The Duran Podcast - Russian advance in South, three frontlines w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Russian advance in South, three frontlines w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

All right, Alexander, we are here with Stadislav. Stadislav, how are you doing? And where can people follow your work? Good, good as always. You can find me either on X, under Slavsklav Kavnik. You can find me on YouTube at Mr. Slavic Man, Slavic with a K, now I see,

or Telegram at Stastudaya Abratna. That's the Russian channel, and Stasas was there as the English channel. And I'm sure I'll think of a few new places. Oh, and Substack method. Yeah, that's the new one on my Substack channel. So, yeah, the list is growing. That's an important one.

That's an important one. I have those links in the description box down below. We are also on Substack. All those links are in the description box down below. Alexander Stadislav. Let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. Absolutely. Let's indeed.

Because, of course, we've had a lot of talk about diplomacy. We've had meetings in Abu Dhabi. we've had meetings in Moscow. We've had comments from Zelensky. There's been lots of comments from Zelensky. None of them very relevant, perhaps, to negotiations, or at least all of them indicating that the negotiations are very, very stuck. That's my take on them.

The place where this war is being decided, as all wars are decided, is on the battlefield. And we have in Stanislav, the person who can explain to us what the situation, the true situation on the battlefield is. Now, I say the battlefield, of course, the battlefield is a flexible concept. We've now had massive attacks on the cities of Ukraine. Many of them are in blackout. We also have what is now apparently an effective blockade of Adessa. Ships are basically not going in or out, as I understand it, something that I've said the Russians always had their power to do.

do, but they're not doing it. So we might want to touch on that as well, but let's focus first on the situation on the front lines, which is the most difficult part of the war to understand from anybody who's at a distance. So shall we begin? And let's start with the South. Let's start with Zaporozia. There was a lot of movement in Zaporosia a few weeks ago. The Russians made a huge advance all the way to Zaporosia from Velika and Novosilca, which is in Donbas, I believe, but they went all the way deep into Zaporosia from the east. They advanced westwards. They reached and have now captured the important, historically and culturally important town of Gullapolier. They crossed a river called the Gaichal River. But again, if you believe the

various accounts, the momentum has slowed. I would have many points to make about that as well, by the way, which is that momentum tends to slow, and river obstacles do complicate logistics, even once they've been crossed. But you'll be able to discuss that too. And, of course, the interesting thing about the fighting in Zaporosia is that there's this advance in the east,

but there is a simultaneous advance also from the west along the Nipur River, and with forces moving northwards, and interestingly enough, eastwards as well. So over to you, Stanislav. Tell us what's going on. First of all, with the failure of the talks, I can tell you the majority of the Russian military, and that's including line infantry, the enlisted guys, are happy with that. Because what most of the Russian military fears flat out is some kind of deal between the governments. they want the war to end, but they want capitulation from the Ukrainians.

It's a matter of we've already sacrificed as much as we've sacrificed and what we put in, we want victory. We want a Russian flag flying in Kiev and Zelensky in his niece. That's what the Russian military wants. And again, this is not something coming from the generals. This is something coming from company grade, field grade officers from NCOs I've talked to and others. and unless they, they all, of course, want to go home. They all want to see their families.

But having put the amount of time, the effort lost friends from wounds, from casualties, and not get that victory would be a massively led down. So, yeah, they're extremely thrilled that the negotiations are going nowhere. The Ukrainians think, oh, we'll threaten them. We won't do anything. But that's actually what everybody wants. So by all means, by all means, don't come to the negotiation date. Or come to the negotiation table wearing your two and a half thousand dollar Italian sneakers and saying no.

But that popped out to Barcelona's sneakers. So yeah, so the battlefield, I'll tell you, everybody concentrates on right now, and there's a good reason for that, on Slavin's Scarmatours, Konstantinov. That's the big, big battle. And while that is a big battle, and Konstantinovka is someplace, first of all, that the Russians have pulled the reserves that were taking Krasnarymysk and taking Dmitrov, or Mirnagrad.

