The Duran Podcast - Europe reveals ONLY strategy to DEFEAT Russia

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Europe reveals ONLY strategy to DEFEAT Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. What is happening on the front lines? And then we can talk, maybe we can talk a bit about what's happening with the conference in Armenia. Maybe we can talk about what's happening around Russia. There's a big conference in Armenia taking place to try and push Armenia closer to Europe and to NATO. And then we have an interesting CNN article, which, which,

talks about how European intelligence is playing up assassination attempts on Putin and security around Putin. They talk about Valdai and what happened there. So we can touch about, we can touch on these things as well. But let's start things off with the military situation on the ground, on the front lines. Well, the military situation can be described in some ways very simply, which is that we are about, a month now into the Russian offensive, the way the war works, and it's been the consistent pattern in 24, not 2024 and 2025 and 2026 is following the identical pattern, is that there's a very quiet period or a quieter period in late winter when The Russians reorganize their forces. They re-equip.

They bring in new people who have been training back in Russia. They refit them. They work out new tactics, new strategies. There's always then a narrative heavily promoted, mostly by the British, by the way, about how the war is supposedly in stalemate and all of that. Then around April, the Russians begin to go on the offensive. The offensive starts relatively slowly because the Russians are moving towards positions which the Ukrainians have fortified and fortified over several years, by the way.

Then the Russians break through those fortifications. we then start to see a period of much more rapid movement from about July, August, September, a series of places fall and then gradually things begin to slow down again towards the winter. This year is following it the identical pattern. So the Russians have been conducting an offensive. It's an offensive that's going on right across the front. front lines in Zaporosia region, up in the north, in Sumi and Kharkov regions, in Donbass. The main focus of the offensive up to now has been the city of Konstantinovka, which is one of the

fortress towns along the last fortified lines. that the Ukrainians have in Donbass. It starts with Slaviansk in the north, Kramatosk, then Drushivka, then Konstantinovka is the most southern of these. The Russians reached that front line, this line of cities, basically at the end of last year,

following the fall of Pakrosk, they're now in a position to go round it. There's a big battle underway for Konstantinovka. The Western media up to now has mostly ignored this battle. But yesterday, or the day before yesterday, first article appeared in Reuters, basically preparing the Western public

for the fact that Konstantinivka is about a fall. Konstantinovka is the biggest town that the Russians will have captured, by the way, to my knowledge, since the capture of Severodornetsk in 2022, just say. It's an important place. If it falls, we're going to start to see the other towns, the other Dombast towns, Kramatsk, Kramatosk, Slaviansk, they're going to start to fall like a row of dominoes. And the reports speak of the Russians now controlling the high-rise area in Constantinicat, the factory district, and being very close to establishing a cauldron around the Ukrainian troops there. So that's the most important battle, just as we've had the Battle of Bachmert, one of big sieges,

just as we've had Avdavka, another very big siege, just as about Torez, all of the war, of these places. This winter, it's been Konstantinivka, and that battle is coming to an end. What about the north, like Sumi in those areas, Kharkiv? This is a very, this is an area of the wall which I personally have the greatest trouble understanding because the Russians over the last few months have been very, very busy there. Now, the Ukrainians don't have any troops in this region. By the way, neither do the Russians. The entire operations in Northern Kharka and Sumi region are done by a single Russian group of forces,

group of forces north, which is believed to number in total around 70,000 men. Now about of those, perhaps 10,000 of infantry, and yet, you know, they've been expanding significantly their area of control throughout Harukh and Sumi region. And it's difficult to understand exactly what the Russians are doing here. Now, there's one view, which is the official Russian view, which is that all that the Russians are doing is establishing a buffer zone along their border. They don't want any more attacks. Ukrainian invasions of their own territory, well, of pre-2014 Russia.

They don't want any more Ukrainian attacks into Belgorod, any more Ukrainian attacks into Kursk region, that they're intent on preventing that happening. And so they're capturing all of these places in Kharkiv and Sumi region. The problem with this is that if you especially look at the situation in Sumi region, it does increasingly look as if the Russians have some ultimate objective to take the regional capital, which is Sumi itself. And if we're talking about Kharkov region, it also seems as if all of these Russian moves there

are coordinated with the fighting in the area of Kupians. Remember Kupians? We heard a lot about Kupians. That's not, the Kupians battles are not being carried out by group of forces north. It's another Russian force. entirely. I don't think anybody any longer seriously disputes that the Russians do actually have secure control of Kupians, both on the west and east of the Osco River. And the Russians

seem to be pushing westwards and northwards of that. Now, to me, what this looks like is perhaps not so much preparation of a buffer zone exactly. But preparation for some kind of, you know, jumping off place, a basically a base area for, well, I can only guess an attack ultimately on Kiev. If you're going to attack Kiev and do so successfully, you need to control Sumi and probably Kharkiv. and the Russians have also been very busy in the north in Belarus. They've been apparently establishing a large network of things in Belarus. This is what I'm guessing, what I think is going to happen. This year the focus is on Dombas and on Zaporosia.

