The Duran Podcast - Zelensky & NATO gamble everything on Kursk Nuclear Power Plant

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Zelensky & NATO gamble everything on Kursk Nuclear Power Plant

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Kursk region, Ukraine's incursion, invasion of Russia, if you want to call it that. Yeah. Operation invasion Russia. How do you see things? Well, first of all, I think the thing to say is that this is clearly an offensive. It's not one of those raids that we saw the Ukrainians carry out before, places like Belgarod and things of that kind. This is a proper operation, apparently up to three brigades of the Ukrainian army have been used. They've been apparently some of the elite brigades of the Ukrainian army. They've been pulled from the border with Belarus. There's reports that one of them has been taken from Chassevjar. My own view about this briefly is that this is clearly a last desperate gamble by Ukraine.

and it's an attempt to try to reverse the course of events that has been building up since the failure. It's a major offensive last summer. So they've launched this attack in Cusk region. They crossed the border. They've captured a number of villages. They have been fighting around a small town called Sousja. That so far as I can see, up to the city. to this time is all that they have achieved. There's been a huge amount of a vast volume of

talk and discussion and reports about, you know, the Ukrainians being in all sorts of places. But so far, they haven't achieved anything that could be in any remote way said to be decisive. And that, now that, that however begs a whole number of questions. The question one, one, question which a lot of people are asking is how could this have happened? How were the Russians called by surprise, as they clearly were, in this kind of operation? The second, which is the one I'm just going to focus on now, is what was this operation intended to achieve? Some say that it's intended to capture territory inside Russia in order to gain leverage in negotiations, future negotiations. Mikhailo Podoliac, who is Zelensky's advisor, has given an interview saying as much.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Capturing a few villages in Russia, which the Russians are certain to recapture, does not gain Ukraine leverage in negotiations. It reinforces Russian anger and determination to defeat Ukraine. We've already had comments from people like Medvedev saying that this event is intended to, it shows the importance of capturing Kiev itself and ending the government there. China is reportedly furious about this. They hosted the Ukrainian foreign minister about a week ago. He came talking peace.

They've already been furious articles about this appearing in the Chinese media in global, times. The Chinese field, the Ukrainians pull the wool over their eyes. So it doesn't give Ukraine leverage in peace talks, even if this small place, which is called Sousja, were captured. 6,400 people is its population. Russia, 150 million people. They would undoubtedly recapture this village. This is an absurd idea. The other claim is that it's intended to stop gas, supplies, from Russia to Europe. Gas supplies have not been interrupted. There is indeed a gas pipeline facility in Sousia.

If the Ukrainians wanted to interrupt the supply of gas, they would do so on their own territory. They would do what they always do, claim that it was a Russian missile or bomb strike or something like that. They would do it in that way. To my mind, it's absolutely clear what the objective of this operation was.

If you look at the area, there is only one object that the Ukrainians could capture, whose capture really would make a decisive shift in the entire narrative and understanding of the war, and which would justify an operation of this kind. And that is the Kusk Nuclear Power Plant, which is located near the city of Kusk, or near a town called Kuzk. Chattif, the Ukrainians can reach that nuclear power plant, can capture it, then that would be a dramatic event. They would, you know, defend it, they would dig in around it, they would dare the Russians to try to drive them out. The Russians would not want to battle on the ground of one of their own nuclear power plants. The Ukrainians could use that to attract attention to

themselves to force negotiations between themselves and the Russians they might demand for example a swap they return the nuclear power plant to the Russians in return for the Russians handing back to them the Zaporosia nuclear power plant something of that kind the key thing is they have not reached the Kusk nuclear power plant and with every day that passes it's becoming it's going to get more and more difficult. Apparently, Russian reinforcements are now moving to the area. Over the last 24 hours, it seems as if Ukrainian advances in the area has slowed down and maybe even stopped, and they are still tens of kilometres away from the nuclear power plant. But that was clearly, to my mind, what this was all about. A last desperate throw to turn the

situation, capture the nuclear power plant, because nuclear power plant, capture perhaps the nearby town of the nearby town of Kurchatif, which I've heard reports has some important military laboratories and facilities. Use that to cause massive embarrassment to the Russian government, force the Russian government into negotiations on Ukrainian terms, and perhaps force either an end to the war or at the very least the return of the Zaporosia nuclear power plant for something like that.

