The Duran Podcast
Cruel month of March for Ukraine
All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine. What is the situation on the front lines, Alexander? Well, March, I think, was one of the cruelest months for Ukraine in the war so far. From what I can tell, casualty rates were the worst they've been since pretty much the start of the war, at least if you believe the Russian defense ministry, which I'd rather do, there's been a massive series of missile strikes. Now, these have been going on night after night, after night. They've been striking at all kinds of centers across Ukraine, decision-making centers, the headquarters of the positions of the SBU, the internal intelligence agency. They've also attacked uncles like the one, there was one in Chasse of Yar. Many people think that a Polish general who's recently, whose death has recently been confirmed, was killed in that strike, and that's possible. We had, if you remember, strikes on buildings in Odessa, but also now we have a systematic and relentless campaign by the Russians against the Ukrainian energy system. And this is on a qualitatively, completely different level from what we saw a year ago in 2022-2023 when the Russians were attacking the distribution system. Now they're actually going for power stations, and they're causing enormous devastating damage. We're seeing the Russians now bringing out more and more new types of missiles, and this is a big story in itself because the Turkhan hypersonic cruise missile has now joined the various strikes across against Ukraine, and this is a weapon system against which no one in the world has any counter, and it's proving to be devastatingly effective from what we can see. And on top of everything else, the situation on the battle front, the actual fighting on the battle fronts, more information about Ukraine getting ground down, the main focus of the Russians increasingly, it's well, it's now clear, is central Donbas. This is where the Russian advance is concentrated on. They captured up there back in February. It looks like two other towns, Pervomieski, which is a big place, well, bigish place, 28,000 people before the war, is about to fall. Reports that another town or small or rather big village, but strategically positioned big village, Novomieski Lefka, has actually already fallen, I mean, that's what the reports claim. And more advances in all sorts of places in this area with the Ukrainians steadily running out of men and machines. And there was a rather desperate commentary on one of the Ukrainian telegram channels, I think it was resident, in which they said that what's happening is that the Ukrainian military are forced to send more and more troops to try to hold back the Russian advance on the front lines. The Russians attacked them with bombs, missiles, drones, and now robots, and we come to that in a moment, the Ukrainians take staggering losses. And according to the Russian defense ministry, Ukraine lost 30,000 men dead and severely wounded in March, which I believe is a record. That's the Russian defense ministry figure, I should make that clear. And they can't keep up this level of defense for much longer. And there's other reports that if they're pushed back further from various of these places, the roads are now shot through by the Russians, they control the roads to the rear, and any further Ukrainian retreats will result in even more devastating losses. And last but not least, Badanov comes out and he admits finally what many have known that the Russians have all but completed their big railway lines from Rostov to Crimea. The Crimean bridge is apparently no longer used to transport military equipment or military goods. And in addition, once that railway line is completed, once railway lines that the Russians have now taken control of in Avdavka brought into operation, once other railway lines that the Russians might be eyeing and seeking to take control of in places like Chassafjia and Civersk are also full under Russian control that will massively simplify Russian logistic operations. And that will break the way for a very, very much bigger Russian military being deployed in Ukraine than anything we've seen up to this point. So I mean, overall, it is a horrendous situation. And it's important to say there's absolutely nothing Ukraine can do to turn this round. And I just said it's the Westcan. They're now talking again of Attackham's missiles being sent to Ukraine. That's not going to change anything, not on the battle lines. The Russians have shown great ability to shoot down missiles. I'm sure they'll be able to shoot down Attackham's missiles. We're talking about Attackham's missiles, 1980s technology. At the time when the Russians are launching circa on hypersonic missiles, a technology that is completely new against Ukraine. I mean, the difference is becoming, you know, painful to see the F-16s massive problems with those. And well, all together, a very bleak situation. And there was a description of Zelensky from David Ignatius, he's all by himself in his building, you know, his headquarters in Kiev. It's sandbagged all around, surrounded by armed guards and all the civilian officials have gone. So that's the situation now. Yeah, the David Ignatius interview with Zelensky, where Zelensky did throw out there the possibility of negotiating based on the 2022 borders. In essence, Zelensky's talking about the negotiations in Turkey. He's kind of saying we