The Duran Podcast
NATO's war with Russia w/ Dmitry Orlov (Live)
OK. We are live with Alexander Mercurs, and we are joined today with the Mitry Orlof. It is our pleasure and our honor to have you with us, Dimitri, on the direct. How are you doing today? Very good. It is my pleasure to be with you. Dimitri, I have your link to your Boosty page. In the description box down below, is that the best place where people can find you? Yes, that's where I publish all of my articles these days. Seems to be working relatively well for me. All right, I have that link in the description box down below. I will also add it as a pinned comment as well. Definitely follow the Mitry's work. Fantastic articles, fantastic analysts. And let's say hello to everyone that's watching us today, from Odyssey, from Rockfin, Rumble. How is everyone doing on Rumble? And on YouTube, and a big shout out to our locals community, the Duran.locals.com. How is everyone doing in the locals chat? How is everyone doing in the YouTube chat? Fish M moderating Peter is with us moderating. Who else? Zariel is with us as well, and I think that is everyone moderating. So Alexander Dimitri, a lot of escalation is going on. So let's discuss everything that is happening. In Russia, in Ukraine, in Europe, and in the United States. Where are things heading, Alexander Dimitri, the floor is yours. Well, indeed. And can I just say, nobody better to discuss these topics with Dimitri? I've been reading a lot of things that Dimitri has been writing for. Well, a very long time, long before I started, we started on the Duran. And always insightful, interesting, interesting about Russia, interesting about Ukraine, interesting, very interesting indeed, what Dimitri tells us about the West as well. And I think if you track what Dimitri has been writing about the West, especially, but you know, Russia and Ukraine also profoundly prescient as well. I mean, you know, things don't turn out exactly always in the way that one expects, because none of us has a crystal ball, but Dimitri gets pretty close to saying things, I'll get, you know, have got pretty close in describing how things have indeed turned out. And we are indeed in a period of extraordinary escalation, escalation of rhetoric, all kinds of dangerous moves, extraordinary anger, hysteria in the West as well, astonishing contrast by the calmness and as Russians like to increasingly say, rhythmic quality with which policy and actions are conducted there. And I have to say, the thing that really strikes me about the West at the moment is you have an astonishing grandiosity of language combined with inept execution and remarkably limited resources. The resources simply do not come anywhere close to meeting the suite of the West's ambitions, a fact which seems to surprise Western leaders as they encounter it, and which they don't really seem to know how to cope with. And I kind of would think that a lot of the tension and anger and hysteria and paranoia that we're seeing at the West at the moment is because this realization is now suddenly dawning upon them. And of course, those who have a historical bent, as I do, will know the grandiosity and paranoia, megalomania and paranoia, are kindred cousins. They go together. Anyway, immediately, this is my few comments about the state of the West. Firstly, would you agree, are we, am I getting it roughly right? Have you ever known the time, you know, go on, go on, go on, go on. I think you're right, and things look very different from the West than they do from the East, where there is really no escalation going on. Really worth mentioning strategically, Russia is doing extremely well, tactically, Russia is doing extremely well, it's sustaining a certain amount of damage, but it can go on sustaining. I can't hear you to hear care, is the audio breaking up? Just slightly, but I can hear you. Yeah, it was a little breaking up, a little low. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I'll try to speak up. But in the West, I think the situation is rather different because of something that could be called auto training, you know, it's where people tell themselves that they're good enough and they're smart enough, and they can get the job done, and they're still very important, and everyone respects and likes and fears them, and they will continue telling that to themselves and to each other no matter what's going on. So Afghanistan is a complete fiasco, they pull out, but let's forget about that. I've lost you again, really, it's briefly. The audio is breaking up, it's sometimes. Yeah, we lost you again, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, the chat is saying that the volume is also low. Turn up. Okay. Yeah. That's very strange. Usually it's just fine. Is there any? Let me think. Input the input thing on the side, it's working on my end. Okay. Chatty. Let me, can you boost the volume on your, yeah, yeah, let me, let me see if I could boost. Okay, I boosted it. No, I lost him. I think the mic, I think the, the mic can only go up so high from my side. Okay, so, I suppose, yeah, chat, chat, can you hear the B2D better now? Yeah, the B2D could do one, two, three, four, five, can you hear me? Testing, testing. Yeah. I can hear you. Testing. I can hear you. Okay. So should I. I think, I think let's go on. Let's try and go on. Yeah, let's continue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the West is facing a sequence of theascos of various kinds, but they're telling each other that they're still very powerful and very important. Even though that the hoodies and Yemen can shut down the, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal at will, that they still think that they have a powerful military and powerful navy for instance, that can still threaten countries, it will. So there's a complete disconnect between what the West can actually do and what they think they can do. And it's a bit of a problem that's coming to a head in the Ukraine because the Russians are very eager to pretty much kill all the Ukrainians that want to fight them, that want to shoot at them. And they're doing that successfully, they've up, up to that level to about 1400 dead Ukrainians a day at this point, which is a record. They don't have that far to go because the Ukrainians are pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as recruitment, drafting. They think that they can change the situation by supplying the Ukrainians with weapons. Even though 90% of the weapons, the, the artillery, the guided artillery, the, the, the rocketry that they provided is now useless because the Russians have invented electronic countermeasures that throw them off track. So 90% of everything that gets launched just gets lost, doesn't hit the target. All they can really do is randomly shell civilian districts because they're at least you'll hit something, maybe a car, you know, maybe a school who knows, but they, they satisfy themselves with that. And so that there really is a complete disconnect between what the West can do and what the Russians are doing. The Russians are taking it slow. They could probably take a great deal more land, but you see they don't want to discourage the Ukrainians because they don't want the Ukrainians to just fold up and stop fighting. They don't want the West to stop supplying whatever weapons they have left to the Ukrainians. They don't want the West to stop bankrupting itself by bankrolling this corrupt regime. That's all going the way it's supposed to. So the Russians are taking it easy. They're not, they're not really working too hard. They're working to minimize casualties on their end. That is a big priority. They're working very hard on drone technology, on artificial intelligence to pick out targets automatically. They're working very hard on radioworphic, those are priorities and the latest thing that they're trying to do is try to optimize the entire area of military production. So there's no repetition of effort and it's a very directed effort designed to produce the maximum output for the minimum price, which is probably at this point 20, 30 times better than in the West. I think you put your finger on many of the key points. I think that the kind of wall the Russians are conducting in Ukraine is not only one that the West itself has never conducted because attrition wall isn't something that they've done at least not in the modern era, but they've never actually sought to conduct attrition wall. Maybe Ulysses Grant did it briefly in the 1860s, but that was long ago. If you're talking about the allies in the First World War who did conduct what ultimately came to an attrition wall, that is not what they wanted to do at all. They were always looking for some kind of mythical breakthrough that they would achieve in order to try to get the attrition happen faster. So it's not something the West does or can even imagine, and I think it has them completely non-plussed and unable to understand it, even the more realistic people within the militaries of the West who perhaps understand or beginning to understand what a problem the situation is, what a crisis situation has been reached in Ukraine. They don't still, I think, don't fully get what it is that the Russians are doing. And I think that this is compounded the sense of crisis in the West because one of the major problems that you encounter, at least one of the, well let me put it this way, you can never solve a problem unless you're able to ask the right question. You can't answer, give an answer, without asking, you know, understanding the problem that you're encountering. If the West can't answer the right question, because it is so completely beyond its imagination, how is it going to come up with a solution to the problem that it faces? And