The Duran Podcast - Zelensky determined to stay in power, and then in exile

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Zelensky determined to stay in power, and then in exile

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. And is it me or does it feel like with each day that goes by, Russia is capturing two to three villages or areas in Ukraine every single day? It feels, or at least seven or eight villages every week, it seems that Russia is capturing, just outright capturing these areas. Things are moving much faster on the front line in favor of Russia. And it does seem like Zelensky is starting to understand this, and he's speaking with Bhutanoff last I read, and they're trying to figure out ways to launch strikes deep into Russia. And they're consulting with their NATO partners on this.

So we're looking at more of this asymmetric type of type of war that NATO and Ukraine are looking to wage against Russia. Is that their answer to the Russian advances on the front line? Absolutely. Now, we've discussed Russian advances on the front lines in several programs recently, and I think we should just quickly catch up with that, because you're completely correct. They are accelerating, and they are getting closer and closer to, you know, know, the key remaining positions that the Ukrainians have. So if we can just go from the north,

Putin is now openly talking about Sumi region, the city. He says that he does, you know, it's not an immediate objective, but he isn't ruling out that the Russians might indeed capture it, which is almost saying, yes, it is a medium-term objective. And it was, Sumi is important because it's obviously it's a city, it's a regional capital of one of the regions that are being fought over. But it's also on the main road to Kiev itself. If Sumi's captured, there is a straight motorway all the way to Kiev, which the Russian army could use, it used that very same motorway to advance to the outskirts of Kiev back in February 2020, to, for example.

So that is important. But what's happening in other places is arguably much more important still because in the area of the Slavians Kramatosk conurbation, which is the major urban conurbation that the Ukrainians still have, you have these two important fortified towns to the south of it.

One is Pachras, that we've talked, about many times. The other is Konstantinovka. It seems that there's a significant Ukrainian force, several thousand men, which is essentially surrounded south of Constantinivka. There's a reservoir which is located south of Constantinivka. There was a Ukrainian position south of that. The Russians have now basically reached the west bank of this reservoir, and they're close to the East Bank. There's no real exit point. So there's several thousand Ukrainian troops who are surrounded there. And the Russians anyway have got basically surrounded Konstantinivka itself from three sides. And importantly, they control all the high ground. It seems they have

either finished or are about to finish finally. There's long, difficult battle for Chasovya. That is the high ground, but they've got all the other high ground too, so they can strike at Konstantinovka downwards, and it's unlikely that the Ukrainians would be able to hold on to Konstantinovka for very long. And Pachrosk, which is the other big logistical hub, that looks like it's being circled as well, and very fast. This is where the Russian advances over the last couple of days have been most dramatic. The Russians are now well to the west of Constantinivka and well to the north of Konstantinvka as well. You can see that again this city is now encircled by the Russians on three sides. And it looks like the Russians are close to cutting

off all the main roads into Pachrosk. And they also control, apparently, the high ground around Prakrovsk. So again, it looks as if Pachrovsk might fall fairly quickly once the Russians push against it. And the Russians, according to some reports, have now entered both the southern and the western suburbs of Pachrovsk. So there's a major disaster starting to develop in this central area in Dombas, which has been the main baffle area that has been fought over. basically since the start of the special military operation. It looks like we are within very clear sign now of the end of the battle for Donbass. But we also have more information about the Russians steadily pushing westwards from

Donbass itself towards the river, towards the Dnieper, there in Neapro-Petrovsk region. The Ukrainians have no stable defenses there. They're basically heavily outnumbered. And there is a developing crisis for the Ukrainians there. I have spoken many, many times about the disaster it would be for Ukraine if the Russians reach the NEPA in central Ukraine. And notice that they're now starting to launch missile strikes at one of the key central cities. of Ukraine on the Dnieper, which is the city of Kremlinchuk. So you could see that there is now clear signs

that the Russians are preparing to attack the heartland regions of Ukraine along the central Dnieper region. So the Russians push through in Sumi region, they could get to Kiev. If they continue to push through Nyev-Katrovsk region, they could get to the Dnieper, the central regions of the Dnieper, and it looks as if Ukraine is crumbling in Donbass as well. So we're still in the early weeks of Russia's spring, summer, 2025 offensive. And we can already see that, you know, fairly big things are happening with the Russians advancing faster and faster every day. But that's the sort of situation as you look at it on the battlefronts.

