The Duran Podcast - Ukraine frontline, closing in on the Dnepr (Live) w/ Scott from Kalibrated

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Ukraine frontline, closing in on the Dnepr (Live) w/ Scott from Kalibrated

Okay, we are live, live in 2025 with Alexander Mercuris and joining us for the first live show of 2025. We are very happy to have with us, Scott from the excellent channel calibrated. Scott, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I appreciate you guys letting me come on for the first episode of this year. I hope that you guys have an amazing 2025. and that all of your listeners also have an amazing 2025. Absolutely.

Happy New Year to everyone that is watching us. I wish everybody that is watching this live stream and all our videos in 2025. I wish happiness and health in 2025. So let's say hello to everyone that's watching us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, on Rumble, and on the Durand. Dot Locals.com. And everybody that's watching us on YouTube, good day to everybody. Good day to our amazing, awesome moderators.

And Alexander Scott, let's just jump right into it because we have a lot of information from the front lines in Ukraine. Real quick, Scott, I put the link to Calibrated, the YouTube link to your Calibrated channel in the description box down below. I will also add it as a pinned comment. Is there anywhere else where people can follow your work? Yeah, my telegram also calibrated. And then Twitter, my handle is Aden.

I have a pretty big account on Twitter. So if you follow Ukraine, you might already know about me. But if not, you'll follow me there and you'll get live updates on everything that goes on in Ukraine always. Fantastic Twitter handle, Twitter account, a fantastic YouTube channel. I will have all those links as a pin comment when, the live stream ends. So Alexander Scott, let's talk about what's happening in Ukraine. Let's talk about what's happening in Ukraine. Can I first of all say that this is the most important, the biggest story that is going on at the moment, everything else that's going on,

the election in the United States, the meeting of the brick states in Kazan, the crisis in the Middle East, everything else, important as it is and very important sometimes, is secondary, in my opinion to what is going on in Ukraine because this is the event, the war in Ukraine, that is shaping everything. I mean, the Kazan Brick Summit would not have taken the direction that it has taken had it not been for the war in Ukraine. The same is true about the election in the United States. I think myself that there's a good chance that Donald Trump would have won the election anyway, even if there had not been a war in Ukraine. There was an awful lot else going on, going wrong in the United States. But the fact that there is the war going on in Ukraine has, to a great

extent, affected the character of that victory. And of course, it's presenting the president, the new president, with a whole set of problems that he's going to have to face fairly soon. And of course the problems he is going to face and the United States is going to face pale before those that we are facing in Europe. And we've just cut off ourselves from more Russian gas supplies. We're telling us ourselves this isn't going to be a problem. We're giving up 5% of our gas at a time when there's a 5% where there's already a gas shortage. We're saying this is not a problem. But again, the reason we're doing that is because there is a conflict in.

Ukraine. And the key thing to say about this conflict is that in order to understand it properly, you have to go to the weeds. In other words, you have to go deep inside, look at what is happening on the battlefields, get a real sense of it. I've come to understand one thing about war, or to iterate this war, which is that the detail is all important. Now, there is no better person to discuss the detail of this war with than the person who I am delighted to say is our first guest in 2025, who is Scott. Scott has this extraordinary program calibrated in which he goes through the weeds. He describes things with enormous insights and detail and understanding,

such as I myself do not have. And I owe a huge debt to him. as all of us who discuss the war do. So I would strongly urge you to go to his channel. And I would like to open up now the discussion with Scott, now that we have him on our program, because which is a key moment in the wall. And I'm going to start with a quote from a man

that both Scott and I know quite well. I mean, we don't know him personally, but we know what he writes. And that's Michael Kaufman. and he's said something and it's reported today in the BBC. The BBC has a long, very pessimistic article about the war today. And they quote Michael Kaufman extensively. And Michael Kaufman has this to say about the problems that Donald Trump is going to have

dealing with the war and the attempt, he's attempted to get peace going. He says this, they're going to inherit a war. on a very negative trajectory by they he means to trump people. Without a tremendous amount of time to stabilize the situation, they're going to inherit it without a clear theory of success. Now, if you'd been listening to Scott, to others, ourselves included, this would not come as a surprise to you. I suspect to many people who follow the BBC, this will come as a shock.

So there's a limited time window left. And the war is on a very negative trajectory. And there is little time to stabilize the situation. And no clear theory of success. Well, what do you think of that statement, Scott? Does that respond with your use? I think it's perfectly accurate. accurate. When you're talking about Trump's administration coming in, he's not inheriting necessarily a new

Pentagon, right? He's not the permanent establishment is not changing. And the Biden administration has been trying for years to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, you know, weapons transfers, money, all of that. They've been consistently trying to stabilize. And as we've seen, especially over the last six months. Things have gotten desperate, to say the least, deplorable in most areas. The front line is moving faster than we've ever seen it before. The Russians are achieving great success in multiple areas. The original plan that the Ukrainians had of defending the East is coming to a quick end now.

And with the Kersk incursion going on and all of these different factors playing in, it's even increasing the speed at which Russia is achieving its objectives on the battlefield. I don't know how the Trump administration is going to combat this. I don't understand even their negotiating position that they're talking about. We heard Lavrov talking the other day about the inconsolable position that the U.S. has to Russia's position on how the war in Ukraine is going to end. finish. The West is still talking about a permanent ceasefire. Obviously, that seems like an opportunity for the West to potentially rearm Ukraine or to put Western advisors, peacekeepers, whatever you would

like to refer to them as, into the country as a tripwire force to prevent further conflict and protect the Ukrainian state. That doesn't seem to be an option. The Russians will not allow that. I don't think that there's the domestic appetite in Europe or the United States for that. There may be a political appetite, but it doesn't match what people are thinking. And as the economies of Europe, in particular, start to hemorrhage further and further. And as we've seen, Europe is moving into a full-on energy war against Russia in lieu of the Ukraine kinetic war failing. I don't know where the peace will come from. I don't know what options Trump really has. And, you know, Russia is in a position of immense strength right now. They're still taking losses. This is

something that happens in war. But these losses are unlike Ukraine's losses, replaceable and tenable. So they can continue on this path at this pace, even increasing the pace into the future here into these next couple of months, and really putting a lot of pressure on the West and Ukraine. So the negotiating position that Trump is coming from, it's not going to work. The Russians are openly saying this. And that's about as far as his plan seems to go. He said he could end it in one day. I don't think anybody really honestly believes that that's the truth. And in my opinion, we're just going to see a continuation of the Biden administration because there's not really a strong path out for Trump unless he doesn't.

just drops the whole thing and geostrategically, that's going to be an absolute nightmare for his administration. I think we'll come to Trump shortly because obviously this is important, but let's first of all discuss the military situation. Now, we have a very, very long contact line. I mean, this is something that we've not seen in any war that I can think of is this kind of war since the end of the Second War. But a very, very long contact line. I'll get the impression that the Russians are advancing pretty much along all parts of it. But is there any area which you consider most decisive? Yes. The Southern Donetsk area right now is crumbling for the Ukrainians. We are getting reports of mass desertions from certain brigades in that area, particularly the 155th

brigade that was just recently trained in France, saw a bunch of desertions in France, and then as they were sent to the Pukrovsk area, saw 1,700 additional desertions from the brigade, which would basically make it untenable. It's not combat fit anymore. So the Russians are having immense success in this area. Low fortifications, which the Ukrainians have used this entire war as their defensive lines, the pre-war fortifications in the east of the country, those no longer exist in the area where the Russians are pushing in southern Donetsk now.

There is no stable lines of communication and logistics for the Ukrainians in this area. And the Russians are gaining tens of square kilometers a day now where all throughout 23 we would see meters here and a kilometer here or there eventually. Now that we're seeing village after village after village in the southern Donetsk region falling. And the Ukrainians are not positioning themselves properly to defend the areas that they currently hold, as well as defending the areas where the Russians are putting the most amount of pressure, where the Ukrainians are attempting to hold and, you know, they're

pushing the most supply into is the cursed region. And even that is being lost at a rate that the Ukrainians are not happy with. So across the front line, you are about to see, well, I made a tweet about this the other day. I basically said it appears that the levy has broke. because now wherever the Russians want to advance, they are having success in their offensive operations. And particularly just south of Pukrovsk, which is a vital city in the southern Donetsk region. It is the lower end of the eastern flank of the Ukrainian fortifications. And once that city falls, Russia will gain access to six highways that branch out in every which direction, which are, if you don't know, in Ukraine, there are not a lot of roads.

So roads are a valuable asset to maintain and control. Pekrofsk has six major highways that go into it. Once Pekrovsk falls, if anybody knows, Izum was a very important town in the north that the Russians lost in 2022 to the Ukrainian Karkov offensive. I call Pukrovsk the Izum of the south, because if they can capture Pekrovsk, they will basically nullify the entire Kramatore, Slaviansk defensive line, which is the last remaining line for the Ukrainians in the east of the country. And if for those of your viewers who don't know, the east of the country is where a majority

of the defense structure is, everything past that is agricultural land, open farm fields, and not particularly good for defense up to the Neppar River. So it's either holding the east or hold at the river and the Russians are now past the east south of Pukrovsk. So, a quickly deteriorating situation. And the big issue is that the Ukrainians are not attriding the Russians at a significant enough level to actually slow this progress down to where the Russians down over time. The Russians are just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Their assets are becoming more plentiful. We're seeing new drone systems being deployed. You know, glide bombs, aerial bombs are being fired.

at a much higher rate than ever before. So there's not a really solid path forward for the Ukrainians. I don't see how they're going to switch this around at this point. And as I was saying, the mobilization situation, the inability for the Zelensky regime to mobilize the 18 to 25 demographic, whether that be because of the domestic situation, just they don't think that they're going to necessarily survive that sort of move. or for whatever reason they're not drafting that group of men.

The mobilized 50, 60 year olds that are now on the front line are, they're not combat capable. They're weeks of training. They're thrown into random areas. A lot of the brigades are not organized anymore. It's just parts and bits of units everywhere. And I was, I've been doing this series. It's my collapse series. And it's getting close to day 120 or 130, I believe.