For the moment, it doesn't look as if the gamble is working and the Ukrainians, by every account now, are suffering very, very heavy losses trying to pull this gamble off. Can you address the first point that you brought up? How did Russia let this happen? I mean, this is a huge front line. But we are talking about Russia's borders.

And I understand that this was perhaps the only spot that Ukraine could have moved into. In other words, this was obviously identified as a weak spot, as a vulnerable area that Ukraine could move into and create some sort of an operation. But Russia must have known that as well. So what happened? You would have thought so. And as I said, there's a lot of questions about this. And straightforwardly, I don't have the answer. I mean, the answer is with someone in Moscow. I don't know what the answer is. But I can speculate. I'm going to make a number of speculations. There's been a lot of speculations that the Russians themselves were planning to conduct an offensive in this area. So they were apparently assembled. large numbers of forces, some distance from the border. They were clearing the minefields on the border because they needed to do that in order to move their troops across the border themselves, not be interfered with by their own minefields.

The Ukrainian sensed the opportunity and made their attack first. And that's one explanation that it seems to me make some sense. The other, but, you know, again, I want to stress, I don't know that this is for, you know, factually the case. The second is that there might have been some problems with the Russian command, maybe the Russian commander in the area of Kuzk, which has been a fairly quiet area of the battlefronts up to now, was not, you know, the most talented and energetic individual.

Maybe he didn't take the necessary steps to seal them, protect the border as he should have done. That's another possibility. The third one, and I'm going to say this myself, and I think a lot of people are going to scoff at this one, but having been a professional myself, I have to say I would not be surprised if there was an element of this, which is that militarily, this operation that Ukraine is launching makes absolutely no sense at all. Ukrainian front lines right across the battlefronts are collapsing. The Ukrainians are losing ground in Dombas, in every part of Dombas, in the south, near Pachrovsk, in the centre, near Torez, further north, around Chars of Yard. You know, they are desperately short of men

and machines right across the whole front line, it makes no logical sense to stake everything on a reckless gamble of this kind. The more logical thing to do would be to deploy what reserves you have to try to stabilize the front line, at least somewhere. And that's probably what professional officers would do. And, you know, what people like Gerasimov, for the general staff in Moscow might think.

Any professional will have experienced this, that sometimes when you're up against an amateur, an amateur can pull something off against you, which is completely unexpected, which makes no kind of sense. And it throws you off balance for a time. But of course, that's only for a time. And we can already get reports

that the Russians are now recovering, ascending troops at the area, and over the last 12 hours, at least over the last night, perhaps over most of yesterday, it seems as if Ukrainian advances, at least for the moment, have come to a stop. So, you know, I can't give a simple answer to this because I don't know what the answer is. But I have a feeling that, you know, it's probably a combination of all of those.

A sluggish local commander, preparations for a Russian offensive in this area, meaning that the troops are being assembled further, deeper inside Russia, and the minefields were being thinned, and perhaps also an inability on the part of the general staff in Moscow to believe that the Ukrainians would try something quite as crazy or seemingly crazy as this operation appears to be. I imagine the capturing of the Kursk NPP, the power plant, would have to happen very quickly. I mean, this would have to be a very fast operation because now everyone pretty much knows what Ukraine is aiming for.

