The Duran Podcast - Ukraine drone swarm failure angers West

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Ukraine drone swarm failure angers West

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine, and perhaps let's start things off with the drones. The drones that continue to be launched from the Ukraine military into the Russian Federation, including drones that target Moscow. We did have the Russians retaliate for about a two, two, three-day period. They retaliated with drones as well as missile strikes into Ukraine. But recently, the drones continue to go from Ukraine into Russia in the hundreds. But now it looks like Russia has decided not to retaliate to those drone attacks. We even had drones, a drone swarm allegedly target or threaten the helicopter of the Russian president on its way to Kursk. Anyway, your thoughts on the drones.

Let's talk about the drones. And then maybe you can give an update on the actual situation on the front lines. Can I just say this report which we've had from the Russian media, and not just the Russian media, but from Russian officials, including military officials, I mean, that Putin's helicopter found itself at what they said was an epicenter of a Ukrainian drone swarm. it has not received anything like the kind of publicity and indeed explanation that it deserves. I mean, what was that? Was that an attempt to assassinate Putin? Because some of the reports imply this, or was it just that Putin was flying into Kuzk and there were all those Ukrainian drones and it was all coincidence, which seems unlikely,

actually, at least to me? I mean, that was an extraordinary thing. And you would expect the Russian authorities to be talking much more forthrightly about what that event was all about than they actually are. Whether there's been strong statements about this in private from the Russians to the Americans, whether there's been some explanations, whether the Russians, as they do, are constantly, you know, are looking, trying to investigate what happened, whether Putin himself, has said, let's not make a big issue of this. I would really love to know. And I think we just have to park that whole topic for the time being because there's so little information about it. But I would have thought that this is a very, very big story and a very, very big event. I would just imagine if the helicopter carrying the president of the United States found itself

at the center of a drone swarm launched by, say, the Houthis or the Iranians over the course of a trip to the Middle East, what the reaction would be. So it's a very, very strange story and a very disturbing and worrying one. But as I said, we'll just have to, for the moment, at least, park it to one side. Now, I'm going to say a few things about this. I don't think the Russians have stopped their attacks on Ukraine. I think that's the Russian. I think that What the Russians regularly do is that they launch massive attacks against Ukraine using missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. They then wait a couple of days or weeks.

They assess the damage. Then they move and they launch further attacks. And as for drone attacks, attacks with geranium drones, ground drones, I understand that they are now constant, that they happen every night. And the reason we don't hear about them so much is because they've become so much. much a matter of routine. So I don't think we should read too much into the fact that, you know, we haven't heard big stories and reports about the latest, very latest Russian drone and missile strikes. But the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia are a very big and very interesting story.

And one, which in my opinion has been again downplayed in the West. Even though it is a very important one, first of all, clearly a very big industrial and technological effort has been made to try to build up these drones fleets that the Ukrainians have built up. And I say the Ukrainians. I don't believe it was just the Ukrainians. I should say that now right away and outright. A very, very big effort was created to create these drone fleets. I suspect that that started. in the spring, summer of last year. There were all kinds of discussions and debates about deep strikes into Russia at that time. There was a meeting which we know about from one article in the New York Times that took place in Washington, where the Ukrainian intelligence people came, and the Americans met with them. This is the Biden administration, may I say the Americans.

And the Ukrainians were saying they were losing the war and that conventionally, if it continued in this conventional course, it would be ended Ukraine's defeat. And there was decisions made to start an asymmetric campaign against Russia to correct and adjust this. And I'm going to make a guess. And I don't think it's a guess, actually, I'm going to say that almost certainly a decision was made then to begin this major drone offensive against Russia. I think industrial facilities were created probably in Ukraine, probably in Western European countries too.

