The Duran Podcast - Zelensky's final act of desperation

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Zelensky's final act of desperation

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Ukraine. And let's start things off with the Russian advances into many areas in Dombas. Are you surprised at the speed of the Russian advances, the way they're capturing villages, the information that we're getting towns, villages, settlements, whatever you want to call it, the information that we're getting, which is basically saying, that the Russians are capturing a lot of areas without much of a fight from the Ukraine military, does any of this surprise you? Do you believe that this is what's going on? And what is your assessment of things? It is indisputably going on. Is there any doubt about this at all?

I mean, it's not just a question of, you know, looking at maps and getting information from Russian sources. The Ukrainians are saying the same. I mean, when towns and village, fall. I mean, that isn't fake news. It's fact. We have pictures from most of these towns, or nearly all of these towns. Eventually, you see the Russian soldiers putting up their flags. There's no doubt at all that over the last couple of months, there's been a massive increase in the tempo of the Russian advance. Now, has it surprised me? I'm going to put it like this. I could see that things were speeding up from about March, which is the month after of Defkefell, every single week, you could start to see that the Russians were advancing a bit faster.

And after the village, the key, very important village, crossroads village of Ocheretti Nofel, you started to see the advance quicker. But having said that, though, you know, it was clear to me that an advance. was happening and that it was happening fast. I have been taken by surprise by the speed of the events of the last three weeks, which are unprecedented at any point in this war. The person who's putting it best in some ways is this dissident Ukrainian MP, Mariana Bezaglia.

She's going around, she's saying, look, we're giving up one fortified position after another across Ukraine, we're doing so without a fight. It looks as if the entire Ukrainian army is just going through the motions in many places now of fighting. In some places, they are still fighting fiercely. There is fierce fighting continues in places like Chassevier in the north, around Siversk, in Volchansk, in Harikov region. The battles there continue to be this long, difficult, grinding battle that we have seen. But in other places in Toretsk, in southern Dombas, and of course, most importantly, in Pachrosk, it looks as if we are looking at a rapid collapse.

But remember, this is what happens in attrition wars. We've discussed this many times in many programs that with attrition wars, things are very slow for a very, very long time. and then the collapse is sudden and in a kind of a way we are looking at that kind of sudden collapse not right across the entire front lines but specifically along the most important one

which is the one in central Dombas towards Pachrovsk and in the town of Toretsk which we'd been led to believe was this very heavily fortified place now it has to be said that first the Russians and then the

Ukrainians did something, each of them did something, which has accelerated the collapse. Firstly, the Russians launched that operation in Kharkov region back in May. We said at the time it was partly intended to divert Ukrainian troops from Dombas, which it did. That has accelerated the collapse in Dombas. That was the Russian plan. It worked. Then, utterly bizarrely, and I think we were. amongst the very first to say this, the Ukrainians did the same thing to themselves,

because they launched this offensive in Kusk, apparently hoping to achieve many things, capturing nuclear power stations, nuclear weapons facilities, but also to get the Russians to divert troops from Dombas. And instead, of course, what they did was that they diverted even more troops from Dombas and weakened their front. front lines even further. And that also has accelerated the collapse. So a massive

act of strategic folly, which is what the course cooperation has turned out to be. We said it right at the moment when it began and we are now seeing the results. Yeah, everyone is saying that this is a failure.

Even Sierski himself even said the failure. Well, in the latest stories that are spread, And, you know, again, we must be very careful, is that, you know, when he was told about, about he didn't know anything about it until almost the last moment, and Zelensky, and his American friend sprung it on him. And he was so shocked that apparently he almost resigned. But, you know, this is a story that's apparently spreading.

We don't know exactly whether it's true or not. But anyway, he's clearly now trying to distance himself for the whole affair. My own view is that Suski's days are numbered now. He's going to be Zelensky's next. victims. Zelensky is going to blame the whole thing on Searski. Siersky is going to blame the whole thing on Zelensky. As George Washington once famously said, victory has many fathers defeat as an orphan.

Yeah, Searski will be easy to get rid of. He won't be like Zillusioni. Zillusioni was difficult to get rid of because Zillusioni had a lot of support in the military and also amongst the Ukrainian population. Sirski is not liked by anyone, really. So he's going to be very easy for Zelensky to pin this on. And that's exactly what he's going to do. Bakrovsk, the situation in Bakrowski, is this going to be an Avdekka, Bahmut, difficult area to capture?

