The Duran Podcast - Attrition war reality. Pentagon halts Ukraine weapons

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Attrition war reality. Pentagon halts Ukraine weapons

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the announcement from the Pentagon that the U.S. will be stopping some arms supplies to Ukraine, mostly from the Biden drawdown package. That's where these arms were coming from. A lot of them were on their way to Ukraine in Poland, and now they're going to stop going to Ukraine, and they'll probably be diverted. elsewhere. And I think we know where they will be diverted too. But an admission from the United States that they cannot fight two wars. They cannot fight two wars. They have been depleted. This is quite an incredible admission, actually, from the Pentagon. And a lot of people are are saying that this is a betrayal of Ukraine and Zelensky is saying that he'll purchase the

weapons, he'll get European Union money to purchase the weapons. But the more I read about this story, the more I'm coming to understand that the United States just does not have the weapons to give. And it has to prioritize Israel, the Middle East, and Iran. I mean, that is just the bottom line. And no one is really saying that. Everyone is saying this is a betrayal of Ukraine and Trump is working with Russia and Trump is being nice with Russia and all of these things. The U.S. if they had the weapons, they would give it Ukraine, but they just don't have it. So what are your thoughts on this?

Well, this is exactly correct. And it is exactly, as you say, first of all, I think the two things to say, this is not yet an outright cancellation of weapons supplies to Ukraine. I mean, this is a pause. This is the first thing to say. The second is that the United States is still providing some weapons to Ukraine. The State Department has made that absolutely clear. The one thing they cannot do is supply certain weapons, which it is now clear are at critically

low levels of supply. Now, this includes Patriot Air Defense missile interceptors, which are, of course, the weapon systems that the Ukrainians and Zelensky have been most insistently talking about. It includes Haimars missiles, rockets. It also includes certain types of anti-tank rockets. And it also includes Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. It's handheld Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Now, none of this to anybody who has been following U.S. procurement decisions and who has been monitoring what has been happening with US Army stockpiles. None of this is at all surprising. Coming back to what you're saying about all of these people talking about how Ukraine is being betrayed, how this is

Trump, a ganging up with Putin, all of those things. These are the same people who consistently demand that the United States involve itself. in endless wars in all sorts of places. It's the same people who, for example, advocate support for Israel and attacking Iran and, you know, a continuous war in effect against Iran until regime change is achieved there. It's the same people who advocate strong line against China. What these people never do. And we've been talking about this for years now, in program, after program, what these people never do is acknowledge that there are physical limits to what the United States is capable of doing. Way back in March, Rubio, in, I think it was Senate testimony, admitted straightforwardly that the United

States was running out of Patriot missile interceptors. He actually said it that the United States has none to give. Then a few weeks later, a few months later, as we all know, the Israelis get involved in a conflict with Iran. Iran launches ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel runs out of air defense missiles. Israel turns to the United States. The United States, within 12 days, runs through 15 to 20% of its THAAD missile stoppile. We don't know what the situation is with Patriot Missile Interceptors, but it's likely, given what we know about the production level of these missiles, that the United States has run through its package of those,

its stoppiles of those missile interceptors. Further, we are in an uneasy ceasefire situation between Israel, And Iran, there's been no completed deal, as we've discussed in various programs. Israel is ultimately more important to the United States than Ukraine is. So, of course, the United States, having no more Patriot missile interceptors to give, is going to walk back deliveries to Ukraine in order to send them most probably, as you imply, to Israel. It has no choice. This is a forced decision.

It's not Trump ganging up with Putin. It's not Elbridge Colby, you know, vetoing a project that he's never agreed with. It's the simple fact that the United States is running up against capacity constraints. It cannot give more missiles. It's if we're talking about Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, the man pads. Go back to 2022 and the discussions we had about the stingers at that time, that there was only a limited number of these Stinger manpads in the American inventories. The production of the Stingers had been discontinued years before, that the United States had to put the Stingers back in production,

that that meant having to find workers in their 60s who had previously worked on making stingers and putting the back to work in the factories or trying to persuade them to go back to work in the factories. Because even then, back in 2022, stockpiles of these manpads were limited. And the United States has never been able to resolve these issues. We see the same with 155mm artillery ammunition. We had the Biden administration. giving huge proportion of its stockpile of 155mm artillery ammunition to Ukraine, then finding that it was running short, then having to borrow artillery shells from South Korea, half a million

