it is not going to achieve what they expect. Launching missile strikes at Russia is an active absolute folly in terms of how the Russians themselves, and I'm talking about the Russian population are going to respond. They're going to see it as proof that the Americans, the British, the Western powers are attacking them. It's going to make the Russian people, once and for all, conclude that the West are enemies of Russia. It's going to consolidate Russian opinion. It's going to lead to demands at the very least that the war in Ukraine be prosecuted to the point where the entirety of Ukraine falls under Russian control so that there is not a millimeter of Ukrainian territory from which these kind of missiles can be launched. So it's going to achieve, in strict military terms, the opposite of what people in the West think it will. Secondly, in terms of damage, actual damage that it can do to the Russians. Well, some missiles will get through, but just look at the size of Russia, that kind of bombing campaign of Russia, the kind that the West has done in other places in Vietnam, in North Korea, in Germany during the Second World War, it's impossible. Launching a few missiles at targets close to the border, because they can't reach deep inside Russia, even if the Ukrainians were using Tomohawk missiles, the long-range ones, they would struggle to reach targets in the Urals or places like this, and they just don't have enough of them. The production rates for these things are very, very, very small. So you can't conduct that kind of bombing and missile offensive across Russia that was done in previous Western wars, and all of those bombing campaigns failed. Why assume that with a country like Russia, the bombing campaign of that kind, even if it were possible, which it is not, would succeed. Thirdly, the Russians have repeatedly shown that they have the ability to shoot these missiles down. The Western powers have been launching missile after missile at Russian positions in Crimea, in Donbas, the Russians shoot down around 80%, 90% sometimes of the missiles that are launched. It's inconceivable that it would be any different if the missiles were launched deeper inside Russia itself. And lastly, in terms of the Russian reaction, because the Russians would have come to see the West as an enemy, one must assume, and they have said they will, start to take countermeasures against the West. They will start to provide similar long-range missiles, of which they have many more, with far more powerful capabilities to other countries and other groups that are hostile to the West. And given that it's weak who are spread out, we are the West, who are spread out around the world. That will make our own strategic military political position far more vulnerable than it has been up to this time. It would make it, I would just imagine if the Houthis, for example, had Russian missiles like the Onyx or the Zircon. I mean, it just doesn't even bear thinking about what would happen in that kind of case. But that's the scenario that we are bringing about. So it is an absolutely desperate, completely reckless move, which can only be counterproductive. And of course, the last thing is, obviously, the West will try to maintain some kind of control over these weapons launches, which by the way will further confirm for the Russians that the West is involved in attacks on Russia itself. But as the situation in Ukraine hurtles towards an even more conclusive collapse, the temptation, both on the part of the Ukrainians and on the Western powers, to start making reckless attacks, not just on Russian military positions, but on Russian civilian infrastructure, nuclear power stations, all Russian radar systems that are intended to protect Russia from American ballistic missiles, that temptation is inevitably going to grow. If a missile like that gets through and strikes a nuclear power station, maybe it won't do a huge amount of damage. Apparently, these are very well defended and they're very, very strongly shielded. But you can imagine the reaction. And of course, if horror of horrors, there is a nuclear accident. Who is going to be blamed? The West is, the Ukrainians are, it's not going to change Russian attitudes about the war. But it's going to mean that the whole of the world starts to see that the West is prepared to engage in what the world will see as nuclear terrorism. This is a crazy idea. It shows how desperate people in Washington, London, Brussels and Berlin and Paris are becoming. And the kind of extreme lengths that they're going to go, they're prepared to go to, even as their precious Ukraine project collapses all around them. Yeah, they should begin negotiations. They should capitulate to Russia, but they won't. We already know that. So there's still fixated after three years of this. You come to the understanding that they are still fixated on Putin and they're still fixated on removing Putin. I mean, that still remains the end goal of this entire Ukraine conflict. It always has been about regime change in Russia. It still remains regime change in Russia. You understand that by reading every article that they put out, by just looking at the titles of the articles that the collective West puts out by listening to their statements, they're fixated on this one man, removing Putin. So my final question to you is, maybe they're thinking, and this is a weird way to, to look at it, but I'm trying to put myself in their, in their shoes, I'm trying to think like they think. They're so obsessed with Putin and removing Putin. Maybe the goal in the long range missiles in green lighting, long range missile strikes into Russia and providing the targeting, the surveillance, the satellite imagery, everything. I mean, they're going to be doing so much of the heavy lifting in order to target Russia. Maybe the goal is that they want a, they want the missiles to get through. Their goal is to have the missiles get through whatever targets they're, they're looking at they have a list. Supposedly, the yard mach is bringing a list to the Biden White House of targets. The