Drones were manufactured in the hundreds and the thousands, and this drone offensive was then launched. And this is the thing. It has been a complete failure. These drones barely get through. The Russian air defenses have now been developed at the point where they're able to shoot, down these drones, bring down these drones in huge numbers. Every so often one does get through, but even the Western media in Britain, for example, are now admitting that they're doing minimal damage. And I think this has come as a massive disappointment and shock, especially in Europe,

that this whole project with these drones, these Ukrainians' drones, the Ukrainian drone offensive, has proved so disappointing. And you see the signs of this all around. So you had Zolluzni, remember him. He's now ambassador in London. He gave an unbelievably pessimistic speech. He admitted that the Russians are now ahead in drones, that, you know, the technological war that he'd, you know, staked so much on is failing, that nothing is coming together in the way that Ukraine thought. He said that Ukraine can't expect any means. miracles, and then he said that basically the only way that Ukraine can survive is through some kind of technological miracle. So a very pessimistic set of comments by Zoluzni.

And then, of course, you've got the whole tourist missile, Friedrich Matt's story that we discussed a couple of days ago. Firstly, Mouts saying that the Europeans were going to lift, the West was going to lift range restrictions on its weapons, which is clearly, as we discussed in a recent program, intended to set the scene for strikes against Moscow itself. Then we had the story, well, the tourist missiles are going to be supplied to Ukraine and then they're not going to be supplied to Ukraine and then no decision has been made about Toroist missiles. are going to be supplied to Ukraine and then they're not going to be supplied to Ukraine and then no decision has been made about tourist missiles being supplied to Ukraine. Then we have this very strange agreement

between Mautz and Zelensky about producing long-range missiles that can reach Moscow. Five billion euros or whatever it is, which of course is just a way of saying tourist missiles. They've already been delivered. They're already in.

Ukraine, they're going to be launched against Russia fairly soon. But, you know, these are not actually German-made missiles. These are missiles that the Ukrainians themselves are going to be making through this enormous project that the Europeans, the Germans are putting together. And I suspect that what's happened is because of the complete failure of the drone offensive, there's now, this is what has led to the decision, essentially, in Europe at least, to now move forward and to try to escalate again to try to reach Moscow with tourist missiles, which have the range to strike targets within Moscow. Legitivi, which is one of the more reliable Ukrainian telegram channels, actually says what we said a few days ago, which is that the tourist missiles are almost certainly

already in Ukraine. And it appears to confirm that. Legitimi says, is saying the same thing. So we're going to see over the next couple of days, weeks, months, we're going to start to see Taurus missiles launched at Moscow. I suspect Russian air defenses will quickly deal with that. But the Russians in response are making all kinds of usual threats. They're saying, you know, this could be oakman away for strikes against Germany as well. And of course, as we know, the Russians can outmatch whatever the Ukrainians and the West throws at them. The Eurasianic missiles will be coming it to serve this fairly soon and all of that. But put that aside, put the story of the missiles aside, I think that this failure of the Ukrainian drone offensive, which we can now talk about

with confidence, has been a massive psychological blow, not just to the Ukrainians, as we saw with solution speech, but especially to the Europeans as well. I think they counted very, very heavily on this drone offensive achieving things, which it has completely failed to do. The US is also behind this, though. It's not just the Europeans. Well, of course it is. I mean, the meeting. So the US is negotiated.

The meeting where all this was agreed took place in Washington. So, I mean, if I'm right about this, which I'm confident, by the way, I am. And of course, it's US targeting data which is enabling the Ukrainians to launch these. drones. When Trump stopped intelligence sharing for one week in March, what he was doing, what we can now see he was doing was he was putting a spoke in this drone offensive. And I think, as I said, there was enormous confidence that it would be decisive in changing the balance of the war. And then Trump lifted, you know, the, prohibition on intelligence sharing. So the drone offensive was then carried out and there was probably

expectations that it would achieve great results. And now there's the shock when it hasn't. And you can see people upset and angry. For all I know, some of Trump's anger, which he's expressed in his true social posts, is again, he may have been told, let this drone offensive play out because it will finally give you the leverage over the Russians. I was going to say the same thing that you think it will. And now he's suddenly realized that it hasn't. That's exactly what happened. I was going to say the same exact thing.

