The Duran Podcast - Russian military breaking frontline dam

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Russian military breaking frontline dam

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine, and the situation in Pakrovsk is going very bad for the Ukraine military. I didn't think Pakrovs was going to collapse this quickly, but it looks like it is collapsing very quickly. It looks like Russia has almost surrounded and circled Pakrovsk. a terrible situation in Seversk, I believe Kupyansk as well. And you have the situation developing in Herzl, in the south, with the Russian fabs destroying the bridge in the south, which has many people believing that the Russian military is about to do something in that direction,

some sort of an offensive in that direction as well, where there's a lot. there are, if you go by the reports, 100,000 to 150,000 Russian troops just in the south. So, I mean, four or five different areas on the front line where Russia is advancing in all those areas at a much faster rate than anyone had imagined. Yes, and I think that's where we really need to start, because this is, very much apparently classical Russian strategy, instead of concentrating your main blow in one place, which is what Westerners like to do, you know, the Blitzkrieg breakthrough, like the one that was tried during Ukraine's own August 2023 offensive, if you remember, when they tried to break through

to the Sea of Azov, and they concentrated their attack in a few places. What the Russians do instead is that they put the pressure everywhere simultaneously on the front lines at every single point. So you're absolutely right. Sversk, the Russians have broken through apparently to the very, very outskirts of Sivarsk. They've managed, apparently, to capture a small town called Torski, which is located to the west of Siversk. It looks as if Siversk is gradually being encircled. There's a place called Leman or Krasny-Liemann, as the Russians call it, a bit of the west still.

That is now threatened. Kupiansk is a major battle going on there. This is one of the places which Ukraine recaptured in its Harkov counter-offensive in 2022. but apparently the Russians are now fighting inside Kupyansk, and the Ukrainians have said there's only one small road left to keep their troops resupplied there. There's apparently been a breakthrough further in the north, in a place in a town called Volchansk, and the Russians may be in the brink of capturing it,

or might have even have already captured it. There is the enormously big crisis in Pachrovsk, and you're right, the report, say that the Russians have essentially encircled Bakrowski. But there's also a report this morning that the Russians have broken through to the center of Bakarovsk from the south, and that they've already split the Ukrainian garrison into two separate halves, and that the Ukrainian garrison is short of supplies and is becoming fragmented, and that there's inability. by the Ukrainians to coordinate their defense effectively.

And then, of course, the victory the Russians achieved a few days ago, which you've already discussed, Chassev Jarre, which they captured, and that puts them in a better position to attack in Dombas as well. And you're quite right. The latest talk about Gerson, that the Russians have 150,000 troops there. Ukrainian troops are very few apparently in this area because their lines are so stretched. The place that you're mentioned is a kind of, it's a part of the city of Haassohn, which is located essentially on what is basically a big island. The Nipa, the bridge, the one big bridge that connects this island to the rest of the city has now been damaged or perhaps even destroyed.

And there's been anguished statements from Ukrainian commentators that the only thing that's preventing the Russians launching a big advance in Hurson region is the NEPA itself. That it's the river that is holding the Russians back. And of course, that may not be. They may have plans about how to cross that river and maybe to capture this particular island. So it's what the Russians do. They stretch the defenses. And the result is that Ukrainians don't know where to defend. And they have to defend more and more places all of the time.

And they can't keep a continuous defense line. And this is very important because it means that there are gaps within the defenses. There's large areas of the front line. which the Ukrainians have basically had to stop defending, and that means that the Russians are able to move through these gaps. And, well, we talked about the lava flow. A Ukrainian official said that it's like water. The Russian army is like water.

It always finds the gaps. It's going through these gaps. It's exploiting them. and that's undermining the entire defense. So if you think a little bit like if you follow the water analogy, if you look at the front line, it's like a dam, but the water is seeping around the dam, and the dam is about to break,

and it's about to break in multiple places at the same time at once. So that's the overall picture in the war at the moment. Yeah, I think the interesting part about what you just said is that all of these areas are important battles, important regions. Yes. I mean, they're key areas, their key logistics hubs, their key defense lines. In the past, you would have the same situation, but there was always one area or one city that stood out, whether it was a Bahmoud or Avdifka. Yeah, the Russians were stretching out the Ukraine military. across the entire front line, but there was always one key battle that you can focus on

Mariupil or whatever. Now it's Kupianz, it's Svarsk, it's Bakrowski, it's Herzog, it's Herzl. I mean, these are all key areas, and we haven't even talked about Sumi or in the North party, there are Harkiv or the drones and the missiles that are hitting Odessa or or hitting Kiev almost on a daily basis. Yes. I mean, it's just everywhere. And these are all key key.

notes. What do you think of that? Well, that is exactly right. Now, of course, the big question is what happens when the dam breaks? Because, as I said, we're talking about a huge Russian army now. I've been seeing figures comparing the relative size of the two armies. And the Russians now outnumber the Ukrainians very, very considerably in terms of numbers of men. And of course, they outnumber the Ukrainians in pretty much everything else. Bombs, drones, shells, guns, artillery, tanks, you name it, they have the advantage. So what happens when the dam breaks? Well, we discussed recently the Ukrainian attempt to create the Suravikin line, their own version of the Suravikin line, to the west of these places. But there's now been a commentary by a very, actually very competent,

though very pro-Ukrainian analyst called Michael Kaufman. Anybody who follows the war knows Michael Kaufman, he's somebody who discusses things in a very interesting way. And he says that the Ukrainians, even if they were able to create this kind of defense line, simply don't have enough men to hold all of it. There would be gaps there as well, and the Russians would know where the gaps were. and they would be able to break through. So you're simply replacing one strong dam, which is this line of cities and towns,

the urban sprawl of Donbass, with a much weaker dam, a little further west, which I suspect will break almost immediately as soon as the Russians reach it. Final question. What do you make of the statement from the parliament member from the other day where, I forgot her name, but she said that Ukraine has 400, thousand desertions in the military because of just a terrible state of the military. Yes. What do you make of that statement?

