The Duran Podcast - The darkening mood surrounding Ukraine's offensive

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

The darkening mood surrounding Ukraine's offensive

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the darkening mood in and around Ukraine and the big counteroffensive in the Olensky regime and the lack of progress being made in the big counteroffensive, even though we have a lot of the collective West media running with the news that Ukraine has captured this village of Yurozania. And this is the big victory which signals the progress being made by the Alentucky. regime, the Ukraine military, as they move closer towards Mariupo and the plan to sever the Russian forces in the south region. Anyway, what is going on now in and around Ukraine? Olaf Schultz, by the way, has also come out with some interesting statements, and he's calling for peace while at the same time, calling for negotiations, peace talks while at the same time calling for Russia's capitulation. So what do you make of everything that's happening? Well, I don't think anybody, actually, you know, I meant what I said, I don't think anybody,

I don't think most people who are following this war take this capture of this village particularly seriously. By the way, the Russians have captured many villages in the northern France near Kupyansk, where they're making many much faster advances and they're much closer to capturing that town. And I've already seen, you know, people say, you know, Ukraine can capture the old deserted village in one or two places. They still haven't reached any of the big fortified lines. There's now been a whole mass of articles in the media in the United States, less so, by the way, in Europe, but certainly in the United States, talking about how Ukraine's offensive simply isn't advancing. it isn't moving forward in the way that it was expected to do.

There's no real expectation that it will be able to break through to Marupol or to the Sea of Azov or any of these places any longer. And you talked about a darkening mood. That has appeared in a headline, that expression, darkening mood, has appeared in a headline to a long article in the Washington Post. they're talking about a collapse of morale within Ukraine itself because the offensive isn't making the progress that was expected, not by any stretch.

And of course, they're also talking about a darkening mood. They're not directly alluding it, but of course the darkening mood is in the United States and in NATO too. And you see Olaf Schultz now talks about it. negotiations, he wants Russia's capitulation, but of course he knows that there's no possible way that Russia is going to capitulate tomorrow. Why would the Russians capitulate when actually it is they at the moment who are the ones who are really advancing? So when he wants the Russians to capitulate, what he really means is he wants negotiations going. That's the part of his comments that really matter.

The problem is that I don't get the sense that. there's any real plan about how to structure these negotiations. And there's demands of negotiations. They're not really about negotiations. They're about trying to get a ceasefire and freeze the conflict so that it doesn't interfere with the elections next year, the elections in the United States next year. That is what it is all about.

And I cannot see why the Russians would be interested in going down that room. And in fact, they've already rejected it. We said in a video three months ago that the Biden White House had an opportunity to push Olensky to negotiate before the elections got started. And yes, the Biden White House would have had some fallout to deal with. But it would have been like Afghanistan, the Afghanistan debacle. It would have been a week or two of criticism. And then everyone would have forgotten. everyone would have moved on, and then the Biden White House would have been able to go about

their campaigning in a way that they want to campaign. But they chose the other route, which was escalation and trying to defeat Russia, so that they can get a big win as the campaign. The election campaign was revving up. So, you know, they really only have themselves to blame. If they had listened to our advice three months ago or two months ago even, And just said, you know, Zelensky negotiate because we don't need this hanging over our head as we get into campaign mode. It's obvious that you're not going to win.

It's obvious that this plan to reach the Ciavazov. It's not feasible. It's not going to happen. So let's wind this thing down. Let's take the hit before the campaign gets started and let's move on. Instead, they chose the escalation route because they felt and perhaps there are forces that still feel that they can defeat Russia. as the election campaign gets moving along. This was a huge strategic error.

It was a huge strategic error. I was absolutely right, and they should have listened to that advice, but of course they didn't. The president himself apparently was very committed to the offensive. He was sure it would succeed. They all talked themselves into saying it would succeed, that the Russians would crumble,

that their soldiers were lacking in discipline and lacking in morale, and that Russia was ran. out of tanks, machines, weapons, every conceivable thing that, you know, they didn't accept, they didn't acknowledge the reality of the Russian military buildup, the, you know, uptick in production in Russia of shells or any of those things. So they expected that the offensive would succeed. And it wasn't succeed. On the contrary, all the indications are, all the admissions, the really serious admissions and the media in the West are that it is failing. But having said that,

I think you're absolutely right. I think now we have a division basically within the administration into two camps. One says, let's reach out to the Russians. Let's try and freeze this conflict. Let's try to get all our friends around the world to put pressure on the Russians to get them to freeze this conflict. Let's keep it frozen until the elections. And then there's the other group, a much more hard line, who are saying, look, let's just keep going. Because, in fact, what we were saying a few months ago about the rush had been weak and, you know, about to break down, the army is about to collapse. They don't have any reserves, any of that sort of thing. They are still arguing in that way.