missiles go through and they understand they know that Putin is not in favor of escalation. He has been holding back and that's, that's probably the biggest criticism that Putin faces today with regards to the conflict in Ukraine is that he has been holding back, is that he has been taking it very slow for various reasons, which we've explained on this channel many times. Just a couple of weeks ago, we, we understood that, that one of the, the forces that is holding Russia back or is moderating Russia's response to, to whatever attacks are coming from Ukraine is China. China has been playing a big part in, in keeping, keeping Putin, keeping Putin's, waging of the conflict, keeping it moderate. We understand that now, but maybe their thinking is, you know, if, if we can attack Russia effectively, then we will amplify the, the criticism of Putin because he will continue to want to, to, to go slow at during this conflict and then we can somehow get the regime change. In other words, maybe they're hoping that the hard liners rise up and remove Putin with these attacks. Oh, yes, I'm sure they are. I mean, I think they care actually. And then they'll deal with the hard liners afterwards. I mean, I think they, I think, I think, I think the outlook is that, you know, it provided you can get some kind of crisis in Moscow. It doesn't matter now any longer who exactly comes, you know, leads the crisis, whether it's a hard liner or a, or a moderate, getting rid of this terrible man, Putin, as you rightly say, has become the overriding obsession. And you don't really look beyond that. To be honest, and now this is a point I just wanted to make. I was thinking overnight, because I've been thinking about this whole missile strike idea, whether one of the objectives now is to target Putin, in other words, to launch missiles of the Kremlin or wherever they think Putin is. I mean, that I, you know, we are in that kind of obsessive situation. And I'm sure that Putin's security people are thinking about that, and that there are discussions about what to do to shield him. But in terms of what you said, I think this is absolutely correct. I mean, we did, we've done two very interesting programs on the Duran. One with John Helmer, where we did a live stream in which he discussed at length, the fact that Putin has been applying the break, that there's been great frustration on the part of many people in Russia about the fact that the break has been there, that there have been demands for many, many people in Russia, that the break, that Putin take, finally take his foot off the break and allow things to move faster. So there is that, that, that demands. Now, we also did a program, which you can find on the Duran, an interview with Dimitri Poliansky, who is a Russian diplomat, very, very senior Russian diplomat. He's deputy ambassador at the, of full Russia, at the UN. And he vindicated, he completely corroborated our analysis, our discussion of a few about a week ago, in which we said that the Russians had been under pressure, an awful lot of pressure, over the last few months, from their various friends, and he didn't name the Chinese, but it's not difficult to guess that the Chinese were amongst them, but probably Audban from Hungary, Modi from India, all of those people, that they've been under pressure, the Ukrainians have been coming around, the West has been coming around, they've all been saying, well, look, you know, maybe we do now understand that some kind of peace is in fact necessary and let's all sit down and have negotiations. The Russians have been deeply skeptical about this, but they don't want to antagonize their friends, they don't want to appear in transigent or object-ridden or anything of that kind. So, you know, they were, you know, saying that they were open to the night, the idea of negotiations, and then, of course, the course of cooperation was launched, and Poliyanski said, all that pressure that the Russians had been under was lifted, that all of those people in China, in India, in Hungary, who assumed that the Ukrainians were acting in good faith when they were talking about negotiations, the scales that fell from their eyes, they finally understood that the Russians were telling the truth, that these people are completely intransigent, and that the pressure on the Russians to begin negotiations has gone. Now, he said that on the record in an interview with a Duran, just go and watch it, it's all there. Now, if that is true, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is, by the way, I've been reading the Chinese media. The moment the course of cooperation started, they were furious about what happened. Clearly, Kaleba came to China, you remember the Ukrainian foreign minister, he was talking peace, the Chinese sort of went along with it, they discovered that he was stringing them along, that it wasn't true, the Chinese are absolutely furious about this. Modi, who agreed to go to Kiev, presumably in order to discuss some kind of peace negotiations with the Ukrainians, and maybe positioned India as a potential mediator. He went to Kiev, he found Zelensky talking all the old tunes, it must be all based on his peace formula, the Russians must pull out completely from Ukraine, he cut short his visit, he was only there a few hours apparently, he went back to India, he too is furious apparently, about the whole course escapade, he's come under criticism from retired Indian Foreign Service officers, we were informed about that by an Indian member of our community on our live stream, one of our live streams yesterday. So, that pressure has gone. Now, why assume that this massive escalation by the West, which will completely confirm everything that the Russians have been saying about the threat that Ukraine poses to them, and the hostile intentions of the West, why assume that that is going to make all of these very angry countries, less angry with the West, and more likely to apply wet pressure on the Russians. Far more likely, they're going to say to themselves, the Russians were right all along, we should have