The Duran Podcast
Ukraine conflict: Long range missiles & frontline collapse w/ Jim Webb (Live)
- All right, we are live with Alexander McCurris, and today we have the one and only Jim Webb. Jim, it is great to finally get you on the durian. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. - Not a problem. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. And yeah, I've been following your guys' work for a long time. We've been going back and forth with August Hander. And this is a huge topic. And it's a perfect timing, actually, so. - Yeah, we have got a lot of ground to cover, and you are the right person to discuss everything that is going on in the conflict in Ukraine, as well as what is going on in Kursk. And the news about the long-range missiles to the Ukraine military, the green light for the use of long-range missiles to hit Russian territory. So before we get started, let's just say a quick vote to everyone that is watching us on locals, the durian.locals.com, on Rockfin Odyssey, Rumble, and on YouTube. How is everyone doing today? Watching us on this live show, a big shout out to our moderators. Thank you to our moderators. And before we get started, Alexander, Jim, where can people find you? What is the best place for people to follow your work? - So the best place to find me right now is on Twitter. It's @JamesWeb16. That's the best place to find me. I have a sub-stack which is inactive right now, getting back into it, but I tweet fairly regularly. But if you want to follow me, that'd be great. - All right, I will have the link to Jim's Twitter in the description box down below and as in comments. So we have a lot of ground to cover, Alexander, Jim. So, Alexander, let's get right into it. - Indeed, let's do so. And I'd like to start, if you don't mind, with an article that you and George Beeb, who is one of the most eminent people, a form of people in the CIA and a tremendous contributor, responsible statecraft, one of the most intelligent people I know. Anyway, you and George Beeb wrote an article. I think it was in June of last year. Ukraine's offensive at that time in the summer was still underway. It was already clear to those of us who followed the war closely that it was going wrong. You pointed out at the time that it was going wrong. You suggested that what Ukraine should do is forget the whole idea of offensive operations, at least the offensive that was underway. At that time, build up fortified lines, prepare, go over to the defense. And also, and this is the other thing, which people always overlook about that article. Think seriously about negotiations. Now, just to say, I don't want, I never asked leading questions of these programs. To my mind, that made absolute sense when it was written. I still think it makes broad sense now, but it's not what Ukraine is just doing. It's not what it was doing then, and it's not what it is doing now. And people in the West still continue saving me to encourage Ukraine to escalate, to do all kinds of things in all sorts of ways. I'll ask the question. Do you feel that your analysis of that time has been vindicated? Would Ukraine be in a much better position if it had followed your advice then? I certainly think so. I think it should have done that even before your article was written. But anyway, over to you on this, Jim. - First of all, Alexander, thank you so much for the kind words about that article. George is a fantastic colleague, and we had a very easy time writing that. It seemed natural. But not to sound arrogant, but yes. Had they followed that plan, I think they would be in a much, much better position than they are now. If you take a look at the nature of their entire conflict, it has been defensive. They were invaded. They have gone and talked to us in the West continuously about Russian aggression, Russian aggression, which thereby means that you are, naturally you're in the defense at that time. At the time they launched the offensive, they had received a tremendous amount of pretty sophisticated Western equipment. They had gotten to a point where they were beginning to be matched, if not outnumbered, on the battlefield. And, as a former Marine infantryman, you do not attack unless you absolutely have to if you are outnumbered. You want a ratio of two to one and three to one, four to one if you're going into the offense. The reality of the battlefield at that point in time, I think everybody here can remember, it was a balling-back move. They had gone through a tremendous meat grinder, had effectively their major units chewed up in the defense talking about their elite units. They kept feeding their top guys into that battle, much like the Germans fed some of their top guys into Stalingrad in World War II. While it turned out, it looked like the Russians were kind of feeding, not the best troops. They were contract soldiers, it was the infamous Badger group. And the offset there during that particular part of the battle was for every few completely expendable Russians that were being lost on the battlefield, Ukrainians were losing highly trained, highly NATO trained, well equipped guys to defend something of dubious battlefield significance. And then you actually get into what could have been accomplished had they sat in the defense, in a defense in depth. The intent of a defense in depth is to entangle and mesh the enemy if they try to penetrate your lines. You put your mobilized units back behind the front. If there's a breakthrough, you have the ability to counter attack and offset that. Had they done that and not expended even more of their best men and probably a couple additional rounds of conscription of territorial defense troops or wherever these folks ended up, they would still have significant combat power. But you have to get to the first point, which is can Ukraine or could Ukraine ever defeat Russia militarily by themselves on the battlefield? And the answer has always been an unequivocal no despite the ramblings of, shall we say, the Western media and Western intelligence agencies. So if you're not going to be able to win in the offense, you have to, in order to stop an invasion of that kind, push the other side to a point where they want to negotiate. And they talk about continuously every day, we hear about eight, 10 Russian soldiers are dying for every Ukrainian. First of all, that's complete bunk. But if you could force that reality and the only way you can force that reality is in the defense, a strong defensive position that cannot be cracked, which leaves the only option for both sides to go and have a political settlement or a negotiated piece of some kind. - The other thing I would add to that is time in the sense that taking that strategy by Ukraine last year or better still in 2022 would have brought Ukraine time because of course, the other thing that has changed and is changing all the time over the course of the war is that the Russians are steadily mobilizing. They got resources that they can bring to bear, which they didn't have in 2022 or 2023. They have them now and they're probably likely to have even more. So you need to persuade the Russians sooner rather than later that it is to their advantage to talk. And that, I would have said, would have been done by following the advice that you and George Bean gave over a year ago. Now, I'm glad you brought up this question about Ukraine, it cannot win the war, at least not in the way that it's been presented in the West. One of the most, for me, surreal moments in the presidential debate that has just taken place in the United States, I don't want to spend too much time about that was that when Donald Trump was asked, do you want Ukraine to win? The obvious answer is whatever he wants, it's not going to happen. I mean, it is an absurd question that is completely detached from reality. And does it not baffle you as a military person that the advice that is being given by so many people within the military, and we all know there's some generals who argue otherwise, we're not going to name them big kind people, but so many people who have various militaries I've spoken to are all saying the same thing, victory for Ukraine is impossible. Why is this not getting through in a country like the United States where there is so much tremendous intelligence and ability to analyze and understand these things? - Well, I think flat out Alex is the American public does not have a real or a realistic understanding of what's going on in the battlefield. And that comes down to how it's being reported, the restriction information, the framing of Ukraine as somehow this indispensable ally. And if you want to look at the openness of the Ukrainians, you just start with their casually numbers. They have not reported anything official, I believe, since 2022, we're sitting in a couple, maybe a couple of tens of thousands of KIA's that they admit to. And when they're pressed continuously to reveal those, they revert back to saying it's a state secret of some kind. And quite frankly, if it's not to, not to get into like a Vietnam type body count situation where you're keeping score like it's a baseball game or something like that, but if you don't know how many casualties your quote unquote side is taking, then you have no idea how effective they are or aren't. If you're taking tremendously high losses, then what you're doing is not correct. And that's the starting point. The second point that I'd like to get to on this, in particular, is that I don't believe that the military in the United States, the military United States has, it's a separate entity, it's not supposed to be politicized and not really supposed to have a voice necessarily in the policy. Their job is to go and execute. It's kind of in the constitution, it's the way we're governed. But what you have is replaced it for lack of a better term, the military industrial complex. The defense contracting companies, which fuel a lot of these politicians and a lot of the campaigns that you see are making tremendous amounts of cash. The majority of the money which has been allocated to Ukraine is not going to the Ukrainian military, it's not going to the Ukrainian government, it's going to these companies in order to provide purchase orders for equipment that may or may not ever get there. So it's in their