The Duran Podcast
Ukraine fallback to Dnieper, West/East Germany scheme
All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine, the 61 billion has been signed by Biden. We've got weapons, a weapons package has been published. So we have, we have an idea as to what's going to be sent to Ukraine. And we've got a front line that is collapsing. And I think that is the big story here, which is that the defenses are falling apart, at least in in the direction of Avdifka. And of course, there are rumors, speculation that there is going to be some sort of, of a Russian offensive in Harkov-Sumi direction. So what, what do you want to start off with? Should we, should we deal with, with the front line? Let's deal with the front line first, because of course, this is what's driving everything, and which is creating the urgency, because we now have had a whole series of events, which basically kicked off from the fall of Avdifka in February. Remember, the fall of Avdifka was unexpected. It happened much faster than the Ukrainians or the Western powers imagined. And it was the single thing that has created this sense of panic, which has never really abated at any time since, as is often the way. And I've had many, many dealings with panicky people in my time. You get situations, by the way, where there's panic and extreme panic, and then sometimes moments of euphoria. And we've just been, we're just going through one in Washington at the moment since the package was passed. But what always happens is that the euphoria quickly goes, and the panic returns. What is driving things and is causing the panic is, I said, Avdairka fell. There was hopes that Ukraine would be able to stabilize the front lines. They created one front line first, along a string of villages, which were called Tauninka, Orlofka, Simeonofka, and Berdichi. That front line, very quickly collapsed, the Russians just power through it. They then reached what many people thought would be the next front line, which runs from another place called Pervomyski in the south, through other villages, in the Tyla, Orlofka, Ormanski. And then ultimately, Ocheretino, further north, Ocheretino being a very important position, a very strongly fortified position that was assumed, a very difficult position to capture, because it was said to be on a hill that was, some people say 250 meters, but I believe 250 feet high. But anyway, at the Taunhill, the dominates the landscape. And it was assumed that even if the first front line, in the first set of the villages collapsed, the second front line would hold much longer. And instead, that second line is collapsing. And as has been consistently happening, since the Russians went on the attack in October, it is collapsing at its strongest point. Just as Ocheretino was the strongest point in the defence lines close to Donette City, Ocheretino was supposed to be the strongest points in these lines, that Ukraine defence lines, that Ukraine was hurriedly putting together after the fall of Ocheretino. And the reports we're getting over the last two days is that the Russians launched a surprise attack on Ocheretino. They stormed it. The military unit that was supposed to be defending it, the 115th Brigade collapsed. Apparently, its commanders are under investigation. And the Russians now control most, or some say all of Ocheretino. And if they don't control the hold of Ocheretino, they will very soon. And they're cleaning up now. Some small villages to the south of Ocheretino. One of them, Novo Bakmutivka, has already fallen. Another one, of Soloviolva, is about to fall. Probably we'll get confirmation of that today. And in the meantime, further south at the very other end of this defence line, the village of Perivomiesky also fell. If you'd, about 10 days ago, we'll report that Ukrainian troops who were defending Perivomiesky, that as many as 200 of them surrendered. So what we're seeing is an accelerating collapse of Ukrainian defences in what was supposed to be the most heavily fortified positions of, along the entire front line, across the entire line of contact from Hurson region all the way north. And this collapse is critical. It could be fatal, because what is happening is that a big hole has now been punched by the Russians, or is being punched by the Russians, through the Ukrainian defence lines. And if it finally and completely collapses, the way is open to advance towards the Napa, there's possibilities of encircling more Ukrainian troops in Donbass itself. All kinds of possibilities arise, which no one had expected, and which, you know, we see this accumulated process and crisis running very, very fast. And all of this, even as the Russians have been now attacking Ukrainian infrastructure right across Ukraine, they've been attacking the energy system, as we've discussed, they've been attacking ammunition dumps, railway stations, all of these things. And we have, on top of all of that, these rumours of a huge Russian build-up on the border of Kharkov region, city of Kharkov, now largely without electric power, in any gets it sporadically, it has to be transmitted from Western Ukraine. The Russians can always cut off the substations at any point, at which point, Kharkov loses electric power completely. They've destroyed the television station there, which was used to conduct communications. And there's talk of a new military force, a group of forces north has been created, and it's been given a commander, General Lapin, who is known to be a particularly aggressive commander, and who has experience of urban warfare, and has been, you know, well experienced in earlier battles over the course of this war. So a military crisis developing very fast, far more rapidly than anybody had expected. If you go back six months to the time when Ukraine's counter-offensive basically ran out of steam in