The Duran Podcast - Preventing Ukraine collapse during US election

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Preventing Ukraine collapse during US election

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Ukraine. And we could start with what's happening on the front lines. And I think we definitely have to talk about the $61 billion, Mike Johnson, who is going to put to a vote, the package for Ukraine. 10 billion of that is going to be in the form of a loan. and that's kind of how he got Trump to buy into that as well. So Mike Johnson, he got the package. He's going to get the package to the House for a vote.

So that's important. And we do have the Europeans working to get around seven, I believe, they said, Air Defense, Patriot Systems to Ukraine as well. F-16s. We're starting to talk again about F-16s coming to the battle in the summer. And finally, we can also discuss the admission that the Czech Republic, Pavel, 1 million ammunition shells is kaprits. They couldn't get them, don't have the money for them. That plan has gone bust. So do you want to start with the front line or anything else that we discuss?

I leave it to you. I'll leave it to you how you want to open up the video. Yeah, because it's, I mean, that's, of course, what's ultimately driving the whole situation. I mean, the Russians are now capitalizing in a big way on the fall of Avdavka, which took place six weeks ago. It seems like a long time to those of us who followed the war since Avdavka fell, but it's only six weeks.

Was it, you know, and we are seeing significant advances by the Russian. in the area around Avdewka. So they captured this village called Perwomyski. They're pretty close towards capturing this other fortified town called Krasnabgorovka. And importantly, over the last couple of days, to everybody's astonishment, they broke through in the area north of Avdegra, northwest of Avdewka. and they're now apparently entered a village called Ocheretti. No, no, these are small places.

Cheritna is a very small place. But it's located on a hill. It's a junction, a railway junction. It's a strategically important position. I remember reading an article way back in the autumn in the London Times, explaining how important Ocheretina was. for the overall direction of the war. It could in some ways be said to be strategically

even more important than Avdewka itself, though you have to capture Avdavka before you can capture. Ocheretino. It looks like Ocheretino at some point over the next few days, weeks, who knows how long, but at some point is going to be captured by the Russians. And what that means, in summary, is that the Russians have punched an enormous hole

through the Ukrainian defences in the most important and sensitive place, which is central Donbas. So the Russians are in a strong position once they've, you know, tidied up, captured Krasnogorovka, captured Odjjaret, you know. I mean, they could advance in all kinds of directions. They could advance towards Pakrovsk in the west,

which is an important town. major hub of used by the Ukrainians to position their forces to send logistics or they could advance north and outflank the Ukrainian forces that are defending around Bachman for example you know Chasovya and all that they could they could do that in theory or they could go on advance further and push towards the NEPA. So this is a really big breakthrough. And it's matched by events elsewhere along the front lines. I was reading, I think it was yesterday, a Ukrainian official, a former Ukrainian general,

General Krivenos saying that the situation in Chassevya is absolutely terrible, that the Ukrainian forces there are just hanging on by their fingernails, the Russians are bombing the place. Air defences appear to have completely collapsed around Chasafyar and of course all of these reports, all of these rumours, big Russian offensive coming. Nobody quite knows where it's going to come. It might be through this big hole that the Russians have punched through in central Dombas, advanced towards the Nipa. It could be towards Kharkov, basically without electric power. mayor of the city saying that the situation there is one of panic. Lots of rumours the Russians might

be moving towards capturing Harikov as well. So overall, the summary is the situation on the front lines is very, very bad and it's getting worse. It's crumbling. Now, I was reading even people as deluded, at least I think is deluded, as, you know, kind of Colonel Kavish, Breitra, and Gordon, you know, this British officer who writes for the Daily Telegraph and who said that the Challenger 2s would roll over the Russians and that the summer offensive by Ukraine would be a total triumph. Even he is now written, writing an absolutely panic-stricken article talking about how the situation is crumbling on the Ukrainian defence lines. and you see article after article in Politico, in all kinds of places now, coming up saying, straightforwardly, Ukraine is losing the war.

And it's, you know, the direction of travel, if you like, is clear. But it's getting stronger. It's becoming more obvious what is happening all the time. Right. So that brings us to the 61 billion. from Johnson. A part of that money is going to go to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat. That's the loan part, economic assistance, $10 billion, about $10 billion. That's going to be loaned to Ukraine. Of course, the loan can be canceled by a president, but whatever. They're calling

it a loan. So that's going to try and keep the Ukraine economy along with some funds from the EU. They're going to try to keep the salaries all paid up and everyone in the parliament, the Elinsky administration, they're going to keep them well-fed, I guess, and prevent any type of social unrest, which I guess is important or any type of palace intrigue. But then you have the bulk of the money, which is going to go to the MIC. Is it going to make any difference? What do you see playing out with these funds? Well, I mean, let's actually talk about the funds. I mean, the first. First of all, the loan is an absurdity.

