The Duran Podcast - Russian investigation moving quickly. West fears Russian offensive

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Russian investigation moving quickly. West fears Russian offensive

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is happening with Ukraine. And we can talk about what's going on on the front lines. Zelensky's trip to Tsumi to inspect the fortifications, the pseudo-vican line, I guess you could say. And well, and we can talk about the push by the Collective West to seize. not freeze the interest, the profits on the Russian frozen assets because we haven't got to the actual $300 billion. They're still trying to figure out a way to get to the $5.5.5 billion. And I think that we can talk about the Krokus City Hall terror attacks as we discussed Ukraine because everything points to the, to the, you know,

to the fact to that, I guess you can say fact to that, the Putin administration is looking at some sort of Ukraine involvement in the Krokus City Hall terrorist attacks. That's the way things look. If you go by the statements from the FSB director, from Medvedev, from Putin, from Peskov, from Maria Zagharava, they are strongly indicating that there may be some sort of Ukrainian involvement, whatever that entails. Anyway, where do you want to start off? I think we should start with the Croker City Hall, because this is the story that dominates news still in Russia. It hangs over everything. It hangs over Ukraine as well. The Ukrainians are very nervous about this. Now, we've seen Alexei Danilov, who was the head of Ukraine's

National Security and Defence Council, their chief intelligence officer, he's suddenly being dismissed, resigned, you name it, I don't know what it is, but he's been there for a long time, and suddenly he's gone, and he's going to become an ambassador, you know, before long, the entire Ukrainian government will be holding ambassadorships in various nice European countries. And, you know, bear in mind, you know, this does get more of these people out of the way so that if things really do turn horrid in Ukraine, which will come to eventually in this program, then of course they're already in the, they're already comfortably in the West. So just, just, just, just saying all of this. But anyway, he's been an enormously confrontational,

belligerent, aggressively spoken official within the Ukrainian government, even by the standards of Ukrainian officials. He's been aggressively spoken. And we've also had an interview from Budanov, he says, you know, no way was Ukraine in any way involved in the Kroka City Hall. And by the way, he doesn't approve of terrorist acts. And he said that. I mean, this is something that, you know, he only believes, he believes that Ukraine should only focus on military targets. now this just a few hours after the head of the SBU which is the much bigger internal intelligence agency came out

and said well actually you know Ukraine has been involved in killing all kinds of people in Russia people like you know Tatarsky and Dugina and others and of course we've had the Kirch Bridge attack we've had well all sorts of all sorts of episodes of that kind So there's some kind of disarray in Kiev. Now, you know, one mustn't over-analyze this because we don't know exactly what's going on. And in the case of Danilov, he did say some spectacularly rude things a few days ago about a top Chinese official, Li Hui, who has been visiting Ukraine

and trying to get the Ukrainians to sit down with the Russians and start thinking more realistically about things. And it could be that that, That's the single thing that finally caused Zelensky to sack him. But the timing does look odd. Danilov has been an important figure in the Ukrainian government. A strong apology probably would have sufficed to appease the Chinese. It does seem a bit strange that he would go now.

I think what the Ukrainians are trying to do is that they're trying to put themselves as much distance between themselves. and the Crocos City Hall episode as they can. So Danilov is being sent off to Norway. He's probably, because he is apparently, he was Zelensky's National Security Advisor. He basically supervised the work of the intelligence agencies. He's a very hard-line person. So, you know, we've had the statement from the head of the SBU.

We've had the statement from Budanuf. The Ukrainians are trying to tell everybody, perhaps tell the Russians, look, we've turned a new leaf. This isn't the kind of thing we're going to be doing anymore. We accept that it was perhaps we went a bit too far. And please believe us, please trust us. We didn't have anything to do with Croca City Hall. So that's what I think the Ukrainians are trying to do.

And that's, I think, the reason for all this confusion. and Dissaray coming out of Kiev. Now, I think that there are three points to make about Croca City Hall. The first is that going back to that famous American warning, I don't know how much weight to put on this, but let me reiterate again a point which no one in the media in the West is making, no Western official is making, which is that that warning only covered a 48-hour period

at the beginning of March, or rather the second week of March. This attack took place several weeks later. So we don't quite know what information the Americans were passing on to the Russians or what information the Americans had. But on its face, that warning did not cover the period of the Croker City Hall attack. Now, I know there are some people in my own. Moscow, who said that there's an, who are saying now there was an element of misdirection about this warning and that it was partly intended to give, to provide another alibi.

