The Duran Podcast - Crimea attack, one step closer to US-Russia war

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Crimea attack, one step closer to US-Russia war

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the terrorist attack in Crimea, Sevastopol. From what I understand, five attackums. One was hit and beard off course, and then the cluster munitions. They fell on a beach. Hundreds, I think of 130, 10040 people injured, many people dead, amongst them children. and the Russian Ministry of Defense, they have blamed the United States, U.S. attackums, U.S. cluster munitions, U.S. targeting, satellite. I imagine the drones. We're talking about the drones in the Black Sea. I think that's what we're talking about when the Ministry of Defense is saying targeting surveillance.

And I believe the Russian foreign ministries has even summoned the U.S. ambassador in Moscow. And the Russian government said this will not go unanswered. We've had strikes, Russian military strikes at facilities and warehouses in Odessa. I'm not sure if they're connected to the missile strikes in Crimea. I imagine they are, but that's where we are at the moment. This is very, very dangerous. What are your thoughts? This is very dangerous indeed.

Can I also say that there are some reports which are starting to appear in Russia, that the target of the attack missiles was not a military facility in Sevastopol, but the main cathedral there, in other words, a church. Now, I don't want to make it absolutely clear. I don't know. But these are Russian reports. that are circulating. And what they're basically saying is that these five attackers targeted not military facilities around

Sevastopol. Sevastopol, of course, is a massive naval base. It's the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It was created by Catherine the Great, who is commemorated in its name. The name in Greek means the city of the Empress, and the Empress is, of course, Catherine the Great, but it's a military base with many military facilities, but it's also a major population centre, and apparently the pathway of the attack and missiles, according to the Russians, was not focused on military installations, but might have been targeting the main cathedral.

Now, if that is true, that would explain an awful lot of the anger that the Russians are showing about this. And of course, if you're talking about the missile that caused all that death at the beach, the Russian Defence Ministry is saying this, that five attack missiles were launched in total, four of them were shot down, and that this missile then exploded in the air over the breach, beach, and dropped all these munitions. So they're not themselves confirming that it was actually hit by, the Russian Defence Ministry are not confirming that it was hit by an air defence system. And Virdov, course, they're not saying anything about that. That's, again, reports from the Russian media. So the Russians, in aggregate, are presenting this as a,

tax specifically on civilian targets. And they're saying that attack them's missiles can only be launched by Ukraine at all with American assistance. Apparently the Americans, or at least the Russians say that the Americans are involved in programming the missiles before they're launched. They don't use, you know, apparently. The guidance system is programmed into the missile before launching. So I understand.

I might be wrong about that. And of course, the Russians are also saying that the Americans, other people who are providing all of the targeting guidance. They do all the surveillance. They track where the various locations that need to be attacked are. But of course, the drones and the aircraft that are flying over the Black Sea, They have the secondary role of identifying where the Russian air defense systems are located so that the attack missiles can, to the extent that they can, evade them.

So the Russians are quite straightforwardly saying this was an attack on civilian targets in Sevastopol and that the United States is fully implicated that it played a role in making this attack. happen. Now, this is a Russian account. I'm not in a position, obviously, to confirm or corroborate that, but it's what the Russians are saying. As you rightly say, they've called in the American ambassador. They're threatening retaliation. And there's already talk, lots of talk, in the Russian media, that they've been far too slow in dealing with these American surveillance drones over the Black Sea. the time has come for Russia to declare a no-fly zone over the Black Sea and basically start shooting down these American drones,

which would be a major, a massive escalation if it were to happen. Why? That's my question that I have with all of this is they've shot down the drones. I believe they've shot down two drones that we know of. Yes. One was three, four weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken. And then I remember a drone that a fighter jet, knocked down, brought down, maybe like a year ago. Yeah, if I'm not, I'm not sure about the timeline, but that's about it.

