The Duran Podcast
Donbass falling. Crimean Bridge obsession. $320B Reparations Loan
All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine and let's start things off from the front lines and retreats, surrenders, negotiating surrenders, difficulties in the have-de-evka, direction, but difficulties, I guess everywhere for the Ukraine military, Chasov-Yar, even Harkov, we're seeing Russian advances, and we are getting admissions from Commander Sierzky that Ukraine is having a difficult time fighting Russia and the situation is very bad for the Ukraine military. So let's start things off with a summary of what is happening on the front lines because things are deteriorating very fast. They are indeed deteriorating very fast, and in fact, one gets the sense that things are getting worse at a faster and faster rate. The Russians seem to be advancing, as you said, in multiple directions. The big advances still seem to be taking place in the have-de-evka area. So we talked about some days ago about the fact that Ocheredina, this village on the hill through which the railway passes that this is now fallen, it looks as if a number of other settlements to the east, Novokalim Novok, and Karamik are also falling rapidly under Russian control. Further to the west of Ocheredina, the Ukrainians were trying to create a new defense line through a number of other villages, Natailavor, Yasna Brodovka, and Umansky reports this morning that Natailavor, another village, is about to fall. As you correctly said, reports that Ukrainian troops are surrendering or negotiating their terms of surrender in various places, especially in a place another village called Berdichi, more a small town than a village, but apparently that has also now essentially fallen under Russian control after long months of battle. And a major battle going on in a rather bigger place called Karamikalovka, which the Russians also appear to be close to capturing. Lastly, well not lastly, but the Russians have now reactivated advances at a place called in the area in the northern sectors of their battle fronts. They seem to have captured or in the process of capturing another village called Kislovka, this is quite a big village close to the Oskar River. And as you rightly said, Jassafia, the Russians pushing hard there, and all of this at the same time as the Russians are launching missiles right across Ukraine, attacking positions right across Ukraine, doing enormous amount of damage in all parts of Ukraine with their missiles. Going after energy complexes, they took out three more thermal power stations, they destroyed, they destroyed more railway connections, they go after ammunition dumps, all of those things. And seriously, the new commander-in-chief apparently, well not apparently, he has now publicly said that things on the front lines are bad, and he is apparently telling the Western powers in private that they're even worse than what he's prepared to say in public. So a general sense that the war is going very badly, and over the weekend, there were reports of an article that's appeared in a Swiss newspaper called Blick, and this has been interviewing various Ukrainian commanders. They say the Donbas, Donets whom Lukanska could go to fall, probably sometime around October, in other words, the Russians will capture the entirety of the Donbas, Stlavyansk, Kramatovsk, Pakrosk, all of these places that we're hearing. If Donbas falls, that opens the way, as I've discussed many times, for a major Russian advance to the Dnieper, at which point of the war. Well, it's not over if Ukraine decides to keep on fighting, but as we've discussed in many programmes, the idea of creating a Ukraine west of the Dnieper really isn't a functional one. It isn't going to succeed, no matter what some Western governments and Western officials and Western commentators think. So overall, militarily, the situation accelerating and deteriorating, and the Ukrainians themselves acknowledging the fact. Okay, so this brings us to the Kirch Bridge. The Crimea Bridge and various reports, which claim that the Biden White House and Ukraine are going to be using attack arms to target the Kirch Bridge to destroy the Kirch Bridge, in your video update from yesterday, you mentioned that the timing of the destruction of the Kirch Bridge would line up with events unfolding in the first half of May, if you really wanted to do the most damage to the Putin administration, given that you have Orthodox Easter, the most important holiday, for Russian Orthodox believers. That is taking place the first couple of days of May. You have Putin's inauguration, which I believe is the seventh of May, and then of course you have the big event, which is the victory day parade on May 9th. So here we are with the destruction of the Kirch Bridge once again. We are talking about the destruction of the Kirch Bridge, just a couple of more things Alexander, the Lithuanian ambassador to Sweden, the Lithuanian ambassador to Sweden, put out a tweet about the destruction of the Kirch Bridge, ending at the destruction of the Kirch Bridge. I say that because an ambassador to Sweden, Lithuanian's ambassador to Sweden, in my opinion, should not be talking about Ukraine or Russia. It's not his business, it's not his post, and of course you have to go back to what I believe is very relevant, which is Newlands statements about nice or nasty surprises that will be awaiting Russia. I believe that she was specifically talking about action being taken against the Kirch Bridge. You also have the German military officials who were caught on an audio leak talking about using tourist missiles to take out the Kirch Bridge. All right, Alexander. The Kirch Bridge, the Crimea Bridge, the destruction of the bridge, the obsession about the destruction of this bridge, which is civilian infrastructure. It is indeed, and it is absolutely an obsession, and of course officially, formally, the United States, the Biden administration has pretended for years that they oppose it, that they do not support attacks on the Kirch Bridge. If you remember, when the Ukrainians planted a bomb on the Kirch Bridge in October 2022, and by the way, for a long time, they