interest to have this going. You have the politicians in Washington who from my experience on Capitol Hill have never really had a firm grasp on what actually goes on overseas in any conflict. I mean, just yesterday or September 11th, I'm a GWOT veteran and not really at one point whether it's the invasion of Iraq, the fall of Afghanistan or even the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. Did it really appear that the American public or the political class in this country had a true understanding of the nature of combat? And you'd hope and you'd think after 20 years that people would at least develop some kind of understanding for it. If for no other reason than to ensure that the prosecution of our own wars would go well, which they did not, and that's evidence enough that that never really happened, but this has led to kind of a really a dangerous situation I believe for our own military. I wish somebody inside would resign, step up and say, "Hey, this is a major red flag." Not only are we catapulting ourselves towards World War III potentially over something that really isn't in our interest. I can't, for the life of me for years, I've tried to find something in the core United States national interest which is in Ukraine. And quite frankly, there is not. What it comes back to is, if you not to go off tangentially, but Ukraine is in effect the final color revolution project of the Hillary Clinton Secretary of State era. It's the only one which has not completely failed yet. And there are elements inside the government who are probably thinking about their own legacy that cannot let this go for their own deep personal reasons and they have a stranglehold on how things are prosecuted, so they keep pushing it. Now, what additional dangers for the American fighting man does this present? If you look at the amount of equipment that we have dropped into Ukraine, from attack homes to artillery systems to just, you know, the Bradley on the ground, all of these systems were developed to fight a large scale conventional war, you know, with Russia in mind, you know, to crack them as they came through the full together in Germany. And what we have done through the course of time here is we have fed our best equipment, we have fed our tactics, you know, piecemeal into effectively an amateur army and allow the Russians to take these things apart, make peace at a time, and any technological edge that we may have had and may have needed to keep in reserve for our own conflict is gone. You know, and I'll use attack them as an example. It's a long range system, it's, you know, it's the, it's quite info right now for a lot of very negative reasons, but what you want to do with that is you want to use those in mass to either check an advance of an enemy or to prep the battle space for your own. You hit the logistics lines, you hit bridges, you overwhelm the opponent's ability to shoot them down and their defense, and that's really like, you know, you want that to be the first time you use it because as they're trying to figure it out, all their key points are destroyed and then you can, you know, you can use your own, your own side to prosecute some sort of attack and have and maintain that advantage. And that is all going away. And I look at the other side of the equation having followed this conflict very closely from day one. You know, the Russian military is not only fielding a tremendous amount of equipment, you know, they've remobilized their industrial sector, but what they're producing is quite advanced and you still have the American public, you know, towing the same line of, oh, look, it's, you know, it's Soviet communist made junk from the 1970s or 1980s, which quite frankly, we never saw really on the battlefield except for in Vietnam. And, you know, it's, it presents a very dangerous situation on any number of fronts. - What you've just said, by the way, about the Russians learning about American military technologies, not only true, the Russians are quite open about it. They're talking about it all the time. They say that it takes, it takes them about six weeks, apparently, to get, to understand how a new American system works. And then after six weeks, they just, they develop ways to counter it. And this isn't, you know, me saying that. It's all over the Russian media. They're quite open about this, you know, they've taken about the attackums, they've taken about the storm shadow, they've learned a lot about the bradleys and the, everything else, you know, the abrams and all of those. So, I just want to ask one last question on this sort of political thing. Because in order to make decisions about war, you need to get the advice of the people who are experts in war, who have soldiers. It's not, by the way, something that is unheard of in the United States is what Lincoln did. It's what FDR did. By the way, ahead of Vietnam, it's what JFK was doing. He's actually, because remember, he'd been in the military himself. He fought in the second world war. He was sending people, like Max, Max will tailor to Vietnam. He was listening very carefully to what they were saying. And he was adjusting his decisions. And he was tiptoeing away from that particular war. So I understand. Doesn't seem to happen anymore. I don't get the sense that the military are being listened to. I don't mean a few political court generals, as I would call them. I mean, the actual people who are going to have to execute the policy. And you mentioned how in the United States, there's this clear separation from the military and the political. But of course, when you are talking about war, one would have assumed that in that kind of situation, the military would actually have a role and would be able to give advice. It's happened before. It's not contrary to the Constitution of the United States. There are, as I said, examples of it, the most successful war presidents have done it. Why is nobody talking about it? Well, bring it up now. - This is, that's the million dollar question, Alex. And to add a little bit to that, we have 20 years of conflict under our belt in my demographic. And there is a massive under-representation of veterans in any of these spaces. And to go back to when I was working on Capitol Hill, you have a new emphasis, if you will, on what makes you an expert in the United States and it leaks over into this. And that is educational creds, that is how many schools you've been to. It has nothing to do necessarily with the depth of your experience in a particular area. If you don't have the right school, you're kind of frozen out. I was lucky enough to go to a regular public school after I got to the Marine Corps and to work my way into the Senate. But once there, it was quite revealing to see what the emphasis is. Now, I view this a little bit cynically, where you have the political class is probably insecure about their lack of experience. And they lean on the different people, or shall we say, like not to put them too far out there, different profits they may or may not have listened to along the way. And that provides insulation for their ideals and they don't like to be checked. You know, 'cause if you go back and take a look at what veterans think around the United States, I have a hard time finding anybody in my peer group who thinks that the way Afghanistan ended, that the way the war in Ukraine is being prosecuted, or even our actions supporting the IDF in Gaza is a good idea. Or does it mirror what we do? Or does it mirror what we should do? And I think you're completely correct. You need to listen to the people who are doing it. Or have done it to be successful. And it's not about rank, it's about experience. And the majority of the experience is held by folks who were junior enlisted and worked their way up to senior staff NCOs or junior officers who got out and went and did other things. But there is also another problem I think that is important to highlight. It's, you know, when you go back historically, you know, like war councils for lack of better term, big figures throughout history. Eisenhower, MacArthur, they're generals. They are senior officers, but who have very, very extensive combat experience. Eisenhower was responsible for the D-Day landings. MacArthur speaks for himself. He was a tremendous leader. George Patton would have been one of those if he hadn't died, unfortunately, following the Second World War. But I believe that type of historical construct is now used and excused because there aren't many generals in the military right now who have, you know, the same degree of combat experience as the enlisted because our war for 20 years was a small unit war. It was, they called it a squad leader's war, which is, you know, a squad leader in the US military is typically, you know, 20 or 21 year old. You know, I would, in my age now, I hesitate to call myself old, but I would call them a kid. But those are men, you know, they're grown up and you learn a tremendous amount on the fly. If we wanna be successful, we have to find a way to include those voices in our decision making because it reeks of a lack of experience for lack of better term. - Right, let's turn to the question of the mishaps because this is the one to think everybody's talking about at the moment. Now, what I haven't understood and I really haven't understood is what exactly are these missiles if we get the permission to launch the deep strikes? What exactly is it that they're expected to do? I asked this question because I was reading an article today in the Daily Telegraph just after I read an article of the Guardian. They both said, you know, it's very risky. There's all kinds of things. We don't quite know how the Russians might react. It could be very provocative. And then they accept, actually, we don't actually have that many of these missiles. We haven't got enough to give the Ukrainians an any great number. The Russians have moved their aircraft away from, you know, out of their range and they've got lots of air defenses and we should still give them anyway. We should still give them the mission to the Ukrainians to do it anyway. So what is the plan? I mean, again, I assume that there has to be some kind of a plan behind this. Always, there's just another emotional spasm that we have to do something because Ukraine