And outside of that, they've been letting these drones just, you know, do what they do. I don't understand why they've let the drones operate in the black sea. Any other country would have knocked down those drones. I mean, we're talking about the Russians and the Americans, and for the Russians to start shooting down American drones over international waters and outside Russian airspace would be unusual to say the least. Now, let's just unpack this. The United States, right? Yeah, but they are unmanned. Yeah, absolutely. These are unmanned drones. But remember that, you know, if you're going to start shooting down drones, but not start shooting down manned aircraft, then, of course, you're negating what you're

achieving by shooting down the drones, because the manned aircraft, can simply take their place. What you are aiming to do is to declare a no-fly zone over the Black Sea. Now, the United States regularly declares no-fly zones. It's done this in several places. We know that in the eve of the American intervention, of the Russian intervention in Syria, in the summer of 2014, 2015, rather, United States was very close indeed to declaring, for example, unilaterally a no-fly zone over Syria.

The Russians have never done that. They have never declared no-fly zones over territories that are outside their own airspace. This would be the first time they did that. And it would have to be a complete no-fly zone in order to be effective. And it does, of course, open up the question of what would happen if they did announce that there was a no-fly zone. They would perhaps shoot down the drones. The United States would, of course, challenge this. They would say that this is completely unacceptable and immensely provocative. What then happens, say, if the United States sends manned aircraft to replace the drones, do the Russians shoot it down? Now, we've seen that the United States has been prepared to challenge, they're now starting to challenge Russian red lines with cruise missile strikes.

I mean, this is, the Russians have never said that there is a red line about cruise missile strikes on Crimea. But of course, there is an obvious red line over cruise missile strikes on civilian, purely civilian targets. One can't discount the possibility that if the Russians announce a no-flying zone over the Black Sea, the Americans will challenge it. And that's perhaps what this is intended to do. Okay, my next question is, why is, why has Russia allowed long-range missiles to attack Crimea, there's no red line with regards to missiles attacking Crimea, but there is absolutely

a definite red line with long-range missiles into any pre-2024 Russian territory. What's the difference? There's a very straightforward answer to this. The Russians, of course, consider Crimea, Donbass, Zaporosian, Hassan to be part of their country. hardly any other state in the world does. Nicaragua, I believe, is one that does, but very, very few states around the world have formally recognized Crimea or any of these other four regions as Russian territory.

So if the Russians declared a red line on this and confronted the Western powers and the Ukrainians over it, then they would be by themselves. If there was an uncontrolled escalation, they would not be able to rely on international support if they try to enforce it. And the Russians have been extremely careful, never to act at any point in this conflict, which goes beyond international support. They want the backing of China, India, the global south.

It has been extremely important to them. Right. So the next escalation from the neocons, I think is obvious, is that they're going to allow long-range missiles to strike it to pre-2014. I think I said 2024 last time. I may have made a mistake. Yeah. Pre-2014, Russia. And that's the red line.

That is the red line. That is the red line. a repeat of what happened yesterday. Eventually, you're going to have a situation similar to what happened yesterday happening in pre-2014 Russian territory. I imagine that Jake Sullivan will announce this lifting of a ban, if you want to call it that, giving permission to Ukraine to use attack ofs to hit pre-2014 Russian territory. What happens then? This is a red line. Yeah, he's a red line. There's no doubt about it. The Russians have made that absolutely clear. Now, I mean, we had an article yesterday, well, I think it was the day before yesterday, in the Associated Press, which told us that

basically it admitted in a very roundabout way that the military situation in Kharkaf region is continuing to deteriorate. They pretended that the situation there had stabilized, but it has not really stabilized. And in fact, we've had news from Kharkov region that it has not stabilized. That's the first thing to say. So the commanders, it was very, very interesting to see that they were not identifying the commanders. The commanders who are in charge of the operation of the attack missiles and the military commanders in the area are supposedly now badgering the Americans to allow the deep strike. with the attack and missiles further into Ukraine. Now, I think we can take it as read that some of these commanders are not just Ukrainian,

but they're American as well. In other words, there's a pressure building up within the project Ukraine community, both American and Ukrainian, to go beyond the permission that was previously given, which is to confine cross-border strikes to the territory of the border. order and they want permission to launch attack and strikes deep inside Russia. And they will get it. It is, as you correctly say, a violation of a red line. And we have seen with this attack in Crimea that despite the fact that this is going to be

all justified as attacks on Russian military facilities, Russian military facilities are going to be very, very well defended. Attack and missiles have not proved particularly. successful in penetrating Russian air defences. In fact, they've not proved successful at all. So it looks like the project will now shift to attacking civilian targets. I mean, this is clearly, I think, where this is going. What do the Russians do? I don't know what the Russians do. They have said that this is a red line for them. They have said that they will supply counter strikes, similar systems to American enemies around the world.

