The Duran Podcast - Putin breaks Zelensky/Collective West frontline narrative

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Putin breaks Zelensky/Collective West frontline narrative

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Pakrovs and Kubyansk, a military update, what's going on on in the front lines in Ukraine. And let's also talk about Putin's offer to journalists, Russian journalists, Western journalists, any journalists, that would like to actually see what's happening in Pakrovsk and in Kupyansk. Russia will stop military activities for a certain amount of time. believe he said 24 hours in order to allow journalists to enter the encircled areas and see for themselves the desperate situation that the Ukraine military finds itself in. I would say a very smart move from Putin, right? Because Zelensky, he is saying that, yeah, things are difficult,

things are critical, things are tough, but he's painting the picture as if there are, there is no encirclement, there is no big catastrophe that's about to befall the Ukraine military. We'll send reinforcements in, and we are seeing Ukraine sending, trying to send reinforcements, whether it's from Budanov or from Sirsky. And no doubt Zelensky is painting a better picture than what really exists in these two regions. So Putin is basically saying, look, you don't put. believe these regions are encircled, come for yourselves and see what's happening. That's a very confident statement from Putin.

It's a very, very confident one and a very astute one, as you rightly say, because you're completely correct. The Ukrainians are still trying to give a rosy picture about the situation. When we say the Ukrainians, it's important to say, and this is something that perhaps of viewers need to know. We're talking about the Ukrainian authorities, Zelensky and Sirsky and people like that. If you go to Ukrainian telegram channels, if you go to the social media there, there are lots of people in Ukraine who fully acknowledge that there is a massive crisis playing out on the battlefronts. And one or two Western journalists, Julian Röbke at Bill Zitin, for example, who is close to the Ukrainian military.

He is also saying it too. But the media in the West, governments in the West, the Institute for the Study of War, one of those people, continue to take their idea of what is happening on the battlefronts from Zelensky and Siersky and the Ukrainian military leaders. And of course, this is what they repeat and recycle and they spread these stories. and you get weird things like Zelensky's claim that the Russians, it's a critical situation because 200 Russian troops had broken into Pachrosk and that apparently is a crisis. But we will deal with it.

We will find a way to sort it. You know, we have the situation under control and things like that. So what Putin is saying, look, none of this is true. Don't believe what Zelensky is saying. Don't believe what I am saying. Go there yourself and find out. We're prepared to agree to this. We're prepared to let journalists and others come and see. We're even prepared to let Ukrainian journalists go and see. Go and see for yourselves what the situation in Prakosk and Kupiansk actually is. Now, I don't know what the situation is with the American media, but in the British media,

there has been no reporting that I'm aware of of this offer. This is clearly very embarrassing. They don't want to do this. They absolutely are not going to do this. Zelensky obviously doesn't want to do this either. I think all that shows is the deep down. They all know the truth is exactly what Putin and Gerasim for saying, that these troops are indeed trapped.

They're trapped in Prakosk and in Kukyansk. In fact, we've been a huge amount of reporting about this from the Russians, from the Ukrainians, the people on the Ukrainian side who are really there and providing reliable updates about the state of the war, from all sorts of mapping projects, some of which are based in the the West as well, they all confirm the truth of what the Russians are saying, that there is indeed an encirclement of Ukrainian troops in Pakrowski and in Kupiansk. And the situation for those troops there is getting worse with every passing hour. The areas that they occupy are shrinking.

The Russians are pushing in. The more they shrink, the more difficult it becomes to continue resisting, because, You can't maneuver, you can't hide. The concentration of fire intensifies, and the more difficult it is to send supplies in by drone or whatever other means that people can think of because the sky is controlled by the Russians. So, I mean, what's the plan from Sersky, from Zelensky, from their NATO, masters, right? I mean, are you just going to let to these 5,000 people, 5,000 in Pachros, about 5,000 in Pachros, about 5,000 in Kupayansk? Are you just going to let them be annihilated

by the Russian military? Are you going to order them to surrender? That would be the humane thing to do, is to order them to lay down their weapons and surrender and be prisoners of war, which Putin has said he will treat them as prisoners of war, the soldiers, not the mercenaries, If there are mercenaries there, that's a different story. But the soldiers will be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Putin has said as much. Why don't they get that order? Are they actually so deluded that they believe they can break them out?

Right. Well, can I just say, it's not just doing that calling on these soldiers to lay down their arms is not just the humane thing. It is also the militarily intelligent thing, because, and this is becoming increasingly controversial in Russia, but again, it is very much in Putin's style. What happens is these soldiers are then taken prisoners, prisoner and brought to Russia, and then Kiterres, the UN Secretary General and all of the other UN officials and the humanitarian agencies and the Gulf states, all the wrenched prisoner of war.

swaps and eventually all these people go back to Ukraine, all that these soldiers go back to Ukraine, where they re-enlist in many cases in the Ukrainian army and are returned to the battlefronts. So the result is that you wouldn't just be saving these people's lives, but you would be preserving your soldiers because at some point you'd get them back and You could send them back into the battle. I mean, so this is people in Moscow, in Russia, are becoming increasingly critical about this. And they're saying, you know, why do we continue to do this? The Ukrainians take far fewer prisoners than we do.

