The Duran Podcast - Kursk information war. Donbass reality

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Kursk information war. Donbass reality

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Ukraine, and we should probably start off with the situation in Kursk, the operation, the Ukraine military operation in Kursk, and then we can talk about the situation that is unfolding in Dombas. So let's start with Kursk and what's going on there. The latest reports are that Zelensky is going to, To create a buffer zone, Alexander, civil administration and creative buffer zone. This is an amazing, an amazing information war that the collective West has carried out in Kursk.

But that's where it ends for the collective West. And we're going to now talk about reality as to what is going on in Kursk. So what's the situation? Well, I think you've described it exactly correctly. there is an information wall, there is a massive propaganda effort, and then there is the reality. The reality is not always easy to discover, work out, because the amount of misinformation and propaganda is on such a scale now that it's, you know, sometimes very difficult to get a true sense of what's going on, and one does need a very level head.

There's a number of things I would like to say, first of all, that the first point is, that the Russians have pretty much officially now confirmed that the original objective of this operation, when it was launched last week, was to capture the Kuznuclear Power Plant and the town of Kukchatev. Now, that operation was supposed to have been completed by the 11th of August. Today is the 15th of August. They haven't got there.

We're getting lots and lots and lots of satellite pictures now, showing the Russians have built lots of big fortifications in that precise area. They sent troops there and all that. I think that by this point we can say confidently that that part of the operation, the operation to capture, the Kuzk Power Station has failed. They're unlikely to be able to reach it. And I don't think they have the forces necessary to capture it. And with every day that passes, the reality, you know, the objective, the actual military objective is looking increasingly out of reach.

We talked about this, if you remember, on the program that we previously did on this topic. And I think, you know, we've now reached, we've now gone past the tipping point on that. So what are the Ukrainians actually doing? They haven't achieved their objective. It's looking increasingly unlike. to the point of implausibility that they ever will. Logically, rationally, they should pull back. There's lots of reports, actual reports coming from the battlefronts in Kuzk and Roundabout,

which suggests that the Ukrainians are taking extremely heavy losses. Now, the Russians are giving us numbers for the number of Ukrainian troops who have been killed and wounded every day. and they are very high. Perhaps we can always have a question mark over the correctness of those, though I think they're probably within a ballpark of being right. But armoured vehicle losses we can be reasonably confident about because the Russians give us lots of pictures and they're consistent with what we can see.

And armored vehicle losses, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, surface-to-air missile systems, Ukraine is losing stacks of them at an extremely fast spade and it is in short supply of all of these things. It's constantly demanding and begging the West and pleading the West to send more, but with every single day that this operation continues, they're losing more and more of them. And what are they doing? Well, they have. They have have been rattling around in a few villages, basically not far from the border. Now, to get it, I think, the most clear idea of what the true military situation is, the best place to go are Russian Defence Ministry reports. I appreciate this information government of the Russians.

Well, I think it's reasonably accurate. Every day, for the last couple of days, the Russian Defense Ministry has been giving us a daily update about what's happening. They don't talk much about villages or things of that kind. They don't talk about who controls which village or things of that sort. Occasionally they do, but rarely. But they do tell us where they're carrying up the heaviest strikes on the main Ukrainian forces. And what you discover is that they're all concentrated in a 15-kilometer zone just on the border itself. In other words, they're very, very close to the border. What the Ukrainians have been trying to do is that they've been trying to send small groups of lightly equipped men in, you know, armoured various vehicles, dashing up country roads, trying to enter various villages deeper inside Russia.

occasionally they manage to get to these villages, they go in, they take a picture and they return back. More often than not, however, they get caught along the way. The Russians have developed a system of ambushes and many, many of them get caught and trapped and the vehicles get destroyed and one must wonder what happens to some of the soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers, that get killed in that way. But anyway, that is the reality. It is a relatively small zone near the border where the Ukrainians are located, a very significant distance from the course nuclear power station.