could possibly go back to that. But the attacks on the Crimean bridge, you're talking about Wudanov that he now admits that the railways have been completed. And it is logistics that win wars at the end of the day. But it was never about hitting the Crimea bridge was the Kirch Bridge was never about military infrastructure. That was the cover that they were using. It was always about hitting the bridge because it was a symbol of Putin and the Putin administration. So I mean, they can't use that excuse anymore if they try to target the the Kirch Bridge. They can't come out and say that we're hitting military infrastructure because Wudanov has now come out and said that the bridge is not going to be used to transfer weapons. It's a civilian bridge, pure and simple. So I mean, you know, it was never about the attacks on the bridge were never about hitting military targets. It was always about trying to weaken the Putin government because that's the connection that they created. The Kirch Bridge with Putin. And that's all they have left. That's all the collective was tasked is to try and somehow figure out a way to weaken the Putin administration. Yeah, absolutely. This is the only thing they have. I mean, this is what it has been, of course, all the way through, right? All the way back going to, you know, the sanctions, the attempt to destroy the Russian army last year in the summer, the great summer offensive. By the way, David Sachs has done a brilliant tweet on this. Just just just saying, you know, the summer offensive. All of this, and they've been, you know, recycling all that and they're coming. This is this is still what they're talking about. It was Zelensky. I mean, he's been giving a number of interviews. He gave the one to David Sachs. He then gave another one, I believe, to CBS, which he said essentially the same things. And of course, it's all very well now, you know, going back to 2022 to Istanbul. But it's far too late. And he still hasn't taken the step, which is to rescind the law, the decree, which he himself passed, which prohibits negotiations with Russia. So he says this, I mean, he talks about, you know, earlier, we let's go back to 2022. But we still want our old territories back, all of them, including like Crimea, which is, it's just that we accept that we might not be able to get them immediately through military methods. So, but eventually, we must have them back. That's still our purpose and our intention. And you know, all we need is if you give us, you know, 10,000 tanks and 500,000 missiles, 500,000 attackers missiles, whatever crazy things it is, this is asking. We could still win the war for you. We could still defeat the Russians and you have your regime change and all the things that you've always wanted will come true. It is a fantastic exercise in self-delusion, just as you had an equally deluded interview from his top general, General Siyoski now, in which, you know, as I said, a pair of Amyskys are proud to fall, normal Mikhailovka, perhaps has already fallen. The Russians are now apparently a few hundred meters from Chassov-Yar. The Russians are advancing everywhere. Power stations are being blasted across Ukraine. The lights are going out. Siyoski says well, over the last few weeks, we've actually gained more ground than we've lost. He doesn't say where this ground they've gained is, but still, they can't stop. They can't stop lying. I mean, it's anything I could say fantasizing and pretending that things could still turn out well for them. And Siyoski now admits they can't call up for half a million men because, well, presumably there would be massive protests and opposition in Ukrainian society. So the whole demobilization, rather mobilization effort appears to have collapsed. But the one thing none of these people prepare to do, not Siyoski, not Siyoski, not the Bidenist administration, not the Europeans, they're not prepared to accept the realities and sit down and think the thing through and say, how do we get out of this mess? The Russians are winning and they're not just winning. They're winning big. They're also exposing the fact that technologically, far from being this gas station, you know, masquerading as a country, they're ahead of us in certain key technologies. And we talked about the Serkon hypersonic missile. Apparently these missiles carried out and they were the missiles that were used to carry out the missile strike on the SBU building in Kiev. And they traveled from the Black Sea. They were launched from ships in the Black Sea. And they reached Kiev in six minutes, six minutes. That's the distance of our, I think it's about 700 kilometers. I mean, the speed of these things is astonishing. There is no air defence missile in the world that can shoot them down. And apparently, when they move so fast that they create a plasma cover around them, which means that they're pretty much invisible to radars as well. So, the west has nothing at the moment like that in its arsenal. Monday it will, but at the moment it doesn't. And now we see robots actually being used for the first time. And these must be AI-based. I wonder how the Russians were able to use AR-Rob, produce AR-Rob robots. But AR robots are now starting to appear on the battlefronts with the Russians launching an attack with these machines in a village called Bredishi. And you see the field of this and it literally looks like something straight out of Terminator 2, which is creepy. But