Why do we constantly send back soldiers who the Ukrainians can then reenlist? Now, the reason Zelensky and Siersky are not doing this is because it goes against their narrative. Their narrative, the one that they've given to Trump, to Kellogg, to the Europeans, the one that you read every single day in the Western media, the one that some people on independent media have also accepted, is that the war is proceeding very, very slowly, that the Russians are bombed down, that things are, that the Russian offensive this summer has not been a, this year has not been a great success or any sort of success. suddenly announced that two cities, two towns, two big cities, the biggest cities, important towns, Pakrovskan and Kupians were surrounded and that they're going to have to be surrendered and that thousands of Ukrainian troops therefore have to go into captivity in Russia completely contradicts and discredits that narrative. So that's precisely what you are not going to do.

You're going to be prepared to sacrifice these people because maintaining the narrative is more important than doing all of those entirely humane and rational things that we were talking about. And, well, you mentioned Zelensky. I noticed that Siersky, as of the time of making this program, has been absolutely silent for several days. Usually he makes comments and posts information, but he hasn't been doing so.

The latest report is that he's been sent to the area to see what he can do, which I suspect is not very much. But yes, you're absolutely right. The Ukrainians are going to do everything they can to break this encirclement of Pachrosk. There is most unlikely that they will succeed in this, but one senses that because Pachrosk is so big, it's possible that some holes in the Russian ring might be punched through, unlikely, but it might just happen. In Kupiask, I don't think it's possible at all, and I think they're the situation is beyond retrieval. I don't think it's going to be. be retrieved in Pukkovsk either. I should quickly say. One other thing I would quickly add

is that, again, there's uncertainties as to how many Ukrainian troops are trapped in these places. The Russians have said around 10,000. Others put it at slightly less. 7,000 is a figure I've heard quoted. Whatever number it is, a Ukrainian army that is down to about 200,000 men, who are able to be present on the battlefields cannot afford losses on this scale. And a Ukrainian commander recently said that many battalions, he wasn't a commander, he was a MP in Zelensky's party. He said that many battalions, they have a paper strength of 500 and 550 men. Usually, the actual number is much smaller, lower, around 120 men.

Of them only seven are infantry. So that gives you a sense, and that's a mean, Ukrainian source. That gives you a sense of how threadbare the Ukrainian army is becoming. They absolutely cannot afford to lose 7,000 to 10,000 men in a battle of this kind. And sending these special forces units or these intelligence service units that Pudanov is sending to Bakarovsk to try and punch a hole is playing right into Russia's attrition strategy. This may actually be what Russia is banking on. Sure, send these forces to try and punch a hole in this encirclement. Exactly, because Ukraine, more and more of these people get killed or wounded.

and they can't be replaced. The ability to replace them is reducing. And in the meantime, the Russian army continues to grow in size. I would add that, you know, we're focused on what's going on in Pachrosk and Kupiansk. The Russians are advancing everywhere else in Zaporosia region. The advances becoming increasingly fast. They captured an important fortified. There's more a small town than a village called Vizhnova.

And this is expected to be held by the Ukrainians for at least a week, but the Russians captured it without any real trouble. They just walked in. And the footage that's come of this village shows all the buildings intact. There was no resistance at all. It's perhaps an overstatement to say that the Ukrainian army is melting away. But you can see that the gaps, the holes in the lines are increasing. The Russians are very close to wrapping up the battle for Volchansk in the north.

Again, the Ukrainians defended Volchansk for far too long. So the result is that the Russians have taken Volchansk, but it seems that the Ukrainian army in Kharkov region in the north is now threadbare and unlikely to be able to hold position. were very long, in all sorts of places. And Lehman, important town in Slaviansk, apparently a crisis developing there, perhaps another cauldron, another cauldron in Sversk as well, and the Russians are punching deeper into Konstantinovka. And there again, I read an article, this time of the Guardian of all places, admitting that there is major problems for the Ukrainian troops. They have nowhere to hide any longer from the Russian drones. So it's a very grim picture,

completely different from the one the media in the West has been providing to read it in the West. And I suspect that's another reason. They are not reporting, at least in Britain, about Putin's offer. Because they, too, I think, I think, suspect know how brittle this story about a stalemate or a bogged down war really is. And they don't want journalists actually going to these places and being obliged to report the truth. And at the same time, you're seeing the Russian military hammer away at Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Well, ended, every day. Every night, every day, it's become routine. And again, there's no real response to this. There's no answer to this. There's no air defense interceptors

that can be sent to Ukraine. The numbers there have gone. There is no real way of changing the direction in this battle. There's no military way to do it. The only way to retreat the situation is through negotiations. And the Trump administration has effectively, turned against negotiations. Because Trump believes what Kellogg is telling him and Kellogg is getting his information from Zelensky. From Zelensky. And there you have it.

Trump actually thinks that Ukraine is able to defend against Russia's advance in these regions. And he also believes that he can break the Russian economy. A Budanov, by the way, military intelligence chief, who has changed his perspective on the war radically this year has actually come out and said, this isn't true. Russia can continue the war for years. But we don't want to listen to Budanov anymore. Yeah, let's not listen to him. All right.

We will, it doesn't fit into our narrative, into our delusion. It doesn't fit into our delusion, right? Okay. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Telegram X and Rumble and go to the Duran shop. Pick up some merch. There's a link in the description box down below.

We are also on substack as well. There's a link in the description box down below to our substack. Take care.