That is many tens of kilometers away. The Russians are establishing fortified lines there. Occasional, as I said, attempts to send small groups of troops, you know, moving beyond this territory. whenever that happens, nearly always whenever that happens, these men get hit very badly and they're forced to fall back. And the Ukrainian stacking up losses all the time. The fact that Zelensky is now talking about setting up a buffer zone

and military administration on this territory confirms, in my opinion, that the Ukrainian advance has stalled. that if they were really intent on moving further, they wouldn't be talking about what they've set up as a buffer zone. Now, eventually, the Russians will have sorted out the fortifications around the power station, which, as I said in a program a couple of days ago, would have been their priority. Russian forces are steadily building up in the area. one of the Russian generals, a man called Al-Al-Dimov, who's actually a Chechen, who's very vocal and is talking all the time,

he says that the Russians will be able to go back on the attack next week, that they'll be making a big attempt to push the Ukrainians out. Quite plausibly, that is what's going to happen. So this whole operation, which has been immensely costly, in terms of men, machines and material, is going to. to perhaps fall apart maybe next week, maybe over the course of the next few weeks, but it is going nowhere, even as everywhere else Ukraine's front lines are collapsing. Yeah, so we'll get to what really is the important area of the conflict which remains Dombas and what's going on there. The admission, from collective West media that Ukraine has diverted some of their best soldiers, equipment,

resources from Dombas to Kursk. I mean, it's an incredible admission from the collective West media as to where Ukraine found the soldiers in the material in order to run this, this operation, which is going to turn into a huge debacle, not only in Kursk, but also in in Dombas is going to accelerate the collapse of Ukraine in the Dombas area. But let's just, because there is a lot of, a lot of fog of war or confusion as to what the correct assessment is with Kursk, a lot of analysts, a lot of people are saying, well, you know, if you go by what Zelensky is saying, and if you go by the photos that are snapped in different location, which is what's going on. I mean, people have to picture.

These are just groups of soldiers or platoons, which are just kind of going into certain areas in the Kersk region. They're taking photos. They're taking videos. They're posting them and then they're getting back to where they were. If they're lucky, they're returning back to where they were. But, you know, there is the argument, well, it looks like Ukraine is advancing. So, I mean, I just want to ask you a very simple question. If Ukraine is advancing, to what purpose, where are they advancing towards? I mean, Russia's huge. Where are they going to go towards if they are advancing with what logistics, with what supply lines, with what air support?

And how in God's name, if you're Zelensky, how do you set up a buffer zone without any air support? I mean, how do you do this? How do you establish civilian administrative control? without having any, any military advantage over, over Russia. This sounds ridiculous. It is a fantasy. It is a fantasy. You're absolutely correct.

Now, if, to repeat again, if the Ukrainians had managed to break through and capture the Coz Nuclear Power Plant, that would have been a major coup. I mean, one can't dispute that. that would have been something that they could take away and they could say this is an important class and they might have been able possibly to force the Russians into disadvantages, negotiations. Everything else that they're doing, rattling around various villages, is absolutely militarily pointless. All that it is doing is it is losing them, men and machines, that they simply don't have the right to lose at this stage.

war. They're short of men. They're short of machines. The West can't replace those machines, as it's now absolutely clear. And what Ukraine is doing is, is frittering away his last reserves and some of its best troops chasing around villages in Kuzk region, which have no military value. Because you have put this exactly correct. Other than the Kuznuclear Power Station, or the two big cities in the area, which are Kusk and Belgarod, which are way beyond reach, We're talking about a million people, cities. I mean, there's no conceivable way that Ukraine could capture those. None of these villages that we've been hearing so much about has any military significance or consequence.

People are talking about this place called Sousja, an awful lot. Sousia, which the Ukrainians say they've captured, the Russians denied that the Ukrainians have captured all of it, they accept that they are there. But it's a place of 5,000 people. It's the biggest town in the area and it's got 5,000 people. I mean, this is a very thinly populated part of Western Russia. Most of it is forest. As they're running around, chasing up and down country roads, being ambushed by the Russians all the time, trying to capture and take photos and odd villages.