There is another story, which is the overall military balance between the two armies. Zelensky himself is admitting that Ukraine is running out or has run out of air defense missiles. The Russians are hammering Kiev now practically every day, and it's increasingly looking as if there's no air defense to speak of over Kiev. So the air defense situation is terrible. The Ukrainians are admitting that the S-16s have been a failure. Just to say, you remember we used to hear so much about the F-16s last year? Nobody ever talks about them anymore. The situation with armored vehicles for Ukraine is apparently terrible. There was an article in Die Welt, which is a German newspaper. It said that, the Ukrainians now have only 120 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.

We no longer hear about the striker. You know, those are the wheeled ones that the Biden administration supplied. They were apparently pretty much all of them destroyed in Kursk. 120 infantry fighting vehicles, which is, I mean, Ukraine is now largely dependent on the Bradley's, is not enough remotely to hold a front line of 112. hundred kilometers or whatever it is. I haven't seen much sign of Ukrainian tanks for a very, very long time. The Ukrainians appear to be running short of drones as well. Their own commanders, frontline commanders are saying this. There is a critical shortage of manpower. And again,

the Ukrainian commanders themselves are saying this. And Putin has come out and said that the Ukrainian army overall is only 40% up to strength, 47%. So you could see, you could see that there is a potential crisis starting to develop. And you could see the effect of three plus years of attrition. The Ukrainians are indeed being ground down. So what is Zelensky and Budanov cooking up? What are Are they cooking up? With NATO. With NATO.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to say what my own opinions are about Zelensky's priorities. First of all, can I just say he is starting to panic. He's starting to see for the first time clear signs that we discussed it, remember, in a couple of videos ago. I think he's now coming to realize that Ukraine is going to lose the wall. I mean, he's been in denial about this, but now even with him, the penny has dropped.

I think he has three objectives at the moment. The first, and for him the overriding one, is to stay in power. And I think he wants to remain president of Ukraine right up until the very last moment. In other words, even if Ukraine collapses, he wants to be president right up to the moment of the final collapse. That, I think, is his priority, and I think it is the priority of all the other members of his entourage and of his officials, and of people like Budanov as well. They are determined to retain control right up to the most bitter end. Secondly, they want the money from the West to keep flowing. I mean, we've discussed many times that there is a massive grid.

here, you've discussed this, are they better than anyone else? I think that remains true. I think in fact as the evidence of collapse starts to become unchallengeable, the grift and corruption will intensify because people will start to say, you know, money, money, money as quickly as I can because I need to park it away as quickly as I can because then I'm out. So this is now becoming an even bigger priority. And Zelensky keeps the money, needs to keep the money to flow into Ukraine. Because that's the way that he consolidates control over the key players in the regime, which otherwise might start to fracture if the money isn't coming.

So quite apart from any personal benefits that he derives than this, he's also got to keep the money coming in to keep the system together so that he can keep control of it right up to the end. And the very last thing he needs to, he wants to do is to give the impression that despite everything, Ukraine is still in the baffle. And that's where launching attacks inside Russia is absolutely important. He wants to keep hitting the wrong. Russians. And it's part of what he's going to sell to the West once Ukraine finally goes down. He's going to say to them, look, even if we lose the war, even if we're completely defeated, stick with me. Stick with my regime. Help me to form my government in exile because we will

keep the fight going. We will maintain our operations inside Russia. We will have all these resistant cells active in Ukraine. We can still hurt the Russians in all sorts of ways. It's not over when it looks like it's over because we're still going to be there and you must continue to support me and the system that exists around me. And I think that's mostly what is going on there. There are probably because, you know, people who are in this kind of situation, they will, you know, sometimes clutch at straws. They'll still tell themselves, well, you know, if I can just pull this one off, then that might dramatically change the whole situation. They might still from one day, you know, we don't want a particular day on a particular morning, say, you know, if we assassinate this general or blow up that base or do that sort of thing in Russia,

That might suddenly turn the situation. If Litsy Graham gets his sanctions, that might implode Russia too. We might still be able to pull this off. But I think that intellectually, if you like, they're already preparing for the conflict, the insurgency, the terrorist war, if you prefer, that they intend to continue to wage once the war, the conventional war is done. And that is as important to them as anything else, because it keeps the money flowing. That keeps them in, it keeps them with a job, actually. It keeps the, it's the next part in the next role that Zelensky is going to take up, right?

