The Duran Podcast - Russia advances faster and faster

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Russia advances faster and faster

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on the military situation unfolding in Ukraine. We seem to be getting a Russian advance across the entire front lines, but specifically in Pakrovsk area, it seems. The Danipro region, Pakrovsk, Chasovya is in Russian hands. Now, I think this is accepted as well. Pretty much, including by the Ukrainians, by the way. I mean, there is a sort of what is called in this part of the world, a microdistrict. This is something that the Soviets used to do, that near a city, they would create a kind of satellite community where people who work in the city would live.

And, you know, they would commute from the microdistrict to the city itself, a kind of housing estate, if you like. But these are bigger than that, much bigger than housing estates, kind of. small town near the main town. Anyway, apparently there's some sections of this micro-district where there are still Ukrainian troops. But Chassef Yard, the city, the town of Chazovya, appears to be entirely in Russian control. And I do think anybody really disputes that anymore. No one talks about it though. No, it's not being reported on it all. Given how much importance and how many, you know, forests of trees were chopped down to discuss the situation in just a few weeks ago.

It's astonishing to see how this has dropped out of all discussion. But the overall picture is the Russians advancing right across the front lines, as you rightly say, they do seem to be two particular places where they are really hitting the Ukrainians very hard. One is in Sumi region, where they continue to advance. We discussed this in a recent program. They're taking more positions every single day. There doesn't seem to be any really well-organized Ukrainian defense in Sumi, except in one place, which is a village called Unarkovka, everywhere else the Russians seem to be able to advance.

I won't say without resistance, but anyway, they're able to advance and take and gain territory all the time. And the other is in central Dombas, which arguably has always always. been the single most important area of the battlefields, the area between Pachrosk and Konstantinovka. And these are the two most important towns, and the Russians are pressing hard on both of them. They have mostly, I mean, you look at maps, they've mostly surrounded both of these places. And they apparently have captured the high ground around all. of them, the supply roads to both of these two towns are becoming increasingly precarious. They're dominated and controlled by Russian drones.

The Ukrainians, again, are resisting around these two towns, which, if they lose, by the way, then in my opinion, they've lost Dombas. I mean, Ipakov and Konstantinovka fall, then the rest of Dombas will, you know, inevitably follow, probably quite quickly. So the Ukrainians are still resisting, but they don't seem to be able to resist very effectively. And in the area of Konstantinovka, one is hearing lots of reports of Ukrainian troops being surrounded about the defenses there becoming increasingly fragmented. And in the area around Pachrovsk. The Russians not only are far to the west of Pachrovsk, but they are to the north and east of

Pachrovsk too. So it's been taken into a sort of huge semi-circle. And if you look on a map, it's like the sort of crest of a wave. He's about to engulf it. So it looks as if the situation is becoming very difficult for the Ukrainians. They themselves are saying so. And beyond that, Putin is claiming that Ukrainian units right across the entire combat line are at only 47% strength. And that the actual frontline units are even weaker, which perhaps explains why the Russian advances are becoming faster and faster. because the Ukrainians are able to put up less and less resistance. And the infantry that is trying to defend these positions is becoming exhausted. Every day, by the way, you hear about fortified positions that the Ukrainians have,

which have passed under Russian control. And I suspect that many of these fortified positions are undefended, that you have large area of. of trenches and, you know, bunkers and things of that kind, which would be created by the Ukrainians and that there are no actual soldiers manning them. And that is what Marianna Bezuglia, the Ukrainian MP, has been talking about for some time. And I think that this is almost certainly true. And it's consistent with these disastrous personnel shortages. And it shows, it's having its effect now on the battlefields.

And Putin also said that the mobilization efforts, especially with trying to mobilize and draft 18-year-olds, has failed as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So the situation in Sumi, do you have any update there? What's going on there? Yeah, my own guess, and I said this, I think, in a previous program, is that eventually the Russians will attack the city of Sumi itself.

Grover forces north, which is the military force that is attacking Suu. Are talking about what they call the regional centre all the time now. And that is clearly the city of Sumi. And you can see how the Russians are gradually, as they always do, by the way, they never attack a place head on. They like to take all the places around. they like to cut the branches before they fell the tree. I mean, that's how they work.

And that's exactly what they're doing. They're taking places close to Sumi, north of Sumi. They're starting to threaten the roads. They're putting more and more drones in the skies. And we're hearing less and less now, by the way, about Ukrainian drones. Ukraine is apparently starting to run short of drones. There's been an article about this in the British media that previously Ukraine was able to match Russian drum numbers. It can't any more, apparently, on the front lines.

So gradually, Sumi, the city of Sumi is being cut off. And I think that at some point in the next few weeks or months, we're likely to see a Russian assault upon it. And what tends to happen now is when the Russians are able to cut off, cut off all the branches from the tree, then the tree quite quickly collapses. When the Russians enter a city, whereas as at the supply roads have all been cut, the Ukrainians aren't able to put up a prolonged resistance anymore. So it's not like Marupol and Marinka and Bachmut where battles to capture these places took not just months, but sometimes years. When the Russians enter big cities today, already the battle is an effect over. And the collapse when it comes, comes fast. You saw that with Selidavo and Korachovu.

You saw this with, you saw this with Ugladar, you saw this with place after place now. The Ukrainian's ability to defend for prolonged periods of time is reducing. Yeah. So you have Sumi in the north. You have the center. The Russians are moving on the center, and they're moving on the south. I mean, it's... Well, yeah.

And they completely dominate the skies. I mean, this is... Their drones, I mean, they're drone offensive. Their Gerand drone offensive has become incredibly sophisticated. We no longer have a single generic and Gerontu drone, you know, the one with the motorcycle engine and making all that funny noise and all of that. We have now different versions of the Geron drone, some of them incredibly sophisticated, some of them acting as kind of... kind of reconnaissance drones, others, you know, acting like kind of dive bombers, some with jet engines, some with much bigger warheads, and some using some elements of AI technology,

some of them controlled from a distance by controllers. And the Russians are able to send up hundreds of these every night now and conduct incredibly complex and very simple and very sophisticated operations with them, supplemented with ballistic missile strikes, which the Ukrainians aren't really able to repel anymore. The Ukrainians, by the way, on this, in my opinion, have now drifted into Baghdad-Bob country. There's been some big Russian missile strikes on Kiev, and the Ukrainians are claiming that they shot down everything that was launched against Kiev, except that we now have pictures and photos and film, which the Ukrainians aren't able to suppress any longer, which show the missile strikes and the drone strikes impacting right across the city and reports that a particular warehouse was destroyed recently. And massive with damage was done to ammunition stocks and also a strike on the airfield where the Patriot missiles are located.

and against some reasons to think that significant damage was done to the Patriot missiles that are kept there. So all of this is going on all the time every night. I mean, it never stops anymore. And can I just, for the sake of comparison, say, we're hearing a huge amount about aerial strikes that Israel and Iran are conducting against each other. What the Russians are now doing over Ukraine dwarfs that. Yeah, and Ukraine's not going to be getting any more air defense systems, at least not in the shorter medium term, given everything that's happening between Israel and Duran. Exactly. Exactly. So they're in big trouble.

Exactly. Zelensky should capitulate and take the deal. Istanbul Plus before it's too late. Exactly. He won't. All right. We will head to the video there. The durand.com.

We are on Ramboladesi, Bichu, Telegraph, for the next. go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.