I'm not saying this is true. I'm just mentioning that this is what is being said. That's the first thing. The second is that, as we've discussed in previous programmes, these four gunmen tried to escape in the direction of Ukraine. There's been a lot of confusion about this, but I think that is indisputable. Apparently the place where they were captured has been geolocated. It is fairly close to the border of Ukraine.

The people, the armed police who were trying to pursue and track down these people had clearly been given orders to take these people alive. That perhaps explains why we see them all. looking a bit roughed up after they've been presented at the court because, you know, the police, the official, the military people, the security people who caught up with them probably took,

shall we say, strong measures to make sure that they didn't kill themselves or anything of that kind. And the fact is they didn't kill themselves. And the third point is the Russians have them. That is almost unique in my experience with these kind of attacks. The Russians have them. The Russians have them, they've rolled up the entire network, they have that information. And we're now starting to get a whole set of comments from Putin, from Patrushchev, Putin's national security advisor, from Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, from Peskov, from Medvedev, from Zaharva, all telling us the same thing, which is that they haven't concluded the investigation, They haven't joined up all the dots.

They are carrying out interrogations. The people that they've caught, which is a large group, are talking. The investigation appears now to have extended to Turkey, and we have reason to believe the Turks and the Russians are working on this together. If there is a Ukrainian trace, and clearly that is at the back of everybody's minds in Moscow, they will find it. That's what they're telling us.

Now, you know, let's wait and see, but clearly that suspicion in Moscow is there. And the Russians have made it completely clear that if they do find a Ukrainian trace, and remember these people were looking to escape towards Ukraine, that isn't really disputable. If they do find a Ukrainian trace involving Ukrainian officials, there will be severe consequences to pay, and Bortlikov, the AFSB director, has made it quite clear that in that case,

as far as the Russians are concerned, that also implicates the Americans and the British because they're Ukraine's backers. So, you know, this is potentially a very, very big event, and I think we should look out and wait for some big news next week. So I just wanted to start off with Croker City Hall because that is where we are. There's been a huge amount of misleading commentary and discussion and information about this. The Western governments and Western intelligence agencies have been going out of their way to try to distance Ukraine and by extension themselves from this affair.

the Russians have their suspicions they seem to have grounds for those suspicions we don't yet know what the final results of the investigation are going to be let's wait I suspect that within a week 10 days at most the Russians will have come forward and tell us what they think they know yeah the 48 hours I think can be explained

with the Shaman concert and we talked about this in a video and I discussed this about four or five days. I forgot in a video that I made because I saw some posts on Twitter X of people in Moscow who were saying that they went to the Shaman concert. I believe it was on the 9th or the 10th of March and the security was very, very tight. and that kind of fits into the window of the 48-hour warning. And the speculation, and it's just speculation, is that because the security was so tight at the shaman concert, which was at the same venue, the attack was pushed back to the next concert,

which was the picketed concert. Anyway, that's speculation. But it does make sense. It fits into the 48-hour window. And there were a lot of people on Twitter. some days ago who were basically saying, yeah, I was at that show in Moscow and the security was very, very tight because we're just talking about perhaps the most popular Russian singer at this moment. Anyway, let's now talk. The point just to quickly say is that that concert

passed, you know, that happened at Crocus City Hall. And then there were no further warning. and that's the key thing. There was no further warning that I am aware of that said, look, the situation is still dangerous and there needs to be a high alert status. Now, perhaps there were warnings, you know, that it might have been passed privately. But given that the public warning that the embassies gave

was addressed to US and British citizens in Moscow, which, by the way, there are quite a few still. you know, that 48-hour period would have passed, nothing happened. They might have said to themselves, there's no further warnings from the embassy, we can go back to living our normal lives. You know, maybe I'm over-analysing this, but it does seem to me that this 48-hour window that this warning gave is an issue which ought to be at least explained or clarified.

