The Duran Podcast - Moral breaks, panic spreads, big caludron forming w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Moral breaks, panic spreads, big caludron forming w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

All right, Alexander, we are here once again with Stanislav. How are you doing, Stanislav? And where can people follow your work? Doing good. Just got back from Avdyevka, that area. You can follow me on X under Stanislav Kravivnik. You can follow me on Telegram. Stasdaia Abratna is the Russian channel.

Stas was there as the English channel. And on YouTube, Mr. Slavic Man. In fact, just uploaded a couple days ago all the videos from Afghya, or it's left of of Vdeka anyways. All right. I'll have all of those links in the description box down below. Alexander Stanislav, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. Indeed.

And I think we're now at an absolute decisive moment. And things are leading up very much in the way that you said. So Pachrosk has fallen. Bill Zayton is admitting it. There's been attempts by the Ukrainians to pretend otherwise. We've had fake AI videos. Siversk crisis in Sversk, crisis in Zaporosia. You have been close to the battlefronts.

You've been to where the big battles of last year took place. Even bigger, more important battles now. Where are we in the war? Well, we're in that stage of the war where the ball starts rolling downhill, or rather the snowball starts rolling downhill and you're starting to see it's how long got a little bit of snow going down and it's starting to pick up enough volume

that you're noticing that I think there's an avalanche coming our way. As we see, yes, Makrovsk or Krastarmist is officially taken. The attempts to counterattack and open it up have failed. Dimitra for Miragrad.

A lot of these towns have two names because they have the old Soviet name. Some of have three names because they have the Sauri, Zaris named and the Soviet name, and the new Ukrainian name, so it can get a little bit confusing. But Miragrad, we'll just call it Miragrad for now.

That's basically just the southern portion is taken, that low one, two-story private area sector. The high-rise buildings in the north are being shelled. It's basically one giant graveyard. There was maybe 2,000, 2,500, Ukrainian troops still left alive or dying in that area. A lot of these guys are surrendering, but they're being drawn by their own side if they try to surrender. So they have to kind of wait until the Russian troops come in there, assault through, and then surrender,

and I hope not to get shot in the process. But the Russian troops aren't in a hurry to go in there because starvation and cold will do the job, and it's doing it. Now, that whole frontal area is opened up. There's basically 100 kilometers front from the northern edge of Guliipolia all the way up. to the southern edge that's surrounding Constantinofka, there's about 100 kilometers that's basically undefended or very, very lightly defended. What we're seeing now is in that center section, the big fortified areas are gone. This is the last of the big fortified areas.

You have one big set of fortifications up north that's the agglomeration of Slavinsk, Kramatorska, and Constantinofka. Constantinovka in the south from two sides is now invested, and there's battles going on in the southern third. Up north, Krasnilman is about half taken, and it itself is more or less encircled from the north and the northwest, I'm sorry, northeast, and the southern portion, southern third, has already been liberated, and that's going to just put pressure on slimmings from the north. So this whole area is collapsing. There's Guillaipoli is a prime example. The eastern defenses have collapsed totally.

The Russian troops got through the last two fortified villages, covered the last about five, six kilometers to town in a day. I have now invested eastern and central portion of town. There's even been a report of a full bird colonel by the name of Andrei Kavoyev, who was shot by his own men, as two companies of his men or what's left of him were trying to retreat. route is a better word.

And when he tried to turn them around, they just shot him and kept going. So we see a total breakdown, at least in certain areas of military discipline. And the 10 years ago, running from Gulaipolia to Hortner is about 100 kilometers of open fields and small villages that you cannot hold it. So that whole area, it looks like, is about to collapse. Once Gulaipolia goes, and I'd say the rate is going maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks, at the most, could be even faster, depending. Morale, you know, armies can hold, hold, hold,

and then suddenly they break. Because you get that critical mass of morale collapse, and fear is a contagion. It's a faster contagion than any virus. And when it goes, the one unit may be holding, and you've seen the units around it, or parts of the units running, and they're going, oh, crap, we're going to be left behind and dead. We're running too.

and it just starts a ripple effect up and down the line and then lose their minds. Once they become like animals, their only hope is to save their skins, maybe save their buddy skin, maybe, maybe not. A lot of the wounded have been dropped and left to die. Well, they did get picked up by the Russian forces that are coming through, and these guys are running away. And, you know, any army loses the vast majority with troops when it starts routing. That's when the vast majority get killed in the process.

