The Duran Podcast - Russian missile strikes intensify

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Russian missile strikes intensify

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the conflict in Ukraine and what is going on on the front lines. Russians continue to advance. I think they're getting very close to Chasov-Yar, which is going to be a big fight, a big victory if Russia does manage to capture Chazov-Yar. And then we had missile strikes, both from Russia and from U.S. Ukraine over the past a couple of days. And we also have an incident, which maybe you can, you can comment on, which is the missile strike that Ukraine claims they successfully hit two Russian ships, but we are getting satellite imagery, which claims that this was a complete and utter failure. And two ships were not hit in Crimea from Ukraine missiles. And actually,

even worse than that because Ukraine managed to waste scalp and storm missiles trying to hit these two ships. And these are missiles that Ukraine doesn't have the luxury of wasting. So anyway, maybe you can comment on that situation first. And then you can give us a summary as to what's going on on the front lines and everything happening there. Absolutely. Let's actually talk about this big missile strike on Crimea, which is a huge one. I mean, it's one of the biggest missile strikes on Crimea that Ukraine has launched. Of course, it was a combined strike with drones and Storm Shadow with Scout missiles

launched from Suhoi 24 fighter jets. We now know, thanks to the Germans, that the British technicians are involved in doing all the guidance for these storm shadows and providing all the work to launch them. The storm shadows, there aren't, there isn't a huge inventory of them. Ukraine has been going through them very, very fast. And this attack on Crimea was a complete failure. One missile apparently did get through, hit a building in Sevastopol. Nobody can understand why the building has no military significance of any importance,

of any type that anybody knows about. Clearly they were aiming to destroy some ships in Sevastopol Harbor. They claimed they had done. We now know for a fact that that was not so. And this is important, by the way, because over the last couple of months, as we both know, the Ukrainians have been making many claims do have sunk various Russian ships, you know, amphibious landing ships, a missile corvette, and a patrol ship. Now, the patrol ship they did manage to destroy.

There's been no real evidence about the other two ships. And the ships in Sevastopol Harbor on this occasion, we know her satellite data, and it shows that this claim is wrong. So, massive attempt to attack Crimea, completely unsuccessful. And what the Ukrainians are doing as a result of these repeated attacks with the stormshadow systems is that they are depleting, they're running through their limited stockpile of storm shadow and scalp missiles and by the way, the limited stockpile of storm shadow and scalp missiles that the British and the French have. These missiles apparently are no longer in production.

So they probably already run through, well, several hundred of them by now. You know, if we go back to the time when they first became used and it seems they've burned up and they've burnt up they've lost another 11 in just one strike one of the reasons and this is my own belief why the british and the french and the ukrainians and the americans have been badgering the germans to supply torus missiles to ukraine or at least not just a supply but also to operate tourist missiles in ukraine is because I suspect that Ukraine is starting to run short, the storm shadow and scalp missiles, and the British and the French can't replace them. And they've just run out of even more.

And we've seen this with air defence systems, we've seen this with ammunition, we've seen this with lots and lots of other battlefield weapons, that Ukraine uses them, overuses them, in pointless, attacks which have a presentation or quality. They claim all kinds of fictional successes using these missiles. And what they actually do is that they should just run through the stockpile very fast. Anyway, an interesting attack on Crimea, but not the big event. The big event that's happening now, well, there's fact this two.

Firstly, the Russian missile war is now reaching. a level of intensity, the like of which we have never seen. As of this morning, there is another Russian missile strike on Ukraine. I think I'm right in saying that this is the fourth missile strike in as many days. And this is another big strike. One that happened three days ago, even the Russians themselves said it was massive. And the Russians are now attacking the energy system. They're attacking decision-making centers. In other words, the headquarters of Ukraine's military intelligence, Badanav's organization. They're attacking airfields. They're attacking ammunition dumps. They've attacked one of, in fact, Europe's single biggest gas storage facility