I'm going to make a post about it today since Karkovai fell, which again is this vital defense node that the Ukrainians just lost in southern Donetsk, which will, again, increase the Russian pressure towards Pukrovsk and Nipaputrosk region. That there's no stabilization. And if the Ukrainians can't stabilize with the Khrush, current army that they have, it's not going to get any better. They have no ability to generate manpower. Equipment is running short. We're getting reports from Ukrainian brigades and soldiers in, oh, sorry about that, and soldiers in these brigades that they have one driver, one capable

driver who understands how to drive an APC or an IFV infantry fighting vehicle for the entire battalion. And that just doesn't work. It doesn't translate to the battlefield. And that's why you're seeing the Russians now capturing so much more territory than they ever have throughout the war since 2022. Do you think this is intentional, that the Russians made a decision at some point to focus on this area of southern Donbass? Or was it something that they seized on opportunistically? because it became increasingly clear that Ukrainian resistance was weaker here. Because this is something I, you know, this is a question of my own,

because I'm not somebody who is a military background or anything like this. The Russians have always done things in this war, which have surprised me. They've gone in different directions from the ones that I've expected. And it could just be that it's because I don't understand these things very well. or perhaps, you know, that there is some kind of logic to this, which isn't apparent to me up to this time. So I really think that the Southern Donetsk push, and I made a prediction about this actually in June before it started, right as FDevka began to fall, right? FDevka was beginning to be captured, surrounded, and then the Russians had a major breakthrough through the primary defense line in FDFCA.

The second that happened, I realized how weak Ukraine was in this area, how weak the AFU was in this southern Donetsk area because they relied on these excellent fortifications to make up for the lack of manpower, artillery and stuff that they had in these regions. They were sort of hiding behind these. Once those were broken through, there has not been a single week of stable front line from FDFK. which is now almost 60 kilometers behind the front south of Pekrovsk, which is massive when you're talking about FDFka. You know, it was, what, in March of this year? And now it's 60 kilometers in the rear. So the reason that I believe the Russians push so aggressively here is after FDFka,

they saw an opportunity, a weak Ukrainian army in this position. They captured the vital area of Orchitni. which is just west of Avdivka. And once they got onto that high ground, onto that railroad, everything has been downhill for the AFU in this region since. You know, heading towards out towards Pekrovsk drew a lot of Ukrainian reinforcements from the Ugladar area up. And then Ugladar ended up falling.

Once that fell, a 15 kilometer breach happened. And it's just there's been no ability to stabilize. So the reason why I think the Russians pushed here is they saw the opportunity. It presented itself very clearly. And they just were able to move. This is something that I've seen from the Russians. They will never force something that doesn't need to be forced. You'll see areas like the Seversk, the Seversk pocket, Bila-Rifka.

These places have not moved at all for over a year, right? There has been no movement here because these areas are very difficult for the Russians to advance through. Whereas you have areas like the Oscal River region where the Russians are progressing, you have the Chassev Yarr area now where the Russians are progressing, Toretsk, New York, these different major cities where the Russians are now almost completely through them, have almost completely captured them. But particularly after FDFCA, there was nothing behind it. The Russians seized on that opportunity, pushed manpower in there, and it has paid off tremendously for them. On top of that, the Ukrainians made.

the whole situation much worse for themselves by committing to the curse incursion up in the north. That came at a time when the Russians were pushing very hard in the south. It was potentially to pull Russians from that Russian forces from that region up to Russia to protect the cursed region. They didn't bite. I don't know what the thinking was because in my head, I was looking at the situation. I go, Russia has available mobile reserves that they can plug this hole with. They don't have to move forces. They can continue their offensive operations where they're happening as well as defending Kersk. And that's exactly what we saw. One thing that the Russians have taken

massive advantage of is the fact that the Ukrainian political leadership outweighs the military leadership in every single decision that is made. There are multiple places across the front line where Ukraine could have withdrawn from, created much stronger defensive lines, and then reinforced areas like Prokofsk and Southern Donetsk, Fdyevka. But they chose not to because the propaganda, the PR that comes from maintaining this area and showing how little the Russians are advancing and this, that, or the other, are so much more important to the political leadership than the actual military objectives. So, for example, the Oskal River region, the Ukrainians still operate bridgeheads across

the Oskill River. If they were to retreat behind that, set up a defensive line along the river, They could have saved a ton of resources and forced that down into the southern part of the country to stabilize the lines longer. They refused to do that. They refused to leave Kursk. They refused to leave any pocket. We saw that with the recent capture of Kerkove. It was in a 10-kilometer deep salient for weeks.

And the Ukrainians were just getting hammered in and out while they were trying to supply this area. So the Russians while they are moving slow in some. areas, they are taking advantage of the weakness of the Ukrainian decision making. And that has played a huge part. And we've seen it the entire time. We saw it in Severodanetsk. We saw it in Maruyapul. We saw it in Bakhmut and Soledar. And it has only gotten worse since then. The defensive areas are much more difficult to hold. And the, the salience that the Ukrainians are finding themselves in are much worse. If you look at the map, I can actually, if you want to bring that up. I can show you some of the areas.

So on my map, red is the Russian controlled. Green is new advances. I update this every time I do a live stream. And then yellow is additional advances just to show the separation. Here is that Kerkove pocket right here. This is Karkovye that was just captured. You can see how the blue is the defensive fortifications around the city. This is vitally important for the Ukrainians, these defensive lines.

The Russians are now through them. This pocket is now closing. but it was open for a very long time. Down here in Valika Nova Silka, you can see that the road leading in from the west and from the north have both been cut. This is now in a tactical encirclement. Again, the Ukrainians refuse to leave. The Russians can continue attritting Ukrainian forces.

And that has gone on across the map. And most predominantly up in the Kursk region, where the Ukrainians are suffering tremendous losses trying to maintain this region, they refuse to leave. And you can see here that there is one road that leads into Zdruzda. And it is now pinched in a 16 kilometer wide gap. So the Ukrainians are forcing themselves into this very narrow area, trying to hold this purely for PR, right? This town right here does not offer any strategic relevance to the Ukrainians.

side of potentially negotiations. But what I've said the entire time is the Russians have no need to negotiate. Why would they negotiate until the curse pocket is closed? They're in a position of strength. They don't need to settle this conflict in a quick fashion to save something or protect something. The Russians can just keep going and the situation is just going to get worse and worse and worse for the Ukrainians. And this is part of what we talked about, what I talked about earlier with Trump, is that he is inheriting an absolute abomination. And it's a horrible thing to come to have at the start of your presidency. There's not going to be a really simple way to extract, you know, the U.S.

from this whole conflict without a catastrophic burden that he's going to have to bear for that. And Europe is also going to be bearing a huge burden if this conflict goes south rather quickly. If I were the Russians, just from a military outlook, I would not negotiate right now. I would continue pushing. I would continue putting Ukraine in a worse and worse negotiating position. And I think that's what the Russians are going to do. I don't see any rush to negotiate. I think the Russians are open to negotiations.

if the negotiations are proper. But the biggest thing in negotiations would be sanctions relief, in my personal opinion. And I don't think you're going to see any sanctions relief come from the West, especially now as they are escalating the economic war against Russia as the kinetic war in Ukraine is faltering. I completely agree. Can I just make a few quick observations? Firstly, taking up what you've said about the catastrophic decisions of the Ukrainian leadership,

We get constant people talking about why don't the Russians go after the decision-making centers, Zelensky, Szyzky, all of those people. Well, I think you just provided us the reason. From a Russian point of view, these are people who are making decisions which are turning out badly for Ukraine. Why replace them with other people who might start making better decisions, which could extend and prolong the war? So it's obvious, actually, when you take a step back and think about this. So that's one thing I wanted to say. The second, and this is a further point, we've been discussing the course cooperation on these programs. Many, many people have done so.

I mean, what was the military logic of it? Nobody's been able to explain it to me. there's been suggestions from some people, including some particular person I know, who has some information coming from Russia, that it was actually a Russian trap. Do you think that might have been possible? This is a very poor, uninhabited area of Russia.

There's one big city, which is Guzk, which is unconquerable. Most of it is forest. And, you know, small villages and rivers and streams. Jim Webb, who's a former Marine officer, said this is an absolute nightmare of a place to try to control and retain. What was Zelensky and his people actually thinking? How did they imagine that this operation really could succeed? Have you any idea what it was that they were thinking of doing? Was it just PR?

What was it? So the way I described the Kersk operation was the Ukrainians were looking at the situation probably very realistically in the East. And they were saying, we can maybe continue this for three or four extra months if we don't do something. But either way, it's going to be death by a thousand cuts. The Russians are bombing us. They have more drones, more artillery, more manpower. they are going to win eventually.

And the way I looked at it at the time, and I'm still in this, I'm still of this opinion, is that the Kersk operation was a attempt to change the equation in some way. And whether that is escalation, right, like we saw with the smaller Belgarod incursions, entering into Russia, you know, forcing Putin's hand in some sort of way potentially, to gain more Western support, anything like that is always a potentiality there, right? Why Kursk? I think it was because this is the only area that the Ukrainians were actually capable of entering into. If you look at the rest of the front line, the Russians have strong defenses in Belgrade. They've been dealing with incursions there for a very long time.

The East was not an option. There was nowhere to stage and go on the offensive in the East. it wouldn't have worked out with the available manpower that the Ukrainians had, something around 40,000 troops at the beginning of the Kersk incursion, were dedicated in the Sumi region. And so really, I think that Kursk was the least worst option for the Ukrainians to achieve some sort of at least marginal success, make it look good on a map, you know, embarrass Putin, whatever you want to call it. But really, I think the primary objective,

And this is something that the British actually seemed to be very obsessed with is the nuclear power plant in Lagov, right? It's up there. They were heading directly for it. They were not heading towards, you know, an objective over here or an objective over there. They were spearheading straight north for that nuclear power plant. And really, I think that if they could have managed to collapse the Russians in this area, like, you know, we've seen. and maybe Karkov in 2022. We haven't seen anything like that recently.