listened to Putin, he said that this is a danger to Russia, an existential threat to Russia, he is obviously right, therefore, let's give him the green light, let's tell him, right, we understand now that you've been applying the break, you've been listening to what we're saying, we've been saying that you've been right all along, if you want to lift the break, move faster, then go ahead and do it. A final question, do you think that Putin will keep his foot on the break until the November election to see if Trump wins? Possibly, this is just one possibility, there is the military aspect of this, which is that, of course, here I am myself convinced, I think the Russian military for some time anyway has been moving according to its own timetable, they're moving now, they've been moving very, very fast in Donbass, I wonder whether it's really practical for them to move any faster than they actually already are, in other words, they've got their plans, would they really want to hasten their plans anyway, taking Prokrosk, it's going to be a difficult operation, I mean they will do it, they will achieve it, they've got, as I said, the secure road which sorts out their logistics, they've got much better troops, their army's getting bigger, they've got their operational plan, I think there is constant discussion between the military and the political leaders in Moscow, between Putin and the general staff, I think it goes on all the time, I think that certainly the November election is a factor, they might be looking at whether Trump is indeed going to be elected, I don't think however they're putting a huge amount of weight on that, because the country argument, there is a country argument that he did want Trump to win, I'm not saying the Russians do by the way, but assuming that they do, because he's spoken previously about wanting better relations with Russia and he still seems to be talking a little bit about that, well why then delay until the November elections, why not collapse Ukraine before, and then that will hit the Democrats and support Trump in some way, so it's not a reason to apply the break, it's on the contrary, if it's anything, it's a reason to put your foot down on the accelerator, I'm not saying that's going to happen by the way, I'm not saying that's the thinking, but deliver a debacle, created disaster in Ukraine and then Trump can come in and say look I'm not to blame, it has nothing to do with me, the Russians have won, now let's try and come to terms, I'm not saying there's all the calculations in Moscow, but perhaps there are some people who are talking like that, yeah I mean it's because Trump has been saying that he wants to negotiate, and the thinking, some of the thinking is that Putin does want a negotiated end to the conflict, not so much a military solution, but he does want to figure out a diplomatic solution to the conflict, so Trump talking on and on about how he wants to negotiate and how he wants to end the conflict, you can make the case that Russia may say okay let's wait and see what happens in November, and if Trump does win, then maybe the door's open to negotiate an end to the war instead of imposing a military solution, I mean that is the argument that is made for Trump winning in November, something that the Biden White House never says, they never... Absolutely, and there are people and going back to the live stream we did yesterday with Helm, there are people in Moscow who do want some kind of understanding with the Americans, and there is that current of thinking in Moscow, and Putin has a time shared it, I mean he has spoken about the fact that ultimately the Russia and the United States do need to come to some kind of understanding with each other, but of course there is now an alternative current of thinking in Moscow, which the recent events, the events of the last couple of weeks has made much stronger, people like Medvedev, perhaps the military, it seems like a lot of people, a lava off, all of them, they're all saying... Exactly, they're all saying look, I mean you know we tried and tried and tried, it's never worked, let's just go on fighting and finish the war, and then after we won, that will be the moment when we come to terms, because any agreement that we make with the West, unless it's backed by force, isn't going to be worth the paper, it's written on, and I have to say I think increasingly Putin is tilting in that direction as well, so I mean I think, and I have to say this also, I think if the West, which I think it will by the way, does this reckless thing of authorizing missile strikes on Russia, that hardline grouping, which is already very powerful, far more powerful than it was in 2022, I think that hardline faction is going to pick up stronger still, so the diplomatic pressure will be taken away, because the Global South, the Chinese, all of the BRIC states, they will all see that in fact the Russians were right all along about the threat the West poses and the threat Ukraine poses and what the and the West's hostility to Russia, that's, so that restraint will have gone, and within Russia itself probably any further restraint will have also gone, because the more moderate if you like, those people who have still said to themselves, well let's try and find some diplomatic way forward, will have had the ground cut from beneath them, because the missile strikes on Russia will have reinforced, will have made the hardliners argument for them, so if these missile strikes are intended to force the Russians to negotiations, it's going to have the opposite result, like everything else that's been done, I mean you have sanctions have been attempted as we know, providing every Ukraine, every kind of weapon that it wants, all of that has been attempted at various times, and instead of it achieving the objectives the West thinks that it will, it achieves the opposite, so escalation has completely failed in this war, but the fact remains that if you're talking to people like Burrell and other people like him in Washington, when escalation fails, all that they ever do is