relied upon by the European Union as well to store gas. If it's destroyed, that could compound problems with gas supply in the EU as well. So the Russians hammering all over the place across Ukraine using increasingly hypersonic missiles, Kynjail missiles. Clearly, the production of Kinshaw missiles has increased exponentially, the start of the war and the Russians are using them more and more often. We see the air defense system, Ukraine's air defense system, as to all intents and purposes, collapsed. They're no longer able to shoot gun many of these missiles. They sometimes claim to, but all the evidence is that they're becoming

increasingly unsuccessful in doing that. So that is one part of the war. Harkov, without electricity for days. Apparently, it's slowly very grand. gradually coming back on. It could be knocked out again at any moment. The railways massively disrupted as a result of electricity cutoffs. The entire Ukrainian military industrial complex, such as it is, severely damaged. And Ukraine's air defense system, as I said, collapsing, and its decision-making centers also collapsing. And all of this is happening in conjunction. with what is increasingly looking like a collapse of Ukrainian defences in the single area, which is most important of all, which is in central Dombas.

This is the key area of defence along the entire line of control. It's the most heavily fortified. It's the area near Donnet City. It's the area closest in some ways, if the Russians want to advance, to the Nipa River. And we're seeing that, well, we had Bachmut captured by the Russians last year. Then Marinka was captured in December. This is near Adonetsk city. Avdavka was captured in February.

Now the Russians have advanced from Bahamut. They're close to capturing. They're close to attacking. Chassev Yar. Chasafyar falls. the ground, they control the high ground, the Russians control the high ground, and they are becoming very, very close to an attack on Kramatosk, the big cities that the Ukrainians still controlled in Dombas, beyond Kramatosk, it's basically open country to the Nipa. So big events there.

The Russians also breaking through in the Avdevka sector, they captured a string of villages there. They look like they're coming very close to capturing an important town called Pervomyski to the south. And another one called Krasnogorovka further south still. So the indicators are of a rapidly accelerating Ukrainian collapse in the key part of the front line in central Dombas and the Ukrainians and the Russians both now saying that Ukrainian losses in the first few weeks of this year

are running at three times the level that they were at the same period last year. So you could see an accelerating collapse. Right. What is Russia trying to accomplish with these missile strikes in a sense that last year, maybe like a year and a half ago, when the Russians were conducting these missile strikes and they were focusing on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, it was clear that they were trying to accomplish two things, to deplete the air defense and to degrade the energy infrastructure of Ukraine,

not to destroy, but to degrade it. Now it's clear that Russia is out to destroy the energy infrastructure, Ukraine, and they're hitting it with precision. Pinpoint accuracy. They're hitting the control rooms of these energy facilities. So what do you think is the goal here? And we got reports a couple of hours ago as well that the Russians are also going after SBU headquarters and facilities in the major urban areas as well.

So they're actually going after the Intel agencies. What do you think the Russian military is aiming for here? They're aiming to paralyze Ukraine's defense system in the rear. So Ukraine moves troops around by rail. Railway system works on electric. traction. It's factories need electricity in order to function to the extent that those factories work at all. And so they want to paralyze the transport and industry and logistic systems that support the troops on the front line. And they're, of course, wanting to paralyze and destroy

the intel agencies, the Ukrainian intel agencies, both the ones that deal with. external intelligence, but Danes and those which deal with internal control, which is the SBU. So this is what the Russian missile strikes now are all about. And they are on a completely different scale, both in terms of size and sophistication, to the ones that we saw in the winter of 2020, 2020, 23. many more types of missiles involved. We have huge numbers of drones operating. We have missiles moving in one direction and changing direction,

sometimes doing hairpin turns. I mean, things that we didn't see before. We see hypersonic missiles being used. We see supersonic missiles being used increasingly this morning. They were using onyx supersonic missiles to launch attacks. So they're able to hit the Ukrainians everywhere throughout Ukraine all the time, every day, one day after another. And this is gradually diminishing the flow of supplies, material and men to the front lines, even as the Russian pressure on the front lines is increasing constantly.

and bear in mind we're still in the spring mud period, the Rasputitsa. And I suspect that what the Russians are doing is they're punching a big hole in the most powerful and important part of Ukraine's defence line, which is in central Donbass, the area from, you know, Avdévka, Bahmud, taking all the places in between, Marinka, all of those places. They're punching through this big hole. And I can't help but think that this points to some kind of a major offensive coming. I mean, this is consistent with what you would expect. You break the initial defence lines.