is losing. So Zelensky wants it. So we have to give it to you. Because I just don't understand the logic behind this. Maybe I'm missing something. So unfortunately, Alex, I think there's a very strong logic to it. And I believe it comes from the Ukrainian side. I believe it was yesterday, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister or the spokesman for the Foreign Minister said that our invasion into Kursk proves that there really are no Russian red lines. It's all just bluster and that's a paraphrase. But the ultimate objective for the Ukrainians is to embroil NATO in this conflict because they know they cannot do it on their own. And they have been continuously searching for a way to bring a response from the Russians that would allow NATO troops to be, you know, shall we say officially introduced on the battlefield. That's point number one. Point number two, we have an administration right now which has an incredibly weak secretary of state, an entire department of state. If you look at any number of, you know, should we say American client states, they're driving in the bus. The Israelis are setting US policy in the Middle East and constantly towing a line of a regional war. And every single time that the Ukrainians ask for something, there either isn't the knowledge inside the building in DC at Foggy Bottom to say, hey, hold on a second, this is not gonna work, this is nonsense. Or there's a lack of will for whatever reason. But the senior partner in these relationships which is the United States should act like that. And they should say, you know, this is what you will and you won't do. You know, you can't have this, you can't have this, we're not risking, you know, the exposure of our technology, we're not risking the prospects of World War III. Whatever your justification is, there's any number of them, it's just not getting out there. Now, in a tactical sense, I guess the idea is to disrupt the air fields and the supply lines, the rail lines with these missiles. But, you know, they're not even that effective, there's been decreased effectiveness over time, which is well documented within Ukraine and a touch into Russia. Now, if you're talking about firing these deep into Russia, the Russians have some of the best electronic warfare systems in the world. You know, for the past 20 years, you know, we've continued the Cold War model here in the United States of the different types of technology that we're developing, you know, big whiz bangs and such, the F-22, the F-35. They have been focused on anti-access and at H-A-D, you know, which is, in effect, just preventing themselves from being hit by different systems, being able to shoot down missiles, air defense, and they've got it down to a T, and they've been able to go live, you know, against our different systems over time. And so, anything that the Ukrainians would fire in there in a military sense isn't gonna have much of an effect, even if they hadn't moved all of their equipment deeper into Russia. And this goes back to the first point, which is they need to do something to get a response from Putin. You know, I saw an article this morning myself that, you know, the Kremlin issues a stern warning, I believe that was the Reuters headline. And if you read actually what the warning was, is that if you go ahead and you start, you know, lobbying American ordinance into our country, we're gonna double their triple down on our response into Ukraine. And I find it kind of disturbing, you know, having grown up in the United States, and I remember the '90s, I remember the '80s. And we are placing the prospects of World War III into the hands of Putin, and we're relying on him to be, you know, the patient, the patient actor that he has been. And, you know, it's not a knock necessarily on him. It's that I just don't understand where that shift happened, right? You know, it's United States has built itself as, you know, the freest country on earth. You know, we're out here, you know, doing things for the betterment of mankind. And traditionally, at least rhetorically, responding to provocations and being the voice of calm, we are the ones who go in and do the negotiation to bring the end of conflicts in, you know, low-grade conflicts across the world. Yet here we are, you know, continuously trying to push them with no end. And, you know, that gets into the probably point number three, which is unfortunately, you know, you're seeing an absolute lack of, you know, a plan for the United States in this conflict. You know, overthrowing Russia, you know, or enabling the Ukrainians to win on the battlefield, you know, as a, you know, full stop is not a plan. You know, there's, it never has been, it never will be. And that echoes, you know, quite frankly, how the entire GWAT was fought. You know, it's kind of a mess, Alex. But I'll, yeah. - I should say, I've been again reading Russian officials, particularly from the foreign minister, people of the Arab countries. And they're actually saying quite straightforwardly, the reason this is being done, all this talk about launching missiles is going on, is that it's a psychological war. They want to provoke us. They want us to provoke us into doing something stupid. And we are not going to let them do that. We are going to focus on doing, I know. But I mean, again, it is incredibly provocative because the other thing that happened, another, I thought, very surreal moment in the presidential debate. And again, I don't want to waste to devote too much time to it. Whereas Trump mentions the fact that the Russians have nuclear weapons. And this is sort of whisked away. It's not something that people seem to take terribly seriously anymore. I was brought up through the Cold War. I remember how afraid people were then of nuclear weapons. I think we should be afraid of nuclear weapons now. Provoking a nuclear superpower, saying to yourself all the time, well, you know, whatever they say, it's a bluff. You can push them however much you like. It seems to me, beyond reckless. And again, I have to say this, if this had been the United States of the 1980s, nobody then would have talked like that. No one in the political class at that time would have talked like that. - Mm-hmm, I completely agree with you. 110%, if an extra 10% was actually possible. I remember the '80s and I remember the Democratic Party of the 1980s. I remember the left of the 1980s and the '90s and the early 2000s, which fundamentally was the party of peace. It was an anti-war party. It was staunchly anti-nuclear weapon. You know, I came of age probably in the early '90s. As a young kid, I remember my friends' parents, bragging about having protested nuclear weapons in the 1970s. And these are absolutely terrifying weapons, as you know. And a country doesn't have them unless they have the will to use them. And thankfully, it's only happened twice in history. But, you know, it's very eye-opening to see, you know, exactly what you're talking about, where there's a provocation, you know, and then you have the response in the Western media of, you know, could the Russians use tactical nukes on the battlefield? And what would our response be? You know, just casually, as if it would be like, "Oh, this is just, you know, it's as if, "I don't know, a small country, another small country. "There's no other repercussions beyond that." And the discussion, you know, if people want to have a discussion about nuclear weapons, I think a good starting point would be how the Russians have re-examped their entire nuclear program. They're way ahead of us, they're better, they're way better than ours. Ours have kind of sat on the shelf for a long time. Because they haven't been used, they haven't been a priority. And furthermore, you know, while I was in the Senate, the restrictions on various types of missile production were done away with, the start trees. You know, the inter-range medium ballistic missile treaties. And I was partied to some discussions while I was there with the Russians about, you know, what it would take to get these back on track. And their only request was that we include the Chinese in it, to have a three-way discussion because we now have three, in effect, three major nuclear powers on the planet. And that was consistently shot down and ignored. Placing us in a rather, you know, kind of rather precarious position at this point, I would like to petition, you know, people out there to try to raise a little bit of awareness about this if it's, you know, if it's something they want to do. Because I would hate to see something happen where, you know, a city in the West potentially catches one because of, you know, reckless escalatory policy with a country that doesn't view our participation in their war. You know, as necessary to their own self-interest, other than the fact that they might, that we in the West might want to take Russia apart as our intent, which is not something that they are going to allow it to happen, period. - I think we should have a program, a separate program, by the way, to discuss the nuclear issue. But let's focus today on Ukraine. And I'd like to turn to the Cusk operation because as I'm sure you know, I was contacted about two and a half months ago by some. But he had told me and somebody, I should, the one thing I'll say about this person is he has a military background. And he told me that the Russians were setting a trap. Now, I've found that there is a sharp division of opinion about this ever since I first mentioned the fact that this is what this person had told me, which is that without exception, every single civilian commentator has completely dismissed that idea. They've said this is impossible. This is what happens. Foodin was obviously called by surprise. Whereas I noticed that military people, and remember, I'm not one, have said this is actually, it makes sense. It might indeed have been what the Russians were doing. And well, we've now seen what has happened, of course. I have received those emails. I've seen what they say. They look convincing to me. I'm not able to judge them. And I'm not able to second guess this person's sources. But where are we in Cusk? Today, we're hearing about an offensive that the Russians are carrying out there. Every day, we see pictures of Ukrainian losses. What's