If after these regions have been captured, we do. don't have a peace settlement, and the peace settlement cannot happen. The Russians have made this clear with Zelensky as leader of Ukraine. Then in 2027, the focus is Adessa in the south, Kiev in the north. So all the cool kids of Europe, Alexander, not only Europe, Mark Carney as well, Kirstammer, all the EU officials, all the leaders of the European Union member states, they've all descended onto Armenia. They're looking to boost up Pashinyan because he has elections, I believe, in early June. Yeah.

And so he's looking for some support there so he can remain in power. Pachinian is moving towards NATO and the EU. He has not made a secret of that. No. But Zelensky in his first statement said that, drones are going to perhaps threaten the May 9th Victory Day parade? Yeah. What do you think about his statements, his threats?

Let's talk about Armenia because of course this is now the big hope. Georgia has been a disappointment. The Georgian government there seems to be securely in power. They're not going to give up though, Georgia. Oh no, no, they're not going to give up. But for the moment, for the moment, I mean, things seem to be stable there. Over the last couple of weeks, Aliyev in Azerbaijan has been trying to stabilize relations with the Russians. Apparently, he's been told to do this by Erdogan, and the Russians have been tightening control of the pipelines,

and Aliyev can survive in power if oil exports from Azerbaijan are fully closed, and for that reason, and he's sort of dialed down the rhetoric. So Armenia now is the big hope. Win over get Paschignan reelected, get Paschignan to take Armenia fully out of the Russian orbit, the Eurasian Union, the Eurasian Economic Union, the collective security treaty organization, all of those things. There is one overwhelming problem,

and that is that Armenia, yes, has achieved actually quite good economic performance over the last couple of years. But it's done so entirely on the back of increased trade with Russia. So pulling out of the Eurasian Economic Union is going to come with very, very significant cost. So Pashingan was in Moscow a few weeks ago, and he tried to get Putin. to agree that if Armenia moves closer to the West, Armenia can still remain part of the Eurasian Economic Union. And Putin told him flat out, no way. It's actually on television.

He said to Pashinyan, you have to make a choice. It's either one or the other. you can't ride both horses at the same time. So obviously, in that kind of situation, Pashinyan, we both know, he's going to go with the West. But he's going to go with the West at the time when there is an economic crisis likely in the West, because of the situation with Iran, when Armenia's own relations with Iran are looking very difficult, and when he's going to be up against the Russians.

As so often happens with these very complicated strategies that the West comes up with, the risk they're running is that Armenia won't become a strategic asset against the Russians. It'll become another strategic liability for the West. So, yes, they have all of these complicated strategies with Armenia. It is a disaster for Armenia and the Armenian people, how this is shaping up. But I don't really think this is going to work, and I don't think the Russians are too worried about it. So I do want to say that. Now, about destabilizing the situation inside Russia and threatening the 9th of May parade.

I want to say something first about the 9th of May parade. It's scaled down this year. People are linking that to the drone attacks. Actually, it was a decision made in 2022 that whilst the special military operation was underway, the Russians were scaled down significantly the Victory Day celebrations. In 2022, there was a lot of domestic criticism when the May 9th parade was on the usual, enormous scale. And the Russian Defence Ministry promised that from then thereon, it would be scaled down

whilst the war was underway. And the exception was last year, because, last year was, I think it was the 80th anniversary. 80th anniversary. But, you know, that was last year, this year, it's back to scaling it down. I think that the Russians will make absolutely sure that no Ukrainian drones are able to penetrate and interfere with the Victory Day celebrations. So I am not, I don't myself think that this is going to be actually a problem. Other attempts at destabilization are very real. You mentioned this article in CNN, which comes closer, I think, from what you've told me.

Yeah, let me read you. Yeah. Let me read the title. Unsettled Kremlin titans security around Putin amid assassination and coup fierce. Intel report says the Intel report, Alexander, is from European Intel. CNN says in the article they haven't been able to confirm any of. of the intel that was presented to them. European intelligence is actually, according to CNN, they're revealing their intelligence

findings and they're passing it out to the media. So obviously, this is a propaganda campaign. But basically, just to fill you in on what CNN is saying, and then you can comment and analyze it, you know, CNN is basically saying that the Russian economy is weak, we've done a show on the Russian economy that Putin is facing certain coup fears. It actually says that Shui-Gu. That's the actual person they name. Shui-gu may be the person that is going to try to remove Putin.