I've now been all pushed into the Konstantinovka, and Ukraine is thrown in whatever it can, kitchen towel, boy scouts, you know, whatever it can grab off the street, carry out, it's all throwing in there. But the cracking point, in my opinion, and I'd gone through this extensively on the update, is Zaporosia. Zaporosia for several reasons. First of all, that is the weakest location Ukraine has.

It's a very long front, a very long front that's run out of any kind of major, well, it never even had any kind of major fortified area. outside of Budaipolia, and that was natural fortifications more than anything else. Since that wasn't the Donbos, they hadn't been preparing that area for all that long. Now, attacking in that area when Ukraine had a full-up military was difficult because it is open terrain. It's mostly flat. It's mostly open terrain. And getting to it was difficult. But once the Ukraine, once attrition had drowned down. the Ukrainian forces once misadventures in Rabotina, in Pursk had taken out the majority of the Ukrainian forces.

What's left we saw with when the final fall of Guli Poli came, it came so fast that the headquarters units of the Ukrainian army didn't even switch their computers off before they ran. I didn't even block the screens, right? So no passwords needed, just go right in. Everything's up and working. It was an amazing site. The videos were coming in from the first guys that went through, and everything just, you know, they dropped and they ran. And they didn't destroy any of their information.

They didn't destroy it, do any kind of obsec whatsoever. They just ran. Operational security. So as operogia right now stands as the, I would say, the weak link and there are several very good reasons for Russia to go through to Zaporosia itself. Zaporosia, by taking Zaporosia, on the screen I'll have the main map of Zaporosia and basically where the front line is.

If you look out a little further, Zaporosia city, there are three bridges going across, to the siege, which is a tourist attraction, which is a former Zaporajak Kazakh fortress. Well, it's the former, it's a rebuilt fortress because Catherine Negre had to burn down. It was wooden. So pretty much to end the debt. Because the Kazakhs and the Zaporosia Kazakhs were changing sides

on a constant basis between serving the Tsar, running with the Poles, running with the Crimean, Tartars, which are really just Mongols, or flat out serving the autumn, or just raiding for themselves. So in the end, Catherine, the Great gave them a choice of, you know, leave, Bendani and migrate out. But either way, the fortress in that area was burnt down. So that area is a park with two bridges going down there and one major bridge going into, across the Nepper, straight across the Neaple. So once you get across the Nieper, first of all, once you take Zaporosy, you've got a straight shot toward Nieppe Petrovs, really going around the back end of the front.

Then if you go into across the Nieper, you've got a straight shot into several key cities. One of them is western half of Nepe Petros, which is, well, the western two-thirds of Nepe Petros, you can go up the river and hit it there, which is the main part of the city. To the west, you got Krivarog, to the south you got Nikopol, which is a small industrial city. I've been there, and was setting up some suppliers there 15 years ago. But once you get past that, you now threaten Nikolai from the north, and either way, you take away all the pressure from Khefsan so the Russian army could cross over to retake. Kishasan and then pressure Nikolaev from the south. And once Nikolaev falls, the doorways open

either to Addessa or deep into Ukraine, strikes into Ukraine, which opens up the entire Western heartland into any kind of strikes and sorties. So that just, and once Upper Russia falls, there is no NEPA river, as it is. The NEPA river is basically closed off, because Russia holds at least a portion of it on the left bank. These are going downriver, the east bank. In this case, Russia would basically hold half the river already from both sides. And that artery is disclosed. And just proportionally for logistics, national logistics,

imagine if somebody held basically half the Mississippi in the U.S. the southern half of the Mississippi or a southern third of the Mississippi, the U.S. would be paralyzed, the connoissee, because the Mississippi is the main artery that connects probably, oh, at least half the U.S., if you really look at it, especially the industrial, well, as the former or maybe current Rust Belt up from Ohio, West Virginia, and those states, and connects it all down to world trade.

