The Duran Podcast - Hope for Russia defeat hits reality. MIC big winner

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Hope for Russia defeat hits reality. MIC big winner The Duran: Episode 1889

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the 61 billion, which has been approved by the U.S. House for Project Ukraine. No big surprise to anybody that watches this channel or has been following the Ukraine news. But the interesting part about the celebrations from the House, where they actually took out Ukraine flags. and celebrated the approval of the $61 billion, is that 24 hours after the celebration of the $61 billion being approved to Project Ukraine, we're starting to get a lot of stories from the collective West media talking about how the $61 billion is really not going to make a difference in the war. And the $61 billion will probably buy Ukraine some time,

but Ukraine needs a lot more weapons and it's going to need a lot more help. So it seems like for 24 hours, everyone was talking about this big infusion of money and weapons into Ukraine and everyone was celebrating. And this was exactly what Ukraine needed and what Ukraine had been waiting for. And then it seems like everyone came back down to Earth. Absolutely. It's been not the information, not the news that he's not going to, Ukraine the war that you and I have been talking about, you know, months, not just us. I mean, others too, Daniel, Daniel Davis, Brian Balletic, others. But, you know, we've been saying all

of that. But the narrative in the mainstream media up to now has been completely different, that this, you know, infusion of aid is going to be absolutely decisive, that the reason Ukraine has been thrown onto the defensive and has been losing ground since October, since its own offensive failed, was defeated in October, was because these bad Republicans were not authorising further aid for Ukraine, that this is causing huge shortages of everything, air defence missile interceptors, artillery shells. It was all the fault of Speaker Johnson

and the people in the House of Representatives are, blocking aid. I read articles by people like Gideon Rackman talking about the betrayal of Ukraine. The package is now passed. And I'm reading, for example, there's just one example. One that, by the way, I just came across after we'd already agreed to do this program. I mean, literally in the last few minutes, reading an article in the Financial Times, Gideon Rackman's newspaper, just. saying, saying, well, actually, this $61 billion, it will help a little. It might help the Ukrainians slow the Russians down, but it won't enable the Ukrainians to stop them.

The Russians will continue to advance. It's not going to make that much difference. And, you know, at best, it might give the Ukrainians a few more months. And that's just one article. I mean, I think there's been articles in Politico, I think one in Bloomberg. I mean, I'm not, I, all over, all over the place. All over, all over the place. All over the city financial times.

Exactly. Now, if, of course, this had been admitted before that vote took place, if people had come out and said, well, actually, you know, the $61 billion isn't really going to change anything on the battlefronts. Well, I suspect there might have been a smaller vote in support of the $61 billion. But let me make it one thing absolutely clear. I still think it would have passed, even if that fact had been acknowledged before. Because firstly, look at the voting figures. In spite of the fact that there's now a very solid group of Republicans who are opposed to further funding for Ukraine, and interestingly, it turns out some Democrats also,

there is still a big majority in Congress, both in the House and in the Senate, which supports continued support for Ukraine. And I don't think that is ever going to change. And, you know, I'm not in any way defending Speaker Johnson, who has behaved, I think, appallingly in this matter. I mean, he's caved completely to Biden and the Democrats. and, you know, we can all speculate as to why he did and all of that, but he didn't get a cent for the border,

that the problems of the border. He said that the problems of the border was so important that, you know, you couldn't authorise aid for Ukraine without sorting out the border first. He completely came on that. But, you know, depending on one individual, the Speaker of the House, to stop this runaway train of funding for Ukraine, was always, you know, a risky proposition, to put it mildly. And I think that tells you a few things, the fact that there's this huge support for it. The fact that we're now having all these admissions, that it's not going to make any kind of difference ultimately to the outcome of the war.

All of that tells you that an awful lot of people are invested in this outcome emotionally, of course, but materially as well. And this is what is driving the train forward. It's not ultimately about Ukraine at all. It's about the MIC. It's about keeping the money flows running. It's about all of the things that you've been talking about,

especially, I mean, more you than me on this one, talking about not just over the last few months, but for years that this is all about shoveling money into Ukraine so that the money can come, you know, can be shoveled back. Yeah. Just just the narrative that's coming out of the media right now, like you said, the titles are saying this money is going to slow the Russians down. I mean, those are the titles that are coming out of Bloomberg and BBC.

