The Duran Podcast - Ukraine drone strikes as big counteroffensive fades away

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

Ukraine drone strikes as big counteroffensive fades away

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Ukraine and let's talk about the drone strike strategy, which we did a video on. We had another attempted drone strike the other day in the direction of the Black Sea, Novorosizk. Yeah. Novorosizka, yeah. And we could talk about the crumbling of the. the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, U.S.-Ukraine peace summit.

We can talk about that. And we can talk about the fact that the counteroffensive and the counteroffensive reboot seems to be fading away. And I think this is deliberate, if you want, my opinion. I think the collective West is deliberately allowing it to just kind of fade in the background because it has been a complete failure. Anyway, I think those are some interesting things

that we can talk about. So where should we begin? Well, let's start with the counter-offensive because I suppose this has been the overarching story that we've been having for months now, all the way back to the start of the year. Though I should stress, again, I first saw reports about Ukraine planning a counter-offensive

in various channels, not the mainstream channels, but places where these things are discussed, Ukrainian and Russian, way back in the middle of the first, fall, around last fall, around, you know, October, November time. They were talking about the great Zaporosia offensive, the severing of the land bridge, the march to the sea of Azov. So actually, this has been worked on for a very, very long time. But if you remember, we had that meeting in Hamstein in January, the decision to send the tanks, you know, the decision to support all

those things, the excitement, the training, the preparation. We were hearing all the dramas. We got the Pentagon leaks that were telling us about the counteroffensive, all kinds of things about the counteroffensive. So there's enormous buildup towards this counteroffensive. And of course the counteroffensive was launched in June and there was huge expectations about what it would achieve. There'd been some suggestions before that maybe it wouldn't break through quite in the way that it was said. But it became clear as soon as it was launched that in fact the Western governments really did count on it breaking through. through. And it turns out that there were two army corps that had been created. There was 12 brigades, but these were divided into two cores. The 9th and the 10th core. The 9th

core was supposed to break through the defences, which is supposed to take three days, apparently. The 10th core was then to advance all the way to the sea of Azov. And as you absolutely correctly said, and I think this is a point I want to repeat because this is, this is, so explains the strategy. The breakthrough was supposed to happen first in relation to the Vilnius summit, where there would have been some announcement probably about preparing the way, a timetable for Ukraine to join NATO. And then beyond that, there was to be the summit the following month in Jeddah, which we will come to shortly, at which, you know, with the Ukrainians, presumably by that point, you know, washing their boots of the Sea of Azov, there would have been enormous diplomatic pressure placed on the Russians to pull out and to agree to Zelensky's so-called peace plan, which is effectively surrender, a complete Russian surrender. So that was how it was the plan.

That was how it all worked out. What's happened is exactly what you said. The offensive has ground to stop. They failed to capture anything of any significance. They managed to capture a few villages. They've suffered enormous losses. The ninth score failed in June. So they substituted for it the 10th call,

which was supposed to be the call that was to exploit the offensive, not to carry out the breakthrough, but they committed that in instead. It also failed in the last week of July, and now, of course, we're seeing it quietly fade. And you don't want to admit failure. You cannot talk about failure. Failure is not something that you can ever acknowledge.

So you speak that, you know, this is taking an awful long time. There's, you know, incredible numbers of money. and that's why it's so slow. The foliage is thick, lots of trees and weeds. That's the latest thing that the British are coming up with, you know, that Putin has weaponised the plants, apparently. They're in there in Serid ranks fighting for the Russians. All of that.

And, you know, talk that, well, actually, you know, it might not actually result in a breakthrough this summer. So we'll defer it until the autumn, the late autumn, and the winter. after the muds. That's the point where we're finally going to see the great breakthrough comes. We don't talk about it so much anymore

because the big events are going to happen. Not now, but in a few months' time and gradually, hopefully, it will all fade from the public attention and the public consciousness because, well, let's be frank, we've got an election to win. And that's the priority now.

we don't want this thing dominating the election. It's quite pathetic, I guess, is the word. I don't know. I can't figure out the word, but it's quite pathetic that the collective West has reached a point after all of these bold statements that they were making for the last six months about destroying Russia, defeating Russia, as long as it takes.

It's quite pathetic that they've now rebranded this entire counter-offensive enterprise into a stalemate. Yes. Where did it all go wrong? Where did he all go wrong? Well, where it went wrong is very difficult. It's actually, it's very easy to point out. It, I mean, they misjudged catastrophically, the Russian army.