We've just had this trip by Putin to North Korea. It's overwhelmingly likely that we're going to see a proliferation of Russian missile technology in the hands of people like, say, Hezbollah, just say, in Lebanon, the Iraqi and Syrian militias in the Middle East, who are already making strikes at American targets. I don't personally think that the Russians will launch strikes on US facilities in Europe itself, because they are winning the war, so why escalate the war there? I think most likely, and this is the hints that we're getting from the Russians,

they will start targeting American facilities through proxies in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. I think that is what is going to happen. And to be clear, this is a disaster. It means that we're going to get an even more violent situation around the world. We're going to have situations where, say, the Houthis are going to get their hands on advanced hypersonic missile technology and things of that kind. the Americans will probably feel that they want, they need to retaliate, they'll blame the Russians for all of this. The situation between these two countries is going to escalate again. What would be the perception in Russian society though if Russia doesn't appear to be doing anything,

if these strikes, these long-range missile strikes do occur in Russian territory? because you said that Russia is going to give the technology to proxies, okay? A lot of this stuff is going to be, I don't want to say quiet, but a lot of people are not going to realize that this is the strategy that Russia is employing to retaliate to the long-range missile strikes inside of Russian territory. I imagine a majority of people inside of Russia and outside of Russia will not realize that Russia is actually retaliating in this way. and I imagine a lot of neocons

will see this as Russian weakness and they'll just see it as a green light to launch more and more attacks into Russia territory. That is exactly what the neocons are going to see it as and the neocons are also going to spread stories in the media that that is exactly what is going to happen because bear in mind, if proxies attack American bases, using Russian technology. It will probably take some time before it happens. And we will see

escalation. But we're unlikely to see that escalation before the election. And of course, there are an awful lot of people in Russia who are already very angry about the whole situation. And the political pressure on the Russian government will increase. Having said that, if you know anything about Russia, you know a couple of things. Firstly, this is a very disciplined society. It's also a society which understands war. They understand war very, very well. I think the discipline, which is what it is, is just going to hold. I think that Putin's authority is strong enough and, as I said, the cohesion of Russian society is great enough that rather than, panic or turn on their government, it will consolidate them even further.

I was in Russia, I've said this many times. I was in Russia in the early 2000s at a time when there was a whole succession of big terrorist attacks on Moscow itself, on the Moscow metro, against Russian aircraft that was blown up in mid-air, all kinds of things. And I remember being astonished the way in which Russian society responded, the sort of sense of, you know, that we're under attack, we've got to keep discipline, we'll just keep going in ways that would simply not have been the case if this had been done in the West. So that is my own perception. That's my own guess that this is. is what will happen in Russia. They will say we mustn't jeopardize the progress of the war. The war is being won. We keep going. But we now have definite, conclusive proof that the Americans hate us, that they want to attack us. That will consolidate anti-American feeling in Russia. And it will

create the division between the countries even further. Now, that's what I suspect will happen. But of course, I cannot be certain of this. I cannot be absolutely sure that there won't be more demands on Putin to react even more strongly than the way I'm saying. And I cannot be certain that the pressure on Putin will not be so strong that he might not feel that he has to take some steps which he would probably rather not do. I agree with you, but my sense of the situation in Russia is that the cohesion will hold and it will strengthen but up to a certain point. Yes.

It can't last forever. No. I'm talking two, three years. I'm not saying months. I'm talking two, three years. This continues than the cohesion or the demands. I won't even say the cohesion of the government. to do something will intensify to the point where the government's going to have to do something.

I agree. Because, you know, people are angry. Yeah, people. When they see what we just saw yesterday, it's obvious. People of people are very, very angry. Of course, Putin does derive a political benefit from this because, of course, he has said all along that the West is hostile to Russia, ever since he started the special military operation. And he's been proved right.