But, you know, this is still the thinking. And I don't know why because the 2020 counteroffensive, the Russians didn't run, right? There's this expectation that the Russians were just going to get scared and run away anytime the Ukrainians go on the offensive. So I believe that the goal was to capture the nuclear power plant and then try to trade that nuclear power plant for the Zaporosia nuclear power plant. We've seen multiple, multiple attempts by the Ukrainians with British special forces, with different groups trying to cross the Nieper Reservoir and enter into Erna Godar and the Zaporojean nuclear power plant tried to recapture it. It has been a thorn in their side and a talking point for so long.

You know, they've shelled it. They've done a bunch of different things trying to affect that area. and really I think the primary goal was that nuclear power plant. Now, do I think that they were ever going to be able to achieve that? Absolutely not. But when you're at your rope's end and your options are death by a thousand cuts in the east or potentially do something here that can change the equation, I would have honestly gone with the Kersk operation as well.

If you're looking at it from a pure military standpoint and you're being hyper-realistic, the Ukrainians are going to lose. mathematically they cannot win this war, right? Unless there is some influx of foreign manpower, it does not exist in the country. And they're running out of time. And it's very clear that that's what's happening right now. You're seeing the Russians now advancing very quick. Everybody in the West is talking of negotiations, a settlement now, which is craziness when it was 1991 borders and, you know, Russia must leave and the war will end when they go and the Russian economy is going to collapse.

or the other. Now it's we need to negotiate. We need a peace settlement. We need a ceasefire. And the reason why they're talking about that is because the intelligence that they're receiving is the exact same intelligence as what I'm telling you. The Ukrainians are at their end. They just do not have the energy, the morale, the equipment, or the manpower to continue this war. The only people who have the appetite for this war now are the political leaders in the West and in Ukraine. just a year behind you. That's the only problem. Can I just ask about the British?

Because obviously I am British, so I have a particular interest here. I mean, the British seem to be consistently giving the Ukrainians bad advice because they also gave them the advice to start this crinky operation. And also the Ukrainians themselves now tell us. And it turns out it was an incredibly... ambitious operation, not that different from Kusk in some respects. I mean, across the river, march on Crimea, you know, block up, block Crimea, Normandy 2, something. I mean, that was never going to happen, not just after they'd been defeated in the, you know, their own counter-offensive

in the summer. What are the British thinking? Why do they urge the Ukrainians to do these things? Is it because, and I just ask this question, we have such a small military nowadays that we have lost the ability for, you know, grander, you know, proper, wider strategic thinking? We think purely tactically. And we just don't understand how these things play out on a large-scale battlefield. Just ask you. It's a mischievous question. Yeah, I think that there is some superiority. complex in in the West and and this is not just Britain. I think that they think that they're better than

the Russians. I think that they they truly deep down believe this. They and so a lot of their actions seem very ambitious over the top right. Like wow, are you really expected that to work? And I really just do think that they expect these things to work. I think that they looked at Karkov in 2022. They saw how the Russians were not prepared for that. And they have. just translated that single event to every single operational plan that they have put forward for the Ukrainians. Like crinky obviously came at the exact time, you know, the Nova Kakovka Dam was destroyed by somebody in correlation with the start of the Zaporosia counteroffensive that we saw in 2023. Crinky was immediately started after that. And,

I believe that that was supposed to be in support of a successful counteroffensive in the Zaporosia region, putting a lot of pressure on Kersan and Crimea. And then as the offensive was bogged down, the cranky operation just continued because they had set it up. And it was very morose. I don't know. It was it was kind of gross to watch. They were just sending a few guys across on a boat. They would die.

They would send more guys. They would die. and they did this with a couple different marine brigades. It went on for a very long time. I don't know why you're taking advice from an army who hasn't really fought a war that wasn't run by the U.S. for a very long time. I talked to a lot of guys that are former U.S. military. They talk about how they had to save the British all the time in Afghanistan.

It was a constant issue that was going on, just the command structure and the, leadership decision making was never appropriate or adequate, even in Afghanistan, which was a much lower intensity conflict with a much less advanced adversary. Now you're dealing with a modern army, with modern tactics. And, you know, the British just aren't capable of matching that right now. And I think it's, like I said, I think it's just ego really from the British. And then they force that on the Ukrainians and the Ukrainians want to continue support so they go in line with what the British ask. I think a lot of people in London need need to listen to that. Let's talk

about Trump and negotiations and the fact that the situation can't be stabilized and go back to what Michael Kaufman said, which as I've just said is about a couple of months behind, about almost a year behind, what you have been saying. And Michael Kaufman is someone I take seriously. I think he's an intelligent person. I think he's often prey to wishful thinking, but he's not as off, you know, peace as so many other commentators are just to say. So he can't be stabilized. We're talking about a ceasefire, a freeze of the conflict,

deferring NATO entry for 20 years, and introducing Western, which is to say NATO peacekeeping forces, 40 or 100 or 150,000 depending upon whom you listen to. Now, the

Russians have said all of this is unacceptable. Putin has said it, Lavrov has said it, lots of other Russian officials have said it. Based on the military situation that you have outlined, why would the Russians agree?

They absolutely wouldn't. And I, this was part of the problem is that I honestly do believe that Trump wants this to end. It doesn't suit him. It doesn't suit his administration. They would like to look towards China and the Pacific. This is more their area. They would also like to help Israel out more in the Middle East and dominate that region. So when it comes to Ukraine, I truly do believe some of the things Trump is saying about actually wanting to end this and get out of it. Just for his own personal. selfish reasons. I would want to get out of it if I was in his position because continuing it is just going to look bad in six months or a year. And ending it could potentially make you look a little bit better. As soon as I got in, I was able to end this conflict. Unfortunately for Trump, the way that the West tends to go about negotiations is that they have to all agree on what is going to happen before they even go and talk to the side that is in the dominant negotiating position. So the U.S., Europe comes to Russia with this peace initiative, this ceasefire, you know, 20-year deferment, all of that stuff.

And the Russians just say, no, this is not what we had talked about at all. This is not going to work for us. And what is the U.S. going to do? They can continue supporting Ukraine. But Ukraine is the issue. It's not Western support. it's not equipment, right? If the U.S. wanted to send more equipment, they could. There's nobody to drive and man that equipment. That's the biggest issue. So you can keep dumping money into this country, which is going to be a waste here as the Russians progress further and further and as the political situation in Ukraine deteriorates. But there's no options for Trump to actually put something on the table that would appease the Russians, maybe not even, you know, their full asking, I'm sure the Russians would take less than what they're demanding, honestly. I think that

if this war was to come to an end, the Russians would be perfectly happy with that and happy with the situation that they're in as long as they got certain details like no NATO membership for Ukraine ever. I think that's an absolute mandatory and no peacekeepers. And you can see that that's not how the West is going about that. The West considers that a loss. And they're they've overinvested in Ukraine, particularly Europe. Europe is going to be on the back end of this. I'm sorry, my camera keeps going out. They're going to be on the back end of this. And they are going to be holding the back. Ukraine is going to be their problem. The United States is an ocean away, right? And the European economies are not in a good position. They're putting themselves in a worse

position now by fully cutting themselves off from Russian energy. That it, it, it's just not going to work out in the long term. So I think you're going to see that negotiating position from the West soften over the coming months. I think you're going to see less demands from the West in their negotiating position. But again, as you just said, everybody seems to be a year behind reality, right? And when you're a year behind reality, the kinetic situation in Ukraine is going to deteriorate faster than your negotiations are going to work to solve the issue. So the Russians, like I said,

well, why would they accept right now? They're winning. They're moving forward. The West has gone from Russia is losing to now we need to negotiate and send in our own forces. I mean, that if you don't call that a position of strength, I don't know what is. And I see no reason for Putin or the Russian economy or the Russian government or any aspect of it. to need to negotiate right now. I just don't see how it benefits Russia. And that's why I've said for months and months that you will not see negotiations to this conflict. Europe's position, the U.S.'s position, Ukraine's position and Russia's position are far, far too apart from each other to ever come to any agreement. I think you've made one very, very important point there, which is

about the fact that this is an accelerating process on the battle lines. And that if you are so far behind and trying to catch up conceptually, you're actually chasing not just, you know, a car that's moving away, but a car that's accelerating away. Because I don't know how long the time window for negotiations is. I'm not sure why the Russians would want to negotiate at all at the moment, to be frank, accepted they're taking losses. And that is a problem. And that is a problem. But it's also an incentive, I think, to continue. People tend to overlook this. If you are taking losses, if your people are dying, but you're winning the war, you don't want to come back to those same people and say, well, look, you sacrificed all of this. Victory was within our reach. And we gave it

away. I mean, that isn't, it seems to be how it works. So having said that, you know, perhaps they would be willing to negotiate now for certain acceptable terms of which no NATO entry is one. But we're not prepared to agree to that now. Then in three months, six months time, how much is it about? Yeah, if you look at what Putin said, I made a tweet about this in July or June. He came out and he basically gave an opportunity for the, for, for, for, for the, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, uh, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, uh, for, for, for, for, for, for, uh, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, Ukraine, rather, to accept an agreement that included the four oblasts and certain unnegotiable requests such as no NATO membership, sanctions, relief, stuff like that. And I said that's never going to happen because the West won't go for it.

It's not, Ukraine won't go for it. Zelensky's not going to go for it. But that was the last best option that Ukraine was going to receive. That's what I said. I said, this is the final negotiating position that Ukraine could come out of this and say, look, we did our best. But we got this. They only got the four regions where we maintained something.

And after that happened, the curse incursion happened. And I just don't know why there would ever be negotiations at this point. I'm in full agreement with you. I don't think the Russians are going to negotiate. I think that there's always the feeder that needs to be put on. by political individuals such as Putin or Lavrov, they're going to say things like, hey, we want to negotiate.

But when it comes to the actual negotiations, if it's not something that ultimately benefits them in their position of strength, they're not going to do it. So I do think that there's half, half of it is theater. Half of it is a little bit honest that they want the war to end. Obviously, I don't think they wanted the war to start in the first place.

