The Duran Podcast - Russia will expand demilitarized zone - Putin

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Russia will expand demilitarized zone - Putin

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's recent statements, specifically one statement that has caught a lot of people's attention, where Putin said that Russia needs to expand its demilitarization zone. And it has to do this in order to protect the Russian cities, towns, villages, and people who are living close to the borders of Ukraine. he's talking obviously about Belgarod and Kharkov and the attacks that are launched from Kharkov into Belgarod. But he could be talking about expanding even further. I think the big question is how big of a demilitarization zone is Putin talking about? What did you make of Putin's comments? I is a very important statement, actually. and obviously he is only saying what other Russian officials have said before.

I can remember Dimitri Medvedev, who was the vice chairman of the Security Council, saying way back in autumn 2022, that if the West supplied long-range weapons to Ukraine, then the Russians would have to expand the zone of the special military operation to take into account the range of those weapons in order to keep those weapons out of range of Russian territory. And, you know, just over a year later, we now finally have Putin saying the same thing. Now, I think this is a very important statement coming from Putin,

not because he's finally catching up with Medvedev, but because what Putin says, Unlike what Medvedev says, we can be sure is Russian policy. Now, up to this time, all military operations that the Russians have been conducting in Ukraine, with their ground troops, have been located on territory that the Russians legally claim to be theirs. that's to say the Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk, Zaporozhia and Herzon region. There is some fighting going on in Kharkov region,

but only small parts of Kharkov region have so far been, you know, the places where this kind of fighting is happening. Now Putin is now talking about the Russians needing to acquire a very big buffer zone in order to protect Russian cities and Russian villages and all of those things. And he's specifically citing the Elyushin 76 affair where a transport aircraft, a Russian transport aircraft, was shot down by Ukraine over Belgarod with 65 years.

Ukrainian prisoners of war being killed, and Putin is now saying that was done with an American Patriot missile. He might be right, by the way. So he's now saying this. That means that the ground operations must logically be expanded beyond the territory, which at the moment the Russians say is their own territory, you know, the two Dombas republics, Zaporosia and Herson region, which the Russians say legally is Russian. He's now talking about Bufazzo. So that inevitably means, or so it seems to me, that the Russians are going to start military operations soon in Harkov region as well. It looks to me as if Harkov City, which is 30 kilometres away from the border,

the Russian border up close to Belgarod, and a place which has been used by Ukraine as a launch point for attacks on Russian territory. Harkov City itself logically must be, you know, within the Russian line of sites. And it looks to me as if Putin, is giving the green light for a new big Russian offensive in this territory, which will probably begin sometime in the spring.

That is how it looks to me. And we're seeing lots of evidence of this. There have now been Lancet drone attacks along the northern border, which is new apparently. And we've seen lots of evidence of Russian reconnaissance units operating within how, in the U. In other words, another new front in the war is about to be open. What does that mean for the Russian military?

What does that mean for the Ukraine military? You have this big shakeup in the Ukraine military. It's probably not at the best state of preparedness right now to have another front open up, given everything that's going on in Kiev. But for the Russian military, is this going to also take up their resources or affect the position that they're in right now? Or is this something that they've been ramping up towards over time? I mean, how is this going to affect both sides? It is clearly the second.

And we see how all of these Ukrainian attacks on Russian cities have played into an agenda, which I suspect the Russians have had. had for some time now. I mean, bear in mind what I said. I mean, Medvedev was already talking about creating this big buffer zone back in the autumn of last year. So the reason that Putin is talking about this is obviously there's been these incidents like the one with Elyush in 76 and many others, attacks on Belgarod, all of those kind of things. But Putin now feels, the Russians now feel that with the enormous build-up in Russian military power that has been taking place over the last year,

the fact that they now have 600,000 troops operating in the area of the special military operation, the fact that they have 1,200 men joining the army every day, the fact that military production is increasing, and apparently there's been a huge surge in military production in Russia over the course of the last few weeks, as a result of the expansion of factories and the enlistment of skilled workers that took place that was decided upon in the autumn of 2022. It's taken time roughly a year for all that to start

to have an effect, but it now is. And so there's this huge increase in military production, this huge increase in the size of the Russian armed forces, and that puts that, or so Putin believes, in a position where they are able to open a new front against the Ukrainians without weakening their positions elsewhere on the front lines. Now, with Ukrainians, it is the exact opposite. They're disastrously overextended. Zelensky has claimed that the Ukrainian army now numbers 800,000 men. I've had a very, very authoritative report about Ukrainian,

actual numbers of Ukrainian troops from somebody who is very well-reformed about these kind of things. And he tells me that what Zelensky, the figures that Zelensky is giving, are paper strengths, paper strengths based on paper strengths of Ukrainian units. The reality is that Ukrainian military units, because of the enormous attrition that has taken place over the last two years, are now at about 50 to 60%, on average of their paper size. So the Russians apparently believe that the true size of the Ukrainian army is around 450,000 men. If that is correct, with 600,000 already fighting Russians, already in the special military operation zone, with hundreds of thousands more of Russian troops able to join the battle, the Ukrainians are in no condition to resist these further big Russian offensives.