I mean, the idea that you loan money to Ukraine at a time when it's about to lose the war and its economy is in collapse is a grotesque idea. I mean, you're giving away money that you're never going to see again. Let's be absolutely clear about this. I mean, anybody... They're calling it alone. They want to call it alone. They want to call it alone.

They want to call it alone, but I mean, it's the stupidest idea I've ever seen. Now, as I understand it, the way this is going to work with the military appropriations is that $24 billion is going to go to the MIC in order for them to produce new weapons to replace American inventories. And specifically, American inventories. $14 billion is going to go to Ukraine to provide the Ukrainians with more weapons. So what's actually going to happen if you just sit down? back and think that through and do the sums, what that actually means is that the American inventories are going to be depleted even faster. The MIC is going to do very well, because the MIC is going to get another injection of $24 billion. But it is going to take them years to produce

the weapons that the $24 billion are going to buy. They have to make them, they have to set up production, the prices will rise, all of that sort of thing. The $14 billion that they're going to give to Zelensky for weapons, that's going to be used up at once. The weapons are going to be sent to Ukraine at one. So what you're going to have is you're going to reduce your stock by a further $14 billion of weapons. And you're going to keep your fingers crossed and in two or three years time, these extra $24 billion of weapons finally arrive. In the meantime, until that happens, you've got fewer weapons. I just wanted to say that because I don't think this has been properly understood. Will it make any difference in the war? No, it won't. I think we discussed an article that

was done by J.D. Vance. And he set it out on the line. He said, you know, you can't provide more weapons than you have. The United States is short of ammunition. It's short of Patriot Air Defense missile interceptors. The Europeans very reluctant to send theirs. Of course, they're talking about some people say seven batteries of Patriots. Others say seven systems. Poland refusing at the moment to send any. Unclear how that's going to happen. The United States apparently is not so far intended to send any that may change patriot missile systems sent to ukraine the russians have already been systematically destroying them it's been demonstrated that the kinjals and the circons can destroy them and that there's no real defense to them it's not going to change anything it's just

going to mean more weapons burnt down more weapons destroyed it's not going to change the outcome of the war. The game for me was given away by a statement made by the CIA director, William Burns. He says if Ukraine doesn't get more support, there's a real chance that before the end of this year, Ukraine will collapse. Whereas if it is given more military support, he is confident that it can see 2024 through. What happens at the end of the year? What happens to be precise in November?

The election. So this whole thing is about preventing a Ukrainian collapse before the election. How long have we been saying that for a year and a half now? Absolutely. Now, that of course brings us to the next thing. That's the goal of 2020.

That's the goal. That's what this is. is all about now that brings us to the next question about why did Mike Johnson who has always said he wouldn't be prepared to put forward a package like this to the House of Representatives unless there was movement on the border the Biden administration just come up with nothing about the border why has he now done that I think it's very straightforward and again we come back with the MIC I know there's all kinds of you know theories about this but what is happened is that the committee chairs, the key committee chairs, who are all Republicans in the House,

have been weighing in over the last few weeks demanding aid for Ukraine. And they've been putting pressure on Johnson, and I'm pretty sure they'd be saying, if you don't go along with this, we will side with the Democrats on this issue. We will make sure that there's a vote. There's a vote. We will support a vote to override your veto about putting a package before the House of Representatives. That will, of course, force you to resign. And, you know, we're prepared to risk that because for thus, that is the most important thing. And I think that's why he has crumbled, because he knows that whether he puts forward the package or not, a package will be put at some point over the next few weeks to the House

because the committee chairs and the rhinos, the McConnell wing of the Republican Party. Let's say there's only 20 of them or 30 of them. Probably more than that in the House of Representatives have now made it very clear that they're prepared to side with the Democrats on this issue. So he probably has taken on the risk that margin. Taylor Green and that group will be able to eject him as Speaker, but he probably hopes that he can avoid that. He knows he can't avoid that if a significant block of Republicans vote with the Democrats against him in order to get this appropriation before the House. So I think

that is why he has crumbled. And realistically, there was always a high probability or possibility that something like this would happen. So I think that's why he's done it, and I think that's why he's capitulated. The people in the Republican Party that we are talking about do not like Donald Trump. They would prefer Biden to win. We've discussed this so many times.

And besides, given the kind of committees they chair anyway, they are close to the MIC, which wants this appropriations package passed, and which has, you know, all the lobbying and all the funds to push for a vote of this guy. So this is what's happened. The amazing thing is not that this vote is happening now. It's that it's been delayed for, what, six months? Yeah, well, the MIC always wins out. That was obvious that the MISC was going to, they were going to get their money. The problem for Mike Johnson in all of this is that he couldn't get anything to the southern border.

No, exactly. That's what really does a lot of damage to him is that he's giving all this money to four, to four different foreign aid packages, but there wasn't a fifth package for the United States and specifically for the southern border. That's what really did him in or doesn't. Absolutely. I mean, I personally think that one way or the other, whether or not, whether or not he's removed a speaker immediately or whether you're going to take time or whether it might happen after the election, I think politically he's toast. I mean, he took that position that there had to be movement on the southern border.

