The Duran Podcast - Zelensky's cynical game

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Zelensky's cynical game

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is happening in Ukraine on the front lines. The Kersk pocket is getting smaller and smaller, though I have heard reports saying that Ukraine is sending as many reinforcements as they possibly can to try and hold on, or at least to try and hold on to Sutsa. That's what I'm hearing. They're trying to build some sort of defense line. Yes, to hold on to Sutsa. We're going to have the battle in Pachrosk beginning very soon. The Russians are closing in on Bakros. Kouakovov, I believe, can be called to Russia, right? It's been captured by Russia, I think Krakowov. I don't think the Ministry of Defense has officially announced it,

but it's clear that Kourakow has been taken about the Russians. We have Dorek as well, which will be captured by the Russians fairly soon, I believe. And then we have the situation in the South where something is happening. At least that's how it looks. Yeah. It looks like something big. going to take place. Maybe not, but what's going on? I think you sounded up. You sounded up extremely well. Now, briefly, Zelensky gambled massively on the Coast Corporation in the summer. I mean,

he was losing the war then. He understood that he had to turn things around fast from a military point of view. He came up with this eccentric plan to send troops into Kosk region. I've expressed my clear views many times. Did he come up with it or was the UK? Well, no, somebody. Well, that's a very good point, actually, because it's, by the way, it's looking increasingly clear that there was a Western, an American and a British input into it. The reason the Americans are the British are downplaying their involvement is because there's no doubt at all to mind what the objective was. I've said this many times. The Russians, it's now the official Russian position. It was to capture the course nuclear power plant, just to say, I mean, you make that absolutely clear. But anyway, that failed. It wasn't

achieved within the first five days when it was the only window in which it could theoretically have been achieved was in those first five days. So the logical thing to do then was to pull out because the mission has failed. But of course they didn't. They stayed where they were. It's now become a prestige thing. So they're doubling down on it. And there was a long article, I think, was in the Washington Post, or one of the American places about the fact that they continue to fight on

and their greedy determination to hold on to the Coos pockets. So they're sending all their best men and all their best equipment to fight on in Coosk, which of course works completely to the Russian advantage because you're quite right. This pocket is shrinking in size every day now. One village is captured. What tree line is captured? It's getting smaller and small. I mean, it's about less than a third of its original size now.

So it looks as if they're going to try and cling on to Sujia. A small town of perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 people, hardly a big place. A pipeline does pass through it. But again, is it really worth it fighting to control Sousia? But it looks as if they're going to go on doing that. No, Putin is saying that more Ukrainian heavy equipment, tanks, armored vehicles and those kind of things have been destroyed by the Russians in the Sousja pocket, in the Kuzpocket, than in the over the entire year of 2023. And that, of course, 2023, include Ukraine's disastrous

summer offensive. So if Putin is right, and I suspect he is, by the way, I mean, he's always kept pretty well briefed about these kind of things, then that gives you a sense of how massively expensive, disproportionately expensive, this operation in Kuskaspin. In fact, it has been a disaster. It's the graveyard of the best Ukrainian troops and the best Ukrainian armor. It's weakening Ukraine and is helping the Russians advance faster in all sorts of other places. Meanwhile, across the rest of Ukraine, across the rest of the battlefronts, as you said, the contact line, again, You described the situation clearly. The Kurohovo, the battle for Koura Kurovo is over.

The city of Kouraqv, the town of Koura has fallen under Russian control. There is still a major industrial building or complex, which is the power station there. We have the usual reports that there are several hundred Ukrainian soldiers. For no obvious purpose or reason clinging on to this power station, there is still a lot of Some reports that there are underground bunkers beneath it, that they might withdraw into those bunkers. It's the Azov-style story all over again. Ukrainian troops told to stand firm, likely to become trapped.

It's just a disaster, and there is no military value to them holding onto the power station. But again, Zelensky is insisting on it, as he did with Azov-Styl. One sense is mostly because of prestige reasons. And in the meantime, they've sent one of the brigades of the Azov forces to Pachrosk. They've been trying to conduct counter-offensives around Pachrosk. There's been very, very heavy fighting around Pachrovsk. We are at far too later stage in this war for these kind of counter-attacks. to be successful. And they launched one country attack last week, and by some reports, it not only

failed catastrophically, but something like 1,700 men were killed or wounded over the course of it. So fighting continues across Ukraine. And you could see that the Russian objective continues to be mostly to destroy the Ukrainian army. I mean, they surround various places. They could complete the battles for some of these places actually quite quickly. Torez, probably, which they now control, I guess, about 80% of it.

There's no major fortified positions there. But they know Zelensky, they know Siersky, they know that Zelensky and Siersky are given an opportunity. will always reinforce failure. They continue to send troops to fight places, in particular, undefendable places like they're doing in Sousja, like they're doing in Prakosk, and the result is that the Russians are grinding down what is left of the Ukrainian army faster and faster.

And Ukrainian commentators are now predicting, and it's Ukrainian, not Russian commentators. are now saying that if this continues in this way for very much longer, sometime around the spring, the entire defence line will simply collapse. Bezuglia said that a few weeks ago. Now, other reporters closer to the Ukrainian military is saying the same thing. And in the south? Right. The south is very interesting because there's a very big Russian military grouping in the south. A group of forces, Nipa. The Ukrainians say it has 130,000 men, which is a big force by any standard.