Or is this also going to fall very quickly? It does seem like Ukraine is starting to fortify Bakrosk. but the question that I have is that this is coming pretty late. I mean, Bachmutan Avdefka was already, from what I understand, is like Torezk was already very well fortified for many, many years going back from 2014-15. But Pachrosk is not in that situation. It does look like Ukraine is fortifying it and they're bringing in whatever they can into Pachros to defend it because they understand the importance of it.

Poroshenko commented about it. how important Bakrovsk is just the other day. But is it too little, too late? They've left it far too late. They will put up some kind of a fight in Pakrovsk. But not only have they left it too late, but they've lost their operational space. The Russians are clearing up all the villages

and all the towns around Pakrovsk at lightning speed. Pakrovsk itself will be isolated very fast. The troops that they're sending to try and garrison Pakrovsk are nowhere near the kind of elite. troops that they used to fight in Bahmoud and in Avdegovka. As you correctly say, Bachmoud and Avdegovka had been fortified over a period of years. They were part of the great fortified lines that Ukraine created in Dombas, going back all the way to 2014. They're trying to do it this time on the fly. It's almost impossible to see how it can be done effectively.

The likelihood is that Pagrowski, which is a bigger place than some of these other places that the Russians are capturing, a solid of apparently 20,000 or so, Novo Grotivka, around 17,000. It's just taken days for the Russians to capture those places. Mirnograd, apparently the Russians are now in the process of storming. Bakrowski is about 50,000 people, fairly big. built up. They can hold it for some time, a couple of weeks, perhaps, but I don't think that it will take the Russians very long to break through. The Russians are positioned all around eastern and southern Pakrovsk now. They're capturing more and more places. They're in a

position to target the roads and the railway lines to Pakarovsk itself. So it's going to be difficult to supplies sent to this town. The Russians also, and this is a key thing to understand, now that they're in the process of capturing Selidovo and have captured a place called Karlovka, which is a village that apparently fell this morning, they have a straight, big motor road, you know, one of the main highways of Ukraine leading towards Pakhavsk, take all. the way to their major urban and logistical center in Donbass, which is Donnett City,

which resolves any logistical issues that the Russians might have had in this area. The logistics for a Russian offensive on Pakrovsk are much easier than they were in Bahabut and Avdavka. So

the Russians can send reinforcements, they can send supplies, they can send shells, fuel, all of the things that are needed and they can do it very fast up this main road. It's securely now under their control. I would have thought it'd be very, very difficult to hold Pachrovsk for very long. And I think the Ukrainians know this, by the way.

I think that a lot of brave talk about holding Pekrovsk, Zelensky is talking about making it a second, Bakhmud. It's important to remember, Bachmuch itself fell eventually. and by the time the Russians actually reached Bahmoud, I mean the actual fighting inside Bahmoud, as I remember, began around February, 2023,

and the town fell in May 20203. So we're talking about a couple of weeks of fighting. I would have thought it would probably be at most around that amount of time with Pakrovs, which is actually a smaller place. than Bachmoud, less well defended, and the Russians are much stronger now. Yeah, and a lot of the fighting for Bachmoud, I remember a lot of it was getting to a position

where they could storm, but that took up most of the time is getting to the area where you could actually storm Bachmwood. That's the same with, that was the same with Avdevka, that was the same with Marupol and all of these other places.

By the time you reach the city itself and start operations against the city, which is what the Russians are now up to. The city itself is almost already, for all practical purposes, lost. Because whenever the Russians have begun a storming operation inside a city, it falls very quickly.

There's some bitter fighting, but it doesn't take a huge amount of time for the Russians to capture it. Yeah. So, Pakrovsk, when it is captured, that's essentially the beginning of the end of Ukraine's position in the Dombas. I mean, this is one of the main supply hubs, if not the main supply hub. But Domba then begins a quick fall for the Aleksky regime and for Ukraine. And that takes us to the only path to victory that Zelensky is seeing.

