The Duran Podcast - Too late for Trump to walk away from Ukraine?

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Too late for Trump to walk away from Ukraine?

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is happening on the front lines in Ukraine. What is the situation right now on the front lines, Alexander? What's the situation in the south? What's the situation in Hotgiv and also in Kursk? Maybe do a quick update as to what's going on in Kursk and Sue Me. We just finished a ceasefire, by the way. A couple of days ago, we had the Easter ceasefire, 30-hour ceasefire. that ended. Of course, both sides are saying the other side violated the ceasefire case to be expected. But it was Russia's idea. Russia went along with it. Ukraine and Zelensky, they kind of muddled the whole ceasefire thing where we're going to reject the ceasefire, then we're going to accept the ceasefire. Then we want to extend it to an unconditional ceasefire and stuff like that. But anyway, the situation on the front lines.

Quickly and briefly, on the ceasefire, it's important to say this isn't the first time that Putin has declared ceasefires over religious holidays. I mean, he did that, I think, during the Christmas of 2023, it was actually a three-day ceasefire, much longer at that time. And, well, he did it again this time. And as I said, undoubtedly there are political calculations and factors like that of play. But to my absolute knowledge, he proposes these ceasefires and sometimes unilaterally declares them because he comes under intense pressure whenever these religious holidays come up from the Orthodox Church to declare them. And again, this is something I think Westerners find incredibly difficult to understand because they simply do not understand the Russian Orthodox Church and what it is

and what its role is in Russian society and its own relationship with Putin. But I'm not going to discuss this further because this is a huge topic, which is another one for another time. Now, what has happened is this. we are in the last days of Ukraine's Kusk adventure. Now, this should have ended in March. The Russians recaptured Sujah in March. The Ukrainian forces collapsed around Sujia.

It was absolutely clear that Ukraine was going to be pushed out of Kuzk completely. The logical and right thing for Ukraine to do at that point was not. to fight on for three villages and to sacrifice hundreds, perhaps thousands more troops, dead and wounded and lots of precious equipment, trying to defend three inconsequential villages. It was to pull back, establish stable front lines further inside Sumi region, where the Russians are showing increasing signs that they want to mount a further offensive. Well, that would have been the logical thing to do, but of course it was not what the Ukrainians did. They decided to cling on to these three villages.

The reason they were able to cling on to these three villages is because they are slightly isolated from the whole area around Sousja, and they're closer to the border. So they held on to these three villages, Guilla, Gornal, and Olieshnia. Oliaschia is not even a village. It turns out that it is basically a farm. You know, one of the Soviet-era collective farms and its buildings. But anyway, they clung on to those. They clung on to an Orthodox monastery, big, powerfully built, heavy. You know, we've both been to Russian Orthodox monasteries.

I mean, they're solid places. but of course there's church, there's buildings there, you know, inherently a powerful defense position, but one very isolated and therefore one where it was very easy for the Ukrainian troops to be trapped in. They decided to cling on to those. They've lost, they're in the process of losing all three. Apparently the Russians say they recaptured Oliesnia, they recaptured the monastery after a bitter battle, it looked for a time as if the Ukrainians were going to surrender the Vonnery, but of course someone probably Zelensky said no, so the monastery has been badly damaged, but the Ukrainians have lost it.

Apparently, they've been mostly driven out of Garnal, the village nearby, and that's the end of the Kusk operation. I mean, it should, it's been prolonged again by two or three pointless weeks to no value, no benefit to the Ukrainians whatsoever. In the meantime, the Ukrainians tried to carry up attacks, more attacks on Belgarod, you know, the other region in Russia. Again, there's been lots of explanations and reasons and rationalizations why the Ukrainians did that. It's all it supposedly intended to complicate a Russian offensive in northern Ukraine, which might be coming. These are the reasons that are always being given.

The real reason, again, is that the Ukrainians were driven out of Kusk region. They desperately wanted, or Zelensky wanted, to say that he was in control of some pre-2014 Russian territory. So when they were pushed out of Kusk region, they tried to capture these villages. on the border. Inconsequential, unimportant villages, the Midova, Popovka, who's even heard of them? They failed. Again, terrible losses. So that's the story of that part of the battlefronts. Now, it is important because the Ukrainians have suffered losses. They're finding it very difficult to replace those losses now. We'll come to that in a moment. But

