The Duran Podcast
Preventing Ukraine collapse during US election
All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine, and we could start with what's happening on the front lines, and I think we definitely have to talk about the 61 billion, Mike Johnson, who is going to put to a vote the package for Ukraine. 10 billion of that is going to be in the form of a loan, and that's kind of how he got Trump to buy into that as well. So Mike Johnson, he got the package, he's going to get the package to the House for a vote. So that's important. And we do have the Europeans working to get around seven, I believe they said, air defense, hatred systems to Ukraine as well, F-16s, we're starting to talk again about F-16s coming to the battle in the summer. And finally, we can also discuss the admission that the Czech Republic, Pavel, 1 million ammunition shells is, they couldn't get them, don't have the money for them, that plan has gone bust. So do you want to start with the front line, anything else that we discussed? I leave it to you. I leave it to you. Yeah, let's then start with the front lines because it's, I mean, that's of course what's ultimately driving the whole situation. I mean, the Russians are now capitalizing in a big way on the fall of Avvedevka, which took place six weeks ago. Seems like a long time that those of us who followed the war since Avvedevka fell, in its early six weeks, was it, you know, and we are seeing significant advances by the Russians in the area around Avvedevka. So they captured this village called Pavel Myski, they're pretty close towards capturing this other fortified town called Krasmogorovka. And importantly, over the last couple of days, to everybody's astonishment, they broke through in the area north of Avvedevka, north west of Avvedevka. And they're now apparently entered a village called Orchirethino, no, these are small places Chirethino is a very small place. But it's located on a hill, it's a junction, a railway junction. It's a strategically important position. I remember reading an article way back in the autumn, in the London Times, explaining how important Orchirethino was for the overall direction of the war. It could in some ways be said to be strategically even more important than Avvedevka itself, though you have to capture Avvedevka before you capture Orchirethino. It looks like Orchirethino at some point over the next few days, weeks, who knows how long but at some point is going to be captured by the Russians. And what that means in summary is that the Russians have punched an enormous hole through the Ukrainian defenses in the most important and sensitive place, which is central Donbas. So the Russians are in a strong position once they've, you know, tied it up, captured Krasnogorovka, captured Orchirethino, I mean they could advance in all kinds of directions, they could advance towards Pachrosk in the West, which is an important town, major hub of used by the Ukrainians to position their forces to send logistics, or they could advance North and outflank the Ukrainian forces that are defending around Batman, for example, you know, just of Yar and all that, they could, they could do that in theory, or they could go on and advance further and push towards the Nipa. So this is a, this is a really big breakthrough and it's matched by events elsewhere along the front lines. I was reading, I think it was yesterday a Ukrainian official, a former Ukrainian general, General Clevelander, saying that the situation in Chassafyar is absolutely terrible, that the Ukrainian forces there are just hanging on by their fingernails, the Russians are bombing the place, and defenses appear to have completely collapsed around Chassafyar, and of course all of these reports, all of these rumours, big Russian offensive coming, nobody quite knows where it's going to come, it might be through this big hole that the Russians have punched through in central Donbass, advanced towards the Nipa, it could be towards Kharkov, basically without electric power, the mayor of the city is saying that the situation there is one of panic, lots of rumours the Russians might be moving towards capturing Kharkov as well. So overall, the summary is the situation on the front lines is very, very bad, and it's getting worse, it's crumbling. Now I was reading, even people as deluded, at least I think it's deluded, as, you know, Colonel Cavish, Brenton Bredden, you know, this British officer who writes for the Daily Telegraph, and who said that the Challenger 2s would roll over the Russians, and that the summer offensive by Ukraine would be a total triumph. Even he is now writing an absolutely panic-stricken article, talking about how the situation is crumbling on the Ukrainian defence lines, and you see article after article in Politico, in all kinds of places now, coming up, saying straightforwardly Ukraine is losing the wall. And it's, you know, the direction of travel, if you like, is clear, but it's getting stronger, it's becoming more obvious what is happening all the time. Right, so that brings us to the 61 billion from Johnson. A part of that money is going to go to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat, that's the lone part, the economic assistance 10 billion, about 10 billion, that's going to be loaned to Ukraine, of course, the loan can be canceled by a president, but, you know, whatever, they're calling it a loan. So that's going to try and keep the Ukraine economy, along with some funds from the EU. They're going to try to keep the salaries all paid up, and everyone in the parliament, and let's get administration, they're going to keep them well fed, I guess, and prevent any type of social unrest, which I guess is important to any type of palace intrigue. But then you have the bulk of the money, which is going to go to the MIC. Is it going to make any difference? What do you see playing out with these funds? Well, I mean, let's actually talk about the funds, I mean, the first of all, the loan is an absurdity. I mean, the idea that you loan money to Ukraine, at a time when it's about to lose the war, and its economy is in collapse, is a grotesque idea. I mean, you're giving away money, you're never going to see it again. Let's be absolutely clear about this. I mean, any more. They're calling it a loan. They're