The Duran Podcast - Moving beyond Donbass w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

Episode Date: January 10, 2026

Moving beyond Donbass w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

All right, Alexander, we are here once again with Stanislav. Stanislav, how are you doing? And where can people follow your work? Good, good. So at Mr. Slavic man, Slavic with a K, and that's YouTube. Stas, today, Abratna is the Russian channel. Stas was there as the English channel. And Stanislav Krapievnik at X, Twitter, whatever it is.

It's Twitter. All right, let's, I'll have those links in the description box down below as well as a pinned comment so you can follow Stanislav. Let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. Lots going on. Alexander Stanislav. Indeed, what's going on? Yeah, if you want to tell us, give us an overview, Stanislav, as we go in. I mean, lots happened in December. I get the sense December was a very, very tough month. We're Ukrainians. I mean, they seem to have been badly smashed in Zaporosia and in Pachros, Mernograd. Rasmarmesk, Dmitrov, as it's also the Russians refer to these places.

But perhaps you can give us an overview of the situation overall. Yeah, and I got back, I guess, the Catholic Christmas, that's how we call it here, on the 24th from down in the Danetsk, Meriupil, Danetsk, Avdeevka, Yessanavata, those areas. And I'm glad, you know, visitor to my aunt in Yassanavata, glad to say that they're not getting hit every day anymore. It's once a week or so because they quite literally, these people spent the last 12 years getting artilleryed almost on a daily basis. My aunt's neighbor was killed about a year ago, fourth time. Our house got hit and so on. So that situation from a civilian side is getting much better.

Mary Eupil's almost fully rebuilt, except for the single-story or single-family housing. That's about two-thirds still to go. but all the big buildings the big residential buildings are 98% complete. There's 60 left and they're going to be done before the end of the year. I posted the video from that if anyone wants to watch it on

on YouTube. Very interesting. And even in Avdaevka, we were under drone attack while we were in Avdaevka. Probably a stupid thing. We weren't wearing any body armor and wasn't wearing my helmet. But FPV drone got taken out about on the next street over

and then there was airplane drones that came flying in. And with all that said, six buildings that were fully repaired. Two of them looked better than they probably looked before with people living in them. Another half dozen or so buildings being repaired. Government Document Center built from scratch open with manicured lawns. And even a building that was being built from absolute scratch, a hundred meter long buildings, six stories high, and they were putting in the last windows.

I mean, these are civilian work crews. in a near-rear, still somewhat active war zone. You're only going to find this in Russia. I'm sorry, I can't imagine the Europeans. Oh, they're still still flying over my head. Sure, we'll go work and put bricks down and, you know, as civilians, not as core of engineers. So, yeah, everything's steadily rolling forward. Now, talking to all the guys, I'll tell you straight up.

Of course, the Russian soldiers want peace. but the thing they fear the most is any kind of deal. The piece they want flat out, they'll say it. We've invested way too much into this. We want only capitulation. That's it. That's the only thing the military wants at this point. And I'm not talking about generals.

I'm talking about the lying guys, the junior officers. They want the crane's army crushed. Any NATO comes in there crushed. Any Merck's crushed. And that's what they're, and their biggest fear is the government will do any kind of any kind of negotiations and it stops short of that. Now on the battlefield itself, yes, Zaporosia is a complete disaster for the Ukrainian army. Slavinsk, I'm sorry not Slavinsk, jumping.

Gulayay Polia, Golay Polia means, by the way, if you don't know that, it means a wandering city. We and the Hungarians, we all had these armored-up wagons, which you roll, you circle the wagons, except just instead of like cowboys and Indians or circled wagons, these things had a wall attached to one side with firing platforms. So you suddenly have this little fortress show up in the middle of nowhere that you can defend from.

And I guess that the city just got named for that for a camp like that. So when we last talked, the Russian army was entering Gullai Poli from the east. Now they're exiting Gulli Poli from the west.

