The Duran Podcast - Europe's Drone Escalation: A Sign of Weakness, Not Strength

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Europe's Drone Escalation: A Sign of Weakness, Not StrengthThe Duran: Episode 2500

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening with Project Ukraine. And we have missile strikes from Russia into Kiev. We have drone strikes from Ukraine into Russia. We have an interesting list of weapons facilities and specifically or focused in on drone facilities outside of Ukraine, published by the Russian Ministry of Defense. and Medvedev has commented on this as well. You may want to talk about that. And we have Lavrov in China.

And he's also made statements about Europe, building up their military. He says Europe's building up their military quickly and rapidly to take on Russia, to contain Russia. And then we have everything that's happening on the front lines. and Russia continues to advance and to take territories. Zeletsky claims that Ukraine captured a village using only robots, right? Robots or drones or something, robots, I believe he said. So this is a big deal for Zeletskyy. Obviously, it didn't happen.

But anyway, you might want to address that. So where do you want to begin? We have a whole lot of different things going on. You know, I think the first place to begin. is where it really matters in some respects, which is looking at the actual situation in the war itself, because over the course of the winter, the late winter and the early spring, until very recently, we've had a revival of that perennial narrative about the war being in stalemate, about the lines holding, about the Russians losing territory, about the Ukrainians taking the initiative,

about successful Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia, about the Ukrainian successfully damaging Russia's oil export facilities and causing major problems in Russia's economy. We've had an unending flood of this kind of, well, information, if you want to call it that, pouring out of Ukraine, circulating in the media in the West. And I'm going to say straightforwardly, I don't think any single part of it is true. Now, we've actually had some people who have been looking at the numbers. Ukrainists claimed that they've killed more Russian soldiers this winter and spring than they've ever done, except that some people started to look back and looked at the kind of claims the Ukrainians were making this time last year.

And this time last year, they made the same allegation. Exactly, only they claimed that they would kill even more Russian soldiers this time last year than they've killed this year. And we now have reports from Reuters, which say that the damage to the Russian oil export facilities by the Ukrainian drone attacks were all repaired in a matter of hours or days, and that Russian oil exports through these facilities were basically unaffected. and if we go back to the situation on the front lines, we can also see again that the forward momentum of the Russians slowed in winter, as it always does, because the Russians always use the winter to re-equip, regroup, build up their supplies, plan for the next war, that kind of thing.

But over the last week or so, we've started to see the front lines in many places start to move again. And again, putting aside fantasy stories about robots and that kind of thing, they are moving clearly once again in one direction, which is westwards. In other words, the Russians have resumed their advance. Now, the big military story of the winter was a battle in a town called Konstantinovka. Now, this is something that regularly happens in winter. In the winter, the first winter of the war, we had the Battle of Batman. In the second winter of the war, we had the Battle of Avdaevka. This winter, we have had the Battle of Konstantinivka.

These urban battles are enormously brutal. Many, many people die in them. The difference this time is that for some reason, Konstantinovka has received far less attention than, say, Bachmert, or Avdeyevka did, because I suspect there was a decision made that this time it wouldn't be covered. despite the fact that Konstantinivka is a bigger place than either Bachman or Avdaevka, and despite the fact that Konstantinivka is absolutely another key and strategically important city.

Now, the reports here again speak of a very tough urban battle. The Russians, however, seem to have achieved, as they did in all the previous urban battles. They've achieved the tipping point. It looks as if Constantinifka is on the way to ending, and that will open up. It's like the stopper, if you like, in the bottle. It will open up the way for further advances, first north towards Dombas, then in other places too. So this has been the big battle of the winter, and it has gone almost unreported. So that is the reality.

Elsewhere, now the ground is hardening. Easter is out of the way. The Russians have re-equipped and regrouped. They're advancing a lot fast in the north. They look to be working towards some kind of operation against the city of Sumi. The Russians are again on the advance in Zaporosia region. The main focus, however, of the war, as always, remains Donbass. And we discussed in a recent program that this year, the Russians are clearly looking to end

the Battle of Donbass, which has been the critical battle of the war. So that is the military picture. That is the actual military picture. Everything else, the people have been saying stilmate, things, you know, bog Russians bogged down, Ukrainians conducting successful offensives. All of that is fluff. The reality is what I've just said. Well, on the casualties response that you gave, We had another fallen soldier exchange about a week ago.

