The Duran Podcast - UK media claims possible Russia collapse

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

UK media claims possible Russia collapse

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine, and perhaps you can focus in on the military situation in Ukraine as the UK media sees it. Because according to the UK media, and there's a reason that they're doing this, and you're going to explain the reason, Russia is just about to collapse, just a little bit more, a little bit more weapons, a little bit more money, a little bit more support. and the Russian military will collapse and they will lose. They are on their last legs. Just give it a couple of more months.

That is the narrative that is coming out of the UK media. And there's a reason that they are pushing this narrative. And I think it's pretty obvious what the reason is. Anyway, what is the state of the war in according through the eyes of the UK media? That, of course, you can also talk about the actual real state of the, the situation on the front lines. Absolutely. Well, can I just say briefly? There's been a narrative. You can see this narrative is being spread throughout the media here in Britain, which is that, yes, the Russians have made significant advances over the quarter of 2024, not huge advances,

but nonetheless, they've made some advances. They gained some territory. And having said that, they've experienced colossal losses in doing so. Supposedly, the Russians lost as many men in 2024 as they lost in 2022 and 2023 combined. Again, the source of this information is difficult to establish because it's all very vague. But anyway, that's what they're saying. And they're saying that Ukraine, despite the fact that it is indeed under an awful lot of pressure, nonetheless is managing to hold its own. And, well, just to give a sense of the extent to which, according to the media in Britain, is holding its own,

even as we're making this program, I was just reading just before the program, a huge article in the Daily Telegraph, which discusses the fighting in Toretsk, a city that we've talked about many times, and many programs. And it says it's, the whole article is predicated on the fact that the battle of Toretsk is still underway. And the title of the article is the city that Putin can't capture. So that Ukraine is still apparently resisting in Torezk and the Toretsk is still partly at least under Ukrainian control. Now, of course, the Russian Defense Ministry about two or three weeks ago said that Torezc had been captured by the Russians. And all of the reliable mapping projects that I am aware of say the same thing. And all of the chatter that I read on the

internet from the various sources that I've seen says exactly the same thing. The British journalists who wrote the story didn't actually go to Torek. Just saying the close. The close. Any one of them seems to have got the Torek, with Kramatosk, which is some distance away. But nonetheless, Ukrainians apparently are saying this to the British. The British, because the Ukrainians are saying it, it must be true. It's all about how the Russians show no regard for human life. It all trots out the same stories about human wave attacks and that kind of thing. That's one article in the Daily Telegraph, but you can see the same claim squirreled out in one place

after another. You see a sooty an piece written by a journalist called Charles Moore, for example. You see many places that Ukraine is just about holding its own. The Russians are advancing, but only advancing at enormous cost, that their advance is very slow and very incremental. Ukraine is very, very far from being defeated. And of course, you can see what is being set up here. It's the stab in the back narrative.

If Ukraine fails, it's not because the Ukrainians aren't successfully resisting the Russians. It is because they're being stabbed in the back by Donald Trump and the new administration in Washington. It's an absolute fantasy. It's another example of narrative spin. It's an attempt, I think, in Britain specifically, to prepare the British public for the narrative which is to come once the war is lost. But it's absolutely clear that it is a false narrative, another false narrative. And I'm afraid it's going to be picked up in one.

all sorts of other places. I suspect it's going to be picked up in the US as well by some people there, and we need to be ready for it. Because if you want to talk about the actual military situation, the real military situation, as it is playing out, this narrative is completely untrue. The Russians are pushing forward on every part of the front line. They have, I have no doubt at all, that they have captured Torezsk. They're very close to capturing Chassevya, which is nearby. They have come significantly close to the point where they could trap the Ukrainian troops in Kursk in potentially a cauldron. They've just crushed the Kourachovar, just south of the city of Kourakobo itself, which the Russians captured a few days ago.

they're advancing right across the front lines. The Ukrainian counter-attacks in places like Pukovs all have failed. And, you know, if you don't want to take it from me, Colonel Reisner, the Austrian army is just on a video in which he said exactly the same things, and in which he, by the way, borrowed, or maybe he didn't borrow, maybe he came up with this himself, but he adopted a metaphor, which we have used in our programs that Ukraine is a light. boxer up against a heavyweight and in a bite between a light boxer and a heavyweight, the heavyweight boxer always wins. And that is how he characterized the state of the war now. Right. The narrative is we would have defeated Russia if only for Trump.

Exactly. Damn it, Trump. We were so close to victory and then you came and you ruined it all. That's a narrative. What does, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's Crazy. These people are crazy, man. These people are crazy. What does the Trump White House have to do to preempt this? You get the truth out, obviously. How? How? What do they do? That, I think, is essential. I mean, the first thing they need to do is they need to start asking the Ukrainians not just about money and weapons and all of that, but they also need to start getting the Ukrainians to own up about the real situation with their casualties. Now, Ukraine is claiming all the time that it's suffered, you know, relatively light losses, and at the same time it's complaining that his soldiers, that his brigades are out of soldiers. I read about, you know, battalions which are supposed to have 200 men, have only 30 men and things of that kind. I mean, you can't have a situation where your army is so depleted of manpower unless there have been very significant losses. So the real state

of what has been going on in the war. The real loss is that Ukraine has been suffering. I think the Trump people need to get that out also. But I think they also need to point out that we've been hearing this narrative about Ukraine successfully resisting the Russians for three years. The reality is Ukraine has been pushed back relentlessly. It's lost one place after another, one important place after another. Bachmud, Avdèvka, Maripol, Severodonis, Dicchansk, Uglada, one place after another. And that is, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of American aid. And the United States cannot go on indefinitely writing black checks for Ukraine, depleting its own arsenal.

