The Duran Podcast - Morning Dagestan Telegram brings angry mob to airport

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Morning Dagestan Telegram brings angry mob to airport

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on Ukraine. And let's, how about we start things off with what happened at the airport in Dagestan? Obviously, obviously, this was, I don't want to say, obviously, in my opinion, this was a setup. And you sent me an article from the Financial Times, which admitted as much that this was a setup by the former, he was a former Duma member, I believe, Elia. Bonomareof. Bono Mareof. There you go. And now he's living in Kiev and he organizes these types of subversions.

And from what I understand, he has some sort of hand in this telegram channel, which has 50,000 subscribers called Morning Dagestan. And they're the ones that got this organ, this protest together. And in Dagestan, they fell for it. They fell for it without realizing that this telegram channel is not a pro-Russian nationalist telegram channel. It's actually owned by Ukraine. And so when the Financial Times admits as much, okay, they got Russia on this one. This was an interesting sci-op.

What else? And of course, Zelensky's tweet was already prepared. He had a tweet ready and waiting and it was sent off. So, I mean, anyway, let's start off with that one. And then we'll talk about, because that's Russia and Ukraine there. And of course, you had the Washington Post article, or was it in New York Times, Washington Post article. Last week, which said that the CIA and the SBU are pretty much, you know, interconnected. So what are your thoughts on that?

Right. Well, let's start. Let's start with Dagestan, because I think this is. a big story. It's one that has got the Russians very, very worried and very angry. And you're absolutely correct that all the indications are that it was basically not, you know, a major role in it was played by this particular telegram channel, which is run from Kiev. Now, Ilya Puanomariov set it up. He almost certainly, in my opinion, still runs it. I would say that he's told the financial times that he severed his connections to it a year ago.

But that you have to believe him. And I'm not sure that I do, to be honest. So, I mean, there we go. He is a well-known opponent of Putin. And in my opinion, I would describe him as a political hired gun. He's a hired gun for sale. The Ukrainians have owned him. And he now does what the Ukrainians want.

Now, Dagestan is a complex republic. He's a Muslim. is in the Northern Caucasus. It has been a place where jihadi fighters have attempted to entrench themselves. Remember that throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Russians had to face a very bitter and very prolonged war, firstly against Chechen, separatists, and then that morphed into a struggle against jihadi insurgents in the Caucasus.

Now, the thing to say is that Dagestan is a Muslim republic. There are people there are very religious as they are right across the Caucasus. But the jihadists discovered that they were not wanted in Dagestan. and when they tried to send their people into Dagestan in 1999, what they discovered to their surprise was that the local people actually took up arms and fought them and showed that they were still supportive of, you know, wanted to remain part of Russia. So it's a complex place, but there has been a long-standing belief in the West in the jihadi world, if you like,

the Dagestan is a weak spot for Russia that you can create problems and a crisis there. And for the Russian government, obviously, they do not want a resumption of a jihadi insurgency in the northern Caucasus, especially whilst they've still got this ongoing war. in Ukraine and of course

they've also got to worry about the feelings in Chechnya we now have three regiments of Chechen troops fighting in the Ukraine war the Chechians have rallied to the course

and they're determined fighters and they're playing a critical role in the battles in Ukraine but of course they're devout Muslims again and you don't want to have situations in the Caucasus, where it looks as if the Russian authorities are coming down hard on Muslim feeling in the Caucasus, and that might make some of those Chechen fighters doubt that they are fighting on the right side. So you can see that the Russians are very concerned

about Muslim feeling in the Caucasus and about the stability of places like Dagestan. And from the other side, and this is the Ukrainian thinking here, if you can get Muslim mobs, raiding airports, threatening Jewish people. Well, of course, from the Russian point of view, this is a disaster. The optics of this are disastrous. It makes people around the world, including in Russia, Jewish people, worry about their safety in Russia. So this is a very difficult situation for the Russians,

one that they're very angry about and one which I have to say again because of their complete interest in the propaganda side of things they let it happen I mean this telegram channel has existed they haven't taken proper steps to counter it they've not really worked

with the local people in Dagestan to try to respond to it they've not exposed it for what it is and we saw that the story was put about that this plane was flying in from Tel Aviv, that Jewish refugees were going to be settled, presumably in Baghistan. The story was whipped up, who knows what other agents were operating in Dagestan, and by some reports, around 500 people were persuaded to go to the airport and stormed the airport, threatened the plane

and threatened passengers on the plane and try to check passports and do all of those things. Anyway, it was brought under control very fast and from what I can tell no actual fighting took place which is as if for the Russian authorities is important.