Not when they're standing and fighting, but actually when they're routing, when morale breaks. And that's what we're seeing. And we're seeing two very large cauldrons, well, one smaller cauldron, one large cauldron forming in Kharkov, in eastern Kharkov. Kupinsk has taken. The area between Kupinsk and Konstantanov, Konstinka, these names repeat, a bunch of times and all these oblasts. So you got a pocket of maybe about a thousand Ukrainians with their backs to the Oka River. And just south of that is a pocket that's forming with at least

another two and a half, three thousand Ukrainians with their backs between the Oka, where the Oka falls into the Serebranca and Krasniliman is the southern anchor of that. Once Krasnilman falls, that closes most of the routes. Try swimming across bloated rivers. There are have risen up because of the rains. There's no ice down there. I just came back from those areas. There's no ice in Moscow right now. It's only, it's been a very warm winter.

So rain every single day. The rivers are up. The currents are high. Try swimming across that and ice cold water. You're not going to make it. Most of them won't make it. So there's these cauldrons forming. And that's a collapse coming.

Absolutely. Can I just say a few things quickly? I've had to deal with panic in many situations. I can't imagine panic in a battlefield, but you're absolutely right. If panic starts to circulate and take hold, it spreads like wildfire. It's absolutely almost impossible to stop or bring under control. That is one. Secondly, as I've discussed in many programs, I've been a walker.

I like to walk in the countryside. Don't do it as much as I did. You're absolutely right. Crossing a river in winter, swimming across a river in winter, is absolute folly, especially with drones and missiles and men trying to shoot you. I mean, I can't imagine such a thing as possible. Retreating across open country in winter, in the mud, soggy conditions with the cold. Again, I mean, that's a horrendous idea.

Nobody should expect soldiers in battle to try and do that kind of thing. Now, I want to ask you about two places. One is Sivasque. It's been a lot of talk about Sivask. Julian Gepke, who's built Zeitung, says it was the most powerful position that the Ukrainians had across the entire front lines. He's probably wrong about that, but I wanted to ask you about what is actually going on in Sivask and what the consequences of the potential fall of Sivask are. And there's another place in Zaporosia region that called Stepnogorsk, if you could tell us about those. Well, I doubt it

I doubt it's the most built up. First of all, Syverskis is in Kharkov. So it's in the northern portion. That wasn't the originally a major area of the line. Most of the line that was built up over years and years was the Donvoss. That was the Eleanor-Denair territories. And I came back from what was the biggest fortress.

and it's gone. Avdyevka is going to have to be, there's still people living there, amazingly enough. You go in there, it's been a little over a year and a half. drones are still flying overhead. American equipment all over the place.

I picked up, well, it's ruined, obviously, but a plate for an American armored vest that's been shot in, and they're just lying everywhere. I check for mines and booby traps. I won't be a boobie. But, you know, it's just abandoned everywhere.

Most of the bodies have been picked up, except the ones that are really deep in the rubble that has to be cleared out. But that was the number one fortress. That was the point that was most prepared. You know, you have these eight to ten stories, sometimes higher buildings. Some of these buildings are a wall.

I mean, they will go, some of these buildings, especially will go for maybe two, 300 meters of just building, right? and it's 10 stories high, and you have to clear every single room out of this, because you don't know who's in there. And they would pour more concrete inside these apartments, force some people out, pour the concrete in there,

especially the first two floors, so they could take more rounds before crumbling. And they don't really crumble that well. As a matter of fact, you have to use some serious ordinance to get them to crumble. Serious bombs. Direct fire artillery isn't going to really crumble them. Interesting enough, he'll put holes in them,

It'll blast up portions of them, but they don't go down. These are Soviet constructions that are just, it's hard to describe them. I mean, you look at them as like, how do people still live in these years? But these areas, that was the number one fortification. Everything else, it was a shadow of it. And if Dyevka was taken, now Pachroska was fortified, not as heavily fortified. Remember, Pachroska was in the rear. And as we go further up into Kharkov Oblast, you're like,

looking at fortifications that they mostly were pouring in the last year and a half, two years, in a frenzied effort, as they were getting hit, too. You know, Ukraine did something very, very stupid early on, and it takes, it's an incredible level of stupidity. And it's Zillusion is fault in this case, actually, not even the Sierskis. When Bachmut was in play, they decided to build the next line of fortifications behind Bachman. So they gathered 3,000 construction workers and engineers, brought in the equipment, started working on this new line, and then Zaluzi had them militarized, conscripted, in other words, on the spot and threw them in Bachman where they all die, because they're not prepared, they're not combat soldiers, zero for zero effort. And because of that, the rest of their lines having difficulty. Because they threw away their best construction workers.

for what, an extra day in Bachwood, maybe? Maybe. And this is the problem. See, Eversk is falling. It's invested from the north. It's going to fall. It's cut off from supply. So whatever they manage to hoard in those areas,

you know, when you say running across fields, if you've never ran across black earth, it's not a field. It is porridge at best. You know, I've been through many browns, mud fields where the boots are almost sucked off your feet and you're pulling up an extra kilo or five of dirt every time you take a step, this is a whole different level. It's a quagmire.