But the way, the West is just not an agreement. Russia is not an agreement. And so I don't see any negotiations happening. And yeah, it is just an accelerating situation in Ukraine. So let's go back to Ukraine. Let's talk about what happens if the negotiations don't come together. We're going to see the Russians on the NEPA.

Are they going to cross? Are they going to cross? Well, if you listen to what Putin said, even in his minimum requirements for a negotiation, settlement, like I just talked about in June, it's the four o blasts, right? And that includes Zaprogia, which is half on the river, half on the other side. That includes Kursan, which is across the river and the Kersan region, which is even further. And at that point, if the Russians are crossing the river without a deal in place, if they are forcibly crossing that river and the military

actions are still taking place, there will not be a Ukrainian army. army standing in the way. There is already an extremely weak Ukrainian army barely holding up. You know, by the time the Russians get to the river, by the time the Russians capture regions like Kharkov or, you know, Paltava, some of these eastern oblasts, there won't be a Ukrainian army. There won't be a organized Ukrainian position unless there is a massive retreat very quickly. And I mean this like this week next week, the week after behind the river and they begin to set up fortifications and they try to, you know, do something in that direction. Again, not realistic. The Ukrainians have never one time retreated this entire conflict and I do not expect them to start now.

So I think that the Russians are in a position where they can pretty much get whatever they want, whatever that looks like to them. I'm not sure. I don't know how far they want to go. but you're going to see, especially in the southern Donetsk region here very soon, the Russians are about to just explode out and there's going to be a massive bloom and they're going to head in every single direction. And things are going to happen much, much quicker. And I think we're going to be very surprised by summer of 2025, how the map looks,

how the overall situation looks, even if the war is continuing. I just, it's hard to tell. but if you would have told me six months ago where the Russians would be right now, I would have probably rolled my eyes a little bit and said you're overstating how much the Russians are going to do. And now I think that by the summer of 2025, it's going to be much, much worse for the AFU and much better for the Russians. Can I ask just one more question, which is this, how much of a military barrier is the river? because I've had contradictory things said to me by many people. Some people say it's not a barrier at all,

that it's actually relatively easy to cross. It's a big river. You can move across it. You need to air control and all of that. But the Russians have that other say actually any kind of operation across a river, a contested operation, is incredibly difficult. Any thoughts at all about this? Yeah.

And as you just said, it depends if it's contested or not, right? It depends on if the Ukrainians are able to retreat enough resources to set up a defensive line. That would make it much more difficult. However, if you look at the Novakovka Reservoir near Unogodar, if you look at it on satellite now, it is empty. So crossing that area is not going to be particularly difficult in terms of the water barrier. It is open. So there will be some difficulties there. But once you're across, once you have an established bridgehead, once you have stable lines of communication and logistics, no, that won't be an issue for the Russians.

And particularly, I think in the Zaporosia region is where a majority of that crossing is going to happen. If Zaporosia, the city is captured, there is not going to really be a barrier for the Russians to cross the river. because if they have a city like Kursan or Zaporosia or Nyevopatrosk or any of these cities that lie directly on the river, they'll have the ability to cross, they'll have the ability to stage and they'll have logistics through this area. So I think before you see a river crossing, you will see one of these major cities captured. And if you do see a river crossing, I believe it will be in Kursan and they will go for the city of Kersan initially. I should simply say if we have a river crossing, this is going to be in terms of Europe. It is going to be the sense of crisis that we're going to see in Europe is like nothing we've seen up to now.

Well, Scott, Scott of Calibrated, thank you very much. You've answered my questions. You've given us a very full picture of the military situation. I agree with you about the diplomacy, by the way, completely. If you could just stay with us a little, I'm sure that there's questions. and I can hand over to Alex, and he's going to pass on some of them too. Yes, we got a lot of great questions for Scott. Let's see here.

Let's begin with Adrian. It seems the Russian strategy is to arrive at a point of maximum leverage on January 20th. Your thoughts, Scott? On January 20th, again, I just don't think negotiations are on the table. So when you're talking about maximum leverage, yeah, I mean, I think that the Russians are already in pretty much a position of maximum leverage right now. I don't think that there's going to be any crazy events from the Russians that is over the next 20 days. I do think you are going to see the Ukrainians really trying to hit sensitive targets inside of Russia with Western missile systems. I think that this is something that I've talked about and we've actually been seeing this,

just doing whatever they can to elicit a response from the Russians. Will we see that response? I highly doubt it. The Russians seem to be very cautious and careful with all of their operations, with all of their decision making. They don't want to elicit a Western response, and that's part of it, right? is you want to keep Ukraine in a position where they're not valuable enough to Russian and save, but just valuable enough that you have to continue supporting them. And that's really what you, that's a position Ukraine is in.

And when we talk about, you talked about hitting decision making centers and stuff, I always say this. I've said this the entire war. Zelensky is not good for Ukraine is military. Like militarily speaking, he's not good for Ukraine. Politically speaking, I don't think he's particularly good for Ukraine. anymore. I think the West is tired of him. I think that he has run his course. You can see it in the way that Trump talks about him and the way that they communicate. Trump is not a fan of Zelensky.

So Zelensky is the perfect person to have in there if you're the Russians. It's the devil you know. It's the devil you can manipulate. It's the devil you can use against the West. Right. So yeah, I just don't think we're really going to see much from the Russians. And it's just going to be the consistent thing. And I don't think January 20th is even going to matter as a date. I think it's going to come and go and the Ukraine war is going to continue. And we're just going to see the continuation of this war until its end. From T. Adams, how important is the first hundred days of this year for Ukraine? I mean, every day right now is important for Ukraine. I don't know if there's a specific period that is vital for them. I would say that the last

year has been the most vital for Ukraine and they have not done what they needed to do to achieve a stable position heading into 2025. In terms of the next 100 days, if the Ukrainians lose Krofsk in the next 100 days, if they lose another major area city, something like that, I think you will see a major collapse in the Ukrainian armed forces. And particularly, I think the Ukrainians are trying in the next 100 days to maintain their positions in Southern Donetsk, which are falling, as well as maintaining the Kursk zone. And I think that both of those are going to fall in the next 100 days. So maintaining those would be vital to maintain any sort of leverage in negotiations. But again, I don't think negotiations are plausible. Let's go to locals. Tool Faith asks,

now with the escalation in Russian advances, are the kill-surrender ratios more in favor of surrender rather than the needless dying for Zelensky? Could be seen as a bit positive thing, all taken into account. Yeah. So if you're in the Kersk region, no. I would not surrender in the Kersk region. That is, they are following CTO rules there. So counterterrorism operation instead of the SMO, which has,

different rules of engagement. But throughout the rest of Ukraine, yes, I would, I mean, I would, I would have already deserted. I think if you have common sense and logic, you need to get out as far away from the front as you can if you're a man in Ukraine, a Ukrainian man. Is the question specifically, I can't see that one. Is it about, Are the kill surrender ratios more in favor of surrender rather than dying for Zelensky? The actual ratio is much higher for the death to surrender. They have backline troops that don't let people leave. They have, you know, they'll shoot you if you try to surrender in the Ukrainian army.

So I would definitely say surrender. but the ratio is not favorable for the surrendering party. All right. From locals, mean old Tom Katz says, do you think Russia will take Odessa? President Putin mentioned that Odessa was part of historic Russia since the late 1700s. I think if the war continues, the Russians will achieve all of their goals. So I particularly think everything east of the Niebupper and Odessa and Nikolaev would be a, an absolute victory for Putin in this situation. I think it would be a crushing defeat for Europe

and the West in this proxy war. Do I think that that is going to be allowed to happen by the West? I don't know. I'm hoping that the West doesn't get involved in this to a point of having their own skin in the game. Right now, it's just support money and equipment. But if the Russians end up crossing that river, yes, they're definitely going to go for Odessa and Nikolaev. There's no point not to make that, you know, make the Black Sea of Russian Lake from the northern end at least would be the, would be a huge victory for Putin. It would be a basically a Catherine the great sort of situation for him, reestablishing Novo Rocia and, you know, the new Russian country. Live in the life, 941 says, do you think Russia is going to keep?

steamrolling into Ternipro Oblast or hold and take the rest of the current conflict oblasts. This is actually a very good question. This is something that I talk about in my live streams quite often. I'm very eager. The Russians are now six kilometers from Nyevaputrosk. They advanced four kilometers today in that direction. So they are very, very close to the Oblasts borders. If they do cross, I think it is going to be a very clear message of what Russian intentions are

and what they're going to do. If they do not cross that demarcation line and they end up heading north, finishing up the east and focusing on what is currently being the current front line, I think that you'll see a different position from the Russians going forward, potentially looking for the option of a negotiation. But if they cross that line, they head into that region. I think that you're going to see everything east of the Niebu River, basically, in Russian hands, eventually. Nico says, hello, Duran, we won't have a nuclear war because of Ukraine. However, the Russians are unwilling to do what needs to be done. With long-range strikes and a blockade of St. Petersburg, how can, here's a question,

how can the Russian people, how can the Russian government keep the faith of the people when they don't respond? I don't know if the Russian people are that upset. I mean, if you talk to people in Russia, I mean, you guys, I'm sure know people over there. You get the sense that almost like the war isn't happening sometimes. It's been like that for quite a while. They know what's happening. There's advertisements around and stuff, but the whole goal of this SMO was to have it not really impact the Russian people tremendously, right? And I think one of the biggest mistakes that the West made going into this was that they didn't make this war about Putin. Instead, they made it about all Russians. It was all of the Russians fault for supporting Putin, for

continuing this, you know, not being out in the streets and revolting against him, this, that, and the other. I do think that there is a certain amount of Russophobia in Europe, particularly, that has played into this. And I think that that has created a very positive situation for Putin to mess I think that people are in full support of Putin. I don't think that Putin is the way that the West makes him look, the evil crazy dictator, you know, just trying to conquer all of Europe, this, that, or the other. That doesn't seem to be the attitude of Russians towards Putin.