pretended it wasn't them, but they now basically admitted it was. Anyway, when they planted a bomb on the Kirch Bridge and did some damage, the US, the Biden administration arranged for articles to appear in the media, the US media saying that they disapproved with this attack. Like so many things that they disapprove of and say that they're against, it now turns out, that they are actively lobbying for it to be done. And again, I can't help but think that this is all connected with the military situation. Ukraine is losing the wall. It's becoming increasingly clear that the latest funding package isn't going to be anywhere near enough to help Ukraine. The situation with weapons production is terrible. The situation with their defence missiles is terrible. They can't reverse the situation on the battlefronts and they know it. So they have to do something which they think is going to hurt Putin, damage Putin in the eyes of the Russian people, embarrass him at a time when I said all these major holidays and events are taking place in Russia. And this is the attack on the Kirch Bridge. And we've had the big delivery of attack missiles to Ukraine to enable that to be done. The Germans have balked so far at sending the tourist missiles. We saw the German generals saying to each other that they would be used to attack the Kirch Bridge, but that it would need the Germans themselves to get involved. And there were some legal issues and concerns about that. And also that it would take an awful lot of tourist missiles to do any real damage to the bridge. It would take about 20, apparently, to destroy it or to have any prospect of destroying it because it was so enormous. But the Germans having their cold feet, but that doesn't stop us. We have to destroy the Kirch Bridge in order to show to Putin that even if he's winning the war, we're going to hurt him, hurt him where we think he will feel it. So he sent the attack missiles and we're going to attack the Kirch Bridge. Now, I say all of that. Of course, there's been no official confirmation from the United States that they want to see this happen. But in Ukraine, they've been saying that the Kirch Bridge will be destroyed in the first half of this year. Kiril Abudanov, the intelligence chief, has said it several times, as you rightly said, the Lithuanian ambassador in Sweden has been talking about it. So we can take it as read that there is going to be an attempt over the next few weeks, almost certainly in May, to destroy the Kirch Bridge. Now, whether that will succeed, I am not in a position to say I would have thought that they will launch a major missile strike on the Kirch Bridge. Apparently, not an easy structure to destroy entirely. You would have to attack it in multiple places in a devastating way. And the Russians are saying that the Ukrainians have, in fact, launched around 15 to 20 attacking missiles already at Russian positions. And the Russians up to now have been able to shoot the great majority of them down. And of course, the Kirch Bridge is very, very well protected. But I am not in a position to say that this attack is necessarily going to fail because I don't know that it is. It might succeed. What I will say is it will change nothing in terms of war. Ukraine does cannot stop logistical supplies reaching Crimea now. Most of them go by land. There's a railway system, a railway that the Russians have just built, which provides most of the logistics for the military there. Logistics also go to Ukraine to Crimea by ship. This pointless cruel attack on civilian infrastructure is completely pointless in military terms. But of course, if you want to do something big propaganda-wise that you think is going to hurt an embarrassed Putin, then you go after the Crimean Bridge. As I said, it has an obsessive quality. It is ultimately rational. But it looks like that's what they're going to try to do. Can you think of any other reason to go after the Kirmea Bridge? I mean, Humilié Putin, Putin administration during the first half of May when they have all of these big events and celebrations going on. But is there any other reason to go after the bridge? Maybe they feel like this humiliation will lead to a regime change, or at least the beginnings of a regime change. I don't know. Or maybe they feel like this type of attack will lead to more support for Ukraine, more funding for Ukraine, because it will be seen as a significant victory, something like that. I mean, can you think of any other reason to go after the bridge? Because it just seems at this point in time, you're not stopping military supplies from entering into the front lines via the bridge. So you're just wasting missiles. Exactly. All those reasons that you said, the hope that it will trigger an upswell of opposition to Putin and will start events rolling towards a regime change, the fact that it will give morale in Ukraine and you feel it may make people feel them more happy and encouraged and all that. The fact that it might encourage some people in the West to provide extra funding for Ukraine. All of that, I'm sure all of these things I've been talked about and discussed and there's assurances with each other that this is going to make a huge difference and it's going to scare the Russians and alarm Putin and make them worry about the supply situation to Crimea and all of those things. But I don't think that these are the reasons why they are really attacking the Crimean bridge. I think they're attacking the Crimean bridge because they're very, very angry and this is an emotional burst if you like. They're angry because they realize that the war is being lost and they're angry and that's why they're going to do it because this is how you get your anger out of your system. If you follow these people closely, it's sometimes a mistake to over analyze the reasons why they do what they do and I think that's basically it. As I said, I'm sure as I said that if you go through all the paperwork, you find the notes of all their discussions, which one day we will, we will discover that they're talking about all the scenarios that you outlined but they're just giving reasons to do what they want to do. Ultimately, it