They would be massive, they're already overstrapped. stretched and over-extended. And, well, they risk becoming overwhelmed. He also talked about the POW exchanges in this meeting. He said they're not going to stop the exchanges of POWs. And there was a large exchange that took place the other day. What are your thoughts on that? Well, again, it works to the Russian. Given the IL-76, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. It works to the Russian advantage. Remember those POWs, those POWs who were killed. They were Ukrainians.

They weren't Russians. The Russians want their people back. Putin says that Russia holds 10 Ukrainian captives for every single Russian the Ukrainians have. From a Russian point of view, given that these exchanges are troops exchanged in equal numbers, the Russians are getting all their people who are in captivity back and they're only releasing in return some of the troops that they hold, the Ukrainian prisoners, that they hold. So why not go on with these troop exchanges?

From a Russian point of view, it makes perfect sense. And of course, it improves morale in Russia, it improves morale amongst the military in Russia because they know that if they do fall, they do get captured by the Ukrainians. Putin and the Russian government will make sure that they are brought back. And that does help the morale of soldiers. So, of course, he's going to continue to do it.

The other thing, of course, is that it turns out that the mediating party that arranges these exchanges is the UAE, which is a friendly country, which is now a member of the Briggs. And again, working with the UAE, whereas we all remember he had a triumphal reception when he went there a few weeks ago, well, he doesn't want to annoy the UAE by telling them, well, you know, your services aren't needed anymore. So there's a diplomatic aspect of this as well. Putin wants to keep his friends close. and that's another reason why he will go on with these prisoner exchanges. So he'll go on with the prison exchanges.

He'll get his troops back. The Ukrainians will still find that most of the troops that the Russians have in captivity will remain there. Because so long as these exchanges continue on a one-for-one basis, the Ukrainians are not able to get all their people back. He keeps the UAE friendly. And of course, coming back to this point about a buffer zone. Now, Putin is talking about a buffer zone.

He's referring obviously to Kharkov region. The Kharkov region is populated by people who speak Russian. It's not very different at the end of the day from Zaporosia region and Herson region and even the Donbass. So once it becomes a buffer region, People there might start to say, we don't want to be brought back under Ukrainian administration. Why shouldn't we join Russia too? And we've already had referendums in the Dombas,

in Zaporosia and Herson region, and they've eventually voted to join Russia, and the Russians accepted them. And, well, I'm not saying that it's an absolute done thing, that the same will happen if Kharkov region were to fall under Russian control. But it would be very likely. And of course, if the whole of Russian, Kharkov region, falls under Russian control. And if the Russians clear the Donbass and clear Kherson, well, retain control of Herson region,

and all of Zaporosia region, including Zaporosia City, east of the NEPA, then what that would in effect mean is that the Russians will control the whole of Ukraine, east of the NEPA. And they will be able to say also, well, Kharkov is now a Russian city if we need a buffer zone

to protect Kharkov as well. And we might want to push beyond the NEPA too. So, you know, you could see how this, where this might, go. And it's a warning to Ukraine again. Already the Russians are talking about buffer zones in Kharkov. If they don't want to lose Kharkov, if they don't want to lose Kharkov region, then it is urgent for them to start negotiations right away. And if they do lose Kharkov region, it might not end there. Losing Kharkov would be devastating for Ukraine. I mean, Kharkov is the

the second biggest city in Ukraine, isn't it? Absolutely. Bigger than Odessa. It's bigger than Odessa. It's a major industrial center. It doesn't have the traction for Russians that Odessa does, but it's always been considered a Russian city. And you can easily see why if the Russians consolidate control of Kharkiv,

they might say, well, we're not going we're staying here that would be a huge undertaking that that's what I was asking in the beginning of the video because I mean right now today Mariupol is the largest city that the Russians have

have captured from it's Mariupo yeah that that is the largest city that they have captured so I mean this would be a much bigger operation Oh Kharkas is a much bigger city than Maripo at least more than twice as big in population terms.

And I understand territorially much bigger and enormous and very complicated operation. But maybe the Russians think they have the men to do it. Okay. We will wait and see what happens.

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