The Duran Podcast - Ukraine clutching at straws, as exhaustion sets in

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Ukraine clutching at straws, as exhaustion sets in

All right, Alexander, let's do an update as to what is happening in Ukraine. And let's start off with what is going on on the front lines. Russia continues to, I don't want to say advance. They continue to execute their aggressive attrition, their active defense. And they're doing it very well. the help of Siersky, it seems. It seems like Sirsky is playing right into Russia's hands. What are your thoughts on what is happening on the front? Well, this is exactly correct. Now, the major battles, the big fighting is happening in a part

of the front lines, basically from Marinka in the south through the area, the Avdevka area. Of course, Avdavka is now securely under Russian control. and northwards towards Bachman. And the Russians are driving hard, they're pushing forward in all of these places. And we've got news this morning that a large village north of, sorry, south of Marinka called Norvo Mikhailov.

It's apparently a pound to four. The Russians have now raised their flag over the central part of this village. It's apparently important because it sits astride various roads and comes close to other roads. and it's another part of the key part of the Ukrainian defense system and it's gradually being taken by the Russians Krasnogorovka, which is north of Avdevka.

Apparently, we've had a comment from a Ukrainian soldier. He said the situation there is desperate. The Russians are hammering away. It looks like Krasnogorvka will fall, not immediately, because it's a fairly big place, probably at some point in the next few weeks, and that will be another big blow for Ukraine. We're getting also lots of reports of the Bachmert area. Remember Bachmaat?

Russians pushing very hard there. Another important fortified village called Yvarniska. Apparently, the Russians are now raising their flags in various parts of Ivanovska. It looks like that village is close to falling as well. and that opens the road westward to Chassevyard, which is a town that's just to the west of these places. And beyond Chassefjar, the Russians captured Chasovhyaar, all kinds of other opportunities start to present themselves.

But the biggest and most intense fighting continues to be in the Udddivka area. And if you remember a couple of days ago, the Russians captured in rapid succession, three villages and that was the first defense line of that the Ukrainians established west of Avdafka and then the Russians the Ukrainians fell back to three other villages Toninka, Orlovka and Berdici and a couple of days ago we were getting reports that the Russians had captured all three what appears to have happened is that the Russians probably did capture most of Tonica, or perhaps all of it, and did capture most and perhaps all of Orlovka.

It seems that they never fully captured Berdici. And what Sirsky did was exactly what you said. He sent huge numbers of reinforcements, some of the best troops that Ukraine's still has to try to stop the Russian advance in these three villages. He sort of drew a line and he said, so far, but no further, this is where we stand and fight. And almost certainly he's done that, you know, with Zelensky's urging. And the result is that they've slowed the Russians in Toninka and Orlovka and especially in Verdice. but they're being hammered.

They are being smashed to pieces. We've had three Abraham's tanks now being destroyed in Bredici itself. We've had these two engineering vehicles being destroyed. We're getting pictures every day now, literally every day of Ukrainian air defense systems, valuable air defense systems. It was Patriots a short while ago. Now it's S-300. They're being destroyed one by one by the Russians in this area.

as well as Siersky is trying to move air defense assets to try to provide at least some degree of air cover for the Ukrainian soldiers. And that there being the Russian defense ministries reporting every day, specifically in the Avdavka area, Ukrainian losses at over 4,600 men dead or wounded every single day. And everybody knows. Ukraine can't withstand this pressure. Apparently yesterday, Russian bombing and artillery strikes right across this area in Afdhafka was on a scale apparently never seen before. And what Sirsky is doing is he's feeding a new meat grinder, just as he did in Bahmoud, during the Battle of Bachmert, a year ago, when it was already clear that Bachmut was about to fall,

he just went in sending more and more men into Bachmach, so that Ukrainian losses in Bachmert became absolutely off the scale, and in the end, Bachmert fell anyway. And he's doing the same in the Avdavka area, not for Avdavka itself, which had already been a stupid thing to do, but to try to hold the Russians in three undefendable villages, It is most bizarre, but I suspect Siersky is doing this because Zelensky wants him to.

And Zelensky is doing it because some people in the West want him to do it also. I don't understand the thick thing. I mean, when this is all over, I hope that we get some sort of insight, some sort of historical context as to why the collective West or Zelensky or Sir, or Zoluzni before Sirsky kept on feeding this grinder that you talk about. I mean, you know it's active defense. Putin has said it's active defense. Shwego says it's active defense.