I mean, they believe their own propaganda that, you know, Ukraine was winning, that the Russian army was corrupt, demoralized, disorganized, drunk, all of those things. And straightforwardly, they expect. that the moment Ukraine attacked, with all its shining new Western tanks, that the Russians would turn around and flee. And if you remember, we had articles going back to March, that Ukraine would break through in the first day. That would be the longest day, but they'd break through. In some ways, interestingly enough, those big Russian fortified lines, I think they was seen by some people in the West as signs of weakness rather than strength on the Russian side,

that it was a proof that the Russians were to chicken, if you like, to stand and fight. They were hiding behind all these fortifications. So if we broke through the fortifications, then the Russians would turn tail and run and there'd be a collapse, and then you see we'd be able to press forward. We'd get Vilnius and NATO, you know, the NATO, Ukraine membership for NATO and we'd, you know, impose terms on the Russians and we get the conference in Jeddah to help us do it. That was the plan. That was the assumption that it was a weak Russian army. The reality is the Russian army was catastrophically underestimated. Instead of turning tail and running, it actually fought the Ukrainians, has fought the Ukrainians, to a standstill in front of those major fortified lines.

The Ukrainians have never even reached them. And that's a point which you will never see Western commentary ever acknowledge. The Ukrainians have never managed to break through to the real fortified lines, the big ones that we see all those pictures of, the ones with the Dragon Street, and the trenches and the pillboxes and all of those things. They've fought against a fraction of the Russian military, you know, the Russian military units stationed ahead of those fortified lines and they've never been able to break through.

Yeah, I think that's one of the big lies that has been told by the collective West throughout this conflict, which is that the Ukraine military has defeated, the Russians in in in very on various occasions or at least in in big battle scenarios i'm thinking kharkiv i'm thinking hirson i'm thinking the siege of kiev you know all of these three um instances it wasn't so much a ukrainian victory as it was a russian decision to to see territory in order to better your position but once again the collective West media, it made it appear as if, like you said, the Russians were running away out of

fear of this, of this Ukraine military, where in reality, it was the Russians using their heads, using their brains as they fight this conflict and, and maybe even understanding that the collective West was going to misinterpret their strategy, the Russian strategy. I mean, maybe they bet on the fact that the collective West and all their hubris and ego and their reliance on the information war in the information space, that they would misinterpret and underestimate their strategy and their moves. That's exactly perhaps entirely possible. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest,

because, of course, one gets the sense that the Russians have a much better understanding of the West than the West appears to have of the Russians, a much better knowledge of the West than the West appears to have of the Russians. But, you see, the fundamental problem is that if you constantly lie, if you tell things that are untrue in a war, then eventually you have to take steps that are consistent with those lies and you get swept along by them. So, you know, they went along with all those fantasies

that, you know, the ghost of Kiev, the victory at Snake Island, the pull back from Kiev, that the Russians are actually pulled back from Kiev, are driven back from Kiev, the victory in Kharkov, the... success in Heron, when in fact, what the Russians were doing was consolidating. I mean, they withdrew from territory that would be difficult to defend to territory that they were able more effectively to defend.

And remember, at that time, when the Russians were conducting all those withdrawals, the Russian army in Ukraine was relatively small. So they needed to build up all the fortified lines. They needed to stabilize the front lines. and they did that. They did that successfully, and now we see the result. But of course, that was never acknowledged publicly. And eventually, the West came to believe it themselves. The truth is, it's a point that you've made many times in many videos,

when it's come to a one-to-one fight between Ukrainians and Russians, between the Ukrainian army and the Russians, on anything even remotely approaching equal terms, the Russians invariably and without exception win. Yeah. And let's not forget that the Russians have defeated two, let's say, collective West militaries, or let's just say two NATO proxies. Yes.

Maybe we could say they're fighting on their third. That's right. NATO proxy now. They're working on defeating their third in NATO proxy, which is something the collective West media will never say. So you may want to address that. And then let's pivot a bit to the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, U.S. Peace Summit. And talk a bit about how the collective West media was saying that the Russia-Africa summit was a failure because of attendance.

And now we have this Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, peace summit, which is already falling apart and crumbling. I wonder what the collective West media is going to say about this summit. But is it going to be branded a failure? Yeah, well, I don't think they'll do that. Well, hey, Wendy, we'll cover that in a moment. But, I mean, absolutely. I mean, you're perfectly right. And can I just say before we get on to the Jeddah Summit,

I mean, I think you were the one who understood what it was about fastest when you said in our previous video when we discussed it, that it was clearly part of the plan leading, up to the, you know, it was part of the plan connected to the anticipated progress of the Ukrainian offensive. That was why it was called. The assumption was that by now the Ukrainians would have broken through and that was why some countries were interested in going to it. That's why Brazil and China, well, not China, but Brazil and Mexico and all of the others were initially tempted to attend. And I suspect it's why some African leaders didn't go to St. Petersburg

because the Western powers were going around telling everybody, you know, you're clambering. If you go to St. Petersburg, if you fail to attend Jeddah, you're clambering onto a sinking ship. You're going to be seen supporting the Russians at precisely the moment. when they're losing. And I think that might have had some effect on some people. I mean, I can imagine that some people wobbled and were nervous about going to St. Petersburg. And that was why some African leaders stayed away.