And the southern area has been brought up in line. There's still Ukrainian positions north that haven't been rolled up fully. And there seems to be some amount of tactical or local counterattacks, but it looks more like just to grab positions and try to hold a little longer than it doesn't seem to be any kind of major offensive work. And the Russian forces are breaking through in the West because there really isn't any west of Guilipolia, there isn't really any fortifications. Right now, it's about 20 kilometers to 20, 23 kilometers

to Arejav, which is the next to last major town in Zaporosia. That's one side that the Russian military is moving. And Ukrainian forces to the south of it are just kind of get outflanked from behind.

Then the movement towards Zaporosia itself, the Russian army is now in the edges of the urban sprawl that runs parallel to the Nepe River from Zaporosia City itself. It runs about 15 kilometers. So they've entered the first built-up areas.

And at the same time, they're expanding eastward, so coming toward Arachaf from the north. So it's getting, and there's movement from the south. So there's two active movements right now from the south and the west, and Russia is slowly moving, or starting moving again, from the east, west. from Gullai Polia. So Zaporosia, I won't call it straight.

I mean, it's long term it's lost. I mean, that's just, the question is, how fast is the Russian military willing to move? How many casualties are willing to take as it breaks through? And how long will Ukrainian morale last? Zaporosia city itself is not attainable for the Ukrainians. There's one major river bridge across the Njeper. Lots of swamp land along the coast.

and the city's flat and open. You can bring in equipment, obviously, from the north, but it's flat and open. So anything you bring in is going to meet Mr. Drone, just the way a lot of Ukrainian equipment and personnel are meeting Mr. Drone as they're trying to bring in logistics into various other locations. So that's one. Can I just, can I just stop me there?

If you go to Ukrainian outlets, and I do read them, Stranau, obviously, the dissident side, but others that are much, much more pro-government and anti-Russian. I mean, the fall of the city of Zaporosia absolutely haunts them. And a lot of the people in Zelensky's administration have connections with the city of Zaporosia. I mean, for them, it would be a massive psychological blow if Zaporosia city itself was lost. And you yourself pointed out, and I pointed out many times, that if the Russians gain control of the central NEPA region, it is extremely difficult to put it mildly for Ukraine to remain viable as an economic and state entity beyond that.

So we are not actually, I mean, Zaborogia, we should not underestimate the importance of this. And as somebody who takes a great interest in aviation matters, because I used to do aviation law long ago in another age. I can tell you for a fact, again, Zaporosia was an absolutely seminally important place industrially and technologically. It was the centre of gas turbine technology in the Soviet Union. It built all the big aircraft engines for the Antonov aircraft, especially, but also for others. It has lots of factories, laboratories, institutions of that kind. And it formed what used to

be an absolutely key part of the Ukrainian industrial region. And the Ukrainians close to Zaporosia city have just lost their biggest net manganese deposit which is located not far

from there. And of course that was one of the things that Donald Trump was eyeing and it was one of the reasons why Zaporosia, the city was so hugely expanded. during the Soviet period and why a place called Stetsnogorsk was actually built to develop that manganese deposit. Just to say, just to round these all. Oh, no, it's great information.

That's additional information. And from Zaporosje City, particularly with the bridge that will be repaired, because I'm sure the Ukrainians will blow it if we don't blow it before the investment of the city begins. You open up four directions. So you open up a continued direction into Palava, into Palatava province, toward Palatava, which then also threatens, of course, eastern Nipa Petrovsk. You open up into Nicopal.

Nicopal, been there, it's also an industrial town. It's not huge, but it's a nice industrial town. Had some suppliers I was developing there at one point. Krivarorg is to direct west. And to the south, you've got Nikolai. Nikolai, which is you cannot go to Addessa without taking Nikolive. It's along the way, and you can't avoid it because it becomes a flanking threat that has to be liquidated. So when Russia fully starts investing Hirson, Nikolai, that opens an opportunity to hit Nikolai from the southeast and the northeast.