The collective West is seeing. We're getting reports that a lot of collective West officials, the CIA, Pentagon, whatever they are, they are also telling Zelensky, look, your only path to victory, our only path to victory is getting the long range strikes into Russia. That seems to be the Borell, Borel saying the same thing. So it does seem that everyone is starting to come to the understanding. I won't say everyone. Most people in the collective West are coming to the understanding that if you are going to maybe get some sort of negotiation started, some sort of rumbling and grumbling and regime change in Moscow or whatever, if you're going to do something, it's going to happen with

permission to launch long-range missiles into Russia. It's a long shot, but it's the only shot that they seem to have. And it does look like most people in the West are starting to understand this. I'm not saying they agree to it, but they are starting to understand that this is the only shot that they have. Of course, for me, this is the collective West attacking Russia. It's not really Ukraine attacking Russia. I think that's where you run into big problems. Absolutely. Well, let's first of all begin. If Pachrosk falls, I think it is the beginning of the end of the Battle of Dombas. If Dombas falls completely under Russian control, then it is the beginning of the end of the Ukrainian presence in eastern Ukraine.

I mean, all of eastern Ukraine, east of the Dnieper, then becomes undefendable. I mean, what's left of Zaporosia region will quickly fall under Russia. Russian control and the Ukrainians might try and put up more of a defence in places like Harikov and Sumi region, but it looks very, very difficult to see how they can hold on for very long there either. So we would be looking at a situation where the entire eastern eastern Ukraine, east of the Dnieper, 40% of the country by territory, but something like 60% in terms of GDP before the war, has come under the control of Russia. I think that's the thing to say. So, you know, this is, this is a decisive moment. Now, let's talk about long-range missiles.

This is probably what they are going to do, but it is a calculation born of desperation, because there is absolutely nothing else. You're absolutely right in saying it. The collapse is coming much faster than the Americans had expected. They were hoping, as we've discussed many times, to prevent the collapse happening before the November election. There is now a real possibility that Prakos could fall before the November election with all the problems that that will create, probably an even bigger collapse across Dombas as well.

So they're desperate and they're clutching straws because this is what this is. And the latest one that they're coming up with is missile strikes. Missile strikes deep into Russia in order to try to force the Russians to negotiate. Now, there are so many things to say about this. This is such a bad idea on so many levels. First of all, it is not going to achieve what they expect. launching missile strikes at Russia is an active, absolute folly in terms of how the Russians themselves

and I'm talking now about the Russian population are going to respond. They're going to see it as proof that the Americans, the British, the Western powers are attacking them. It's going to make the Russian people once and for all conclude that the Western enemies of Russia. It's going to consolidate Russian opinion. it's going to lead to demands, at the very least, that the war in Ukraine be prosecuted to the point where the entirety of Ukraine falls under Russian control so that there is not a millimeter of Ukrainian territory from which these kind of missiles can be launched. So it's going to achieve, in strict military terms, the opposite of what people in the West think it will.

Secondly, in terms of damage, actual damage that he can do to the Russians, well, some missiles will get through, but just look at the size of Russia. A kind of bombing campaign of Russia of the kind that, you know, the West has done in other places in Vietnam, in North Korea, in Germany during the Second World War, it's impossible. You know, launching a few missiles at targets. close to the border, because they can't reach deep inside Russia, even if the Ukrainians were using Tomahawk missiles, you know, the long-range ones, they would struggle to reach targets in the Urals or places like this. And they just don't have enough of them. The production rates for

these things are very, very, very small. So you can't conduct that kind of bombing and missile offensive across Russia that, you know, was done in previous Western wars, and all of those bombing campaigns failed. Why assume that with a country like Russia a bombing campaign of that kind, even if it were possible, which it is not, would succeed? Thirdly, the Russians have repeatedly shown that they have the ability to shoot these missiles down. The Western powers have been launching missile after missile at Russian positions. in Crimea, in Dombas, the Russians shoot down around 80%, 90% sometimes, of the missiles that are launched. It's inconceivable that it would be any different if the missiles were launched deeper inside Russia itself.