And in fact, if you go to all the commentary, all the discussion, even an article today by Seymour, I noticed, it's just not mentioned. Yeah, that's not mentioned. The collective West stays away from the direction of travel of the terrorists in their white Renault that they were heading towards Ukraine. They don't mention any of that in their discussion of this terrorist attack. And actually, Kirby, when he gave the first press conference after the terrorist attack,

he was asked by a reporter, does that warning given on March 7th, have anything to do with this terrorist attack? And Kirby said, I want to consult with the State Department, but I don't think that the warning in this terrorist attack are related. He did say I want to consult with the State Department, but he hinted at the fact that the warning and the terrorist attack were had no connection. So you even have Kirby kind of saying that 48-hour warning and what happened

in the terrorist attack, two separate things. Anyway, let's discuss what's going on on the front lines. You have Zelensky, touring, Sumi. You had this huge missile strike, a Zerkan missile strike, out this SBU office building for SBU Day in Kiev. You talked about Budanov trying to distance himself from the terrorist attack. You have the SBU head not trying to distance himself from the terrorist attack, which I find very odd. What's going on with the front line as well as with the Intel agencies and how they're seeing. the situation unfold. They must be getting very nervous.

They're getting very nervous. As I said, when you have Budana's saying one thing and the SBU head saying something completely different, that does beg questions. And as I said, it suggests to me enormous tension and factional infighting within Kiev itself. And I understand that the Zircon attack has the Ukrainian spooked. There were three missiles, three Zircon. missiles launched. Just to explain to people, Sircon is a hypersonic cruise missile with a very long

range. It apparently these missiles were launched from the Black Sea. They flew towards Kiev. This is a distance of around 800 kilometers. They reached Kiev in six minutes. So this is an idea of how fast these go. Apparently it's something like 10 times the speed of sound because they travel so fast they're covered by plasma screen which means that radio waves can't penetrate them which means that they are in fact invisible to radars the Ukrainians got some warning just a few seconds before they arrived probably from you know witnesses who must have you know maybe heard the sound or seen something moving across the sky six minutes or whatever it was, seconds rather, is nowhere near enough to clear desks, hide people, do anything

anything of that kind. Certainly it's not possible to shoot these things down. The Ukrainians lack the technology to do that. Nobody has it. And so the Ukrainians are spoke by it. And they're clearly scared by these circone attacks. And we've also had, you know, comments for people like Dimitro Kulabor, the foreign minister, he's coming out, begging again for more patriot missile systems. Ukraine is now desperately short of air defense assets. So they're very, very spooked by the Tzircon attack. And I suspect the West is, because, to be frank, they have no answer to this. I mean, this is a new technology.

It's a completely new weapon system. Nobody has developed a counter to it up to this point. So far as we know, none exists, though the Russians claim that their new S-500 air defence system can shoot down hypersonic missiles. But, you know, that is yet to be demonstrated. So they're very, very spooked by that. But of course, it's not the only missile attack. Now, this is an important point to understand. Over the last couple of days, last 10 days or so,

Ukraine has been subjected to the most intense period of bombing and missile strikes by the Russians that we have seen since the start of the war. And it is full spectrum missile strikes, geranium two drone attacks, circone missile strikes that we just discussed, Kenjau hypersonic missile strikes. This is a completely different technology, by the way. the kinshals are, let's say, there are a generation behind the Sircon, but they're still very, very powerful missiles. We've had massive missile strike in Chassevya, bought front-line town, but apparently a bunker destroyed there,

a deep underground bunker, rumours that lots of native officers were killed. There's confirmation that a Polish general has died. Some people are saying that this person, Polish general was in that bunker and was actually killed. Who knows? It's uncertain. Harkov, as of the time of making of this program, is without electric power and has been for several days.

Apparently, Odessa, Zaporosia, also power outages. The Russians are no longer attacking just the connectors when they strike at the energy system. the attack on Kharkov destroyed one of the actual power stations. So this is completely different. The Russians are now bombing Kharkov with conventional bombs. These are not missiles, these new precision guided bombs. We are seeing that these new big bombs, the Fab 3,000s, appearing on the sea. and, you know, a huge set of missile and bomb strikes across Ukraine,

which Ukraine is no longer able to counter. Its air defence system seems to be falling apart. The attacks on Kharkov, so far as one can see, went by almost uncontested. The air defence system there was barely operating. There are still some air defence systems, operating in Kiev, but there are reports that the Russians knocked out two more Patriot launches in close to Kiev as well. The Russian Defence Ministry hasn't confirmed that. Now, as that is