calling it a loan. They want to call it a loan, but I mean, it's the stupidest idea I've ever seen. Now, as I understand it, the way this is going to work with the military appropriations is that $24 billion is going to go to the MIC in order for them to produce new weapons to replace American inventories, and specifically American inventories. $14 billion is going to go to Ukraine to provide the Ukrainians with more weapons. So what's actually going to happen if you just sit back and think that through and do the sums, what that actually means is that the American inventories are going to be depleted even faster. The MIC is going to do very well because the MIC is going to get another injection of $24 billion, but it is going to take them years to produce the weapons that the $24 billion are going to buy. They have to make them. They have to set up a production, the prices will rise, all of that sort of thing. The $14 billion that they're going to give to Zelensky for weapons, that's going to be used up at once. The weapons are going to be sent to Ukraine at once. So what you're going to have is you're going to reduce your stock by a further $14 billion of weapons, and you're going to keep your fingers crossed, and you do three years time. These extra $24 billion of weapons finally arrive. In the meantime, until that happens, you've got fewer weapons. I just wanted to say that because I don't think this has been properly understood. Will it make any difference in the war? No, it won't. I think we discussed an article that was done by J.D. Vance, and he said it out on the line. He said, "You can't provide more weapons than you have." The United States is short of ammunition. It's short of Patriot Air Defense missile interceptors. The Europeans very reluctant to send theirs, of course they're talking about some people say seven patriots, other say seven systems, Poland refusing at the moment to send any. Unclear how that's going to happen. The United States apparently is not so far intended to send any. That may change. Patriot missile systems sent to Ukraine. The Russians have already been systematically destroying them. It's been demonstrated that the Kinjals and the Circons can destroy them and that there's no real defense to them. It's not going to change anything. It's just going to mean more weapons, burn time, more weapons destroyed. It's not going to change the outcome of the war. The game for me was given away by a statement made by the CIA director William Burns. He says, "If Ukraine doesn't get more support, there's a real chance that before the end of this year, Ukraine will collapse, whereas if it is given more military support, he is confident that it can see 2024 through." What happens at the end of the year? What happens to be precise in November? The election. This whole thing is about preventing a Ukrainian collapse before the election. How long have we been saying that, like a year and a half now? Absolutely. That, of course, brings us to the next. That's the goal of 2020 for you. That's the goal. That's what this is all about. That brings us to the next question about why did Mike Johnson, who has always said he wouldn't be prepared to put forward a package like this to the House of Representatives, unless there was movement on the border, the Biden administration just come up with nothing about the border. Why has he now done that? I think he's very straightforward. Again, we come back with the MIC. I know there's all kinds of theories about this, but what has happened is that the committee chairs, the key committee chairs, who are all Republicans in the House, have been weighing in over the last few weeks demanding aid for Ukraine. They've been putting pressure on Johnson, and I'm pretty sure they've been saying, if you don't go along with this, we will side with the Democrats on this issue. We will make sure that there's a vote, that there's a vote, we will support a vote to override your veto about putting a package before the House of Representatives. That will of course force you to resign. We're prepared to risk that because for us, that is the most important thing. I think that's why he is crumbled because he knows that whether he puts forward the package or not, a package will be put at some point over the next few weeks to the House because the committee chairs and the rhinos, the McConnell wing of the Republican Party, let's say there's only 20 of them or 30 of them, probably more than that in the House of Representatives have now made it very clear that this is prepared to side with the Democrats on this issue. He probably has taken on the risk that Marjorie Taylor Greene of that group will be able to eject him as Speaker, but he probably hopes that he can avoid that. He knows he can't avoid that if a significant block of Republicans vote with the Democrats against him in order to get this appropriation before the House. I think that is why he has crumbled and realistically there was always a high probability or possibility that something like this would happen. I think that's why he's done it and I think that's why he's capitulated the people in the Republican Party that we are talking about do not like Donald Trump. They would prefer Biden to win, we've discussed this so many times, and besides, given the kind of committees they chair anyway, they are close to the OIC, which wants this appropriations package passed, and which has the lobbying and all the funds to push for a vote of this guy. This is what's happened, the amazing thing is not that this vote is happening now, it's that it's been delayed for what six months? Well, the MIC always wins out, that was obvious, the MIC was going to get their money. The problem for Mike Johnson in all of this is that he couldn't get anything to the Southern border. No, exactly. That's what really does a lot of damage to him is that he's giving all this money to four, four different foreign aid packages, but there wasn't a fifth package for the United States and specifically for the Southern border. That's what really did him in or does something. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I personally think that one way or the other, whether or not, whether or not he's removed a speaker immediately, or whether he'll get to take time or whether it might happen after the election, I think politically he's toast. I mean, he took that position that there had to be movement on the Southern border. He was absolutely strong about that. There's been no movement on the Southern border, and he's done the less, gone ahead and put forward this package to the House. And I think it will be bad for him, but that's the arithmetic. That's the politics in the United States. I've always said that Congress is a very difficult system to understand. I've never pretended that I understand it very fully, but here we are. That's what's going to happen. Mike Johnson has capitulated. If you look at the fact is, of course, it's not difficult to see what they are. He played a terrible game. He played an absolutely terrible game. He's inexperienced. He's inexperienced. He's an explorer. The right thing he should have done is gone down fighting. He should have said, even if there'd been this petition passed, he should have said this was done completely against his wishes. He should have refused to resign. He'd have had the support of most Republicans, had he done so, he would have established himself as a political, significant political figure. But as you wrote, he said, he's inexperienced, he's out of his steps, and that's why we have the outcome that we have. Yeah. The weapons that they're going to give to Ukraine, they're going to allocate $14 billion to Ukraine and Ukraine's going to tap into weapons inventories of the United States. You have Schultz talking about seven patriots. Let's just assume. Full systems. Let's assume. They're going to get the full deal to Ukraine, and I mentioned at the beginning of the video how they couldn't get the ammunition situation sorted out, Pavel and the Czech Republic. What is Ukraine going to tap into with this money? What does the US have to give them? I imagine that if, as case scenario for Europe, for Ukraine, let's say they get these these patriot systems, after that, what's left? Well, no, the Russians, and you know, the Russians will destroy all of this, and this doesn't help Ukraine with, say, protecting their energy infrastructure, because even if they put patriots around their energy, buildings, the Russians, they've shown that they could knock out anything with the zircon, the hypersonic, so the patriot can't stop that. Well, that's entirely right. I mean, bearing something in mind, I mean, the Zelensky said that he needed 25 patriot systems, 150 to 200 lordships. He's not going to get a fraction of that, so I mean, he's not going to get enough patriot systems. He's going to stop down to asking for seven. J.D. Vance has said that production of these interceptors is limited, and the Russians are cranking up more missiles all the time, and as you can write correctly, said hypersonic missiles, which will increasingly be used, so it can only slow things down for a while. This has been true of every single arms package, by the way, I mean, it achieves a certain effect for a short time, and then the effect wears out, and then you need more. But of course, more is gradually not coming, because more is simply not there. There's a famous, well, I don't know if it's famous, but there was a comment that President Kennedy made about sending aid to Vietnam. This is before the United States got seriously involved, but he made exactly that same point. He said, giving aid to Vietnam, it's like drinking a glass of water for a short time, you feel better than the effect wears off, and you need another. It's exactly the same with Ukraine, but of course, if your priority is to avoid a collapse by Ukraine before the end of the year, by which of course they really mean November, then of course it makes political sense. What happens after November? What they can worry about, they can worry about it then, it's less important. Winning the election is the key thing, try and avoid a collapse between then and between now and then. You want to avoid a military collapse, so you're hoping that they can tap into weapons that can hold the line. You want to avoid the political collapse, I think that's important, especially with Zelensky right now, I mean, his shine has definitely worn off, not only outside of Ukraine, but even inside of Ukraine, I'm reading a lot of articles which show that Ukrainians are just not, they're not only not happy with Zelensky, but they're also getting frustrated and angry with the collective West, specifically the United States. So, you've got to find a way to avoid any type of palace intrigue or any type of problem with the politics of Ukraine. I do see the collective West are starting to lean a lot more on Yermak as well, which I find very interesting. No, I think you're absolutely right, they do not want a political crisis in Kiev, they do not want to see a political collapse in Ukraine, were that to happen, it would again put the whole enterprise in massive jeopardy, and they certainly don't want a coup, which can get out of control, and I've discussed what happened in Vietnam in 1963, when there was the coup against President Xième, and he was assassinated, he was murdered with his brother, and that further destabilised the situation in Vietnam. So, they don't want anything like that to happen, and that is their major anxiety, and of course, Zelensky's official term ends in May, the Russians are already saying that his legitimacy is open to question. Beyond that point, many people in Ukraine are saying that as well, and of course, you're starting to see signs of restlessness in the far-right nationalist brigades, the Azov brigade, the brigade that was formed around the right sector, people like that, they're increasingly refusing to follow orders. So, it's becoming more difficult if you like, to hold things together, and to keep everyone in line. So, it's absolutely easy to understand what is happening, and what is going on, they don't want a military collapse, they don't want a political collapse either, not before the election in November, it is the November election that is dictating the outcome from this point. Yep, all right, thedaran.locals.com, we are in rumble Odyssey, it should Telegram, Rock Finn, and Twitter, X, and go to the Daran shop, look for a limited edition, merchandise, link is in the description box down below, take care. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]