They're openly saying that this money is not going to help Ukraine. win the war, but it has bought Ukraine some time. Is that the case? Do you believe that's the case? You know, it has brought Ukraine some time, but I think, and I'll be thinking about this a lot and be looking at what these disappropriation gives in actual weapons for Ukraine, just under $14 billion, which sounds like a lot, but, you know, bear in mind that a single patriot missile system, you know, the system with all the batteries and the radars, well, that apparently costs well over a billion dollars, you know, a piece. So, I mean, you know, it might not actually buy that much in the end. I think that it's going to give Ukraine some more time, but that time is

more likely to be counted in weeks than in months. In other words, it might not be quite as much time as some people imagine, including people in the administration. Remember, if we go back last year, this time last year, Ukraine was getting huge amounts of support from the United States, from the Western powers, from the Europeans, they were getting tanks, they were getting infantry fighting vehicles, they were getting vast numbers of shells. And this was all in support of Ukraine's offensive, the one it launched in the summer. And within about six weeks to, I think two months, they'd run out of shells. And the United States was forced to start supplying cluster munitions instead. In other words, they burnt through all of that in about six weeks to two months.

And I suspect the same will happen this time. Give it perhaps six weeks, perhaps two months, and you start to see that all the problems that we've been talking about, the lack of ammunition, the lack of interceptors, the lack of armored vehicles now, the lack of artillery systems, all of that will come back into play with a vengeance. What a difference, 24 hours.

makes. Before the vote, the speeches on the House floor were this money's needed to defeat Putin. Putin's an evil Marxist socialist dictator. Ukraine's border is our border. And this money is absolutely necessary in order to defeat Russia. And this money's going to make the difference. And then 24 hours later, well, you know, this will buy us sometime. This will buy us a couple of more months. Yeah, it'll buy us. He'll slow the Russians down. Zelensky did come out in an interview to, NBC and he said that this money hopefully will give us victory. But he was also talking about a 2025 counteroffensive. A lot of a lot of analysts now who are coming out with the articles after the House vote are talking about a 2025 counteroffensive. Stabilize this money will help

stabilize the situation. It'll slow the Russians down and stabilize the situation. 2025 offensive. Is that even high? possible given the mobilization, recruitment, manpower situation in Ukraine? No, it's not possible. In fact, it's a fantasy. And there was an article in Forbes, which, you know, comes up with this whole plan, you know, that Ukraine, it is another one of those articles which says that this package isn't going to make a difference, that the Russians are advancing.

So what it says is that what the Ukrainians need to do is to go over to the defense, build up their forces, move over to some kind of more flexible approach using on the vehicles, and then eventually launched the offensive with Crimea as the target and surround the Russians there and all that kind of thing. So in effect, rerun last year's offensive. The offensive that failed catastrophically in 2023. Do it all over again in 2025. Do it against a Russian military that's 15% bigger than it was in 2022. This is what we're told. A Russian military that is now active on the battlefronts, its air force is massively active. And obviously it's going to fail. But notice how, again, the same narratives have been repeated.

So before the 2023 offensive, stories about how Ukraine shouldn't really depend so much on artillery. They should focus instead on a more mobile operation using armoured vehicles. That was what they were saying this time last year, on the eve of the 2023 offensive. That's what they're saying again now, ahead of the supposed 2025 offensive. In other words, they're just repeating the same old narratives.

I don't think anybody really takes it seriously. My own view about the offensive next year is absolutely nobody believes in it. I don't think anybody in Washington believes in it. I don't think anybody in Kiev believes in it. I think that they're plugging it because they know, or at least they sense the deep down before the end of the year. Ukraine is going to have to, is going to come back and ask for more. So that will then obviously lead to people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Representative Massey and others like that saying, well, you know, what did all that?

about $61 billion by them. And the story that will be spun this time is that, well, this time we need the money, firstly because we have to stabilize the situation, and also to prepare for the offensive that we're going to launch in 2025. In other words, it's stringing us along. I mean, this is what this is all about. And by the way, if you go back to Zelensky and look at his comments carefully, in fact what he's now demanding is still more he's got the $61 billion he says this is going to help us

achieve victory but he says we want even more than that and he's always going to come back and he's always going to ask for more yeah yeah that's that's a definite without a doubt he's going to ask for more so we did a video maybe like a month ago a month and a half ago and maybe even longer than that actually And we were talking about the 60 billion package that was being discussed for Ukraine. And in that video, I mentioned that if the Biden White House, his team of advisors, his inner circle, Jake Sullivan, Blinken, if these guys were smart, given that Sullivan is a campaign guy. and obviously everything now is about the campaign and the November 2024 election, that they would just offload Ukraine on the European Union, get rid of it, not discuss it, not fund it, not deal with it.