this another misguided, misconceived offensive that the Ukrainians launched? And why, given that it seems to be falling apart, at least that's my own sense. Why do we continue to support the Ukrainians in these foolish things? - Well, start with the trap, Alex. I am firmly of your opinion that it was a trap. You look at, if you look at the way the Russians fight war, if you look at the indicators on the ground, starting with the fact that they removed the minefields in front of those positions, with really no one behind it, to check a Ukrainian advance. And you couple that with the demographics of the cursed region, there's very little room, I believe, for any other conclusion than that period. It starts with, my conception of this starts with the fact that the Russians have dominance in the electronic warfare space. And the closer you get to their border, the more impactful that becomes, the more information they can pick up. This isn't just jamming, it's getting inside of communications equipment. We've been seeing the effectiveness of that for a couple of years now, where there's all kinds of stories and reports out there. If Ukrainian is turning on a cell phone or getting on a radio, and then immediately taking our telerefire. So they dominate that space. And I would assume that they understood Ukrainians were looking for a way to try and take pressure off of the troops who were being squeezed in the Donbas. And they found an area which they thought they might want to invade. It was probably very lightly defended. There was reports, I believe, prior to Ukrainian invasion that the Russians were going to use that avenue as an invasion route into Ukraine. They de-mind it. And then the best units in the Ukrainian military that are remaining appear to have crossed the border. So tactically and operationally, if you're facing a stubborn defender in any type of tactical construct, the thing that you want to do primarily as the attacker is to get the defender out of his defenses and in the open. That was the most deadly period of World War I, by the way, when everybody was in the open. So they effectively did that and they can analyze them. If you look at the maps, there aren't very many roads in Kursk. There's, I believe, one road that would qualify as a main supply route, going into that at the area that was invaded. There aren't many people in that Oblast. There's a million people, period. There's several thousand miles of rivers which are a nightmare if you are an attacking army. You constantly have to forward them. You look bridges can get blown behind you. You get trapped. The lack of roads makes resupply very challenging. And then you have the terrain, which is hilly and it's a mix of open fields which is perfect for a defender in this kind of war. And then fairly obvious, I like to quote Monty Python here, the importance of not being seen. It's one of my favorite skits of all time. Very obvious tree lines where the attacking forces are gonna try to hide. So you have all these pieces, right? It's hard to move. It's obvious. It was easy and it sucked in their best units. Then you have the next part of this, right? Which is the misunderstanding in the West of the Russian way of war. We in the West, we have a very much capture the flag kind of doctrine on the battlefield. And it was kind of a great example of that was the capture Baghdad in 2003 where you have the objective, you make a B line for the objective and you penetrate through the defenses. And as you penetrate through the defenses with armored units or mechanized units, infantry catches up and takes care of the enemy soldiers who are now fixed in their positions and cut off. So what you saw kind of on the map are these small groups of Ukrainian forces penetrating as deep as they could. They seize key pieces of terrain. And what really sold me, the final piece that sold me on this being a trap was the lack of a massive Russian response immediately. You would expect that a country being invaded would immediately throw a large amount of troops to check that advance. They, in effect, let them in and then started picking off their equipment piece by piece, leaving the infantry behind to fend for themselves. And if you are an infantryman on the ground, there's only so much weight you can carry. It's really right around 100 pounds and it has been for a thousand years. And in today's world, that is a couple of days of ammunition, water and food. And after that point, you are in, you're in a really bad spot. And following the arc of the invasion of Kurs, the Ukrainian advances, obviously, they petered out. They ran out of equipment. They started to run at ammunition. They started to take stiffer and stiffer resistance. And then in effect, their positions were fixed, became obvious and then came under a tremendous amount of indirect fire. Air strikes, missile strikes, artillery. And now you're seeing the result. Why we keep supporting this is a great question. However, on the battlefield, once someone is engaged, particularly in a conventional fight like this, it is very difficult to disengage and just leave. Particularly when, in my opinion, the Russians have seen a very great opportunity to wrap this thing up. I wouldn't say it's the total remainder of American equipment, but it's the preponderance. It is, it is, they're handed a golden opportunity to take all this stuff out to eliminate what remains of a NATO cadre on the ground. And then once those guys are gone, who is behind them to stop a Russian counter attack? And historically, this area is a spot that the Russian army is incredibly familiar with. The first battle of curse now, which used to be the battle of curse, happened roughly in the same area. And it was actually strikingly similar in many ways, not always, but in many ways to what's going on, where the Germans attacked into a defense in depth. They eventually ran out of equipment and fuel to conduct their offensive. And this was the cream of what remained of the German army in 1943. Particularly the cream of their equipment, the new Tiger tank, Panther tanks, some of their best armored units. And once they were checked and stopped, they were counter-attacked from curse down through summing, which we may very well see coming up. So on the one hand, this is a complicated, a very complicated situation where I would have liked to have seen some guidance from the executive branch in the United States, whether it's Department of State or DOD, to say, "Hey, don't do this." And once they engage to say, "Break this off and come back." But like I said previously, once troops are in contact, it's very difficult to do that. And just two very good things to say about this. Firstly, you have described exactly the Russian tactics that the Russian group of forces that is fighting in cusk are describing every day. They actually provide a very, very interesting website every day, bullet in every day, which they describe exactly the things that you've been saying. And they've been making it very clear, for example, that in engaging the Ukrainians, then major priority target was the armor to destroy the armored forces and to leave the men, the Ukrainian soldiers, to fight on foot. And this is all there. It's all there, it's all in the open. You can find it on their telegram channel and you can get it translated and it's all straightforwardly set out. And by the way, on the first battle, of course, the Russians made a massive feature film about it in the '60s in response to the American film about the longest day, about the day they were very annoyed with their films, so they decided that they were going to make one about the battle, of course, which tells you how important that battle is in the Russian national view. Now, while all that's been going on in cusk, and I think, by the way, your analysis is spot on, as it's exactly what the Russians are doing, it's exactly what they're thinking. And if you look at the forces, they just deployed in cusk, by the way, a very heavy emphasis on the Russian side on special forces units, which, again, isn't quite brought out, perhaps, in some of the Western discussion, but the kind of forces that you would expect to deploy if they were fighting in the way that you just described. Now, but that's not the only place where the war is being played out. We have, I think, dramatic developments in Donbass. And one of the stories that's coming out, there's this extraordinary Ukrainian MP. I'd say courageous Ukrainian MP. I know many people won't agree with me. Mariana Bezuglaya, she's going to one place to another where the fighting is, and she's saying, where are the fortifications? Where are the minefields? We haven't got any. Nobody's been thinking about building fortifications and minefields. And I'm sure you've been reading these articles that have been appearing in CNN and other places. Ukrainian soldiers say they're outnumbered, they're how guns, they're demoralized, they're being hit all the time, because that advice that you and George Beep gave a year ago still isn't being followed. There's been no attempt to do any of the things that you suggested then. What is your comment about this? Because events in Donbass now, especially, appear to be taking a very dramatic turn. - Absolutely, and I think this goes back to something we covered a little bit earlier in the show, Alex, which is that the Ukrainians are banking more and more every day. And if you look at the range of their escalation, attacking Moscow, attacking the nuclear radar sites a couple months ago, they are banking and increasing and are increasingly desperate for NATO to become involved. That doesn't excuse the fact that they have not kept their own house in order and have been preparing defensive lines. That would seem to be the absolute natural thing to do. But then you have to get into the corruption within Ukraine. It was the most corrupt country in Europe prior to this war. It was known for money laundering, embezzlement, gunrunning. It's a main reason they haven't been admitted in NATO previously, despite other than the fact that they would immediately spark a Russian invasion, which happened anyways, if that had happened. But that gets overlooked. And quite frankly, there might be something going on behind the scenes that we really don't have eyes