I think that Kellogg and Rubio and all these guys, all these brilliant generals in the U.S., they told Trump, just allow these drones to do what they're going to do. They're going to crush Russia. It's going to be very embarrassing for Putin. for the Russian military, and then you will finally have leverage over Russia as you go into negotiations, and Trump went along with it. And yesterday, two days ago, he got very upset with the fact that the drones did nothing. And so he lashes out at Putin, right? And now I'm positive. I'm positive

that the generals are sitting down with Trump again, and they're saying, okay, just forget about the drones. You've got a new plan. The plan now is for you to green light, the tourist missiles, and trust us. The tourist missiles, they're going to get through and trust us. The tourist missiles will give you the military leverage that you need. Putin is playing with fire. The tourist missiles are an amazing wonder weapon. They're incredible. They're super duper, Uber hypersonic, the hypersonic that they're not hypersonic, but they're the hypersonic. I know, I know, but they're telling Trump. They're even better than hypersonic. And remember, it was Putin that stole the hypersonic plans from Obama. So, you know, they're telling him.

all of this stuff, and Trump is going along with it again. So the U.S., and here we come to the question again, the U.S. is playing the mediator, but they're coordinating and commanding attacks against Russia. That's exactly what's going on here. And Putin goes along with. with it and Russia goes along with it and soon we're going to have the tourist missiles. Absolutely. That's what we're going to have.

Indeed. I mean, as no it follows day, we're going to get the tourist missiles and of course they will fail and there's only 150 of them apparently going to be used or something like that. I agree, but some might get through. I mean, we have to be honest, some might get through and there is a risk. There is a huge risk that they get through and they do considerable damage. Real damage, absolutely. And all that going on.

And that's going to create all kinds of political pressures. And the pressures in Russia will not be, however, to negotiate. But it will be to escalate the war. And that, of course, is the reckless, an incredibly dangerous game that is being played in the West. They consistently get this wrong. one would have thought that by now, after three years of war, with all these brilliant military plans, you know, the autumn 2020-Herson offensive, which we now know failed. It did not succeed.

I mean, this is the extraordinary thing. I mean, it was intended to result in the recapture of Crimea, not just Herson City, which nobody was interested in. But we learned from the New York Times. it was intended to recapture Crimea itself. And then the summer, 23 offensive, and then the crinky offensive and all of these things. We should know by now that all of these wonderful master plans that these Western leaders come up with, these Western military people come up with, the attackers missiles that are going to bring the Russians to the negotiating table,

the S-16s that are going to change the whole direction of the war, the storm shadows and the scalps, the destruction of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. None of this comes anywhere remotely close to achieving the objectives that these people tell us that they will. In fact, what they always do is prolong the war by a certain period of time, leaving at the end of it, Ukraine's position weaker. But these people never give up. So the drones have failed, this huge, great drone offensive into which vast sums, probably development sums and sub-components from the West and, you know, satellite and data imagery and all of that was provided. That has failed too. And so, of course, we don't go back, tell ourselves we're dealing with a peer adversary who is able to counter every step that we take

on the contrary, we go and escalate. We do something else, something incredibly dangerous, something incredibly reckless, we are going to now talk about launching missiles at Moscow itself. Something that never happened during the Cold War, something which is beyond reckless, something which will certainly wrecked. I mean, I can't imagine negotiations taking place between Russia and Ukraine, whilst the Ukrainians are launching missiles at Moscow, something which could destroy relations between the United States and Russia, and something which could invite massive Russian retaliation. Bear in mind that the Russians have far more powerful missiles from the Taurus.