October, what you will remember is that, you know, the assumption then again was that there would be a pause in the fighting during the autumn mud season, and winter season, and the spring mud season, and the Ukrainians would rebuild. And there was even some brave talk about Ukraine going back on the offensive in the spring of 2024. Well, as we see, nothing like that has happened. The Russians, the moment the Ukrainian offensive ran out of steam, went on the attack, and they're gaining important positions. And one commentator, very, very aggressively pro-Ukrainian commentator, and one with a military background, by the way, Colonel Richard Kemp wrote in the daily telegraph the day before yesterday, saying that he thought that Ukraine had about six months left. So that is what is driving everything, and that is the sense of crisis that we are seeing. We, you know, fears that, you know, if the hammer falls and there's a big Russian offensive in the summer, what with all these other problems, Ukraine won't be able to control it, and we'll collapse. And that's what's given the urgency to getting the financial package through, and it's what's driving all of the politics that we're seeing in the West around this issue at the moment. It's incredible that you had all the celebration for the 61 billion, and all the talk about Ukraine finding a path to victory with that 61 billion, and 24 hours to 48 hours later, you get articles like the telegraph saying, well, six months is what they've got left. I mean, what was the 61 billion really for? And that's my question to you. Whatever money gets sent to Ukraine, whatever weapons get sent to Ukraine, not only from the US, but also from Europe, more pressure is being put on Germany to send tourists long-range missiles. We now know about the attackers. I mean, we've known about the attack comes being used over the last six months, but now they've come out, and Jake Sullivan specifically has come out and said, yeah, we have been using attack comes over the last six months, or Ukraine has been given attack comes, and they have been used against Russia over the last six months. What is all of this for? Because obviously, this is not going to give Ukraine the ability to go on the offensive. This is not going to give Ukraine the ability to capture the Donbas or to capture Crimea, like what they were saying over the last two years, everything we've heard over the last two years that this is all about capturing Donbas and Crimea. It looks like they've given up on that. The collective voice has given up on that fantasy. It's not even meant to stabilize or stop the Russians. It seems like all of this is meant to slow down the Russian advance, which is an admission that the Russians are advancing. What's stalemate? There is now an admission that the Russians are advancing. When you put the word slow down, the Russian advance, to me it signals that the Russians are advancing fairly quickly. If you need to slow it down, slow it down to what point and for what reason, in order to prevent the Russians to go past the Dnieper, in order to prevent the Russians from taking Kiev, from taking Harkov, from taking Odessa, a lot of talk about a lot of discussion. I believe there's a lot of discussion about European troops entering Ukraine, but not as NATO, as European forces, and specifically in this area of Odessa in order to prevent the Russians from moving further west. A lot of talk about F-16s and building airfields. The billion package of weapons that they're sending right away is hinting at equipment specifically for airfields, which means that the F-16s, I believe the F-16s are coming very soon. I don't believe all this talk about, I think it's a misdirection about F-16s in 2025 and 2026, I personally believe that F-16s are going to come online in this conflict very soon. But it seems like everything is being constructed in a way to prevent Russia from moving west of the Dnieper, with the understanding that everything east of the Dnieper is not going to hold. I mean, you've talked about this on your videos at length. I've discussed this a bit on my videos after listening to your videos and looking at everything. This is the picture that I get, but I don't know. Can I be wrong about what I'm saying here? I think you're absolutely right. I think you're absolutely right. Now, before I proceed, I should say that there's been a very, very interesting article by an economist, Dr. Jack Rasmus, an economist and commentator of considerable experience and reputation, if I could say. He's basically looked at this $61 billion package and he's come to essentially the same conclusions that you have, which is that a lot of it is to close positions. In other words, already taken out existing positions. Now, what he's suggesting is that the $24 billion is mainly about that. That's the part that's going to the MIC. So, a lot of weapons have been supplied without funding. The real purpose of the $24 billion is to actually cover the cost of those weapons that have already been supplied. He thinks that the amount that Ukraine is likely to get out of this package in terms of weapon systems is probably around 10 billion and he also thinks that's almost certainly the only package of weapons that Ukraine is going to get this year. And, Jake Sullivan has now made some comments about this and that looks to be the same. So, in effect, what that suggests to me is that most of the equipment covered by the $61 billion package has already been supplied. And I think that's the thing to understand. Now, we've had a breakdown of the latest package, which is being provided by the Pentagon. And I'm going to say straight away that if this really were true, it's very underwhelming. It's a rag bag of shells 155 millimeter and 105 millimeter shells were not told in what quantity. It's 12 