on and aren't privy to. It's just the fact that there are very few Ukrainian men left. There's hundreds of thousands of casualties. So who's going to operate the equipment to dig trench lines? It's engineering units require a tremendous amount of men who are needed on the front line. I was reading an article last night where the Ukrainian military is saying they're down to putting their logistics people into trench lines. And if you're putting your logistic folks in a trench, it means that you are seriously outnumbered on the battlefield. You are having a horrific time because you are sacrificing the ability to resupply your units and keep them in the fight as a matter of desperation. And an example of when the United States did this, a good example is actually the Battle of the Bulge or conversely the Pusan perimeter in Korea, where there was such a desperate situation. They took every clerk, cook, logistics individual from Britain into the Bulge or from Japan into the Pusan perimeter. They could muster as an act of absolute desperation. The fact that they're not doing this does not bode well. I've seen reports in both Kursk and I'm sure it's the same in Donbas where the majority of the fighting men, the fighting units are very much forward. I think there's some debate about that in Kursk. But they're up front and everybody, there's a huge gap in the rear. And if the Russians managed to break through Kursk or break through another area, they could, in effect, and it could end this war very quickly in my opinion. And I hope they do because if nothing else, it's time for the bloodshed to stop. - I'm going to last one last question, which is about my own country, which is Britain, because I don't understand what is taking hold of us here. But you worked in Washington, you've been in the Senate, you helped, I think, one particular senator, you weren't the staff of one particular senator. Hey, what are people in Washington saying about us in London? I mean, we seem to be determined to be, as we say, as the French say, more royal than the king. We're pressing the United States all the time to get itself deeper and deeper into this crisis in Ukraine. Are people in Washington starting to question this and say to themselves, what are the British up to? Why are we listening to them? Are we, in fact, even listening to them? I mean, what is going on with Britain? And what do Americans, what do Americans, the political class, and why do Americans, because I'm worried, by the way, that eventually there's going to be a backlash against us in the United States when this goes wrong, not if, when it goes wrong. What are people in the US saying about this? We have no military to speak of anymore. We're down to 40 operational tanks, apparently, seven warships. I mean, this is, this is the state we're in. - British Navy. - Again, we're egg. The British Navy, the Royal Navy, you know, the rule of the seas, Lord Nelson and all that. And we're down to seven warships. And we are egging the Americans all the time to take ever greater risks. What do people in the US think about this? What do people in the military in the US think about this? - So quite frankly, Alex, I don't believe that Americans or the political class have a full grasp of how far, you know, we are being pushed by Great Britain. You know, that's just kind of the bottom line. This has been embraced as a crusade of the political class in Washington, D.C., you know, everywhere you turn, somebody's got a Ukrainian pin on Kamala Harris bragging that, you know, she has supported, you know, she is responsible for the Ukrainian's current situation, you know, and it's shaded as like, you know, I have stopped the Russians from getting to Kiev, not that I have enabled the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of their citizens. And so I think it's ultimately pointless. And there's another, there's another component to this, which is I think a little more delicate. It's that Americans don't have a grasp really of their own recent history, let alone the historical arc, which I believe leads Great Britain into, you know, having somewhat of a Russia phobia, a long-term one, and you all have been dealing with them since at least the Great Game, if not before, and it's been a chess match. I've talked to different people, some of whom are on the ground over there right now saying that, yeah, the SAS was, you know, involved from day one of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, the airfield, it's, I'm gonna butcher the name, but outside Kiev, I'm stall. The major fight where the Russian airborne came in, that was-- - Ghost to Mel, - Ghost to Mel, I think. - Ghost to Mel. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I apologize to any Russian Ukrainian speakers out there. But yeah, they were primarily responsible for defense there. They were some of the first guys firing javelins at the Russians as they came across the border. But there is, we're once again letting a, I wouldn't say a client state. You guys gave birth to the United States, but we have been senior partner since at least World War II or the end of it, you know, drive the policy because we have had an absolute lack of a national interest or a direction in our foreign policy for at least 30 years. And it's a series of political opportunities, I believe, cynically, to stay strong. To appear strong on a campaign trail, to appear strong on a podium, talking before your peers in Congress. The American people that the attitude of the American people is generally speaking, they do not want this war. They have not wanted this war, they don't understand why. But in terms of a backlash against Great Britain, I don't believe there ever really will be one because people just don't know enough to really make that consideration. - Jim Webb, thank you very much. Thank you for your clear and full-hand system, my various questions. I'm going to hand over to Alex, I'm sure he's got questions to ask. - Yeah, okay. - Jamie, you got some time for some questions? - Yeah, absolutely, yeah. - Awesome. - From Riceis, one second, let me put it up here. How will the Kremlin respond towards the US when the long-range missiles strike deep into Russia? - That's an excellent question. I hope they continue to do what they've been doing, which is strike on the periphery, kind of focus their ire on the Ukrainians themselves and bring a close to the war. You saw that response after the invasion of Kursk, there was a lot of fear inside the United States and inside the veteran and military community that we would be targeted specifically around the world. We've got Russian operations bumping up against us in Syria, in Africa, but what I think they're going to do is they're going to absolutely hammer Ukraine. They're going to keep raising the temperature on their response towards them in order to, in effect, create that buffer state that they were talking about from day one. If you push the Ukrainians back far enough, those weapon systems can't hit any real-city Russians care about. From 2005, just 2005, the only thing that Russia will run out of is museum floor space for Western equipment. So where do you think the idea came from that Russia will run out of steam? Was it poor intel, propaganda or copium? - Let's go with copium and propaganda, just straight up. It's one of those things that you have to keep pumping into the political and media bloodstream in order to continue to justify what's going on. I've been saying this from the first couple of months of the war, where if the American public understood the amount of death and destruction that our policy has wrought on that country and has wrought on Ukrainian people, then there would be an uproar in the United States that would potentially end this war within a week. At least our participation in it. There would be a massive push towards a political sentiment. - All right, from Ralph Steiner, if NATO Army Group South collapses, can the British challenger tank divisions fighting at Kursk be counted on to fight intact back to the Polish border? - Well, I mean, looking at the map the other night, I don't think many of the Ukrainian troops in that Kursk pocket now are getting out. They're gonna have to walk out. And if they drive out, it's crossed open fields, there's no roads. I also don't think that there's gonna be a fight all the way to the Polish border. I don't think that was ever the intent of the Russians to begin with if you go back to Putin's statements as to why he invaded. He said the same thing a number of times. And it blows my mind that that's not out in the US media more. There's never a discussion about, hey, here's the intent of our enemy. This is what they want to do. How do we counter that, right? Their intent is to destroy and kill off the Ukrainian army and its ability to make war. And then to create a buffer state where our missiles well, NATO missiles, I wouldn't say. That's the United States. Cruz missiles and the like don't have the ability to reach Moscow and reach other places. And that's what they're after. So one, those challenger tanks are gone. Two, there's not gonna be a fight at the Polish border. - Yeah. From Samuel Moroni, hi guys. Can you estimate losses KIA an irretrievable wounded on both sides? How can Russia have more losses if it has a four to one advantage in firepower? - That's an excellent point. I can't estimate losses. I can only analyze what I read and try to find some veracity in it. I think a great place to start though with Ukrainian losses is to take a look at the number of rounds of conscription they've had. And then the subsequent videos of people being conscripted beaten into conscription. You don't have that if things are going well. The United States took 250,000 dead, I believe, under the Second World War, and you know, you didn't have to force anybody to do anything. - All right, let's do one more for Jim and also for Alexander. This is a quick question from Matthew. Alexander, Jim, World War III or not World War III? Where are we heading? - I sincerely hope not World War III. I don't think we are in World War III yet, despite what people say, but we're not fighting directly. There's no great global clash at the moment. I think there is still enough sanity left in the United States, which is a country that