And yes, there'll be some fallout. There'll be various criticism about this proxy war, this conflict. They'll criticize Biden. But after a couple of weeks, the news cycle will move on and everyone will have forgotten about Ukraine. Yes, the EU is going to be upset. Yes, the EU is going to complain. But at the end of the day, the European Union, they have nowhere to go anyway. They're 100% dependent on the United States right now. And so that would have been the right strategy. And then you mentioned something in that show that we did. You said, yeah, that's probably the best.

best route that the Biden White House could take, that they should take. But you said, if they approve the $61 billion, and this may have even been like three, four months ago, actually, you said, if they approved the $61 billion and they give the money to Ukraine, the Biden White House runs another risk. Yes, maybe they will get Ukraine to the November 2024 election, and they can get them over that election hump. And then if Trump's elected, they can blame Trump for the collapse, but they run the risk of giving the $61 billion to Ukraine and having it collapse before the election, which would be a double catastrophe. Not only does Project Ukraine collapse, but it collapses with $61 billion that the Biden White House gave it. Do you think that's,

they run that risk? Yes, they do run that risk. Now, you know, again, I said that this might be And how much and how much of the blame could fall on Mike Johnson and the Republicans, or at least the establishment Republicans as well, who support it? They will, right. I mean, a lot of the blame. I mean, an enormous amount of the blame will fall on them. I mean, without any question. I mean, the people who will be empowered in that case will be people like Marjorie Taylor Green,

Massey, all of those. They'll say, we were right, you were wrong. What on earth were you doing? You've just thrown $61 billion of good money. after bad money. I mean, of course, a lot of that $61 billion remains in the United States. It's not even really about Ukraine at all, just saying. But having said that, $61 billion is what people have been told,

is going to Ukraine, and it will have been seen that it was all for nothing. So it really will have a major impact, if there is that kind of collapse, it really will have a major impact on the ongoing power struggle, the civil war within the Republican Party, which remains ongoing. I mean, this vote in the House of Representatives was another battle in that civil war with the populist wing in the Republican Party gradually getting bigger and bigger. And that's a fact we shouldn't overlook, by the way. I mean, more Republicans voted against this than I think most people had expected. So that's the first thing to say. So the republicans will be badly affected.

And of course, with the Biden administration, it would an absolute complete disaster. If they get this funding, send weapons, you know, their small diameter bombs, they're more high mars, their attack and missiles, their patriarchs, missiles, their patriots, their Patriot missiles, and it all fails nonetheless. And, you know, Ukraine collapses between now and the election. And it is not impossible. I mean, you know, we're getting more news today from the battlefronts. There's this key village or Cherat, you know, everybody, by the way, even the Ukrainians

admit this is a key village. If the Russians capture it, it opens the way for them to advance in all kinds of directions. This morning we got news that the Russians control around half of it. And, you know, they've advanced to this village very, very fast. We're getting more and more reports now that Ukrainian units are retreating with our orders. And this is apparently what led to the collapse in this village. And it's, you know, that's a pattern now that is repeating itself in many places around Charsovia, in Krasnogorovka, in Novo-Michaelov, all sorts of places that we're seeing across the battlefronts.

So it is not impossible that we could see a collapse between now and November, despite this aid package. And indeed, despite any other aid package that they somehow managed to shuffle through between now and November, if, you know, the crisis really escalates. But, and here's, I think, the important thing to say about this. the Biden administration obviously I agree with you that absolutely correct

electoral strategy was to do what you said I mean I think we agreed I remember that video we agreed about that in that video when we made it just let Ukraine go move the narrative onto something else

blame any failure there on the Republicans focus on the election and on the things that people in America actually care about. That would have made much more sense for them than to do what they have done, which, by the way, I think is already electorally damaging. I think most American,

a plurality of American voters, already oppose further aid for Ukraine. So why did they do it? Why has it happened in this way? Well, of course, there are some people within the Biden administration, the neocons, probably include the president who are emotionally and viscerally connected with this thing.

But if you look at who was really lobbying for this $61 billion package to be passed over the last few weeks, it was not so much the officials of the administration, you know, Biden and his team. it was what you might call the deep state. It was Bill Burns, the CIA director. Apparently, there was a meeting between Mike Johnson and people from the intelligence community. We've had all kinds of military officers, general cavalry, all of those people coming up and strongly lobbying

for this package to pass. And it seems to me that for them, getting this package to pass was the bigger priority than whether or not Biden wins the election. And that begs an important question. Why? And I suspect the short answer is that one, they think they have the election under control. In other words, I think that they probably feel that they can probably either contain any danger from Donald Trump or prevent him getting win or that he, won't win at all. You know, we get what we say here, but I think that they're not so worried about the election, these people. But secondly, coming back to your original point, the priority for them is to keep the money flowing. They have to keep funding their various projects, missions,

which are part of the Ukraine project. Ukraine, as we saw, doesn't get to use all of this money. Other things happen. Money goes into Ukraine. It goes out of Ukraine. It goes out to fund all sorts of projects in all sorts of places. NGOs may be operating in completely different parts of the world. Things of that sort.