So that's a very, very big problem for it. Now, right now, starting from the going, from the west to the east. So Russian forces have come up to Primorsk, have taken Primorsk, and are moving in the direction along a small artery that goes into what used to be a huge inland sea, artificial landm sea created by dams under NEPA River.

Now it's just the Nepper River still there, obviously, it hasn't gotten any of the way, but that area has become a big swamp after the Ukrainians blew the dams about two years ago. So the area, it didn't dry out, it didn't become an avenue of attack for the Ukrainian army to take the Yerra da in the south and the Zaporosia electric atomic electric power plant, nuclear power plant. It just became a giant swamp. So it may even worse, you can't boat across it either now. You can't do anything with it.

it's in a wide open area. So you don't need to really be afraid of your western flank in this case because nobody's going to attack you across that swampy area in a wide open area that you can shoot at them for five kilometers away. So Russia is taking up the Primorsk, and they're heading toward Vesilienka. They don't need to take Vesilienka. They may take Vesilank, but the key is between Primorski and Vesilanka is a bridge across this estuary

towards Zaporosia. And once you cross that bridge and you get into Grigorifka, you're now in that urban, suburban zone that goes on a straight path about 11 kilometers to hit the edges of

Zaporosia city itself. But the thing is, is from Gigorifka, you can head up straight E-105 and it's fields. But if you go west, to the edge of what used to be the water reserve, then that's a built-up area. So I think those built-up areas are going to be cut off and walked around. There's no point in taking them all the way up when they can be isolated.

In fact, even up to heading to Viseilovka, there's a village on a peninsula that's going to be isolated as well. When you put some blocking forces in there, anything that's sitting in there isn't going to go anywhere. and it's not going to be able to be supplied. You don't need to always take every single village, every single. There's areas that you can just block off and walk around just for time's sakes. So that's one portion of the attack. Then there is the wide envelopment and the direct attacks on Ariohava.

is the only other remaining fortress town. And it's also an agglomeration. There's other small towns that feed into this longer portion of Ayoja. So there are Russian forces. And just to understand, it's 11 and 11, yeah, like I said, it was 11 kilometers from Grigoryvka to the edge of Zaporos. It's not that big of a drive. Now, if you look at east of Primorska, going east by southeast, you get into an area that's called Magdalianavka and Zapasnaya, there's a lot of combat going on the Ukrainians.

Russia is sending out two attacking directions. One of them is aimed at cutting the N105, which is the main artery supplying Ayurah, and it's supplying down from Zapparosia. Right now, Russian forces are about eight kilometers away on a straight shot from cutting that road. So it's already with a drone rage. The Ukrainians are throwing everything they have right now in that area against the Russian forces.

So there's combat going on to take on the Taliafka, Zapasnaya, and Nogo Yakadiov. And by the way, in the future for anybody listening, a lot of these names repeat from province. So province, even inside the provinces, they will repeat somewhat. They'll just be slightly differently written, so it can get confusing. So there's that going on right now, and that's an act of fear. So that's slowing Russian forces down. They're still creeping forward in those areas, but the Ukrainians are desperately throwing everything in and the counterattacks.

And the reason to do counterattacks is none of those areas are prepared for any kind of a defensive line. There are defensive sectors with some earthworks done, but this is not, you know, this is not reinforced concrete. This is not multi-layered, multi- echelon defense lines. This isn't prepared for buildings. Anyway, if you take concrete buildings, you need to pour more concrete, more rebarbed concrete behind those walls to make them. We will stand anything for medium small arms fire and up. Yeah, they may stop 554.

They may even stop a 762. They're not going to stop at 12.7 or 50-call round punching through them or a 30-call round punching through them. They're not made for that, obviously. So they have to be reinforced. And this is one of the reasons the Dunbos took so long because for eight years, the Ukrainians were building fortresses. And these areas are not built up.

