The Duran Podcast - Donbass cauldrons force US to deal with Russia

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Donbass cauldrons force US to deal with Russia

All right, Alexander, let's do a military update in the conflict in Ukraine. What is the situation on the front lines at the moment, Alexander? I'm hearing a lot of caldrons are forming, or at least a lot of cities and regions are surrounded, I guess, you can say, on three sides. So it hasn't quite closed. The cauldron is not quite closed yet. I don't know if the Russians wanted to close, but a lot of areas and a lot of regions have the Russians pretty much on three sides with one opening left across the entire front line. So what's the situation? Well, indeed. Now, you're absolutely correct. The thing to understand about every one of these cauldrons is that they are basically constructed. They're basically developing around fortified positions that the Ukrainians have.

and to repeat a point that we made in our recent program. The overall story is that the Russians have now reached the farthest last big defense line that the Ukrainians have in Dombas, this line of the three big towns, Slavians, Kramatoosk, Konstantinovka, and then a little further distance away, this Pakarovsk. So the Russians are now pushing against this line. if they break through, well, there's this notional Sudeviken line that the Ukrainians supposedly are trying to build to the west of it.

Nobody, I think, believes that the Ukrainians can hold the Russians along this line. Even the Ukrainians themselves are now admitting as much. So this is the last big defense line that the Ukrainians have left west of, the NEPA. If the Russians break through, then as I said, they will reach the center, they will reach the NEPA in central Ukraine. We've discussed in many programs, what a mortal blow, not just for Ukrainian defenses in eastern Ukraine, but for Ukraine as a whole, the Russians

arriving at the NEPA in the central NEPA region would be. So let's talk about the, these cauldrons. The most, there is one cauldron which does look like it is a classical quadrant. In other words, the Ukrainian troops are fully trapped inside it and there is no escape from it. Now, south of the town of Konstantinovka, Konstantinovka is this town, it's about 70,000 people before the war that forms the southern end of the line of towns, Slaviansk at the north, Kramatoosk, which is the biggest in the middle, and Constantinica is the southernmost one. South of Konstantinika, there is a reservoir called the Kliban-Bik Reservoir. The Ukrainians have been defending positions south of this reservoir.

The Russians have now reached the western tip of this reservoir, and they've also reached the eastern tip of this reservoir. So any Ukrainian troops south of the reservoir are trapped. There was a long discussion about the situation in a Russian newspaper called Redofka, which has journalists on the ground. And I think on this information, they are reliable. Now, they're saying that we're not talking about thousands of Ukrainian troops there. We're talking about hundreds, but they are trapped. There's no real route for them to escape. Either they fight to the last man or they surrender. So that is one definite cauldron. Another cauldron

that is rapidly developing is in a place to the east of this line of three cities, which is a place called Sversk. Sversk is located on a hill. It's a little bit like the town of Ugladaw was in southern Ukraine. It's a fortified position. It's like a kind of fortress that the Ukrainians built up. dominates the surrounding countryside. It's prevented the Russians,

creating continuous front lines around the northern part of this line of three cities. It looks like the Russians are very close to surrounding Sversk entirely. So they have captured villages immediately to the east of Svarsk, places like Novosilka and Veracoukkkk, they're in the process of capturing another village called Sera Bianca, which is immediately to the north, and they have already captured positions to the west of Sversk, close to the only supply road that reaches Svarsk as well.

So that's another cauldron. There is a third cauldron, which is to the north of this line of three cities. And that is in another town, similar size as Sivask, called Kupiansk. Now Kupiansk was a place that the Russians controlled in 2022. The Ukrainians captured it in their offensive, recaptured it in their offensive of the autumn of 2022. The Ukrainians themselves admit that there is now fighting going on inside Kupians. Kupiansk itself and that the Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk have only one exit route which is one

small supply road basically I understand a dirt road so they can't get supplies into their garrison in Kupiansk it's likely that they will have to retreat from that from that town fairly quickly and that again means that the Russians are closer to enveloping, as I said, this last line of the big three towns. The biggest cauldron, it's not yet fully stabilized, but it's clearly emerging now, is around the most important place of all being fought over at the moment, which is Pakrovsk. Pachrovsk is the key to the battle at the present time. Now, the Russians have, first of all, just to repeat again, Pachrovsk is more isolated from all of these other places,

but it's a big place. It had a population of around 80,000 at one time, before the war it had reduced to about 50,000, but it was still a big place. It's not directly connected to the 3,000. towns of Slaviansk, Kramatjork, and Konstantinovka. It's some distance from them. It's more isolated on the plains, the Ukrainian step.

But it's the main logistics hub. It's on the main roads. It connects the roads and the railways. If Pachrosk falls, the Russians can advance west in theory all the way to the Dnieper. But they can also advance north and they can cut the supply. lines of the Ukrainians to these three towns of Slaviansk, Kramatosk and Konstantinivka, and then they would create a colossal quadrant, because that would be the big, big cauldron in which the Ukrainians would be surrounded in, because there is really nothing

to stop a Russian advance from Bakrowski. Now, the Russians about a week ago broke into Pachrosk from the south. There is intense fighting going on inside Pachrovsk. It's very difficult to get a clear picture of where the Ukrainians are and where the Russians are. The Russians say that the Ukrainians in Pachrovsk have become divided, the garrison in Pakrovsk has become fragmented into different groups. There are three remaining supplies. roads into Prakosk. There's one that is from the west. There's two from the west.