And once again, the numbers were the same, pretty much 1,000 to 41. I mean, this has been going on now for 16 to 18 months. So whatever excuses people make or the way they explain it, which I'm sure there's some merit to the explanation, which is that Russia is advancing. So as you advance, an admission of Russian advancement, but as you advance, you collect more bodies. But still, the numbers of 1,000 to 20 or 30. or 40, being consistent, almost exactly consistent for so many months, definitely points to an imbalance, a huge imbalance in casualties and death. In actual casualties, and I get to say something.

I've not come to the view that not only are the commonly cited Western reports of Russian casualties wrong. I'm afraid I've come to the conclusion that even the media zoner, there's something wrong with the media zona numbers, even though the media zoner are now actually giving names of Russian soldiers that they say they've obtained evidence. Did they make changes because the UK or the BBC or someone was putting pressure on them? Well, indeed, they did. To bump them up. Indeed, they made various changes. I forgot, I forgot what the changes were.

But, you know, they're now providing us with some raw data, what they say is raw data, about name, with actual names of people that they say they've found, that they've seen killed. I don't know that anybody has, you know, fact-checked this. You know, I've got somebody who's massively keen on fact-shaking, checking anyway. But I'm increasingly coming from the view that there is some big question mark over the these numbers as well and that these numbers also are substantially bigger than people think. Now, I should say this, we've been here before in other wars involving the Russians, the war in the Caucasus against the jihadi fighters, the Afghan war of the 1980s, which I remember very well.

I remember at one point, people were actually saying the 250,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan. Before that, they were saying there was 100,000 Russian soldiers killed in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The true number turned out to be around 13,000. So this isn't new. I think it's been taken very far this time. But anyway, I'm not going to discuss this further because I don't know. I don't have figures together. give to rebut the ones that are being made. I just expressed my opinion. You also have Zelensky in

Germany meeting with Mertz and what was the conclusion to that meeting. Ukrainians that have fled Ukraine and are now in Germany. Military-aged men will be sent back to Ukraine or at least Merch is going to help identify these men and try to repatriate them back to Ukraine so they can go to the front line. So that also shows that Ukraine has problems. with conscriptive men, with their numbers. Budanov has even admitted as much as well. So keep that in mind. You wanted to say something?

The European issue now is becoming increasingly important. That was where I was going to actually because it was at that same meeting with Mertz that Germany announced another big package for weapons and a joint venture to make drones. Yes. Healy, the UK Defense Secretary, also announced a package to create drones. Yes. And in the opening of the video, I mentioned the list from the Russian Ministry of Defense. Yes.

And they listed not only in Europe. They also identified facilities in Israel and Turkey. I believe that's it. And Europe, throughout Europe, basically everywhere in Europe, from Italy to Czech Republic to the UK to you name. It's four facilities in Italy that are making drones and long-range weapons to attack Russia. Yes. Of course, you had all the drones hitting St. Petersburg and Moscow, which many people claim, many analysts claim, were actually using East European airspace to make it that north

through Russia to hit to hit St. Petersburg. Absolutely. And I think this is another big story because what we have. seen, despite all the rhetoric about European rearmament, which is, by the way, also coming from the Russians too. But then the Russians have an interest in talking up European rearmament, because Russia is absolutely now in the throes of a major rearmament drive of its own, which is independent of that in Ukraine. And the Russians are increasingly focusing on the Europeans as being the future adversary. And by the way, it's going back to a recent program that we also did.