Militarily, it makes no sense. And as you correctly, correctly say, advance where? To what? As I said, when Zelensky talks about buffer zones and setting up military administrations, what that tells you is that the advance has essentially stalled. Because if this was a genuine offensive, then it wouldn't be a question of buffer zones. It would be a question of an advance towards a certain target, towards a certain objective. We're talking about the Harkiv operation, that the Russians have been. carrying out. It's absolutely clear what their major objective there was. It was the city of the town of

Volchansk, which is a real place, 30, 40,000 people. It's been fought over. The evidence is that the Russians are close to capturing it. There is an objective there. They're also moving apparently, and just getting a barehead a bit, towards now finally capturing that village of Lipsi, which is apparently located on a hill, close to Kharkov, which means that they can start shelling Kharkov. So there's an objective. There is a purpose to this. But militarily, this has no purpose. It is a diversion of resources from where they're needed on a fool's errand in, as I said, in this country, this forested country on the border, which has no military value at all.

Yeah, the best thing that Zelensky could do and Sirski could do is declare an information war victory and get those troops out of there. Get those troops out of their ASAP. And then just you have the entire Collective West media behind you and just declare a victory in this operation. We went into Russia. We rattled Putin. We rattled Russia. We showed that we're capable of conducting these types of operations. give us money, give us weapons, and that's it.

That's the smartest thing they could do, but they're not going to do that because there are reports that Zelensky is now telling Siersky to hold on to Kursk up until the elections in November 2024, which is just absurd. But anyway, this takes us to the real fighting, the real important fighting, which is in Daubas. You know, you've allocated all of these critical resources that you don't have to this operation in Kursk and we're seeing the collapse of Donbass accelerating, specifically in areas like New York, Bakrowski and other areas in Dombas.

Exactly, because the best men, Ukraine has, are chasing around villages of course. I mean, this is, it is, it makes so little sense militarily that it's, it's difficult to understand. By the way, if you go and you read more sober-minded analysts, including, some on the Ukrainian side. They're making exactly this very same point. So let's just quickly go through this. I mean, the major battle, I mean, we've been saying this actually on the Duran for some weeks now. The really key place, the place where the Russians broke through and have created this big hole in Ukrainian defences, was north and west of Avdewka. Remember of Degovka, fortified town, the most heavily fortified town in Dombas.

The Russians captured it in February. And they have been steamrolling through building all this. And now they are literally outside the town of Pachrovsk. Now, a number of things about Pachrovsk. And here you actually need to go to a sort of bigger map than the one that most of the people show you, you need to actually see the entire area of eastern Ukraine, because there's a, the main supply road for the Ukrainians, the main supply center for the Ukrainian forces in Donbass is the great industrial city of NEPRO, which is located on the,

on the NEPA itself. So the supplies, which all come from the west, cross this road, go out from NEPRO down a main road, big main road, they pass through a town called Pavlograd, and they go on eastwards, and then they arrive at Pachrovsk, which is the next important place on this road. And from that road, there's also various, from Pachrovsk, there's various other roads that fan out, and then there's the railway lines. And this is the main, this is the main. supply hub. And if the Russians capture Pachrovsk, that entire supply system basically collapses. And by the way, if the Russians consolidate their positions around Pachrovsk, which they

probably will, and then they start moving westwards again towards Pavlovrad and capture Pavlovrad, which is a bigger city than Pachovsk, but not much. Then, They are on the NEPA at the most critical place. And we've discussed the consequences of that. In my opinion, the war basically becomes the war in terms of fighting ends at that point. So Pachrovsk, the Russians about a week ago were about 20 kilometres from Pachrovsk. As a result of the Kusk operation, they're now within seven kilometers of Pachrovsk. itself. They are much closer to one of the eastern suburbs of Pachrovsk, which is a place

called Mironograd, which is actually located literally on this road. And over the last couple of hours, we're getting reports that the whole defence system of Pukovs is collapsing. Apparently, a whole series of small villages have all fallen under Russian control. I've been looking at the map and if you can actually go and look at the map and see where these places are, you see how close to Prakosk they are. And it's not even clear at this moment in time that there are any fortified positions in Pachrosk itself capable of holding back the Russians. I say that. I mean, as at this morning, I've not heard any reports, for example, that the Ukrainian authorities are even evacuating civilians from Bakarovsk. So it looks as if the town is not prepared for defence.