They were deep in the – they were in an area to be. begin with subterrish, and they never would consider they were going to have to fight. So right off the bat, there was not those eight eaters of preparing. And what has been done, they thought, you know, they're feeding themselves the legends that they're going to be washing their feet in the Azov Sea after an abortion offensive. And, well, yeah, that didn't quite. So, yeah, it's, it wasn't that well prepared. Plus, all the, they were already lacking in materials.

Can I just just summarize this? Because I think this is all of this enormously useful, important information. But just to explain, I think this is a thing to explain, is that what is complex about the Zaporoge situation, is that you have basically three front lines. You have the people who are advancing westwards, who've crossed the Geichu River, who've captured Gulliard-Polye,

And they are advancing towards O'Rejo from the east. And by the way, this is a huge, I mean, if you look at the positions there, it's like a wave that's about to engulf O'Rejov. Then there is another force which is advancing through all of these places that you've just described, Magdalenevgar and all of those. And that's advancing towards O'Rejov from the west. So there's all convergence. And then there is a third force that's advancing northwards towards the city of Zaporosia itself.

And so it's a complicated area of the fighting. Now, I actually know people who actually Greek people who have been to Zaporosia. And they've described the city to me very, very well. It's a modern industrial city. It was an area which is very much part of the industrial heartland, not just of Ukraine, but of the Soviet Union itself. It was where a lot of the aviation industry was based. It was where big aircraft engines were made, including the Soviet Union's first big high bypass turbofans. It was where gas turbines and lots of other industrial plants were made. Machinery was made.

It was, by the way, central the car industry as well, in fact, which many people don't know, but there was, they used to make cars there as well. So it's a big industrial city, very much part of the industrial heartland. And what you say about the NEPA is absolutely true. It is the great transport artery that held together the whole central industrial sector of Ukraine. And you see the string of cities starting from Kiev in the north, which is also what the NEPA, there's Kremlinchuk, there's NEPRO, Neapro, Petrosk, there's Zaporosia,

you go further south, and you have other places like Nicopal, which is also at the Nipa, or close to it, and at Krivoj, which is a major industrial steel, coal and steel place. And so this is, this is like the Rhine or the Mississippi. It's the place that ties, economically Ukraine together.

And if the Russians capture Zaporosian, I think you said they're about 11 kilometers away. Am I? Is that about right? You're actually, once they take the bridge, it'll be 11 kilometers. They are presently about 13 kilometers because I've got about two kilometers to the bridge and then northwards. Here's one other thing about Zaporosia. It's actually, while it's relatively flat, Zaporosia, the banks of the Nanyapa River on all sides around Zaporosia are actually very steep,

and the river runs pretty fast in that area. There is a small area in the northern portion of Zaporosia where you could put pontoon bridges up. So if Russia destroys the bridge to cut Ukrainian logistics or Ukrainians, cut the bridge as they're retreating if they retreat, instead of just stanchoom. and wait to give it surrounded. Yeah, that seems to be the traditional law method. Either way, there's only a small area coming out of Zeproja where you can successfully build onto bridges and float up.

Because the rest of the area, very steep banks, talking dozens of meters deep in some areas, and the river is relatively fast. So it's not an area that you can, you could build big bridges across if you have the time, the effort, do that in a combat situation and a military situation. And it's a little worse for the area, because Arek has actually been approached from three directions.

Areco has also been approached from the southeast. And that so far is the portion that's actually gotten already into the city. Well, it's gotten into the suburbs of the neighboring cities. Mala Takmachka, that's already being invested, and it's moving direction. Now, there's, to the west, the main Russian movement is Malaya Shabrianka, which has been taken, and there's a push going in from the western side. I believe it's about seven kilometers that's left to go. I'm sorry, 11 kilometers that's left. Sherbaki, not Shabriky, not Shabrbriki.