He's going to be the leader, the president in exile. The president in exile. The president in exile that is resisting and continues to fight against Putin, right? Yes. That's the next role. I don't know what his outfit's going to be. I don't know where the location of the filming is going to take place, probably Paris, maybe London, maybe somewhere in the Baltics. Who knows, maybe they go for Miami.

It's all possible. But yeah, that's what Zelensky is betting on. And he's going to have the, he's going to be organizing the, resistance to Russia. He'll be doing his speaking gigs, his lectures. He'll be getting money from the NGOs and from the think tanks. And he'll be making his TV appearances. Who knows, maybe he has some movie deals as well. Yeah, that's what he's betting on. No doubt about it that his team, which is just a bunch of script writers and producers, people should never forget that. His entire administration is a bunch of script writers and TV producers. Yes.

So that's what he's preparing for. That's where the money is at is to be the leader in exile. And you're right, in order to pull that off, he needs to show the collective West to show NATO, the neocons, the US, the Europeans, that he can still fight the Russians. And he can still strike deep inside of Russia with Bhutanov as his sidekick.

Yeah. You're exactly right. That he has his networks, that he has, ability to continue to do this sort of thing. And it was the other thing he needs to do, if he's going to be able to pull that off, is he needs to retain control of Ukraine right to the very end. Because if he's replaced by someone else, then on what place of possible ground can he be the president in exile and the leader of the resistance? So we're going to see a tightening of repression inside Ukraine and a tightening of controls. And

and probably a great deal of violence within Ukraine over the next few months as things begin to implode. But as I said, already they're looking at that strategy. And I think that is, those are his objectives now. I wonder, just the final question, I wonder how much the disregard for international law and the norms of international law and conflict from, the Trump administration and from Netanyahu with regards to what's happened with Iran. I wonder that does that influence?

Is that going to influence or carry over to how Russia is conducting this conflict, this special military operation? Does that have any influence? I mean, you go after a nuclear facility, for example. Yeah. I mean, that's what the United States did. They attacked a nuclear facility. And in Russia, there was a history of the ZMPP and the nuclear facility and the IAEA, all of that.

Well, the I EA I think shamed itself over that, by the way, also. I mean, they went through this elaborate fiction of pretending that they didn't know who was attacking the Zaporosia NPP. And that has really, really damaged its relationship with the Russians and its international credibility as well, just saying. But I don't think the Russians will attack the nuclear facilities in Ukraine because I don't see, I don't think they think it's been their interests to do that. Ultimately, they want to gain control of these facilities, if that's where the war is heading.

So I don't think they want to destroy them. So I don't think it's going to change the conventional war. But if we have the kind of war that's, you know, we've just been talking about, the war where strikes are taking. place terrorist strikes or what the Russians would call terrorist strikes inside Russia where there's assassinations and murders and sabotage and blowing off of trains and interference of people of that kind. Well, the Russians are quite likely to do what they did during the conflict in the Caucasus. They're going to start taking their own reprisals and they were starting to come after the Ukrainians. And that was, by the way, what happened with the conflict

in the Caucasus. They eventually decided that if the other side was going to play dirty, then Russia had no choice but to do the same. And when the Russians start doing that, they're pretty ferocious and ruthless at it. And we'll probably start to see that. unfortunately start to develop and it will happen in Europe because we're going to be the battlefield for this kind of thing. And I thought of it makes me shudder, frankly,

but there we are. Okay, we will end the video there. Theduran.orgas.com. We're on Rumble, on Odyssey, on Telegram, and on X. Go to Duran Shop, pick up some merch. You'll find the link in the description box down below. Take care.