you touched on the question of military production, of technological development, of all of those things, and to an extent that has astonished even me, and I used to work in industrial industry, I used to see how industry work, I didn't know the West understands how industry works anymore, I mean I've come to the absolute conclusion that political leaders and military people just don't understand industry, they don't eat, they don't understand technology, they have a completely misconceived conception of what it does and of how it works and of how to get production organised. Now this is not new to you because you've been talking about these things for years, but I just wanted to say that I have been reading you, but I never imagined that it could possibly be on this kind of scale. So what happened, why have we lost those abilities, that capacity for imagination, and that capacity for industrial organisation, which by the way in the West we did used to have? Well it happens back to the collapse of the Spanish Empire, you know, they made so much gold, were stole so much gold from the various tribes in the Americas, that they didn't actually have to do anything, they bought everything they could possibly need until the money ran out and then they folded, the United States did a similar thing by printing money for a really long time, exporting inflation, we know the whole story, basically borrowing itself out of existence. Right now we're witnessing the debt spiral where they have to borrow more and more just to pay the interest on the existing debt, never mind new debt. So that's happening and while that was happening, they've exported all the productionals of dirty work, I left a little yellow and brown people take care of it, but we'll just take care of servants and lo and behold it turns out that if you run a massage parlor, you know that's a service sort of industry, but you still need massage oil and that's an import and if the container ports aren't running, you're not getting the massage oil and your massage parlor has to close. So it's down to that situation where 70 probably more than that percent of the US economy and other Western economies is services, they're basically scratching each other's back and calling that GDP, but they don't know how to make anything and when it comes to making something, they've read about making things, but they don't have any industrials. They have people with MBAs that can pretty much run anything as a financial institution, no matter what it makes, it makes pencils, but it's still a financial institution, their compensation depends on stock prices and not on the quality or quantity of the pencils. So they follow this pattern where they come up with a business plan and maybe even some kind of a get chart and they hire some designers to produce 3D models and PowerPoint presentations and they show those to investors and maybe they select a board of directors and then they sit there and realize that they've just spent half the money. And then they have to do it again, but they haven't produced a single pencil. So that sort of thing happens, we can watch that happen, the Americans decided that they have to make their own microchips, they can no longer trust Taiwan to produce the microchips. They've allocated billions of dollars, they spent half the billions of dollars, they've maybe dug some foundation pit somewhere and I'm not sure somewhere in Arizona, but there's no factory and there are no chips and that sort of thing just keeps happening over and over and over again because to have industry you have to start with industrialists and they don't have any industrialists left. Let's look at the other side of the picture because of course the west, we've just described the situation in the west, why is Russia so completely different? Why has Russia proved so resistant to these trends of deindustrialization that have become so generic in the west, not just deindustrialization, but the loss of industrial and organizational skills that we have seen in the west? After all, starting from the late 1980s and going through the 1990s and even into the early 2000s, there was a very clear, I can remember it, very clear effort made amongst many people, including in Russia itself, to convert Russia to the western model. Why didn't it happen? Was it something about the basic culture of the country, the education system, the nature of the institutions, was it all of those together? What was it that caused this resistance or was it the way in which the west itself tried to pursue this policy of deindustrialization and whatever it is, westernization of Russia in the 1990s that caused the Russians to reject it? Well if you drive around Russia, small towns and Russia, big towns as I have, every place you go to, there's going to be a war memorial. Not just a tiny little war memorial, but a huge one, and it'll have recently placed fresh cut flowers in front of it, and on major holidays to commemorate various occasions, school children will come and lay flowers at those memorials, bands will play, choirs will sing, and people who have had anything to do with that victory will be honored, in memory if they're no longer alive, it is the state cult. Victory in war is Russia's main state cult, you can compare it to pagan cults of old empires, it is really an awesome force. The Russians like to say that our fallen are our sentinels, they will not abandon us, they will not allow us to be defeated. As far as military production, to the Russians, to the engineers, that is a type of warfare. It's just that warfare has two components, one is the front, and the other one is the rear, and they're equally important, and equally heroic, as far as crafting yet another victory is concerned. And Russia is not the Soviet Union which had this internationalist flavor to it, it started out with this idea of world revolution, of course Stalin realized that that was no go, so he decided to instead build socialism in just one country, which is the USSR, and went on doing that. But Russia is a different place now, it's a different country. It is not internationalist, it is multi-ethnic, but basically it is a multi-ethnic Russian state, and it has a certain idea, I don't know if ideology is the right word to use, but it has something, an ethos, similar to the samurai ethos, Bushido of old imperial Japan. When Putin, Putin suddenly, and everybody thought that was a bit of a joke, but it's not a joke, it's deadly serious, when he said that well, if there's a, if there's third world war, then we will go to heaven as martyrs, and our enemies will just die like dogs because they won't even have time to repent, because you see it in order to get to heaven, you have to repent, but if you don't have time to repent, you end up in hell. It has the mentality of the people, and so infinitely patient, but victory or death is basically it, very different from what's going on in the West. It's completely different, now speaking about Russia being different today, in that it's not as internationalist in the way that the Soviet Union was, that is completely true, but it's also paradoxical, because of course Russia is not internationalist, yet it has far better relations with far more countries than the Soviet Union ever did. I remember that, I was there in the last period of the Cold War, and a far more wider range of countries, so it's friends with countries like Saudi Arabia, and Colombia, and most of the Asian states, Malaysia, wherever, Indonesia, wherever, and at the same time, it is far more open to the world, which of course the Soviet Union was not, the Soviet Union was much more careful about allowing people from outside, and ideas from outside, to come in and to involve themselves in Soviet things. How do you explain this paradox? Why are the Russians so much more successful in their international relations today than the Soviets were, and how is it that they preserve their Russianness, if you likely call it that, with the fact that they're simultaneously much more open to the world, and is this also partly a reflection of the policies of the West, which has become more unpopular around the world, than I have ever known it to be in my lifetime? Well, first of all, I think I don't think the West is altogether unpopular, it is still the most popular circus act in the world, but it's not taken seriously, because there's nothing left of it to take seriously. That is the death of post-modernism, is you can basically get rid of old traditionalism and then the traditionalists say, "Well, that's nice, but let's cross it all out, let's toss it, because it's just some junk that you've come up with." So basically what the West has is a whole pile of junk that is sort of entertaining to look at, but not to take seriously. As far as Russians' ability to interact positively with the rest of the world, it's just because the Russians, they treat everyone as equals. They don't have this legacy of imperialist domination. They never had the idea of the white man's burden. They never looted the rest of the planet, instead they themselves have been looted a few times, but the difference is, and this is why Russia is so inspirational to the rest of the world outside the West. Russia has never been conquered, ever. It is unconquerable, and that is something that people really love, because they want a piece of that themselves, they want to be unconquerable. So they're very eager to invite the Russians there to teach them how to become unconquerable, and some of them are doing pretty well with it. Look at where Nisha Air is now, they kicked out the French, now they're kicking out the Americans, they love it. That Bismarck actually said that about Russia, that it is the unconquerable country, and he warned