The Orasnic missiles are supposed to be coming into service in big volumes sometime in the summer. In other words, in a few weeks' time, we could be seeing all kinds of Russian counterstrikes. And beyond that, just as everything else has been. failed, I'm confident that the tourist missiles will fail as well. Some of them might get through. Some of them might do real damage. Some of them might kill a lot of people with all the political effect that that will have. But they won't change the trajectory of the war. I agree with that. But you know, you said that these people never give up. The problem that I see is that,

and you're right, they don't have a reverse gear. But these These people never give up, but the Kremlin always comes back and accommodates them. Yeah. And I think that emboldens them even more. And I think it asks the question, does anyone actually believe Russia's threats or ultimatums? I mean, Russia said they're going to strike here, they're going to strike there, they're going to use an Ereznik, they're going to use this, they're going to use that. This is our final warning. This is our final ultimatum. We warn you about escalation. This is a dangerous. They say all

these things. Yes. But the Russians always come back to accommodate the requests of the collective West, especially of the United States. Well, this is, again, the criticism that's made of Putin. And at the end of the day, if the missile strikes on Moscow, even if none of them get through, way. There will be warned there, you know, there will be very many angry people in Moscow who are saying to Putin, what on earth are you doing? Why are you carrying on with this fiction? We can negotiate with these people. Surely the time has come for us to start taking tough retaliatory measures. The Russians have it within their power to do that. I mean, that's, that is the thing that people always in the West disregard. It's not that the Russians

don't have the capacity to react. It is that they have. have in the person of their president an incredibly exceptionally self-disciplined and restrained man. But that very self-restraint is being consistently painted in the West as weakness. And you're absolutely right. What it does is that it gives all of these people, you know, the barredliners and the West, it encourages them always to demand even more whenever one of their particular projects fails. I mean, we know now, coming back to the very point that you were making, who was really

conducting the 2023 summer offensive? Wasn't the Ukrainians? It was the Americans and the British. They were in charge of it. They were trying to defeat the Russian army, killing Russians, providing the weapons to kill the Russians, and threatening Crimea itself. They were actually laying the plans and doing the commanding and the strategies and things of that kind.

I mean, any other country that was done to, other than Russia, possessing the capabilities that Russia has, would have responded in a different way, completely different way. And as I said, the criticism, as I said, of Putin will certainly be there if this happens again. And eventually, I suspect there was. will be a snapping point. And I don't know what it is. And well, but that's the risk we seem to be determined to embrace in the West. Well, I get the sense that the leaders in the collective

West, most of them, actually believe that Russia does not have the capacity or the capability to respond. I mean, I think they actually have internalized it. They actually believe that Russia militarily is unable to respond to the tourists. They're unable to respond to anything that the collective West throws at them. I'm not saying all of the leaders of the collective west. I'm saying a lot of them actually believe that whatever they throw at Russia, even if it fails, as everything has failed, I think they actually believe that Russia, whatever we do to them, Russia will not respond.

And I actually believe that they believe that the media spin on some of the things they thrown at Russia like the Herzl, the great Heron counteroffensive and the great Harkiv counteroffensive or Snake Island or anything like that. I actually feel like a lot of the leaders in the collective West and a lot of the military leaders actually believe those were not failures. You say they're failures, but I think they believe they were successes. Oh, yeah. I'm going to correct what you say.

I think all of them believe it. Obviously, we're not talking about, you know, Orban and Fizzo and Lujic and people of that. They can see the realities. Salvini can see the realities, but the people who make the decisions, Ursula, Sama, Sunak before him, Macron, obviously, Mertz undoubtedly. Kovoli? They all believe this. Maybe people like Kovoli or Lvoli believes it.