Their rationalizations don't stack up. And of course, what they've done is that they've weakened their front lines in these places, lost more of their now increasingly limited stockpiles of equipment in order to hold on to territory in Russia, which was of no strategic value and was effectively lost to them. And they weakened their positions, making it easier, not more difficult, for a Russian offensive to happen in Sumi region, if that is indeed what the Russians actually plan to do. Now, it may be, we've got no actual information about this, but if the Russians do decide to launch an offensive towards Sumi region, and probably they do, then the Ukrainians

are now in a weaker position, not a stronger position, to resist it. Now, that's a that area in the northern front lines everywhere else and it's important to say this everywhere else the russians are advancing and they're now very close to what one could describe as the last major Ukrainian positions defensive positions east of the Dnieper and east of the two key cities, Zaporosia and NEPRO. They're now literally on the outskirts of Konstantinovka, which is the southernmost town in the Slaviansk Kramatoosk conurbation. If Konstantinivka is captured,

then again, it's difficult to see how Slaviansk and Kramatosk can be held for very long. and I mean, they're attacking from many different directions now. They've been making significant progress around this area. There's some reports that speak of a collapse of Ukrainian resistance around Konstantinovka. And they are also very close now to a kind of encirclement of Pachrovsk. Now, an encirclement of Pekrovs doesn't mean that they have their troops all around Pakhvsk. But that they're in a position around Parkrovsk to prevent supplies entering the town and to prevent the Ukrainian garrison that's trying to defend Pakrovsk from resisting.

And so they've advanced to the west of Pakrosk and to the north-east of Pakrosk. And if you look at the map now, Pakrovsk is very much in a semicircle. So it's likely that when the big Russian offensive comes in the summer, it will be focused on capturing these three remaining, four remaining cities, Slavians, Kramatosk, Konstantinovka, and Prakrovsk. At that point, the Battle of Dombas is ended. And the Russians have been making serious moves now in Zaporosia region. They seem to be approaching an important town, Colorejo, there. That puts them again within very strong, striking distance of the city of Zaporosia itself. I'm told that in places there are some 20 kilometers from the city of Zaporosia,

which is, by the way, within long range, artillery range of Zaporosia city itself. Again, maybe not this summer. maybe in the autumn, maybe early next year, once these other places have been captured, Slaviansk, Kramatovsk, Konstantinovka, Pakrovsk, Oreckov, they will be in a position not just to reach the Dnieper, but maybe to break through, take these big cities, Zaporosia, maybe even Diyapro, maybe reach the outskirts of Kiev. we are much closer to that critical point in the war than people understand. And just to repeat again, a point I have made many, many times.

In order to win the war, in order to make resistance by Ukraine, impossible, the Russians do not need to advance all the way to the Polish border. If they establish a strong position on the Dnieper, if they capture these two cities, Zaporosia and Neapro, Ukraine can no longer function as a coherent military entity. At that point, you would start to see the cumulative collapse, which we might already be seen, it's going to accelerate and it's going to become irreversible because this is Ukraine's heartland. What does the Trump administration do? What does the United States do if they see this collapse in the next six months?

They say they're going to walk away. What does that mean? Well, this is it because if we get to this point, if we see over the next couple of months, the cities in Dombas fall one after the other. And by the way, you know, again, there's this assumption that, you know, that these battles for these cities will be long and protracted. Well, they might be. But bear in mind, if we go back to 2022, the Russians were able to capture Marupol,

Severodonetsk and Lysikansk, cities that are bigger than the ones that we are talking about now very quickly in a couple of weeks. So it may be that, you know, there is going to be a Titanic battle for the city. these places. Or it may be otherwise, we don't know yet. But let's assume that by late summer, early autumn, it looks as if Ukraine's entire military position is indeed collapsing. The United States, Donald Trump, has said that he's walking away. I think the pressures on him at that point to re-engage and to provide some kind of new military packages for Ukraine. are going to be enormous. And I think also at that point,

there will be enormous pressure on Trump to get him to support the deployment of European forces into Western Ukraine, the French to Odessa, the British D'Illiv and other places, maybe even Kiev, the pressures are going to start building on Trump all over again to re-engage in. that kind of way, in order to avert collapse and an American defeat. Because now, unequivocally,

it will be seen as an American defeat. It'll be seen as an American defeat because of what we know about the extent of America's involvement in the war, what the New York Times article revealed to us. But it will also be seen as an American defeat because the United States, instead of using the election and the transition from one administration to the other as a kind of clean break exercise, attempted to commit itself to negotiations, and as a result, acted in some way to try to preserve Ukraine. So the pressures are going to be enormous on Trump, and I don't know how he's going to react to them. I mean, the sensible thing he should do, the best thing he should do is resist all of these pressures, say this isn't his war. It's Biden's war. He wasn't involved. It wasn't his choice. He always

thought it was a mistake for the United States to become involved. He should stick to that position. An alternative that he could do, his start against some kind of diplomatic outreach to the Russians, see whether some kind of agreement can still be reached. But at that point, it would be an agreement even more on Russia's terms than an agreement now would be, and the Russians would undoubtedly at that point insist on making it a strictly bilateral negotiation between Russia and the United States. The third thing that he could do, which is, I'm afraid what I think is most likely to happen, is that he will buckle under all this pressure,

and he'll make those commitments to the Europeans and to the Ukraine. and then the crisis, which appeared to be abating, will intensify all over again. I don't think he will see it through. I don't think he has any intention of putting the United States in a dangerous position in the face of what even he must then realize is a lost war. But who knows? And, you know, it could be very, very, very dangerous. when we reached that point, which you've just asked me about.