You call it, you've coined it, aggressive attrition. Call it whatever you want. Everyone knows what the Russians are doing here, but they keep on, I just don't understand the thinking that that's going on here. Even if it is for media or for PR optics or in order to get more money or whatever, you know, you can't keep on doing this, obviously. But they just fall into this trap over and over and over again. Yeah, and absolutely. And of course, what makes it even more astonishing is that one does get the sense that we're running now close to the point of exhaustion. I mean, we already have all of these reports about Ukraine running out of ammunition,

for example, that they've got no more shells or that they will run out of ammunition completely by June. And, you know, it's not just us saying that. It's not the Russians saying that. You've got article after article appearing in the media in the West saying that. They're not getting the supplies from the United States that they expected to get. And it's clear that the United States itself is far behind in its attempts to increase shell production. And in fact, the shell production plan there has been apparently scaled down. So they're not getting the weapons that they need. They're losing air defense assets. I mean, they needed air defense systems to protect their cities. That was on their logistical basis. They're sending them to the front line where the

Russians are destroying them. They're claiming to have shot down dozens of Russian aircraft, just as they've previously claimed, to have shot down scores of Russian drones, especially missiles. I noticed that over the last 72 hours or so, there's been a sea change in opinion about this. along the time people assumed that the Ukrainians were telling the truth now the doubts have settled on that most people I think who are maintaining an objective understanding of this war are now becoming deeply skeptical that the Ukrainians are shooting down the numbers of Russian aircraft that they claim they are if they were it's difficult to understand how the Russians would be able to continue to bomb Ukrainian front line positions in this intense way, day after day, night after

night. So they continue to do this. And as you rightly say, there is something ultimately irrational about it, but it seems compulsive that they have to try and hold their positions as long as they can. And I suspect that the clue, again, is to be found in the latest update, military update from the British Ministry of Defense. They claim that the Russians have suffered 29,000 casualties in February. Nobody, again, who's observing the situation close up actually believes that. It's not supported by the data that's coming from media zoner. But I suspect people in Ukraine think this, some people in Ukraine think this, some people in London probably think this, probably some people in Washington also think this. And I think they say to themselves, if we can hold, if we can hold these positions for as long as possible, then the Russians will exhaust themselves.

and we will achieve, if not some kind of a victory, at least this elusive stalemate that everybody is talking about. I mean, they said this about Bachman, they said this about several of dawn. It's Lisi Chans. They're now saying this again about, you know, the Avdavka fighting. And I'm sure that they're saying this all the time to themselves,

even as the facts on the ground tell a completely different story. they're trapped in their own propaganda. They're trapped in their own fantasy world. And there's no one. There's nothing that can wake them up. Nothing's going to wake them up. A collapse. That's it.

An Afghanistan type of collapse is the only thing that's going to wake them up. Until then, Putin bad, Trump bad, Trump bad, Putin bad, Putin stooge, Trump stooge. I mean, this is it. This is it. And the situation is getting from bad to worse in Ukraine. Everyone knows they're losing. Everyone knows the Russians have won. But all of a sudden, they're knocking down four SU-34s every single day now.

How are they doing it? Don't know. Don't care. But they're doing it. Because why? Because the Ukraine Ministry of Defense is telling me that they're doing it. And this is, it's tragic. and I don't know.

It's bizarre. It really, you know, we're in the information age. There hasn't been a war covered in such detail like this conflict. Telegram, Twitter. We got everything. We got all the information there. And all these leaders and these decision makers are still stuck on Russia's using shovels. No.

This is absolutely true. Explain it. I don't know. some of the best war reporters on both sides, by the way, that we've ever had in any war. I mean, you know, the quality of reporting of this war is outstanding. And it's something, by the way, that ought to be said. We also have increasing comments from Ukrainian soldiers who are becoming more and more desperate. I mean, the soldier in Krasnogorvka I was talking about is saying, you know,

that the Russians are hitting constantly and all the time. and, you know, we can't hold them. And, of course, people just don't want to see this, as you correctly say, even when the Ukrainians themselves, and there's some very good war reporters on the Ukrainian side, who are also complaining about how disastrous the situation has become. You still go to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, Tysirsky, in other words, to get your views about what is the actual situation on the battlefronts. No, it is astonishing.

And as you rightly said, it is tragic. As for Svasky himself, by the way, he's also busy doing something else, which is that he's sacking every single general in the Ukrainian army or senior commander who he thinks is closer, more aligned to Zalusini, and who is also in any conceivable way critical of him. So on top of all the other problems that the Ukrainian army has, they're experiencing an internal purge because again, both for Sirsky and for Zelensky, the key thing now is to keep the army reliable to prevent it from,

to prevent the soldiers from turning rounds and marching on Kiev, presumably, and demanding an accounting about the situation there. So that must be causing enormous disruption, and it must also be making soldiers, officers extremely uncertain about their job and their position. And of course, that will make them even more inclined to hold their positions and not to advance, not to retreat rather, and make decisions like that. Because, of course, they're nervous about what might happen to them if they do. So that's where we are.