I mean, the fact that he commanded an army an offensive that ended in total failure, he believes it too, because as far as he's concerned, it wasn't he's full. that the offensive failed. It was the Ukrainians. They didn't follow his orders. If they'd followed his orders, all would have been well. So, I mean, they all believed it. They all collectively believe it. And I also believe what you say about the capabilities, that they think that Russian capabilities are inferior to the ones that the Russians undoubtedly have. I mean, look what we're reading at the moment about the Patriot Missiles. Patriot Missile Systems are the only missile systems that can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. This is the narrative that is being spread all over the West that Patriot missiles are the most effective missiles at shooting

down Russian ballistic missiles. It seems that Patriots are able easily to shoot down ballistic missiles. And then, you know, squirled away, we also have admissions in parts of the media that the Patriot have been completely unsuccessful in shooting down ballistic missiles. But people believe the first and are unaware or close their eyes to the second. They believe the narrative spin about the success of the Patriot missiles. And they ignore every other part. So, I mean, I remember the very first time when the Patriots were deployed to Ukraine, which was back in 2023.

There was tremendous euphoria. The Russians managed to strike at the Patriot ballistic batteries in Kiev with Kinshaw missiles. And immediately we have the articles appearing all over the media that said that the kinshals had failed. And the Russians had been proved that their Kenjal missiles were overrated. The Patriots were wonderful. even though we saw the explosion, the enormous explosion, which could only have been the destruction of the Patriot missiles, which, of course, the Russians said had been destroyed.

But, you know, this is one of the great problems. People in the West, the decision makers in the West, constantly prefer the narrative spin to the reality. So Yuri Ignat, the Ukrainian air defense spokesman, was saying, for months. We have no capability to intercept hypersonic missiles. And then he's disciplined and told you've got to change your whole narrative there. So he finds that he's even sat for a brief time. And then he's brought back.

And then he says, you know, we are succeeding in shooting down hypersonic missiles. And people just go along with this and believe it and internalize it. And today we are seeing what is clearly the essential collapse. of Ukraine's air defense system. We have admissions to this effect right across Ukraine itself. The Ukrainians themselves, not the government, obviously, but the Ukrainian telegram channels are full of this. But we still have, you know, the narrative about the success of the Patriot missiles and all that Ukraine needs is a few more Patriot missiles. And they will somehow turn the whole It's turned the whole situation around.

So Italy has no more air defense missiles, very Samp-T air defense system. France apparently is desperately short. Germany is very, very short of interceptors, patriot missile interceptors. I don't know whether Britain has any at all, to be honest. I don't know what Britain has. But don't worry. the Russians have none of these capabilities. They can't actually defeat us. We can just go on doing whatever it is we are doing and we don't need to fear because this is beyond what the Russians can do.

And of course, Putin, as I said, because I'm sure he's also given assurances to some of his foreign allies, to see Xi Jinping especially, that he will act with. restraint, acts with restraint, and it's misrepresented in exactly the way that you say. Yeah, why should Putin give these types of assurances to China or to Xi Jinping? I think he did that right at the beginning. I think he did that. Why should he do that anymore? Well, I don't know.

But I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe that has changed. I mean, I was actually recently told, by the way, that in, you know, by Sofia Midgiv, a small town voice, that in fact in China, the social media is now openly saying that if European troops enter Ukraine, that China will start lifting restrictions on weapons supplies to Russia. So that the mood in China has hardened on the war very, very considerably. I cannot access Chinese social media because I don't speak Chinese. But, you know, I've heard this from more than one source, by the way.

So it could be true. Maybe by now that maybe by now positions have hardened to that level. But, you know, that is, I think, if Putin has a blind spot, it is that he is so good at diplomacy that he over-relies on it and doesn't perhaps. you know, say to himself, well, there's a time to put diplomacy to one side and to go with the more straightforward kinetic arguments that the time has gone, not just to make threats, but to actually act on them, because unless one does, they will just go on doing whatever it is that they're doing and, you know, it'll be the tourist missiles next. But we shouldn't, I think, I think there's also, you know, it may be a mistake to over-analyze Putin. And, you know,