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. That doesn't even replace losses. And it doesn't give us the number of Bradleys. It's just that people have counted them because the US has shown they showed them along the Polish border. And as you said, much of it does seem to be engineering equipment and that sort of thing. It's not relevant to fighting in Eastern Ukraine. It's not going to change the situation, the battlefield dynamics that we are seeing at the moment. So, I think you are exactly correct. The operative plan now is to withdraw eventually to the NEPA, except that the whole of Eastern Ukraine is to the NEPA is lost. Withdraw to the NEPA, we've had that comment, which I think you also see from that mutual friend of ours who sends us information, really helpful information about creating this iron triangle. Basically, Krivoirog, Zaporogiet, Neapro, throwing a desser as well. All places strung out along the NEPA and trying and creating a new defense line there. And of course, squeeze the arm of the Europeans to send troops to join as well. And in the meantime, you're going to give Ukraine long-range missiles, attacking missiles, eventually tourist missiles as well, and try to wage a long-range missile war against the Russians. So, you're going to attack the Crimean bridge. You hope to destroy that. You're going to launch missile strikes against Russian cities as well, because that's the plan, at least border cities. You're going to try to do all of these things and hope that all of this eventually forces the Russians to come to some kind of, agree to some kind of a ceasefire. And hope also that the ceasefire will allow you to take Western Ukraine up to the NEPA, including Kiev, by the way, at least that part of Kiev, which is on the West Bank of the NEPA, eventually into NATO. That it seems to me, if you piece it all together, is the plan. You don't recognize, by the way, Eastern Ukraine is Russian. You continue to insist that's Ukrainian, and you create the kind of, what people say, the East Germany, West Germany, North Korea, South Korea type divide, an armistice line along there. Now, I don't think this is going to work. I don't think this is a workable plan. First of all, it depends on obtaining reliable air defense over Western Ukraine. I agree with you about the S16s, by the way. I think we're seeing a major misdirection there, just as we see in a major misdirection with the attacking missiles. I've always said, I thought the attacking missiles would be delivered to Ukraine, and we see that they had been, and noticed that they were delivered before this package was passed. I think that we're going to see the F16s appear. We're going to see more attacking missiles. Sooner or later, we're going to see the Taurus missiles also. I don't think we should be under any illusions about this. If Scholz dinks in his heels on this issue, they'll throw out Scholz, bring someone else, perhaps Boris Mistorius, perhaps reconstitute the German government, bring in the CDU with Friedrich Matt's. They will authorize the supply of the Taurus missiles, and carry out this long-range missile. But the problem they face is that they are massively outgunned. The Russians can launch farmer missiles at them, then the Western powers can launch back. The Russians have a far denser and far more sophisticated air defense system with a major productive capacity supporting it, which the West doesn't have. The F16s, well, they can do only so much. They're no match for the Russian aircraft with their long-range, much longer range, apparently, air-to-air missiles, and the Russian very long-range air defense missiles, which would now be operating on the east bank of the Nipa. So it would avert a total collapse, but it wouldn't prevent it ultimately from happening if the Russians decide to push on, and the likelihood is they will, they will. And European armies are in no condition to hold the line of the Nipa. Whatever fantasies people may be peddling, and following the loss of Eastern Ukraine, and given the enormous problems we're seeing in Ukraine at the moment with mobilization, I can't imagine the Ukrainians would be in any position to hold the line of the Nipa either. Now, you know, this latest plan, which is to try to force all the Ukrainians in Europe to return to Ukraine, about 800,000 men by basically denying them passports. A terrible idea, something blatantly illegal, both on the Ukrainian side, simply denying people passports in that way. I mean, I'm sure that violates a host of Ukrainian laws. But of course, as I had said in my program yesterday, it opens the way for these people to claim refugee status, if that's what they decide to do, the Europeans can disregard that. They would be going contrary to their own fundamental laws. If they did that, that decision, I suppose, one mustn't assume anything. But at best, you get hundreds of thousands of angry men being thrown into the battle, are probably not particularly well-trained. They don't want to be in the army. That's why they left Ukraine in the first place. Is it realistic to suppose that they can be put together to create an army that can resist the Russians, given that the highly motivated army that the Ukrainians had in 2022 and 2023 wasn't able to do so? So, you know, I don't think this plan is going to work. But I come back to what I was saying about, you know, the swings between euphoria and panic. What comes out of this kind of hysterical thinking is that people come up with schemes, and this is more a scheme than a plan, and basically that is what we're seeing. Yeah, I agree. It's a scheme, as Sullivan said, in his press conference, when the package was announced, it's a scheme that he believes will last until the end of the year. Sullivan said it. This money, this package, we believe he said will last until the end of the