That doesn't seem to be the attitudes of Russians towards the SMO. It feels like it's very necessary to them. It seems like something that they are on board with. So I don't think that there's any faith lost by the Russian people. And I don't think that going above and beyond what you think is necessary in terms of escalation is actually beneficial at all. I think that like I said, the Russians want to keep Ukraine in that sort of limbo state where it's not valuable enough to go in.

There hasn't been an escalation that forces the West to go in. You know, Russia isn't doing anything overly provocative. They're just continuing. and that sort of war fatigue is really beginning to wear politically on the West. And it's just, I think the right way to go forward is slow and steady and just keep pace. Alexander, did you want to add something? I thought you were. No, I completely agree with what Scott has said.

I think that also, we must not get worked up about some of these things that have happened. Yes, there's going to be Western ships in the Baltimore. see there always are Western ships in the Baltic Sea, but the idea that there's going to be an outright blockade of Russia or St. Petersburg is a fantasy. It has no basis in reality. I mean, you have to be to, you have to go to St. Petersburg to see what that means, what that city is. And bear in mind, if we're talking about sieges of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg withstood a terrible siege in the 1940s. I mean, what they're being presented with today is something that they're not going to notice and they're not going to be influenced or affected by. And a couple of missile strikes on Russia,

even the New York Times is now admitting that they didn't amount to very much. So none of this is going to shake the position of people in Russia in any significant way. I believe it will actually harden their resolve against this. One thing that people don't. don't seem to understand in the West is that when you attack a population, it tends to unite them. It's really hard to bomb somebody into submission. It didn't work with the Germans in World War II. It didn't work with the Japanese. It didn't work with the Russians. It's one of these things where force against a civilian population is not going to achieve the political or military results that you want it to. In fact, it usually makes things much more difficult and makes

the side dislike you even more and like the person that you're trying to get out of power in that country, Putin, they like him more now because of it. So, you know, he's standing up for them. You're striking them with missiles. How does that, how does that work out for you? You know, it just doesn't. From Paul Walker. Is Siersky a Russian plant? No, but he is a yes man. And this is, this is exactly what I was talking about with political leadership and military leadership. You had somebody in Zillusini who was talking about actual military objectives and potentially backing out of areas and doing things that politically the Zelensky and his administration, his regime did not want to happen.

So he was replaced with Sersky, who is a yes man. And I would not put a lot of blame on the military leadership. I think that they're in a very, very difficult situation. And I really don't think they have a lot of free agency when it comes to decision-making. Not that Serski goes against that in his own decision-making. He might be doing the exact same thing if he had all of the free agency. But as far as I can tell, you know, the political outweighs the military almost every single time. From Miss Texas, G, how far out of the realm of possibility is it that the Russians will take?

Western Ukraine? I don't know if there is any appetite to take Western Ukraine. It's not there, it's not, you know, traditionally Russian speaking. It's not Russian culture over there. And if you want to talk about a problem to present the Europeans who are now waging an economic war or have been waging an economic and proxy war against you, the Ukrainian rum state ending to this is an absolute nightmare to me. If I was a European country, if I was Poland, and I'm sharing a border with Ukraine,

and there are however many million individuals in Western Ukraine who are not very fond of the Polish, you know, you're going to be dealing with a country that is in economic ruin. there's no there's not going to be in an economy in europe or in ukraine and a lot of these people are going to want to leave ukraine into europe right and when that happens uh what are the poll what are the polls going to do are they going to open up their gates and let everybody in uh you know this so i think that from a geostrategic perspective uh capturing western ukraine doesn't yield a lot of results for Russia. You know, I don't think that the, I don't think that the West is on their menu. I think that if they can leave the West as a rump, as a permanent welfare state,

basically for Europe, just imagine Greece times four, right, is what you're going to be dealing with. Is this is a state that is not producing anything for you, but you've made all of these agreements, you've blustered all of this, talk about supporting Ukraine till the end, and now you have a state that is not producing agriculture, it doesn't have its oil, doesn't have its rare earth minerals that are now all under Russian hands in the east, doesn't have access to the Black Sea, what could possibly there be to benefit for Europe? It's going to be a major burden that they're going to bear, and like I said, they're going to be holding the bag.

And so I think leaving Western Ukraine as a state that is going to need constant financing from Europe is the best win for Russia at the end instead of them going in and needing to take care of that whole region when they're not liked there at all. Scott, there's been an article in the Russian media by Dmitri Trennan, who's a very, very highly regarded commentator in Russia, former Russian Soviet. army officer. He worked for many years in the United States. He knows the US very well, but he's now back in Russia. And he said exactly, almost exactly what you said. I mean, he said it differently, he couched it differently because he couched it in Russian terms, but he said, you know, we gain nothing by occupying Western Ukraine. Yeah. Pass this unexploded bomb to the Westerners and let them deal with it.

Here's a question. Scott, how do you answer? the argument that says if Russia doesn't take Western Ukraine, then NATO moves into that area. That rump states, NATO moves into that. And it gets closer to Russia. I mean, at this point, I think NATO is already as close to Russia as they can get almost everywhere. I mean, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, the risk of Ukraine joining NATO is this immense energy-rich, mineral-rich, population-rich country with this massive pre-war, obviously, massive military, could be directly used to suffocate, isolate, and control Russia, right? This has been a CIA plan since the 1950s.

Ukraine is this area where you can always instigate rebellion, and, you know, it's been happening there forever. The Ukrainians fought against the Germans. They fought against the Russians in World War II. West took notice of this. And so this has been a long planned event, you know, using Ukraine, using the caucuses against Russia in this way. I think that Russia has already solved this issue by destroying a good amount of the country's Soviet military, that is. And really, there's not going to be an appetite in Ukraine to be used again against Russia. I think they're going to feel very

betrayed by the West. Again, this is another thing that nobody ever seems to talk about is when this is all over and the West lets them go, there's going to be an entire population in Western Ukraine that is going to be very anti-Europe, very anti-America. And it's going to just present more problems. So I don't think that there's really anything to necessarily gain by NATO moving into Ukraine into that rump state. They're not gaining anything. It's going to be another pull-on resource. sources. And, you know, if you want to talk about, you know, your, your geostrategic position, NATO focusing on Ukraine and not focusing on China is just going to be another, you know, that's just it. China is really a big winner here because there's a massive distraction going on

in Europe while they're just continuing to progress and improve in their situation. Same with North Korea. North Korea is a big winner in this as well. And I think that, yeah, if they move into that part of you, Ukraine, I don't think that the Russians are really going to have much of a problem with it. I don't think that they look at it any different than it is right now. Now, will they allow that in a negotiated settlement? No, but after everything is settled, after the lines are concrete, I don't think it makes much of a difference if NATO is in, you know, Eastern Poland or Western Ukraine.

All right. From Raul Pinto, happy new year. How long from January 20? can we expect a Ukrainian collapse, considering no more funding from the U.S.? They're already in a collapse. This is something that people don't seem to understand, and I can't see why. The Ukrainian military is, it's, how do I explain this? The Germans were in collapse after Stalingrad, right? There was never a point after Stalingrad. You could talk about Kursk, which they lost handily.

there was never a point where the where the Germans were not in a collapse heading backwards. The Ukrainians are not in a position where they will ever be able to stabilize from here forward. So I said the collapse started basically after FDFka fell. I thought FDFka falling and then Orchitney falling and then Ugladar falling, all in succession right there. These are areas that the Ukrainians could not afford to lose and they're losing them while trying to maintain them. That is a collapse to me. Moving into Kursk is, again, another sign that the Ukrainians are collapsing, moving in a different direction trying to change the equation. And now you're seeing the actual manifestation of this collapse in these brigades that are just being built up, deserting and being broken up and sent into different directions because they're not a combat functional unit anymore.

They're more of like these new brigades that are coming out, they're kind of like a recruitment tool. Like you take these brigades, you try to train them, and then whatever equipment or manpower they have is just separated and sent in all sorts of different directions to plug holes where holes are present. And this is only going to escalate from here. The defenses that Ukraine are utilizing are not getting any stronger. They're actually getting weaker and almost non-existent in some areas. And it shows very clearly as the Russians are progressing tens of square coal. a day in some areas. So this is just going to continue.

And there is there, I, I, I, I think that we are watching the collapse right now. It's just that the Ukrainians militarily are holding every single inch that they possibly can. If you were looking at a proper military operation from the Ukrainians where they are trying to make this go for as long as possible, uh, in a, in a, uh, just a more. professional manner is what I would say because what you're seeing right now is a no retreat order. So all of the reserves that would be defending further back are being pushed up and pushed up and pushed up and they're thinning out and thinning out and thinning out. And then one day it's just going to snap and the whole thing is just going to fall apart. And then we're getting very, very close to that point.

So I'm not going to put a specific date on it. I don't have, you know, an exact Ukrainian casualty number. I don't know how many men are in the Ukrainian army. right now, but it's very apparent that things are falling apart very quickly. And you can just listen to the rhetoric, the political rhetoric around it. Everybody in the West is talking about it. It's not a secret. From a tool, faith question, is the Kursk NPP still on the board? Would make a great target in dire straits. I mean, they can target it. They can, I don't think that they have the manpower. I think what you saw was their last best attempt to make something happen.

I do think you will potentially see another Kersk-style incursion somewhere, but the Kersk NPP, the entire Kersk region now is just flooded with Russian manpower, defenses, artillery, everything. So, no, they had their one shot to get up there. They didn't succeed. And that's sort of been the story of Ukrainian offensives for quite some time. Lattermaro says, Happy New Year to the Duran team

and to the guest and to all Duranians. Thank you, Lattermaro for that. And another question from locals from Miss Texas G. What happens to the bio labs? I don't know, Scott Alexander, have you heard anything about the biolabs? Other than the man who talked about

that was assassinated in Moscow. I mean, that's all I can tell you, whether they're still there or not. I'm going to make a guess. I think they've probably been dismantled and everything has been taken and moved out. I would have thought that given how bad the situation is in Ukraine, whoever is in charge of them would not want them to stay there and fall intact into Russian hands. That's my guess.