I mentioned that Medvedev has effectively ruled out Ukrainian membership of the EU, saying that if the EU is becoming a political military alliance, no longer an economic association, so that Russia cannot countenance, Ukraine, joining the EU. Well, in China, Lavrov was talking in exactly the same way. You also were saying that the EU is becoming a militarized political organization. So, you know, we're moving steadily towards a situation where the Russians replace NATO as the major adversary with the EU specifically as the major adversary. But put all that aside, just why all of the talk, all of the language of European rearmament, there isn't actually in terms of big, heavy weapons, tanks, missiles, aircraft, ships, there isn't much of that actually happening,

nor are the Europeans, as is now becoming increasingly clear, able to supply much of that type of equipment to the Ukrainians, nor are they able to provide shells to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian artillery has largely faded from the battlefields, nor are they able to supply air defense missiles. But what they are doing instead is they are becoming increasingly and very aggressively involved in Ukraine's drone war. So the Russians have targeted. the various drone workshops that existed across Ukraine. What has now happened is that production of drones for Ukraine has been reallocated, according to the Russians, but I believe this, across Europe.

And the key point to understand is that these drones are not being used to fight the Russians inside Ukrainian territory, or what the Europeans say is Ukrainian territory, they are being very aggressively used to attack territory, which even the Europeans admit is Russian. Now, if you take your mind back a few months, you remember that there was this enormous noise, hysteria, spread about some Russian drones that entered Poland. There was a lot of talk about Russian drones

operating over Denmark, all of these places. This story dominated the media at the time. I mean, I think now it's fairly clear what was happening. This was basically done in order to basically set up the situation for Europe. to undertake drone production for Ukraine, to supply Ukraine with drones, and to assist Ukraine to conduct a drone offensive. And increasingly, it is a drone offensive that is focused less

on the front lines, but more on targeting Russia itself. So this is a major escalation by the Europeans. Whenever things start to go wrong, the Europeans always escalate. And of course, they're escalating by pretending that these drones are being launched by Ukraine, but everybody knows what they're up to. And both the Russian Defence Ministry and Medvedev are now saying, look, we know exactly what you're doing. We've got you in our sites. We know what you are up to. We reserve the right to do whatever we choose to do eventually.

But in the meantime, the Russians continue their advance. Whether the Russians will attack the drone factories in Europe, we will see. Bear in mind, you can conduct operations against drone factories without necessarily launching missiles at them. There's other things you can do. I don't want to talk about those because obviously I don't want to give the impression that I know more than I do. But there's already been lots of talk about Russian sabotage operations in Europe. Much of that is fictional. Again, I wonder whether this is because the Europeans are worried that that is what the Russians are going to be doing initially to talk.

to target these factories. But behind the Europeans is the United States, right? I mean, okay, so Russia once again gives the U.S. a pass. Lavadoff gives the U.S. a pass, and he puts all the focus on the Europeans. But the Europeans would not be doing anything unless they had the permission and the okay from the United States. So that's my first point. Well, bear in mind that the Europeans may make the drones, but it's the U.S.

Ukrainians who launched them and the Americans who provide the targeting. So, I mean, it's a group effort. It's a team effort. It's a team effort. It's a team effort. It's a team effort. And then I get back to the component parts of the droves, which have to, some of the parts, I would guess, most of the parts are coming from China.

Yeah. Okay. Right. I mean, maybe no parts are coming from China. Maybe not. And I'm completely wrong about this. But I would take a guess and say some of the parts, the component parts of the drones are coming from China. That's just a guess.

The energy to power up these facilities is coming. A part of it is coming from Russia. And this has been going on for four years. Yeah. So what are they doing? What is China and Russia and Bricks doing? Yeah. If they were really concerned, very concerned about this, wouldn't they have taken action

earlier to say, you know what? Yeah, you understand we're making money from Europe buying the gas and buying the oil. Yes, Russia never backs away from a contract. They never do it in a hundred years. They always honor their contracts. I get all of that. I understand all of that. They're manufacturing, according to the Ministry of Defense, the Russian Ministry of Defense,

they're manufacturing drones in facilities outside of Ukraine and launching those drones into internationally recognized Russian territory. Yeah. There's a number of important points. And one more quick point. One more quick point. One more that just came to my mind. If Europe is giving the drones to Ukraine, well, where is Russia's number one friend?

and partner China giving them drones. How come China does it give Russia 10 million freaking drones, which it could probably manufacture in an hour? I'm exaggerated, but you get my point, right? No, absolutely. If Europe is making a thousand drones a day, China could probably make a million drones a day. Oh, yes.