So I do not believe Nikolae is going to survive very long. Nikolai is going to survive very long at that point. Then you've got, of course, Miragrad or Dimitrov. Personally, I actually prefer Miragrad. This sounds better. But that's a name. Dimitrov, for people to know, was the leader of the Communist Party in Bulgaria during the 1930s and 40s, and he was the first leader of Bulgaria.

communist leader of Bulgaria after the war. A very famous person in the international communist movement at one time, and it's named after you. And Miragrad, it depends how you interpret it, can either be in a city of peace or a city of the world, whichever you

want to interpret. But Miragrad's done. The Ukrainians are screaming and are still holding out. They're still holding out and then yet Scareport, too, as far as anybody knows. The cyborgs for the last 10 years. I think someone actually believed that. So, Petergrad's done. Pachrovsk, obviously Krasnarmesk, Red Army, is done.

There are localized counterattacks being waged. They don't look like there are anything more than maybe a battalion level counterattacks. They're being pushed back. A few bands that they got in have been destroyed that were going in over the last month on and off. And they tried counterattacks on Guli Apolle Polia, too, that got just destroyed. I won't say decimated. I hate using that word. It's not the proper word. They got annihilated, is the better word.

Because if you watch the videos, it was just riding into a death trap. Further north, there are localized Ukrainian DRGs that have been seen going in. And DRGs can actually penetrate pretty deeply, because these are diversionary reconnaissance groups. So they will sabotage. They're basically sabotage in reconnaissance. They'll do deep reconnaissance. You're looking at anywhere from three to ten people, and they're going in deep, on foot. Usually they avoid contact because you can't do reconnaissance.

Everybody knows you're there. Kind of loses that element. And usually loses your life, too, pretty quickly, because you're isolated, you're deep in and you're light infantry. You're not carrying that much heavy weaponry. So there's been a bunch of those groups have gone in. and they're being hunted down right now. They may be looking at Russian defensive positions for some localized counterattacks.

I'm not sure. So, constant jumping further up, Konstantinovka combat is preceding street by street, house by house, in the east. And it looks like Russia has two footholes that it established yesterday in the west, two breakthroughs. They went through quite a bit of a field area and grabbed two beachheads in villages that are really the suburbs of Constantin, Fkina, the West. So there's a lot of pressure coming from that direction. Going further north, looks like the battle in Krasnilman is going to intensify into past just the southern edge. Russian forces have been seen in the north-western portion of the west. Well, the northwest, which is a part of the city.

So they're starting to come in there. The problem for Ukrainians is past the Krasniliman, you get a natural wedge between the Srebriyanka and the... Oh, good Lord. The river just float out of my head. Seversky Donetsk? No, yeah, Syversked Donets. It's the one that runs past Kupinsk.

Oh, Skoll. Askol. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the Elskull falls into the city. Brianka, the sea of Brianka goes further south. So you get this natural wedge. And the rivers are high this time.

Yeah, it's gotten much colder, but I don't think it's fully frozen yet. Winter finally came to the Moscow in the north region, massive snowfall, but in the south it's still warm, quite a bit warmer. Then, let's see, you go further north than that, and you get into the Kupensk area. The Ukrainians are still throwing troops into the Kupensk city as a counterattack. There's some localized progress. They're taking heavy cashier, but it's all slowed down very, very much to me.

A few couple of buildings here, a couple of buildings there in a day or two days. And the Russian army seems to have stepped back somewhat. They're not taking the heavy casualties. I think the reason they're doing that is sucking them in. Because there's a Russian offensive to the north of Kupensk that's pushing through and has already, with drones and artillery, cut off the main supply lines into coupons from the northwest. So the Ukrainians have pushed their way in are now finding that they're not getting too many

provisions coming in. It's pretty much a death right trying to get in there. So this could be a trap. And the early Russian fast move back that sucked them in looks more and more like it was probably a well-laid trap to get at least another brigades worth. maybe two brigades worth into the, or what's left of these brigades, into the city, cut them off and then exterminate them again all over again. How many times can we play this game?

