The Duran Podcast
Battle for Chasov Yar begins. NATO weapons shortage
All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is happening in Ukraine. Let's start with the front lines. A collapse? Are we seeing the beginning of a collapse? The threat, the risk of a collapse as Politico put it? What is happening on the front lines? A lot of people are talking about Chaslofyar. I've read reports that the Russian military is on the outskirts of Chaslofyar and something big is going to begin very soon. But of course, we have other areas where a lot of fighting is taking place on the front lines. So what is the situation? I think it's too early to talk of an outright collapse by the Ukrainian army. They're still fighting, and they're still resisting in many places. Talking about collapse implies something like what happened in 1991, when the US military, after its extensive bombing campaign, began to move into Kuwait and then beyond Kuwait into Iraq. We're not seeing anything like that for the moment. On the country, Zelensky and Sinsky are still giving orders to the Ukrainian army to defend every single millimeter of ground wherever it is. Now, I have an undefendable it is, and there are still Ukrainian soldiers who are begging those orders and still fighting. We see that right across the front lines. But we are getting closer to that point when that collapse is likely to come. We're seeing more signs every day that the Ukrainians aren't able to hold the Russians back. The Russians are pushing forward pretty much everywhere. They're taking more and more of the really key places, the big fortified places, that the Ukrainians established, as part of these enormously intricate fortified lines, that they created in Donbass after the 2014 fighting. Maninka fell in December of Deafka fell in February. The Russians are now outside Petrovomysky and Krasnogorovka, which are two of these other fortified places. Petrovomysky looks like it's about to fall. The Ukraine is still resisting there at risk of encirclement, I should add, but the Russians need to control at least 70% if it's probably more of it. They seem to have cut off all the main roads. Krasnogorovka is somewhat earlier stage of the fighting there, but everybody can see that the direction is clear. Now, Chassafja. Chassafja is important because it's a town just west of Bachmut. Remember, we were being told last year, when Bachmut fell, there was a completely unimportant place of no strategic significance whatsoever. It was entirely symbolic and didn't mean anything. David Gantz, who is the great American historian of the war on the Eastern front in the Second World War, says that Bachmut was in fact the actual, the key of the German defense lines in Don Bass during the Second World War. When you actually look again at the web of railway lines and roadways that link everything together, Chassafja and Bachmut are absolutely essential. Chassafja are a relatively small place, but on a hill, apparently, if the Russians capture it, they dominate the landscape around their control or the communications, and the way is open for them to move on to Klamatorsk and Slaviansk. That's basically the very last line of defense of all, and it is not as strong as the ones that have already fallen. So, big panic in the west about Chassafja. It wasn't expected that the Russians would get there. Lots of rumours that there's been lots of NATO officers in Chassafja. Lots of rumours that this bunker complex was destroyed by the Russians in Chassafja that de Polish general who everybody, it's a knowledge that he has just died, but that he was actually killed in this attack on this bunker complex in Chassafja. And a sense of panic starting to spread about that in the west and even in Ukraine itself. And you said that reports that the Russians have arrived at Chassafja. That, I think, is uncontroversial. But this morning, one of the advisors to Denis Prusilin, who is the head of the regional government of Donetsk, actually says that the Russians have entered Chassafja, at least this eastern suburb of Chassafja, which is the one that they're attacking at the moment. So, a terrible picture for Ukraine right across the front lines. They're being bombed. They're being shelled. We discussed recently an article by Politico that, you know, that they were Ukrainian officers were themselves admitting that Ukraine can't win the war, that the direction is now pointing clearly to a Ukrainian defeat. An article by Edward Lutvak, famous American military analyst and theorist, saying exactly the same, talking about a disaster coming in Ukraine for the west, a major geo-strategic defeat. And we see how all that is translating on the battlefield. So, the Ukrainian is still fighting, still clinging on, but losing ground, losing men, losing machines every day, latest reports that they're having to convert some of their armored brigades into infantry brigades, because they've run out of armored vehicles. And I mean, the direction of travel now is absolutely clear, with the Russians getting stronger all the time. Just to finish, Kurt Campbell, the new deputy secretary of state, the man who got the job that Victoria Newland wanted, he's actually coming up and giving an analysis saying that the Russian army has been reconstituted and is now stronger than ever. So, the whole thing about weakening Russia, it's turned out, didn't work out like that at all. Yeah, I read that analysis. Mike Johnson, the reports are that Mike Johnson is going to define the way to get money to Ukraine, 61 billion to Ukraine. Europe is talking about the NATO summit, the European leaders were talking about getting patriot air defense to Ukraine. Germany is talking about going around the world and finding patriot air defense. You have the Pavel from Czech Republic going on and on about finding shells, going around the world and finding shells. If the collective West had these