The Duran Podcast - Gerasimov, aggressive attrition

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Gerasimov, aggressive attrition

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Ukraine. And we have the assassination of the Maidan leader, Andrei Parobi. They've actually now apprehended a suspect, the Ukraine investigators. We don't know much about this person. We don't know anything about this person. But it does look like they're leaning towards saying that Russia did it. That's the way it looks at the moment, even though I think there's a lot of people, suspects, organizations, countries that could have taken out of Bouti.

And I say people, oligarchs, other banderites. This guy was a hardcore banderite. There could have been other competing bandarites. Maybe the Zelensky government did it. Maybe the three-letter agencies did it. Maybe Russia did it. But anyway, it does look like they're going to lean towards Russia. So we have everything that is going on with Padubi.

and we also have an incredible meeting, which Belousov, the defense minister of Russia chaired. But the interesting part about this defense ministry meeting were the statements, the updates from Yerazimov, where he paints a picture of a Ukraine that is in deep trouble and surrounded in all the key areas on the front line. on the front line, and I do believe surrounded is the correct word. Yes. That's the way Yerasmov explained everything. So do you want to start with Parubi or Yerasema? I'm going to start with Gerasimov because I think the one leads to the other, actually.

I mean, I don't, to be straightforward, I think if there were not a military crisis and if the situation were not as grave as it is, Paroo B would probably not be dead. I mean, the Paroo-B murder assassination is a product, whoever was behind it, of the deeper crisis that Ukraine is facing. Now, first of all, just to say, what Gerasimov did at this meeting is unprecedented. There's never been anything at any point during the entire special military operation where the chief of the general staff, of the Russian armed forces, who is also the overall commander of the groups of forces in Ukraine, has given a complete overview of the state of the entire battle right across the front lines and has provided a map and has clarified and resolved many of the issues about Russian positions and things of that kind

that had been confounding and muddling an awful lot of people. because very much we always get you know we get we have all of these mapping projects most of whom by the way i should say do excellent work we wouldn't be anywhere without them we have all of the various telegram channels but obviously they cannot obtain the kind of information that gerasimov does as the overall commander and of course they have to do something else which is that they get information from the russians they get information from the ukrainians they try to to balance that information out. And I've always had a concern that they treat the information from the Russians and the Ukrainians

with something close to equal weight and assumed that the one is as reliable as the other. Now, to say this very quickly, I'm not saying that the Russians are totally reliable than what they say. I think that the Russians often tell us things which are significantly less than the truth. It's just that I think that the Ukrainians do this a lot more. And I think that if you've been following our programs, you will see that this is time and again turned out to be so. I mean, it took the months, for example, to acknowledge that the city of Bahmert,

which the Russians captured in May 2023, had indeed been captured. And this kind of discordant noise, if you're listening to it every day, inevitably affects some of your reporting. So anyway, Gerasimov has supplied answers and he's told us where the Russians actually are. And I should say immediately that we are talking about the Russian commander in chief, I have no doubt about the accuracy of the information he's providing. why would he be providing it to a group of military people who also know the situation?

Who is he trying to mislead if this information is not true? So what it shows is that the Russians are much further advanced in all sorts of places than we had realized. It looks as if all sorts of places where we know fighting has been going on. the situation is absolutely critical. You talked about the Ukrainians being surrounded pretty much everywhere. I think this is essentially correct. They're surrounded in Kupiansk and he confirmed what we've been getting dribbles of information about for a while, which is that Kupians is in fact not just surrounded.

The Ukrainians are not just surrounded, but the Russians control around half of it. already. And since Gerasimov said that, I noticed that Ukrainian reports have started to confirm this information, that the situation in Kupians is critical. He also confirmed that the Russians are actually fighting inside this town called Sivas, which is another fortress town that the Ukrainians have in the north and that that place is mostly surrounded as well. But then he came to what is perhaps the most important information of all about what's going on in the critical central area. Pakrosk, Konstantinovka Kramatosk.

He said that Pakrovsk is surrounded. Actually, the word he used was that the Ukrainians there are blocked. and again, we've now had information that corroborates this. He said that fighting is going on inside Bakrowski and we've had more information, video footage that confirms that too. He said that the Russians are also fighting inside Konstantinovka and that there are in effect surrounded there also.

And again, that is now, I think, widely acknowledged to be correct also. But perhaps the most dramatic news is that there's the city to the north of Konstantinovka, Kramatosk, the biggest city in Donbas, which remains under Ukrainian control, and where by the way Ukraine's Donbass headquarters is located. And it looks like this city is close to being surrounded also. What Gerasimov described is a military crisis. And he said that the Russian offensive is going to continue. He spoke about the spring and summer campaigns.

But now there's going to be the autumn campaign. And you can see that the offensive goes on. And this crisis is going to continue to develop. And frankly, I don't see that there's anything the Ukrainians can do, realistically to try to hold the Russians back. Yerasmov talked about how Ukraine is basically just plugging holes now. That's basically all they're really doing. They're taking their best soldiers and they're just moving them around to different places

on the front lines in order to plug up whatever holes are coming up. Do you think that's accurate? I've actually seen statements from Ukraine military officials say the same thing that Yerazimov said. Gerasim have said it. Ukrainian military officials have been saying it, but can I just add the place where you would have found it said first. It was here on the Diraat. We were saying this for some time.