Yeah, and I don't put a lot of weight into biolabs. I know they're there. I just, we just don't know enough about them to make like concrete statements, me personally at least. But the man who talked about him getting assassinated is sort of on the nose there. That is a very particular individual that they took out. It might have just been opportunity, but it seems highly suspect that he specifically was targeted. Additionally, then this goes back to the whole British thing with Erna Gowke. are. I think that the, yes, I do believe that all of it should have been taken out of the country

if there is any intelligent individuals in the West operating these biolabs. All of it should have been dismantled and taken out and just repositioned somewhere else. That goes for everything in Ukraine that the West was operating there. But particularly, I think that there may be some proprietary technology in the Zaporosia nuclear power plant. And that is why the British are so on edge about it. It seems that they have this unbelievable obsession with this nuclear power plant. And the Russians took it without a fight very quickly. And there was no ability for the British or whoever, whomever to get that out of there. So I think that this is a huge point. And I would agree with Alex about the dismantling of these institutions. Sparky says, Scott, is it a big.

off topic. Scott, should in the U.S. free Greenland from Danish tyranny? I mean, man, he's, we're talking about getting the Panama Canal back. We're talking about all this different stuff. I, I don't know. Is, is Greenland a real problem? I don't, why do we have to free them from anybody? I don't, I don't get that. But, uh, sure, why not? Greenland. A sophisticated caveman says, does Scott know anything about future plans in the Baltic and the Arctic, Russian or Western? The Russians are building up heavily in the Arctic.

This is a area that is going to be a new battlefield here soon, maybe not kinetic battlefield, but economic and geostrategic, right? You see the Russians enhancing their nuclear ice breaking fleet. This is going to be. I thought that this was actually going to be the primary area of U.S. Russian contact, you know, conflict. And then Ukraine ended up happening. So, yes, I do believe that the Arctic is a very big deal. In terms of Estonia, Latvia, Latvia, I think that a lot of this talk is just sort of fearmongering. I don't think the Russians have any issues with the Baltic states. I don't necessarily think.

they want them back. I mean, it's it would make the situation in Klinnegrad a little bit easier. But all in all, I don't I think that this is a lot of over overstatement when it comes to these other regions. I don't if you if you block st. Petersburg and you deny Russia access to international waterways and stuff like that that's an act of war. These things are these things have major consequences. And, you know, if Russia crosses into NATO territory, there's no chance it doesn't go nuclear. So it is a zero-sum game for both sides when it comes to these things. You know, not necessarily that it would have to go nuclear, but if NATO actually did what they were supposed to do, there is no way for the U.S. to conventionally combat the United States

or Russia in that area. So the nuclear option would have to be undertaken. I would, I would assume. From displaced, happy New Year, is it in Russia's interest to push all the way to the Moldovan border and straight northwards towards Belarus leaving a rump state? Yeah, I mean, I don't think you really have to cross over the Nyepper much further north than Krivoi Rogue, which is just north of Nikolayev and Odessa. That would solve the issue, the Moldovan issue that the Russians currently have with transnisteria. But again, there's not a lot for the Russians north of that. The Black Sea corridor access is the most important. And after that, anything else would just be what I would consider an overextension for Russia. Will they do it if the entire

Ukrainian government collapses and it's just open there? And it's either going to go to the Polish, you know, or the Romanians or whoever wants to go into that part of the country, then potentially we might see the Russians move into this area. But again, I don't see the political appetite in Russia to go that far. And I don't see the need. I don't know what they gain from it. All right. We'll do a couple of more questions for Scott.

And then me and Alexander will wrap up the remaining questions. Peter, if you can. can just put your question in the chat, then that would help me out a lot so I can get to that question as well. So Scott, on the rump state issue, how big of a rump state? This is from Klaus, how big of a rump state? If you want to put up my map, I could just show here. For it to be safe. So basically what I'm always talking about is this is the area right here that would be the most that I would think Russia would want to go over the river, right? This seems like the most plausible area right here that would be captured. Anything more than that, there's just not a lot here for the Russians on this side of the river.

So this is what I believe the rump state would look like. Potentially, you know, they might go a little bit more north than that. That's if they cross the river, right? This is a big if. But if they decide to do this, this is basically what the rump state of Ukraine would look like right up here. So Kiev and then to Lviv right here. And this is just economically non-viable and will be a huge burden on your. So I think that that is sort of the rum state you're looking at.

All right. And from, let's see here, we'll do a couple of more. From Sparky, Scott, are you afraid that Putin will flood Europe with hundreds of thousands of his North Korean GMO superstructures? But which, by the way, we didn't even talk about this, but I have yet to see conclusive evidence of any North Koreans. We have seen North Korean artillery moving into the country, which is, it's plausible that the North Korean troops that were sent were actually artillery crews that are getting some on-the-ground combat training. But in terms of human waves of North Koreans, 3,000 North Koreans have died in the cursed region, this, that, and the other, I think that's just nonsense. I think that it's, again,

a way that the Ukrainian regime is trying to escalate the situation, make it seem like the axis of evil, if you will, is coming after them. Russia needs North Korean help. They're at their, you know, they're at the end of their rope. They need Iranian help. They need North Korean help. It's sort of been the narrative the entire time. But we haven't seen, I have not seen any conclusive evidence of North Koreans. In fact, everything I've seen has almost looked fake to me, intentionally being, you know, put out there to to make it look like North Koreans are in the region, but nothing conclusive. I've been waiting. I've been waiting for evidence. I'm very open-minded on this. I don't think it would be impossible for the North Koreans to be in that region.

In terms of, this is again, it's so funny that Russia is the second or third best army in Ukraine at any given time, according to everybody in the West, but also somehow he's coming for Putin's going for Warsaw and, And, you know, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, it just doesn't, it's a Schrodinger's Russia. At the same time, they're coming for Berlin and failing in Ukraine. It doesn't make sense. It never adds up. Yeah. And the last question for Scott from Elza.

The West is debating the demilitarization of Ukraine, but they don't mention denatification. Could that be a problem for negotiations? I think that the denazification, in my personal opinion, I think that this is a good, and this is just my own opinion. So I think that this is a very good domestic way of selling the conflict, the Nazism. I know that there's the Bandarites in the West, but I don't think that the Russians are going to go that far. I don't think they're ever really going to get rid of them. I think that this is a cultural thing in Ukraine that is not going to go away. I think that the denotification on the political level has been rather achieved.

I think that there was a pretty big split between the Nazi elements and Zelensky and his government. I think that it has been weeded out because they were quite powerful at the beginning of the conflict. and now they seem much less present everywhere on the battlefield. Azov has been rebuilt and destroyed multiple times, the Azov Battalion. And I don't see this as being a major issue for the Russians, although if they bring it up, it might be something that prevents negotiations. I'm not sure. I think that if you can get NATO neutrality and sanctions relief out of a deal,

the Russians will happily take that if there's no mention of Nazism. All right, Scott, where can people follow you? You can follow me on Twitter. My handle is Aden. That's where I post the most over there. You can also follow my telegram that is calibrated just with a K. And then please go follow me and subscribe on YouTube. That's where I do my long form live streams just like this.

I do an hour, an hour and a half, once or twice a week, usually. And I go over everything that's happening in Ukraine on the front lines, particularly from the military aspect, but I also get into the political as well. I'm not quite as sound and on it as the boys over here at the Duran are, but I do my best and I try to do my due diligence to get the information across it in the proper manner. A fantastic YouTube channel. You're outstanding, and it's a great channel and people should go. I very much appreciate that.

Thank you, guys. Fantastic telegram, channel, and also a fantastic. I always say Twitter. X, X, X, X. X. X. I always say Twitter, too. Yes, I will have all those links as a pinned comment and in the description box down below. Our first guest for 2025, the fantastic Scott from California. You guys having a fantastic new year. Thank you, Scott. You to school.

All right. No one better to start the year with because, of course, the news, which is exactly how he's described it, has been on the Ukrainian front lines. is dramatic. The last day, the last 48 hours have been quite extraordinary. Just as he said. Yes, they have. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting eventful, 2025. I believe the first half will be very fast moving. All right. Let's see here. Where are we with the questions? All right, let's begin with Nikos. And he has a question on Georgia, Zudabichvili.

Zudabichvili is gone, Alexander. However, protests continue. Why can't Georgia dream just arrest Zudabichvili? Also, happy New Year, my fellow Greeks. Happy New Year, Nicos. Happy New Year very much to you. Now, why haven't they arrested Zura Bichavichvili? because if they do arrest her and try her and put her in prison,

they've created a symbol that people can congregate around. Western leaders can bring up and talk about all of the time. She's a completely incompetent, utterly ridiculous political figure. Nobody should take her seriously. So let's not make the mistake of making her into someone important when she's not. Yeah, I think Georgia Dream really played this very well, actually. Yeah, they played this very well. And arresting Zutrabichvili would be like creating a Timoshenko,

like a Yulia Timoshenko type of. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Yeah. Nikos says off topic, but I wanted to ask you, do you know why Boris Yeltsin and especially Gorbachev criticized Putin?

Did Putin actually hate Gorbachev? No, he didn't actually. In fact, the two. Putin did sometimes criticize Putin. Gorbachev had a tendency to sometimes follow Western narratives. Did him no good in Russia, by the way. At other times, though, they seemed to get on reasonably well. And on a number of occasions, Gorbachev actually supported,

said things supportive of Putin and tended to support him over Ukraine, for example. So they had a very old relationship with Yeltsin, of course, Yeltsin died quite early on in Putin's time. And there was a kind of wary respect between each other. Yeltsin didn't really ever say very much. I think he just felt lucky to be able to escape into retirement, actually. So Putin doesn't criticize Yeltsin because Yeltsin was the man who designated him his successor. So what Putin's strategy is to say,

little about Yeltsin as possible, even while talking about the 1990s quite a lot. Irini, welcome to the Durant community. Custer Pai says, Happy New Year, Alex and Alexander and Scott from Calibrated. Wish you an amazing year. You keep us sane and informed in 2025. Greetings from Romania. Interesting country to follow. Very interesting country.