happening, a continuing situation on the front lines. Now, again, it's important to say we are now apparently, so I've been told, at the worst period of this spring month's season, that I've Sputica. That began at the end of February. This is the period when the snow and the frost that's built up over the winter melts. That creates mud conditions. Apparently we're now at the worst point of that. And that affects movements, movement on the battlefronts. And yet the Russians are moving. And they're advancing west of Dyevka, captured two more important villages. They're pushing and getting closer to capturing a town called Pervomyski, near to Avdewka. Even more importantly, there seem to be on the brink of launching an attack on Charsovya,

the next big town, or at least the next town west of Ahmed. And again, it looks like there's a hole being punched through the Ukrainian front line. and more and more people are putting all this together. They're looking at the sides of the Russian army that he's building up. They're looking at this enormous missile and bomb strikes across Ukraine. They're noticing the areas where these missile and bomb strikes are being concentrated, and they seem to be concentrated in three areas, around Harka city, around Odessa, and around the city of Zaporosia of the Nipa.

and there are now reports, rumours, fears that when the Rasputti's superior ends, the Russians are going to mount an offensive. And today, the economist is warning about this, that a big Russian offensive is coming. And of course, we had just a few days ago, Putin going out and saying that the Russians are moving beyond active defence,

which looked like it might be a hint that some kind of an offensive was on the way. Now, we don't know that, It may be that the Russians are again playing mind games with us. They've done this many times, not just with us, but of course first and foremost with the Ukrainians. They've been very successful at keeping everybody guessing. The advances on the ground, however, continue to happen and the momentum looks unstoppable. Ukraine has no real reserves.

They're trying to cobble together defenses in a hurry. along the front lines. But, you know, this isn't the situation. This isn't analogous to the Sura Vikan line that we talked about, the one that the Russians built last year. I mean, when you actually look at the fortified positions, the Ukrainians are building, I mean, the contrast is obvious, actually. And beyond that, the Russians have something, which the Ukrainians last summer didn't, overwhelming air superiority. hypersonic and other types of missiles overwhelming

superiority in artillery the whole situation is looking very bad and across the west growing nerves now about what might come in May or June when the Russians might be ready for a big offensive

when the ground happens Yeah. The foreign minister of Ukraine said that the West needs to get Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine now. Right now, he said, get those damn patriots to us. Are there any patriots that the collective West can get to Ukraine? No. I mean, he's talking nonsense. He must know it. I mean, it's the kind of comment that smacks of desperation. But, I mean, there's a major shortage of patriot systems. The United States is the United States. The United States doesn't have that many of them. The Germans and the Dutch have basically used up their stockpiles of patriots that they were sending to Ukraine. I mean, they don't have them.

And what we've seen over the last few weeks is that the Russians can systematically destroy them. Shoygu a few days ago claimed that they'd already destroyed five since the start of the year. And that was before we got the reports that another two have been destroyed. been destroyed. The West, I think, is going to be very reluctant to part with more Patriot systems because all that happens, and this has been true, of every single weapon system that has been sent to Ukraine, Western weapons system, is that they get burnt up incredibly fast. Yeah. And Putin said that he's going to, the same is going to happen with F-16s. said just like with the leopard tanks and any other one, the weapons, any F-16s that enter into Ukraine,

we're going to shoot those F-16s down. So that was also a very important... A very important comment made by Putin. He went to a facility which trains pilots for the Russian Air Force, actually helicopter pilots. But he said that if the F-16s come, well, he was always basically saying, bring them on. we'll shoot them down but he also gave a warning he said if they operate from

bases in Romania and Poland he didn't name the countries but if they work from those kind of bases we will attack those bases and he's demonstrated the Russians have demonstrated that they have hypersonic

turcom missiles that can penetrate any defensive so he's very concerned about the nuclear the nuclear part of the F-16s. I know, yeah, absolutely, which is he said, you know, that we know that F-16s are designed

to carry nuclear weapons. So, you know, but and of course, in a NATO base, conceivably, there might be nuclear weapons there. So, you know, this is, he's raising the stakes. The whole F-16

saga, by the way, looks like a complete debacle. There was an article, I think, it was in Politica, and might have been somewhere else. Saying that it was all descending into chaos, only 12 pilots had been trained to fly these things. The training that they've been provided is of a basic nature,