serves no purpose but that's why they're not stopping them from doing it. Basically, they're losing and they want to hit back and hit back hard in a way that they think will embarrass and upset the Russians and embarrass Putin specifically and that's why they're going to do it. I do wonder what effect it would have if something like that did happen, what effect it would have on the Putin administration and Russia. Well, now you mentioned my program yesterday and I said that one, I mean, the Russians will respond, they will retaliate and I said that perhaps one reason why that one way they might retaliate is by doing something which they have not done up to this time, which is by attacking the NEPA bridges, the bridges across the NEPA. Now, I've had a very interesting email from someone after that program who's done some studies on this and he has said that certainly the Russians do have the ability to destroy the NEPA bridges. If they destroy the NEPA bridges, the entire Ukrainian army east of the NEPA is cut off and will eventually collapse. I mean, it receives all its supplies across the NEPA so it would be a devastating thing that the Russians might do and I've speculated that perhaps one reason up to now why the Russians have not been doing it is because they wanted to use it as leverage in case an attack on the Kirch Bridge does take place. If, of course, the bridges attacked and destroyed, then that would free their hands and they would, they might do it. Now, it's been pointed out to me that, in fact, the Russians had a good, good reasons for not attacking the NEPA bridges earlier, which is that they wanted the Ukrainian army to cross the NEPA in the earlier stages of the war in order to be able to destroy it east of the river. If they hadn't done that and most of the Ukrainian army had remained west of the river, then given that earlier in the war the Russians lacked the means to cross the NEPA themselves, in force that would have enabled a much stronger buildup west of the NEPA by the Ukrainians and the Western powers to take place. But I suspect that calculus no longer applies. That might be what the Russians do. But one way or the other, I will say one thing, I think those who expect that this is going to create a catastrophic crisis in Russia, that it's going to lead to the collapse of Putin's government, that it's going to do any of these things. I think that they're completely wrong. People in Russia will understand who is really behind the attack with the Kirch Bridge, that it is the United States. It will further confirm to Russians that the United States is hostile to them. Like every one of these attacks, it will harden and strengthen Russian support for the Russian government and make the Russians even more determined to see that this war is won and brought to a successful conclusion. And no one should expect otherwise. Both experience in this war and, by the way, experience from every other major war that has been fought shows that this is how people respond to attacks like this. But, you know, as I said, I don't think it's going to change what Western, what the Biden administration wants to do. I suspect that driving this is the president himself. I think that he has a tremendous feelings of anger in him. We've discussed that in previous programs. And I think a lot of that anger is focused on the person of Vladimir Putin. And I think basically he wants to do whatever he possibly can, despite an injured and hurt Putin, especially at a time when it looks to him as if Putin is winning. It's the captain, Ahab, Moby Dick's scenario. And, you know, we see it playing out yet again. Yeah, I don't know if they're going to go after the courage bridge. I imagine I agree with you that that is an obsession. But this first half of May, something they're going to try something. I believe that that was the 100% certainty. And most likely, because we've been talking about the obsession with the courage bridge, I would say, yeah, that is the number one target that they want to go after the collective West as well as the Zelensky regime. But let's now talk about the financing of Project Ukraine. Zelensky in his video update yesterday, I believe, on Sunday, he said that he is negotiating with the Biden White House for a 10 year financing plan. He didn't elaborate as to what this means. But 10 years of financial and military support, that is what he is trying to negotiate with the United States. And Reuters came out with an article this morning saying that the 61 billion is not enough, Alexander, and the way that they can keep Project Ukraine going for the long term for the next 10 years, or at least according to Reuters, one sec, up until 2028, the way they can keep Project Ukraine fully financed up to 2028. And according to Reuters, Ukraine needs at a minimum 88 billion dollars every year. The way they can keep this thing going is with a syndicated reparation loan. Now, we've talked about this in the past. This seems to be the plan in order to seize or steal the Russian frozen assets. 320 billion is the number that Reuters is coming out with, by the way, Alexander 320 billion in Russian frozen assets, syndicated reparation loan. That is how they're going to get this money alone to Ukraine from the collective West. And this loan is going off against the reparations that Russia owes Ukraine. So if Russia refuses to pay these reparations, well, the money is loaned to Ukraine and this Russia's responsibility to pay this loan, because this is the reparation amount that Russia owes Ukraine. So that is the plan. What are your thoughts about this? Well, I mean, it's been floated before, and I'm sure it is the plan, and I'm sure the united, the Biden administration is pushing it and pushing it relentlessly. I'm sure the British government, by the way, is pushing it relentlessly. And we've been talking about how the Biden administration wants to seize the Russian assets and the reparations loan has been one of the instruments that has been talked about many times. It has been pointed out on numerous occasions by lots of people, including people who are very supportive of Ukraine, that this is illegal, that it can't be