So, you know, this may not be quite how it turns out. But if the Russians roll in and capture Pakrovsk, it is a disaster. It's the worst to think Ukraine will have suffered over the course of the entire battle. And, well, there's all sorts of other things going on in all sorts of other places. as well. So let's assume Pachrovsk Falls. You mentioned the other place is New York, Torez, all of those, another enormously strong defense position that the Ukrainians had created back in 2014, widely assumed that it was too heavily fortified for the Russians to capture in a head-on assault. The Russians are now rapidly capturing it in a head-on assault. And if the Russians capture Torezsk, Again, the entire defense position in central Dombas collapses.

And the Russians are supposedly also moving towards capturing Chassefiyar. The justification, one of the justifications that was made for the Coast raid was that it was intended to force the Russians to divert forces from Dombas in order to keep the Ukrainians back. That hasn't happened. The New York Times admits this. Many commentators admit this. Putin himself made it clear in a meeting that took place two days ago in Moscow that it would not happen. All that you credit, all that Zelensky has done, and I think it is Zelensky and Siersky between and Budana probably that extraordinary trio. All that they managed to do is weaken them defense lines in critical places and accelerate Ukraine's defeat in the war.

Yeah, they've weakened their defense lines. They've accelerated their defeat. The Russians have now basically said that any negotiations are off. There's no chance of negotiations. At least that's how it looks. That's a catastrophe for Ukraine because Putin did make an offer. And for the collective West, Putin didn't make an offer. And he kept the door open. Now it looks like that door is pretty much shut closed. So they've accomplished that. And I wonder if Alenski is going to make it.

Sierski. I wonder if Alensky, Sirsky, these guys are going to make it through this catastrophe because we are getting reports from Russian intel. That they've already chosen, the collective West has already chosen, someone to take over for Zelensky. he's obviously panicking. Zelensky's in a panic. He's demanding long-range missiles, long-range missiles, I imagine, to try and hit the

course nuclear power plant or who knows what he's thinking of doing. I mean, does he make it through this? Does he survive this collapse that's coming up? The economy, the Ukraine economy, has been downgraded by Fitch to default. Trump, Trump is not very fond of Project Ukraine. But now we're getting reports from the UK Telegraph that even Kamala Harris, she's not interested in Project Ukraine either. So, I mean, it's this, this is such a dead end for Ukraine, for Olensky.

There's no way out of this situation other than negotiating. And now they've even destroyed that. that opportunity as well. You're absolutely right. In all you say, except it's even worse, actually. First of all, Putin, at that very same meeting in Moscow that we talked about, where, by the way, he looked extremely angry. I mean, he was furious with what has happened. There's clearly been some kind of discussion about negotiations that's been underway. He was pushed, I suspect, into making that public offer, which was, from his point of view, You're very reasonable.

One of the many Russians thought altogether too reasonable. Anyway, he's now said very clearly there is not going to be negotiations. He said, who are we going to negotiate with? We can't negotiate with people who do things like this and who threaten nuclear power facilities. And we've now had strings of comments from other Russian officials, diplomats at the UN, another diplomat talking yesterday, they're all saying negotiations with the Zelensi,

gang, as they call it, are off the table. There is no possible way that they go to negotiate, sit down and talk with Zelensky. They consider him to be not just an illegitimate, an unconstitutional president of Ukraine, but somebody who's altogether too dangerous and too irrational to negotiate with. And you can see that the Russians are straightforwardly talking about regime change now. I mean, this is now, this is now, in effect, becoming publicly stated official policy. So that's the Russian position. But what is, can I stop you there? You said that Putin was pushed.