And if you get rid of that top level of grass, you know, by vehicles churning it all up, for example, no vehicle will pass. I mean, even Russian tanks with wide threads made for this kind of, or have problems getting across. Western technology, which had a problem back in 1941, and thankfully still has the same exact problem. There are treads. They just sink into this. So soldiers running across it, they're not going to carry any heavy equipment. You cross, I mean, I've crossed, you know, 200 meters, and you're exhausted because it's just sucking every footstep. It takes a lot of effort to pull it up. Your boots come off. It'll take your socks off your feet, and it's

cold outside. You know, it's plus two, plus three, rain, and trying to get across that is incredibly difficult. And if it's a drone coming, you might as just sit down and wait for it. Because you're not going to dodge it. There's zero chance of dodging. Especially, it's a hard thing

to do in dry grounds, let alone in this muck. I mean, it's quagmire. It's the word quagmire. It's almost like quicksand, except it's mud. What about Stepna Gorsk? What is the situation there. And why is Step Magosk important? Because it's

been talked about even in the Western media, by the way. So tell us a bit about Stepmogosk. It's part of the Zaporozio line. And the Zaporosia line as a whole is collapsing. The problem with the Zaporosia line, it really has only two anchors. It has Guillaiprode and the towns around it in the east. And it has the western areas. In the north of Guriyaipolia is a very large fortified area lined.

But it's not that deep. It's well fortified. But it's not, it's anchored between Gulliipolia in the south and the Gorsk in the north. But once you get around it to the north of it, there's nothing there. And that's exactly what Russian forces are doing. They're going all the way to the north around it and then coming down the back end of it. and you just roll the positions up because they're cut off. There's no in-depth fortification.

And past that, it's open step. It's open step straight to Zaporosia City, and only there you start hitting fortified suburbs and areas like that. And there's no place to hold. There's just absolutely no place to hold. So once this northern portion is breached, you can invest Guadai Poli from the north. And that's what we're seeing happening right now.

It's being steadily flanked and starting to get rolled up. Okay, quick question. About Zaporosia City itself, I've heard it's undefendable, that it's all on the East Bank, that if it's surrounded on land, communication across the river is incredibly difficult. Is that true? Yes. I mean, okay, look, depending on your resources, anything can be taken. Depending on your resources, anything can be held if you've got enough resources.

So let's say something's fully undefendable. Well, no, you can't really say that if you have enough resources and logistics to hold it. Problem is, you're right. Logistics have to go across a river. A swollen river. There is a bridge. The good thing about that bridge is Russia sure is hell is not going to blow that bridge up. It may show, it may drone, whatever is coming across it,

but Russia absolutely does not want to take that bridge out because that bridge is absolutely necessary to exploit any movement into western bank of Dnepa Petro Dneper River. North toward Nepa Petrosk, south toward Nicopole, a nice little industrial town

been there, had a supplier there, or west into good Lord, what's the name of the town, West, it's... Krivorog? Yes, yes, Krivorog. Sorry, escape me. Yeah, or Krivorog. On the one hand, you can't move toward Addessa or First Nikolaia without neutralizing those three

because you got one directly in front of you and you got two flanking positions that you have to neutralize. But either way, you need to capture that side. The Ukrainians might try to blow the bridge. For them, that will be something that have to do. So it will be a fight for the bridge, landing special forces in the area, trying to hold a bridge or losing the bridge. All depends. But those bridges, those bridges were Soviet. built bridges. And they were literally built to survive a nuclear strike. This is over-architected,

over-engineered buildings. That's why it was so slow for the Ukrainians to try to cut the bridges to Khrasan. In the end, Russia blew them themselves. And it took a lot of effort to blow those bridges that were already heavily damaged. But they stood. They stood through massive amounts of rockets. But Dulaip, Zaporja city itself is in a flat area. Its back is up against the river. So yes, if you're being surrounded and it's mostly open areas, yeah, you can take it. It's takeable. But, you know, from Western Donetsk to Avdyevka is a great example.

Now, Western Danesk is still being shelved, and even other portion of Danesk are being shelved. I hadn't been five months in Danesk. We drove in and we're spotting new buildings that have been destroyed in eastern Danyets. So they're still shelling going on up. But between Danyetsk and Avdyevka is about five, six kilometers of open fields. And that's where you get a good feeling for, as you're going through this, looking at it. You know, having to advance through those kinds of areas is hard. Retreating to them is suicide.