So for them, the priority, was to keep the money flows moving. And it was causing them concern that that wasn't happening. And they lobbied to get it done and they have. Yeah, I agree with you there. You got to, you got to assume that if they had, according to the New York Times article, 12 CIA bunkers just on the border with Russia, you got to imagine that project Ukraine is a huge project for the the deep state for the Intel agencies and for all of these establishment guys. I mean, it must employ a lot of people. A lot of money must be flowing through Project Ukraine.

And I think you're right. A lot of money probably flows through Project Ukraine, but then goes to other projects. Exactly. Georgia, Armenia, or God knows what else. Yeah, Russia. Yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. Exactly.

Exactly. So that is, that was what was at risk. And that was what they weren't. They absolutely needed. You know, can I make a comment? You're a thousand percent, right? Because one thing has been, I don't want to say bother me. I've been thinking about Trump's statement from a couple of weeks ago where he even bought

into the $61 billion for Ukraine. I mean, he gave his blessing to it. Of course, he added the caveat as long as it's a loan. That's how he kind of, you know, that's how he gave his approval. That's how everything was justified for Trump and his team. You know, if I come into office, I'll find a solution in 24 hours, all of these things that he says. And he said, for the $61 billion, yes, let's give it to Ukraine. But as long as it's alone.

And so they even got Trump to buy into the $61 billion, which was a big departure from his stance on Project Ukraine. And that had me thinking for a couple of weeks, even, Trump is saying, okay, let's get the $61 billion. And Mike Johnson, sure enough, he turned part of the package into a loan. So without a doubt, this was the establishment of the deep state, putting the pressure, I believe, on everybody and getting this thing, this thing passed. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that is absolutely my view. Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. Going back to the weapons. How much of the money is going to be new weapons? Do you believe this may be a hard one for you to answer? But how much of the $14 billion is actually about new weapons and how much of the $14 billion is actually about squaring up the books from an accounting level?

Because I find it hard to believe that weapons have not been flowing to Ukraine. I mean, this was not, you know, we don't have the money. So no more weapons. Everything stops until we get paid. know, they've been sending as many weapons as they can over the past six months. And we know this from the attackums. I mean, they have been using attackums, Ukraine. So obviously, the U.S. has been sending attackums. And we know that in the new packages, but we're fairly confident that new packages will include attack them. How much of this do you believe is just about the military industrial complex

saying, you know, we sent X amount of attackums. They haven't been paid for. So now they're going to be pay for and we can square up the accounting on that side of things. And then we'll use the $24 billion to produce more TACOMs down the road. I think that a very, very large part of this package indeed is precisely about that. Now, I'm not going to try and give a percentage because I don't know. No. But it isn't just a tackens. It isn't just a tackens. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, we were being told that Ukraine would run out of air defense interceptors by the end of March, for example. But Ukraine does still have air defense interceptors. Where is they getting them from?

Well, they have been supplied. They have been supplied. There have been supplies of these weapons for a long time. I mean, they have been trickling into Ukraine for an awful long time. And I think both of us got an email from a certain source, a good source. who I think writes to both of us and others. I'm not going to say more about him. But he pointed out that in fact Ukraine has been getting a lot more shelves

than people have been admitting to. And again, I think that is exactly what's been going on. I think there's been an awful lot more supplies of weapons to Ukraine. One of the Russian generals, General Mordvicev at the time when Avdavka felt, he said exactly this. He said, we hear all the time about how short, of shells Ukraine is. We haven't really noticed that very much here on the actual battlefronts. Now, probably he was overstating things because there is a huge amount of information about Ukraine

having reduced its firing levels. So they have got fewer shelves. They got fewer artillery pieces and all of that. But nonetheless, there's still been firing shells. Throughout the last couple of weeks and months they've been firing shells. And where are they coming from? Not, it seems, from the EU, because it's desperately short of shells. Not, I suspect, either from General Pavel's plan to buy shells overseas. The more I hear about that project, the more it looks as if that project is collapsed. I suspect a lot of it has been coming from Europe, oh, sorry, from the US. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that the weapons have been flowing. I completely agree with you.