And there was this extraordinary article that I read in the Times over the weekend, the London Times, I should spread, in which they said, you know, keep fighting on. We won't break through now, but we'll break through in the spring. The summer of the summer of 2024, just a few weeks before the election, is when victory will be achieved. That will be when the F-16s appear on the scene. That will be the great game changer. So that is the argument that is taking place. And I get the sense that the president himself simply can't make a decision between the two. He's feeling pushes him.

to agree with the hardliners. He, I think, has a massive animus against Vladimir Putin. I think it's absolutely obvious to anybody who's been following him. I think it's a visceral dislike of Putin. He has a visceral dislike of

the Russian government. I know that he wants to negotiate. I don't think his heart is in it. Some of his political advisors and the Pentagon are telling him to go the other way to try to get negotiations going. Olaf Schultz probably wants the same thing because he's got problems now in Germany as well. But I don't think he's

able to make up his mind. And, you know, many people will say that given his other problems, his frailties and his political problems, perhaps it's too much to expect Joe Biden in this kind of situation to be able to make up his mind. So they missed the time window. And the Russians looked to be in an implacable mood. Now, if you remember, a couple of weeks ago, we discussed an article that appeared in Moscow Times about negotiations. And, you know, we were skeptical about that article

and skeptical about those negotiations, and we should continue to be, by the way. But one thing did stand out for me, which is that it said that the White House has tried to reach out to the Kremlin. In fact, clearly, if you read between the lines, Biden himself has tried to telephone Putin. Putin refused to pick up the call.

He apparently refused to accept direct calls from Biden, just as he's refusing to accept direct calls from Olaf Schultz. What he wants, before he's prepared to do anything like that, is he wants hard, realistic proposals on the table that he can work with in a way, that gives him confidence that they will result in some kind of agreement which secures Russian interests. And no part of the West, none of the people in Washington are prepared to go that far. Yeah, John Bolton put out an opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal and he's calling on Biden to

escalate. Yeah. He wants the Biden White House to escalate the conflict in Ukraine. He wants the Biden White House to place sanctions on China because he says that China, is helping Russia in the conflict in Ukraine. He wants NATO to start enforcing sanctions. I mean, he's just lost his mind. He's talking about Putin bluffing about nuclear weapons. Yes. And at the collective West and that NATO should call Putin's bluff on Russia's nuclear deterrent. The problem is Biden listens to guys like Bolton, who are aligned with people like Blinken and Newland and the State Department. Biden always defaults to the opinion of the State Department, and they're the most hawkish of all of these, these groups that,

that are advising Biden on the conflict in Ukraine. They're the ones that are making the decisions with Ukraine. I don't think it's the Pentagon. And if it is the Pentagon, I think Lloyd Austin actually acts in, in the favor, in the benefit of the State Department. I don't think Lloyd Austin is is exactly the voice of sanity from the Pentagon either. But, you know, Oloff Schultz, he's calling for peace talks and negotiation, but on the basis of a Russian capitulation. But instead of Olyf Schultz moving things forward, what's his reaction to his position in Germany?

Because you're seeing the rise of the eye of dead, because of the conflict in Ukraine. his position is not or his his his uh his action is not to to push the EU or the Biden White House to sit at the table with Russia to push Zelensky to negotiate with Russia. His reaction is let's cancel the AFD. Absolutely. So you see they're they're trying to figure out ways to, to extend this conflict out and get and to get through these turbulent times for them because they, they can't bring themselves to just do the simple thing, which is to cut off Ukraine and to get Ukraine to sit down

with Russia. And they still believe that if they can extend this thing out, maybe something will happen. Maybe something will happen with regime change in the Kremlin. Maybe something will happen with the Russian economy. They're hoping that the rubble will collapse. And they're saying, look at where the ruble is now. You've described what's going on there in a previous video. So that's their policy. Let's just keep this thing going.

And let's just hope that something happens, which benefits us. And if we have to deal with criticism, we'll cancel political party, we'll cancel websites, we'll cancel journalists, we'll do whatever we have to do

to keep this thing going and hope for some sort of miracle outcome inside the Kremlin or in this conflict that that resolves this issue for us. You know, real quick, you mentioned shells as well, Alexander. From what I'm reading, you know, as Russia is ramping up production, you know, across the board, Ukraine is even running out of 155 millimeter shells. I mean, they don't have much left and the U.S. can't produce enough.