you know, all of this is stacking up. All of these problems are stacking up there. Russians are ahead in ammunition production, in drone production, in AI applications on the battlefronts. But nobody talks peace or negotiations or tries to find some way out. And there's been an extraordinary piece by David Goldman in Asia Times, in which he again attended a meeting of all these top people in the US foreign policy and defense establishment. And you know, they're all talking about, you know, we must double down and triple down and find some way to escalate the war and achieve victory and humiliate Russia and break Russia and break Putin. And engineer regime changed there. They still stuck on all of this, even as everything falls apart around them. It's a story of delusion, in Kiev, of delusion in Washington, of delusion in Brussels, and I don't see any end to it. It's most astonishing. Break Putin. It's what we started this entire conflict with. And that's where they still are, is to break, we did to break Russia apart. That's what got them into into this mess. But yeah, Terminator 2, huh? It's scary stuff to see the robot in action. It's interesting. It's fascinating. It's interesting, but it's also scary. Yeah, it is scary. But I mean, you know, there they are. I mean, there's films of them. And apparently, I mean, we've seen film of two in action, but it seems that the total number of these robots that took part in this fight was about 10. And this was only a test run. Apparently, there's hundreds coming. It's historic in a sense, isn't it? It is historic. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, the Russians did it first. Now, you know, I'm not saying, you know, that the US won't do it too. Obviously, well, but the Russians did it first and they're doing it in Ukraine and they've got these robots now coming off the production lines. I assure you, visited a big factory, you know, the Altai region, which is in Siberia. We don't know quite what it produces, but he talks, he's talking there about the enormous expansion of the factory. I wonder whether this is the factory where these robots have been made, by the way, because there was so much secrecy about the nature of the factory. And so much priority gives them to its expansion that, you know, I do wonder. Okay, so there are reports that Speaker Johnson is going to put an aid package to the house up for a vote. The aid package is going to have money to Israel, but it's also going to have money to Ukraine. And most of the money will be towards Ukraine. We don't know the amount and their rumors floating around as to how Johnson's going to approach this. But he definitely wants to wants to bundle package with a package of of a Israel with Ukraine. And he's working with the Democrats. From what I understand, he's working with the Democrats to try and get my parts and support so that they can put this this package up for a vote. If it does go up for a vote in the house, I imagine it will pass. And I imagine that money will will go to to project Ukraine. Once again, we don't know the amount, maybe 61 billion, maybe less than 61 billion. But if if Ukraine can't mobilize, if they can't mobilize, if they have problems, they have problems mobilizing, the money that's going to to go to to project Ukraine from the US, I imagine most of it is just going to go to the military industrial complex of the United States so that they can restock everything that they've lost to Ukraine. And they'll probably get rid of a lot of their older stuff and they'll give it to the Zelensky regime. But most of the money is going to remain in the United States. How does Ukraine get out of this then? I mean, this is not they can't mobilize any troops. 61 billion, it's not going to go into into the accounts of Zelensky. Zelensky is not going to have 61 billion in an account in Kiev. Most of the money, if not all of the money is going to stay in the in the US. So is Zelensky just trying to figure out a way to to get out of this mess to to find an exit? Because we do see a lot of his staff is is mysteriously I think it's mysterious is getting fired. I think they're asking to leave. But anyway, what are your thoughts? Because when you step back and see the situation, there is no no war really left to fight, at least in the next year or two. I mean, maybe they have another year left in them, but but that's it. If you can't mobilize, you can't get weapons, you your economy is collapsing. I mean, let's just talk briefly about the aid appropriation. I mean, the aid appropriation is what we've discussed many times. It's all about domestic American politics. It's ultimately about Ukraine. The administration wants to fasten the blame on the Republicans for the coming debacle in Ukraine. The Republicans for their part want to make it absolutely clear to Americans that they're fighting the cause of security on the border, but they don't want to be blamed for the coming collapse in Ukraine. So something will be packaged and something will be approved and there will be more money and it will be nowhere near enough. And what it is, as you rightly say, will go mostly to restock the Pentagon's own stocks and Ukraine will be provided with some more handouts. But in the crucial area of shells, for example, other things like that, they're not going to get anything that's going to turn things around. And just before I proceed with that, you remember there was this new plan of