of these artillery shells, which of course it then instantly and immediately gave to Ukraine. Then the Biden administration announced an ambitious program to increase production of artillery shells to 100,000 a month. Now it's become clear that that that target is not being achieved and almost certainly will never be achieved. They claimed they'd increased production to 50,000 artillery shells a month last year. It seems that was probably a lie and production is now currently running, 40,000 shelves a month and is probably falling. There just aren't enough weapons. The United States does not have an unlimited ability to produce weapons. Anybody who has been following our programs, anybody who has been following other programs, articles, things like this,

by other people, people like, you know, Alex Vashin, for example, who's written a lot about this. They will know that this problem of capacity of industrial blockages exists. It exists in the United States. It is far worse in Europe, where despite all the sums of money that had been allocated to weapons production since 2022, I have seen no actual evidence that production of anything has in fact increased at all. So we were inevitably going to reach this point with Ukraine, and now we have. Yeah, I wonder where all that money went for Europe, right? Not difficult to guess.

Yeah, Urute came out and said, the CEO of NATO, he came out and admitted that Europe cannot fight the war with Ukraine against Russia without the United States. He just came out and said it. And basically his argument is Trump just continue to give us more weapons and more money, at least in the short term, at least give us some time so we can ramp things up on our end. But they're not ramping up anything. They didn't ramp up anything. Four years ago, they're not going to ramp up anything.

Today, he wants money and he wants to keep the grift going, as does Zelensky. That's what it's all about. They're addicted to the U.S. money and the U.S. weapons. and the U.S. just does not have an unlimited amount of weapons for money. They just don't have it. They are going to provide weapons. That's correct what you said. It's not a complete stop of all weapons to Ukraine, even though there are some outlets,

like the economists, which is saying a significant amount of weapons, have been stopped from going to Ukraine. But you have intel that the U.S. continues to supply, continues to provide to Ukraine. So the Trump administration is not completely out of the proxy war with Russia, but this is a significant move to get out of this proxy war. Once again, not because the U.S. wants to get out of this proxy war, but because they have to get out of this proxy war because they can't do it anymore. And they're losing. And Russia is winning. and the fact that you have this freak out over the weapons, the halt in weapons deliveries to Ukraine,

shows that this was a proxy war between the United States and Russia. It highlights the fact that this was a proxy war between the United States and Russia. How many armies has Russia defeated in this conflict with Ukraine? How many armies have they gone through? They've gone through the Ukraine army that was equipped with Russian weapons. they defeated that army. Then they defeated the army, the Ukraine army that was equipped with Soviet weapons given by Europe. Remember that?

Yeah, absolutely. When Ukraine went through all of the weapons that they had in their stockpiles, then they went to countries in Eastern Europe and in Europe to provide Soviet weapons to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight. And now they're going through a Ukraine army with weapons supplied by NATO and the United States. And they're going through it. And the United States is running out and Europe is running out. All of this proves that this was a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

The United States cannot continue it anymore. NATO obviously cannot continue doing this anymore. NATO is 100% dependent on the United States. There is no alliance. The thing doesn't exist. It is a bunch of Europeans, a bunch of collective West countries that are 100% dependent on the United States of America. They need the U.S.'s weapons and they need the U.S. money.

That's the bottom line. And they're all freaking out about this. So, I mean, that's the bottom line. If the U.S. could, they would, but they can't. Exactly. Now, I think this also, by the way, provides some clarity as to this massive effort that we saw earlier this year to try to get the Russians to agree to a ceasefire. Because people in the Pentagon will have known that they were reaching their limits.

So try to get the Russians. to agree to a ceasefire before we have to publicly admit that we've hit the limits. Because, of course, this is massively embarrassing for the US. I mean, this is critically embarrassing for the US. And if you really do believe that there are all sorts of bad actors out there looking to attack the US at any time, well, the US has just telegraphed to all of them, to China, to the Houthis, to whoever, that now the United States is short of weapons. So that's not presumably something that you want to do. So it all makes a lot more sense of many of the diplomatic maneuvers over the last few months. It makes an awful lot more sense at what General Kellogg has been

up to. Notice, remember, he's a general, so he's probably fairly well-informed about the realities of the Pentagon, at least that's what I'm guessing. And we can now understand better a lot of the diplomatic maneuvers that we have seen. They didn't want to give up completely on Project Ukraine, but they could see that Ukrainians were losing the war, and they knew that the United States was reaching the limits of its capacity in what it could do. So there it is.

