The Duran Podcast - Russia Unleashes Oreshnik, More Strikes Planned

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

Russia Unleashes Oreshnik, More Strikes Planned

All right, Alexander, let's break down what happened over the weekend with the strikes into Kiev and not only Kiev, the outskirts of Kiev and other parts of Ukraine. Of course, the talk is of the Erejnich. That was the big weapon that was used. And everyone is reacting to the Oedegnik being used, including leaders in the collective West in Europe. And this was a retaliation to the terrorist attack against a dormitory. I call it a terrorist attack, even though Ukraine, the collective West media, refused to acknowledge such a thing. I have not seen any evidence to counter that. And you also have journalists on the ground in Lugansk as well, though BBC, CNN and other journalists from the collective West refused to go to.

to the location of the dormitory strike. And where are we with all of this? What is the reaction? What's going to be the effect of this? Is it going to be seen as a one-off? We're just going to go back to where we were with escalating drone attacks. How do you see all of this playing out? Right.

The first thing to say is that I completely agree with your assessment about Stadabelsk. I have read all the various statements made by the Western officials, the ambassadors, at the UN Security Council. And the fascinating thing about this is that they refuse to really address what actually happened in Starobelsk at all. And as you rightly say, journalists were invited to go. Some journalists have gone. There is no doubt whatsoever that what was attacked was a student dormitory.

Now, there's been, you could argue. you that this was a mistake that the Ukrainians might have thought that they were attacking something else. But they're not convincingly explaining why, nor is, you know, the West on their behalf. The reaction in the West is to basically say as little about this incident as they can. In fact, not as they can. To say as little about. As little about, this incident, period. So when the Russian retaliation happened and it was enormous, the response from the West from Macro, from Cayacallus, from the British government, from everybody, basically, is that this Russian attack simply comes out of the clear blue sky,

the Russians decided to attack Kiev in this massive way. And there's no, no linkage made or scarcely any linkage made. And, well, certainly not by governments, there is no linkage made to the attack on Starobelsk at all. Now, about the strikes, I think that this Russian strike was obviously the biggest and the most powerful that we have seen against Kiev since the start of the war. And the Oresnik itself was used against this target in this town to the south of Kiev. There is an airfield there.

There are industrial facilities there. But the Russian Defence Ministry is saying that command bunkers of what they call the general command of Ukraine and of Ukrainian military intelligence, which is Budana's old outfit, that they were attacked. And I wonder whether the Ukrainians have relocated some of the command headquarters of these organizations to this town and whether that was what the Russians attacked with the Erashnik. Now, one of the consistent patterns of Orishnik strikes is that you can clearly see after each one that Western leaders are shocked. If you see what Macron has said after this one, and indeed, Cayocales, they are clearly very, very shocked. But the Ukrainians never allow anybody to go there to the place where the attack.

has happened. It takes sometimes years before we get satellite photos. We've only now started to receive satellite photos from the Yush Mesh factory in NEPRO which has attacked with an

Oresnik in November 2024. So that makes it very difficult for us to look at what the action, you know, what happened and to make an independent assessment of the damage that was done to these facilities which were attacked by

the Arashnik. The satellite photos of the Yushmash factory suggests to me enormous damage. And by the way, very, very great precision indeed from the attack. There's been some questions about how precise this weapon is. To me, it looks like it was very precise. I mean, was one specific network of buildings that were attacked. Probably it's the same, so I'm sure it's the same here. But it's impossible for us to say. But in every other respect, we see buildings, factories, plants, all sorts of other buildings whose nature we don't quite understand.

They were attacked by the Russians. They were attacked with all kinds of weapons. They were attacked with Kinjail missiles. They were attacked with circon hypersonic cruise missiles, which interestingly were launched on the ground. They weren't launched by sea. So the Russians have now developed mobile launches for these Tsircon missiles, which means that they can attack from various parts of Russian territory. They can also conduct strikes on Ukraine from, you know, Lugansk and, you know, Nyehprop, in other words, from the territory of pre-2014 Ukraine, the part of the territory that is under Russian control, which makes it very difficult for the Ukrainians to anticipate where these attacks are going to come from.