So Mala Shabriki is been taken. Shabraki is in the process of being cleared. And the Ukrainians, between that and the last line of defense for Arjahua, which is Nova Andreevka, there's about five kilometers of open land between that and Novaled Dries, that more likely the Russian forces will be able to cross relatively quick because they have air domination

and they have artillery domination and a lot of these areas drone domination. Indeed, and just to say something about, you know, if the Russian army is eight kilometers from a road, you don't really feel safe using that road. I mean, you have drones, you don't just have drones, you have artillery, you have mortars, you have all sorts of things.

And of course, drones at least are able to keep track of the traffic as well. So the movement of supplies is going to be dwindling. Now, I have two specific questions. Firstly, do you need to take Oreck-off, capture Oreck-off before you attack Zaporosje City? That is one. And the second, and I've had very, very different arguments about this, which I've seen with various people, is it actually true that it's a misconception that because a city is big, it is easier to defend in the sense that you need proportionately a larger number of people to defend a big city successfully than you would a small city by definition. And that if you can't, you don't have large numbers of

troops defending Zaporozhia city itself, then it becomes easier for the Russian to capture districts of it, and that that can isolate and weaken the Ukrainian defenders where they are. And lastly, and this is the sub-question, what about the factories in Zaporosia? Can they be converted into fortresses like the Azores-style factory was in Marupon? Just a few questions there. Yeah, yeah. With Areha-Havran, yes, it needs to be taken. The problem going up toward Zaporozio Re is that that wing is relatively thin.

So you're going to have to expand quite a bit of forces as blocking forces on your flank. And as your supply line gets longer, you need more and more blocking forces on your flank to keep the enemy from attacking. That's what. And that was bad enough when you had biplane or you had rotary aviation. It got much, much worse when you had jet aviation. But if you control the skies, it'd be manageable, especially you had lots of anti-aircraft. The problem with drones, especially when the drone's FPV drones can go in 30 kilometers, you have this long line of logistics in a relatively thin bottle or thin neck going up the coastal line.

So you don't have that depth that you need to defend against. drones. Yeah, that's going to become a very huge problem. So Arejov, not just, but Yerkovka, Tavrechenka, all these towns along the line with Areochov, they are all going to have to be taken. They all have to be secured. There needs to be a new line that allows you that defense in depth from any desperate flanking attacks to the Ukrainians may launch. And even before you get to Zaporosia, you can go up the N105, sure, but you're still going to have to widen that area control.

You can cut off along the NEPA, you can just cut off the northern portion and it has bottled in, whatever troops are in, the rest of the suburban areas along the river. Easy enough, they're not going to get resupplied because the river is very wild in that area. So it's going to be difficult getting supplies across. And then there's swamp because there's no water. So they're to naturally be cut off. But on the east side, you'd still be open to desperate counterattacks or maybe not just

desperate counterattacks, but something more significant. So you have to have enough force. So you can start attacking into the city and not just on a narrow front. So this is the problem with cities. To say a big city is easier to defend than a small city or small city is easier to defend than a big city is a big question mark because there's a lot of factors involved. Not just your types of troops, not just the quantity of troops, but the types of troops and the quality of the troops and the city itself.

For example, Budapest, the pest portion was very easy to take. by Red Army troops, not using artillery, by the way. They did not use artillery to preserve the city. They took the Red Army, as, you know, the legends that they're all animals just coming to wipe us all out and blah, blah, blah. The Red Army, when it took these historical cities, actually tried its best to preserve those historical cities. You can't say the same thing by the West when it came into Russian historical city is burn everything down and butcher everybody. on the Red Army came in they quite literally in cities like

Budapest did not use heavy artillery they didn't use it so as to preserve the buildings and preserve the city instead of destroying it. By the way when the Anglo-Saxon air armies were burning Germany down they didn't preserve anybody so that

because of the issue. We've been to Budapest Alex and I have seen Budapest and the difference between Pest and Buddha is very striking. But Buddha is on hills, and you have the big river to cross, the Danube. It was a tremendous battle, very difficult to capture Buddha, even, as you rightly say, Pesh is easy.