And I understand there's still no date for the election. I'm going to say something. But the appeal was, did you read about the court decision? No, I haven't. No. They, well, no, the court decided that the, the cancellation of the election holds. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

What, what, what, what, what's, what else one would expect? I mean, it would be impossible to change it now. I mean, we've crossed a huge line here. I mean, an election canceled in that way, annulled, it's not canceled, it's annulled in that way, is unprecedented in any Western country. I cannot remember this happening like this, anywhere up to this time. And it's terrible for Romania. I mean, it's going to create instability in Romania, which was unnecessary.

It just goes to show that the situation in Romania, It must be a lot more interesting and dynamic than people say. Yeah. Pat and Cloggs says thank you and have a happy new year. Thank you for that. And welcome to the Duran community as well. I am Valentina says thank you, gentlemen of the Duran. Thank you.

Sparky says free Greenland. Happy New Year to you. Sparky says free Greenland from Danish tyranny. Well, can I just, can I just cut in with my own thoughts about this, which I'm going to accept are completely controversial. But this is another case of Donald Trump saying something that is absolutely outrageous and which nobody takes seriously, and noticed that he's repeated it again and again,

and others have done so. So this isn't something that is just a momentary thing of his. And when you take a step back, there might actually be a point to it, not that I think he's planning to invade Greenland, or take over Canada tomorrow, or, you know, Occupy Mexico, will do any of these things. But what he's effectively doing is he's saying, look, we're moving into worlds of great powers again.

That means a world of spheres of influence. And I'm setting out the minimum borders of ours, the American one. So Greenland is part of the North American, continents geographically. It's got all of these variable raw materials. This is an area, therefore, of vital importance to the United States, as is Canada and Mexico. And what he's saying is this is our core sphere of influence. Sooner or later, we're going to move back into a world of spheres of influence. The Russians will have theirs. The Chinese will have theirs. And this will be hours as opposed to the current near concept, which is that the whole world is America's sphere of influence.

So this is, you could see this as a sign of a return to retrenchment in the US. Now, as I said, a lot of people are going to push back on that, but I just want to throw out that possibility and people might want to think about it and comment on. on it on the threads here. Toolfaith says, Happy New Year, folks. It would be interesting to hear the take on possible escalations in the caucuses. This could be something the U.S. and Israel would do to further mess up things in the Black Sea.

And it could be strategically important regarding Turkey as well, greater Israel in the background of this scenario. Absolutely. This is a very real possibility. I mean, the way in which the episode was the Embraer airline was. you know, amplified in the media in the West is a case in point. And there was clearly attempts to create trouble between Russia and Azerbaijan, just saying.

And they've made big issues in Armenia, as we know. Though I noticed that Parcignan attended the Eurasian Economic Forum, a union conference, even though he did it virtually, but he chaired it. Just saying, so he didn't completely absent himself. So he's continuous to play this complicated. game with the Russians. But absolutely, the Caucasus is something that they can very well start to think about. The key thing to say is the NIRCONs never give up. They never give up on their plans and their strategies. We've just seen that in Syria. And it's entirely possible that they

will start up something in the Caucasus as soon as the Ukraine story is finished. In fact, I would expect him. Yeah. And Tuleface says, questions. Will Ukraine start lashing out with attacks on European soil if it looks this bad? Well, I'm not going to go that far. I think it would be an utterly reckless and crazy thing for them to do. I'm going to just say two things. If we ever get into a situation where some people in the West get their desire, which is try and ferment an insurgency inside Ukraine against Russia,

That'll mean lots of very angry people in Europe. And that could very well get out of control. Secondly, what Scott was saying about lots of people in Ukraine feeling very bitter and angry about the West, they are. There are opinion polls that say it. There's even been comments about it in the British media. So this is a real possibility.

And though I don't think it's a problem now, it could easily become one going forward. Stephen G says, Happy New Year, with the gas being cut off, who's going to be the first victim of the green t-shirt curse in 2025? Good question. At the moment, the country that's most exposed is Moldova. Transnister in particular is in a terrible position,

which is obviously intended. They tried to hit it, Hungary and Slovakia as well. They're also going to hit all of us, at least all of us in Europe, because make no mistake about this, if you cut off 5% of Europe's gas at a time when there is already a general gas shortage, and when prices are rising, those prices are going to rise still more. It's inevitable. I cannot understand all of these people who say,

this isn't something we should worry about. They're saying this in 2022, and we turn out wrong, and it's going to turn out wrong all over again. Yeah. But we should pay more, Alexander, because it's all about freedom. Of course. Pay more for freedom. No price.

No price is too high. No price is too high for freedom. Yes, exactly. But Erdovid says, thanks for the great job. Sparky says Erdogan should saturate Syria with Turkish army peacekeepers before the U.S. figures out how to stop him. It may be Syria's only chance at pulling back from being the next Libya. What an enormous burden that would be for?

Turkey. It's already in recession. It's got, it's still got a very high inflation, around 50% a year. And the economy is, as I see, buckling. And it's got to send most of its army, apparently, into Syria to try and to stabilize the situation there. How much better if the other one had managed to do that deal with Assad? Just saying, yes, maybe it will come to that. Maybe it will come to what you say. Maybe the Turkish army will go into Syria in force. But I'm absolutely sure that if it does that, it will go into a quagmire, a trap. I think it'll be a drain on Turkey. I think it'll be a major crisis on Turkey.

But there are no good options here. And as Erdogan is likely to find out. Sparky 63 says, break it off in Black Rock, make Ukraine, Russia again. Thank you, Sparky for that. Sparky 63 says Russian people will feel cheated if Russia doesn't end up with Odessa too. Well, not all Russians, but many Russians. And it looks with every day

that the Russians are getting closer to Odessa again in a serious way. WTC7 says, you guys are great. You bring it every day. Thank you for keeping it honest and real. Thank you. Thank you for that. and

rum martin are the bad decisions of the war in ukraine proof that you should not do drugs yes spark he says should sultan erdogan show up to the next international conference he attends in a sedan chair

would it be an epic troll this would be an epic troll but don't expect him paulie says happy new year. New Year, Polly. Martin says, would Gilligan make a good replacement for General Searski? He did a great job on Nord Stream.

Absolutely. Thank you, Martin, for that. Peace on Earth says truth seekers free PDF book, The Masters End the Path. Okay. Thank you for that. Martin says, isn't the Ukraine war proof that the conventional wisdom narrative is false, thus leading many to question all the truth? that we are being fed.

Yes. Now, I remember the same thing happening during the Vietnam War, the later period of the Vietnam War. At that time, it was referred to as the credibility gap. It didn't last very long, but I think this time round it's going to be much bigger. Life of Brian says, is it possible the Russians delayed their offensive

in case the Biden administration lost so as to minimize the risk, of an unhinged response? Well, who knows? I mean, again, the actual thinking and discussions within the military in Russia, as I said, they never share their plans with us. It's possible.

I'm going to give my own personal view. I think that the Russians make their military decisions on military facts. I don't think that they let politics affect military decisions. That's been my

sense about the war, since about the summer of 2022. The first hundred days or so in February, March, April, 2022, it was clear that Putin was running things because he was trying to get a political settlement with the Ukrainians. But the moment that ended and the decision was made in the summer of 2022 to deal with this purely as a military campaign, I think the military had been left to running. says do you think Russia will move towards Odessa before the fighting is over? Well, quite possibly and coming back to what Scott was saying. The time window now is not very big.

If the Russians cross the river, Odessa is not far away. Martin says all Durant content is outstanding. Why not capitalize on the collapse of the MSN? credibility to start a new channel using their format, 25-minute daily programs covering five, covering top five stories. Well, we do what we can, as I said. Another channel.

That would be challenging. That would be challenging. That's a great idea, but that would be challenging, yeah. Yeah. Elza says, wouldn't Ukraine have captured all of Kersk region if it wasn't for the 100,000-plus North Korean soldiers hiding in the woods. Why any 100,000?

I'm sure there's 10 million old than there, at least. Gaya Ann says, thank you, Duran. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well. Sophisticated pavement transnisteria. We answered that, the Russians to reach. Oh, no, wait, did we? Will it be a priority for the Russians to reach?

No, we didn't answer this. No, we didn't answer that. No, we didn't. Will it be a priority for the Russians to reach? for the Russians to reach Transnistria? Will the Moldovan people welcome Russian troops in Moldova proper? It's not, I think, a priority, but it is something which I'm sure they're talking about in Moscow.

The question is, of course, time, because there's an emergency crisis now and how long can Transnistria hold out? So it depends if over the next few weeks, the Russians reach the risk. and then cross it. If that is their plan, and depending on how strong Ukrainian resistance is,

they might move towards Transnistria. But, you know, it's difficult to say. And I don't know what the planning or the thinking in Moscow on this issue specifically is. I don't think it's serious enough or urgent enough from a Russian point of view to make them change their military decision making now. I think that they obviously got a plan

and they will stick with it. But if they cross the river within the next couple of weeks or months and Transnistria is still there, they could move towards it. The Russian army does reach the border with Transnistria. They will absolutely be welcomed there. About that, I have no doubt at all.

As to the rest of Moldova, it's a much more divided society. Some will welcome it. Some will not. Quite a few will not welcome it. Just saying. Arcane eclectic says Slava Rosia from Canada for that. O.G. Wall says, happy new year. Happy new year as well.

Let's see. Carol says, how does Russia address the shipping attacks and when? Happy New Year to all. That is an excellent question. And again, I don't have a simple answer to this. I am going to assume that these are shipping attacks. I mean, one of the ships does definitely seem to have been attacked. At least the ship owner is saying that it was attacked.