so they might not be up to taking on the Russians. The infrastructure to operate these F-16s in Ukraine itself is, well, basically doesn't exist. The airfields that the Ukrainians would be using get repeatedly attacked by the Russians. This is a tricky aircraft to operate. I mean, no doubt some of them could be put up in the air. The Russians are now warning,

just as they did with the Taurus missiles, that if they're launched from, well, Putin said a couple of, about week ago, 10 days ago, he said, you know, if missiles strike Russian territory, Western-supplied missiles strike Russian territory, people should remember that we have missiles that can reach the territories of Western states also. He gave that warning and now he's made a very similar and very strong warning about the F-16s. And as I said, he has that capability. He can do that.

And we now see that the Danes apparently are backtracking. They are saying that they're not going to supply additional F-16s to Ukraine beyond the ones that they'd previously committed to supplying. And what gets the sense that, again, people are starting to get cold feet about a plan that was never really, never really properly thought through. Like everything else.

Always follow the, yeah, I was going to say, follow, always follow the money. And it does look like the collective West is getting very nervous. It does look like they're trying to walk many of the, of the claims. that they made about sending wonder weapons to defeat the Russians and F-16s and boots on the ground. They're definitely scaling a lot of that rhetoric back. That's the way it looks, but, you know, no reverse gear.

We always have to remember that. They have no reverse gear. So at the moment, it does look like the collective West and even the Europeans are backtracking on various comments. And, of course, follow the money. and the $5 billion that they were looking to seize, some people say steal, I don't know, but the $5 billion in interest in profits from the $300 billion, or to be more precise, the $200 billion that is being held at Euroclear. It looks like the Europeans are even finding the seizing of this $5.5.5 billion to be very problematic.

In my analysis, I think it's theft. Yeah. That's my opinion. I'm no expert, but stealing the interests or the profits of an asset, to me is theft, but what do I know? Anyway, Alexander, what's going on with this story? What do I know? Because I would have agreed with you. Now, the head of Euraclear has said that seizing the capital would be theft, and she came out and spoke up very strongly about that.

But she said that losing, taking the interest would not be so. bad because technically it belongs to Euroclair, it doesn't belong to the Russians. I don't get that at all, by the way. Maybe there's some contractual provision I don't understand, but it's looking controversial. And what they've discovered, what the Europeans have suddenly discovered is that the Russians can bring legal cases, legal claims in all kinds of jurisdictions that are outside Western control, because Euroclear operates in many places, including Hong Kong, including Singapore,

including places like that. So, you know, they're now getting extremely cold feet. And the fear is that, you know, if there's judgments in the Hong Kong courts say, or the Singapore courts, local divisions of Euroclear might suddenly find themselves frozen with assets being taken out of Euricleer, which could bring about the complete collapse of Euraclear because Euraclear can only function if it is a global system. And of course,

the problem it has is that to the extent that it is a global depository, a couple of years ago, five, ten years ago, Euraclear and the other one, Clearview, the two European were the only two big global depositories. They were absolutely part of the international financial system. Now, there are other depositories. China has one. Russia has one. So if people want to park their money,

they can do it in other depositories as well. So this is spooking them out. And of course, the justification they're giving for not taking seizing this $5 billion in interest is hilarious. They're saying, they need that money in case the Russians bring legal action. They need the money to cover the fees.

It says it all. Yeah. I mean, they know that they're stealing the money and that's why they want to put some of this money aside in order to deal with the legal fault. It's crazy. Yes. It's absolutely beyond belief that they're even still talking about this. They should just put this to bet.

They just say, we're not going to steal anything. End of story. It's over. We're not going to steal 300 billion. We're not going to steal the interest. We're not going to touch it. You can trust us, world. You can trust us with your money. That's what they should come out and say. Absolutely. I mean, to be to be frank, there's already been damage done simply by bringing up this whole issue. It should never have been brought up at all. Of course, there was also a huge amount of damage done in February 22 when they froze the Russian Central. banks' assets. I mean, that was already a major mistake and has been acknowledged to be such. But talking about seizing the assets, actually confiscating them, stealing them in the way that you say, I mean, that was beyond reckless. It was frankly stupid. And, you know, they're now coming up against the fundamental problem that there is no legal rate.

this you can come up with all kinds of elaborate legal theories but none of those legal theories make sense or are likely to cut any ice with a genuinely independent independent courts now courts as we've seen in the West tend to follow the line that Western governments take courts elsewhere in the world Hong Kong Singapore might not do so bricks countries Bricks countries. I think, I think, I think Dubai as well is one of those. Dubai, absolutely.