We've now got ourselves into this position, and if you want to put your finger, point your finger at blame, don't point it at Donald Trump. who cannot magically conjure up missiles which don't exist, pointed at the people who were the true authors of this debacle, Biden, Sullivan, Blinken, Newland, all of that crowd, and their lackeys in Europe, who all believed collectively that they could do this, that the Russians would never be able to respond, that Russia was the gas station masquerading as a country who's, inconceivable that he could produce weapons on the scale that it is doing and that it would

be able to produce more weapons in three months that the entire collective West can do in a year. Are they that flatters, by the way, the situation in the collective West, but never mind. And have led the United States into this complete disaster. And of course, for the Europeans, and you're absolutely right in all that he said about than this is a grift for the Ukrainians, at least for Zelensky and co. What should have no sympathy at all? Because it is a grift. They've never been able to get a weapons program together.

They never will. If you follow the situation carefully, you can see this. And exactly, as you say, the whole propaganda spiel that we've been hearing from them for the last couple of years is all about getting unending flows of money and weapons from the United States is simply in order to keep up the fiction that there is some kind of an alliance which keeps people like Mark Rutter and before him, Jens Stoltenberg and all of these other people in cushy jobs because that's what it is. Well, Satter keeps them employed.

And you said that this is not a complete stop. No. And this is for now, it's a pause. But my guess is that this is going to be a long pause because the situation in the Middle East is not going to end anytime soon. And we are seeing that Israel is busy resupplying. So where is Israel getting all of these weapons from? They're going to be getting them from the United States. Whatever the U.S. has, they're going to give to Israel.

And I imagine it's going to take some time for the U.S. to manufacture whatever they need to get to Israel that they don't already have in inventory. And these things aren't manufactured in a week or two. This is going to take time. But Israel now is going to need to restock and resupply. And that's where the U.S.'s priority is going to be focused on. And then you said Eldridge Colby, he is someone that is absolutely not interested in Pratch, Ukraine. And he believes that the focus should be in the Pacific, in Asia, with China. So, I mean, Ukraine is third, if not lower, on the list of priorities for a lot of people

in the Trump administration. Well, that's absolutely right. I mean, even if these arms flows resume, given how critical the situation is, they can only resume for a very, very limited period of time. They can't supply hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine, because if they try, they will immediately run again critically short of Patriot missile interceptors. And the situation in the Middle East, as you rightly say, is incredibly unstable and very, very fragile. And of course, there is still this looming problem, this looming crisis with China, which, by the way, in my opinion, and I'm going to say, I think the United States has largely created for itself.

I don't myself think there's any need to have a military crisis with China and the Pacific. But many, many people in the United States think otherwise. Elbridge Colby thinks otherwise. He's convinced that there is some great clash with China on the horizon. And of course, you're absolutely correct for the United States. They have to husband their weapons. They have to husband their weapons. If they're going to have any hope of going more than a few rounds with China,

if there is a crisis over Taiwan. And now they've also got the additional problem of the Middle East, the fact that, as you said in that program that we did, all of those red lines with Iran have now been crossed so that we now have a situation where Iran, from being a negotiating partner, has now become an enemy. and one that is potentially, well, not potentially, which has shown that it is fully capable of launching missiles at Israel and at American bases across the Middle East. So they have to think about that, and they only have a fragile ceasefire with the Iranians, which we just have no idea how long it will hold. So they've got all of these problems piling up. If they ever do resume, arm's support. to Ukraine, these critical arms supplies to Ukraine, it can only be for a very relatively short space of time. Notice that another one of the weapons they've stopped providing to Ukraine is air-to-air missiles, which the Ukrainians were using with their F-16s to shoot down Russian

drones. And we know that most of the drones anyway, we're still getting through. But the reason they've had to stop supplying those air-to-air missile to missiles to Ukraine, to Ukraine is because they've been doing exactly the same thing to try to prevent Iranian drones reaching Israel. I mean, there is just too many demands on the American military system. Now, I think this is, by the way, an important moment for the United States, very similar to one that the United States encountered in the late 1960s, where an honest debate, with the American people is needed about limits of American power. The American people show every sign of being ready for that debate.