And lastly, in terms of the Russian reaction, because the Russians would have come to see the West as an enemy, one must assume, and they have said they will, start to take countermeasures against the West. They will start to provide similar long-range missiles, of which they have many more, with far more powerful capabilities to other countries and other groups that are hostile to the West. And given that it's we who are spread out, we in the West, who are spread out around the world, that will make our own strategic military political position far more vulnerable than it has been up to this time. It would make it, I mean, just imagine if the Houthis, for example,

had Russian missiles like the Onyx or the Zircon. I mean, it just doesn't even bear thinking about what would happen in that kind of case. But that's the scenario that we are bringing about. So it is an absolutely desperate, completely reckless, move, which can only be counterproductive. And of course, the last thing is, obviously, the West will try to maintain some kind of control over these weapons launches, which, by the way, will further confirm for the Russians that the West is involved in attacks on Russia itself.

But as the situation in Ukraine hurtles towards an even more conclusive collapse, the temptation, both on the part of the Ukrainians and on the Western powers to start making reckless attacks, not just on Russian military positions, but on Russian civilian infrastructure, nuclear power stations, all Russian radar systems that are intended to protect Russia from American ballistic missiles. That temptation is inevitably going to grow if a missile like that gets through and strikes a nuclear power,

power station? Maybe it won't do a huge amount of damage. Apparently these are very well defended and they're very, very strongly shielded. But you can imagine the reaction. And of course, if horror of horrors, there is a nuclear accident. Who is going to be blamed? The West is, the Ukrainians are. It's not going to change Russian attitudes about the war. But it's going to mean that the whole of the world will start to see that the West is prepared to engage in what the world will see as nuclear terrorism. This is a crazy idea. It shows how desperate people in Washington, London, Brussels and Berlin and Paris are becoming and the kind of extreme lengths that they're going to go. They're prepared to go to. Even as their precious Ukraine

project collapses all around them. Yeah, they should begin negotiations. They should capitulate to Russia, but they won't. We already know that. So they're still fixated after three years of this. You come to the understanding that they are still fixated on Putin, and they are still fixated on removing Putin. I mean, that still remains the end goal of this entire Ukraine conflict.

It always has been about regime. in Russia. It still remains regime change in Russia. You understand that by reading every article that they put out. By just looking at the titles of the articles that the collective West puts out by listening to their statements, they're fixated on this one man, removing Putin. So my final question to you is maybe they're thinking. And this is a weird way to look at it, but I'm trying to put myself in their shoes. I'm trying to think like they think. They're so obsessed. with Putin and removing Putin, maybe the goal in the long-range missiles, in green lighting, long-range missile strikes into Russia and providing the targeting, their surveillance,

the satellite imagery, everything. I mean, they're going to be doing so much of the heavy lifting in order to target Russia. Maybe the goal is that they want the missiles to get through. The goal is to have the missiles get through, whatever targets they're looking at, They have a list. Supposedly, Yardmak is bringing a list to the Biden White House of targets. The missiles go through and they understand they know that Putin is not in favor of escalation. He has been holding back.

And that's probably the biggest criticism that Putin faces today with regards to the conflict in Ukraine is that he has been holding back, is that he has been taking it very slow for various reasons, which we've explained on this channel many times. just a couple of weeks ago, we understood that one of the forces that is holding Russia back or is moderating Russia's response to whatever attacks are coming from Ukraine. It's China. China has been playing a big part in keeping Putin's waging of the conflict, keeping it moderate. We understand that now. maybe they're thinking is, you know, if we can attack Russia effectively, then we will amplify the criticism of Putin because he will continue to want to go slow at during this conflict,

and then we can somehow get the regime change. In other words, maybe they're hoping that the hardliners rise up and remove Putin with these attacks. Oh, yes, I'm sure they are. I mean, I don't think they care actually. And then they'll deal with the hardliners afterwards. I mean, I do think I think I think the outlook is that, you know, provided you can get some kind of crisis in Moscow, it doesn't matter now any longer who exactly comes, you know, leads the crisis, whether it's a hardliner or a, or a moderate, getting rid of this terrible man, Putin, as you rightly say, has become the overriding obsession. And you don't really look beyond that.

To be honest, and this is a point I just wanted to make. I was thinking overnight, because I've been thinking about this whole missile strike idea, whether one of the objectives now is to target Putin. In other words, to launch missiles of the Kremlin or wherever they think Putin is. I mean, we are in that kind of obsessive situation. and I'm sure that Putin's security people are thinking about that and that there are discussions about what to do to shield him. But in terms of what you said, I think this is absolutely correct.