Maybe they can get to 85,000 a month in the next couple of years, but Ukraine needs. something like 250,000 a month. This is unwinnable. It is unwinnable. And you're absolutely correct. I mean, there is a character in one of Charles Dickens' novels called Mr. McCorber, who is constantly running itself into debt and ends up bankrupt. And of course, his philosophy is, you know, that I'll just keep on going as I've been going,

because something will turn up. That's what the West is doing. It's what in Britain, we used to call a. Nicarbist type of policy. Something will turn up. There'll be another coup attempt. There's lots of talk about pregosion. By the way, you remember when the

Pregojin affair took off, when there was the mutiny, you said at the time that they're going to seize on that and they're going to argue that, you know, progions mutiny proves how unstable the political situation actually is in Russia. Get right. That's exactly what they're doing. I mean, I read article after article about how the pregosion business

proves that the political situation in Russia is volatile, unstable, that the regime is about, as they always call it, is about to collapse, that Putin is going to fall. They claim that the ICC warrant has had some massive impact in some way. They latch on to every word of a Russian business leader to say, you know, the problems in Russia are, you know, the political leader, the business community is turning against Putin. They, you know, talk up the capture of a single village, even if that village hasn't actually been captured.

And by the way, on that village, the Russians are claiming that they still control part of that village, half of that village. So, you know, it's not even proved necessarily that it has been captured. But anyway, they cling on to the fact that a single village has been captured. They will talk things up. They will constantly look for reasons for optimism. even as the actual situation on the ground darkens and turns against them. Now, what might break that, what might change the picture is if something dramatic happens. Like, for example, the Russians, as they might easily do, capture a big town like a Piansk, for example.

And then push on to easier regain all the ground they lost in the Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov region last year. That might galvanise debate in the United States in Europe. The risk is that it's going to galvanise it, not towards negotiations, but towards the kind of course that John Bolton, and people like him are saying that, you know, you must intensify and harden what you're doing. You must escalate even more. You mustn't just send a 16th to Ukraine. can't fly those F-16s, you've got to send Western pilots to fly them. You've got to base them from

Romania and Poland and, you know, to hell with the consequences. You must send troops on the ground to create safe areas in Western Ukraine. You must start thinking about the possibilities of, you know, no-fly zones over Ukraine. In other words, you must start taking those kind of extreme steps. And there's one particular article which I have to say, spooked me, which I saw in the Daily Telegraph, by a man called David Axe, who writes, I think, principally for forms. And he says, look, the Russians are bluffing about nuclear weapons, their willingness, you know, their ability to use nuclear weapons.

Well, then I'm right, and we can do whatever we want. But if I am wrong, if they're not bluffing, if the Russian nuclear arsenal, not a bluff and World War III does happen. Well, don't blame me either because even then it would be Putin's fault. So just go ahead, take incredible risks, be as reckless as you like, follow the extreme courses that John Bolton is proposing and people like him are proposing. And if it ends in World War III, Well, don't blame Bolton, Blinken, Nolan, any one of these people. It's still Putin's fault, as everything always is. Yeah, that's where the neocons are going to push this. They're going to push this to the point where they're going to ask their citizens, they're going to ask American citizens and Canadian citizens and European citizens

and Australian citizens and New Zealand. They're going to ask the entire collective West citizens, the population of the collective West, they're going to, they're going to plead with them, let's take this nuclear. Everything's going to be okay. That's where they're going to take this. They're going to take this to the brink. And that's when we're going to, well, I think that's when this thing's going to resolve itself.

And I believe that the populations are going to say no. No. Well, indeed. And as further proof of that, and that this is, we're now in a pattern of continued escalation. You absolutely right to highlight what's going on in Germany. There's now been growing demands. in Germany for a ban on, well, not just a ban, I mean an outlawing as far as I can tell of the IFD,

which is now to repeat the second biggest party in Germany in terms of its popularity. It's way more popular than Olau Schultz's Espé party, the governing party. It's a few points short of the leading party, which is the CDU. but apparently prepared to float the possibility of banning Germany's second most popular party to keep the political class

in Germany still in control so that they can continue to prosecute the war now I have to say once upon a time proposals like that would have been inconceivable in any Western democracy.

That apparently is where we've come to. All right. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, odyssey, bitch, shoot, Rockfin, and Telegram, and go to the Duran shop. 10% off, use the code.

Good day. Take care.