But what was interesting about what Gerasim has said about this is that he made it fairly clear that this is a deliberate Russian strategy. The Russians continue to push all across. the front lines, they're stretching the front lines, they're continuing to conduct what I have called aggressive attrition. Remember that phrase? And this is obliging the Ukrainians to shuffle their elite units from one part of the front line to another all the time. So they don't get rest, they don't properly re-equip, they don't get reinforced, they don't get retrained, they don't get anything. They don't have a respite. And of course, this brings closer and closer the moment

when everything starts to fall apart because the men simply can't go on fighting. The Ukrainian soldiers can't go on fighting in those kind of conditions anymore. And the way Gerasimov spoke about it, well, we've long suspected that this was a deliberate Russian strategy. But we could see it. We can actually actually see it in play. And it brings me back to that live stream we made long ago back in March 2022, when we said that the Russian objective in war is always to break the will of the enemy, to do that by destroying their army and their ability to conduct war.

And they do that by destroying an army. and that the capture of cities is always a secondary objective. The primary objective is to destroy the enemy's army as a route to destroying the enemy's will to exist. If you go back far enough, you will find that live stream there. It's all set out there, the Russian strategy, the way... Klausovitz. Exactly.

It is Klausovitsian. It's exactly what you would expect from the Russian general staff, and it explains everything. Yeah, aggressive attrition. You've been seeing that for over a year now, that that's the way the Russians are fighting this conflict. And I think that that has been confirmed by Yerasmov. So before we get to Barobi, what do you make of Zelensky denying these statements from Yerasmov? He had a meeting with Sirsky. And he said that everything that the Russians are saying is just not true.

And he also says that Ukraine is planning long-range missile strikes. They've got everything set up. They've got the targets. Any day now, we could be seeing long-range missile strikes. I imagine he's talking about this flamingo, which is the Ukraine-made missile, which is really not a Ukraine-made missile. It's a UK missile. But anyway, this is what Zelensky said.

answering Gerasimov's statements for the day. Yes. Yes, he said all of that. Of course, he doesn't go to anything like the kind of detail that Gerasimov does. And as I said, there is external corroboration for most of what Gerasimov was saying. So it's unsurprising that Zelensky would say this. Bear in mind that Zelensky still talks as if there are Ukrainian troops still

physically occupying territory inside pre-2014 Russia. I mean, he still behaves. He still, if you follow track his words, he still talks as if the Ukrainians still have a present in the course region. So, I mean, he is very detached from reality, at least in his public statements, whether, of course, he believes this, whether he's spinning stories in order to maintain morale and support in the West. What he actually knows about the true situation is an impossible question to answer. But, I mean, on any issue of fact, given a choice between Gerasimov and Zelensky, it is a no-brainer. Obviously, I go with Gerasimov above Zelensky. Now, about the long-range missiles, well, the Ukrainians have been talking about this for quite a while.

In fact, we were led to think back in July that they were going to start conducting long-range strikes, missile strikes against Russia before the end of July. And it didn't happen. And they did apparently have a fairly advanced ballistic missile program called the Sapsan, which the Russians claim that they successfully destroyed. anyway, we've not seen much sign of it. They've now wheeled out this huge cruise missile, the Flamingo, which, as you absolutely correctly say, it turns out, is a British design. It was actually designed in the Emirates as by a British company. But it was probably, in truth, intended to be exported to global south countries.

Just to say? But anyway, it's now been the details of it have been provided to Ukraine. And apparently it's easy to assemble. And it can be assembled from kits and all that kind of thing. And the Ukrainians are now talking about launching it against Russia. And does have a very, very long range. And it could reach targets deep inside Russia. But it appears to use what are essentially rather old technologies,

It flies high. It's not stealthy. It's big. It doesn't manoeuvre very well. It should be an easy missile for the Russians to track and shoot down. Now, it is not impossible that the Ukrainians could launch some of these, and some of these could get through and could reach targets deep inside Russia. Some people have compared it to, you remember, the Strys,

the big Soviet aerial drone that the Ukrainians converted into a crude cruise missile, and which did manage to hit targets even in the Russian angles airbase. So, you know, it's not impossible this could do damage, and it comes with a very heavy, very big warhead. So it could do a significant amount of damage if it could get through. But it's not a game-changing weapon, and nobody could seriously believe that it is. It's another one of the infinite number of magic miracle weapons that were going to turn the war for Ukraine,

the M-Triple-7 howitzers, the Bairactor drones, the Atacom's missiles which are far more sophisticated, the F-16s, the Abrams tanks, all of these weapons. This is just the latest iteration in that. Zelensky is always coming up, the Patriot missiles, always coming up with stories about these new weapons that are going to change the result of the war, and they never do. Yeah, we've gone through 50 wonder weapons now. It's their way of dragging this war on and on. That's the trick to all of this.