year. What's happening at the end of the year? We've said it now for a year and a half. We've been going on and on about this. The elections, of course. And Sullivan is the campaign guy. So that's what they believe. I think with the embassy cutting off the consular services and the embassy services, I think the next step is going to be banking. I think that's obvious. They're going to cut off their banking access. And I fully believe that those EU values are going to be forgotten about whatever those EU values are. I've never actually seen the pamphlet or list of EU values, but they're very malleable. Yeah, the EU is going to actually, I think Poland's actually announced that they're going to help Ukraine to find these men and send them back to Ukraine that are living in Poland. So I fully believe that the EU countries, most of them will start to send or at least try to help and send the men back to Ukraine so that they can be sent to the front line because the goal is to slow the Russian advance down and to try to get this to November 2024. And as you said, this iron triangle that they're visualizing. But I want you to get into that a bit because you've been the only analyst that has actually focused a lot on the deniper and the geography of the deniper and why and the economics behind the geography. I think that's important. The economics and the economic viability behind the geography of this scheme to create a West, a West Ukraine, East Ukraine, West Germany, East Germany, North Korea, armistice type of plan, which is something that they talked about about a year and a half ago. This idea of West East Germany, Korea, armistice, this is nothing new. This is not a new idea at all. Talk about that. And I just want to add one thing. I believe I agree with you with the European troops into Ukraine, but it's not about the European troops. Ultimately, it's about the European troops being annihilated by the Russian military. They understand that. I think Macron understands, yes, I'm going to send the troops into Ukraine. And I know that they're going to get annihilated by the Russian military. I expect that so that I can then run to the Americans and tell the Americans, please, please help us. Our troops are being annihilated by Russia. You have to come and save us. I mean, that's the goal for the European troops in Ukraine. Effectively, they're sending them to be sacrificed in order to pull the US into the conflict, which is a very sinister thing. But that's what I believe that's how they're looking at it. Anyway, talk about what I said and also talk about the economic geography of the situation with this split. Let me first of all begin with, by the way, with the question of sending all those people in Europe back to Ukraine. Now, it wouldn't just trash European values. We can forget about European values. I mean, I don't think they really exist. I mean, to me, the EU is now manifesting all about power and little else, so to say. But what it would also trash is law. I mean, there are lots of very elaborate laws about governing refugees. And they're not just which is what these people would become, by the way. And not just, you know, domestic laws, but international laws, there's a refugee convention going all the way back to, I believe it's 1950. We said that in great detail what the rights are refugees are. And, you know, there's this very important concept called refalment, which is you do not send refugees back to a country where they might be oppressed or persecuted or thrown into battle and guilt. So I mean, you know, they would be trashing and ignoring all of that. They would be going completely contrary to international law, their own domestic laws, their traditions reaching all the way back to the 18th century and beyond. But hey, hope we've seen they don't care much about any of that. So, you know, let's always more time on it. But I think, you know, it's just important to make that that observation. I mean, it's not just a question of values. It's a question of fundamental laws, which have a very long history and which in this instance, of course, also are underpinned by international conventions as well. Anyway, let's move on. Let's first of all talk about the economics of this because you're absolutely right. Very few people understand this very well. But what you have to do, you have to understand about Ukraine, is that the river, the Nipa, is not a natural border. It never has been. People talk about, you know, East Bank and West Bank, Ukraine or left Bank and right Bank, Ukraine, as you know, it's often said. But in reality and in practice, the Nipa is not a border. It is an artery. It always has been. Now, I don't know to what extent trade, you know, barges and that kind of thing actually uses the Nipa anymore. I suspect historically, until fairly recently, they did. I mean, if you want an example of a river system, which is heavily used for commercial traffic, just go to the Rhine and you see the Rhine barges going up and down with all the goods that are produced by the German industries and, you know, they still used to have coal until fairly recently. But that was partly what the Rhine was for, that I'm sure is what the, that is undoubtedly what the Nipa was also about. The result is that Ukraine's economic geography is constructed around it. All the big cities in Ukraine, apart from Odessa in the West and Viv, Volf, are basically built around the Nipa. Now, if you have, in order to understand how cities function, you have to understand that a city is obviously is built up area and it's also the region around it without the region which supports the city. The city dies. Or if it doesn't die, it gets drawn into a deep crisis. And, you know, there have been many examples of this. The famous one in India, for example, is Calcutta. Calcutta was cut off from its region