Germany, the German leadership at that time of this, and of course they ignored what he said. But anyway, that's a bit of history. Now, is that why the West is so antagonistic to Russia, that it looks at this country, that in some superficial ways, it looks very similar to the West, if you travel, if you get a Moscow and St Petersburg or another Russian cities, at a certain level, they do look very like cities in the West. If you spend any time there and go a little bit under the surface, you realize you start to see the differences, and they are marked, but superficially it looks similar. But at the same time, it's not doing, it's not playing the same game as the West is, it's not being part of what the West wants, it's not being prepared to provide the West with the unlimited resources and raw materials that the West expected, but fundamentally it remains both defiant and different. Is this what it is about Russia that makes the West so antagonistic? I have to say, I have genuine difficulty sometimes understanding the intense antipathy, the hostility that exists towards Russia and the West. I can understand why there might be a geopolitical conflict, but if you listen to the way some Western leaders speak, you get the impression that they actually hate the place. Now, has that anything to do with the topics that we've discussed? I think it has to do with a great deal of that. You see, the leaders in the West are weak, they're specifically chosen to be weak, especially in Europe where the only people who are allowed by the Americans to stand for election are somehow flawed, there's some compromising evidence on them that will allow the CIA or whatever other group is in charge of jettisoning them, to jettison them very quickly by causing a scandal, and there is a powerful way of powerful methodology in place for basically keeping them in line and making them do whatever Washington wants them to do, and then they look at these Russian politicians who do whatever their people tell them to do, and they go into shock. The idea that there might be a democracy where politicians may get promises to their electorate and then if they don't abide by those promises, they're thrown out of their job. It's just such a shock to them, and then on another level, they're all about their bankers and they listen to their bankers and investments advisors and all of that, it's all about money, and from that point of view, the modern new Russia, unlike the post-Soviet regime of Yeltsin, is just not really providing the money that the West needs. The fact that the Soviet Union after its collapse got thoroughly looted gave the West and gave the United States an extra 30 years during which they definitely avoided national bankruptcy, and now that Russia is not playing ball and is not exporting all of the horrendous profits that it makes by exporting various types of raw materials and energy, and keeping that to itself and using that money to finance its internal development or maybe lending it to various friendly countries, that is a disaster for the West because it breaks their business model of the Russians working hard, making lots of money, and then giving that money to them. They're no longer doing them, and so that's a shock and makes them very angry. Now, where does Ukraine fit in all of this because Ukraine historically has been part of Russia, very close to Russia, very close cultural relationships with Russia. I know that there are some people who say that the relationship is so close, that in fact ultimately at a certain level they're almost one and the same. Why did Ukraine turn out so differently from Russia and what explains the antagonism to Russia that you find amongst some people there, and which is driving this war and which is such a big role in this war? Well, there are a few problems to get through, you mentioned history, so let's just point out that there's no such country as Ukraine historically. It's a Soviet project. Basically what happened was that Lenin decided to launch a whole bunch of Russian lands together with a little bit of not sure what and call it the Ukrainian. Those Russians balked at being called Ukrainian, but the Soviets were very forceful in hiring local thugs to convince them to start speaking this local dialect which concocted language called Ukrainian, which some of them made an effort to do and some didn't. And then after World War II Stalin made the terrible mistake of lumping in some lands that were part of Austria-Hungary together with this concocted enemy called the Ukraine. And that's where all of the Nazi fascists, all of those thugs came from. That particular place was really ravaged by a combination of Polish and German influences into being basically mental cases. They're very hard to do with, very hard to understand, and then over the past 30 years those people were put in charge of the whole place by the Americans who infiltrated the place and tried to turn it into an anti-Russia. So for 30 years they've been destroying the educational system and brainwashing people to hate Russia. That is what happened and it's a very sad result because once you start brainwashing people from a young age teaching them this fake language that doesn't really teach them anything, and then doing something else with them is trying to perform some kind of psychiatry on the level of a huge territory with a multi-million population which there isn't enough psychiatrists in the world to handle. So the only choice there is to have them come and try to kill you and kill them instead, which is what's going on. It's very brutal and very terrible to watch. What do you think is going to happen? We can all see that Russia is going to win the war. I don't think there's any body now, even in the West, even in the sort of commentary at any longer, who doubts that Russia is winning and of course we have all these extreme ideas about giving the Ukrainian's mis-science to launch of Russia, sending Western troops there. But I think anybody deep down really believes that this is going to change the outcome anymore. So how is it going to end? I mean, will we see the whole thing collapse? Will we see some kind of Ukrainian state continue to exist and survive and come out of this process? Or will it all be brought back into the Russian fold again? I get asked this question all the time and I'm going to be so straightforwardly. I myself am not sure. But what are your thoughts? Well the ideas that these ideas are not mine, their ideas expressed by various people in Russia. But what makes the most sense to me is that the Russian parts of Ukraine, who've only been there for less than a century, lumped into the Ukraine and until the collapse of the USSR, didn't really matter because it was all one country anyway, that spent just the last 30 years, most of them, that period of time speaking Russian, you know, all of that time, speaking Russian and being part of the Russian world, they'll go back to Russia as has already happened in Donetsk, Donetsk, Gugans, and Krania, and Zaparosia, so. So there are other Russian parts of the former Ukraine that will be folded into Russia. Then further west there's an area which is sort of a no man's land, but some of that is really, really good farmland and it's becoming largely depopulated because people are leaving because there's no way to make up a thing there. It'll probably just be farmland and a sort of buffer zone. And then even further west there's a couple of districts, a couple of regions that I think are destined to become major headaches for Poland and Hungary and Romania. Let them handle it, and the buffer zone will be wide enough so that the Russians won't have to worry about security too much, but none of them will ever be fit to join NATO under any circumstances, and Russia will simply not allow it. So that's probably how it's going to evolve, it'll come apart the same way it was put together, so you could call it desurve-itization, which is something that the Ukrainians sometimes talk about, though they talk about it in a completely different way. If I can just ask you a few more questions, and then we can perhaps switch to Alex, if that's all right, how did the west underestimate Russia so completely? Now this is an issue that is close to my heart because I've travelled to Russia a couple of times. Not as deeply or as extensively as many people who claim to know the place, but clearly don't have done, but I've been to Russia, I've been outside Moscow, I've been to the Urals, the places like this. I've seen Russian factories, I've talked with Russian engineers, I had a clear conception of the scale of the place, and this is all documented, I've been writing about this for many years, and I said that when it came to it, the military industrial economy, and indeed the economy as a whole, would be able to withstand the sanctions shock very successfully, and that there would be an enormous production surge which would carry Russia forward, and that all the expectations of political crisis, protest, all of that, that would not materialise. I cannot begin to tell you how many people in the west, not just recently, but throughout the time I've been saying these things, have insisted to me that I am completely wrong. I've had most astonishing things said, people for example telling me that the Russians didn't know how to do direct satellite broadcasting for television, and I said they actually find it in, things like that guy. So why, you know, the west supposedly studies Russia minutally, you would expect that they would know something about the scale of the factories, you know, they're not difficult to see, you can get satellites, you can see them, you can count the number of employees, you can work out how many machine tools there are in these