Yeah, he could do a kind of, he could take it down the middle and say, okay, the money to Ukraine has stopped, but we'll keep the weapons somehow going and we'll keep the intel going. And it'll all flow through the Europeans. So he could take that kind of approach, which he can go back to the American people and say, You see, I got us out of Ukraine, but I'm going to always support our European allies because we have this unbreakable bond and NATO and all of that stuff. So he could come out with something like that, which kind of gets him out of Ukraine, kind of gets him out of the defeat, or at least he can package it as not being defeated

by Russia. And we know that, you know, he's good at the marketing of it. So he can package it as the United States was not defeated by Russia. We got out of this mess that Biden got us into. But he can also please the neocons and the military industrial complex and the Europeans in a way as well. So he can take a kind of middle, middle approach. My own view is that it's probably too late now for Trump to simply. walk away. I think that he could have done this in January. I don't think he can do it now. And I think he's going to, one way or the other, end up doing pretty much what you've just said. He'll back the Europeans and give the Europeans whatever help support he can without committing

the United States to some sort of conflict with the Russians, or at least he's going to try to avoid that. Trouble is, you know, even if the United States provides harms to Ukraine via Europe, it's still going to be enough. I mean, this is where I think he's been catastrophically misadvised. The way things are going at the moment, it's looking, well, I mean, there's no doubt about it. I mean, Ukraine's ability to keep on fire. It's slackening. Now, the Ukrainians themselves, Sirsky, has admitted that the Russian army is getting bigger, that they are replacing, not only replacing their losses, but that they are actually recruiting

beyond their losses, significantly recruiting beyond their losses. Sirsky himself admitted that the Ukrainians are not replacing their losses. And if you go to, you know, Ukrainian websites, articles, things with this guy, you find this all over, all over the internet. Even an official of Zelensky's own office admitted that this attempt to get volunteers from the 18 to 24 age group to sign up for the army has only produced 500 people. 500. It is, you know, less than a day's losses. So, the Ukrainian army is getting smaller. the Russian army is getting bigger and it's looking increasingly as if there is a massive

discrepancy in power. Now, the Ukrainians have been talking up this topic of drones. They say we've sorted our production of drones. The Russians could stop drones advancing. We can use the drones to stop the Russian advances. The reality is that it's the Russians who hold the advantage in the drone war. Again, you have to be following the war closely to see this. But Russian drones now operate over all of Ukraine every night. We have the geranium two drones. They're becoming, they're more and more of them. They've been supplemented by other smaller drones, but which can also range right across Ukrainian skies every night. Some of the geranium two drones have become reconnaissance drones with advanced optics.

The Russians have established increasing drone dominance on the actual battlefields. Again, this isn't widely understood. But the focus on drones, and I think this is partly the purpose of focusing on drones, is to draw attention away from the fact that Ukraine is now falling catastrophic. behind the Russians, not just in all other areas of equipment, but in perhaps the single most important area of equipment of all, which is artillery and bombs, Russian bombs falling all over Ukraine. More bombs are falling on Ukraine than at any time since the start of the war. There are many more fab bombs being dropped on targets in Ukraine this spring than was true last spring.

The Ukrainians have installed jammers in all sorts of places. The Russians, however, have continued to improve their fab bombs. And it's clear that most of the fab bombs, despite claims you occasionally see, are actually hitting their targets. Meanwhile, the Russians in artillery, well, Sirski admitted that back in the summer and autumn, They were firing 40,000 rounds of shells a day. He said that in the winter that fell to 20,000 rounds a day. He tried to say that this is because of Ukrainian success in destroying artillery depots.

It was more likely because the Russian offensive slowed in the winter because of climate conditions and rotations and all of that kind of thing. It's been pushing up. It's now, according to Siersky, back up to. 28,000 rounds a day. Probably before long, when the big offensive begins, it'll be back to 40,000 rounds a day. Ukraine has had a big shipment of shells from the United States because Biden sent large numbers of shells to Ukraine. Now, that's helped them through the winter, but that is running out. Probably they got shells from Syria via Turkey. The other one apparently sent lots of shells Syrian army stocks. We don't know what the conditions most of them were, but anyway, they were

provided. Those are probably running out because shell use in this war is so fast. And again, probably we're going to see in the summer another massive discrepancy in power between the Russians and the Ukrainians, and the Europeans can't make the difference, even if they are supplied with weapons by the United States. Their own militaries are now massively depleted in terms of weapons. They don't have the shell production, the tank production, the anti-aircraft missile production to balance the Russians. The United States does. And we've now had a piece by David Ignatius, practically, if you like, a spokesman of the US intelligence community within the US media. But he said as much that without the United States, Europe can't plug the holes.

And the reality is, with the United States, Ukraine couldn't plug the holes either. So that is the reality of this war. If Trump continues to send more weapons to Ukraine via Europe, it will prolong the war, but it won't achieve victory. It won't defeat the Russians. It will simply mean that the results of the victory, the Russian victory, will be more catastrophic for the West than it would otherwise be. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com.

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