Zelensky, luckily for everyone, Zelensky and his command under the control of the West continues to just throw away people left and right. Instead of solidifying new lines, stepping back from terrain that they can't control, they'd rather just throw away their own citizens. in large numbers. And they'll continue to do this. I think that's a very important point, by the way, and it's one that a military person,

a British military person, has made to me, I mean, a military person who is, by the way, in disagreement with British government policy. But he says, he says, you know, that the Ukrainians simply do not understand, the leadership in Ukraine, simply doesn't understand that a position which is lost is lost. and it should not be defended.

What you need to do is to consolidate, and they don't ever seem to understand this. And he thinks, I think too, that what the Ukrainians are courted is that they're trying to constantly make their narrative true. So they say that this place or that place or this place, the Russians haven't really captured it, so they're obliged to conduct these counter-attacks in these places.

in order to give that impression that what they're saying is true. So the result is that they're throwing away men and material, which they're increasingly short of in doing these sort of things. Anyway, continue, please. Yeah, they, you know, they worship Hitler a little too much because they're doing exact same stupidity. Hitler one. The difference with Hitler, of course, was Hitler's generals were a hell a lot smart

in the upjumped corporal, World War I corporal. And whenever he said stand and fight, they just went, no, we're going to move back. that's why he kept changing generals on a constant basis and recycling the old ones that he'd fired because he had now he was run out. In fact, Bagretton, the operation, one of the reasons a German Army group center collapsed when it collapsed,

several of the generals said, you know, I was reading an interview with them when they were captured by the British. They gave interviews. Look, we figured we're going to lose the war. So the question is, how much of Germany is going to be left? Yeah, we can keep this war going for a half a year and there won't be any Germans left for the most part. we can just end the war faster. And they did it by just following Hitler's orders.

He said, don't move. We didn't move. And we get surrounded, wiped out. One division, another division, until Army Group Center collapse. So they were setting Hitler up by just following orders. And Zelensky's crew seems to be doing the same thing. And the problem for them is, as you go further north into Kharkov-Oblest, sumi-o-oblast, there are multiple small small, small,

fronts that have now started to open up. Some of these look more like Russia's just eveninging out the border areas, cutting down distances, but today's cutting down distance is tomorrow's springboard into a larger offensive. The Russian army is about 20 kilometers from Sumi, and about 25, 30 kilometers from Heidekov. And the Ukrainians are having to divert constantly. I mean, these are large distances. Most Europeans don't understand how big these front line areas are.

You know, when your average European state, you can drive across on half a day, and then the other half a day drive through across the next one, you're looking at territories where you've got to shuffle troops three, four, five hundred kilometers in one direction, another direction, trying to make up for all these little fires that tomorrow could be a bonfire if you don't try to stop them.

So the Ukrainians are being stretched very heavily And if they let it go, you know, today's one village is tomorrow's five villages, and the next day's 10 villages. And all of a sudden, you've got a division war heading its way towards Sumi. So they're forced what is called the horns of a dilemma. You know, what do I do? And the good thing about a horns of a dilemma, at least if you put your enemy on a horn's dilemma, it will also have a tendency to paralyze them. Because now they don't know where the strikes are coming. what's more important.

And human beings, when they tend to get in that kind of position, they start to freeze. And any lost time trying to figure out what's going on could be that lost time that loses you a campaign, or at least a Porsche campaign. So that's a situation right now. Can I just ask you quickly before? Because you're talking about the north and what's going on in the north.

What is your sense of what, I mean, obviously you said that it's not clear what the Russians are actually up to there. But what is your sense of what it is that they're ultimately going to do? I mean, the Russians still talk about a buffer zone, but as you rightly say, buffer zones can mean all kinds of things, and they could be springboards for further action. Do you think that they're going to go for Sumi first? It's not such a huge place.

I mean, it's not Zabroggia. It's much smaller than Mariport, for example. I mean, might they go there? I mean, you talked earlier about the Russians pushing north from Zaporosia city into Paltava region. I mean, you could see how all of this might connect geographically. I'm not sure if it connects militarily. But is this something that might develop into something big later in the war? Or is it just, as you said, maneuvers and distractions for the Ukrainians?