There's one from the north. The Russians have cut the supply line, which leads into Pakrosk from the north. And the word is that they're currently storming two villages on this supply road. Rodinska and Bielitska, it looks like it could be that they've already captured. of these two villages and that they've established drone and control over the other two supply roads. And the Russians about a day ago said that the garrison in Pachrowski is no longer able to receive supplies. There are still ways for it to retreat from Pakrovsk, but this is becoming much more difficult and far more dangerous. Now yesterday, the Ukrainian said that the Russians are dropping

leaflets on the garrison in Pachrovsk calling upon it to surrender. Now, usually when that happens, that's a sign that the supply roads are going to be completely closed and that Pachrovsk will be taken into a virtual cauldron. And that's what happened in Ugladar and in Avdeyevka and in other places. So it looks as if we are perhaps within days, a week perhaps, of Pakrovsk finally falling. Now, if Pakrovsk falls, as the entire defence line, starts to collapse. I want to ask you about Herzan, but before we get there, the possibility of such a quick collapse of Pakrovsk, could that be what's driving Trump and the panic to get a meeting with Putin? Could it be one of the factors? You know, in a previous program, I discounted that possibility.

But you're saying a week. maybe two, even if it's three weeks. Yes. Let's say it's at the end of September, Alexandria. Yes, yes. It's still very fast. It's very fast. And if that happens, if it happens, as is the entire Ukrainian defense positions,

not just in Donbass, but again, to repeat, in eastern Ukraine, are compromised beyond retrieval. I think that's the thing to say. I mean, clearly there would be many weeks, months of hard fighting. But eventually the Ukrainians would have to withdraw from Dombas because their lines would have been pierced. And if they continue to hold in Dombas, they would be surrounded. And if they lose Dombas, they lose the position in east of the Dnieper, which makes defence.

of Ukrainian positions east of the deeper possible. If the Ukrainians lose Dombas, the Russians reach the deeper in the center, then it becomes impossible, it seems to me, to hold positions to the north, in places like Kharkov, Sumi, Chernigov and whatever. I mean, the whole thing will start to, they'll start to fall down like a row of dominance. I think about big cities too. Big cities, absolutely. So absolutely.

And I think this is well, and I think that some people, obviously, in the United States, understand this very well. So I think you're probably right. I think that this is creating some of the panic and some of the urgency. I was unsure before, but I'd really come round to the view now. I mean, you could see this. The commentaries that are starting to appear in the media in the West are beginning finally to grasp that the same. situation is becoming much more alarming and much more dangerous than it has ever been at any time for the Ukrainian army up to this point in the war.

Another question before I get to Herzan. Would Putin agree to a deal knowing this, knowing that he is at the cusp of such a decisive outright victory? Once again, let's say Bakarovsk falls. at the end of September, at the end of October, given that this war has gone on for three and a half years, almost four years, would Putin decide to negotiate a deal, knowing that it's so close to, that he's so close to breaking through? No, I mean, I can't imagine that he would. I mean, if by deal, we mean freezing the country. Yeah, anything, even Istanbul Plus. I'll say even Istanbul plus.

Well, that's right. I mean, he is in a position of such overwhelming military advantage. I can't imagine after three and a half years that he will negotiate that advantage away. I mean, not after all that's happened in the entire story of the Ukrainian conflict going all the way back to 2013. So I can't imagine it. I mean, I would have thought that he would not and had the very long. least, he would simply say, look, if the Ukrainians want to pull out of all of these cities and abandon Dombas, I said back in 2014 that they could do that.

Oh, sorry, 2024 that they could do that. And maybe he might agree to that. But I cannot imagine that he's in any compromising mood at the moment. When he spoke most recently about the terms for ending the war, which was just a few days ago, when he was with Lukashenko at the Valharm monastery. He made it absolutely clear that his terms and objectives had not changed. All right, Herson. What's the situation there?

Herson is another very important because this is again something that the Ukrainians, I think, did not expect. And they are so overextended, and their army is in such, so overstretched and so run down that it's difficult to not see what they can do. But there is a very large Russian force now gathering on the east bank of the Dnieper opposite the city of Hessexon. The Russians are now taking steps to isolate the southernmost part of this city, which is basically on an island from the rest. It's increasingly looking as if the Russians are indeed planning some kind of cross. river operation to recapture it. That would put the Russians on the West Bank of the NEPA again in Hessexon. And I don't think the Ukrainians have the forces to hold them back. Where are they going

to come from? As far as I can see, Ukraine is now extended to breaking point. There are reports that large areas of the front lines in Dombas are without troops that the Russian, have been advancing north of Pakrovsk and capturing places and reaching trenches and finding that there are no Ukrainian troops there. Zelensky has concentrated all his best units in Sumi region to try to prevent an advance on Kiev. That's really what that's all about. I don't know what he can do, what the Ukrainians can do if the Russians launch an attack on Hassan now. So this is, if it happens, it's going to intensify the sense of crisis, which is now building. All right, we will end the video there, that durand.orgas.com.

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