would have to fight World War III to prevent it happening. And I can absolutely say the Russians don't want it. And I do the Chinese want it. So I don't think we are in World War III. What we are in is a major, and in my opinion ultimately unnecessary geopolitical clash because I think that all of the differences between the great powers can be negotiated. I don't think we have to be in this situation where we are in this period of extreme confrontation that we are seeing now. I don't think this is World War III, but we are in a geopolitical clash. And geopolitical clashes can be extremely dangerous. We see this in Ukraine. We potentially see this in Taiwan and the South China Sea and in the Middle East and all of those things. But if there is a decision made, as I remember in the late '60s and 1970s, which with the data on process at that time, to try to find a way out. And that by the way, started as a consequence as a product of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, this shocked the Americans had shocked the Russians and they started to try and look for a way through. If you do that, then I think you can actually surprisingly quickly get back to a period of stabilization. It's not happening because for the moment, there's so much emotion and so much anger and so many vested interests that seem determined instead to ramp things up and take us to potentially very dangerous places. Anyway, that's what I wanted to say. We'll see what Jim says. - Jay, I tell you. - Yeah, I agree with Alexander on this. I also don't think, you know, to take that step further, you need willing parties to engage in that. You also need the capabilities to engage in that, the military capabilities. So primarily the willing partner part of it, the US military does not want to fight in Russia. I even have my two-year-old daughter. You know, she said, like, what do we not do? We don't invade Russia, so yell it. It's cute and it's funny, but it's also true. The Chinese have absolutely no interest at this time, in my opinion, of, you know, despite all the hyperbole and the madness of invading Taiwan, because quite frankly, they don't need to. And if you read Sun Tzu, the entire objective of that book, in my opinion, is to defeat your enemy before you get to the battlefield, to defeat that. And not, it's not defeat him on the battlefield, you know, but you've broken him down beforehand, it's you don't want to fight him. And if we are their adversary, we're doing an absolutely fantastic job of defeating ourselves. We have $35 trillion in debt for starters. We have a military that's hollowed out, and that gets into the third point with the United States. Our military does not have the capability to be able to, A, project the amount of combat power on the ground, short of nuclear weapons, which I don't think anybody wants to do, to fight the Russians, let alone the Russians and the Chinese at the same time. So I don't think the will is there, I don't think the intent from the Russians and the Chinese is there. So as Alex was saying, this is a gigantic, unfortunate kerfuffle, which can be, you know, overcome, you know, with time. - All right, Jim, one more question from Russell, from Amir Ash. Why is it anyone stating the obvious? The US knows fully well Ukraine can't win. The only thing stopping them admitting this is good old fashioned pride and embarrassment. Do you think this is true? - I think it's completely true. You know, it's why we keep changing the goalposts on what success looks like and what I think there are many in Washington, you know, who aren't in DOD and aren't on the operational side of the intelligence world, who think that we are actually bleeding the Russian military out and the longer we keep this going, you know, the better we will be positioned post-war. So the objective is to weaken them as much as possible. Unfortunately, you know, what you're seeing is a completely reconstituted Russian military industrial complex, a rise in Russian nationalism. If you take a look at the volunteer and enlistment numbers in the Russian military over different periods of time, they're fielding what like a battalion a week, I think it was, like 1,000 guys. And that went up during the invasion of Kursk. So it's having a counterintuitive, counterfactual type of a type of result. But yeah, I would love it if, you know, somebody up there had the gumption to just stand up and say, hey, we made a really bad mistake. This needs to stop and we're willing to talk it out. I would be well received and it would be completely congruent with the way the United States has built its reputation, particularly post-World War II. As a negotiator, as a peacemaker, so we'll see you though. - Fantastic, Jim Webb, thank you very much. That was a great live stream. I have your link to Twitter in the description box down below and I will add it as a comment. Thank you, Jim, for everything. - Hey, thank you guys, I had a blast. - Thank you very much, Jim. - Thanks. - Yeah, thank you. - Take care. - All right, Alexander, let's knock out the remaining questions. - No. - Yeah, let me pull it off. - Yes, absolutely. - Okay, one sec. Everyone is complimenting you, Alexander, by the way. Everyone's saying that you look, you look really Dapper, really good today. That's what they try to say. All right, Ricardo Alfonso says, Putin should demand India and Brazil become guarantors for Ukraine as conditions for talks. - Yeah, I think that's quite plausibly said. By the way, I've been talking a lot about the irritation of the Russians feel with the Brazilians and the Indians, which Lavrov was quite clear about in statements that he made. I've discussed all of this on my channel. He had a major meeting yesterday with the National Security Advisor, or Brazil, about Lulu's National Security Advisor, all the national security advisors at the BRIC States are currently Moscow, by the way. They were in St. Petersburg and then they took the trade and they came to Moscow and they met Putin and then Lavrov took the Brazilian to one side and had a one-to-one meeting with him. And it's not difficult to guess what they talked about because the Russians have given us a readout and they say it's about Ukraine. So we can guess what the Russians were telling the Brazilians. But again, Zelensky has made things easy for the Russians because he's come out today and he's made some unbelievably rude comments about China and Brazil. He said that the Brazilians are being really unhelpful. They're saying all sorts of terrible things. They're making joint statements that are destructive. So people who have been trying objectively to help him, he bites the hand. So, you know, Lavrov must ask himself, this is Zelensky is the gift that gives on giving because he just makes Lavrov's job so much easier. - Yeah, because he's an arrogant spoiled actor. - No, that's why. - He's not a diplomat, he's not a statesman. He's an actor. - No. - Studio Reiner says, "Turkey comes out and says, 'Kremaya belongs to Ukraine. Europe is becoming the Ottoman Empire.' - Yeah, I think the reason for this, by the way, this is Erdogan, it's exactly what Erdogan does. It's exhausting, it's boring, frankly. But you see, Erdogan has just recently applied to join the BRICS. So he applies to join the BRICS, he says, "Well, he does one week." And then, of course, he says to himself, "Well, I've got to show the Russians." And it's always the Russians because he has this big thing with Putin. He likes respect, Putin, he hates and fears, Putin both at the same time. So he has to kick back and be rude and annoying to the Russians and goes out of his way to annoy them by talking about Crimea and the way that he does. The Russians don't like it, but they've learned to just shrug their shoulders and pay no attention. And it's working out quite well for them. - Exactly, exactly. Nikos KN125 says, "I saw Michael Zigar's interview with Newland and it was one of the most vile things I've ever seen, not because of Newland, but because of him. The fact that this guy is Russian and he is okay promoting the second worst person in America and people like her who destroyed his country is vile." - Well, that I'm afraid is typical of an awful lot of Russian liberals. I have to say that. I mean, they have an extraordinary attitude towards their country. Sometimes, I mean, it really borders on extraordinary degree of hatred and self-hatred, which is difficult to understand. By the way, I watched that interview and I was stunned by how brazen Newland actually was. I mean, I get quite naive, but I thought that she'd at least try and veil or pretend to veil some of the things that she wanted to say. I mean, not at all, but it's, you know, she wants Ukraine to be fully armed, you know, the Americans wrecked Istanbul. It's all there. - Yeah, she wants to take credit for the chaos. Nikos Kayn125 says, "Why people can't blame America "for the things they did? "You have Pierce Morgan promoting World War III "and how okay he is with sending his son to fight. "Maybe World War III is inevitable. "Maybe America is just too powerful." - But we've kind of answered the World War III. - I think we've answered it. I'm not much too mad. I mean, Pierce Morgan is not someone we should take. Especially seriously, I certainly don't. All I will say about Pierce Morgan is that he ought to perhaps learn from a far greater British person who was Rudyard Kipling the poet. The poet of empire, a great supporter of empire. And when the First World War broke out, he got his son into the British army and forced his son to go and fight in the First World War. And of course, the son was got killed and Rudyard Kipling never forgets himself. He went into a massive decline from which he never recovered. I doubt that Pierce Morgan has quite the sensibilities that Kipling did. But I think he should just take note of that and remember what happened. - Brad D says, "Russia has 57,000 kilometers of border. "Anyone can invade it. "But it's the hotel California of European armies. "They can check in anytime they like, "but they'll never leave. "Cursque will cost you credit the war." - Absolutely, Matthew, you're completely right. - Absolutely, Brad, yeah. Sanjeva says, "Greetings, Duran, "and thank you for all that you do. "Hello, Sanjeva, and thank you for that." Willem