factories. This is the basic work I thought of intelligence agencies. There are people in the west, I've spoken to some of them, engineers, people like that, who've been to these places, they tell me no one, no one has consulted a few in Britain, no one has ever spoken to them, how does it happen? Why did the west not see that which was always there? Well, I think you could approach it from a couple of different angles. One is that Russia in the minds of many people in the west is a work of fiction, of their own. It's a country that they invent and reinvent by doing psychological maneuver called projecting the shadow, where you first convince yourself that Russia is the enemy, and secondly, since you don't know anything about what Russia is really like, you project onto Russia everything that you don't like about yourself. And you end up with this image of something that is simultaneously bad, evil, and weak and pathetic. And so you go on with that model in your mind thinking that you're talking about Russia whereas you're really talking about yourself. So that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is a lot of this information about Russia filters to everywhere in the west from the United States, which is think tank land. The United States is just filthy with thinkings, you know, it's like you can't throw brick without hitting them, and think tanks generally are staffed with people who rely on informants. And those informants are immigrants, and there are lots of Russian immigrants in the United States. Now with immigrants, there's a different psychological thing, which is Russian immigrants when they leave Russia, they experience incredible things of nostalgia, and want to come back with all their heart, but they can't because they told themselves that, you know, immigrating is something they must do, and they can't admit to themselves that they've made a terrible mistake by leaving Russia. And so what the psychological mechanism that they use is to continuously tell themselves that Russia is bad. So they actually become compendiums, walking compendiums of information about things about Russia that are bad. They parse all the news and find all the news stories about Russia that allow them to formulate this picture of Russia as a bad place. And then they're very eager to share that information with each other, and everyone else would listen, because that will alleviate their pains of nostalgia. There's a third element to it, which is Russians who speak English. You see, Russian is a bear of a language, and it's not a language that you want to speak badly, because everyone will just vomit, you know? And so very few people in the West really want to spend six years of their lives studying this beast of a language just for the sake of understanding Russia. Usually it happens if they marry a Russian, and then they move to Russia, and then they become Russian, and then from the point of view of, you know, think tank people, they become somehow polluted with Russianness and not to be trusted. Whereas the people that they do want to listen to are the people who somehow have convinced themselves that they're going to learn English and they're going to escape this terrible country called Russia and live in the wonderful, shiny West where, you know, white bread has a crunchy crust, whereas in Russia it doesn't. And that's a terrible thing. So basically they're talking to people who have a preconceived notion of Russia as a bad place, and they convince themselves, therefore, that Russia is a bad place. So those are really the three mechanisms. One very last question from me, and this is a huge topic, but just a short thoughts about this. The relationship with China, the relationship between Russia and China, is it stable? Is it for real? I mean, to give away my view, I think it most emphatically is. I don't think it's going to change in the way that the West hopes. I don't think there's this tension between China and Russia that some people can imagine. But what are your views on this? I think China and Russia are becoming symbionts. They're not allies. It's not something that is worth discussing in terms of Western-style state relations. They're really symbionts when Putin flies to Beijing and brings his entire government with him, his entire cabinet. And on the other side, Xi Jinping's entire cabinet is there to meet them. But there's a pile of paperwork up to the roof that they forth through and sign look to papers, et cetera. That is basically the spectacle of Russia and China unifying at an economic level, not necessarily political level, not necessarily social level, although that's interesting because the Russians and the Chinese get along very smoothly, strangely enough, in spite of big cultural differences, they're very compatible. And there's quite a bit of affection, I would say, for each other. But they're becoming symbionts because Russia cannot manufacture everything that it needs by itself. It doesn't have the population. It doesn't have the market. It can do that because China's market is the whole world. So it has incredible efficiencies of scale that Russia cannot possibly match. And Russia is happy to let China be the manufacturing mechanism. And China's problem is that it's running out of coal. This entire manufacturing mechanism has been based on mostly energy from coal. But now some of the pits in China are becoming too deep. The easy to get at coal is becoming a smaller and smaller share. They're getting lots of coal from Russia. They need to get more. So Russia is widening its various delivery systems, the railroad system, and shipping to produce more coal. The logistics of that are a bit of an nightmare because of the climate and various other things. But they're working assiduously at that. They're building gas pipelines. They're also cooperating on the next generation of nuclear reactors, which the Chinese are already building like crazy. But the problem is that enriched uranium is in rather short supply in the world. And Russia is the only country in the world that has broken through the closed nuclear cycle barrier that can actually make reactors that will run on depleted uranium, of which there's thousands of years for stockpiled on the surface, ready to be used. So China is ready to tap into that as well. So in terms of energy, in terms of industrial production, and in terms of defense, too, these are becoming simple ions. These are becoming not just integrated, but two pieces of one giant puzzle. And in terms of Russia winning, or China winning, the things going on in the Ukraine or in Taiwan, Russia is not interested in having China lose in Taiwan. China is not interested in having Russia lose in the Ukraine. And therefore, these things will not happen. Dmitry Olov, thank you for an absolutely outstanding series of questions immensely insightful, as always. I'm going to ask you to stay a moment. And I think Alex may have a few questions, but for me, thank you very much. Welcome to the Duran, and I hope we can have you again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dmitry, let's get some questions from our viewers. Let's start with-- Fantastic. Let's start with Death Dealer 1-341. I have been wondering, when will Russia push back the long-range missiles from hitting deep inside their territory? Well, they're working on that. Putin basically gave the order to create the buffer zone in the Hiko region to prevent missiles from reaching Belgrade. And that's happening. The Russians are not in a big hurry. I can say that there are two reasons for that. One is that they're careful not to have any casualties on their side, as few as possible. So they're playing it safe. And the second reason is they don't want to horribly embarrass the Ukrainians and their western supporters. They don't want these people to lose heart. They want them to continue to sending recruits to the front and sending western weapons to the Ukrainians for the Russians to destroy, because that's going so well. And so there isn't much of a hurry. And then another element to it is that the ultimate is for the Russians to make those rockets those long-range weapons obsolete, make them miss their targets by the use of air defense systems and by the use of electronic warfare, which the Russians are getting better and better. And some estimates are that up to 90% of the rockets don't reach their targets. They're off target by tens of meters, which is, you know, if the actual explosive payload isn't that big, that's actually enough to spell the difference between destroying a building and destroying a parking lot in front of that building, maybe blowing up a car. So, and blowing up some windows, which the Russians are very, very good at replacing. It takes them less than a day these days. So basically, that's what's going on. So again, Russia is not in a huge hurry. The fact that there are civilian casualties is deplorable, and there will be some criminal cases against the people who watch those missiles when the time comes. But it's in terms of the overall process, it's going well. A lot of moroses love Dimitri's sense of humor, always enjoying his interviews with Nima. Thank you, Lada, for that. From F-22 Daniel, Dimitri, how do you think Russia would look like today had the White Army won the Civil War in the early 1920s? No idea, I mean, I'll just be brutally honest, I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question. I'm not really very good at historical hypotheticals, you know, history is, to me, is what happened. Interesting question, very interesting question. Let's see, Costa says, finally, great respect to Mr. Odelof, one of the people who presents the situation in the world, logical, real, as it is, not as people who would like to be. Thank