That's what the article is stating. And the assassination attempts and the successful assassinations of various military officials and generals has caused quite a lot of anger and chaos in the Kremlin. And it specifically focuses on the article, the European Intel, focuses on Valdai and the events that took place against Valdai. It actually mentions that the Kremlin and Kremlin security does not want Putin to go to Valdei anymore because of what happened there. Right.

There's a lot of things he had to say. First of all, the idea of Shoygu, mounting a coup against Putin or organizing a coup against Putin, is complete and absolute fantasy. It's got his photo right there. I know, I know. I mean, it is an absurd idea. I mean, it's probably connected to the fact that he was defense minister at one time and holds a military rank. though recently he's reverted to civilian dress, but Shoygu is in no position to Bountakou against Putin,

and there is no sign that he has any the slightest desire to do so. I mean, he is a loyalist through and through. And to say it straightforwardly, I mean, Shoygu has lots of critics in Russia, some of them unfair in my opinion, But anyway, there are critics. I mean, I just don't think he has the kind of what would have remotely the kind of support to carry out a coup. And indeed, the idea, a whole idea of a coup in Russia is a complete fantasy altogether.

Now, about the economic situation, as you rightly say, we've done a program about it. As we discussed, the situation has turned out to be stable. people were putting too much weight of the fact that there was a GDP, a shock GDP decline in January, but over February and March, that has appeared to be reversed. In fact, the situation of the economy appears to be stable, and we did not get, in the end, a significant contraction in Russia in the first quarter. the overall contraction was 0.3%, which is statistically insignificant. So the economic and budgetary pressures that people are talking about do not exist.

The assassination concern, however, is a very real one. And here I have no doubt that the Kremlin is taking increasing precautions. But then Putin himself revealed some months ago, last year in fact, that because of concerns about potential attempts by the Ukrainians to assassinate him, and there has been more than one, Wadanov, Chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, actually said that the Ukrainians have made several attempts to assassinate Putin. We don't know about all of them. But one of them, we can guess, was a drone attack that they did on the Kremlin, carried out on the Kremlin, I believe in 2023, which seemed to be targeting Putin's office in the Senate building. And the other, obviously, it was the Valdai attack. And from what you tell me, this CNN article comes very close.

finally to acknowledge that the Valdai attack was an assassination attempt. Anyway, the Russians have it freaked them out. That's what it's basically. Absolutely. That's the conclusion that it makes. Yeah. Well, the point is this, since the start of the special military operation, because of these threats of assassination attempts, Putin himself acknowledged in a long interview he gave a couple

a couple of months ago, last year, that he has been confined to the Kremlin, that he's spending all his time now in the Kremlin, his office in the Kremlin, and in the apartment there, and that he has not been going out as much around the country as he previously did. In other words, these precautions predate Valdai. And for the record, I don't believe he was in Valdai at the time when the attack on Valdai took place. My understanding, in fact, I'm confident about this, is that though Trump and the West probably believed he was in Valdi and the Ukrainians. certainly assumed that he was. In fact, he was in the Kremlin. Yeah, well, that Valdae incident seems to have shaken up a lot of things in the Kremlin and with Putin. I mean, that seems to be an

inflection point of what we've seen over the past. And it was an inflection point. And the reason it was an inflection point, and you've discussed this especially, extensively and very correctly. The reason it was an inflection point was because certainly the Ukrainians tried it. The CIA was clearly involved. But a third person was involved, and that was Donald Trump. Donald Trump had this conversation with Putin, told Putin, stay where you are. I'm about to speak to Zelensky, and I will come back to you. And then, of course, whilst that was going on, the attack on Valdai took place. And that seems to have confirmed to many, many people in Moscow that Donald Trump himself was directly implicated.

The President of the United States, the man with Putin holds all these friendly conversations, that he was directly involved in an attempt to assassinate. Nate Putin. And this, after this pattern that the Trump administration has established of conducting decapitation strikes around the world. So that did come as a massive shock. And it has had a big effect on the mood in Moscow. And in terms of the whole attitudes towards relations with the Americans, it has led to

criticism of Putin, which we've discussed in several programs, which undoubtedly is there. You only need to read Medvedev to see that it is there. It's led to a significant reduction in contacts between Putin and Trump. I mean, they spoke 11 times since Trump was inaugurated, but only twice on the phone this year. And the first call was extremely contentious, apparently. So, and it's also led to the Russians basically now saying that negotiations over Ukraine are simply not, are not, there's no point in them. So, Valdei was an inflection point for that reason.