done legally speaking. The European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde herself, has spoken out against it. You wrote clear where most of the money is held, have spoken out against it. Lawyers around the world have said this cut, this is impossible, this is illegal, what you're trying to do is just theft. The very notion of reparations is something that you agree at the end of a war as part of a treaty which is agreed by the side which has lost. There is no situation like that existing today, but this, we're dealing with the Biden administration. They don't worry about legal niceties, they don't worry about the financial stability of Europe. As I said, there's an obsessive side of this. They're pushing relentlessly hard. We got reports in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago that the Germans are very, very unhappy about this idea. They don't want to go down this route. They're very worried that if the issue of reparations is brought up in this way, other countries around the world will start bringing up the issue of reparations against Germany for the events that happened in the Second World War. So, as always, the Germans putting up some resistance, nobody really expects, I think, that that resistance will hold. Most likely, we said it many times, this 300 billion in frozen assets will be seized in some form. And it's not going to make a difference, at least not, it's not going to make any difference in terms of the war. Because yes, you've got all the money, but you're not producing weapons with it. This is the thing that, again, is difficult to get across. But already, we're seeing that out of that $61 billion, $6 billion has now been allocated to produce weapons for Ukraine, apparently from the $13 billion that has been allocated for weapons for Ukraine, that those weapons have to be made. Because for the moment, they don't exist and making them is going to take years. And in practice, and in fact, it doesn't, with $300 billion, all you've got is more money that you can't use in that way. But they're going to do it because getting hold of the money is now also a massive priority for them. They need to keep their various funds running. They probably need to fund also the Ukrainian government in exile that they're probably already planning to create, or perhaps to fund Western Ukraine if they set up their defense lines on the NEPA, which we've been talking about, all of that. They need to do all of those things. But the other thing they are, I think, working towards trying to do, and this is where the 10-year package comes in, is that they're trying to tie the hands of any future US president, including perhaps Donald Trump, if he is elected in November. They're creating a security agreement, which will presumably be ratified by the Senate, where the Senate has a majority and probably a two-thirds majority to ratify this thing. And they're going to put the funding aside by seizing the assets to keep the show on the road, regardless of what the new president does. So it's directed against the Russians, of course. It's intended to keep the funding running as well, but it's also intended to tie down Donald Trump in the event that he's elected in November. So that's what this is all about. Again, it's playing out an obsession. This is a disastrous idea, after article saying how it will undermine the credibility of the Eurozone and of the Western financial system, but Biden administration never wants to accept that kind of advice. They're just going to go ahead and do it anyway, and eventually the Europeans will fall into line. Yeah, this is what Reuters said, just to wrap up the video, Alexander. Ukraine would pledge its claim for reparations against Russia to a syndicate of its allies in return for a loan, if Moscow refused to pay the damages, the allies could use Russia's frozen assets to pay off the loan. Never have never flown ever in my life. Well, there isn't such a saying. I mean, I haven't any level personal business government at any level. Absolutely. I mean, you know, this is as it it, it anticipates a peace treaty after Ukraine is one that will cover the loan. Ukraine is losing. It's not winning. Incredible stuff. Yeah, it highlights their desperation. Yeah, but it also highlights their obsessive, the obsessive quality of what they're doing. I mean, and that's, I think, I mean, again, it's a scheme. It's a way of getting around the law. Legally, I mean, this doesn't work, and it makes no sense. But as I said, we're dealing with the Biden administration, and that isn't going to stop them. This idea, by the way, has been around now for well many, many months. It's been shot down by the lawyers many, many times. But of course, as I said, that isn't going to make any, that isn't going to stop them. We'll prevent them doing that, which they're doing now. Just a final thought. I wonder how other countries see this. I wonder what they're thinking as they see all of this discussion about a reparation loan and seizing foreign assets go down. Yeah, I wonder what China's thinking, what Saudi Arabia's thinking, what very wealthy investors are thinking. Take your money out of the US and Europe and transfer it to Shanghai and Hong Kong and Singapore and places like that. That's what they're probably thinking. I mean, it's not as if these places don't exist anymore. And this is another thing which people perhaps in the West don't fully understand. But anyway, that's what they're going to be thinking. Of course, that's what Dubai is another place where you could stop putting money. And you buy gold as well. I mean, you know, buy lots of gold because that's not just, you know, pledges for gold. You buy physical gold, which is something which the United States especially doesn't want people to do because it doesn't want the price of physical gold to rise. There's vast literature on this topic. But you know, that is what people are going to do. And governments and governments like China. I like China. They're already doing it. They're already doing it. And they're going to do it even more from this point for going forward. All right. 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