I mean, we've done two very interesting programs on the Duran, one with John Helmer, where we did a live stream, in which he discussed at length, the fact that Putin has been applying the break, that there's been great frustration of the part of many people in Russia about the fact that the break has been there, that there have been demands for many, many people in Russia, that the break, that Putin finally take his foot off the break

and allow things to move faster. So there is that, that demands. Now, we also did a program, which you can find on the Duran, an interview with Dmitri Polianzky, who is a Russian diplomat, very, very senior Russian diplomat, Matt. He's deputy ambassador for Russia at the UN. And he vindicated

he completely corroborated our analysis, our discussion of a few, about a week ago, in which we said that the Russians had been under pressure, an awful lot of pressure over the last few months from their various friends. And he didn't name the

Chinese, but it's not difficult to guess that the Chinese were amongst them, but probably Orban from Hungary, Modi from India, all of those people. They've been under pressure. The Ukrainians have been coming around. The West has been coming around. They've all been saying, well, look, you know, maybe we do now understand that some kind of peace is in fact necessary.

And let's all sit down and have negotiations. The Russians have been deeply skeptical about this. But they don't want to antagonize their friends. They don't want to appear intransigent or obdivor. or anything of that kind. So, you know, they were, you know, saying that they were open to the idea of negotiations. And then, of course, the course cooperation was launched. And Polianzky said that all that pressure that the Russians had been under was lifted,

that all of those people in China, in India, in Hungary, who'd assumed that the Ukrainians were acting in good faith when they were talking about negotiations. The scales fell from their eyes. They finally understood that the Russians were telling the truth, that these people are completely intransigent, and that the pressure on the Russians

to begin negotiations has gone. Now, he said that, on the record, in an interview with a Duran, just go and watch it. It's all there. Now, if that is true, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is, by the way, I've been reading the Chinese media. The moment the Cusk operation started, they were furious about what happened. Clearly, Kulabur came to China.

Remember the Ukrainian foreign minister? He was talking peace. The Chinese sort of went along with it. They discovered that he was stringing them along, that it wasn't true. The Chinese are absolutely furious about this. Modi, who agreed to go to Kiev, presumably in order to discuss some kind of peace negotiations with the Ukrainians and maybe positioned India as a potential mediator. He went to Kiev, he found Zelensky talking all the old tunes. You know, it must be all based on his peace formula.

The Russians must pull out completely from Ukraine. He cut short his visit. He was only there a few hours, apparently. He went back to India. He, too, is furious, apparently, about the whole course escapade. He's come under criticism from retired Indian Foreign Service officers. We were informed about that by an Indian member of our community on one of our line streams yesterday. So that pressure has gone.

Now, why assume that... this massive escalation by the West, which will completely confirm everything that the Russians have been saying about the threat that Ukraine poses to them and the hostile intentions of the West. Why assume that that is going to make all of these very angry countries, less angry with the West, and more likely to apply wet pressure, on the Russians. Far more likely, they're going to say to themselves, the Russians were right all along. We should have listened to Putin. He said that this is a danger to Russia,

an existential threat to Russia. He is obviously right. Therefore, let's give him the green light. Let's tell him, right, we understand now that you've been applying the break, you've been listening to what we're saying, we've been saying, but you've been right all along. If you want to lift the break, move faster, then go ahead and do it.

A final question, do you think that Putin will keep his foot on the break until the November election to see if Trump wins? Possibly. I mean, this is just one possibility. I mean, there is the military aspect of this, which is that, of course, I'm. Here I am myself convinced. I think the Russian military for some time anyway has been moving according to its own timetable. I mean, they're moving now.

They've been moving very, very fast in Dombas. I wonder whether it's really practical for them to move any faster than they actually already are. In other words, they've got their plans. Would they really want to hasten their plans anyway? taking Pachrovsk, it's going to be a difficult operation. I mean, they will do it, they will achieve it. They've got, as I said, the secure road, which sorts out their logistics. They've got much better troops.

Their armies getting bigger. They've got their operational plan. I think there is constant discussion between the military and the political leaders in Moscow between Putin and the general staff. I think it goes on all the time. I think that certainly the November election is a factor. They might be looking at whether Trump is indeed going to be elected. I don't think, however, they're putting a huge amount of weight on that.