So all of these, you know, a large bulk of Russian society, which, you know, had not been particularly looking for war. But, you know, they've now seen that his comments, his reasons for starting the special military operation were justified. But it's very important to understand something about Russia and about Russian public opinion, which, of course, people in the West, I don't think that they get this at all. When criticism of Putin comes from within Russian society, overwhelmingly it comes for people who say that he's not being hard enough. He's not been tough enough towards the West.

This was true long before the special military operation began. I remember when he used to call the Western countries partners. And that really annoyed lots of people more and more as time passed. They used to say, why does he continue to refer to these countries as our partners when clearly there are no such thing? So he there, even though, as I said, I think in the short term, this consolidates further Russian society behind Putin because as I said, it seems to confirm the truth of what he has been saying since the special military operation began. It does leave him open to attack from a section of Russian society. which has consistently said that he is too soft.

And I think this is something, I truly think people in the West just don't get this, because they've been fed this idea of Putin, you know, this extreme hardliner, fooling the Russian people into wars and imperialistic plans and all of the rest. Whereas the reality is quite the opposite. In Russian terms, he has always. been, and by the way, continues to be a moderate. I wonder if that's the plan, though, from the West. I mean, they know this.

They must know. It's okay, to their citizens, to the citizens of the U.S. and the UK, they propagandize them by making them believe that Putin's this strong man that has top to bottom control of the entire country, and he's the authoritarian dictator. So that's how they propagandize their own people. And the large portion of society believes it, right? But they know, they must know. They absolutely know that inside of Russia, the main criticism of Putin is that he's moderate.

And he was very friendly towards Europe, especially Germany. Natural because he lived there. He worked from from there. He speaks fluent German. So that's how the Russians, as you said, that's how the Russian, that's the main Russian criticism of Putin is the fact that he's, that he was too friendly to it. Europe and he is moderate. So I wonder if the game that they're playing is, is, is, is to anger, the segment of society that wants Putin to go harder so that they could either get a wider war in escalation and knock Russia off course from what they're doing in the special military operation,

or or box Putin into into a corner where he doesn't want to to escalate into a wider war, knowing that that could be catastrophic, but there are forces in an Iraq, around him who get frustrated with the fact that he's trying to avoid World War III. I mean, it seems like the strategy may be to try and box him in somehow. Well, absolutely, that's exactly the strategy. I mean, this is exactly the strategy. Can I say, I mean, it's, I mean, it is reckless to the point of lunacy. You know, replace Putin with hardliners.

I mean, some of the hardliners that we're talking about in Russia are very hardline people indeed. This really would risk an absolutely catastrophic global situation if these people were to take charge and were to start running policy, not because even they would be looking for war, but because they would take measures, which would undoubtedly be used by the near-concourt. to escalate and create even more extreme reactions.

So I think this is exactly the plan, a very, very reckless plan, a very dangerous plan. But again, coming back to what I said, I think that Putin has enough authority in Russia and enough support within Russian society. And I think Russian society, by the way, is extremely sophisticated on these. issues and very, very understanding of war, that they will listen to what he says and they will be guided by him and they will understand exactly what it is that the West is trying to do. At least they will see it as the West, what the West and the Ukrainians are trying to do. So I think that for the moment, as you correctly said, the discipline will hold.

I mean, it cannot hold indefinitely. It never does. But for the moment, I think it will. and Putin recently spoke about the fact that the Russians might need to hurry up the special military operation and perhaps that is indeed what we're going to see. There are reasons why the Russians might be moving towards hurrying it up anyway, which is that the military situation in Ukraine is now developing very fast and we are now in a situation where the Russians might be calculated.

that late summer, early autumn, might be the moment to deal a knockout blow. Just saying, but putting that aside, and I want to stress, I don't know what the Russian plans actually are, if, you know, there are missile strikes on Russian cities, and it would principally be Belgarod and Kursk and border cities, than Putin might feel that really he has to start escalating the war, moving things faster that he has done at the moment, which would, of course, carry other costs for the Russians because it would be high casualties. Yeah, that was going to be my final question, actually.