you for that. Tish M says, "How can Zelensky call a meeting with NATO-EU types when he's not even the Ukraine president anymore?" Well, that's an interesting thing, because he's basically in the squatter in the presidential offices. That's his official title now. The Ukrainian constitution says that once elected and sworn into office, you get to be the president of Ukraine for exactly five years, and once that term of office expires, it's over. It also says that the old president has to yield power to the new president, but there's no -- not a word anywhere about extending the term. So Zelensky is no longer the president of the Ukraine. Now a very interesting thing happened, which is that Putin asked Viktor Yanukovych the last constitutionally elected president of Ukraine who has not served his entire term to go from Rostov to Moscow for some meetings. I wonder what those meetings were about, but maybe Yanukovych is the new president of Ukraine and Zelensky is nobody, and there's going to be a deal signed between Russia and Yanukovych who will be asked to return to Kiev and form a new government and complete its term. So that would be a very interesting development as far as whatever is happening in Switzerland I guess it is. Peace talks to which Russia has not been invited. Now imagine peace talks to which the Viktor is not invited. That is an historical first. That has never happened within the history of this planet. So I think it's not going to happen this time either. I think it's just a completely ridiculous ploy. Yes. Agreed. Restel says one could argue that Russia was conquered by internal forces in the early 1900s, much as the West itself has gradually been. I agree to quite a large extent. The huge problem with Russia is that it started up with this communist ideology that was not a bad fit as far as Russian culture because Russia is very communalist by its nature. But there were parts to it that just didn't work out very well. At one of them was the communist nomenclature, the new communist ruling class, which with each successive generation became more and more corrupt. And eventually it ended up with a few geriatrics and then Gorbachev came to power and he was just a disaster and then Yeltsin was an even more disaster and it took a really long time for Russia to form a new elite, a new political nucleus around which it could reform itself and reformulate itself. But basically it was a failure of leadership that went on and it really didn't produce good candidates to replace aging leaders. That was a huge problem. So you could say yes, it was an internal problem. It could do very well economically yet politically if it was doing worse and worse. From Martin, MDL, Tempe, Arizona. Why not have Ukraine be a neutral buffer state like Austria was for 50 years before World War II? Is our peace summit here more sensible than theirs? Well, that would be like taking a bunch of hamburger and turning it back into steak by spinning the meat grinder backwards. It's already not a neutral state. I mean that ship has sailed 10 years ago at least. And so it's no use crying over spilled milk I would say. There's no way to, there's no time machine to go back to that state of affairs. Axel O says, "Is Putin going to recreate the union state of the socialist republics? If Ukraine is going to stay as an entity?" Well Putin's most famous quote on that is somebody who does not regret a collapse at the USSR doesn't have a heart. And somebody who wants to bring the USSR back doesn't have a brain. I think having said that he's very unlikely to recreate the USSR. Axel says, "Does Biden have Putin envy?" I think Biden just generally has a younger man and envy. I really don't know that Biden is all there. He doesn't seem to be all there. And I don't really want to dwell on that too much. I think that Biden could be a robot or a monkey or he could be a stuffed animal or whatever. He's a mascot, he's not a president. Life of Brian says, "The current NGO problem reminds me of what they called the foundation problem in the 50s. See the Reese Committee on Rockefeller, Ford and all. Are NGOs just foundations gone global?" Well, there's quite a spectacle going on in Georgia now in the country, Georgia, where the NGOs have infiltrated the country to such an extent that everybody realizes that something has to be done about it. They're about to overrule today, they were going to overrule the presidential veto on a law, which is identical almost to an American law, making foreign agents register so that it becomes clear who is a foreign agent and who is not. Turns out that the president of the country is a foreign agent, I think. But basically everybody is very interested in reining these forces in. Even the French. The French are just faster, a very similar law. So yes, NGOs are not a force of good in the world and I think a lot of people realize that. Georgians certainly realize that because their main trading partner is Russia and yet there are all these NGOs who are very interested in lobbying the governments to ruin its relationship with Russia. So how is that in the national interest, something have to be done about it. So I think that around the world NGOs need to be roped in somehow. All right, we'll do a couple of more for the meaty and we will then answer the rest of me and I'll extend to the rest of the questions. Moon Dragon says, Mr. Orloff, when do you think this SMO will end? Then the Ukraine is sufficiently de-notified and demilitarized and I'm not sure what the objective criteria for that is. But there is some probably some metric being applied within the Russian defense industry. It's just that it's secret and I don't know what it is. But that's basically what it's going to do. There has been some what's going to happen. I think there's been some significant mission creep because it turns out that the Russians have to also de-militarize and de-notify the West to some extent. Question is to what extent and a lot of Europeans don't really want to get involved at this point and a lot of Europeans are sort of making it look like they maybe want to get involved just to play up how important they are but they don't really have guts for it. So we'll see what happens and the other thing is that Russia is doing so well, developing all of these countermeasures that make Western-made weapons obsolete and that is very valuable and having a proving ground for all of those countermeasures is very important. So I shut it down before the process is complete. Just going off your last statement, Dmitry, the alchemist says the US needs denazification, not just Ukraine. So I think the alchemist agrees with you. And let's go to one final question for Dmitry. Here we go. From Elaine Maxson. I wonder if Dmitry misses anything in the US now that he's gone back. Does anything in St. Petersburg surprise him? I love his clarity and humor. Well, in the US, I used to live on a boat with my family and cruise around and I sometimes miss that. So I wasn't exactly in the United States. I wasn't the territory of waters, which took the time. But I like that sea-steading life and I miss it sometimes. What surprised me about living in St. Petersburg is that it keeps changing for the better. I keep looking out for things that are getting improved. And that is actually a reasonably satisfying thing to keep in touch with. It's just amazing how the place is getting developed and thriving and getting more beautiful and more fashionable. And the more European, I guess they just stole all of the stuff that they liked about Europe and they imported it and learned to make it themselves so that we don't have to go to Europe anymore. We can stay in St. Petersburg and enjoy it. St. Petersburg is a beautiful city indeed. All right. Dimitri Arla, thank you very much for joining us on the Duran. I have Dimitri's information where you can follow him on Boosty in the description box down below and I will add it as a pinned comment as well when the stream is over. Thank you very much, Dimitri, for joining us and we do hope you come back on the Duran very soon. Absolutely. Dimitri, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Dimitri. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. All right, Alexander. Let's imagine living in a city where things get better. I mean, you know, London, that is somehow rather difficult to believe that things can actually, from day to day, get better. Moscow was the same way. And I remember every morning when I would wake up and just go out onto the street of Moscow, it was just little things were just getting better and better. Every day I was noticing little things improving. Well, you see, I used to travel to Moscow, irregularly, as you remember, I was there, you know, just every, well, every once in a while. And for me, it didn't look as if things were improving slowly. They seem to be improving very rapidly, it was very, very remarkable. I mean, surprised to say that I first started going to Moscow regularly in 2003, 2002. And I was first there in 1998, but that was a different historical time. But between 2002 thereafter, I mean, you know, the change was astonishing. Of course, I haven't been there for a little while now. So I'm told it's got better still, just say. From 1998, I imagine the changes. Oh, between 1998, between 1998 and already 2002, it was like darkness and light. I mean, it was already, that was a transformative moment. But after 2002, in some ways, that is when the change became ever more impressive because it wasn't, it was incremental, but it was also very, very rapid. Yeah. All right, let's, let's answer the remaining questions. Alexandra from Lily Todd. Welcome to the drag community. Welcome, Lily from Elza. Burrell today said 1.5 to two countries give the permission