But anyway, the point is, the attacks took place, Ukrainian air defense collapsed, massive damage was done. You could see the smoke from all kinds of buildings and structures. You could see pictures of some of the damage done to some of the buildings. Dron footage, which must ultimately have come from the Russians. It's clear that the attack was devastating. And, well, I get to say this. Compare this attack with a big drone attack that the Ukrainians carried out against Moscow a few days ago, about a week ago.

And you could see the contrast. The air defense in Kiev didn't work. The air defense in Moscow did. Most of the Ukrainian drones didn't get through. All of the Russian missiles, from what I can see, basically did get through. Massive damage done in Kiev, ephemeral light damage done in Moscow. There is no comparison between these strikes. We are going to see more strikes. of this kind. You do not prepare a strike as complex as this within a few days or a few hours. There is clearly already preparations underway in Russia for strikes like this using Orashniks, Kinshels, Zircons, other types of cruise missiles and drones. This is obviously the first of many such attacks that we are going to see. Probably they're going to start to build up significantly in the summer. So we've just seen the show for things to come. Okay, so you don't consider this to be a one-off. No. Okay. Do the Europeans, are the Europeans going to see this? The West, the U.S. NATO. Are they going to see this as a one-off? Or are they going to brush

this off. Let's put it that way. Are they going to say, you know what? Putin got his retaliation. Russia got their retaliation. We can go back to our drone plans, right, and trying to hit the energy facilities and trying to shake and destabilize Russia. They're already saying that this is a sign of weakness from Russia. It's not a sign of strength. And they're putting out, they're all putting out the same message with regards to why this strike happened. And what? what it means. It means that Russia is weak, not that Russia is strong. Is this where we're going to go with this? The Europeans are going to continue to escalate. They're going to continue to try and put pressure on Russia through sanctions. The U.S. is going to continue to supply

weapons or sell the weapons to the Europeans. Zelensky is going to continue to travel around and look for money and look for weapons. Well, I'll tell you what's going to happen. Firstly, I'll tell you what's going to happen. firstly, whenever you see an erasional strike take place, there is a consistent pattern. The first response from Western leaders, people like Macron, I mean, I'm used to reading messages and seeing, you know, judging how people respond. The first response is shock. I mean, they are shocked by the scale of the attack that happens. Then you can see that, they all talk to each other, they all agree on the message that they're going to convey.

And always they come back, they start to say to themselves and to everyone else, this isn't a sign of strength, it is a sign of weakness, they brush it off or try to pretend that they're brushing it off. They pretend to each other and to the world that they're not really shocked. And then they all together in unison say that they're going to continue to support Ukraine. So that is the recurring cycle. They're not going to turn around and admit to themselves or to their publics that the game is lost. That's just not going to happen.

I mean, they will go on supporting Ukraine until Ukraine is completely devastated because they know there's going to be. more of these strikes, but they're going to, again, will the fact that these strikes happen away. Now, you said about American weapons, the weapons that Ukraine is getting at the present time are basically drones. They're not getting much in the way of tanks, armored vehicles. You remember the enormous push to get them fighter jets, which were going to change the course of the war. I mean, that's basically stopped as well. I mean, the actual supply of heavy weapons has effectively ended now. It is purely drones. And that, of course, will continue. And the drone offensives against Russia will continue as well. So they're not going to change,

course. They are going to try to intensify the sanctions. They are going to try to do all of these things, their policy isn't going to change. The more interesting thing is what is happening on the Russian side, because a thing that people are not noticing is, you remember we've said many times that after Valdei, Putin basically disappeared from the scene. Well, he's been gradually re-emerging over the last few weeks. And then after the attack on Starobelsk, he came out and spoke finally and clearly. And what he said was completely in line with what Medvedev, Lavrov and others have been saying up to now, that this is, I'm going to use careful language, an extreme militant terrorist regime.