So how do they do it? Well, there are particular routes you can follow. You can do all kinds of things. What I would say is this. Iran has seen attacks on his ship. happen on a fairly regular basis and that shipping has never stopped. For the moment, these are pin-prick attacks, one or two ships, is not going to affect Russia's overseas trade. Is it really in the West's interests, given how important Russia is, as a commodities producer for oil and food and all kinds of other things to stop Russian shipping entirely?

think what the inflationary effect of that would be. So it may be that there's quiet discussions about this. It could be that the Russians are thinking of taking steps to secure their ships. It might be that they're planning alternative routes from some of the ones that they're following. For the moment, I don't think it's a big enough problem for them to do anything radical. But they might have to face that point eventually. if this escalates. Of course, it depends who's doing it also.

If it's Ukraine, then I mean, you know, they probably won't stop, but against that, they only probably have limited resources. If it's someone else, if it's Britain, for example, then it's a different story completely, at which point, of course, attacks on ships like this on the high seas becomes an act of war just saying. Mark Hughes says I'm rooting for Putin. Sergio Laskoni, welcome to the grand community.

Saddam says, who asks for Ukraine opinion regarding negotiations? Aren't they a puppet state of the U.S.? You would have thought so. And this is one of the most stupid things that was ever done. I mean, this decision made way back in the summer of 2022. and you know, nothing without Ukraine, no discussion without Ukraine. Give Zelensky a veto, which is what this amounts to. I mean, obviously it was one of the stupidest, most idiotic things

that the Biden administration did, amongst many others. I mean, to give Zelensky, of all people, control over America. and foreign policy, foreign policy with respect to Russia. Only Biden and Sullivan and Lincoln and company would have done something like that, just to say. So, I mean, the sooner that's abandoned and ditch, the better, frankly. Yeah, they were so bad.

They are so bad. My God. Sariel says a very peaceful and blessed New Year to everyone. Any very peaceful, very peaceful, very blessed greetings from us to you, my friend Zara. Zarel, just to say, I've seen some of the things you've been writing. I've had a very intense holiday with children, but I will get back to you. Klaus says, oh wait, I just lost it.

There it is. Klaus says, if the rump state is what Scott said, the Russians will have to make sure the West won't build up again into the rump. state. How will this play out? Well, this is true. And I get to say something. I think that the borders might not be quite as big for this front state as Scott says. This is one area where I have some differences. If you go back to Trennan, Treni is actually talking about two Trump states, Trump states, sorry. One centered on Kiev, which would be much the bigger one, by the way.

And that would be very much part of the Russian world. It would be expected to have a pro-Russian government. It would have the Orthodox Church back. It's former Tsarist Ukraine. The other Rump state, which would be in the area of Lvov, would be completely off limits for the Russians. The Russians would wash their hands of it. It has no great strategic value left to itself.

NATO can even have it. But I would have thought that the Russians would not want to see NATO extended to Kiev itself. Just so. Sparky says, Happy New Year and Merry Orthodox Christmas to all of you. Thank you. Willem, thank you for that super sticker. Peter Scliva says previous message.

I'm not sure if there was another message, Peter, in there, but if you can just put the message in the chat, I'll get to your question. Displaced says, what can Russia do if NATO if NATO went into Kaliningrad, going nuclear over a tiny region doesn't seem likely. The loss of face to Russia would be catastrophic. No, I think they would go nuclear. I think they would be seen back on Russian territory.

I don't have any doubt about that whatsoever. I don't think any of us should. It's heavily defended as well. I think if we have any situation like that, it is World War III. I mean, one thing that would happen is, is that if NATO enters Kaliningrad, the Russians enter the Baltic states. Just to say.

Imra Kalman says, happy, happier new year than the last one, agreed. Alexander says, happy new year. Thank you, Alexander for that. Happy, thank you. Happy New Year. And Commander Crossfire says, happy new year to one and all. Thank you for that.

That Sparky says, if you can't trust Erdogan, Who can you trust? Not Erdogan. Jamila says, I can breathe. 2024 is finished. My heroes this year, Alexander and Alex, my favorite thing. Alex, thinking, good day, Alexander. We love you guys.

Thank you, Jamila, so much for that. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, Jamila. Can I just say this? I will remain a little on my, on tenter, but, you know, a bit worried on tenter hooks up to the moment when Joe Biden leaves the White House. And we still have a couple of weeks left, or is it two and a half weeks left before that happens?

18 days and counting. Arcane Eclectic says NAFTA is up for renewal in 2026 and Mexico suggesting that, Mexico is suggesting they may forego signing in favor of bricks instead. Your thoughts on Trump. reaction? We'll see. I mean, I think Trump is basically hostile than after. At least he has been in the past. If it ends, that is a huge event. But I don't think you want Mexico going into Bricks. We will be in a very complex negotiation. Perhaps the deal will be done. I think this is the kind of thing that Trump at least believes he's good at. So we'll see. One second. Command of Crossfire says, achieved an incredible year in 2024, BB on a row.

Well, he is now. I think for most of 2024, he wasn't actually. And of course, at the moment, he's also facing legal cases in Israel itself. My own personal view, thinking about this and, you know, reading about the situation, is that things are not going well right up until October. The Iranians had shown that they had the ability to destroy. strike, defensive side, Israel.

The Israelis fought wars in Gaza and in Lebanon, neither of which have achieved their objectives. And then suddenly, at the end of November,

they got this extraordinary, unexpected win in Syria, which could turn out in the end very bad for them, because they now have a very unstable jihadi state

on their eastern borders, whereas previously they had a stable state in the form of Syria, Assad Syria, which went out of its way to avoid going to war with them. So I would not be surprised if we actually see more violence on Israel's eastern border than we have seen previously. Just saying. At large, 47, thank you for that super chat. This place said, what would happen if Hungary and Slovakia did a joint special military operation into you? Ukraine to make a strategic corridor towards Russia. Well, I think these are fantastic scenarios that are not going to happen.

I do the Hungary and Slovakia have the resources to do something like this. I think if they tried, the US and NATO would intervene very quickly to put it to a stop. And we would definitely get, in that case, regime change in both countries. Sparky says Trump may want to join Bricks, at least as an associate member. That's a thought. I do think that's such an incredible or far-fetched possibility, but of course it's not going to happen any time soon. Boa Omega says,

if Ukraine keeps winning at this rate, it will soon cease to exist. True enough. Happy New Year 2025. Thank you for that, Boa. Viva Las Vegas. Thank you for that super sticker. Elza says Putin hates our freedom and wants to take it away from us, but isn't that against the definition of freedom to be obliged to be able?

a high price for it. Fair enough. Very good logic. Of course, Putin really does hate our freedom. He spends all his time and all his energy. He's not really bothering to govern Russia and do all the various other things that go along with that. You know, all this is fateful that he's doing. What he's doing is he's constantly plotting to undermine our freedom.

He's manipulating elections in Moldova and Romania and now in Germany as well, it seems. He's spending all his time planning, how to cut cables in the Baltic. That's what he's really obsessed with, undermining our freedom. Good thing the leaders of the European Union are a couple of steps. Absolutely. Barkey says, although West Ukraine would be a burden on Russia, I still think it would be worse in the long run as a rump state and NATO rallying point. Well, we will see what happens.

As I said, I do think it depends a lot on the borders. And I think coming back to something that Scott said, which I've long believed, by the way, which is that whatever happens, a lot of the people who live there, the moment there is peace, are going to want to leave and they're going to want to go to the West. Just saying, at least the young people will. so you get to have a population of old people it doesn't look like

a very good future for this region I don't say that with any pleasure by the way yeah Alexander I think that's that's everything actually well that what that mean I just let me do a final check yeah let me do a final check and your final thoughts

well I thought that was an absolutely tremendous live stream. By the way, speaking again as a Britain, I do hope that there are some people in Britain, some people I know, who are listened to what Scott said about the British military, about the fact that we got into trouble in Afghanistan and the Americans had to bail us out. He didn't mention the fact that the same thing happened in Iraq, that there are problems with our command system, that there are problems with our planning systems. We are in a bad mess here at a military level, and we have no right on military matters to lecture anyone

or to pontificate about anyone either. So that was an insightful comment, and one which I would, as I said, would love to see other people follow. But anyway, that's a detail. The overall picture is the one that Scott describes. He said the collapse is already happening. And if you follow things as closely as he does, you can see it play out every day in position after position. Kurakovil fell over the new year.

Pachrovsk is gradually becoming encircled. The Russians are pushing west towards the NEPA at ever faster speed. As he said, another four kilometers have fallen to them. just today as they push towards the NEPA. I've already said in many places, if the Russians reach the NEPA, Ukraine militarily is lost. If Ukraine loses all the territory east of the NEPA,

then already it ceases to be viable as a state. And we have more disasters coming. Torez, it looks as if it's dangerous, from falling. Chassehia are probably weeks, but not much more than that. And the situation in Kusk is terrible. And there is no turning this round. And that is the lesson Western leaders need to take. That's the lesson Trump needs to understand. His entire policy about Ukraine needs to be constructed upon that reality. that the war in Ukraine is lost, the Russians are going to win. The only thing to do now is to try to mitigate the damage.

Yeah. All right, Alexander, that is the first show of 2025. Peter, I know you're trying to send a message. It didn't come through. Peter Sclivas, so you can message me or send me the message by email. and me and Alexander, we will answer that question. But I can't see it in the chat, the question that you said. It's not coming through for some reason.

Anyway, all right. A fantastic show for 2025 to open up 2025. Thank you once again to Scott from Calibrated. I have all of Scott's information in the description box, and I will add it as a pin comment as well. Thank you to our moderators for everyone. everything that they do. Peter, Zareel, Brett was also moderating. Who else was moderating? T. Jordan, thank you very much for all the help that you provide in the chat.

And thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, and Rumble, YouTube, and of course, our amazing locals community, the durand.com. And just to say, I'm back to doing live streams on locals this Wednesday. This Wednesday, live stream, well, following. Following Wednesday, that's right. This Wednesday, following Wednesday, yes. Live stream on locals. What is the time that you do the live stream, Alexander?

1400 hours E.S.D. Eastern time in the United States, 1900 hours, London time. The durand. dot locals.com and that is an exclusive live stream that Alexander does on locals. Take care, everybody.