at the time of Indian independence. That region became the independent state of Bangladesh. And from that moment on, Calcutta went into a deep economic decline, from which it has never recovered. For having been one of India's richest cities, it became one of the poorest cities. The same would happen to all of these places in Ukraine. You cannot function. These cities cannot function. These industrial centers cannot function if they can't move goods and traffic and people from one side of the Nipa to the other. And if the Russians were their artillery and their weapons systems are parked on the east side of the Nipa, it cannot happen. You'd have places like Kremenshuk, Nipa itself, Kiev, they would go into deep and very rapid economic decline. Now, if you look at the territory west of the Nipa, immediately to the west of the Nipa, you know, beyond this crust of cities, it's basically a lightly populated region of small towns and rural communities based very much as I understand it on pastoral farming cattle. In other words, you then move further west until finally you reach Galicia, revolve that region. That region, western Ukraine, self-supporting up to a point. It's relatively small, but you could imagine you could create a country out of it. It could achieve some kind of economic stability. If it's cut off from the sea, which it might be, by the way, then it would face serious problems and limit as to the extent that it could grow. But you can imagine a situation, for example, where it could develop trade links through friendly countries like Romania and Bulgaria to the south. But central Ukraine, this pastoral area, would also fall into very deep crisis because it depends for its economic well-being on thriving cities to the north and east. So this is not a realistic idea, the idea that you can create a west Germany or a south Korea east of the Nipa, a west of the Nipa, is a fantasy. What you would get instead is a region that would become a massive unending economic drain on western and European resources. Even if they did manage, for example, to come to some kind of armistice agreement with the Russians, and the Russians agreed to stop at the Nipa. So this is not a practical plan. Now I think the problem is, I don't even like Jake Sullivan or Ursula Fondelayan or all of those people, Robert Harbeck or all of these people understand this because they do not have that experience in economic geography that you require. I studied this. This is part of my studies as a historian. And I am some background in this matter, and I happen to know people who are economic historians, and somewhere in that library behind me. I have books that were written back in the 1970s on the particular economic geography of this region, which explains this. So what we're talking about, this idea that you can somehow save West Bank or right bank Ukraine, and it can thrive. And one day, when Russia finally collapses, you can come back and take all the eastern regions as well. It's a ludicrous scheme. It's, as I said, going to be an exhausting burden on the European economies. You would, of course, be obliged indefinitely to try to keep this exhausted region to try to sustain it. Now, let's turn now to the other issue that you brought, the European armies. The European armies, if they're facing the Russians, they're going to be smashed. You're absolutely right. And we've discussed in previous programs how Macron's real plan, at that point, is to come whimpering to the Americans and beg the Americans to extricate him from the mess that he and his European allies have got into. Now, the one thing that this week has demonstrated conclusively is that the American people would be furious and would vigorously oppose any attempt by their government to dragoon them into some kind of adventure to rescue the Europeans from that kind of disaster. There has been a massive outbreak of protests across the Republican part of the electorate against what happened last Saturday in the House of Representatives. And polling that I have seen coming out of the United States shows either a majority or a big plurality of Americans opposing this arms package. So just imagine what the response is going to be if you actually go beyond that. And you find that all the Biden's assurances that there will be no boots on the ground are coming to nothing. And that the American military is being asked to go to the rescue of Ukraine and Macron and people like that in Ukraine. There will be an absolute enormous political storm. You're going to get protests on a scale that we've never seen. And the people who will be leading them, I suspect, are going to be the veterans in the US military who understand the implications of this very well and who will not want to see their families. And remember, in the United States, the profession of arms is often a family affair, especially in the South. They will not want to see their sons. And in some cases, their daughters thrown into the monster of this battle to try to hold back the Russians. So I think politically, this plan is a recipe for disaster. They don't have anything else left, though, and then they understand that. I think the Europeans and people like Macron, they understand that their only way out of this is to try and draw the US into it. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that Macron understands this. His military, I imagine, is not so hard on the idea. But indeed, I mean, I'm not even going to start on what the reaction of the European public is going to be. I believe there's a report somewhere that says that the mood in Europe will become electrified, radicalised massively. The moment they start to see their boys coming back from the Ukrainian front, killed not just in tents and hundreds, but in thousands, which is potentially what could happen. Now, this is a terrible plan, one which comes with colossal risks. But of course, it's what they're doing, as he rightly said. And I think deep down, the gamble is that they think they can blast the Russians and that the Russians will agree to some kind of armistice. I think this is what this whole thing is counting on. That the Russians will say, well, we don't really need to cross the NEPA because we've got all the territories that we really need. And we're really going to be really scared by all these long-range missiles that the Americans and the Europeans are going to be firing at us. So I think that is the calculation. It's not really a plan. This isn't a military plan in any orthodox sense of the word. It's, as I said, it's a scheme. It's not something that people have sat down and worked through and planned out because, again, it is based very much on guesses as to how the Russian leadership and the Russian population will respond as this plan is if the scheme is put into effect. Now, you know, Medvedev, who is effectively Putin's number two, he made a rather interesting, wrote a very rather interesting article a couple of days ago, in which he talked about the fact that great powers historically have had spheres of influence. That part of his article, I thought, was, you know, interesting, but hardly new. But I noticed that he, again, made it fairly clear that the Russians think of Western Ukraine, in other words, West Bank Ukraine, maybe not Volf, but West Bank Ukraine, as part ultimately of their national territory. It was not, in other words, part of the sphere of influence that the Russians expect to have is rather part of their core national territory. Now, that doesn't preclude some kind of other political entity governing it, but it looks to me that the Russians will, at the very least, insist that they are, that, you know, they have this territory under their control. And by the way, a point which people constantly overlook, bear in mind, that the Russian army is already west of the Napa in Belarus. So, you know, you could put up Western troops on the Napa, but they are already effectively outflanked. And if you start stretching out your forces to cover the border with Belarus as well, where you are thinning your forces to an extremely dangerous degree, given that the Russians are now so powerful. So anyway, that's, that's, I think, where we're going, but that's the plan. That's the scheme, if you like. Yeah, but Belarus is right up there. Yeah, I mean, you looked at a map and you see where Belarus is located. Yeah, and then Lukashenko has been saying some very interesting things, the past couple of days. Yeah, I mean, just in closing, I think you're right. 100% right there. Their calculus is that Russia is going to cower in fear at the mighty attackums and the mighty tourist missiles. And and articles in foreign affairs and the spectator have actually come out and said that that the Russians will be, I mean, they'll be afraid at the site of French, Polish, European troops in the, the West of Ukraine, they wouldn't dare approach those, those troops. And if they did, and then the article say if they did, if Putin decided to attack those troops, well, then, you know, the US could be, could be drawn into this. So I think that is without a doubt their, their planet. They've almost reverted back to the idea of West, East Germany, the Korea Armistice model. They really have kind of taken that off the shelves. And they've, they've come back to that to that plan, which, as we said, was not, this is not anything new. This is something they were talking about a year and a half ago. But I think they have it backwards. The prosperous part, if this really did happen, if this plan really did form, which it's not going to take shape. But if it did, the prosperous part would actually be the East and the difficult part would be the West. But anyway, that's, those are my thoughts. I don't know if you have any final thoughts. No, I absolutely agree with that. But I mean, you know, again, one asks the question, why do they think that the Russians will be scared? I mean, you know, this is, I mean, it's not as if it's not exactly the counter offensive. The summer counter offensive was built on the premise of Russian fear. Exactly. But that's exactly my point. I mean, the whole approach that has been taken by the West to the Russians throughout this conflict has been set, has been based on a set of assumptions about the Russians, which have all turned out to be wrong, that their economic economy would collapse, that the oligarchs would overthrow Putin, that the Western weapons would prove a tremendously more effective than the Russian weapons would be, that the Russian army would be demoralised and weak and would turn tail the moment the challenges of the leper twos appeared on the scene. All of that proved to be completely wrong. So why do they assume? I mean, on what basis do they assume that the Russians, instead of being provoked by the presence of Western troops in Ukraine, in Western Ukraine, won't instead be scared, well, will instead be scared by them? Because this isn't based on any actual information. It's just a guess. There's my question to you, that I mean, I don't like to gamble on guesses. This is only a guess. Well, just to finish out the video, why would they assume this then? I mean, answer your own question. I guess. Why do you think all these, all these whiz kids, you know, in and around Biden, believe that Russia, after everything we've seen over two years, still believe that Russia is going to run away? Why do they believe this? Because they idiots who learn nothing. They still cling to the fantasies they clung on to right at the beginning. They can't, the fundamental problem is they cannot admit to themselves that they have ever, at any stage of this, been wrong, even though they