What about Zaporosia? Is that an easy place to capture or a difficult one? If well-prepared, Zaporosia should be relatively easy, and I'll tell you why. If you look at the map of Zaporosia, like I was saying, there's only three. Three bridges, two of them are relatively small bridges, heading into a horse itself, which is what the Sitch was. It's a park. The main bridge is the N-108 bridge. So I'm sorry, it wasn't the N-105 road as the E-105 road.

So the N-08 bridge is the main artery going into from Western Ukraine or Central Ukraine. there are two major roads to the northeast and they combine at the edge of Zaporosia. So they come together in a V. And that's the E105 road and the N15 road. The N15 runs by the airport, which is also in the direction. The thing is is if Russia is preparing to take southwestern portion or southeastern portion of Zaporosia, those two roads will be within a range of drones. They'll definitely be within range of aviation, tactical aviation, including rotary wing

aviation, that it will definitely be within range of multiple launch rocket systems, and probably most of your medium caliber and up tube artillery. So they will be cut off. And once those two main lines of communications are cut off, at best you're dealing with secondary roads or open fields. So that's going to become very, very difficult to control. Zaporos is relatively open, flat. It doesn't have in-depth backup because it backs up against the NEPA.

And like I said, in most of the city area in the NEPA, while the city's flat, the banks aren't. So it's going to be very difficult to bring supplies in people in. There's a small, well, maybe about a fourth of the coastline of Zapparoja where it's relatively not steep banked. So you can use that as a repositioning point or the logistics hub. But again, that becomes a, it's going to be an obvious target. It's going to be something that's going to be watched. Everything's much more difficult these days because of satellites on one. and just drones that can actually hover in place

or fly in big circles for days sometimes. You know, some of the newer stuff, maybe not days, but definitely for half a day to a day. And by the time it comes back and recharges, there's going to be a replacement already in the air. So everything is very difficult to hide in that area. So I think it's up in Roja, if those two roads are cut, and again, they don't have to be physically cut.

They can be cut by air-delivered mines. They can be cut by drones. They can be cut by tube artillery. Effectively, you know, they're caught. Things are going to get very, very difficult. I'm hoping that the majority of civilian population is clearly allowed. So they're not used as human shields again. Because all of a sudden, the Ukrainian army is going to be retreating is going to suddenly remember that,

oh, well, they're not really Ukrainians. They're Russians. So let's start shooting them. And you have put them as human shields, as they've done in every single city, Dave, and every single town that they've retreated. They've left hundreds, sometimes much more human casualties, I mean, from the civilian population. So Zaporosia itself, you know, again, it all depends on the city. Right.

Pest is easy. Buddha is a fortress, is a natural fortress. And you'll have cities like that that are not. naturally fortified. Gulli Polia was never a big city, but it was a very difficult city to approach. It did fall fast once it got breached. It also depends on the quality of the troops

and the motivation of the troops. You know, Stalingrad is a flat, open area. It's long and thin, and how long did it hold? Fanatically held. Konigsburg, today's Kalienrad, was built as a fortress from the very beginning, was fortified by Hitler,

and had over 200,000 troops in, was supposed to hold for six months. It held two weeks, and the Germans took heavier casualties than the Russian attacking army. But the German army at that point was hollowed out. Morale was in the crapper, and the civilians were telling the Germans,

the German civilians were telling the Germans, surrender, stop this, just stop it. And the city fell in two weeks. So there's a lot that matters in this, absolutely. a lot of damage from this. But I think Zaporosia is not going to hold that long. It's not a built-up area. The factories, all factory buildings, okay, I'll take that back.

All non-modern factory buildings were built tough. They were built very tough. And the Soviets took that concept, and they fortified it to build it to try to survive nuclear strikes and still keep an economy going. So those buildings, the older factory buildings, are fortresses in and of themselves. Now, the newer stuff, it's built of prefabricated steel sheet, just like everybody else builds them nowadays. So, you know, it's not going to stop a bullet. It's definitely not going to stand up to any kind of pressure. Those types of buildings, they start collapsing

relatively quickly once the artillery starts coming in. But the old buildings, yeah, they're natural fortresses. And considering if they're so rebuilt factories, they're tunnels underneath. there's lots of tunnels underneath. Now, would it be able to hold like Azov-Stai? No, and I'll tell you why. Azov-Stai had a very big defensive perimeter around it. On the one side, it had the ports and the Azov Sea. On their side, it has the river coming in and this huge swamp area between that.

