The Duran Podcast - Hybrid war operations. Umerov, Yermak negotiating exit plan

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

Hybrid war operations. Umerov, Yermak negotiating exit plan

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the conflict in Ukraine, which seems to be shifting to a dirty war, which you talked about in many videos, going back almost a year plus that we're going to be heading towards some sort of a dirty war, sabotage, a cyber war, sabotage, and attacks, terrorist attacks. And we just had a couple of days ago, a day ago, a terrorist attack on a Russian general. At least that's how it looks. And this is something that we have seen over the past three, four years. And we have seen many Russian officials attacked, assassinated in Russia. So where are we heading with all of this? Well, you're absolutely right. This is exactly what is happening.

I mean, this was clearly an assassination. I mean, all the reports speak about this general, general, General Safranov, a senior military officer involved in training troops. He was assassinated. A bomb was placed under his car. Now, again, one has to say this. There has always been a recklessness about Russian officers. It's, well, that characteristic, that they expose themselves in this way. Again, it's surprising that the Russian security service, have not been able to tighten up protections of these key officers, and that these men themselves are not taking the precautions that they ought to be taking.

But anyway, the Russian security services over the last month have been claiming that they have broken all kinds of rings and all sorts of attempts to organize assassinations and sabotage operations on their territory. It seems as if a major effort to try and sort out something has been taking place in Russia. One operation now has succeeded. There might be others, but we could see that this dirty war is escalating. And the Russians blame obviously the Ukrainians when these sort of things take place. But over the last year or so, they have also increasingly blamed the British. And somewhat to my alarm, the new head of MI6, Blaise Metroelli, recently gave a speech.

Now, I haven't been able to find the text of the speech, so I might be misrepresenting her to some extent. But she apparently said that the British, in response to Russian hybrid war, attacks needed to start thinking about rediscovering the skills that they had during the Second World War when the British Special Operations Executive, which was a branch of British military intelligence, which existed at that time, organized sabotage attacks and assassinations and all that kind of thing. Resistance, if you're like that. all across German-occupied Europe during the Second World War. And the British were very heavily involved.

There's a very famous incident, for example, where the British organised the assassination in Prague in 1942 of an absolutely terrible German official, Heinhard Heidek, who had been heavily involved, and who was ultimately the head of the Gestapo and was also involved in all kinds of other horrors, I don't want to talk about in this program. Anyway, so she was talking about doing things like this again

or suggesting that things like this again might start to happen again. And I saw a report yesterday in the media the day before we'd been doing this program, which speaks about the fact that there's already been cyber attacks and hacking attacks by various European intelligence. agencies on Russian civilian facilities inside Russia itself, allegedly as part of a response to the hybrid war that the Russians are supposedly waging against the West. Except, of course, and by the way, I should add, there's also been lots of articles appearing in the Western media and the British media especially about hybrid war attacks by the Russians.

And I mean, there was an incredible one by a British journalist called Mark Galiotti in the London Times, talking endlessly about, you know, various Russian hybrid war operations. And then admitting, even as he was writing that article, in the article itself, that there's actually no proof that the Russians are involved in. any of these things, they might have no role in them. But anyway, so we are, we look like, it looks to me as if we're seeing a major escalation in the dirty war. We had the head of MI6 herself talking about this.

And of course, the Russians are all going to respond. Now, she, Blaise Metruelli, immediately after making, giving that speech, then did a very unusual thing, she called Naryshkin, who is the head of Russian foreign intelligence, and they had, I think, the first call of that kind since the start of the special military operation. I wonder what exactly passed, whether she called him to reassure him that this is not really what the British are going to do, or whether on the contrary, she told him that this is exactly what the British are going to do, and that there is some kind of threats involved. I don't know. I wasn't in on the call.

But we now have this assassination. And the Russians have been starting for some time to take countermeasures. And I think they're going to escalate them. Well, my understanding is that this lieutenant general was part of the general staff. Yes. You've got to imagine that the military is going to want to take some sort of revenge or action. I mean, you had Asimov and the general staff are not going to let this go. No. He's not a combat officer. He's not somebody who was involved in strategic planning, but he was involved in, he was, in fact, as I understand it, the overall head of training, training of military personnel, which is a massive and vitally important operation. And as you said, the general staff are going to insist that counteraction be taken. And Putin is being briefed about this.

assassination, and I suspect we're going to see more of it. So, again, this is a pattern of escalation, and one senses that it goes beyond Ukraine. And some of the rhetoric coming out in Britain, especially, is deeply alarming. And I have to say, I thought that speech by the head of MI6, and that comment by the head of MI6, if she did make it, which I believe she did, I think that was extremely unhelpful, to put it mildly, and will be seen by the Russians, both as an admission and as a threat. What's going on in Ukraine, Alexander, with the corruption scandal? Yeah. Is Yermak, is he hanging around or is he not hanging around? There are rumors saying that he hasn't gone anywhere and that he's still running the show. He's the chief of staff of Olenskies now. there's rumors of a Madoff meeting with the FBI and discussing some sort of protection or amnesty.