They're trying to find out who the perpetrators were. This telegram channel has now been finally blocked which not before time but it It exposes again the difficulties that the Russians have in the Caucasus. And the fact that they still, you know, incredibly, after all this time, fighting in Ukraine,

haven't really got fully on top of the propaganda war. It remains their great blind spot. It remains Putin's blind spot. He doesn't seem to understand the importance of this. Now, I think the Russians have contained the situation in Dagestan, and I think that probably this incident is closed, but I gather there's going to be a special meeting in Moscow to discuss the situation. There, I suspect Kadyrov from Chechnya will be participating. So will be the head of the Dagestan government, who's a man called Melikov, who apparently is a level-headed and tough-minded person. and who made a very strong statement after this incident,

which I think helped to calm things. And apparently the religious authorities in Dagestan are also helped to calm things. So I think that they will get this under control. But again, it does highlight some of the weaknesses in the way the Russians handle things. And one has to say that. Yeah, they didn't. They don't even have to cancel the channel. All they had to do, because from what I understand, many people understood that

this channel was out of, out of Kiev. Yes. I mean, I don't think this was like some big secret, at least in the media, in the professional media circles, maybe for everyday people, they had no idea. But amongst, you know, like the professional media folks, they, they understood that this channel had some ties to Kiev was being funded by Kiev. All the Russian government had to do is just announce that. Absolutely.

The people of Dagestad, you know, yeah, if you're, if you're following, morning Dagestan, just keep in mind that, you know, they're funded by Kyiv. Like, they're literally funded. They're funded by Kiev. They're not, they're not independent journalists living in Kiev. No, they're funded by Kiev. Just keep that in mind. And that would have gone a long way to preventing stuff like this. You don't even have to get to the point of canceling. But, you know, that this highlights how Russia is, is not getting it when it comes to the information side of the conflict. Absolutely.

Just don't get it. Absolutely. You'd have thought, sir. And I mean, can I just say, of course, this is one telegram channel that's run from Kiev. There are lots of others. And I've started to see. Just announce them.

I know, I know. But this is the extraordinary thing. You cancel them. Just do an article. Go to the media. I know. Do an article. These are the channels that are funded by these guys and there you go.

Follow them at your own risk. Exactly. I am repeatedly seeing now, especially the British media. These telegram channels, some of which purport to be Russian channels, connected with various branches of the Russian armed forces, being cited as corroborating claims of Ukrainian advances or Russian defeats of this guy. Now, I don't know all of these channels, and it may be that some of these are genuine, but I suspect many of them, perhaps most of them, are not.

Most of them are channels I've never heard of. But the fact is that the Russians just let this thing go on and they don't seem to understand how much damage it can do. I'm going to also say something else. The fact that people rushed to the airport and started doing these things, I mean, the optics are disastrous and I gather not many people were involved,

but this also looked like an organised affair to me. And it does make me wonder whether there wasn't, there hasn't been some kind of a cell operating in Dagestan for some time, which is, you know, doing what it's trying to do there. And again, that the Russian authorities have just basically looked the other way and allowed it to fester. So, you know, they've got lots of questions to ask and they've got to think about very hard about what they're doing. It's important to stress, again, not many people actually, despite what one hears, appear to. have been involved, and I get the sense that overall Dagestan is stable. Yeah, it's stable. I mean, I don't think this is a, as is going to have such big ramifications going for. I think this is an isolated incident. But if Russia doesn't get a handle on,

on these types of media tricks, that Ukraine and the CIA, the SPA and the CIA are so good at, they don't only do this in Russia. They do this in the United States as well. They're very good at this stuff. Yes. So Russia has to, has to get a handle on, on these things. And you don't need to cancel channels,

to be honest. You just need to, to just, you know, give people the information as, you know, who's behind these telegram channels. Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, in truth, I tend to agree. I think it's more effective, actually, not to cancel them, but to expose them. So, you know, if you want to listen to them, but be aware of whom you're listening to.

They are not what they're, purport to be. And you can provide all the information. And people actually, when you do that, I think that they tend to listen and they tend to figure it out pretty well and pretty quickly for themselves. But you're absolutely correct. If you just sit by and let all this thing be done to you, then, you know, it's going to continue to happen. And it has. It repeatedly happens to the Russians. And I just get the sense. This is one of Putin's big blind spots. He really doesn't understand the importance of this. All right.

Well, let's talk then about what's going on in Avdyevka, which I think is the big battle that is taking place right now. And here we also have, I mean, there's the fighting and there's the actual conflict that is happening in Avdefka. And then you have the media side of things where if you're watching the UK, if you're listening to the U.S., especially the UK, if you're listening to the UK media about Evdifka, The Russian army has been completely decimated. Yeah.