And they were on the high ground shooting in. So there's only the northeastern portion that was. was a possible real approach to storming Azovstai. That's why just came down to, let's just bomb out of existence, so they have to be underground, and then we'll have to go clear tunnel by tunnel. And the defenders on Azovstai took thousands of civilians as human shields. They pulled them down in there, and they were starving them because they were eating the food themselves. But they were holding them up there in the upper chambers as human shields to try to slow the Rochumont.

army down. And, you know, Zelensky about two years ago, it didn't really do more than a blip on the radar in the West, on the media radar on the West. But Zelensky, I guess on the cocaine high, admitted that, you know, the reason we don't get, we remove all the civilians, because as soon as we remove all the civilians, the Russians really start moving fast. We need the civilians there. So, obviously, he didn't quite come out and say, yeah, we're using them as meat shields. But how do you say we're using them as meat shields? But how do you say we're using them as meat It's not saying they're using meat shields. We can't remove them because otherwise the Russians move too fast.

So they're using the civilians as meat shields. Human shields, they try to slow the Russian army down that tries to save their lives. But the factories in Zaporosia, they're not as secure as of Stalis. They would be more easy to isolate. The factories, they don't have the same level of natural defense of airy. just a provisioning at Azovstadi. Azovstadi is very long. It has the river and swamp.

And the area from, just understand, from the floodplain and the river going up, rising up the bank to Azovstadi is about a kilometer wide. And it's just an open area that you can just shoot through constantly. There was still one train that was destroyed during the fighting. And it was used as a midway point. point as a defensive structure by the Russian military attacking in. That area is just incredibly difficult to get across. There's only two bridges.

One was destroyed. The other one was an automobile bridge. It's still intact that went to it from the proper portion of the city. Then it has the port facilities around it. And then there's only the northeastern portion where you could actually approach through built up areas and have some cover. These portions, they're much more open. They don't have the same natural barriers.

So they will still present an obstacle, obviously, especially they're fanatically defended. But the way things have been going to go, I don't think they're going to be very fanatically defended in this area anyways. Let's hope that they do the smart thing just clear out of the city. But more likely, it'll still be house-to-house fighting, at least to some degree. Right. Let's just talk quickly about Konstantinovka, because this is the other place, which is interesting. it's difficult to get a sense of where we are because the Russians have

the Russian military has said that they control 55% of the buildings, 40% of the territory, the Mappas dispute this, it's very difficult to get a clear sense of what's going on. Just tell us briefly, as we tell off this program,

what is going on in Constantin, and why is this place important? Well, I can't quite say what exactly is going on there. I haven't admitted it. center any time lately. You're closer to the air. You've got a better feel of it.

I would see about a third of the city has been taken, primarily from the southeast. From the west, there's been probing attacks that have coming in. I think the majority of those attacks were led by reconnaissance and sabotage groups. sometimes they get mapped out of these big areas that they take but for most part they really can't hold for any kind of long period of time because A, their light infantry

B, they're in relatively small numbers you're talking about anywhere from a fire team up to a squad squad plus maybe a squad and a half basically you're not even talking platoon level elements So that is a hard fight. There's not going to be much left to Konstantinovka when this is over. It has to be fully redo.

The Ukrainians have staking everything they can on it. But the problem, the Ukrainians, and they'll probably hold for now. It's going to be a long fight. But the problem for Ukrainians isn't Konstantinovka. The problem for Ukrainians is Krasniliman to the north is getting ready to fall. It's over halfway taken. It looks like the Ukrainian forces are not going to be able to hold more maybe another week to two weeks.