Advancing to them is hard because there's not that much cover. There's some tree lines. the best you can and that would be under pre-droned conditions drone conditions everything changes the only thing that

a big big plus on Russia's side right now is this time of year because these areas suffer from massive amounts of fog I'm talking to fog where you get about three to five meters of visibility ahead of you. That kind of fog. Thick fog, heavy fog.

fog and wind. Oh, the wind in those areas is very strong. Because a step. Well, right now it's rain later will be snow, but snow, wind, fog is the best anti-drone protection you could ever ask for. Drones are not stable. I mean, realistically speaking, any serious wind, three plus, four plus meters per second, and the drones already having problems. You get a wind going closer or 10 and they're gone. They're done. At least the squadro drones. Fog, they don't even bother

of flying in a fog because they can't see anything. I mean, by the time you see a target, you probably pass most of your targets. You'll never see them. Rain, rain also damages. If it's gust of wind and heavy rain, it'll take a drone down. So that's the best weather.

And this is the weather of winter in these areas. It's heavy fog. It's heavy wind and it's rain or snow. Last question, very last questions. Is there anything Ukraine can do to turn this thing ground? Or are we now beyond the tipping point? You said at the beginning, it's rolling downhill.

The ball is now rolling downhill. Is there anything Ukraine can do? If I was commanding Ukraine, well, short of pulling NATO in, and that still won't stop the Russian army, it'll just prolong the war and cost a lot more lives on both sides. but sure because NATO physically you throw everything NATO has in it right now including the U.S. military

and it won't stop the Russian military at this moment. There's not enough experience, not enough equipment for this kind of warfare. It'll make it a bloody slogging match on the levels of World War II. Plus, true enough, it'll cost Russia a lot, but it still wouldn't stop. Because Russia can out economy

and out mobilize anybody in the rest of Europe. If we're talking about military mobilization, people with any amount of military experience, I'm talking from one-year conscription to contract service, $32 million. That's what Russia can mobilize. Of course, you never mobilize them because you can't feed them. You can't field an army that big at any time. Even the Great Patriotic War, it was, I think, 18 or 19 million was mobilized at any time.

Now, logistics-wise, if I was on the Ukrainian side, I would be breaking to the other side of the Nyepper right now, trying to do a controlled retreat and try to hold. In the end, the Nnepper will fall also. Nenepper is not even the Mississippi. It's a big river, but it's a river in the end of the day. And all rivers are affordable, including the Mississippi. And this is smaller than Mississippi, quite a bit smaller. So, you know, that would be the best time saver. But that's all you get is a time save.

Holding to the end in these positions, I mean, Zelensky's doing Hitler's bit. The only thing that saved the Nazis on the defense was that Hitler's generals just ignored his orders and manure the troops out, which, by the way, why Hitler was changing generals constantly, because they wouldn't listen to him for his idiotic plans. Stand to the end.

Okay, well, you get surrounded, you get wiped out, but that's what we're seeing the Ukrainian army do. Zeruzziulian he was the general Hitler would have loved. He follows orders, no matter how many troops he would. loses to get the last letter. But that's about all they can do. I mean, really, they are out of resources. They have 400,000 listed desertees, cases of desertion, 400,000. That's the combined armed forces of France and England. I mean, and that's just desertions. And the worst part is, a lot of these desertions in the last two months, they're not newly mobilized guys. They're

veterans. So figure out that, you know, I'm getting off this battlefield in one of two ways, or three ways, dead, P-O-W, or wound it, and maybe they'll evacuate, maybe they'll leave me to die, so maybe only two ways. Well, there's other option. I'm leaving. Thank you. Been fun, bye-bye. 400,000 cases, and I'm sure there's probably more than that. So you're looking at an army that's immoral and physical collapse, and keeping it on the line of contact as much as you can, is not going to solve anything. But thank God for idiots on the other side. That's all I can say.

Stanislav, you've been, that's excellent, excellent summary altogether. Thank you very, very much. And obviously, we'll no doubt be speaking to you again soon because I have a sense that things are going to start moving very fast from now on. Thank you, indeed. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Maybe even, even Hodges was going to suddenly realize that things aren't necessarily. Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. He will not realize, that's for sure. If there's one person that will not realize, it'll be honest.

But anyway, Stadislav, before you go, where can people follow you? An ex-Slazlav Kripivnik on Telegram. Stas, today Abratna, is the Russian channel. Stas was there is the English channel. And on YouTube at Mr. Slavic, man, Slavic O'd a K, not a C. All right, those links are in the description box down below. I will also have them as a pin comment. Thanks, Stanislav.