So, I mean, something feels so managed about this. I just get the sense, Alexander, that there's this managed escalation and some sort of a managed agreement, maybe an unspoken agreement or just an understanding that everything's going to be managed for some sort of a big smash in 2030. That's just my sense of things. I could be completely wrong about all of this. But I just find it so bizarre that for four years you say you're fighting Europe, but you're powering up the facilities of Europe.

Your number one friend and partner, China, can outproduce all. of Europe and the United States, multiplied by 100 when it comes to drones. And none of that is going on for Russia. They're just kind of allowing Europe to do all of this. So, allegedly, according to the Ministry of Defense. I mean, there's a number of very important points. First of all, I think this is a key thing to understand. The fact that we've now moved from a situation where the Europeans and the the Americans are providing air defense missiles, aircraft, tanks, armored vehicles, shells,

guns, all of this kind of thing, to a situation where they are providing drones instead is an admission of weakness. Drones have played a big role in this wall, but they are not the powerful weapon that some people imagine. And I'm going to also express my own personal view, and I think there's actually quite a lot of evidence now coming out of Russia to say this. The era of drone dominance in this war is ending anyway. The Russians are developing counter systems to drones. We're going to start to see them more effective. over the course of this year. And I think that in a sense, the fact that the Europeans are reduced to providing drones mostly is a sign of the extent to which military industrial capabilities

in Europe and to some extent the United States have become exhausted. So that is the first thing to say. And I think it is an important thing. It's not something one should overlook. If the Europeans were able to provide Ukraine with hundreds of missiles, which could be used to hit Russia, that would be a devastating thing. If they could continue to provide Ukraine with a powerful air defense system, that would also potentially be a very important thing. If all they can do is provide drones which do limited amounts of damage against Russia, because I said, you know, the attacks on the oil refineries on the ports, they don't actually do very much damage. And if drones are going to start falling in effectiveness, as I am confident they will this year, that this isn't a sign of strength. It's a sign of aggressiveness. but it is also a sign of weakness. Now, turning to the other two topics that you said, that the Russians have continued to supply energy products to Europe

is extraordinary, given European hostility to Russia, and that they've been doing it for four years, is extraordinary in itself. I think this is now coming to an end. A few weeks ago, Putin actually had a meeting in which he said that, given that the Europeans have made a decision, that they don't want our energy products anymore, we should move forward and end further supplies to the Europeans even faster than they want. we will continue to supply energy to our friends, to Serbia, Slovakia and Hungary. Of course, that was Hungary before the election, whilst Orban still appeared to be firmly in control. But I think this is indeed coming to an end.

Now, the thing all was to understand is that Russia is a complicated place. There are the enormous, very powerful lobbies within the energy complex, the oil, oil and gas industries. Russia built up a very big LNG industry. Finding Asian buyers for LNG was taking a long time. The Chinese, for their own reasons, were buying LNG from mostly from Qatar. So you had this big industry. They were coming along telling Putin and the Russian government, We need to keep exporting. We need to export to the Europeans. We provide you with money that covers the budget.

You need the money for the budget. You need the money to cover your social programs and your economic programs and also your own military production increases. So for that reason, the tradeoff was made, provide the Europeans with some energy, except the fact that the Europeans are using it to power up. their industries, but the trade-off was made. Maybe if you had a leader in Moscow with total authority, Stalin, for example, he would have decided otherwise. He would have told the people in the energy complex, well, shove off. We're not going to supply energy to our enemies. But this is

not the situation in Russia today. And that's why this very unsatisfactory compromise was made. I think that that is ending. I think Putin said as much a short time ago. I think Peskov, he's spokesman, again, essentially said the same. He was asked, what about the Europeans now coming along in the middle of this energy crisis and wanting Russian energy products, Peskov said, well, we will give them anything that we have over and above what we are already selling. But our new customers in this new situation are voracious. They have unlimited demands for energy products. So I think the days of the day. when the Russians did supply LNG and oil to Europe are indeed ending, and I think this very unpleasant