They've been flowing for the past six months. And so I'm trying to figure out the $24 billion, which is going to go straight to the MIC for production. This is really, the financial times put out an article, and they basically hit at the fact that this is a race now. You know, it's not only about getting the weapons to the front line. but now there's a race to create new weapons as quickly as possible. I mean, really, it's about replenishing the inventories of weapons, which have been flowing over the past six months and over the past two years. That's what the $24 billion is for.

And so the $14 billion to me is more about, you know, closing those open positions on the ledger. Yeah. We've sent. Yes. 500,000 shells. They were sent three months ago. We need to close this position.

So, you know, let's get one billion to close this out. And in the meantime, we are going to try to ramp up our production of shells as quickly as possible in order to get the new shells to Ukraine six months down the line. I mean, is that a fairly accurate picture as to what's really going on here? because the image that's presented to everybody, the narrative that's presented is weapons stopped six months ago. No more weapons were sent. Not one bullet was sent because Ukraine couldn't pay for it. And for six months, Ukraine has had zero weapons delivered from the United States. And Europe has been having to do all the heavy lifting.

I think that's a completely false and fictitious narrative that they're presenting. absolutely correct. That's entirely right. And I'm sure you're right. By the way, about the 24 billion and the production of new weapons, they may be talking as soon as possible, but soon as possible, probably is years. Just just, just saying, I mean, in fact, they will never be able to keep up with what Ukraine needs. But whatever they produce over the next couple of years will not be able to replace that which has already been lost. But they are replacing things. I'm going to say this.

I mean, M-Triple-7 howitzers. I am sure Ukraine is getting more M-Triple-7 howlitzes, the people say. Heimars launches, again, I'm sure Ukraine has had many more of those sent. Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, same there. I mean, you know, lots of things. And note that the one thing, that the establishment parties, but the establishment is Democratic and Republican,

and the MIC and the Department of Defense, do not want is an audit. They don't want a proper audit done of what exactly has been sent and of where it's gone. Exactly, because I think the audit would show that the inventories are very low, and a lot of the stuff has been sent over the past six months, and they're running low on just about everything, and all of this stuff has not been paid for. That's what the audit would show. And now they're going to go closing out positions.

Exactly. With the $14 billion. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And the $24 billion is okay as you're closing out positions, get moving on creating the new weapons. Exactly.

You're right on every point. And I think people would freak out if they knew the truth of the situation. They would freak out. They would, they would, they would freak out. Yeah. They would freak out if they knew the truth of the situation. I mean, you know, and of course, if you want to take a really cynical view,

I'm not saying, by the way, that this is necessarily true, but you want to take a really cynical view, it might even be the case, might even be the case that the $61 billion package is primarily, about closing the positions before Ukraine finally goes kaput. I mean, you're able to balance out books, avoid any investigations. You've got your production lines back up and running again, and you don't have to answer any difficult questions about where weapons have gone from the inventories,

which in theory should still be there. Just so. Yeah. Yeah, let's do one more topic before we close out the video, which I believe is very important, which was another part of the bill, the package that passed, which was the House basically giving the Biden White House

authorization to seize the Russian frozen assets in the United States. We're talking anywhere between 5 to 10 billion. I'm not quite sure the amount I've heard 5 billion. I've heard 10 billion. the House has now said to the Biden to the Biden White House, it's okay for you to take this money and send it to Ukraine, to steal this money and send it to Ukraine. Obviously, this is not about the 10 billion going to Ukraine in order to make a difference in the conflict. This is about pressuring Europe to do the same with the 200 or 250 billion.

That's exactly right. I mean, the money, by the way, will probably. It'll be another part of the money that just goes round and round to say it's straightforwardly. It might buy even more weapons. It might enable them to close even more positions. Just saying. But it is. It's ultimately about putting pressure on the Europeans.

The Europeans are very, very scared about doing this. They're banks, central bank, European central bank. Christine Lagarde has come out and spoken out against this. Euroclear, of course, has done that the same. the European Central banks, the Bundesbank, all of them said, for heaven's sake, don't do this thing. Corporate banks have said the same. Don't do this thing. The Americans want it done.

It's something that is, again, an obsession for them. Now, they think if they seize five or ten billion dollars of Russian assets in the United States, the mighty United States with the reserve currency of the world, they can withstand it. They probably can, at least for a while. It'll dent their reputation, but it won't break it. The Europeans go further and seize 270 billion. That's in Euroclear.

It's a different situation again. But then one wonders whether some people again in the United States perhaps wouldn't be too sorry. if the European financial system lost international credibility, they might be saying to themselves, well, in that case, for the time being at least, if you want to park your money, where are you going to park it?

Park it perhaps in the US. The dollar is still the reserve currency. It might help us out there. So, you know, just saying. Let's see what happens. All right. The durand. Dot locals.com.

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