Pushed by who? Well, this is what I was going to come to because what has happened. What has been happening is that over the last couple of weeks, probably under Western pressure, Zelensky himself has been talking about negotiations. The Russians have been completely cynical and unconvinced by it, but he's been talking about negotiations. And then about two weeks ago, he sent his foreign minister to China,

Dimitro Kuleber, he met with Wang Yi in China. Apparently he talked all about negotiations. The Chinese apparently found him very vague and got frustrated by the meeting. But anyway, what happened? is that over the course of the next couple of days, all sorts of people, China, India, Brazil, apparently asking Putin, look, the Ukrainians are now talking about negotiating, what are your terms? So Putin came along and made that offer. That seems to have been partly what happened.

Now, the Chinese, having met to labor, having passed all that on to Putin, having basically said to Putin, you know, give these guys an offer, give these guys a break, show what you're prepared to do. Now they discovered that Zelensky and Sirsky and Budap have pulled this one off and that when they talk about negotiations, they're not really talking about negotiations at all. They're talking about another attempt to try and seize a nuclear power plant, which the Russian Chinese have repeatedly said is a no-no. You do not attack nuclear power stations. This is what the Chinese have said.

So they've tried to do that, try to give ultimate. made him sue the Russians, tried to force the Russians into massive land swaps and capitulations and things like that. And the Chinese are absolutely furious. And there's been articles. I understand, I haven't very Chinese, obviously, but I understand Chinese social media is on fire over this. The Chinese commentaries that have been appearing at the Chinese media are awful. And Global Times and has read an absolutely excoriating article, which has, by the way, blamed the United States

for allowing the whole thing to happen. So what Zeletsky-Sizky-Sizky-Badanov have done is they've taken the pressure off Putin to sit down and talk with them. Not only does Putin not want to talk with them anymore, but he no longer feels that he has to. He no longer feels that he has to. has to satisfy his friends around the world, China, India, Egypt, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia,

all of those countries by agreeing to negotiations. So they put themselves altogether in a far worse situation than the one that they were in. And about all of the other things, you said you were right, Ukraine is in default, its budget deficit is now 17% of GDP and rising. The money from the West is actually drying up. There are problems apparently getting the loan. Remember the $50 billion loan that was going to be backed by, you know, interest from Russian securities? The word that's gone out is that the Hungarians are resisting. I think the real reason is that there's just no takers. They just can't find bondholders prepared to take out that loan, even with European guarantees. At the moment, the money isn't coming. The currency is under pressure. Inflation is rising. The energy system is in crisis. This reports now that if the Russians carry out another major strike on the transmission stations, the ones that distribute power from the three remaining nuclear power stations in Ukraine, that the entire energy system basically stops. And Zelensky did.

did what the European Commission asked him to do. He stopped gas supplies, or oil supplies, from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia. The Hungarians of the Slovaks are now saying, well, in that case, we're going to stop sending you electricity, and most of the electricity that goes to Ukraine from the European Union actually comes from Hungary and Slovakia. So the whole situation is just terrible. It is absolutely chaotic.

You ask the question, does Zelenskyy, survived this, I cannot see how. I think he knows it too, by the way. I think that if this thing starts to unravel over the next couple of weeks and months, if the Cooscooperation ends in a debacle, which is what we're already starting to see, if places like Pakrovsk and Chasofiard and Toresk start to fall, then I think that we're talking about a massive crisis. Remember, he's not the elected president of Ukraine anymore. He's president only by reason of a decree, which he and the parliament he controls have passed. So I think that it's very difficult to see how he survives. And the Russian intelligence agency, of course, are stirring the pot. They're saying that the Americans have now

decided on the man they want to take Zelensky's place. They're saying that it's a man called Arsene Avakov, who was the Interior Minister for many years after the Maidan events, the Maidan seizure of power in 2014. If it is Arsene-Avakov, that the Americans are grooming to take Zelensky's place, and we must stress again, this is purely Russians telling us this. Well, then that is a sign that the Americans really are intending to keep the war going to the last Ukrainian because by all accounts, Avakov is an extreme hardliner, a man with very, very strong connections to the various nationalist militias,