We saw that in the election. We saw that in the sense of the growing opposition that there is to forever wars across the American electorate. But unless and until this war, honest conversation is conducted, one which actually sits down, looks at the realities, looks at the limits of what the United States can produce. Unfortunately, we're always going to have those people who go out and talk on the talk shows and the media, who go around demanding wars in every sort of place and who never

ever admit or acknowledge that there are limits to what the United States can do. I read continuously every day the articles that these people pump out and they never acknowledge that there is any point where the United States, any physical limit to what the United States can do. They never admit this. No, the neocads, they don't do physics. They don't do math. They don't do physics, math, logistics, anything. Yeah.

Everything is unlimited for them. It's just unlimited power for them. Unlimited supply, unlimited weapons, unlimited money. They don't bother to waste their time with stuff like math or logistics or anything like that. Yeah, they don't have the time for that. But it's true. You know, we've been talking about this for a while now.

Brian Berletek has been documenting this since the beginning of the conflict. The amount of weapons that go into this conflict in Ukraine is just incredible. The amount of weapons that they burn through, that Ukraine and the Ukraine military in Zelensky goes through, for example, the Patriots, the interceptors. I mean, Russia sends two, three, four, 500 drones. Sometimes over one week, every day for a week, they send these drones in. and they're using the air defense to get through these drones. And I'm not even talking about the missiles that come afterwards.

The amount of weapons that get used up by Ukraine is just incredible. The amount of artillery that gets used on a daily basis is incredible. And the U.S. just can't keep up. Russia is keeping up. And they're keeping up really well with the production. It's amazing how Russia has stepped up, the production in Russia has stepped up to fill the needs of the military and the attrition war that they have decided to fight against the collective West. NATO and the United States, they can't keep up because they're burning through so much. And it really does remind me of a type of addiction that Ukraine has, that the Europeans have.

they're addicted to the U.S. weapons, and they just take it for granted that these weapons are there and they're going to get them every month. They don't think about the production. They don't think about the supply chains. They don't think about the inputs and the raw materials that go into this. They don't think of any of that. They've just become so addicted to getting the artillery shells and the missiles and getting them for free. That this is the first time that they have to actually stop and think about what is going on. Ukraine has to actually stop and think, what do we do now? Because we've been so used to getting all of these things for free from the United States for four years. And we've been able to fight this conflict with Russia.

But now we have to think about what do we do with the weapons? What do we do now? And I don't think they have any answers. Zeletsky's answer is to buy them with EU. That's not the point, Zeletsky. The point is the US doesn't have the weapons to give you. That's the point. Exactly. I mean, you can't buy what doesn't exist.

I mean, that's ought to be an obvious truth, which seems to be, you know, some people seem to be incapable of understanding. I mean, the whole saga of European artillery production, ought to have been a lesson here. And by the way, American artillery production, shell production, ought to have been a lesson here. You know, all of this confident talk about increasing shell production and supplying shells to Ukraine, one million shells from the EU, which never appeared, and all of that. I mean, that by now should have told people that this isn't as straightforward as they appear to see.

I remember you saying this actually on one of our programs, I think it was about a year, two years ago, that these people think that ordering weapons is as simple as ordering a pizza. That's their level of understanding. It was like two, three years ago. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you see, it stays in my memory. But, you know, there it is.

But I mean, they don't seem to be able to understand and learn from this. Now, let's talk about Ukraine because Ukraine is already in a critical position on the battlefronts. They are running out of men. this is now universally accepted. Ukrainian soldiers, they're just not enough of them to hold the whole of the front line, and they are having serious problems with this. The German media has said that they're down to 120 Bradley's, and that's not enough for a 1,200 kilometre front line.

The strikers, I haven't seen any of them. I suspect most of them were burnt through during the course cooperation. I mean, that was, they used the hundreds of strikers there. And from what I could see, most of them have already been destroyed. They're not going to be replacements with these things. The United States does not have unlimited supplies of armoured vehicles. And I believe some of these armored vehicles are not being produced anymore. And if they are, they're being produced in limited quantities.