He was absolutely strong about that. There's been no movement on the southern border. And he's done the less gone ahead and put forward this package to the House. And I think it will, I think it will be bad for him. But that's the arithmetic. That's the politics in the United States. I've always said that Congress is a very difficult system to understand. I've never pretended that I understand it very fully.

But here we are. That's what's going to happen. Mike Johnson has capitulated. If you look at the factors that of course it would be a pitilate, it's not difficult to see what they are. And he played a terrible game. He played an absolutely terrible game. He's inexperienced. He's inexperienced.

The right thing he should have done is gone down fighting. He should have said, you know, even if there'd been this petition passed, he should have said this was done completely against his wishes. He should have refused to resign. He'd have had the support of most Republicans had he done so. he would have established himself as a political, you know, significant political figure. But as you rightly say, he's inexperienced, he's out of his debts. And that's why we have the outcome that we have. Yeah.

The weapons that they're going to give to Ukraine, they're going to allocate 14 billion to Ukraine, and Ukraine is going to tap into weapons inventories of the United States. you have Schultz talking about seven patriots. Let's just assume full systems. Let's assume they're going to get the full deal to Ukraine. And I mentioned at the beginning of the video how they couldn't get the ammunition situation sorted out, Pavel in the Czech Republic. What is Ukraine going to tap into with this money? What does the U.S. have to give them?

I imagine that if best case scenario for Europe, for Ukraine, let's say they get these Patriot systems. After that, what's left? Well, nothing. And the Russians will destroy all of this. And this doesn't help Ukraine with, say, protecting their energy infrastructure. because even if they put patriots around their energy buildings, the Russians, they've shown that they could knock out anything with the Zircon, the hypersonic, so the Patriot can't stop that. Well, that's entirely right. I mean, bearing something in mind, I mean, the Zelensky said that he

needed 25 Patriot systems, 150 to 200 launchers. He's not going to get a fraction of that. So, I mean, he's not going to get enough Patriot systems. be knocked down to asking for seven. J.D. Vance has said that production of these interceptors is limited and the Russians are cranking up more missiles all the time and as you correctly said hypersonic missiles which are increasingly being used. So it can only slow things down for a while. This has been tri-of every single arms package by the way. I mean it's it's it achieves a certain effect for a short time, and then the effect wears out, and then you need more. But of course, more is gradually not coming, because more is simply not there.

There's a famous, well, I don't know if it's famous, but there was a comment that President Kennedy made about sending aid to Vietnam. This is before the United States got seriously involved. he made exactly that same point. He said, giving aid to Vietnam. It's like drinking a glass of water. For a short time, you feel better than the effect wears off. And you need another. It's exactly the same with Ukraine. But, of course, if your priority is to avoid a collapse by Ukraine before the end of the year, by which, of course, they really mean November, then, of course, it makes political sense. What happens after November? What they can worry about.

They can worry about it then. It's less important. Winning the election is the key thing. Try and avoid a collapse between now and then. Right. You want to avoid a military collapse, so you're hoping that they can tap into weapons that can hold the line. And you want to avoid the political collapse.

I think that's important, especially with Zelensky right now. I mean, his shine has definitely worn off, not only outside of Ukraine, but even inside of Ukraine. I'm reading a lot of articles which show that Ukrainians are just not, they're not only happy with Zelensky, but they're also getting frustrated and angry with the collective West, specifically the United States. So you've got to find a way to avoid.

avoid any type of palace intrigue or any type of problem with the politics of Ukraine. I do see the collective voice. They're starting to lean a lot more on Yermak as well, which I find very interesting. No, I think you're absolutely right. They do not want a political crisis in Kiev. They do not want to see a political collapse in Ukraine. Were that to happen, it would, again, put the whole enterprise. in massive jeopardy.

And they certainly don't want a coup, which can get out of control. And I've discussed what happened in Vietnam in 1963, when there was the coup against President Ziem, and he was assassinated, he was murdered with his brother, and that further destabilized the situation in Vietnam. So they don't want anything like that to happen, and that is their major anxiety. And of course, Zelensky's official term ends in May.

the Russians are already saying that these legitimacy is open to question. Beyond that point, many people in Ukraine are saying that as well. And of course, you're starting to see signs of restlessness in the more far-right nationalist brigades, the Azov Brigade, the Brigade that was formed around right sector, people like that. They're increasingly refusing to follow orders. so it's becoming more difficult, if you like, to hold things together and to keep everyone in line. So it's absolutely easy to understand what is happening and what is going on. They don't want a military collapse.

They don't want a political collapse either, not before the election in November. It's the November election that is dictating the outcome from this point. Yep. All right. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, but shoot, telegram, Rockfin, and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop. Look for a limited edition.

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