It was obvious that he was looking for amnesty during the meeting with Patel and Bongino, the Washington Post was saying that he's going to talk about the negotiations and he's going to make a deal based on the negotiations. No, not at all. It just shows how the Western media is just so misinformed on what's going on in Ukraine. It was clear that the guys in Miami meeting with Patel and Bonjino to discuss some sort of a protection or amnesty with regards to the investigation. And, Abu, we're getting reports of more Zelensky insiders being fired or dismissed. Yes. What's going on? Well, you know, let's start with Janmark.

I mean, he told us that he was going to go to the front and fight as a soldier. He's showed no sign of doing any of that. He's been driving around apparently within Kiev in an arm of Mercedes. He gives every impression of being still there and still heavily involved. There is growing speculation that he stepped down as Chief of Staff in name only, and that he is still absolutely in control. There is no sign that anything, that the Zelensky government is doing anything different now from what it was doing when Yermak was.

Chief of Staff. Its policies have not changed. In any respect, there's no signs that Zelensky's actual day-to-day authority has weakened. My own view is, as I said, it's been all, it's all been smoke and mirrors. There's clearly an investigation. It clearly has done significant political damage to Zelensky, but he's still clearly in control. And I have no reason to doubt myself, but so is Yomak. Yomak is in control too. And as you rightly say, Umarov is busy negotiating for protection for himself. And by the way, I would not be surprised if he's also trying to get protection for other people within the Ukrainian system too. If that, in fact, is the real reason why he's in Miami and that all the talk about negotiations and all of that

is cover. So, you know, cover negotiations to end the war in fact is cover, that his primary purpose, Umarov's primary purpose, is to sort all of that out. So, you know, I, it seems to me there's now, there's more talk now that Nabil and Sapo are going to target other high officials in Zelensky circle, that there's going to be more action taken against individuals within Zalbush, But it seems to me an awful lot of talk about this, but ultimately everything remains exactly as before. And of course, the European Union has just promised to give them another 90 billion euros. So I don't see why these people seeing this money heading in that direction would have any

desire, frankly, to want to go away. I don't think Nabuz made any arrests, have they? No. So they've made no arrest. Even the Mintage guy, he disappeared to Israel with the last reports about Mindich. And that's that. I mean, there hasn't been any follow-up or any statements from Nabu about going after any of these guys, about any arrests, anything. And Yenmach's hanging around.

There's a word that Padoiac is also been dismissed. But they're not leaving. It just seems like maybe they're preparing for a quick exit if that. time comes. But they're still going to stay in Kiev. And maybe they won't have an official position. Maybe it'll be an unofficial position, but they will be in a position for when the remainder of the funds from Europe make their way to Ukraine. Exactly. I should say that the Russian intelligence agency, and I want to stress this is the Russian intelligence agency. So take this with a mountain of salt, if you like. But they have now published a report.

in which it says that all of the officials in Kiev are indeed now busy preparing for their bulk, their exit plans, preparing to bolt when things go wrong. And that this is true of the diplomats who are posted abroad. All of them are now starting to think, make preparations for the moment when Ukraine falls and none of them has any plan or very few of them have plans to go back to Ukraine. Now, that's probably the Russians, you know, stirring things up a bit, but it's interesting that they've chosen this moment to do it, because things on the battlefields continue to go wrong, major attacks on the Adessa region now, very devastating attacks, which not entirely easy to understand what the Russians are up to,

but there is talk that they might be thinking about creating a bridgehead in Odessa, reports that the fighting in Mernograd is either ended or about to end. Even the Ukrainians are now accepting that the resistance in Mernograd is collapsing, and things continue to go wrong everywhere else. A new front. A new front. A new front. A new front.

Sumi region now becoming activated. And bear in mind, Sumi, well, I would say it's close to Kiev, but it's closer to Kiev than all of the other fronts. And, of course, if Sumi's captured, there's a straight road from Sumi all the way to Kiev. In peacetime, you could take just be a few hours drive to drive up this road to get to Kiev. It was the road the Russian army took in 2022. Well, it could soon be under Russian control again, just the same. That would freak out Zelensky. Oh, absolutely. Exactly. It wouldn't just freak him out. I mean, if this happens, to say it again, if Dombas falls, if even Zaporosier falls, they would probably say to themselves, we've still got some time, if Sumi falls. That brings the Russians frighteningly close to Kiev. And if Zelensky would freak out, but so would many other people in Ukraine also.

All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.com. We're on X-Rond Rumble. We're on Telegram. Go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch, and also look for us on Substack as well. The link to Substack is in the description box down below. Take care.