The Duran Podcast - Media forgets Zelensky as frontline worsens for Ukraine military

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

Media forgets Zelensky as frontline worsens for Ukraine military

Right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine. And a lot of fighter jets, Ukraine fighter jets are being shot down. I think Shoygoo said something like 24. Ukraine fighter jets have been shot down. He even said that the Ukraine military is getting weaker and weaker by the day. And news about leopard tanks being destroyed. Even Forbes confirmed this, that I think three or four leopard tanks. were destroyed in the last couple of days. And the front lines, well, things are looking very bad

for the Oletsky regime, the Ukraine military. They're evacuating in multiple areas, Kupyansk, Avdivka, evacuating settlements at villages. And Avdivka, fighting is fierce. The Ukraine channels, they say that the Russians are losing a terrible amount of soldiers and men in Avdivka, but they press on. You're not getting those kinds of reports from the Russian side of things. But it's hard to tell what exactly is going on in Avdifka. The one certainty is that the Russians will eventually capture Avdifka. Even Aristovic said as much the other day in a message.

He said that he is absolutely positive that Russia will capture Avdifka. And, of course, Kupyanska, pretty much the same news coming out of Kupyansk, military, is evacuating people, and the Russians continue to advance in Kupianz, the North area.

The counter-offensive for Ukraine, no one's even talking about it. No, except quite honest. The South. So, yeah. Except, of course,

for Zelensky himself, who says that they must advance 500 meters a day, which is an astonishing speech, by the way, and tells us how panicky they're actually becoming. And in fact, there's rumors.

And, of course, one always has to say that these are rumors, but they're rumors that are circulating in Ukrainian channels, telegram channels, and that the kind of rumors that have proved in the past to be true of meetings between Zelensky and Zoluzni, and Zelensky, the rumors say, told Zalusini that of D'evka must be held at all costs, and apparently this time Zaluzni agreed with Zelensky, because Avdavka is seen as so important to the entire Ukrainian defence system in the Donbas. And so they're having to recommit troops from all kinds of places to defend in Avdegovka,

which is why leopard tanks and those kind of things are appearing there. But that effectively means that real serious offensive operations by Ukraine everywhere else are now being put on hold. They're giving up on them. So, yes, there is this big crisis in Afdeafka. And I should say straight away, I think that no doubt the Russians have taken heavy losses in Avdavka, but I also think not on the scale that the Ukrainians are claiming. And I get the sense, always, there's a lot of uncertainty and fog of war about these things. But I think that Aristovic is absolutely right.

The Russians are incrementally and steadily tightening their grip around Avdegovka. I think Avdavka will fall. Just as Aristovic says, I'm not going to put a timeline on this. It may be a protracted business. But let's put aside what's going on on the front lines. I think every bit as alarming for the Ukrainians, perhaps even more alarming for the Ukrainians, in terms of military developments,

is what looks like the collapse of their Air Force, Again, we are relying on Russian claims, but the Russian claims in the past about Ukrainian material losses turn out to be true. We are hearing that 24 Ukrainian aircraft have been shot down by the Russians over the space of one week. This is what Shoyko says. We now hear that the Russians are deploying AWACS aircraft to Ukraine on a much more regular basis than before. that these AWACS aircraft are operating alongside S-400 surface-to-air missiles, which have enormously extended range. The way in which these AWACS aircraft and the missiles work

is that the AWACS aircraft provide data signals to the Russian missiles, and they're able to direct the missiles at Ukrainian air. and of course because the AWACS aircraft are flying, they're able to detect every single Ukrainian aircraft that's operating at every point everywhere apparently now in Ukraine. So that already tells us some things. It tells us that the Russians are able to put their AWACS aircraft further forward than has been in the case before. Clearly they feel that the Ukrainian missile system has been degraded as well and they are obliterating if they're accountable. the Ukrainian Air Force. And that is leaving Ukraine

materially exposed. We see Ukraine is also suffering very heavy losses on the battlefronts. It's having to rush troops to fight in Afdaafka. It's losing troops and losing tanks there. It's losing troops and tranks in Kupiansk and all sorts of other places as well. And they are now short

of ammunition and the EU is now admitting that they've not been able to provide Ukraine with all the ammunition that they promised. They're becoming short of tanks and armoured vehicles as well and the EU the West can't replace

all those supplies of tanks and they're becoming short of men and this is perhaps the saddest most tragic and in my opinion disturbing thing of all because what they're now doing is they're mobilising women. Now, you know, I have huge issues with this because it's bad enough that all the men, the young men, the men of fertile age have been killed, but it looks like the women are

going to be as well. And, you know, bear in mind, these women will not have been through conscription and will not have gone through, you know, the reserves. So they're not going to have received any kind of pre-mobilization training at all. One gets the same. sense that they're being trained very rapidly in about three weeks thrown into the battlefront they're going to be killed in their hundreds and their thousands and I find it incredible that a government would do this to its own people in that way the Olatzky government will they have done and they will continue to do this to the wrong people yeah they'll it's very it's very very horrific very very

very sad, very horrific to see what's taking place. The new house speaker, Mike Johnson, good or bad for Ukraine? Well, bad for Ukraine is the short answer. I mean, he is one of these people who opposes funding for Ukraine. I mean, he's been consistent about this. Now, apparently, he's not the most experienced person. I mean, I don't know very much about him. We know that there's a huge amount of dealing and negotiation goes on in Congress.