situation, this very strange situation, is coming to an end. Now, China is a different thing again. Now, the Chinese did announce for a time, and I think this was done very much under Russian pressure, back in 2023, I think it was, that they would stop supplying drone parts to Ukraine and would act to stop drone production in Ukraine. And by the way, I remember that for a brief time that it caused serious problems in Ukraine. I understand, by the way, that around 80% of drone paths used by the Ukrainians and by the Europeans ultimately originate in China. So, you know, going back to what you were saying,

without a Chinese input, it would be very, very, it would be impossible to do this. But again, I'm going to suggest that this is, we have exactly the same issue here. Xi Jinping, probably, if it were left to him, would say we stop exports of drone parts to Europe because we want to help our friends, the Russians. But then again, you have a massive drone industry

in China. Lots of people are involved in it. China is an extremely complicated place. They will have their supporters and friends in the Chinese leadership. They will say that we play an important role in China's economic position. China has sought to maintain until very recently good economic relations with Europe. They've been trying to reach out to the Germans to try and keep the economic relationship with China going. They've several times hosted Macro, just saying. They had Kirstama going to China just a short time ago. I think it's very, very difficult to get a Chinese government decision, just stopping exports, total exports of drone parts to Europe. These things sound like they could be done easily. In practice, they can be very complicated.

Even getting Chinese oil refineries to process Russian oil has required a lot of hard work because some of the oil refiners have been reluctant to spoil their economic relations with the Americans, for example. So simply expecting the Chinese to agree to do something like that is very difficult. As for China supplying huge volumes of drones to the Russians, I think the Russians don't need them, to be Frank, I think Russia produces all the drones that it needs. I think that if the Russians were to receive a million drones from China, it would probably be more of a problem than, exactly. Because, I mean, you know, the key thing with drones is the numbers of drone operators. And I think that's the other thing to say. Here, the Russians are building up a huge lead.

They are training far more drone operators than the Ukrainians have. And that's also going to start to weigh on the battlefronts up next year, this year, rather. You know, it's interesting. Putin and Xi, they have to work with their various industries. Yeah. They have to make compromises, even if it needs arming the enemy or powering up the enemy that's attacking them. They have to think about those industries not being able to. to provide revenue to the state, which would then harm the social services and other parts of the budget, and perhaps people in these industries in their countries, not having jobs

or whatever. So they weigh everything up and they say, okay, well, if we have to provide gas to Europe and oil to Europe, even though we know that they're attacking us, they've been using this energy to attack us, you know, I'll make that calculation on our way the cost benefits and we'll do it. The West has no problem doing the exact opposite. Isn't it interesting? The Western leaders, including the United States and all the European leaders, have no problem. Starting wars, cutting off industries, destroying industries, shutting industries down, sanctioning Russia, cutting off oil, causing inflation, cutting off gas, causing inflation, hurting their people, people being laid off.

They have no problem with any of that. Well, you're absolutely correct. You are absolutely correct. I mean, that is the incredible reality of today. Of course, I mean, you look at who's in better economic shape today, whose industries have been growing. And you can see that, you know, from a Russian-Chinese point of view, This makes far better sense.

I mean, it's the Europeans who are de-industrializing. It's the Americans who are having all sorts of problems with debts and all of that. And who also, by the way, saw their manufacturing base shrink last year. It's very interesting. And who also don't provide many social services, for example? Health care or education. Well, exactly. But it all goes to the military.

But exactly. Of course. And you have someone like meth who's absolutely, you know, single-mindedly obsessed about this now. I mean, he's basically sacrificing everything in Germany to project Ukraine.

And there was the Minister President of Saxony, one of the German states, which is a West German state, former West German state, by the way, anyway, he's come forward and he says the Germany

isn't a valley of death situation because energy should not be rare or expensive and now it is. And this is proving a complete disaster. But we see that Merz, like Beirbach and Habeck and all of those people before, and Ursula Still, and all of the others, well, they don't care about this. They are single-mindedly fixated with conducting the war against the Russians. If it means de-industrialization in Europe, well, you remember, Beir-Berbock said, I don't care.