come back and demands still more escalation. Yeah I think the missile strikes, I'm coming to the belief that the missile strikes are about creating division between Putin, who is a moderate, and I think that's good that he's a moderate, thank god that he's a moderate, and the hardliners, I think that's what these missile strikes are meant to accomplish, they're meant to move the moderates against Putin because their calculation is that even if they do launch the missile strikes into Russia, Putin will continue to take a moderate approach to the conflict, I think that's what they're betting on, they're going to fail, but that's my belief, I believe that's what they're betting on, and you know Putin, I mean he has to consider so many things, diplomatic, economic, Ricks, foreign relations, the military aspects, so the way he's been managing this war is pretty incredible given so many considerations, dealing with the internal forces, the oligarchs, I mean, you know he's got a lot of stuff to consider, but that's how I see it, and I think with the big, and my final question to you is, I think one of the big revelations was indeed that Russia's allies, this is a huge revelation over the past couple of weeks, they have been telling, I don't know, consulting with Putin so that he can keep the brakes on this conflict, for whatever reasons they have, I'm still not quite sure, maybe you can answer this as we finish the video, I'm still not quite sure why it's so important for say China and India and these countries to have the war go in a slower pace or to try and not resolve the war through military means, but through a diplomatic solution, I'm still trying to understand what's the reasoning behind this, anyway, I give you a lot to talk about, so you can end the video. Briefly, briefly, or in terms of the attempt to create difficulties between Putin and the hardliners, undoubtedly there is that, but what missile strikes are going to do is that they are more likely to convert Putin from a relative moderate to a relative hardliner, I think this is the thing to understand, launching missile strikes is not going to persuade Putin to apply the break even more, it's going to persuade Putin, it's going to cause Putin to take the break off, that is much more likely in terms of what is going to happen and it is going much more likely in terms of what Russia's various friends will want, will now accept, because as I said it makes the case, the Russians have been saying all along Ukraine was a threat, Ukraine was a danger, the West was planning to install missiles in Russia, they were going to, in Ukraine, they were going to use those missiles to threaten Russia and lo and behold, we approve of it, that is exactly what has happened, so it's exactly the scenario that the hardliners always warned about and which Putin himself was concerned about, how is that going to make him remain a moderate, it's just going to prove to him that the only way to end this problem is to see this war through and the negotiations with the West and with the Ukrainians are a hopeless idea, by the way there are some people in Washington who do apparently understand this, there's reports, I saw it, I think it was in Politico, that some of the people who are arguing back against this idea of launching strikes against Russia are saying that if we do that we're going to burn our bridges once and for all with the Russians, there will be no way back towards any kind of future in which we have any kind of diplomatic or civil or relationship with the Russians, even of the kind that we used to have during the Cold War and I think that is absolutely right, that's the first thing to say, now about Russia's various friends, Turkey, India, China, all of them, why have they been a force for moderation, well the straightforward answer to that goes back to what happened in February 2022, from a global perspective sending Russian troops into Ukraine look like a violation, a massive violation of international law, it went against the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it was a challenge to the authority of the Ukrainian government over its own territory, now there are lots of reasons and explanations why the Russians felt that they should do that, we've discussed that in many places but as any lawyer will tell you when you have to explain, you have already lost and now that's not strictly true in this case, countries around the world were very open to listening to Russian explanations because they've got very accustomed to the West but nonetheless the Russians did have to spend an awful lot of time explaining this and however hard they had, they tried to explain this, it is still understandable that countries like India for example which have secessionist problems of their own in Kashmir, in the Sikh areas, in other places, China which has the same issues with Tibet and of course Taiwan, all sorts of countries around the world which take the concept of international law, territorial integrity, state sovereignty, extremely seriously would say well let's try to preserve that as best we can in Ukraine by getting some kind of negotiated solution of the conflict there and what has happened ever since the Special Military Operation began in February 2022 is that instead of the West capitalizing on those doubts, every single step that they have taken since February 2022 has worked to confirm that the Russians, the Russian case and I think this summer, this summer when many countries around the global south thought that perhaps finally the Ukrainians and the Western powers were coming to their senses and it turned out that they were not, I think that has been an absolutely crucial moment in the war. Yeah, because it's all about regime changing proof, it's this obsession, that's what's done them in. Yes. Okay, we will end the video there, the doran.locals.com, we are on Rumbola to see but you telegram Rockfin and twitter X and go to the doran shop, pick up some merch, the link is in the description box down below. Take care. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)