weapons, these air defense systems, these shells, would they be holding them back because Ukraine doesn't have 61 billion? No, I mean, is that right? Well, the way they're trying, here's my question to you, the way they're trying to sell this to us is, well, you know, we've got all these weapons, but Ukraine needs money in order to buy these weapons, to get these weapons. That's how they're trying to present it. But that's not the case. If the West had all of these patriots and shells and everything, they would have been in Ukraine months ago. So, doesn't that tell you that the West just doesn't have, they don't have these weapons. They don't have the patriots. They don't have the shells. They don't exist. You are absolutely correct. That is exactly true. Very mind that, you know, the United States may be short, you know, they may have had trouble getting Congress to approve a $61 billion appropriation. But the Europeans have any number of, you know, they've got deep pockets as well. Germany can easily afford to get together with other European countries, come together with a $61 billion euro package for Ukraine. They could have bought weapons from the United States if those weapons existed. I sort of think people just don't understand, but that option was always there, but they never did, because there's weapons aren't there. I was reading recently that there are no spare Bradleys, for example, that, you know, all the talk about Bradleys, you know, that there was vast stockpile of bad Bradleys in reserves. It isn't true, apparently. I mean, this is all smoke and mirrors about the shells. Well, nobody's in any doubt about that anymore, because of course, the latest plan, the latest scheme, all of these things that we've just been talking about, schemes, by the way, they're not real plans. The latest scheme was to buy shells on the International Arms Market. That was what President Pavel came up with. If the United States had 800,000 spare shells, the Europeans would have bought them from the United States. The reason they're not buying shells on the United States is because the United States doesn't have shells, so they're going to the International Arms Market to buy the shells there. And what they're discovering is that the arms dealers are raising their prices. And of course, we don't know what shells actually do exist and what condition they're in. So that already is falling apart. And the same with the S16 thing, that's all falling apart now. All of them, all of these things are falling apart. And that the Germany is going around the world trying to find Patriot missiles. But if they want to find Patriot missiles, it's very easy. They just call the Americans. They'll tell them where the Patriot missiles are. The fact is, there are no spare Patriot missiles. I mean, you know, the Saudis have a few, a couple of other countries too, but they want them. They need them for all kinds of reasons. They're not just going to give away their Patriot missiles. So you're absolutely right. I mean, it's all about money. It's about weapons. And there's something terribly humiliating, really grubby and undignified about the once mighty West, you know, grubbing around, trying to find, you know, the old Patriot missile system here, the old hundred thousand shells there. I mean, it conveys a terrible picture. You don't hear the Russians doing this? No, they're producing these weapons. They're producing them, exactly. At record speeds. At record amounts. Yeah. Outproducing. Outproducing. Well, Bloomberg, yeah, you know, the big problem that the collective West face that Ukraine, that Ukraine military faces, Ukraine proxy is no more men. I think, you know, when you go to the articles, especially the recent articles that came out, that's what they're hinting at is, is you know, we're behind the technology. We're not getting the weapons to to the front lines, but we're running out of men. And mobilization has been a catastrophe. This mobilization law from Ukraine has been a complete catastrophe. I remember when they were making fun of Russia about the the hiccups that they had when they were doing the partial partial conscription. And now look, it's what's happening in in Ukraine with the mobilization law. But, you know, the talk is that either we put NATO boots on the ground. Or that's it, because we could give Ukraine 500 billion. We could give Ukraine 10,000 patriots, but they're running out of of soldiers. Yeah, I mean, this is you can't address that. That's something that you can't fix unless NATO actually goes in. Yeah, that is absolutely right. I mean, I would just say one thing. I mean, one of the reasons we're hearing about Ukraine having these terrible manpower problems, I mean, it is true. They are having terrible manpower problems. But partly, this has been given the emphasis that it is being given, because it's a nice way of not talking about the fact that the West has these critical equipment shortages. I mean, it is very humiliating. In fact, it's not just humiliating, it is disastrous. I mean, the optics globally of this are terrible. I mean, we were told NATO, the greatest military alliance that has ever existed in human history. And, you know, they're having to fan out across the world, paying arms dealers to buy shells. I mean, the optics of this are terrible. So, these people always focused on narratives. You change the narrative. You talk about manpower instead, the manpower crisis in Ukraine. Now, having said that, there is a manpower crisis in Ukraine. I mean, that is indisputable. We're getting reports and reports and reports every single day about this now. And the reason there is a manpower crisis in Ukraine is because of all these terrible losses that Ukraine has been suffering over the two years of the war, which, of course, the West up to now has been denying. They have been denying that these terrible losses have happened. They said the Russians have