so that Ukraine can slow the Russian advance, you know, a little bit more. I mean, it is an absurd zero-sum game. It's what Reisner was saying, the Russians have been fighting a war of attrition. It's a war of attrition, obviously, against Ukraine. But it's also been, in a way, a war of attrition against the United States. because the United States is depleting its arsenals and spending money that it can't afford. Yeah, but they're trying to nail Trump on this. I know.

The Trump administration. They're going to try to blame the Trump administration. Are you saying that? He has to go all out and point out that the Biden people were responsible for this. They allow the war to happen. They cause all these enormous losses. As I said, they need to work out what the true Ukrainian losses actually are. They got to work out how much money the United States really spent on Ukraine.

They've got to discuss the real state of depletion of the U.S. arsenals. And they've got to point out that Biden and his people gave Zelensky absolutely everything he wanted. And he's still losing. Yeah, I was watching interviews with Witkoff on CNN and with Hexeth on Fox News. And when they were asked about whether Russia started this war, Yeah. Hegset said it's complicated, which I thought was an interesting answer. And Whitkoff actually told Jake, it was Jake Tapper, that this war was provoked and not necessarily by Russia. So I think

Trump is doing, his administration is doing a good job now, getting the truth out there. I mean, it's a complicated, for someone who hasn't been following this situation like we have or our listeners have, I mean, you're not going to be able to tell them the whole story of Ukraine going back to I'm not, all of this stuff. But he is starting to formulate a narrative, which is more truthful as far as project Ukraine goes. Are you suggesting that perhaps the Trump administration, the hexest, the Rubio's, Waltz, Wittkoff, that they start talking about how Europe has been demilitarized?

Absolutely. How the U.S. stockpiles are getting low. I think so. That the 45,000 number that Zelensky has been throwing out there now for the past six months is fictitious, it's fantasy. I mean, do you think they should start coming out saying these things that effectively Russia has defeated a NATO proxy? I mean, I don't know if you use those words, but yeah, I think they should, I mean, I think the best answer to all of this is the truth. And by the way, I agree, yes, if you want to get into the real details of the Ukraine narrative, the Ukraine story going all the way back to 2014, it is complicated.

But it's not actually that complicated. A democratically elected president was overthrown by violence in 2014. And there were three peace agreements, Minsk one, Minsk two, and Istanbul, which were either violated by the Ukrainians or in the case of Istanbul, not honored. And they can go into how Istanbul happened. By the way, Wikov, now that you brought him up, he actually said that we got very, very close to peace with Istanbul. And he also said, by the way, I thought that most interesting that this has to be the starting point in any future discussions. I mean, he's a clever man, by the way. And very, very, very, very.

Absolutely, yeah. Go on, yeah, no, you're right. And he's absolutely right about that. The Russians have said this as well, that given that this was what Ukraine itself proposed and agreed to in Istanbul, Istanbul has to be the basis of negotiations. Istanbul class.

Yeah. But the narrative that Russia's military is collapsing, I mean, should Whitkoff and Hickset and Rubio just come out and say it. Look, the Russian military is not collapsing. Yes. Oh, yes. I think so. It's getting stronger. Ukraine is getting weaker. The losses are not 45,000. Europe has no weapons. I mean, should they just come out? Europe has no weapons. The UK's military is not existent. I mean, you know, this is the way that you, that you stop the propaganda that's coming out from the UK, which will seep into the U.S. media, New York Times, CNN. They are going to pick up the article.

from the telegraph and the financial times. Absolutely. And there is a media now in the United States which does support Trump. I mean, it's not the establishment mainstream media, but that media is very, very weakened now. So yes, absolutely. I think they should. I think they should say all of those things, that the Europeans are a mess, that the British military is a mess, that the German military is a mess, that the French military is

probably also a mess. I know less about it. They should talk about the realities of you. They should talk about the realities of the military situation on the battle fronts, and they should talk about the endless blank checks that Joe Biden and Jake Sullivan and company signed off. Jeffrey Sachs has now said that he had a discussion with Jake Sullivan before the war began. It told Jake Sullivan to tell everybody, Ukraine isn't joining NATO. Jake Sullivan was said, you know, well, Ukraine isn't really going to join NATO. but I'm not going to say that in public when it could have emerged a war. So, I mean, you know, bring all of that out, expose it, demonstrate the realities of what has happened.

Talk to the truth. I don't think it's that difficult. In Europe, it will be very resisted. The European political class will resist it. But in the United States, by contrast, I think people are ready for it. Yeah, I agree. I think that's what matters for the Trump administration. Absolutely, yes.

Yeah. Yeah, for the American people to say, yeah, you were right in getting us out of this mess. Yes. Yeah. All right. We will end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitudeau, Telegram, Rockfin, and X, and go to the Duran Shoppick of some merch, like what we are wearing in this video update.

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