a man of almost relentless anti-Russian views. He is certainly not somebody who would be interested in compromising or who the Russians would accept as a negotiator. they accuse him of committing all kinds of atrocities. And I think if that's the choice, well, he might be able to hold things together in Kiev because he's said to be ruthless enough and has the kind of support from the sort of people

you'd expect to be able to do that. But it really would be a throw, an attempt to keep a Ukraine that's basically collapsing, to keep it fighting right to the very bitter end. Yeah, if the intel is true from Russia, then I look at this. Yeah, I look at this guy as someone who could, who could manage a Kiev of, a Ukraine of just the nationalist wing, because that's his, that's his core. So he would be someone who could possibly, if you're the collective West, who could possibly stabilize some sort of Ukraine, which would consist of just the national element. the nationalist elements of Ukraine being in power.

So maybe that's how they're looking at it with this guy. But as far as any negotiations with Russia, no chance. You know, just the final thought. Zelensky was actually talking about some sort of negotiations before November 2024 and the second piece of summit, whatever that even means. But at least he was talking about it. At least he was saying it. They really have messed things up.

I mean, really in a catastrophic way. with this Kersk operation. You know, some people cheer it on. The European Union is cheering it on. Burrell's cheering it on, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Lithuania, near the Baltic states, even Biden the other day kind of cheered it on. But, I mean, this is, this is, this was the dumbest,

the absolute dumbest thing they could have ever done. It was incredibly ill-judged. By the way, just to throw in the very last thing, The Americans are now clearly distancing themselves. Official Washington is trying to distance itself from the operation. They're saying they weren't informed about it. They weren't consulted. This wasn't their plan.

The Germans, by the way, are doing the same. I have actual serious doubts about this. I think the Americans must know how bad the overall military situation and economic situation in Ukraine now is. we have said many times in many programs that the priority is to get Ukraine through in some form before the up to the November election. They don't want to collapse in Ukraine by November. And I wonder whether part of the calculation here was, well, let's give this a throw. Let's see whether it works out if the Ukrainians are able to capture the power station

and force the Russians into some kind of ceasefire, then we'll have pulled it off. We'll have got Ukraine through up to November and we can then hold the election saying that we succeeded in Ukraine. It's not succeeded. So it's actually going to make the situation worse, which is why we see the more intelligent people in Washington. And I'm talking about official Washington, government Washington, leaking stories of the Wall Street Journal saying, you know, they weren't involved, they didn't agree.

This wasn't their plan. The Ukraine has kept it all quiet and secret to themselves. And the Germans are saying the same. By the way, so the British. Which all tells you, by the way, that they're starting to get, they're starting to think that this isn't working out. But Biden said he had direct contact with Ukraine. I don't know who told Biden to say that. But I guess it doesn't matter what Biden says anymore.

I guess that's how they look at it. Yeah. And when the UK telegraph. Go on. And then when I was going to say when the UK, when the UK telegraph talks about how Kamala doesn't like, Zelenski, I think that's meaningful. Anyway, what you were saying?

I was going to be exactly the same point. I mean, now, suddenly things are starting to look wrong in Kuzk and the war generally. So it turns out the climate. Jamala doesn't like Zelensky after all, the fact that she's posed with him many times and given, you know, ostentatious, made ostentatious speeches in support of him. Whatever, that, of course, doesn't really mean anything. He deprived that she doesn't like him, which, by the way, is possibly true. I mean, a lot of people don't like Zelensky.

But anyway, I mean, it's a curious moment to start bringing that up. And again, I wonder whether that's another way for the administration, the Democrats to distance themselves from what is increasingly looking like a debacle. All right. We will end the video there at the durand.orgas.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitch and Telegraph, Rappell, Finn, and Twitter X. And go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like our new t-shirts with... On the sleeves. Yeah, there you go.

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