I think. Absolutely. So might not. Yeah. That's two, two bricks, two bricks. Absolutely. Absolutely. They might not do so.

Why wouldn't they vote in favor? Why wouldn't they vote in favor? Rule in favor of Russia. Well, it did. Well, why wouldn't they? If the law says, if the law says that they can. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's an incredible development. It really is. But you know, just one final point. back in 2002, when they were freezing the Russian frozen assets, at that point in time, they thought that the Russian economy would collapse, they would get into Russia, they would plunder Russia's resources, they would balkanize Russia, and whatever frozen assets stories that were, frozen asset fear that was being sent out to the world, it would all be made good by the fact that they would have gotten into Russia and stolen everything inside of Russia and

Balkanized Russia and unipolar moment would have would have remained with us and you know there would be no problems they never expected Russia to to to beat off the economic war that that was the difference in 2022 then what they're talking about now with stealing the the 300 billion or the interest absolutely if you doubt that go to the white house website go through all the various things there dial all the way back to February 2020

you still find it there on the White House website I wonder for how much longer by the way but there is a briefing given by a anonymous

US official Jake Sullivan perhaps just saying but an anonymous White House official directly after the announcement that the Russian

Central Bank's assets had been frozen and he sets it all out very simply he says the plan is we're going to set out and seize these assets that will cause the ruble to go into free fall that will lead in turn to the collapse of the Russian banking system it will put the Russian central bank in an impossible position because they won't be able to support the ruble they won't know how to support the banking system in Russia and that will create a major financial economic collapse in Russia. It's all there. Just go back. Whilst it's still there,

find that briefing by that anonymous official. If it's gone, well, you can dial back and look at the various commentaries and discussions we were doing on the Duran and on my channel, then you will find that I discussed that briefing very thoroughly in one of my videos, or at least at least, I think actually we did it in one of our videos too. So they're all there. It's there. It's all set up, it was clearly explained at the time, and it didn't happen. Nothing happened. I mean, there was a wobble. The central bank raised interest rates to 20%. They took steps to stabilise the banking system, which was pretty solid. In Russia, within weeks, the Russians had absorbed the blow. and that was something they did not expect.

I mean, it was completely not what they thought would happen. And you're absolutely right. They didn't think that there would be any legal comeback from the freezing of the assets because they thought that the whole Russian economy would implode and that the cry of the government would fall and that they'd then be able to dictate terms and everybody around the world would be terrified of them

and their overwhelming power that they brought the Russians to heal and it didn't turn out that way. And another utterly forgotten story, by the way, just following from this, is that by freezing the risk, when that didn't work, over the next few weeks and months, they started working towards declaring Russia in default because the Russians weren't able to pay,

use dollars to pay their bonds, the prevented payment of the bonds. The Russians then started paying for the bonds in rubles. And the credit is accepted the rubles. So that didn't happen either. And Russia is not in default. They really wanted to destroy Russia. I mean, they really had it all planned out the destruction of Russia. And just a final point. Remember Biden's state of the union in 2022. The rubble is rubble. There's a reason that they put that

into his speech. That didn't age so well. The rubble is rubble is rubble. No. No. But it's all there. I mean, you know, whatever people may say,

they were absolutely straightforward about what they intended to do at the time. There are public statements about it. As I said, I, well, I say it's still there on the White House website. It was still there when I last looked, which is a couple of weeks ago. But of course, what's happened since then? I don't know.

But this has been a disastrous debacle. It's been the biggest defeat of all. The defeat on the battle lines last, the failure of the defeat of Ukraine's offensive last summer was another big blow. but the biggest blow of all was the failure of the sanctions and you know we've discussed this about

the state of the Russian economy today we had a long discussion Glendison and I with the economist Michael Hudson that should be coming up soon I think but the point is that we've now had commentary by Elvira and the Buellin at the Russian central bank chair

and she cannot, she's incredulous about how fast the economy is growing. She says there's an investment boom, the wages are rising, consumer confidence is strong, business activity is rising, the economy is being transformed. This despite the fact that I've raised interest rates

and inflation is falling. It doesn't, you know, she almost says, I can't compute this. This is happening. beyond my own expectations. She did a great job. Well, she did a great job. She did a great job.