suffered extraordinary losses. But the Ukrainians have not. But now, of course, suddenly, there's this admission that Ukraine is running out of man. And I mean, all that is true. There's no doubt about it. And the mobilization law in Ukraine has proved a disaster. Exactly, as you said, it's not going to produce many more men. Even General Siski, Ukraine's own military chief has admitted as much. They're having to throw in younger people into the battle, into the meat grinder, which is horrible. The parliament is very unwilling to sort of pass this law. One Ukrainian parliamentarian has said it's done an even bigger damage to the economy. Just the talk of this mobilization has done more damage to the Ukrainian economy than the Russian special military operation has done because so many people have fled as a result. And that means that there's no massive shortage of people operating anything in Ukraine any longer, possibly true. But anyway, it is a disaster. There is a shortage of men. You can't replace the men. And of course, you can come up with schemes because that is what they are. You send French troops or Romanian troops or both troops in the Baltic regions. You say that they're going to take auxiliary rolls. They're not going to actually do any fighting, but they will release Ukrainian soldiers so that the Ukrainian soldiers can fight instead so that the Russians can kill more Ukrainians, which is what that would emerge to. But the reality is that sending NATO troops in any capacity into Ukraine is going to make them targets. That's what the Russians have said. Western publics are not ready for that. They're not ready to see hundreds, perhaps thousands of their men dying in Ukraine against Russia in a battle against Russia. And this is another scheme like finding the Patriot missiles, finding the shells in the international arms market, creating a new alliance to develop armor for Ukraine. Not a single new tank has been delivered to Ukraine, by the way, for ages. The fighter jet coalition, all of these coalitions that they've come up with, all of these are schemes that everybody knows are unworkable. They're not going to work. They give the appearance of activity, but they're not going to translate into real action. And they're a cruel deception of the Ukrainian people who are still being led to think that help is on the way when it's never going to come. It's a deception where they want the people in Ukraine to believe that help is on the way at least until the elections. That's what's most important for the Biden White House team. The energy situation in Ukraine, we've talked about the missile strikes in Harkov and how that has led to what type of exodus from Harkov, because the energy situation is so bad. And the Russians this time around, the Russians didn't degrade the energy infrastructure in Harkov, but they destroyed it. What do you think the Russians are going to do going forward now with this strategy of going after the energy systems? Obviously, the Russians now know how to demolish the energy grid in Ukraine. And if the Russians really wanted to go hard and destroy the energy grid in Ukraine, what kind of an effect will that have on Europe as people are going to, obviously, they're going to flee these areas if you don't have any power. This could be a huge disaster for Europe as well. What do you have thoughts on? It is an unthinkably horrifying disaster. And again, European governments ought to be preparing for it. They're not. I see absolutely no sign that they're taking any steps at all to prepare for this, if or perhaps when it comes. And they're not. And I think the Russians are going to go after the energy system at some time. I also happen to believe that at some point they're going to go after the NEAP and bridges as well. But that's another matter we can talk about some other day. But I think that the Russians, I mean, they tested the energy system in 2022, 2023. They worked out its weak points. Now they've tested it again. They've seen that they can actually destroy it. They understand that they can cut off whatever part of Ukraine from the energy system they need. If they do it, they stop all the trains. They paralyze troop movements. They affect internet use. They do all kinds of things. And they've got themselves at that point where if they do launch a big offensive and the consensus in the West is that that is what they're going to do at some point in the summer. I don't know that they are, by the way, but that's the consensus. If they do it, the knocking out of the energy system is a high probability. And, as I say, huge refugee flows, as you rightly say, towards Europe, no one in Europe, making any preparations. Everybody asleep again at the wheel. Everybody in denial about this, as I say, coming up with schemes instead. Nobody's thinking through and thinking things through in advance. And I've said in a number of my programs now, and I want to just repeat this morning again, the other thing that Western governments need to start thinking about hard is getting their own people out of Ukraine. How they're going to do that if things come turn out really bad. There's no air links to Kiev. The air is closed. The Russians control it. Everybody goes there by train. If the power systems are down, the train lines are cut, distance from Kiev to the Polish border is huge. The roads would probably be blocked. And, of course, on top of everything else, in situations of chaos and collapse, you have an awful lot of angry men with guns, some with alarming political views. I don't want to dwell on this too much. Roaming around. It might not be a safe situation at all for Westerns. All right. We will leave it there at the derailleur.logals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Patreon, Rockfin, and Twitter X. Go to the Duran Shop. Pick up the limited edition merch. Link in the description box down below. Take care. [Music]