to Ukraine to hit Russian territory. That's a quote. Can anyone explain that number? Which country is the half? Well, that's a very good question. I'm going to make a guess as to which countries it is. I suspect that 1.5 to two, it's, they're all in Eastern Europe. What it basically tells us is that NATO collectively said now and... Poland and the politics. Poland and the politics, exactly. I think that is what, what it was all about. This idea was floated. I think the Pentagon strongly opposed it. I think that the British were spooked. I think that the French were spooked. I think the Italians and the Germans were against. And this is the kick in this. It's going to happen. As night follows day, they will do it. They won't do it now, but they will do it in time. That has been the, that has been the consistent story as things get worse, as things become more desperate, so the pressure to escalate grows. The very fact that this is now being discussed at all, and by the way, Putin has been speaking about this whole disastrous idea today, but the very fact that this idea has to be spoken about tells you that it's now out there and based on what's happened, we can say confidently that it will come. My info, I just saw your question right now. Demetri, if you're watching the stream, do you have a favorite YT sailing channel? So Demetri, if you're watching the stream, maybe you can comment down below on this YouTube video. What is your favorite YouTube sailing channel? Yeah, yes. I mean, again, I haven't been to St. Petersburg for a while, but, you know, it's just built on the sea. So I would have thought that in time, maybe this is another place where improvements are going to happen. But I would have thought the sailing is certainly within the realm of the possible, and elsewhere in Russia, in the Black Sea, but also even more so, I suspect, in the Far East, I think the sailing possibilities are astonishing. I speak of somebody who used to mess around quite a lot in motorboats, motor yolts, never owned one, but, you know, used to be a guest all the once upon a time when I knew people who were prepared to invite me. Right. A lot ofvaro says, "Hi, gentlemen, Demetri's sound is too low, could it be increased, please?" We apologize if there was some sound. Yeah. Hopefully everything turned out all right. Exactly, I was going to say. I mean, I was able to hear him clearly. He's very clear. Yeah. Yeah. He explained his voice is very clear. It happens, it happens with live shows every now and then, it happens. Yeah. Genor Games, welcome to the Duran community. Let's see here. OMG Puppy says, "Have you talked to Mike Benz? He's an expert on state censorship and GEOs, AI and surveillance. He explains how sort of makes billions on insider trading while helping the USD stabilize nations." No, we haven't, but we do. We do want Mike on the show. That would be great to have him on the show. Absolutely. Zach here, thank you for that super chat. Matthew says, "They would if they could, but they can't, so they won't." That is the hope I'm clinging to, as always, thank you for your summation of events. I think you're absolutely right, and I is the hope I'm clinging to as well. But don't, you know, be complacent about this. They haven't seen a red line, one which normally, more often than not, they've drawn themselves, which they haven't crossed eventually. Yes. That is true. Ricardo Afonso says, "Andrey Martiano sounds it up simply, but hurt." "Andrey Martiano sounds it up simply, but I have trouble saying that. I don't know why." Adition says, "The US regime has gone absolutely mad by striking Russia's radar defense systems help." It was a crazy idea. I understand that the damage done is absolutely superficial. I mean, literally, a couple of hours of repairs, and the system is back in line. Also, notice how completely calm the entire Russian government has been about this. You haven't seen Putin rushing back to Moscow, from Uzbekistan, where he's been. You haven't seen urgent meetings, security counsel, you haven't seen angry statements in defense ministry, in the foreign ministry. They have taken, they've been very, very controlled in the way that they've responded to this, which is a further sign, in my opinion, that the damage has been superficial. But Danov is, in my opinion, the genius behind this particular, incredibly reckless and dangerous thing, and his Western sponsors, the people who support him and guide him, and to some extent, control him. They're also, in part, responsible for this utterly reckless thing, and I suspect most of them are in London, just so. Agreed. Mr. Golov says, "Great guest and great work you do. Have you thought about having Aristovitch as a guest? Thanks again for the valuable work that you do." It would be a fascinating idea. I can't, it'd be interesting whether he'd come, of course, is another question, but you know, it's a thought. That would be very interesting. Sparky says, "Baby, the mid-day should try collocating with his microphone." Thank you, Sparky, for that. Let's see. Tish M, we answer to that. The Alchemist says, "Nato and the USSR have similarities. NATO is divided while Russia is united, with Russia's economy growing and NATO countries struggling, leading to its collapse as they continue to mimic Soviet Cold War." That's a great point, actually. Fantastic, the Alchemist very well said. Matthew says, "Would Biden go all in to save election chances?" That is a very good question. When you say Biden, of course, we don't mean the person, we mean the team around them. My own view, I've been very skeptical about this election. I've always felt that they'll pull up every switch, press every switch, pull every plug, and one way or the other, the Democrats would get across the finishing line. I'm starting to have doubts about this. I think the things are beginning to come apart, actually. I think that they're beginning to realize that, too. Of course, we're going to make it very interesting, but I mean a very dangerous situation indeed. Trump is pulling away Alexander, at least that's the trend with the polling. I don't see changing. The Eurelic Tribe says, "The part about dying as martyrs to get to heaven, you have to be born again by accepting and believing that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for our sins was resurrected after three days and lives." Thank you for that. Putin is a Christian. Putin, of course, is a Christian. Life of Brian says, "Can anyone name of someone who is in charge, one name to whom Victoria Newland answers, if not perhaps Mark Utro can, is he taking interviews?" You know, you've actually put your finger on a very, very important point because so many decisions today in the so-called Democratic West or in the Democratic West, so many debates in the Democratic West take place behind the curtain. We don't really know who are making these decisions. We aren't party to these discussions. We don't see these discussions play out. They aren't spoken about in the media. They don't involve the expert community, which does exist, still, just about in any meaningful way. And of course, we don't know what the real hierarchy of decision-making actually is. So I can't answer that question. I can't tell you this person is the actual person in charge because, of course, the way we're governed nowadays makes me wonder, frankly, whether there's anybody ultimately in charge because that's one of the features of secretive organizations, which are unaccountable and which operates outside the constitutional and legal and overt framework. How do you work out in that kind of structure who the person who is ultimately in control really is? How do the people who are part of those discussions themselves do so? And that I suspect is part of the explanation for the enormous disruptions that we're seeing at the moment. Chris Shipley, thank you for that super chat. Alex Glass, thank you for that super sticker. Life of Brian, we answered that NGO question. The Alchemist says, Putin and Xi believe they can outdo the West in war and are trying to be the mature ones to protect humanity. I think that is true, actually. I think that is how they perceive themselves, but I don't just think that that's how they perceive themselves. I think that that is how they perceive by much of the world, that was even most of it. German 2 says, can we say that demilitarization and denatification are complicated and we call it a win for the bear? Yeah, I think it's how complicated, but I think that the Russians certainly are working towards a plan and the bear is obviously winning if you want to use that analogy. I think that is clear. I don't think anybody, as I said earlier in the discussions we had with Dimitri, they're all kinds of schemes out there about how to turn this thing around, but I don't think anybody seriously in the West anymore believes that Russia is going to lose. Some of them are even overtly now openly talking about the fact that Russia is likely to win. They're scared of the prospect, they're trying to find a way round, they're coming up with all sorts of desperate and reckless and dangerous ideas, but at the moment the trajectory is so obvious that I don't think any of all the doubts that that's where events are going. Alexander Poiticha, thank you for that, Chuck Pickford, thank you for that, super sticker. Steve Resurrected says, "I have heard the Ukrainian constitution extends the presidential term in times of war, for that elections are not held in times of war. Is this untrue?" It is untrue. I have actually looked at the Ukrainian constitution, not a document I often reference, but I look at it. What he basically says is that if the rather, the Ukrainian parliament, in Acts, martial law, then elections to the router to the