Yeah, she did. She did. Absolutely. She deserves a, okay, we will. She deserves a Nobel Prize for economics because success is astonishing. You know, at the end of the day, Alexander, it's about people. And, uh, and we've made decisions.

comment a bunch of times. Look at the people leading the collective West and look at the people in Russia. We did it. We said it in the live show. I believe David Sachs said it in the live stream. We did the other day as well. You know, you look at the people in the leadership position in the collective West and I mean, and Jacques Spod said it too. These are the people that are going to bring down these people actually thought they're going to destroy and bring down the Russian Federation that is being led by people like Putin and Abelida and Lavrov and and Shoyko and Vendiv and Sahara. I mean, no. Anyway, they did. Never, never going to have it. They did. They did. And here we are. So now, as I said, we need to

wait for two big things. Firstly, what the Russians are going to say about Crocus City Hall. And they're going to say it quickly. Again, just to reiterate, it is, I think, all but you that four gunmen, Islamist gunmen, after an event and a terrorist attack of this kind, have been captured and captured so fast that the Russians were able to capture these people. I mean, there's been lots of criticisms about failures by Russian security and intelligence services. Their speed in capturing these people is remarkable. And, you know, that ought to be acknowledged too. They might have made mistakes.

I would say they didn't. but they also have done something which Western security and intelligence agencies has struggles to do, which is capture all the four gunmen, capture the entire network that supported them, and they're carrying out an investigation, and very soon they will give us the conclusions of that investigation.

Now, we might agree, we might disagree, but whatever the Russians come up with, It could easily be momentous. And if they blame Ukraine or say that Ukraine was implicated, that will be momentous and we'll see what the Russian response is. And of course, we've also got all this fear now that a big Russian offensive is coming in May. Let me ask you one final question. In your opinion, do you think it was a mistake and it remains a mistake for the US?

to continue to state that Ukraine has absolutely no involvement in this terrorist attack, or to state that so quickly as well to come out with that statement so quickly. I mean, I know that the Russian officials are coming out and they're saying that the U.S. came out with this statement that Ukraine has no involvement in the terror attack within a few hours of the attack before Russia had even begun investigating the attack the attack the U.S. was already claiming that Ukraine has no involvement. And I say that because if I was advising the Biden White House on this situation, I would have said, don't come out with a statement. Just say that you send your condolences, condemn the terrorist attacks, send your condolences to the Russian people and the Russian government.

Say that you're going to do whatever you can as the United States to help them apprehend the terrorists. That would have been a smart statement to have come out with and leave it there. I think it's a big mistake actually I absolutely do preempting an investigation you know when the Russians started talking about Ukraine it might have been justified to say you know we don't believe

Ukraine was involved we have no reason up to now to think that but to come out and say categorically Ukraine was not involved as you rightly say the attack was underway

or rather the aftermath of the attack was still underway. And, you know, whilst before the investigation has announced its results, I think that was a big mistake. Zaharava has actually said that they backed themselves into a corner over this. And I think she might be right on this one, actually, because one wonders, I wonder, I wonder whether the US started making statements about this, you know, who was responsible for this affair,

without expecting that the Russians would capture the perpetrators. And because, you know, the assumption always is that with these kind of attacks, if they have an Islamist origin, the perpetrators will be, will be killed. they'll either commit suicide or they'll go down fighting but they won't allow themselves to be taken alive. Remember as I said this is

I'm not going to say it's unprecedented but it is extremely unusual following an attack like this for perpetrators like this to survive them. I mean sometimes I believe this is correct they actually go wearing suicide vests

into these kind of attacks so perhaps the US expected that and now they've been taken by surprise by the fact that these people were caught and having issued those denials right at the beginning they're now becoming more and more strident because they're becoming very nervous that the investigation the Russians are undertaking might produce a different result and they want to have their they want to shape opinion before the results of that investigation appear. Just saying. Yeah, I agree. All right. We will end it there. The durand.locos.com. We are on Rumble

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