Even if it isn't 400,000, even if it's half that, even if it's one-fourth of that, a significant amount, a significant number. And she's attributing it to the fact that the military is just a complete mess. Absolutely. This is Maria Berlinska. Yeah, there you go. She is actually in the military. I mean, she has some connections to the military.

And I think she's probably telling the truth. I mean, what she is, she may be overstating things, but I don't think by very much, basically what she is saying is that the Ukrainian army is now so overstretched, so disorganized, so short of men and equipment. the training levels within the Ukrainian army are so poor. The rate of losses is so high. The rate of desertions is so high that, I mean, she's saying that at this rate,

Ukraine might not have an army by the end of the year. Now, she's overstating things, probably, but she's well-informed. She's never shown any sign of disloyalty up to now. We're not talking about Mariana Bezuglia, by the way, who was a completely different person, just to make it clear. Maria Berlinski is a completely different person. I don't see why she would be saying things like this if they were not true. And you're getting very pessimistic comments from others like Kirilo Budanov, the intelligence chief.

Now, remember, a couple of months ago, he was saying that if Ukraine hasn't achieved some kind of ceasefire by Midsummer, very, very bad things. would start to happen. He's now made another, we now reached that point. He's now given an interview. He said, well, I'm a stamp collector. I collect stamps of countries that no longer exist unless we make some important and serious decisions very quickly. We might become one of those countries that find themselves in that situation with stamps that speak of that country, which itself doesn't exist. So you could see that people who are in a position to know in Kiev are very much ringing the alarm bells

and are very worried about the situation because they could sense that things are going very badly wrong. I think there was another MP that was also talking about desertions, MP Anna Skorogod as well. That's right. Yeah, so you have, yes, yeah, she was self-sacent, the 400,000 desertions and you also had, The other person you're talking about is also in the military, I believe.

In the military, absolutely. Yeah, she's like a volunteer or a military volunteer. This is another Ukrainian parliament member who's talking about the desertions as well. So, I mean, you have multiple voices now who are now coming out and saying the things about the collapse. And they're overstating it. I agree. They're overstating it, but they're overstating it for a reason. They're trying to get ahead of the coming collapse.

Just a real quick final question. Will any amount of money or weapons solve the situation? Because Julian, I forget his name, Ropske, the guy that writes for Build, was complaining about how if only the collective West gave more than, he put a number to a point zero two percent of their military capability. If only they gave more, then none of this would happen. And you read his post and you get the sense that there still is this belief in the West that if they just gave more, then they would be able to.

to win? Yes. I mean, no, the answer is simply no. The West has never given less than it can. I think this is a point which people struggle to understand. If Ukraine had been provided with many more weapons earlier in the war, it wouldn't have had time to absorb those weapons. The rate of loss would probably have been the same, and the rate of loss of those weapons would have been the same. things stand, the West has, especially Western European armies, have largely disarmed themselves to the effort of trying to help Ukraine. The reason we had that pause a couple of weeks ago in terms of Patriot missile deliveries to Ukraine, and by the way, that pause continues, is because there aren't enough Patriot missiles. There is constant fiction that if we can just

make the decision to supply a bit more, this will somehow turn the tables. And it's what I always say, these people reduce everything to will, to willpower. They never look at logistics and capabilities. You can have all the will you like, but if you don't have the resources, that will is useless. And that is what is happening. Now, the Russians have more men. There is no way that discrepancy can be made up now. They have more weapons because people massively underestimated the scale and ability

of the Russian military industrial complex, which they never understood, even though I remember we were talking about it way back in 2022. And incidentally, you can find any number of books and articles extending all the way back to the 50s that talk about how the Russian military industrial complex is organized and works and works. They didn't take that seriously because they believed that Russia was the Petra state, the gas station, masquerading as a country and all of those things. And they still don't want to face up to these things. So we get these commentaries by Julian Röbeke, who at least does acknowledge how bad the situation on the battlefronts actually is. But he seems to assume that people like

Biden and Blinken and Sullivan and Boris Johnson and Rishi Asunach and Kier Starrmer and Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Mertz and Annalina Behrbaud, that they're all somehow holding back for some unaccountable reason. I mean, simply listing the names of these people just shows. Now, I've forgotten to mention the empress of this, who is, of course, Ursula von der Leyen, merely listing them shows what an absurd idea that is. Well, in the video there, exactly, you're exactly right, yeah. They're all deindustrialized and de-literized all of them, including the United States.

Yes. Yeah, anyway, the durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble and X and Telegram. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch, like what you see in this video, and also check us out on locals, the durand.com. I think I already said that, but I'll say it again. Check us out on locals. The link is in the description box down below.

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