It could very well be that he's going to bend and change his views on this. But I understand that even in the Senate, amongst Republicans there, there is now a shift in sentiment about Ukraine. They're saying that the Biden administration is asking for far too much money for Ukraine. At the least, it looks to me that the $61 billion, that the Biden administration is asking for is going to be very severely cut. Europe isn't able to make up the difference. And Ukraine is already saying the $61 billion is not enough.

It's not enough even to cover the needs of the civilian economy, let alone provide military assistance. And of course, the United States is now sending ammunition to Israel. It's redeploying air defense assets to the military. Middle East, all that means there's less descent to Ukraine. So from every conceivable point of view, the situation for Ukraine is deteriorating. And it is deteriorating fast. And it is terrible when a government in this kind of situation, rather than pick up the phone, calling perhaps Xi Jinping in China, asking him whether he might mediate, that their response

instead is to call up women. Even the Germans at the very end of the Second World War didn't do that. Yeah. So the word is that the ammo is all but gone. And the collective West is not going to be able to provide the ammunition that they promised for Ukraine. The reports from Bloomberg's, from Bloomberg is that the EU promised a million rounds by March, 2004. And they're only going to be able, or at this. moment, they've only been able to provide 30% of that if, if that is to be believed. And so

they're not going to get to that million mark of ammunition shells. And even if they were to provide the million ammunition shells, Ukraine would use it up within a very short time span. So, I mean, this is coming towards the end of the road for the Zelensky regime. I mean, I don't see how they're going to make it through the, through the next year. I, I, I, I completely agree with that. I mean, can I just say. We haven't even talked about the, the conflict in, in, in, Middle East either, which is taking all the attention as well as a lot of the, the weapons and the money, yeah. Absolutely. I completely agree. Now, can I just say, I mean, with the ammunition thing, we discussed this so many times, we said that the EU was never going to

define the million shells that it was talking about. Now, the way it was presented back in March was that those million shells were going to be provided for Ukraine's offensive. Now, you know, they were all supposed to be supplied by March of 2024, but the bulk of them were supposed to be provided to cover the needs of the offensive in the spring and summer. And it's clear that Ukraine has only got a fraction of that. What the EU has achieved? achieved is, yeah, they've provided some shells to Ukraine, but they've quadrupled the price of shells in the European Union. The cost of shells has increased from $2,000 each, which is already very high, by the way, to $8,000 a shell. Now, who would have thought it? Throw money at a problem.

There's a finite number of shells that you can produce. Anybody who has any kind of kind of business experience at all. You have? To a lesser extent I have, would know. So that is all you're going to achieve. You're throw money at a problem. But, you know, you could only provide an finite number of shells in any one particular time. All that you're going to do is increase your costs. And that is exactly what has happened. Okay. So what should, uh, what should happen now what what should take place well is going to take place well what should happen is very different from what what will happen what should happen is that somebody in the white house or or in berlin or paris or better still in kiev should contact china because they're the

only people who can exercise any mediation function ask the chinese to start some kind of diplomatic mediation process. The Russians have always said that they're very, you know, receptive to Chinese ideas and try to secure peace in Ukraine, try to end the war, because what is happening is Ukraine is being destroyed and its people are being destroyed. I mean, this is the important thing to understand. There is no sign that anyone is doing that.

The US is focused exclusively on. the Middle East. The Europeans are all over the place. The Ukrainians, as I said, are calling up women. I read some. I think again it was on Bloomberg, but I might have been one. It was the Washington Post, that there are contacts between the Russians and the Ukrainians at a very low level going on in Istanbul, but it's clear that those are not leading to any kind of diplomatic action. So nobody is talking peace, even as the war is taking for you. Ukraine, an even more disastrous and tragic turn. And we come back to what those Russian officials were saying about three weeks ago,

that Ukraine's choice is very simple. It either accepts Russian terms or it ceases to exist as a state. And we're getting ever closer to that last second possibility. You know, we've talked about Ukraine. I discussed yesterday in my programme on my channel, a statement about the, a short, very brief statement that the Russian Ministry of Defence had published in which they said that, you know,

that they're proceeding step by step, steadily, purposefully, rhythmically towards victory. Now that's the kind of statement that the Russians would only release if they felt that they are now moving to, towards a military victory in Ukraine. And I think that is where we are. But no one in the West, or even in Kiev, seems to be awake to that. Maybe Aristovic is, I suspect Zelensky himself is becoming increasingly frightened and nervous,

but nobody's taking any action to bring this war to an end. The Europeans are nervous. I think the Europeans understand that the U.S. is going to dump Ukraine on this. Yeah. And that's what's happening. Yeah. What is the... I mean, you know, the Europeans, above all, should have worked night and day to prevent a war like this happening in Europe.

It was in their power to prevent it. Instead, we got Oscella von der Leyen, who treated it as this great crusade against Moscow. All crusades against Moscow launched from Europe end in disaster. And this is just... This is just the latest one. All right.

We'll end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitshoot, telegram, rock fit, and Twitter X. Then go to the Duran shop. 20% off. Use the code of the Duran 20. Take care.