I mean, I don't care about this. Now, ultimately, this sort of policy in the long term makes you weaker and the other side stronger. That is why the Europeans are now reduced to supplying drones rather than missiles and shells and all of those things. So they should also, in an ideal world from their point of view, they should also be supplying drones, but they should be able to supply. these other things do. But now they're having to rely almost depend almost exclusively on drones, which is very risky. In a war, you should never place all your bets on one weapon system, because every weapon system eventually finds its answer. But you know, you've absolutely highlighted the critical difference between the way in which the Russians or the Chinese go about

things and the way the Europeans and the Americans do. Xi and Putin are the dictators. Of course. The authoritarian. They're the ones that are trying to figure out solutions and are making compromises and are thinking about their budgets and the social services and the oligarchs. They're thinking about the oligarchs. They're thinking about all these things and then they're trying to figure it out.

While Merz is saying, I couldn't care. I don't care of my approval rating. And his approval rating is sinking fast. He's like, I don't care if my approval rating is a thing. 20% or 19% market on the same, stammer the same. I don't care. I don't care if people pay X amount more for electricity. We're going to launch sanctions package number 256 against Russia. We don't care. Absolutely. We're going to send drones into Russia. And we'll send drones and yeah. And we'll give 90 billion to Zelensky. Exactly. Yeah. At a time when there's an

energy shortage. Well, an energy crisis and the industrialization crisis. and increasing social unrest and all of these things. But that is fundamentally and critically the difference. One set of countries have functioning governments that are concerned with governing their own societies. The other group are basically on an ideological crusade. That's the difference. Yeah, but it tells you something,

just to final note to wrap up the video. tells you something about the societies of the countries in the West. In other words, there's no belief in the leadership that they're going to face any accountability or repercussions or be voted out or anything. I mean, they feel as if they can do all these things. The people aren't going to have a say in anything. And even if there is a vote, I think there's this understanding that even if Mertz is to leave, we'll just have the the clone of Mertz come in and then Mertz can get his cushy job somewhere at the W.E.F or the IMF or whatever. And then the new guy just comes in to replace the Mertz or the Mertz or the Mokron or the Trump or

whoever. I mean, you know, it's this, it's this belief that whatever, whatever bad they decide for their people in their country, whatever terrible decisions they make, There's not going to be any kind of accountability for those decisions. And they know this. That is the real crisis. All of the other things that we talked about, the geopolitical crisis in Europe, the de-industrialization, the spiraling energy costs, the inflation, the problems with debt, the deficits, the decline in living standards. the increasing political pressures on people. All of those are products of the main crisis, which is the one that you've just identified, that we have a political class in control,

which has its own obsessions and its own interests and fixations, which it will pursue to the ultimate point, and which is absolutely unconcerned about any repercussions for itself. It is completely unaccountable. And that is the true crisis. Everything else is a result of it. Yeah, but there's no way for the people to exercise the accountability of those leaders. No. They say democracy, democracy, but I mean, it's like you swap one guy out for the other guy.

Well, absolutely. Well, again, can I just go back to the program we recently did about Hungary? Again, there's a lot of people who are saying, you know, Maguire, he's going to continue all the policies that all done. He's not going to continue the policies. He's just saying that. He's just saying that because he needs. He has to say that now because he needs to have time.

But eventually, soon or later, all of those policies are going to be reversed. But the key critical thing is that eventually when that happens, However popular Orban's policies were, the structures are going to be created in Hungary that are going to prevent Orban or someone like Orban or someone who wants to do the sort of things that Orban was doing coming back. That's the nature of what the EU ultimately is. We've said it many times. It's a straight jacket. It's Hotel California. It's a prison, if you like.

You can call it many things. But the real expression of democracy, it obviously is not. If you've actually lived through some of its processes, you can see them. All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.com. We're on X-Rond, Rumba. We're on Telegram.

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