Descimated. There's nothing left. The Russian side of things is pretty much as they've been reporting it, the Russian media, as they've been reporting the entire conflict, where they just, you know, step by step day by day. They're just giving you the information as to what they're accomplishing on a very incremental methodic processes. The Russian media is reporting this as they've been reporting the whole conflict. The UK media and the West media is reporting Afdefka as if it's Russia's, I guess, Russia's Bahmoud in a way. Yeah, quite true.

Now, I mean, we had a crack yesterday, which is there was an article in the London Times, a big article in the London Times, which basically admitted you have to drill through it. And, of course, it contained an awful lot of other claims, which were favourable. to Ukraine. But when you actually read the article carefully, it was clear that they understand that the situation, that there are people in Britain who understand that the situation in Avdyevka is turning out, is going very badly for Ukraine and that this is a crisis. And the interesting thing about this article in the London Times is that basically it said that if Ukraine loses Avdhaevka, this is the loss of the hinge on the entire Ukrainian military position in the southern

Donbas. And I think this is probably true. So if, you know, Avdavka falls, the road networks is basically interrupted, it's blocked. It's much more difficult to organize counterattacks to retake Avdegovka than it has been, for example, to organize countertraks, to try to retake Bahmah, those haven't been working very well either. But anyway, if Avdavka falls, you can see that there could be a cascade effect, that Marinka, where the Ukrainians have been trying to, have been clinging on to some fortified positions on the west and outskirts, Marinka would probably collapse because the communications to Marinka would become threatened.

Once Marinka collapses, Vuglodafa, the south, potentially collapses as well. the entire southern Donbass is cleared. Ultimately, Donette city itself is secured. You then start to be able to interfere with Ukrainian military operations further south in Zaporosia region, which is where Ukraine has been trying to conduct its offensive. And, of course, also you start to threaten Ukrainian positions in other places like the important town of Pakrovsk further west. So this article in the London Times,

they didn't laid out exactly as I did, but they admitted that the Russians are actually making progress, that they're getting places like Slag heap, the co-plants, all of these places, that they're making actual advances there. And they also said that Avdivka is strategically important and that it is, if Ukraine loses it,

it will be a disaster for Ukraine. And the article also appeared to confirm, at least it spoke of rumours, that this is from a British source, mind you. Rumours that Zelensky and Zollosheny are quarrelling once more, and that Zollosuny wants to go on over onto the defensive everywhere, in every part of the battle lines, and because he sees the situation as in Avdaevka, is so critical, and he wants to concentrate whatever Ukraine has left to try to protect the position, trying to protect his position in Hafdegovka. But that Zelensky, who follows a political, or shall we say, presentational timetable, wants to take a different approach,

and he wants offensives to continue in all kinds of other places. In Zaporosia, in Herson, they're not achieving anything there, but he wants to, continue with it because that's important in order to maintain support in the West. So apparently these two leaders, Zollusioni and Zelensky, are arguing once more. Yeah, but none of these strategies will lead to any type of win for either of them. No. Delusionne's plan to throw everything into Afdefka doesn't result in a win and Zelensky's plan to focus on all the front line. It doesn't give them a win.

No. In whichever road they take, it's, it's game over, whichever. Absolutely. I mean, Zillusionis... Whichever one of these two men wins out in their strategy is still game over. You could argue, actually, that Zoluzni's strategy makes more sense in military terms, in that it delays from a military point of view the inevitable eventual collapse. Sorry, if he gets his way.

And Zelensky's approach makes more political. sense in that maintaining the fiction that Ukraine is still on the offensive is essential to prevent loss of support in the West, loss of final support in the West. And this also delays the now inevitable collapse. So it's two different approaches, each of which has their own logic. But of they're mutually exclusive. You can't do both at the same time because the reality is Ukraine is running out of options. And you can see this not just enough, Defka, but it's been very difficult to get very much of a sense about what's going on in Kharkov region, in Kupyansk. But there's now reports coming interestingly from Ukrainian sources, which suggest that the

situation around Kupyansk is becoming every bit of the... dangerous and potentially as disastrous for Ukraine as the situation in our day of Korea is, in other words, the Russians are gradually steadily building up their pressure in this northern area. And again, their objective seems to be less to capture Kupiansk, you know, the city on the Oswald River, as to cause the greatest possible degree of attrition to the Ukrainian forces in Kharkov region and also at the same time to surround them. And we now see this disaffected ex-Ukrainian general, General Kriponos, who is now giving interviews in Kiev saying, you know, that Zelensky has completely botched the defences in the north around Kupiansk and that Ukraine is facing a crisis