I mean, he used even stronger language than that. It is also illegitimate. It is compulsively violent. He spoke in a way that made it completely clear to me that he no longer believes in negotiations. He doesn't believe that negotiations will ever have any kind of successful outcome. The language he used to describe the government and leadership in Kiev was such as far as I can see would rule.

out totally, any possibility of a negotiation with them. And, well, as soon as he spoke, we had another message from Medvedev, basically saying the same thing. So I've been saying that the Russian stance over the last few months since Valdei has been hardening. And it's clear to me that that is the position. And the Russians have always been. said that negotiations involving the Americans are over. We had Uschakoff say that the spirit of Anchorage, he doesn't even know what it is. We discussed that in a previous program. No one knows what it is. No one knows. Well, I mean, he was being curious completely. I know. I'm joking too. I know. But he was being completely disingenuous because to the extent that

that expression has ever been used at all, it's been used previously by the Russians. It was the Russians who talked about a spirit of anchorage. But Uschakov says that there is no spirit of anchorage. There never has been a spirit of anchorage. I don't know what the spirit of anchorage is that people are talking about and all of that. Well, I mean, he is burying the whole negotiation. Even Rubio now is admitting the negotiation is basically over. And I can't imagine that we're going to see negotiations. anymore. And from this point on, it's just going to beat the war and the Russian offensive and more missile strikes and the offensive is going to intensify over the course of the summer,

as it always does. So a lot of people are wondering, why were these military facilities, these factories that were targeted? Why were they allowed to operate for so many years? Why were they not targeted earlier? And the Europeans, just to, just to wrap up the video, and the Europeans, they are coming out with more statements where they believe that Russia's running out of time, that Putin is running out of time, that Putin wants to make a deal because he's running out of time. And there are people in Europe, in the EU, very high up, who actually believe that the tide has turned and they're going to witness thing.

Yes. It's clear that they really do believe this. Yes. I don't think it's, you know, wishful thinking or they're just trying to. to fool anybody or game anybody, they really do believe that the tide has turned and they are now going to win this war. So wrap up the video. Yes, I mean, we go through these periods. And I think there is wishful thinking and then of course it's repeated so often that it becomes accepted fact as it always does. And they're all saying this to each other. And the result is that

eventually they come to believe what they're saying themselves. And we, we, we, we, we, We've been here before. We were here in the autumn of 2022. We were here in the spring of 2023. We've had similar statements made this time last year, by the way. People forget that this time last year, people were also talking about a stalemate. And even then they were talking about drone balls. And so we get this repeated cycle of comments and observations of this kind. And yes, they do believe it. And the reason they believe it is very simple, because they don't want negotiations to happen with the Russians. There are some people in Europe who don't believe it, who are now saying, we've got to get negotiate, we've got to talk to the Russians,

we've got to move forward with negotiations with the Russians, we've got to appoint a chief negotiator. But the British don't want that to happen. The Scandinavians don't want that to happen. The Waltz absolutely do not want that to happen. Ursula and Kayakalis do not want that to happen. So they run with this narrative that they start to believe themselves. Now, this isn't perhaps the best moment here because, you know, the tele-end program like this, talking about the whole situation on the front lines. You don't have to get it to the details of it. We can do another program on that.

The Russians continue to move forward. They are breaking through in Zaporosia. Konstantino, of course, clearly falling. Even commentators who are not as close to, you know, they're more closer to the Ukrainian side are now beginning to understand that Konstantino, of course, a huge crisis. There's been people who have pointed out that this so-called Ukrainian counterattack,

deep strike, the Ukrainian mapping project, is not actually returning any territory to Ukraine. They are not actually showing any Ukrainian gains. So, you know, what is actually going on? So the realities on the front lines tell a completely different story. And, of course, the other part of the narrative was about the Russian economy. We discussed the Russian economy in massive detail in various programs. We've explained that there was a major.

slowdown over the course of 2025, which is deliberately engineered, in my opinion, over-engineered by the central bank and Putin in order to bring inflation down. Inflation is now falling fast. In fact, we've had two weeks of deflation in Russia, not consecutive weeks, but we've had two weeks of deflation in Russia over the last few weeks, there's a good chance that the central bank is going to overshoot its inflation target, in my opinion. We could see inflation for below 4%, which is what they've been talking about. Monetary conditions, nonetheless, are going to start to ease. The effect of the tax increase, the tax increase, over the winter is beginning to wear off.