what the Russians are going to do. The key thing to say is, at this particular point in time, that the Ukrainian drone offensive has been a complete failure, I suspect we will one day get articles in the New York Times discussing it, just as they recently discussed Ukraine's summer 2023 offensive. We will get the admission again of the extent of the U.S. investment, and not just the US, the European investment in this offensive, probably as great as that for the summer 2023 offensive. And the fact that it has completely failed, I think it explains an awful lot of the panic and fear and confusion that there is in the West now. And Zaluzzi's extraordinary statements in London and things of that kind. Now, the drone offensive has failed. Every other offensive that they've launched against Russia

has failed. Next up is the terrorist offensive. That's obvious. That's going to fail as well. You know, what are they going to come up with next? Where does this all end? Do we have to get to the point where you have the collective West troops on the ground? Is that going to be the next idea that they come up with, the Financial Times is saying that this idea has been completely shelved. But who knows? Maybe they'll bring it up again. No, no, I confidently predict that it will be revived. It's one of these ideas that's been shelved many times and is eventually always revived. If it looks like Ukraine is going to go down to defeat, you could be absolutely confident that there will be people who will push it.

And this is the dangerous game of escalation that is being played. And as I said, this is, what Putin's moderation is making possible. Yeah. What's going on on the front lines? We've talked in previous programs in the past about how the Ukrainians are being battered. This time, it is on a completely different scale. The Russians are on the offensive on every single part of the front lines, 1,200-kilometer front line. There is no part of it where the Russians are not on the attack now. The Ukrainians are desperately short of men.

They were relying on drones to fill in the gaps on their front lines because there's large areas of the front lines, apparently, where there are no Ukrainian troops. The drones are failing. The Russians are starting to shoot down the Ukrainian drones. They found methods to counter the Ukrainian drones. They have far, far more drones now that the Ukrainians do. And the Ukrainian front lines are disintegrating everywhere at the same time.

So Volchansk in Khadikov region, the north of it apparently has fallen. The Russians are now outside Sivirsk, a fortified town, a little bit like Uglida, right up in the north. It looks like the battle for Sivirvsk. Versk is about to stop. There's been a collapse of Ukrainian defenses in the Constantinvka area. This is the town at the southern end of the Sloviansklamatos-Konstantinov conurbation. The Russians have effectively surrounded it, and they've surrounded apparently significant groups of Ukrainian troops that are located to the south of Konstantinvka, perhaps two cauldrons. The Russians have now advanced well to the west of Pakrovsk and are able to cut its communications from the west.

And now they're advancing well to the north of Pakrovsk on the eastern side of Pakrovsk, cutting communications to Pakrovsk from the north. It's very soon going to be the case that all the major supply roads to Pakovsk are going to be cut. and Russian drones are destroying vehicles, Ukrainian supply vehicles on all of these roads. The Russians are again pushing hard towards the deeper. They are apparently advancing towards an important town called Gulliapolier in Zaporosia region and Oreckhoff everywhere, right across the front lines. You can see that the Russians are pushing forward. The Ukrainians are crumbling everywhere.

And the reports over the last couple of days say that the situation has now become so bad that the Ukrainians are now committing their remaining reserves to try to hold their positions in Konstantinovka and Sumi region, especially. And this, of course, is a disaster because the major Russian forces, their two reserve armies, have not yet been committed. and one suspects that those reserves were being held back by Ukraine in order to counter those Russian reserve armies when they're committed, but the Ukrainians have been forced to deploy those reserves already. So it is a terrible picture. And going back to what we were saying before,

more than a year, about a year ago, there was the final admission that Ukraine was losing the war on the battlefronts, which is why they went. for this drone offensive, which is to say has failed. And we see how the reality of that is playing out on the battlefronts. Not just every day now, but every hour now. Now, the Russians, the other thing is they're capturing villages and fortified positions. Not just every day, but in several places every day. So, you know, two or three villages a day, whereas once, you know, say in In 2023, it would take weeks to capture any particular village. Now it's happening all the time in every place continuously.

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