And you paralyze the supply systems and the command and control systems in the rear. And then when the moment comes, you launch your offensive. You finally break through. And the Russians have long operated with a doctrine called Deep Battle. You can find all about that in books by David Glantz and Jacques Ball. The idea is that you gradually crumble and stretch a defense line to the extent that you can do.

Once you've pierced it, you then punch through, and then you go deep behind the enemy's line. That causes the whole thing to implode. And it could be that we're seeing something like that develop, and we might see that play out at some point over the next few months. Final question. The Congress is going to, They're going to take a break.

They're going to come back and they're going to discuss the $61 billion. The Ukraine parliament, they're trying to put something together to mobilize additional forces, additional people to join the forces on the front. They're having trouble trying to get something passed, but let's say they do manage to put something together. it's too late for any of these actions, whether it's the 61 billion, whether it's Ukraine finally passing some sort of mobilization law and finally starting to mobilize additional forces. It just seems that it's too late for any of this to have any impact whatsoever on what's going

on on the ground. I think that's right. I mean, I have to say, I mean, the most striking thing about the last couple of months, is that as soon as Ukraine's summer at counteroffensive was defeated, the Russians went immediately on the attack, and that attack has gained momentum steadily through the autumn and the winter, and we're now into the spring, and it's getting more powerful all the time.

That 61 billion that we're talking about was cooked up, if you remember, in the late summer. It's completely out of date now. It's irrelevant. It doesn't take in any way into account the existing situation. It's just throwing more money at the problem. And it's going to solve the problem. And Congress, I think a lot of people in Congress understand that.

We've discussed the very complex politics behind this appropriation. There's some talking about converting part of it into a loan. It doesn't seem to me to make much sense. But, I mean, that isn't going to achieve very much. And in terms of mobilization in Ukraine, well, I think there's an article, I think it's in the Washington Post, I saw it, where they say that mobilization in Ukraine has now become an absolute patchwork, sporadic matter. They grab some people here, other people just escape elsewhere. You can't really look to put together the kind of powerful force. that Ukraine would need to turn this round.

I come back to point, you know, we made on various programs, we made it in a program, we did with Daniel Davis. The right strategy for Ukraine and the West followed in the winter of last year. They had this window. They should have gone on the defensive then, try to build up their defenses at that time, and husbanded their forces for this massive blow.

which was to come. I don't know it would have worked, but it would have at least provided them with something that they could have realistically done. Instead, they launched that catastrophically ill-judged offensive in the summer. They destroyed their reserves and they lost many of their best troops and ran down their equipment and their ammunition. And now they're faced with, you know, this juggernaut that's heading in their direction. And, and, they just don't have the force or the strength either in the Ukraine itself or I think in the collective West to turn this thing around or to stop this jugger naughtiness part. Yeah, I agreed. Yeah. A defensive husbanding your your resources, that's just so bland and

boring. Well, exactly. You know, the collective West, they wanted an offensive. They wanted a movie style offensive to Crimea and then to see the Putin government fall and collapse. Now that, that makes for good cinema. That's an awesome narrative. What you just said is, is, no one's interested in that. It's just military strategy. You don't do that kind of thing. I mean, I remember you said, I've never forgotten this, actually.

This is well before the offensive was launched last year, but when there was a lot of talk about it. You said this reads like a movie script. And it did. You know, all you were saying, all the, you know, the, the images of the tanks rolling across the fields and shelling and the Ukraine and the Russians turning around and fleeing and the breakthrough and the arrival on the sea of Azov and, well, as we see real wars and fought like that. Well, that was the plan that the Russians would run away.

I mean, they did actually believe that. Yeah, absolutely. They did. They did believe that. And we now know that they'd. I mean, that was that was the assumption that, you know, as soon as the Russian, and that they catch at places like aborting or whatever the Russian army would implode. I mean, it seems incredible today, but that is what they thought.

All right. We will leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Ida C, Bitchie, Telegram, and Rock Finn. Take care.