And that has had an effect, a political effect in Moscow. Of that, that is indisputable. Did Trump say he was going to speak with the, let's care, the Europeans, or were the Europeans at the White House? I forget. I forget. Anyway, he was going to come. Yeah, you're right. It really, it doesn't matter. He told Putin, stay there. Stay there. Stay there. Remain by the phone. I will call you back. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're right. So let me read you the, and my final point, let me read you the final point. The last, the last paragraph of the CNN article, because you have to go all the way down to the end of the article. to figure out exactly what's going on here. So the final paragraph of this article says, it is rare for Western intelligence. They're referring to the European intelligence that handed them this report. It is rare for Western intelligence agencies to leak detailed accounts of confidential deliberations by hostile actors likely obtained from human or electronic sources,

both of which risk compromise if exposed. Yet, its release may reflect a bid by European officials to seize upon a hope that critics have argued has long been their sole strategy to defeat Russia and Ukraine to wait for its internal collapse. I think that article gives it all away. That is, and rightly so, actually, when you put yourself in their shoes, the best strategy they have to win is to push for, to hope for, to instigate some sort of of an internal collapse. Obviously, it makes perfect sense. And I wouldn't be surprised if the, if the U.S., if the Trump administration, along with

the Europeans and Zelenskyy decided before Bauda, you know, the way that we can win this is to try and get an internal collapse, much in the same way that they said. The way that we're going to deal with Venezuela is to kidnap Maduro. The way we're going to defeat Iran is to decapitate the, you know, the way we're going to defeat Iran is to decapitate the top officials, the Supreme Leader. I wouldn't be shocked or surprised. I'm not saying I have information or I know this happened, but I would not be surprised if they took the same approach with Russia,

the Europeans, the United States, and Zelensky. And they said, look, we're not going to win this any other way. The only way we're going to win this is if we cause some sort of an internal collapse. I mean, what do you think of the last paragraph from CNN and everything? Well, I think, Alex, we'll speak a little bit, this is ingenuous because the reality is you have been saying absolutely correct. And I've been saying too, ever since we started this whole affair back in 2022 that the objective was an internal collapse in Russia. The entire reason there's been a war is in order to trigger an internal

collapse in Russia. But we have the war, we have the fighting, we have the front lines, we have all Exactly, exactly. But now, of course, we've gone from a situation in February 2020 when the objective was to engineer an internal collapse using the war. In other words, the sanctions, all of the things that we've been talking about, you know, crushing the Russian economy, all of those things. The intention was to trigger a crisis that would lead to, an internal collapse. We've now gone full circle so that the only way to resolve the crisis, the crisis that we created in order to achieve a internal collapse in Russia, the only way we can resolve that is by having an internal collapse in Russia. So what began as the objective has now become the hope. In fact, the sole hope. I think those of the words that you just read to me,

it's soul, a soul hope. So we are now gambling. Soul strategy, sorry. Soul strategy to defeat Russia. Soul strategy. To defeat Russia is to try and somehow engineer a domestic crisis there. Well, it's not going to happen. certainly not in the way that they think it is.

And if that is their sole strategy, then what they really need to do is to give up. Because as I said, they're now making what was their objective, it's now become their strategy. I mean, it tells you how messed up these people now are. Well, you know, Hormuz was open, Alexander. And now all we're talking about is how to get it reopened. It was open, it was free.

And now everything is about opening Hormuz and removing Iran's toll. So, I mean, it's the same thing, right? It's the same exact thing as to what was going on with Iran. You see it now with this article about, about Russia. Yeah. So, okay, that was an interesting article from CNN and European intelligence, if there is such a thing, that's what they're passing around.

Well, I'm going to make a guess. Wait for internal collapse, it says. Exactly. Wait for internal. I'm going to make a guess. That's British intelligence, by the way. That has very much the feel of British intelligence about. about it. Well, there it is. It's their sole strategy. It's nice to, it's interesting to know that,

actually, that they have no other, that even they now acknowledge to themselves that, that there is no other way of winning this thing other than waiting or trying no doubt to help and bring about some kind of internal collapse in Russia. To repeat again, I, if, If after four years it hasn't happened, it's not going to happen now. Well, I would say they're not waiting. I think they are actively trying to get something going. There's no doubt about that. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. They're trying to get that collapse. They mentioned progosion and all of that stuff as well and how close they were. Of course they did. Of course they did. Of course they did. Of course they did.

Absolutely understandable because again, I mean, going back to our discussions of the preclusion an affair as it was taking place. There's no doubt they had a hand in it. Yeah, very true. All right, we will end the video there. Yep, you have something else to say? No, no, no, no. I've got nothing further.

Okay, okay, okay. The very nature of such intelligence makes some of the details hard to verify. CNN has approached the criminal for coming. Yeah, so all the intelligence that they got, CNN can't verify any of it. All right, we will end the video there at the durand.orgals.com. We are on Rumble and X and telegram. We are also on Substack. Go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch.

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