And so how are they going to possibly capture the nuclear power plant now today as we record this video? I mean, maybe if this was done within 24 hours, 48 hours, maybe they could have pulled it off. Maybe. But now it would seem impossible for them to make it to the nuclear power plants. I mean, this would probably be the first area that Russia moves to protect. And I imagine they're going to protect it with everything they've got. You're absolutely right. That is exactly why this whole operation makes no sense.

apparently one of the brigade commanders, Ukrainian brigade commanders, who was tasked with carrying out this operation, refused to do so. He said this operation makes no sense at all, and therefore he was sacked and replaced with someone else. But you're absolutely correct. If it was going to succeed, it needed to succeed in the first 48 to 72 hours before the Russians assembled all the necessary forces that they needed to assemble in order to protect the nuclear power plant. And you're absolutely right also, that the Russians are going to be making absolutely sure that the Russia, that they cause nuclear power plant is extremely well defended. By now, the fact that it hasn't happened by now calls into question the entire logic of this operation and may suggest, if that would suggest, that the operation has already failed, that it's not going to achieve it's objective and that the Russians have already succeeded in effect in countering the operation that's been carried out. At least that's how it looks to me. Obviously, we don't know exactly what the situation is on the ground. But as you're absolutely correctly said, speed is of the essence.

And the Ukrainians clearly in this operation, if, of course, nuclear power plant, is the objective and I am sure it is because what other objective in this area is there? Cusk itself, the city is far too big for the Ukrainians to be able to capture. There's just not enough men to do that. We're talking about a large city, one which the Ukrainians will get very bogged down. In capturing, as I said, villages in an area on the Russian border is not going to achieve anything by itself. They don't have enough men to hold all of this territory for any long time. The Russians would bring back their forces. They would push them back soon or later.

So the only objective that makes any sense is the Kus Nuclear Power Plant. If they haven't captured it by now, then it's very difficult to see that they can to capture it at all, unless there is some major fiasco and debacle on the Russian side. But I doubt that there is. Yeah, I mean, if they capture the nuclear power plant within the next couple of days, then, yeah, we're talking about major incompetence within the Russian administration, no doubt about it. And I think that could lead to a whole other series of events. But the talk is that it was the UK that helped organize this operation. That's what some reports are saying.

I can't confirm that. But we do have other reports which are saying that Sirski, the U.S. Ukraine commander actually phoned up NATO, NATO command, and thanked them for the weapons, for their help. Once again, I can't confirm this 100%, but there are a lot of reports saying that that Siersky has reached out to NATO and he basically thanked NATO. Do you think that there was some sort of collective West hand in all of this in the planning and the strategizing and coming up with this plan to seize the nuclear power plant,

or at a minimum invade Russia, hold on to territory and get some sort of negotiating leverage. Maybe that is the plan. I mean, I don't want to say that's not the plan. Who knows? You know, for Zelenskyy, he is getting media attention, which is something that he absolutely craves. So, you know, maybe this is part of, you know, his cinematic view of the war. But, you know, do you think that the West played a role in this? and if the West did play a role in all of this,

maybe this is a signal that they understand that the war is lost. Maybe the collective West said, you know, you've lost anyway. So might as well just send two, three, four thousand Ukrainian soldiers to their certain annihilation. If they succeed, great. If they don't succeed, you know, what do we care as NATO or as the United? UK or as the Biden White House. I mean, you know, for them, they're not really losing anything with this gamble. I have absolutely no doubt that the collective West is deeply involved. There is no doubt that this kind of operation can only have been done with their knowledge

and with their agreement. The Americans are pretending that they weren't informed in advance because this is very, very embarrassing to them in that respect. You see pictures of American armoured vehicles, and German armoured vehicles, by the way, operating on Russian territory. I can't imagine that all of this would have been done without their agreement and without their knowledge and without some help and coordination from NATO headquarters, and perhaps it was the British who were involved. And I think that's exactly correct. I think you've got it to put your finger in exactly what it is. NATO understands that the war in Ukraine is lost. They've been saying as much, we're getting reports now cascading out.