And once that falls, because it's in a almost G-shaped form. So, Konstantinovka on a G, Konstantievka is at the bottom, Kramators in the middle and Slavis in the north, and above it on high ground sits Krasnaylaman. And once that's taken and Russian forces can start moving southwards into Slavansi, then you get a lot of problems. because Konstantinovka is still being supplied, and logistics is what wins you the wars in the end of the day,

is being supplied through Slavinsk and Kramators. The supply routes are coming in. And once you can cut those supply lines into Slivinsk, the rest of the front that gets very, very difficult. I mean, I'm sure there's munitions. I'm sure there's provisions there are stashed aside in different depots. But they do run out. The depots do get found and destroyed.

And things become much more difficult. But the biggest problem isn't even in the food, in this case, in a battle like, or munitions in a battle like Constantinica, the biggest problem is getting people in. And forget about getting the wounded out. Most of those guys will never get out if they'll die in place from lack of medical coverage. That's been constantly the problem for the Ukrainians. But getting new meat in, they're not going to be able to get people in if their main supply routes get cut. And that all hinges on Krasnilman.

And it looks like Krasn-Lyman from the last couple of days, the big moves forward. It's not going to laugh for much longer. That is extremely interesting. Well, Stanislav, we're going to have to stop there. But, I mean, you've provided a very, very clear and enormously interesting, if I could say, overview of this very complex battle in the South, the Zaporosia battle. It's strange to think this is where the Ukrainians were going to launch their greater defensive, as you said. Well, they take crime.

It didn't. It didn't turn out. It didn't turn out as many people thought. I still remember reading all the articles in the media and the US and even more in Britain about how the Ukrainians were going to push through all the way to Crimea and there was not going to be any resistance. And within three days, they'd be on the Black Sea. But it didn't turn out either, as we all know.

You know, the problem, I mean, and I've been correct, I was correcting people after this too, because, oh, it's NATO, they did NATO doctrine. It's like, look, this was a NATO doctrine. Just a standard breach operation. The Russian military does the same thing. Everybody, more or less, copies each other to see what works and then modifies what works. That's how armies run. But the problem of Ukrainians, they were damned to failure from day one. They had the tanks, they had the infantry, they had the armored vehicles.

They lacked enough engineers. They lacked smoke cover. They lacked, which, by the way, you need, they lacked tube artillery to suppress the Russian artillery. They were suppressing them as they're trying to push their way through. They lacked aviation. They lacked the anti-aircraft systems to at least try to keep the Russian aviation at bay for lack of their old aviation.

So without those, it doesn't matter how many infantry, how many armored vehicles you pile up, they all get piled up and killed. And that's what they did. They just, as a reminder of people, the greatest counteroffensive ever in human history lost them 85,000 dead. I don't know how many wounded, really, because a lot of wounded just died in place. 85,000 did to take 120 square kilometers. Or in other words, 12 kilometers wide, 10 kilometers deep.

And 85,000 forces laying on there. Stanley said, we need to do a whole program about that offensive. because, of course, the reason that offensive failed, as I've pointed out many times, is because it was defeated, which is a fact that many people will never see to understand. The other side, the Russians, did their own thing. But this is where we have to finish today. And thank you again for your absolutely invaluable explanation of what is going on and about the mood and sentiments of the Russian soldiers as well, which is important also because, of course, war, as Klausovits famously said, is always an extension of politics.

And that's something people always must remember. Thank you very much, Stanislav. Thank you. Thank you, Stanislav. Before you go, where can people follow you? Okay, so X at Saislav Karpivnik, substack is Zmey Grinich. I'll spell that out for the description.

the let's see YouTube at Mr. Slavic Man, Slavic with a K at Telegram Stas Sadaa Abratna is the Russian channel and Stas was there is the English channel The guy

Review the list that's getting along It's all in the description box It's all in the description All right, thank you Stadislav Take care. Thank you Thank you