President Pavel of the Czech Republic, 800,000 shells that were going to be found on the international arms market. They're already complaining that prices are rising, that they can't get all the shells that they promised. It's unlikely most of them will arrive before the end of the year. I mean, exactly what we said would happen. That plan also is turning to dust. So you're absolutely right. This whole business of this aid package is a femoral. It has no real reality to it. It is a mirage. It is a medium meme more than anything else. What does Zelensky do? Well, he is, I think, trapped inside his own rhetoric. If you read the article with David Ignatius, whatever you may think of him, it's clearly a clever man. I mean, he says at one point that Zelensky has come to inhabit as an actor the role which he has been given. He can't break free of it. So he's this heroic Che Guevara figure and this t-shirt, whatever it is, he's going to lead the defense of Ukraine. And he just continues reciting these lines. Sometimes he does this with huge bursts of optimism. Others moments he falls into depression, but he can't really escape the role. And as you correctly say, all the people around him are not running away. I mean, they're all vaulting. So a few days ago, we had announcements that virtually the entire civilian staff that works with him, all his civilian advisors. These are people who were with him from the moment he was elected, including a man called Safir, who was his chief advisor. They've all said, you know, we're off. We're going. We're leaving. And that's exactly what we've done. Now, then we had, if you before that, we had Danilov. He was supposed to become ambassador to Norway is now being demoted. He's been made ambassador to Moldova. I think he must be visually angry with that, by the way. I mean, Norway would have been a nice cushy place. Moldova hardly so. But anyway, they are they are they are abandoning. They're they're bailing out. I mean, that is what it looks like. And realistically, what else can they do? Because it's clear that Zelensky has no plan. All he has is lines. That's all he has. He just reads out the same lines. He has no plan. He can't produce a plan. That's not what Zelensky does. And the people who might produce a plan, the Americans or the Europeans, well, for all kinds of complex reasons, which we don't need to go into in great detail, they're incapable of producing a plan either. Well, ultimately, because they've allowed an obsession with Vladimir Putin to completely walk their understanding and their thinking. So, you know, obsessive people cannot plan. And besides, they're hopelessly inadequate, as we've often discussed. I just wonder how they're going to get out of this. I really am curious how they're going to get out of this. Yeah, they'll blame each other. This is what they'll do. They'll say, you know, it's the Republicans who to blame, or the Republicans will say it's the Biden administration who used to blame and the neocons will say it's everyone that everyone is to blame because we didn't start World War Three. There's even one senator who's come out apparently and said, you know, we should go all full, you know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki on this one, you know, not just about Ukraine, but about Gaza as well. I mean, when people start talking in this way, then you understand that the options are running out and that they're becoming very angry and very unbalanced and desperation is setting. Well, the U.S., as we've always said, the U.S. is just to wrap it up. The U.S. can get out of this because eventually people in the U.S. are going to forget about the buckle in Ukraine and in much the same way they've forgotten about the debacle in Afghanistan. Yes, the buckle in Ukraine is going to be magnitudes bigger and more embarrassing, but eventually after a couple of weeks or a couple of months, people will forget about it. It's the Europeans, the Europeans, they're going to be they're going to be stuck with this catastrophe, they are suffering with this catastrophe. If you look at the economic numbers of the UK of Germany, you know, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting you say that because today in the Financial Times, there's a long piece about how the German government is warning people to be aware of Russian misinformation and they say one of the main major problems with a lot of this Russian misinformation is that it is unfulsifiable. In other words, it is in fact the case that the German economy with all this information is they actually go down the tubes. So you can't actually deny that, but you must listen to it because it's still misinformation. It's a mathematical, if you read it in the Financial Times. And Sunak's government, they said that it has been in a recession for like the past year. They admitted that as well. So there goes the talk about about the UK is not affected or not connected to any of the sanctions against Russia, where we're completely isolated from any of the business activity that goes out between Russia and Europe. That's been proven false as well. Well, obviously. I'm not going to say more than that, obviously said. All right, we will edit there. The demand at locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, but you tell the Graham Rockford and Twitter X and go to the demand shop, pick up some limited edition merch. Link down below in the description box. Take care. [Music]