They're commanded by one of Russia's most successful generals, General Timplinsky. And for about, well, for most of this year, they haven't actually done very much. So there's lots of rumors and speculation about what exactly is going on. So on the Ukrainian side, there's been lots of suggestions that Ukraine itself might be thinking of launching some kind of counterattack in this area, might be making another retent to capture the Zaporosian nuclear power plant. They failed to capture the cause nuclear power plant in. The summers, so why not try with the Zaporosia-Ciuklopal plant, now presumably with the same calculus.

The trouble is that there's a very, very large number of Russian troops here, according to the Ukrainians themselves and a very able general. So there had been some Ukrainian countertacks. They'd been so far on a very small scale. And I wonder whether the Ukrainians really are in a position to counterattack against such a powerful Russian force. But anyway, there is some speculation that something like that might have. But the Russians for their part are also doing their own thing. And there are reports that they've now cleared all of the positions on the east bank of the Dnieper and the islands of the Dnieper opposite the city of Hairson. There's some rumors that some big Russian amphibious operation might be in preparation,

that the Russians might be planning to return to Herson City, which of course they abandoned in the autumn of 2022. And there's also reports that the Russians are creeping closer to towns like O'Ejov and Gulliapolje and. and the village of Malaya, Tokmachka, and all of these places. And, of course, there's an ongoing battle for another village called Velika and Novosilka, a little bit further to the east. And all of that could be working towards an advance up the river towards the city of Zaporosia, which is, of course, the capital of Zaporosia region, which the Russians say is part of Russian

territory. So it could be that these things are in the works. As I said, there are large numbers of Russian troops here. And the Russian defense minister, Bel-Uusuf, has supposedly said that the Russians expect to clear the entire territory of the four regions of the Ukrainian troops over the course of 2025. And that might indeed be what is cooking, that the Russian. are preparing an operation maybe in the spring to return to Herson region and that they might be in the early stages of preparing an offensive towards the city of Zaporazi as well. And that would not be surprising, but there are signs of this. There's no confirmation of this at the moment. And in terms of a river, operation, an operation to cross the river. I don't think it's going to happen now, because trying

to do that in winter, when part of the river is covered by ice and weather conditions are very difficult, I would have thought would be too complicated and risky an operation, even for the Russians at this stage in the war. What do you make of the reports from the Guardian, which claims that Ukraine is using their air defense personnel to now be infantry. What does that tell you? Is the Guardian with their reporting? Actually, we've heard this in the past as well. This is not the first time this has come up,

but the Guardian reported this a couple of days ago. And what do you make of the reports which claim that Zelensky is going to pitch to the United States, but to the collective West, specifically to the United States, the Biden White House, that he will lower the conscription age to 18 if he gets more weapons and more money. Yeah. Right.

About the transfer of air defense troops to fight his infantry, about that there is absolutely no doubt at all. Now, the person who first reported it was the dissident Ukrainian MP, Bezuglia, about a month ago. And at that time, it was not denied. had it was sort of confirmed. And if you read the Guardian article, I mean, they discussed this, they discussed this at length. And of course, the Russians continued their air offensive against Ukraine continuously with missiles, with bombs. I know some people were saying a couple of days ago that the Russians have been dropping fewer bombs on Ukraine. I think that was perhaps

true for a couple of days, almost certainly because of weather conditions. I don't think there's any real slackening of the Russian air campaign. So what we see is that Ukraine's position, situation on the battlefronts, is now so desperate that in order to try and hold the line, they're having to strip bare even their most essential rear services. And there is no more essential one than air defense troops. And the article in The Guardian went on to say that these are highly skilled people and they are being sacrificed, you know, as infantry. Because basically there are no infantry.

I mean, or they're insufficient infantry. All of that, of course, is leaving most of the skies over Ukraine clear at only one point in time. There was a big missile attack on Kiev a couple of days ago. Only eight missiles were used. The Ukrainians claim to have shot down seven. Most people who view this think that the Ukrainians shot down nothing, that their air defense really wasn't working. The Ukrainians have basically given up trying to shoot down gerundromes in any great quantity.

And all of that does strongly suggest that there is a major crisis in their air defenses system. Many of the missiles have been used. Many of the launches have been destroyed. Much of the personnel has been sacrificed. And I don't think there's any doubt about this. And again, it just emphasizes how bad and desperate the situation has become. And again, to say straightforward, leads to going back to the point that you make, without sending Western troops to fight in Ukraine, There is really no solution to this problem. Now, Zelensky has repeatedly said that he isn't going to lower the age of conscription to 80. That's what he has always said.

Nobody should take that seriously. What he's clearly doing is he's bargaining. He's trying to get more weapons, more commitments, more promises from the Europeans, from the Americans, that they will send more weapons, more money to Ukraine. We're talking about money, there's a report out that says that 90% of Ukrainian expenditure is now covered by the West. So that tells you so much Ukraine now depends on the West. So anyway, he wants all of this and he says, look, if you do this, well, I don't really

want to recruit, conscript the 18-year-olds, but if you do all of that, then perhaps possibly I will. It is an unbelievably cynical game. And again, what it tells you, what he tells me is that Zelensky once again is when he pretends that he's acting to protect young Ukrainians, what he and the political class around him are really doing is that they're bargaining the lives that those young Ukrainians in return for more money from the West, keeping the grift going for as long as they can. I imagine he wants to get some sort of deal like this done before Biden leaves, right? Correct. Exactly. Okay, well end the video there.

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