Let's talk about Parubi. What are your thoughts about Parubi? I mentioned that they're leaning towards Russia doing this, but there could be a lot of people and entities that might have assassinated Parubi. This was not a good guy. Well, this was not a guy that was without enemies. Let's put it that way. Absolutely.

I mean, Paro B is one of the major figures in Ukraine within the Bander right world of Ukraine. I mean, he's been there, you know, right, I mean, he started out before the Soviet Union collapsed. He's been there through the 90s. He played a key role in setting up the Svoboda Party in Western Ukraine, which for a while was the sort of incubus of all of this. He played a major role, an absolutely central role in the Maidan protests in 2013 and 2014, which led to the overthrow of the constitutional government of Ukraine, led by the elected, democratically elected president, Victor Yanukovych in February. 2014. He was the commandant of the various camps that there were on Mydan Square and, you know, of all the various militia groups that were organised there. So he played an absolutely critical role in carrying out the coup itself. He played an absolutely critical role in the events that

led up to that coup. All of those stories about the shootings of protesters. I'm not going to say more about that because this is a difficult topic. But anyway, he would have known everything there is to know about that. He then played a very big role in what happened after the start of Ukraine's anti-terrorist operations in the Dombas, the events in Odessa. In May 22, which at the Trade Union building, he was at that time secretary of Ukraine's national defense and Security Council. In fact, I can well remember many people saying in the immediate weeks after the fall of Yanukovych, that Parubi at that time was the single most powerful person in Ukraine. He played a major role in the setting up of Ukraine's so-called National Guard. So, I mean, you know, we're talking about a person who has, you know, a huge history of heavy involvement in the Bandera movement, massive role in modern Ukrainian politics,

a key role in the Maidan crisis of 2014, and the coup that took place there, a key role in the first year of the war, who is a close political ally of the former president, Petro Poroshenko, and who, of course, maintains all his conscience, contacts. Now, after Poroshenko lost office and Zelensky took over, Parubi ceased to be in government. He ceased to be, you know, in actual office anymore. And Zelensky and Poroshenko are not on good terms. But when you're talking about someone like Parubi, with that kind of background, you have to talk about somebody who may be out of office but who is always in power and that makes him dangerous there would be particular people

especially in Ukraine at a time of enormous crisis who might be very very concerned about who what power be might do and i'm afraid it must also be said straightforwardly the russians also have an interest in paro b because they know all about his actions and they might also be saying to themselves. If there's a collapse in Ukraine and somebody wants to set up an insurgency, he might be the man to do it. So there is no, no shortage of possible suspects who might have wanted him dead. Okay, we will, we will end the video there. It's interesting, or just before we end the video, it's interesting how the collective West is grieving for for Padobia, knowing his history.

Well, I can... It's shocking, actually. It's disappointing. Oh, well, very disappointing. It exposes the West as well. It's also shocking the way they grieve for this guy who was... Like I say, I'm being very, very diplomatic when I say he was not a good dude. Absolutely.

Yes. I agree with that. I mean, it's... I can remember when he visited Canada, by the way. And I remember he was greeted by some people in Canada as if he was visiting royalty. This gets to the root of the SMO, doesn't it? It really exposes how deeply ingrained this Banderite ideology is in some parts of Ukraine and amongst some of the society of Ukraine. I mean, it's really, really entrenched. Absolutely. But it also exposes exactly, as you rightly say,

the extent to which people in the West, key people in the West, are embracing it. I mean, they must know the realities about Parubis opinion. and about some of the things he's been, some of his history, but nonetheless, they built him up in exactly the way that you said. Just to repeat a point, by the way,

it's an important point. The fact that he has been killed is a further sign that things are going very badly wrong in Ukraine. Whoever decided to have him eliminated did so in anticipation of a future crisis there.

If it was the Russians, it's because, as I said, they're worried about what he might do if there is a military collapse. If it's people closer to the government, they would be worried because they would be nervous about political challenges to the current system. And of course, within the wider bundles, there are movement. There are all sorts of factions which are constantly working and in conflict

with each other. And whilst things seem to be going well, all of these people rubbed along fairly, well, they said comfortably, but they rubbed along with each other. But now that things are beginning to go very badly wrong. You can easily see why they might start taking me starting to take action against each other as well. So this is an important event and it's important about what it tells us about the situation in Ukraine at this particular moment. Yeah. It's also an important event because it's an important warning for Europe and for Europeans in that this, this Bandera ideology and these Bandera factions, they're going to be present in Europe. Of course, they are. For a long time. Absolutely. This is going to

be a, this is going to be big trouble for Europeans. Absolutely. And of course, if the Russians will be in taking an interest in them, I mean, I can see how this could turn very ugly. And we've been warning about this in many of our programs. And of course, nobody in government in Europe is paying any attention. But this could bite us very badly. Yeah. All right. We will end the video there, the durand.com. We are on Rumble and Odyssey and telegram. and X and go to the Durand shop, pick up some merch, like what we are wearing in this video update. There's a link in the description box down below. Take care.