there and that, you know, obviously if he'd been in charge, General Kriponos himself had been in charge, things would have been done differently, but you can already see that this panic is clearly starting to build. And it appears to be taking hold, you know, right across, right across, you know, Ukraine. I mean, they sense that Western aid is now gradually ebbing. They know that they're in competition for Israel with, for military equipment. And bear in mind, the Israelis, the media in the West is now talking about a war in Gaza. They could last for a whole year. So, you know, a whole year of the US having to provide Israel with military support for its operation in Gaza.

I mean, that is a nightmare scenario for Ukraine. And you can already see nerves, the nerves are starting to grow in Western Europe as well. well as they sense that the situation in Ukraine is deteriorating. We have Josef Borrell coming out, making statements about, you know, we can't let the Russian army come all the way to the Polish border. So suddenly, we're in that kind of scenario. He's obviously worried about that. We see Pistorius, the German defense minister, talking about the real possibility of a big war in

Europe and how Germany must start to prepare for that. Again, clear sign of nerves. And you have these terrible admissions from the Europeans that they haven't succeeded in increasing arms production, ammunition. They've only supplied Ukraine with a third of the ammunition that they said that they would, and that they're not going to be able to supply at all. And we see more pictures now of Bernie Bradley's, more of them have been shot down, more Ukraine. aircraft are being shot down. The Ukraine is being ground... The Russians are grinding Ukraine down.

They're grinding Ukraine down in Avdejvka. They're grinding Ukraine down in Kupians. They're destroying Ukraine's air force. They're taking Ukraine's air force apart, step by step. And Ukraine is running out of options about what to do. And as you absolutely rightly say, these two strategies, Zaluzni's strategy and Zelensky's strategy, They don't offer a long-term solution.

It's just about buying time. And Ukraine will eventually get money. They'll get money from the EU. They'll get money from the U.S. But all it does is it just buys them a little more time. You're not going to change the results of what's coming. And, you know, Victor Orban. He said it just the other day when he voted no to the $53 billion in EU.

aid to Ukraine. He said, Ukraine lost this war. I mean, that was pretty much what he said. He said, it's over. Ukraine lost. There's no way they can win. He said, there's no way you're going to get a regime change in Moscow. So why give this money? And now he has Fizzo in Slovakia, who is saying, why should we give this money to a corrupt regime?

I mean, you know, it's clear. Even Zelensky, the other day, didn't he say that he's going to have to have an operational pause in the Zaporosia direction because he's uncertain about money and weapons because of everything that's happening in in the world. I mean, the Europeans look at that and I'm sure they're saying even Zelensky is calling for an operational pause in Zaporosia.

What's going on here? I mean, even the biggest deniers of the conflict, you know, Ukraine is, Russia is winning, those deniers, they have to take a look at everything that's being said and done and say this is not happening. Well, exactly. Not going to beat Russia. Well, exactly. I think that this is absolutely correct.

I think that it's, I think that loss of belief in victory is starting to set in, certainly in the West, certainly within the Ukrainian political leadership. I don't know to what extent this has been understood by the wider Ukrainian population, but the reports are that Zelensky's poll ratings are collapsing and we're starting to see again a resumption of protests. You remember right at the start of the war at the time of the fighting in places like Mariupol and Severodonetsk and Lizzy Chansk,

there were lots of people in Ukraine protesting asking what has happened to their menfolk and that kind of thing. Then of course we had the successful Ukrainian offensives in Harkov and Kerson and that all melted away but it's now resumed again and is resuming again on a big scale apparently yeah all right the the the fake successful offenses the fake success nothing is real i say that because nothing is is grounded reality yes yes yes exactly exactly so yeah and you know and when victor aband just to wrap it up when Victor Abon, you know he has certain intel, you know, he sees things. When he comes out publicly

and says, it's over, why should I approve money to a losing effort? I think that says everything. Well, absolutely. I'm very, bear in mind Hungary is, of course, a member of NATO. And it, you know, NATO intelligence is shared amongst all of the NATO partners, at least to some extent. And I'm sure that he's getting information that way. And of course, he will have own intelligence operation in Ukraine where there are many Hungarian people. So, you know, I think he's trying to get, in his own way, I think he's trying to get the EU leadership to finally admit that this is over. Yeah. Absolutely. Not that they will listen, but there we have. All right. The durad. Dotlocals.com. We are on Rumble,

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