Yeah, you have guys like Dimitri Yaros, openly criticizing Zelensky. You know, a guy like Yaros when he starts to call for a regime change against Zelensky, you've got to take that seriously. Is the plan for them to hold on on the front lines to prevent a Russian advance, if the Russians even want to advance. We don't even know if the Russians want to advance. But is there thinking, let's just hold on. And then once we get the $61 billion from the U.S.

or the $300 billion from the Russian stolen assets, then we can spin this as we've got a second or third life, we've got another go at this. We have another chance of victory. Is that what they're hoping for? Yeah, that's exactly what they're thinking. I mean, can I just say, I mean, you know, when people find themselves in a desperate situation,

they do tend to have a temptation to clutch at straws not to recognize how desperate the situation is. If you, as I have done, you know, studied the history of Germany in the last months of the Second World War, you would see that, you know, they were constantly coming up with all kinds of schemes and ideas and telling each other, you know, They held out a little longer. The Allies will exhaust themselves. The Russians will exhaust themselves. The Russians and the Allies will quarrel and, you know, the war will end and will be victorious. And they went on saying that, Rush up to the very end, to the fall of Berlin.

And they continued to come up with plans and say, you know, Roosevelt's dead. So, you know, things are going to turn out, turn out and off. favor now things of that kind and i suspect an awful lot of that is going on in kiev at the moment they're saying to themselves they're clutching at straws they say look they hold the russians back a few more weeks then congress will start to provide us with funds and at that point we're going to get the tourist missiles and the attackers missiles and the f-16s and that's all going to change the situation, just as the Germans said to themselves, you know, the V-1s and the V-2s were changed everything on the battle lines and the jet fighters that was putting up in the

air. And I think an awful lot of that is going on in Kiev at the moment. They say to themselves, let's hold on. All we need to do, what we need to do now, we mustn't give up now. We must hold on. We can do it for a few more weeks and months and then sometime around the summer. everything will come right. And in the autumn, we're going to get more shells and we're going to get all these fancy weapons and we'll be able to go back on the offensive. And the miracle will then take place and we will emerge victorious. I'm sure an awful lot of that is going on in Kiev at the moment. Let me ask you a final question, a hypothetical. Let's say everything works out in Ukraine's advantage with regard to they, get $61 billion from the U.S., they get $300 billion from the Russian frozen assets, and they get 800,000 shells from Pavel of the Czech Republic as well. Does that make a difference?

Let's see everything goes in their favor now. All of a sudden, they get everything they're waiting for and asking for. Does it make a difference? Yeah, it doesn't make any difference because it will still, it will prolong the war by a few more months. and then once they've exhausted all of that, they will find that they need more because the Russians will always have more than they do. It's not going to solve their strategic problem.

They're just going to find that, as I said, they just burn through all of this material, probably even faster than they expect, and they're back to the same position that they're in today, only worse because even more of their men will have died and their army will be reduced in size and even less experienced and at that point as I said there'll be they'll be in a worse position even worse position than they are today whatever happened to the mobilization by the way Zelensky the mobilization oh yeah yeah well it's it's it's it's the

the bill hasn't got through the parliament yet, so it's still under discussion. Now, they claimed, by the way, yesterday that they'd mobilised that they'd found 47,000 recruits since the start of this year, which is possible, by the way. I mean, I don't discount that possibility at all, but we don't know what the quality of these recruits are probably not very high. and the Russians almost certainly have conscripted more people. Well, the Russians are getting volunteers. They're getting more volunteers every month now than Ukraine is getting conscripts.

And the Russian military has a huge lead here because, of course, they were building up their forces all through 2023, and they're still doing so. And bear in mind that the Russians apparently give a year's training to whoever it is. is they call up. So more and more of these men who who join the army last year are now trained and ready for action. Even if Ukraine undertakes a proper mobilisation, there isn't the time to train these soldiers. So that's by the way, I suspect another reason why we're hearing all these other, I mean, the other straw they're clutching, presumably, is that the West will come in and the French and the Germans and the British and even the Americans will send their troops into Ukraine.

As I've discussed many times, the French, German and British armies are in no condition to take on the Russians at the moment. And I think this is widely understood. The Americans probably could, at least up to a point, but they would risk World War III by doing that. And I don't think, I'm absolutely sure they won't. It's time for Alensky to seriously consider his exit plan.

I don't know. Well, you know, that's the other thing. When people are in these situations, as I said, they get desperate and they clutch with straws. But it's also the case. And, you know, I've encountered many desperate people in my time in my work. Also, there are also moments of lucidity. And they do realize that all. that they're coming up with isn't going to work.

And probably I wouldn't be surprised if even as he's clutching at all of these straws, he's still, he's also busy sorting out his exit strategies. We again go back to Germany. Of course, the leader of Germany and the immediate cader around him, they couldn't leave. But all the others, even whilst they were determined to keep on fighting, They were already busy many months before the collapse, working out their escape routes. And of course, many of them did escape. All right, we will leave it there.

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