Well, there's two things to, right now I think it's more maneuvers and distractions, but that's, depending on how long Ukraine can continue maneuvering itself, running back and forth. It's, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul and then robbing Paul to pay Peter, but every time some of those coins are falling through your fingers. So sooner or later, you have an empty hand, no matter what you do. Right now, I think that it's more just to draw attention until either A, the Ukrainians are just, incapable of doing anything else, or be the front rips apart in some other area. And there's a large-scale movement, and then they'll start a large-scale movement in those areas. There's a key thing to be, to pay attention to, is how these territories are being referred to now. In the Russian media, in the Russian blogosphere, liberated.

So that tells you everything. The thing is to consider, too, you know, Belgrade is a prime example. So from Haddikov City, you can strike Belgrade in the center of Belgrade. So obviously, Haddqv has to become a buffer zone because otherwise you can't defend Belgrade from rocket artillery. I mean, short-range rocket artillery, even, heavy tube artillery. Well, once Heidekov is taken, the people living in Heidecalf are going to become what? They're going to become Russian citizens. So if Heidekhov is then being attacked by the Ukrainians and those people are being killed,

but what are you going to do? You've got to defend them. So now you're going to have to roll the buffer even further. And before anybody says, oh, Ukraine wouldn't kill its own citizens. Well, they just burned alive 24. You're going to injure about 50 plus more on New Year's Eve, which, by the way, the West never saw. How long do you think this is going to continue full? Because you said, this is my basic last important question.

I mean, you said that the soldiers do not want a negotiated solution. They want a victory. And by the way, Putin has increasingly been talking about. this. People are not noticing the fact that Putin is talking more and more with the generals now. And his language is hardening. I've noticed this because I track him very closely. But in order for there to be a victory, I mean, what does a victory mean exactly? And how much longer do you think this war can go on for? Because it's a question I get asked constantly. I mean, we get asked it constantly. What is your sense about this?

because by the way, I should just quickly say something. I mean, what you've described is a catastrophic situation for Ukraine. I mean, I go back to what I was saying before. I mean, if you look at all of the places that were in contention a few weeks ago, they're now under Russian control. Basically, the Russians are moving beyond them. So, again, coming back to the question, how long do you think this can go on for? I mean, have you got a sense of this?

I mean, I accept it's a difficult question, but you know, if you can just give us some whatever thoughts you have about it. It's hard to say. There's more than a few factors playing in this. If there's strictly Ukraine fighting this war by itself, I'd probably say another half a year. Just if not fully crushed on the mop-up, whatever's left. When you're dealing, armies rarely, I mean armies, when you're dealing with modern armies, because they're just huge machines. they rarely all fall apart at one time. Certain areas may fall apart, you may have a ripple effect, you may have a collapse in more than one area of a large front like this one.

But doesn't mean everybody falls. It's the medieval armies or the 1800s of Army starts running, the whole army is running. But then you've got a frontage of 40 kilometers or 30 kilometers or 10 kilometers. Now you're having a frontage of 500, 600,000 kilometers. So you have different conditions in different areas. And information flow is very, neutered for good reason too because you don't want your commanders knowing that you know

two southern divisions of ran oh crap should we start running no that that kind of information is obviously censored on the need to know basis now haven't said that then you've got um you've got the mercenaries which by the way there's huge amounts of mercenaries being moved in from Colombia Venezuela and Brazil the the west is buying them up unfortunately for them they're finding out that they're not protecting the rear. They're being used as meat. And there's more and more of these videos coming out from them hitting the airlines, save me, someone saved me or wounded guy laying there.

You know, I'm dying. I've been here for two days. The Ukrainians just walk by me. They won't pick me up. My buddy's over there dead, also Colombian. You know, they just use us as meat and they're retreating and leaving us. Things like that don't do a lot of good advertisement for Ukraine. Mercenary is almost always the first ones to get killed off.