that in Brussels, there was several articles about two weeks ago saying that in Brussels, they now understand that Ukraine cannot recover its lost territories. But they don't want to give up. So this is the last desperate throw of the dice. They've, I think, come to realize, too, that Western publics are not going to support a war against Russia. I think they're also probably getting advice from the military people. in the West that a war against Russia would be an incredibly bad idea. The F-16s have arrived,

but they've not done very much up to now. And there's growing doubts that they ever will. The attackers have been provided and have achieved absolutely nothing. Now, that's an important thing to say because, you know, the whole story of the attackers was built up over years about what a tremendously, you know, changing weapon, it was a war-winning weapon it would be. And it turns out it's proved to be nothing of the sort. So they can't, for the moment, bring themselves to agree to negotiate. So one last desperate throw organized this offensive onto Russian territory. And Barris Putin, perhaps create hope, always the hope, It will create shock in Russia and will create rumbles in Moscow itself.

But as I said, the obvious military target is the course of nuclear power plant. Of course, they're not admitting this because that would be admitting that NATO and Ukraine are targeting a nuclear facility. But I suspect that this is what this has been about all along. I'm sure NATO is involved. Okay. Any further final thoughts on this? I mean, there's a lot of panic, a lot of

a lot of different reports from both sides. You know, there's doom and gloom. There's there's other sides which are saying Ukraine is making its way to Moscow. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what's going to happen.

At least that's the way I see it. We've been through this before. We've seen it in Belgrade. Oh, we've seen this movie over and over again. But maybe this was a bit more daring in that they still realize. operation. This is using significant forces. And it does look like another admission of defeat, it does look like that Ukraine is

giving up on the Donbass in a way. In a sense, it seems like they've given up on it because no more artillery, no more reinforcements. I mean, this really does signal a last gasp attempt at trying to do something to get out of this mess that Ukraine that Zelensky is in. I mean, a lot of comparisons have been made with the December 1944 German Ardennes offensive, which the Germans launched just a few months before their final collapse. It was a last desperate attempt to turn the tables on the Western Front.

It caught the Americans by surprise, but the American army quickly readjusted, and in the event it was a disaster for the Germans. They lost huge amounts of machines and men, which they were already by this point desperately short of. And most people today believe that the Ardennes offensive, the German Ardennes offensive, which again attracted a lot of headlines at the beginning and caused a certain amount of alarm and panic in Western capitals,

that the actual overall effect of the Ardenne offensive is that it hastened the end of the war in the West. So that's, I think, you know, what we need to understand. Now, there is a huge amount, of reporting here. Some of it is deliberately fostered in order to create a sense of panic and alarm.

This has been one area where the Ukrainians have been incredibly skilled. They create fake telegram channels. They apparently have been phoning up people across Eastern Russia, Western Russia telling them, you know, you've got to evacuate

where the local government, you know, Kukksk is about to fall and all of that. So they're very skilled and good. This is one area where they are miles ahead of the Russians. But it is particularly important, I think, to keep a level head. And to actually look at what is what the actual information we have about the situation on the battlefronts actually is. And to reiterate again, the Ukrainians have captured a couple of villages.

But for the moment, that is all, they're not going to be able to hold on to these villages for any length of time. And it turns out that some of the advances that we were told have happened. Like there were many reports, for example, that the small town of Sousja has already been captured by the Ukrainians. Over the last couple of hours, we can see that this isn't so. And it looks as if the Russians, at least this is, you know, the sense for, getting at the moment is that the Russians are finding their balance that they're coming back. And in the meantime, it's the Ukrainians who are suffering the big losses. So there is a lot of fog of war deliberately created fog of war.

Once it clears, I think you're absolutely right. We'll see that it's another case of the same movie being played again. and again and again. This is the last big act. And it's a sign not that the war is in stalemate or that the Ukrainians are back on the attack or anything like that. It's a further sign that we're coming close to the war zone. One final question. What do you make of the reports which claim that Ukraine has more troops that they're going to send towards Kursk and that Ukraine is also going to open up another front towards Belgarod? In other words, a bigger operation awaits.

What do you make of those? I think they both might even be true. I mean, you know, they're clearly going all in. They're throwing everything they have at this operation. And it may be that we're going to see some pretty bitter fighting over the next couple of weeks. Bear in mind that if they try an operation in Belgarod or wherever, it would be, however, envisioned that the Kusk nuclear power. plant has not been captured. I mean, that's the only way it would make any kind of sense.