is a new member in the drag community. Welcome, William. Matthew says, "It's not just realistic to think "that there will be World War III. "Not only is there a risk of mutually assured "with destruction, but the Western knows "that it might be worse in that Russia "would come out best." Ralph Steiner says, "Lord, David Lamy in Kiev "said to Blinken, "Well, as you know, I always felt "we tried to go a bridge too far. "Cursque, can the Brits still reach Arnhem?" - I think you're right to bring up all of these things. More relevant where Britain is concerned, is that the British army was sent to Iraq and the Americans had to come to its rescue in Basra, and then the British army was sent by Blair to fight in Afghanistan, and the Americans had to come to its rescue in Helmand. After all that, one would expect some humility from the British, just say. - From Ralph Steiner, will the Britain Yanks be able to rebuild their neck and tank divisions after Cursque this winter, and be able to launch a fresh drive on Moscow next summer? - No, Mr. Short answer. I mean, I was reading about Germany, which of course still has a much bigger industrial based than Britain, and it will take them apparently till 2066 on current rates of production to rebuild their military to the level that it was before the war began. The British is hopeless, they couldn't do it. The Russians apparently could re-equit the entire Boondeswähr, the German military every six months on the basis of what they're producing now. That's the difference. - Alexander Sisselas, thank you for that. Super sticker, six, seven, four, three, five, one. Thank you for that. Super sticker. Ralph Steiner says the Yankee Americans did rather well against the gold herders in the Middle East. What difficulties have the Americans encountered on the Russian front? - Well, the Russian war is a completely different one. I mean, you're up against a peer military, which of course the Americans haven't fought basically since the second world war. Man, it's just saying. I mean, the closest they got to it was in Korea and Vietnam, but even there it wasn't quite the same. - Silila, thank you for that. Super sticker, John Scott says Ukraine will prevail. Ralph Steiner says the American seem unfazed with the passing of millions of Slavs for their banker empire will only a mushroom cloud exchange on USA finally end this. - I mean, do you remember what Jeffrey Sachs said to us on that live stream we did with him yesterday? Somebody asked him, do they care? He's talking specifically about the political class. Not about ordinary decent people who go about their lives. They would be shocked. I agree, by the way, with Jim Webb about this. They would be horrified if they knew what was going on. The political class, does it ever enter into their minds to think about the fact that all of these people have died? - Never does. They haven't talked about it. - Yeah, Arkane Eclectic says at John Scott as a spareman. He does this everywhere. (speaking in foreign language) Think of that super sticker. Stephen Hay says at Ralph Steiner. Yes, Blinken is unbound. Whatever has happened in history, but guided by his mental history conditioning, we'll try his best to make a more serious conflict occur. - Yeah, absolutely. Blinken has the genius of taking a bad situation and making it worse. That's what he does. - Yeah, the reverse might has touched. Tim Gibson, think of a super sticker. Ralph Steiner says, Lord David Linden Lammy speaking with British HQ in Kiev and Lord Boris Johnson says that the British boys are to push on at Kursk. Can they get there? - I think the Russian response would be bring them off. That's slightly, they'd be quite delighted if they can't attempt it to come on to Kursk. I mean, this is, I mean, I don't know what Lammy is thinking. Frankly, if you know anything about David Lammy, you'd know that he's, well, let's put it like this. He's not the sharpest knife in the draw, not by any stretch. So I don't know what he's thinking and I don't know what he's telling people in Kiev or what he's telling the military there. But as far as I'm concerned, this whole Kursk operation, whoever was behind it, it might have had some British input, has already proved a disaster. It was a disaster from the first moment that he began. It clearly failed within the first five days. And the way you know that it's a disaster is because Zelensky has come out and made another comment today about how the Russians are now on the offensive. And that means that everything is going according to Zelensky's plan. - No, he talks like that. You know, it's a disaster. - He said that, he actually said that. - Military advice from Lammy and Boris Johnson here. That's gonna work out well. - Allora G says, would you say that Russians are using maybe 20% of their brain power to out strategize NATO? - That's true. - I don't know, I mean, the thing to say about this is that the Russians have a profound knowledge of war. I mean, he's very ingrained in their society because they've had to fight so many. And of course, every single Russian family is affected by the experience of the Second World War. And every single Russian family thinks about war in ways that we simply do not do in the West. And if you're talking about the higher leadership, in contrast to what we were hearing about the United States, where the politicians don't speak to the soldiers in Russia, they do. - Yeah, good point. From Andrew Novak, saboteurs run the U.S. This is much too consistent to chalk up to ineptitude. Abinosa, thank you for that super sticker. Stephen Hay says, at Ralph Steiner, yes, it's no accident that the CIA and MI6 made a dis-info statement leading into Blinken and Lammy promo for USA, UK missile strikes into strategic Russian space in World War III. - Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, the other thing that those two, the Bill Burns, and I forget the name of the British guy, we're talking about, I mean, they were again talking about a more rich bit more, that they were talking about an insurgency again, all that awful idea is now coming back. We're just going to show that these people cannot give up. - No reverse gear. - Yeah. - No reverse gear. - The Black Cat, thank you for that super sticker. Elza says fortifications built by the Ukraine government are surrounding their luxury private property bought all around the world. - Absolutely. - Ralph Steiner says, does Baldrick have a cutting plan for Ukraine? - I'm sure he does. - You follow that series. The point about Baldrick's cutting plans is of course that they never exist. That's never, you never see any sign of them. - Stephen Hay says, at Mark Techman, US, UK, UK is acting strange, as in USA, the Netanyahu jobs grabbed the steering wheel via P and AC mega donors. - Yeah, I think that's fair enough. - Sophisticated caveman says, India and Brazil won't support Russia annexing another country's capital key. I have not a good precedent. It'll fracture bricks, thoughts. Am I all right? - I think that's probably, I think that is probably true. I don't think that the Russians will do that straight away. And my own guests, this is, now look, this is pure, your guests work on my part. I think the Russians will capture Don Bass. They'll probably push to see Nipa. They will take capture, recapture Zaporogia. They'll cross the Nipa and capture her. Some of this is all assuming there are no negotiations. And then I think what is going to happen is that Putin is going to issue in effect and ultimatum to the Ukrainians and say, look, we've achieved our military objectives. Now you sit down and talk and agree to the rest of Istanbul plus. And if you don't, then we will continue the war and we will continue the war until we get a Ukrainian government that listens to what we have to say. And I think that the outcome then will be that the Russians will move on Kiev, but they won't annex this territory. They will try to engineer the creation of a new government that they can negotiate with. So that's going to play out over time, but I think the Russians are not going to go directly from where they are now to outright annexation. Partly for the very reason that you just said. - Alexander Poitjecheff says, "At what point will the U.S. accept "that they can no longer maintain their world presence?" - Well, I think there will come a point either when there's been a major geopolitical defeat and Ukraine is going to be a major geopolitical defeat, but it may not be the efficiently big, but either that will happen as sort of shock events like the Cuban Missile Crisis or the fall of Saigon or alternatively a major crisis in the U.S. economy. And that is not to be excluded at all as we all know. - Stephen Hay says, "When Ukraine collapses, "will Cristiano Manpur post live from the Polish border "with flak vest when line of contact is 1,000 kilometers away?" - I would not be at all surprised. I think that's one might even predict it. - John O'Brien says, "How much provable reserves "of gasoline does Russia have within its borders?" - Oh, I think I'm limited. I mean, people are always coming up and talking about, I mean, if you want me to tell you exact figures, I don't know them. But whatever figures you see floating around, they're almost certainly underestimates. That's what I've discovered. Russian oil reserves, I'm talking about reserves of oil that's on the ground are certainly understated, just to say. - Sherry, thank you for that super sticker. East-West Amity says, "Total Russian victory "is inevitable, Mercuris, you're a meme "all over the pro-Russian side of Fort Chan. "Coffee happening in Ukraine thread. "We love you over there from an American good day." - Studio Reiner says, "Ukraine has been a great distraction "from Israel, do you think Perc was just to distract?" - I don't think so. I don't think it was adjusted to distract. I think that it was a last desperate throw of the dice to try to reverse the military collapse. That was already underway in Don Vass before it happened. Of course, it's accelerated that collapse in Don Vass, but I think that they went into Kusk hoping desperately that they've captured the nuclear power plant. I'm convinced that was their objective and that that was somehow short-circuit, everything, and that that would somehow turn the tables