And I think that's also why some leaders might have been tempted initially to go to Jeddah as well. But of course, it's turned out completely otherwise. and when you actually look at the documents that have come out of the Africa summit it's important to remember that even though 17 African leaders out of instead of 42

attended which is but it's still a significant number of African leaders practically all the African states sent representatives and fully participated in the discussions and a whole lot of decisions and statements and resolutions have come out of it, which are backed now by the African governments. The Africa Summit, the Russia Africa Summit, I would suggest it's not only a success, it's actually a breakthrough.

The first Russia Africa Summit, which took place in 2019, was basically a get-to-know-you exercise. It was the Russians saying to the Africans, well, look, we're back. on, we're back, you know, we disappeared after the Cold War, now we've come back, come to visitors, we need to speak and talk and discuss things, and you can familiarize yourselves with us once more. This summit, it's Russia and the Africans moving beyond that and starting to do big deals with each other. So the Russians have reopened or re-established, established the Patrice Lumumba University, which was set up in the early 1960s to provide free, very high quality, higher education diplomas to students from what we call today the

global south, but especially Africa. Russian universities are now going to be establishing branches across Africa. So the Russians are going to do what they're very strong at, which is providing education to African states. By the way, they were doing that in the 60s as well. I've spoken, for example, to graduates of a technological school that the Russians established in the 60s in Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa. So they were doing that. They're going to be providing military and security assistance, of course.

They're also going to be involved in infrastructure development. They're going to be doing an awful lot of things, which weren't discussed in 2019. And you see that the African states overall, they're signing up to various policy positions, which closely correspond with the Russian ones. So the Africa summit, which they were talking down, has actually been a success. I would say it's been a breakthrough. It is now, we can say, again, Russia is back in Africa, and the Africans wanted to come back. that's the one thing. And then of course Jeddah, well, all

of those leaders who might have been tempted to go, they've now looked at the situation. They've said to themselves, well, perhaps it's not such a good idea to go there after all. It's clear that the Russians are winning. We won't be clambering onto a sinking

ship. We'll be clambering onto a victorious ship. This doesn't make any kind of sense. This is Sullivan's idea. We don't really like Sullivan anyway. We don't agree with what he's doing. So we're going to stay away. And Mexico took the lead. Brazil has now followed and Brazil has gone further still. And they've actually said that the Copenhagen summit was a failure and that they're not prepared just to sit down and listen to what the

Ukrainians and the Americans say. And they already said in Copenhagen, the preceding summit, that the Zelensky plan was unworkable and that this could only move forward with the Russians. So we see this major sea change happen in the international situation. And there was a wobble with Modi and with India about the Modi attending the BRIC summit in Johannesburg. You remember we discussed it. There were reports from India that he was probably not going to go. Clearly there's been some telephone calls, I'm guessing now, but he's now said that he's going after all. So it looks as if the whole bricks, currency, payment thing is back on track once more.

And I suspect that there were probably quiet calls from Moscow to Delhi saying, look, the fact that Putin isn't going to be able to go to Johannesburg isn't a reason for Modi not to go. And we would like him to go. And Putin will be participating fully in a virtual way. So we've seen complete change, a complete change. shift in the global situation from the one that the U.S. anticipated or was working towards a few months ago. Yeah, let me ask a final question. Is it me or does it seem like the European Union has been awfully quiet the past couple of weeks? I'm not saying they've been completely

silent. Every now and then you get a flare-up comment from someone in the EU about Ukraine as long it takes Russia, mostly from Poland, I think. But even Poland is now having its tensions with the Zelensky regime. But doesn't it feel like even the EU is starting to distance itself from all of this that's happening? I mean, maybe distance is not the correct word. But they're definitely not as confident as they were, say, three months ago, and they're not talking about the destruction of Russia and the economy and tatters and all of these things like they were talking about three months ago. They've gone very silent. I'm not saying they've shut up, but things have definitely been toned down. Absolutely. That's just my sense of it, but I wanted to get your take.