But, you know, it's quite likely that they will do that. The Ukrainians have a consistent tendency to reinforce failure. And to me, at the moment, given that the newest nuclear power plant has not been captured, this is starting already to look like a failure. So it's possible that we will get that. But the point is, whatever forces Ukraine throws into this battle, the Russians can exceed it by orders of magnitude. And it may take a while for the Russians to get all their forces in place, all their pieces in place here. But eventually, at some point, within the next few days or weeks, they will. And already we can see. And this isn't just coming from the Russian sources.

apparently there's urgent cause in this area of Ukraine, the area near the border, for, you know, blood, for supplies of blood, for people to donate blood, because Ukrainian losses are so high. We can already see that the Ukrainians are suffering very, very heavy losses by trying out this thing. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, Pitchu, Telegraph, and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like the t-shirts that we are wearing in this video. The link is in the description box down below. I was just thinking, Alexander, before we end the video, this may be the end of the conflict. It was just running through my head.

I mean, this is big operation that Ukraine is conducting. I mean, this might just speed up the end of the conflict for the Zelensky regime. Exactly as to the Ardena offensive. Well, I mean, I think we can overstate the importance of the Ardena offensive, actually, because the major offensive was always in the east, the major battle was always in the east with the Russians. But overall, that's also my sense, that this is the last spasm, the last, you know, kick before the final end.

Bear in mind that there are now lots of, there are reports coming from the other front lines. One of the interesting things is that the Ukrainian authorities have, it seems, have given instructions to their various bloggers and mapping projects and people like that, that they're not allowed to talk any longer about what's going on in other places, Prakrovsk, Tontas, wherever. So it looks as very much as if it's exactly what you said that they're preparing to, that they're recognising that defeat in Donbass is coming and that that's irreversible. So this is their last throw and of course if you fails. I, by the way, don't think they're going to negotiate even then. I think that they will continue to hold out for as long as they can.

Again, much as the Germans did in 1945. I don't think they're psychologically able to do anything else. And retreat into their bunkers, but the war itself, the conventional war will end. I'm going to end with one point. I saw a comment somewhere. This doesn't originate with me, but I unfortunately can't remember the person who said it. But the point was that in a kind of a sense, this attack in Kursk, if it really was aimed at the course nuclear power plant,

which I'm sure it was, is it marks a transitional stage in the way in which the Ukrainians conduct, not the war, but the conflict, that they're going away from, you know, classical battles. And they're now moving towards doing the kind of things that the Chechen and Jihadist did in the last, years of the wars in the caucuses against the Russians in the 2000s, which is to carry out raids deep inside Russian territory, try to seize schools, take hostages, do that kind of thing,

in order to try to somehow wrongful the Russians and embarrass them and maintain, preserve the illusion that the conflict is, or at least preserve the narrative that the conflict is still going. And that we might be getting more of this kind of thing over the next few months. even as the military situation becomes clearer and clearer and, you know, defeat comes. So, I mean, it's a disturbing thought, by the way. It would not surprise me if this is what the current leadership in Ukraine is already thinking of and preparing for. And, you know, if this particular operation that we've just seen isn't a precursor of others like it until eventually. eventually, you know, the entire conflict simply fades out.

Yeah, I saw that comment as well, actually, Alexander. I believe it was a reply to a Twitter post from, I want to say, Russians with attitude, and someone replied to that post and made the point. Yes. I thought it was an, I thought it was an astute. I forgot who it was. No, I forgot who it was. Whoever it was, I thought it was an astute point, and I think that may be true.

I'm afraid it may be true yeah I'm trying to search for that tweet anyway we'll end the video there maybe if I find that tweet people can find people can find it I'm sure they'll find someone

and maybe the person who posted it will pick up the fact that we've quoted it in this program yeah and they'll let a comment down below okay let's end the video there take care