have been repeatedly shown to be wrong. So the result of this is this is they can't admit mistakes. They just go on making them, go on making effectively the same mistake. Now, you know, as to this guess that the Russians will back off, the Russians are saying the opposite. They say, we're not going to back off. We've had more statements, by the way, from the Russian defense minister about this. So, you know, why there is this assumption, why there is this belief that the Russians are going to back off, it is very weird, it's very reckless, it is only a guess, and one should never play a game of these level at this level of such incredibly high stakes on a guess. But that's, it seems, what they're going to do. I've never known a time, I've never known a time when Western leadership has been as stupid to say it bluntly, as it is now. You know, all of Europe, all of the United States, there must be people 100% guarantee that there are people telling the decision makers the Russians will not be afraid. There must be people telling them this. On multiple levels, from close advisors to the parliament members to Congress, people to even think tankers are positive that there are people even in the neocons think tanks that are telling their superiors, look, Russia is not afraid. The Russians do not operate out of fear. The Russians are telling us straight up what they're going to do. If we provoke them, we should we should listen to what the Russians are saying. These people are there. And at the end of the day, there are videos and content creators like us who are saying that this idea is this idea of scaring a Russian is not going to work. So I mean, it's amazing and all of the US, all of the European Union that these voices are not being listened to. There's not one person who's making a decision in in these places that is actually listening to these voices, telling them this scheme is is unworkable. It's going to fail. Well, well, I'm sure as you rightly say that there's lots of advice being given and that advice is not been listened to. Now, can I just say, I mean, if you wanted to hear good advice on this, just follow our programs, all the various guests that we've had on the Duran. Some of whom remember have worked in the intelligence community in the military, people in the economics department, a diplomat, a British diplomat Ian Proud, who was responsible for managing the sanctions in Russia. They were saying, you don't do this. This is wrong. But of course, what has happened is that this faction, because it is this clique of people who gained power in the United States in the 1980s and basically the 1990s and consolidated control, mostly during the period of the Clinton administration and their fellow travelers in Europe, they, one thing, they are very successful and skilled at is closing down, closing off alternative voices. So the debate really doesn't happen in Europe and the United States any longer. Anybody who tries to engage in debate, what is invariably said about them is that they're engaging in a peaceman that is Neville Chamberlain all over again. J.D. Vance, by the way, did a brilliant speech in the Senate in which he took on that very point. He said, this constant harping on Chamberlain and a peaceman is catastrophic. Why do we just focus on that period and apply it wrongly anyway and not look at all of the other periods of time in human history? I mean, it's a brilliant speech that he did, by the way, but that's what they have. That's the enormous skill they have and of course they control the media as well. And the control of the media, the fact I suspect that through their friends and the intelligence agencies, they have a lot of dirt on an awful lot of people. That's my guess, of course. I know a lot of other people have that same making that same guess, but it's a guess. The fact that they also know that you can get the media to publish whatever piece of dirt that you can find and presented in a certain way. There is a lot of people afraid and the result is that they go along with this. And last but not least, remember what I've always said, these people have no reverse gear. That is the other problem because they have no reverse gear. They're instinct whenever they run into problems is not to back off, but to come back and do more, to double and triple and quadruple and quintuple down until eventually, of course, we, that is to say the people in America and Europe and all the rest finally say enough to these people, which will happen one day, but probably not very soon. Yeah, they're never held accountable for their mistakes. And that's why they double and triple and quadruple down. Reverse gear merch, you can buy it at the reverse gear shop, by the way. And the video ends, no more news, Alexander, but I just want to ask you one question. Maybe you can answer it in a minute or two. So no more, no more talking about this topic. Can you just answer maybe in one or two minutes about Neville Chamberlain? This narrative historically about Chamberlain, if you can, if this is possible in one or two minutes. And maybe one day when when we have some more time, maybe we can dedicate some more historic videos on this entire subject because it's it's either you're a Churchill or you're a Chamberlain, you're a Chamberlain or you're a Churchill. I mean, it's to the point of a ridiculous. So anyway, your thoughts on Chamberlain, it is a completely historic. Right. I mean, the fund, that is the key. We are talking about the situation in Europe in the 1930s. And it was widely understood in all the European capitals, including London, that the reason there was a major crisis in Europe in the 1930s is because the Versailles Treaty that had been agreed in 1919 and forced on Germany was a disaster. It was an absolute appalling mistake. So there were multiple voices across Europe