So they're not going to get more armored vehicles from the Americans. Most unlikely they're going to get more tanks. Their artillery is apparently running down fast. They got an infusion of shells, not from the Europeans, as some people are claiming. They got them apparently from Syrian army stocks. After the Assad regime collapsed, Erdogan sent his emissaries into Syria. They got lots of shelves and they sent them to Ukraine. And those have been the shelves that Ukraine has been mostly firing for the last year, well, last 10, a couple of months. And in fact, I got a report that because of this, the Ukrainians have largely reverted to using Soviet-type guns. shells because those are the ones that they got from the Syrians, the ultimately the Syrian ones. Those are running out, apparently. They're running very, very short of those. The Chinese have tightened up exports of drones, the so-called Mavic drones. So the Ukrainians now have to rely on Western components to make drones. Those are very expensive. They're getting more

expensive because, of course, demand now from Ukraine and from Western customers for these drones, customers who are buying these drones or components for the Ukrainians is so high. You see this immediate inflation in costs. So already, we're also now starting to get reports that the Ukrainians are running short of FPV drones and all of those drones on the front lines. And of course, the Russians, we did a program recently about the lava flow approaching the NEPA. They are advancing. Now, logically, this ought to be the moment when the Ukrainians, after this American announcement,

ought to understand the realities, that the war is lost, that the West cannot save them, that the United States cannot save them. They talk about betrayal is ridiculous. What they need to do is to telephone the Russians, tell them, we're very unhappy about this, but we understand that the memorandum that you sent us is the last word. The Russians have been making increasingly clear. You remember we did the program again about a week ago about how Medvedev was saying, the EU entry for Russia for Ukraine is now also a red line.

A whole succession of other Russian officials have now been saying this, including another one yesterday. So this isn't going to happen either. Accept the memorandum, except that the four regions are lost, do whatever possible deal you can and preserve Ukraine. That's not what they're going to do. They're going to go on fire. They're going to go on demanding more money from the Europeans and they will get more money

from the Europeans because the Europeans cannot supply them, cannot give them anything else. And they will do exactly what we discussed in that program that we also did a couple of about a week ago. They will cling on until the last moment stashing as much of the money away in all sorts of places around the world that they can. And when the collapse comes, they will make their dash. They will escape to Europe. They will set up their government in exile in Antib, on these, or someplace on someplace on the Spanish Riviera. And they will live on, as they believe, wealthy people and going on continuing to insist that they're the government of Ukraine,

that they should have the right to Ukraine seat in the United Nations, they should have the embassies across Europe, they will continue to get funding from the European Union and the British government to sustain themselves, and it'll be, they will do quite well. That's their actual plan. Yeah, I agree. That is exactly how this is going to unfold, Europe is going to be on the hook for Zelensky and his production staff and script writers until the EU falls apart. That's basically, and the UK. The UK and the EU are going to be funding Zelensky and his production team for the next

decade. Bottom line, they're going to be somewhere in exile. Just a final question. With Trump, this is an opportunity for the Trump White House. Isn't it? The precedent has been set. The Band-Aid has been ripped off. People are going to complain. The Neocons are going to complain. The Europeans are going to complain. NADO's Alenski. Everyone's going to complain. You're abandon Ukraine. How dare you abandon Ukraine? How can you do this? But you know what? If Trump stays strong and just lets this run its course. Eventually after a week, the complaining will go away.

a new new cycle will come into effect, and he's another step closer to fully disengaging from Project Ukraine. I completely agree. And in fact, I think that the complaints, that they've been pretty shrill, I mean, they're not as strong as many people expected, at least I would have expected. I mean, this is something he can easily absorb. He can easily absorb it. It's not going to dent his popularity.

Over time, it's going to increase it. He got the United States out of this mess. And he should wait a little while, maybe until the autumn, and then renew his attempts to have a meeting with Putin and to settle affairs with the Russians, which will be popular to, by the way. That's my own personal view. You're quite right. This is his opportunity.

Forget about ceasefires. Forget about negotiations. Forget about all of that. Just let events take their calls from now on. The limits have been exposed. There's no reason to do anything more. Exactly. Well, said, all right.

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