parliament cannot happen, and that the term of the router is in effect extended, the constitution is silent about the president. That means that it is only if you apply strict constitutional interpretation, which I think you should, if you do that, then martial law extends the term of the parliament, it doesn't extend the term of the president. That's what the constitution says. Yeah, I've read the same thing in various analysis. Monkfish says, "Judging by Nigel Farage's understanding of what British values are, shall we say he is a fading light." You know, I'm beginning to wonder that he might be. I mean, he burned very bright for a very, very long time. He made an enormous impact on British politics, but he's made a decision not to involve himself in the election, the current election, which is, by the way, the most is more than that. I have ever, ever encountered, or remembered, I think I counted them. I think I've been through 19 election campaigns in Britain, just saying. So, you know, I've got lots of experience about elections. The point you say is it's like two parties fighting each other, both led by Theresa May. That's the kind of election we have at the moment. And what I used to say about Theresa May, administration replacing government, and that's what we've got on each side. Anyway, Nigel Farage was a political figure who was outside the system, who had enormous influence. This was the election where he was needed, but he's decided not to take part. I read his latest piece on the telegraph. He seemed to me again, well below his usual fire, and I think he's just tied out. I think after all these years, he's become exhausted, and they warn him out. That's my own rather generous view of him. Chamella says, "Great Britain is not heating Russia, but only media." Well, that is, you know, you can, you make a very important point. I think if you're talking about the majority of the people of Britain, every place I go, many people I speak to, it's quite clear that they're not party to this at all. And by the way, and I would like to say this, I have been witness, I've witnessed myself episodes where British people in London walk up to Russian people and tell them, "Please don't think that we have anything to do with this. This isn't part of us. It's the people in power who are driving this anger, not us at all." So I've actually seen that, so I absolutely agree with you, but the political class, it's absolutely united on this issue. It is for them a touchstone of loyalty. If you are not hostile to Russia, you cannot be a part of the current political class. It says, "Alex Alexander, does Stoltenberg not care anymore as he is on his way out? I believe sometimes people and physicians who did a bad job just mess up more on their way out to make it worse for the ones who follow up, who get it more difficult to restore things and do better?" Or does he have the backing of the USA in his last statements? I think that what you say is true in general terms, but it is not true of Stoltenberg. I've come to the view that Stoltenberg is a fanatic. That's the only word I can come up with to describe him. I've been following and tracking what Stoltenberg has been saying ever since the start of his crisis back in 2021. His language has been consistently extreme and inflammatory and incredibly damaging, and his last comments are no different. I'm afraid I think he believes and is sincere in everything he says, and I think that if it were left to him, we would already be in World War III. That's my view. I don't think he's very bright either when you listen to him, but anyway, that's just my view. A shadowless kick says, "Although China has not changed the name of its ruling party, it is not nationalist either. She told US leaders many times that the planet is vast enough for both countries to co-exist and cooperate." Absolutely. It says it continuously. That is what Xi Jinping has said. Of course, a lot of people don't believe him, but I think in terms of Chinese national interests, what Xi says makes sense and is therefore, probably therefore means that he's telling the truth. He really does think that. The optimist says, "Do these Western leaders truly believe their own falsehoods or are they just feigning ignorance? It's difficult to explain to my 10-year-old that these individuals are mature adults." There is a spectrum. There are some who are completely cynical, and I believe that there are those people. There are some who know perfectly well that what they're saying is there's no connection to reality, but they're very happy saying them because it works very much to their advantage. They want to rise up, they see politics and bureaucracies that they belong to as a career path, and by the way, a very lucrative career path, and out of their own self-interest, they say what they do. I do think that there is a very significant group, maybe even the majority, who generally believe what they say. Always remember that people who have an interest in believing in something generally tend to persuade themselves that that, which it is in their interest to believe, is true. Martin MDL says, "Is Biden the modern day Boris Yeltsin of the USA?" Good point. I think it's a very good point. I think the answer is that yes, with the important difference, and I think Yeltsin was both a more intelligent man and a more self-aware man. You remember Yeltsin? I remember him very well. I think he was overcome with doubt and remorse about many of the things that were happening around him. I mean, it may not have made him change his approach, but you saw the man's physical decline, and I think it was born of the great insecurities and sense of guilt that he had over what happened. I think Biden has anything like that. I don't think he has that degree of self-reflection at all. Basil says, "Is Russia the original United States?" It's becoming something much more like the United States that I remember just saying. And it's never going to be exactly the same. Trevor Elsa says, "Love to Rand." Thank you for that. Elsa says, "Alensky wears his costume, and the West pretends he's the president." By the way, he looked so ridiculous in the green t-shirt next to the royals in Spain. Yeah, I agree. Completely agree. I mean, this is sort of tiresome note that he puts on, act that he puts on. I can't understand why he's producers, and he's directed, don't tell him. Matthew, get yourself a suit, man. It's time to wear a suit, I mean, my God. Absolutely. Oh boy. Basil says, "Should Zelensky be nominated for the Oscars?" Oh, I'm sure that's coming. I mean, he'll win. He'll win on everything. I mean, he'll be, he'll sweep the ball, you would say. The highest payer. He deservedly so, I mean, he's been the great war leader. Wherever did you see a movie like this one? With so many extras. Very true. Lata Moreau says, "I didn't know the meat three moved back to St. Petersburg, good for him. Beautiful city indeed." That's one of the most beautiful cities, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. And most extraordinary place, I mean, you know, there are other cities. I mean, you can ban this, for example, which are beautiful. But there's a, you know, vibe about St. Petersburg, which is astonishing. And of course, it's an industrial city in some respects that you have, you know, large working class population, which gives it kind of steadiness. And there's an enormous student population there as well, which gives it a sort of more spunky quality. It's a most wonderful city altogether. Jamila says, "Why the Western leaders hate Russia? I miss something in the past. Is it wrong to hate or nothing? Great work, guys." Yeah. Good question. Yeah. I think your question answers itself. Yep. Sparky says, "As a currency trader specializing in Eastern European currencies, Soros assisted the U.S. in getting NGOs into Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Soros exploited the relationship, which continues." I think that is exactly true. Very interesting man, George Soros. Long day, his biography will be written and it would be very interesting to read. Zariel says, "Wanna know who's in charge of these war picks? Satan." Elza says, "Does anyone in the West still believe in Tatters?" In what? In Ursula. Ursula. Tatters. Tatters. The Russian economy is in Tatters and Ursula and all of that. Of course. So absolutely. Well, you still see some people who say, "Well, it's holding together for the moment. It might be achieving very high growth and incomes, maybe rising, but just waiting one year, two years, five years, ten years, two hundred years, three hundred years, they will all come crashing down. All we have to do is wait that long. Yeah. Just wait. In three hundred years. You wait and see the sanctions will have an effect. A.M. says, "A few weeks ago here in the UK, Grant Shaps discussed missile defense for Britain. The idea was torn apart, fiscal madness. How does Russia manage?" Well, how does? By having a very, very much bigger economy than people in the West imagine. I've discussed this many times. In my opinion, even the purchasing power parity, GDP figures, are understate the size of Russia's economy. It's like a very substantial margin. I saw, by the way, that in a recent meeting, Putin's economics team told him the same thing. It's a much bigger economy than people understand, a far more diversified economy than people understand. Of course, he's got engineers, he's got machine tool people, skilled workers and factories, and he can do all of that. Ultimately, the key is economic, strong economic management and organization. And that is the most important skill of all. The Russians have it. The Russians have superb project managers. I see this. They have superb industrial managers. That, I have to say this, is a legacy. Both of the Soviet system, which fostered it, and of the Tsarist system, which created it. One of the major bases of this was the construction of the Trans-Iberian Railway, by the way. This colossal project, creating this railway, this impossible landscape, required Russia to develop a superb standard of project management. And it's been built and it's been preserved, and that's what makes it in the end possible. Basil says, Zariel, $10, Satan. Sparky says for practical purposes, George Soros is the Five Eyes Plus, and the Five Eyes Plus is George Soros, in the area of intelligence operations, there are informal yet firm and impactful relationships. I am absolutely sure you're right, and as I said, I'm very, very interested one day to read the biography of this very interesting man, when it's finally written. Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, do you think it is reasonable for anyone to consider the referendums held in the occupied oblasts to be legitimate, even the ones in partially occupied territories, like Zafaroshi? Well, the question of legitimacy, legitimacy in whose eyes, I mean the Russians consider them legitimate, there's no real overt sign in any of these places that there's widespread or indeed any opposition to this, and legitimacy is a fact, it derives from what people accept. What outsiders say about it is really neither here nor there. If it's accepted, if it's supported in these places, then if it follows the necessary forms, which in this case it did, I don't see why people would want to go around that. Now that may sound like just me being a bit cynical, but I should say I once had a discussion with the head of the electoral monitoring team on no lesser institution than the European Union, and I'm almost saying exactly what he said to me, so he was discussing that in connection with elections in Croatia, and I said to him, look, there's been all these irregularities and problems there, and he put food all of that, and he said that didn't really matter. So if it's a source of the goose, if bad elections in Croatia or problems with forms in Croatia aren't a problem, well in the Don Vass, in Zaparosia, in Herzon region, whereas I said all of the facts show the people there supported this process, who are we to complain? Matthew says, "Our conservatives leaving in droves due to war." Well, conservatives, I don't have no big, I've been leaving from where? I imagine, I don't know, the West, the West, Ukraine. Maybe the West, maybe the UK, maybe Russia? I don't think so, I don't, I mean there are lots of reasons why people are leaving the UK, but I don't think war is amongst them, I mean the economic problems in the UK are reasons why people would want to leave, and conservatives would have many reasons to want to leave the UK, but probably I don't think that war appears very highly amongst them, because at the moment the UK normally at least is a piece, just say. Cepha Brian says, quote, "So many extras," Alexander M. at his most accurate. Tabernach says, "Three fails a charm, if we lose, let's lose it all." Well, I've discussed this many times, that this policy of all or nothing, which is what the West has been playing in Ukraine for a very long time, and not just in Ukraine, in many places, in Taiwan now, is disastrous, because if you do that, and it's a fact that people don't ever seem to understand, if you lose, you end up with nothing. I mean, you know, if you think you're going to win and you're going to get it all well and you do win, well, that's one outcome, but if you lose, you end up with nothing, and that is a terrible position to begin. Martin M.D.L. says, "Should, let's get a green T-shirt with a tie and jacket silk screen on the front." It's an idea. It's an idea, it should suggest it to you, if you might take it up. Sparky says, "Garland Nixon pointed out he was speculating that John Mirchheimer may be misleading when John speaks of the U.S. pivoting to China from Russia. They act as one geopolitically, so there's no pivot." Well, I mean, I haven't followed what Professor Mezheimer said on this, but, well, there is no pivot because they are coming together, but I think in the U.S. conception, it's different. Let me put it like that. I think they still think that the two can be differentiated in some way, and I think the Pentagon is saying to itself, "Look, Ukraine is a massive drain on resources. The main challenge is in the South China city and the Taiwan Strait, where the United States has been conducting some very alarming exercises. So let's focus on that and that's, you know, part of Ukraine and let the Europeans take care of it." I think there is that current of opinion in Washington, by the way, in the Pentagon especially. Death dealer 1341 says, "The presidential election is the only way to save the U.S." Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely true. I mean, this is a very important presidential election, just to put it mildly. Yeah. So the German 2 says, "Nato provides the weapon system, selects targets, feeds the inter-agents, makes all the necessary settings on the weapon systems, and tells the Ukrainians you can push the button now, is NATO at war?" Yeah. Well, I mean, the Russians make this very point. I mean, you know, they are direct participants in the conflict, even if they pretend otherwise. The world thinks the same. And of course, if this ends in a Russian victory, then the world will see it as a native defeat to say. Absolutely. Sparky says, "Growing up, George Soros was forbidden from speaking in any other language. Then, Esperanto, in his household, he comes from idealist activists." Or maybe, but all I will say is he's a man who speaks with two tongues, double tongues, or something we said. All right, Alexander, I think that is everything. Any final thoughts? While I do a final try? No, I think that was an absolutely brilliant program. By the way, I completely agree with Dimitri's all-nots point about Spain. I think I'm brought it up myself in a program we did together, which I said that I actually started 16th and 17th century Spain. And Dimitri all of us absolutely rise. And I think this is, in some respects, the single closest parallel with the US, which is the Spain in the 16th, 17th century, had all the silver coming in from, it was actually silver, more than gold, coming in from the Americas. That enabled the Spanish monarchy to maintain an enormously ambitious foreign policy. It left Spain by around 1600 as this colossal superpower. But what it actually did at the same time, it was the equivalent, if you like, of printing money, it utterly devastated the Spanish economy. And it also led to Spain becoming overcommitted in all kinds of wars so that the result was that the population became increasingly disaffective, and the military itself stagnated because as they were fighting all the time, there's no time to consider the fact that all sorts of military things were changing. And then suddenly, in the late 1640s, the whole thing just imploded in the single, most dramatic implosion in European history. I think Dimitri is absolutely right about this. I was very interested to see that he brought it up, and I'd love to discuss it with him one day. In every other respect, just to say quickly, brilliant programme, marvellous guests, and I really look forward to having many more discussions with him in the future. All right, Tabernax says, "Land, sea, and/or diplomatic victories are unachievable." And from the last live, Alexander from Vladi, the Sanctions of Paylor, says, "No questions, just a simple, the immediately medvedev fanboy. Great work, Duran." And Tib Gibson, thank you for that super sticker from the last live stream. And from one second, from Matthew, sorry, I meant conservatives in terms of the Tories, 120 haverside. Oh, I see. Yeah, no, I understand. Well, I mean, they're running away. I mean, they can see that they're going to lose, and it's always better to resign than to lose your seat. I mean, it damages your future job prospect, for one thing. Just saying. And Tabernax says, "Nuclear proliferation is a force for peace." Do you know something? And I once actually remembered somebody saying that was you in the Cold War. You said that if everybody had nuclear weapons, we would have faced, I have to say I don't agree. I think that giving nuclear weapons to some actors would be very, very dangerous indeed. So I don't agree. All right, that is everything. Thank you to Demetri Arlof. Once again, I will have his information as a pinned comment. It is also in the description box down below for you to follow the Demetri. And thank you to everyone that joined us on Odyssey. Thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin and Rumble. Great chats over on Rumble and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone on YouTube and of course, theteran.locals.com. Big thank you to our locals community. And Alexander, a big thank you to our moderators, Zareel, reckless abandon, who I just a lot of blue boxes for this moderator. Is that Alice in Blunderland, I wonder? Anyway, thank you to that moderator. And Peter, thank you Peter and Tish M. Thank you as well. And did I miss anybody? I don't think I missed anybody that was moderating. All right, Alexander, that's the live stream. That's the live stream. And by the way, just to remind everybody, I did my locals live stream tomorrow. That's right. Tomorrow, Alexander on locals, theteran.locals.com. What is the time for everybody, Alexander? 14,000 hours, Eastern Standard Time, those in the United States, 1900 hours, London time for those in Europe and in other places. All right. And you will find a link to our locals page in the description box down below. All right, take care, everybody. [BLANK_AUDIO]