No, you're completely correct about that. And by the way, I read an article yesterday in The Guardian by our old friend, Yoseborel, which is an interesting article because, you know, I was started to wonder what had happened with him. And it was about the grain deal. And it was incredibly, you know, vituperative about the Russians, as you would expect. I read the article very carefully.

And it was very interesting. He actually had very little to say about the war itself. He was talking exclusively about the grain deal. It was quite strange, actually. And you're quite right. They are talking a lot less about it. I mean, the latest sanctions package, sanctions package

371 whatever it is I mean I've lost count now was you know extremely I mean it was it was it was nothing I think and you know

a couple of weeks months ago you have people like Borell Stoltenberg saying you know we've got to crank up production of shells we've got to find shells we've got to do all of these things there was sort of feverish activity

and feverish discussion about this It's now all faded away. I mean, Ukraine is fading away. You get the sense that Vilnius was the sort of peak point, if you like, since Vilnius. There really isn't very much to discuss. Nobody is so keen any longer on having photo ops with Olensky. I mean, you know, we're not seeing this endless train of top European leaders going to Kiev. one begins to get the sense that perhaps from being the most, you know, person you most wanted to be with,

he's become the person you least want to be seen with. I mean, you know, there is a, there is definitely a change in the mood. And you see that, by the way, also in the media. I mean, the media used to be full of stories about, you know, heroic Ukrainian soldiers doing the most extraordinary things. and one Ukrainian soldier taking on 500 Russians. And those kind of stories. The tabloids here in Britain have been full of all of that. That's fading away as well.

Yeah, the New York Times actually put out a piece the other day, and they said that Ukraine is even ditching the NATO maneuver, warfare, combined arms operations tactic. All the training, they said that Ukraine is done with it, and they're just going to go back now to a war of attrition and artillery. And then, of course, the big question is, well, how long can they last, given the fact that Russia has a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery over Ukraine? And all of the collective West can't match the production of Russia. So, I mean, it seems like they're at a complete impasse.

It's not working. It's not working. That's absolutely correct. Now, you know, I ought to say that there's been a lot of confusion about shell production in the U.S. It was 15,000 at the start of the war. 50,000 a month. There was a report at the Financial Times that said it had been increased to 30,000 rounds of shells a month in the US. I understand the actual figure is lower than that.

It's 24,000. So it's an increase, but it's not enough. No, we're near enough. And the European Union can only produce another. of 4,000. Ukraine during the offensive has been firing apparently around 8,000 rounds of shells a day.

They can't keep up with this. So the attrition war is a war that Ukraine is bound to lose. So they simply can't sustain it, which is why they're doing theatrical things. They're launching drone attacks on Russian ships. I've had a very, very interesting

emails, by the way, from someone. I can't confirm this obviously, but this is a person who understands. these kind of things and he's suggesting that probably these drones are being launched from the Danube basin and that they're being sent through Romanian territory. Who knows? Might be. Might be more difficult to see to do it from a decimen. So but these are theatrical things. They're not going to change the course of the war. Nobody seriously expects that any longer. So a war of attrition so that Ukraine cannot win.

But they're out of ideas. They have no ideas about what to do. And I have come round to the view that I don't think that we're going to see a serious negotiation process by the West over the next year or so. Because I think that engaging the Russians in public negotiations would be. in admission of failure and they don't want to do that what they prefer to do is just let the whole story fade away yeah yeah i agree with you on that let let it fade away or maybe just you know try to get these these like you said these pinprick attacks or these drone attacks in uh in the black seer in in moscow those make a couple of headlines it keeps people under the hypnosis effect that that

ukraine is winning it keeps them believing that ukraine is winning when they see a headline like a The drone hits Moscow building. They read that. Yeah, skyscraper. They read the headline. They say, okay, Ukraine's winning. And then they move on to the main circus event, or at least in the United States, which is everything that's going on around the elections and Trump and the indictments

and the Biden stuff. And they'll just fade it away. They'll drag it out and they'll fade it away. That's where they may be heading. All right. Anything else that you want to add before we round it up? Just to say, of course, that, I mean, that's, I think that's the dominant, that's the dominant view. There are, I suspect, still some fervid people in Washington,

Victoria Newland and all the rest who might say, well, you know, let's double down even more. And one must always allow for the possibility that those kind of people might break through. But it's looking increasingly unlikely. I mean, the way the US is now talking, I'm starting to think that the F-16s, for example, are never going to be delivered to Ukraine. I mean, it's that whole narrative of providing Ukraine with F-16s, it's faded like everything else about this offensive and about this war. All right, we'll leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Odyssey, Bitch, Rumble, Telegram, and Rockfin.

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