What retaliation do you think Russia would do with regards to Ukraine, keeping confined inside Ukraine. So the retaliation is not is not focused on proxies as much or even considering hitting, hitting U.S. or NATO targets or anything like that. But they keep everything confined from inside of Ukraine and they just speed everything up. Energy infrastructure, facilities, bridges, I don't know. Yes. Yeah, they will do, I mean, I think that there is. now a strong possibility, even a probability, that we're going to start seeing a major

Russian push sometime later this year, probably within weeks rather than months, but, you know, I want to stress again, I am not privy to Russian plans. What the Russians might, I mean, the other thing that the Russians will definitely do is, as I said, they will start arming anti-American proxies around the world. That I think now is a done thing, by the way. I think that was partly what the trip to North Korea was about. But I think we're going to see this happen on a much bigger scale than, well, I don't think it's been happening up to this point. But now we are going to start to see it. And it's going to alter the situation, for example, in the Middle East and in all sorts of other places. It will be putting American laws.

in danger. Just saying. That's what the Biden White House has done. They've been injured American lives. Yes. It's madness. Oh, it's absolute madness. It's, it's, it's, it's, as I said, recklessness. It's, it's compulsive gamblers running things in Washington.

You know, there might be trying to play off factions in Russia. they might be thinking that you can set the hard lines against Putin. I'm sure they are. But I also think that at some level, they really do believe that if they do this, increase pressure in this kind of way, that is going to make the Russians agree to some kind of negotiations or at least some kind of freeze, a ceasefire over the next few months.

In reality, of course, what it will do is the opposite. it's going to make the Russians even more determined to see the war through to the end and in fact Putin used those very words again over the course of his trip to Vietnam

he said that victory in this war for Russia is an existential matter and of course if they don't get a deal on the basis that they want they will push it through to the end. And of course, if we talk back to the proposals that Putin gave a few just about

a week ago, just over a week ago, the ones that he made at the Foreign Ministry Board about, you know, the Istanbul Plus. Of course, if missile strikes start happening on Russian cities, the Russians will soon forget about Istanbul Plus. They will go out, all out, to take all of Ukraine. Already you can see people like Medvedev pressing for that. Yeah, I mean, just a final thought. The two things that you said are not exclusive. I think they actually go hand in hand. Yes.

Right? You want to cause divisions within, if you're the United States, you say, let's cause divisions within the Russian government. Let's put the hardliners against the, let's say, Putin's administration, the moderates. Let's just call them that. Let's put the hardliners against the moderates. let's cause chaos inside of Russia. Let's make life difficult for for the Russian people. I mean, the whole, the whole sanctions policy was about making life difficult for the Russian people.

Yes. So, you know, you want to create as much hardship and chaos in order to get, in their minds, to get Putin to say, okay, enough, enough, let's freeze the conflict. We've had enough. No more, right? That's what they're hoping, Russia says. Yes, yes, exactly. They're not mutually exclusive at all. If you talked to the people who are supporting these moves, they would say that they complement each other. You destabilize Putin by getting the hardliners come after him,

and you at the same time force him into negotiations. Of course, it doesn't actually, in reality, play out like that. missile strikes on Russian cities are not going to force Putin into negotiations. They're not going to force Russia into negotiations. They're going to provoke the Russians to take even stronger action than they would already do and to reject negotiations completely. But the Americans have done this before. I mean, they were bombing North Vietnam, as I remember, hoping to get concessions from the North Vietnamese.

And they were very frustrated and astonished when those negotiations. then those concessions didn't come. And you have, I remember reading something that Gisinger wrote about, you know, the incredibly tough and ruthless people that the North Vietnamese leaders were. And the Americans didn't seem to understand that bombing Hanoi, in fact, hardened North Vietnamese resolve. And it's going to be the same with the Russians. bombing Belgarod or Kuzk or other Russian cities or Rostov is not going to make the Russians more moderate their demands.

It's going to make them increase their demands and it's going to make them even more committed to see the war won. And it's going to result in more Russian men joining the Russian army, aching to fight and looking forward to taking on whatever Western soldiers they can find in Ukraine. That's what it's really going to do. But I don't think, again, the neocons really understand this. No, they don't. All right. We'll end it there. The durand.com.

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