We're beginning to get economic numbers for March, which suggest a significant rebound in the economy, stronger than we were led to belief. And instead of the crisis that people in the West are talking about, we continue to see an economy, which overall remains stable. but one where interest rates continue to be far too high. At some point this year, the central bank is going to have to accept this, and they're going to have to acknowledge the 10% real interest rates,

which is what they are inflicting on the economy, is both unnecessary and misguided. And I'm going to make a guess. We're going to start to see this in the midsum. Okay. Anything else you want to add to wrap up the video? Well, I mean, the Russians have also, of course, received a significant boost from the higher energy prices.

The budget deficit is melting away and whatever economic problems they have. And again, the biggest point to a pause in the economy. in the first quarter rather than an outright contraction. It's not, it's not as bad what we see in Europe. That's the other thing I would say. The final quick question to wrap up the video, do you think Putin has any other option

other than to wrap up this conflict and to finish this thing? Given the prominence of all the hardliners, I won't even call them hardliners. Pretty much everyone in the Security Council, it seems to me, is now pushing for the president to take the gloves off. I mean, he doesn't have any, it seems to me he doesn't have.

Even if you wanted, there is no wiggle room or not much. No, there isn't. In my opinion, you had a whole series of comments and a speech made by Lavrov, completely unnoticed again in the West, but clearly, again, part of this internal debate, he said that Russia must win this war, Russia must achieve. all of the goals of the special military operation, because its international reputation now depends on it. And that if Russia falls short, in other words, if it compromises too soon, or in the kind of way that Putin has sometimes suggested, then Russia will lose face and will disappoint its allies and neighbors.

Now, which allies and neighbors is he's talking about? Well, if you read his comment carefully, you can see that he's clearly talking about China. And Lavrov was in China with Putin just a few days ago. And I get the sense from Lavrov's words that Ukraine was discussed and the Chinese said to Putin, look, we understand you have all these discussions with the Americans. But you must now bring this thing to an end and you must show us that. you will win. So Lavrov is saying this publicly.

Now, this is a change, by the way, from the Chinese position. In 2024, China was trying to get a ceasefire. But now they've hardened their position against the Americans, significantly, by the way, we're hearing more that apparently there was a furious row between Xi Jinping and Trump about Japan and about Japanese rearmament during the trip. We'll talk about this or some other day. But the point is, China is starting to see the whole relationship with the Americans in a different way. And where they were previously a force of restraint on the Russians, now they're telling they get on with it.

Sort it down. Do it. So the pressure is accumulating on Putin. Now, I'm going to just finish quickly with one very, very, very. last point. I saw, and I want to just return to the economy. There is an astonishing fact about this war on the Russian side. The Europeans are financing this war by going deeper and deeper into debt. They're taking out loans, they're floating bonds, they're doing all of these kind of things. The Russians don't. They pay for the war with cash that is broad.

receipts that the government receives through taxation. Now, that is incredible. I have never known a war of this scale to be funded by any government or country in this way before. Abraham Lincoln floated bonds and depreciated the currency during the American Civil War. So I suspect this has also been another constraint on Russian actions, which is that Putin has a massive aversion to debt. And because he's restricting what Russia does to what it can spend, well, it's probably having an effect on the war itself. Debt levels in Russia have been falling. I think that there is definitely fiscal space, contrary to everything that you read in Europe, to actually spend more and to increase the tempo of the war, if that is what the Russians really want to do.

Right. My quick thoughts. Bad idea to blockade, to try and blockade China with Iran. Now China is fully on board with Russia. So another misstep in the whole global. Hedgemeny blockade, China, energy control plan from the Trump White House. It looks like it's backfiring on the United States, on the collective Western, on Ukraine. And Putin in Kazakhstan in a couple of days.

So, you have it. All right. We will end the video there at the durand.locals.com. We are on XRumble and Telegram. We are also on substack. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch. We have 30% sale on T-shirts and hats. So definitely check it out.

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