on the Russians and it didn't work out. And there was no realistic prospect that it would. And that's putting aside the very real possibility that it was a Russian trap. - Harry C. Smith says, "I have an inkling, "Cremlin comments re-unwanted pressure on Russia "may be a favor to India, Brazil "to get U.S.E.U. off their backs a bit." Just a hunch. - There may be some element of that, but I don't think so. I think that if you looked at the tone of both Putin's comments and Lavrovs, it was difficult to avoid sensing the impatience and exasperation that they both felt. - Elza says, "How about giving back an organ cypress for bricks?" - Very good idea. - Tish M says, "Sorry, I missed this live stream. "Don't forget that Gonzalo predicted "that there would be no 2024 POTUS elections." - Well. - Vladimir O says, "Alexander, I am a Russian liberal in the U.S., "but I love Russia with all my heart and hate cookie Vicki." - You're completely right, too. I should make it very clear. Not all Russian liberals are like, I can't remember his name, but I think you will agree. You will find some like that. And I know, I've known lots of most Russians that I know who are my friends are liberals, just to say. And pretty much all of them are deeply patriotic. But you do find some people in Russia and there's a surprisingly valuable number of them who are exactly, I think, in the way that I described. I don't think this person is uniquely unusual by any means. - Sparky says, "Build a better world with bricks." Tommy T says, "What is the latest "with the Ukrainian resistance to forced military service? "It seems like we have not heard much of this lately." - Well, we see it every day on the television channels and the YouTube channels. - Bear in mind, all these films that you see of people being man-handled and somebody's filming. That in itself tells you that there's a lot of resistance. It isn't just that people are resisting. It's the people are going out of their way to film them. And you see incidents where cars are set on fire that belong to the recruiters, that the recruiters of them. So it's beating up. There's an awful lot of this going on. - Jeff Bickford says, "Thank you." Summer of 1970 says, "Great job, guys." Sophisticated caveman says, "Moldova, Romania, "reunification is another issue." - It is absolutely another issue. One will discuss it and have the program. But this is an enormous one. - Yeah, Sparky says, "Will Ukrainian and AZI refugees "spread and amplify their ideology "in their refugee countries?" - Yes, it's the short answer. And if we start working towards establishing an insurgency, we're not just going to have them here, spreading their ideology. They'll be carrying guns as well. Just think of that. - Rockabilly says, "Finally, some from the USA "that understand what a trap Kursk is or was." By the way, good job on AM, Alexander Buckers, for being the first to understand it. - Well, I wasn't the first to understand it. I was incredulous when it was first put to me. But it was somebody that did write to me about this. And again, I can't disclose who this person was. I have the emails. And he explained how it was done. And he told me an awful lot about the military units that had been deployed to the area that were going to deal with it first. And an awful lot of what he said turned out to be correct. So as I've said many times, when you have information like that, however difficult it is for you to believe it, there has to come a point in time when the cumulative evidence simply becomes too strong. It becomes absurd to deny the evidence that you're getting all the time. But again, to repeat, Jim Webb sees it. Others have seen it as well. On the military side, the military people, people like Danny Davis also, for example, by the way, seem to understand this a lot better than the civilians do. - Stephen Hay says, "Sparky, my friend, good one. "Where have you been? "I love your support for these channels." Great to have Sparky with us. Stan Littman says, "If these win, "Hillary will be Secretary of State, the real president." - You can possibly surprise me. - Rafael says, "There will be a point "when Russia has to fight back." - Okay. I mean, the will come up. I mean, the Russians do have that eventual red line that they will have to push back on. We know that because even the Americans, even Jake Sullivan apparently have admitted it. And they say they don't know where this red line is. The Americans pretend they don't know where it is. Which is incredibly dangerous because they're pushing towards a red line that they claim they don't know where it is. The irrationality and the recklessness of this is beyond belief. - Henry Peltola says, "After losing to Russia, "West ignites Putinist hunt." It's ignites Putinist hunt? - Yeah, if you mean that they will come after Putin and they will try all kinds of means to put him out of the way, I'm sure the Russians believe that and I'll prepare him for it. - Jet said that one says, "Hello, just want to say "that I've been busy on a new project "and that I love you guys. "Nice suit, Alexander. "Great to have you with us." - Thank you, thank you, thank you, that one. - Great to have you with us. Gabby Iglesias says, "Alex, Casa deco mico." Thank you for that. Gabby, let's see. Ralph Steiner says, "Alexander, "Did Kamala beat Mr. T in the debate? "Did she hurt?" - I, you know, I'm going to take it. By the way, I should say this. Three people have discussed this debate best. One is Robert Barnes. The other is Matt Taibi. The third is my colleague and friend, Alex Christopher. I think it was summed it up brilliantly. I don't think he beat Trump really. This is my own particular take. I think she was really prepped up to troll Trump and go to annoy him as much as she possibly could. But if you actually whiddly down and look at who actually said substantive and concrete things, I think, in fact, in the end, it was Trump, actually. And I think that what will happen is that most people across the United States, outside the political class and the commentary class, I think they're going to be a lot less impressed by all of this display of, you know, smoke and mirrors and fire and thunder that we got from Kamala then than the commentary at all. I think they'll simply say this person has nothing really to say. All that she knows how to do is to go out there and annoy and irritate Donald Trump, who we know all about anyway. He's been around in politics now for quite a long time and we've already formed our opinion about it. That was my own view about it. - RK in eclectic says Achaan Scott, Slava Rosia. Death dealer 1341 says, "When will we see Russia go into the Sumi region "to push back the long-range missiles from their territory?" - Well, that would probably be quite soon, but as I always say, the general staff in Moscow doesn't share its plans with me. - Sparky says Modi needs to see someone, perhaps a mystic, to offset the Aletic curse. I'm not normally superstitious, but I'd feel better if he does. - Well, I think my own personal view is that I think that the Russians will resolve all of this with Brazil and India. I think this is a spasm that's happening now, but I think they'll be able to work it out with the Indians and the Brazilians. I think with the Indians, the relationship is so strong that it can take this odd knock. With Brazil, it's another matter. I think the Russians are seriously annoyed with Lula and for the Brazilians. And of course, they've also had issues with them over the Venezuelan election. But in the end, I think Brazil will not want to avoid being part of the Greeks, not for the moment. - Samuel Moroni says, "If Ukraine falls, we'll poll into Russia to Lviv." - That is a massive question. You know, I've got the sense that the polls have cooled on that idea, but all kinds of reasons. From Ralph Steiner, "How does Britain find so much money for Ukraine?" - Very good question. There is a claim by Alex Kramer and Tom Longer that in fact, Britain is, one of the reasons Britain is in deep crisis at the moment. And by the way, there's sort of ephemeral growth that we were hearing about a few weeks ago, has now beat it out. The British economy is hovering again on the brink of recession. But you know, Kramer and Longer have suggested that the British banks have been giving guarantees for Ukrainian loans, and how that Ukraine has gone into fault. These loans, which amount to about 60 billion pounds, not dollars, the British have given guarantees on, and the creditors are banging on their doors for it. And of course, if that's true, then that's a big thing. I haven't heard anything about that here in Britain, but the fact is we don't have money to give to Ukraine. And I think more and more people are getting very annoyed about the fact that our government, whichever parties is, seems so obsessively focused on Ukraine. - And from Andres Ferrenci says, "Will the Western public ever understand how much foresight and wisdom my PM or bond has shown in the crisis and that he actually was Ukraine's only real friend all along?" - I think that this is widely understood around the world. The one place it's not understood is in Europe and to some extent in Washington. - All right, that is everything, Alexander. Final thoughts as I do on that? - First of all, outstanding live stream, can I just say? And the comments we got were really stellar today. So wonderful guest, wonderful comments, a great live stream all together. This is the tipping point and I would not be surprised by the way of Jim Webb's rights. And if we see the end come much faster now than some people expect, I still think it will drag on to 2025. But the whole thing is beginning to look as if he's holding together with sellotape basically, the whole Ukraine project is just coming apart. So it looks to me. - Exactly, yeah. All right, so we will end it there. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Rockfin, on Rumble, on Odyssey, on YouTube and on thederan.locals.com, our locals page. Definitely check it out. Thank you, Custard Pie for that super sticker. Thank you to our moderators, Tish M, Peter and the other moderators that were helping out. I think it was just Peter and Tish M for today. So thank you very much to our moderators and we will catch you next time. Take care. [ Silence ]