You don't have to pay dead mercenaries. That's a good thing about that, being a Merck. And their government isn't going to go complain either. Then you have the NATO squad. Now, I'm not going to say all of NATO because all of NATO will never fight. Bulgaria and Greece, I think, would have revolutions before they joined that side. Romania, it's a big question, and Romanians aren't, I'll probably get some hate mail, but if you look at the Romanian performance of World War I, World War II, not that big of a threat.

realistically speaking. Most of the people were against this until their election got gone. Croats already said no. Obviously, Serbs won't. They're not part of NATO, per se. So who we have left, realistically, we have Poland, the Baltic states, the Nordic states, Germany, at least Western Germany, France kind of sort of maybe, and the UK. And maybe Denmark, if it's not too busy having it's 7,000,

troops destroyed by the U.S. Because they're planning on standing and fighting over Greenland and other jokes for a comedy hour. Stand-up Comedy Hour. You know, this is not going to happen. Obviously, Trump will take Greenland and there's not much that the Danes can do except wine and complain. I feel sorry for the people in Greenland because they're going to become, they're not going to ever be a state.

They're just going to become a federal territory. And those don't do well. Talk to the Puerto Ricans or a Guamans. But that seems to be the reality of it. So the question becomes, how desperate did they become? I mean, the Turks aren't going to fight. Obviously, they have nothing to gain from this. They're making money every which way, and they're not,

they may be fighting the Israelis soon enough. They've got other issues. And they do remember their history. They lost 11 out of 13 wars to us. And one of the ones they won was the Crimean, where the French and the British did most of the fighting and dying, and the Salesians. So, you know, that's the next question is how much will the Europeans panic?

What will they do? What will they send in there? And the longer this drags, the more manpower they put together, even if it's green and untrained, to send in there. And that will have some effect. If nothing else, it'll buy them some time. Other people are getting wiped out. But, I mean, it's the reality of war. You send in half-trained troops, they tend to get killed.

Sonny's up I think this has been incredibly informative and it was a masterly survey if I can just say. It's just very few quick comments firstly about what you said when forces started disintegrate it can take time, go to the American Civil War

there were months of fighting after Appomattox courthouse it's not widely realised but it took many months to work through so that's absolutely correct the second about the Europeans going to fight I saw today that the entire force that Britain could conceivably send to Ukraine might number at most

seven and a half thousand men, probably significantly less. And that would be massively unpopular in Britain. It would be even more unpopular and even more difficult for the Germans to send troops to Ukraine, just saying, and I know Germany very well. I don't know France. I don't do have a lot of contacts in Poland, and the view there is that the mood there has shifted decisively amongst the population against further military intervention in Ukraine. So I think that this idea of a European force going to fight in Ukraine is a mirage. If it was sent, it would probably lead to a faster collapse rather than prolong the war further. That is my own view.

So that's a big topic, but I'm going to say thank you because I said that was a masterly survey and I think it's clarified and explained many, many things. Thank you, Stanislav. Thank you. And just one issue on that. You know, it's one thing to send the people in. It's another thing to keep them actually fed, armed, and in the field when they don't understand why they're there and they're fighting. And the polls have taken around somewhere around 10,000 casualties, mostly in 22, 23 and some in 24 where they start pulling back. So, yeah,

it's very unpopular in Poland. And I think Norwich really realized just how many I big bad to calcium numbers were when he came into power and started backtracking. We might do a program about Poland one day. But anyway, to say again, thank you again for a full

detailed and very interesting survey of the situation. And thank you also for what you've told us about the situation in Mario, Poland. the Africa, which is very interesting. Thank you, Stanislav. Before you go, where can people follow your work? So, YouTube, Mr. Slavicman, with a K,

Telegram, Stasudai Abratna is the Russian channel. Stas was there as the English channel. And Stanislav Kripnik on X-Qaeda, whatever you want to call it. All right. I have those links down below the description box and does a pin comment. Take a Stanislav. Take care. Thank you.