at that time. We said, look, if we're going to secure peace in Europe, we have to resolve these unresolved problems left from Versailles. And what Chamberlain did, which is what the vast majority of people in the British political elite wanted him to do. And what the most the majority of the British public also wanted him to do was to go to try to negotiate with the Germans a solution to these longstanding unresolved problems left from the Versailles Treaty. Now, there is another factor that one cannot overlook about the 1930s, which is, of course, as well as Germany, there was the other great power that the British were concerned about, which was the Soviet Union. And the British were very, very nervous about the Soviet Union at that time. And they said to themselves, we don't really want to get into an alliance with the Soviets because of the Soviets, which is the only way we can defeat Germany. So if we get into an alliance with the Soviets and we defeat Germany with their help, we bring the Soviets into Central Europe and communism spreads that way. Because the British also understood that they would not be able to defeat Germany by themselves. There was reports from the chiefs of staff in Britain say that the British Empire is overextended. It doesn't have the resources to conduct wars in Europe and in the Pacific at the same time. So what happened was the Chamberlain went, tried to come to agreements with Hitler and what he discovered or what he should have realized is that Hitler did not want to engage him in negotiations and did not want agreements because Hitler, for his own reasons, which are going to take far too long to discuss and explain what Hitler really wanted was war. Hitler actually wanted a war with a person who wants a war, ultimately agreements are not possible. And that was the mistake the Chamberlain ultimately made. He persisted in negotiating with someone who, after very few meetings, he should have realized, wasn't actually interested in negotiations, saw negotiations only as a route towards a war in Europe which would leave him as the ultimate master, not just of Europe, but beyond Europe, perhaps ultimately the world. So this is the history of the 1930s. It's complicated. There is a vast literature about this. I still think the best book about this explaining British policy, and by the way, Russian policy about time, is the one that A.J. P. Taylor wrote in the 1960s, called the Origins of the Second World War. Even Taylor found it difficult to understand what we now know about the extremist nature of the German government and the maximalist objectives it had at that time. But if you want to see it there, if you want to get a simple overview of that time, you will understand better what happened. There is nothing, nothing has happened in any conflict we have had since that specific period of time that remotely mirrors the situations that we had in the 1930s. We've never had a situation where the British have a sense that they overplayed disastrously in 1919, the Versailles Treaty, and created an unstable situation in Europe. We've not had a situation where, and that the Germans therefore had legitimate grievances, we've not had a situation where the British were confronted with a German government that basically was completely uninterested in compromise. We've had nothing like that, at least nothing that the West has faced, and again, look at the history, there is lots of it, lots of good books on this issue. When Churchill criticized Chamberlain, it was because he was pointing out to Chamberlain, you're not dealing with a man who wants compromise. In peace, you are dealing with someone who wants war, Churchill himself would have dealings with the Germans. Very quickly worked that out, Chamberlain's mistake was that even there was there in his face, he persisted in an orthodox diplomacy, which simply didn't apply in the situation that he found himself in. All right, let's leave it there. The main point is that there's nothing that the West has faced, that is even comparable to the situation of the dynamics of that period of time, nothing even close. Nothing even close. If you want me to give you the closest parallel to appeasement today, now those are going to focus on response from some people, I'm sure, but if Putin had sat back and accepted that Ukraine rolls over and captures Donbass and joins NATO, that would have been appeasement. That would be closer to the kind of appeasement that Chamberlain was engaging in in the 1930s, because you would be appeasing an implacable adversary in the process, putting your own security at risk. The Russians have never behaved like that, never at any point in time since the end of the Cold War, certainly since the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, they've gone out of their way, repeatedly, to try to find roots to compromise. And again, if you want to see this, go to Glendesen's recent book, the book on multi-polarity in the modern world. He's written very well about this, and you see where the pressure has come from, and who has really been pushing during the whole of this period. But anyway, let's hear less about Chamberlain, less about Churchill. That was my point in asking you. Let's get over this. I mean, all it is doing, it's just a meme that some people endlessly play, they don't discuss the situation in the 30s, they don't discuss what was going on in the 1930s, they have a completely false idea of history, and they're trying to use history in order to get us all into a conflict, which we can very easily have avoided, and which, until very recently, we probably could have settled. Yeah, it's very manipulative. It is what they, when they throw around the names of Chamberlain and Churchill, in the ways that they do. Very manipulative. All right, we'll leave it there. Take care. [Music]