Because the country argument, there is a country argument that he do want Trump to win. I'm not saying the Russians do, by the way, but assuming that they do, because he's spoken previously about wanting better relations with Russia and he still seems to be talking a little bit about that. Well, why then delay until the November elections? Why not collapse Ukraine before? And then that will hit the Democrats and support Trump in some way. So it's not a reason to apply the break.

It's on the contrary. If it's anything, it's a reason to put your foot down on the acceleration. I'm not saying that's going to happen, by the way. I'm not saying that's the thinking. But deliver a debacle, create a disaster in Ukraine, and then Trump can come in and say, look, I'm not to blame. It was nothing to do with me. The Russians have won.

Now let's try and come to terms. I'm not saying those are the calculations in Moscow, but perhaps there are some people who are talking like, that. Yeah, I mean, it's because Trump has been saying that he wants to negotiate. And the thinking, some of the thinking is that Putin does want a negotiated end to the conflict, not so much a military solution, but he does want to figure out a diplomatic solution to the conflict. So, you know, Trump talking on and on about how he wants to negotiate and how he wants to end the conflict, you can make the case that that Russia may say, okay, let's wait.

and see what happens in November. And if Trump does win, then maybe the door is open to to negotiate an end to the war instead of imposing a military solution. I mean, that is the argument that is made for for Trump winning in November. Something that the Biden White House never says. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there are people, and going back to the live stream, we did yesterday with Helmer, there are people in Moscow who do want some. kind of understanding with the Americans. And there is that current of thinking in Moscow. And Putin has a time shared it.

I mean, he has spoken about the fact that ultimately Russia and the United States do need to come to some kind of understanding with each other. But of course, there is now an alternative current of thinking in Moscow, which the recent events, the events of the last couple of weeks, has made much stronger. People like Medvedev, perhaps the military, public opinion. Lavrov, all of them.

They're all saying, they're all saying, they're all saying, look, I mean, you know, we tried and tried and tried. It's never worked. Let's just go on fighting and finish the war. And then after we've won, that will be the moment when we come to terms. Because any agreement that we make with the way,

unless it's backed by force and isn't going to be worth the paper it's written on. And I have to say, I think increasingly Putin is tilting in that direction as well. So, I mean, I think, and I have to say this also, I think if the West, which I think it will, by the way, does this reckless thing of authorising missile strikes on Russia, that hardline grouping, which is already very powerful, far more powerful than it was in 2022.

I think that hardline faction is going to become stronger still. So the diplomatic pressure will be taken away because the global south, the Chinese, all of the brick states, they will all see that, in fact, the Russians were right all along about the threat the West poses and the threat Ukraine poses and the West's hostility to Russia. that's so that restraint will have gone and within Russia itself probably any further restraint will have also gone because the more moderates if you like those people who have still said to themselves well let's try and find some diplomatic way forward will have had the ground cut from beneath them because the missile strikes on Russia will have reinforced will have made the hard

liner's argument for them. So if this if these missile strikes are intended to force the Russians to negotiations, it's going to have the opposite result like everything else that's been done. I mean, you know, sanctions have been attempted, as we know, providing. every Ukraine, every kind of weapon that it wants, all of that has been attempted at various times. And instead of it achieving the objectives, the West thinks that it will, it achieves the opposite. So escalation has completely failed in this war. But the fact remains that if you're talking to people like Morel and other people like him in Washington, when escalation fails, all that they ever do is come back and demand still more escalation.

Yeah, I think the missile strikes, I'm coming to the belief that the missile strikes are about creating division between Putin, who is a moderate. And I think that's good that he's a moderate. Thank God that he's a moderate. And the hard ladders, I think that's what these missile strikes are meant to accomplish. They're meant to move the moderates against them. Putin because their calculation is that even if they do launch the missile strikes into Russia, Putin will continue to take a moderate approach to the conflict. I think that's what they're betting on.

They're going to fail, but that's my belief. I believe that's what they're betting on. And, you know, Putin, I mean, he has to consider so many things, diplomatic, economic, bricks, foreign relations, the military aspect. So the way he's he's been managing this war is pretty incredible. given so many considerations dealing with the internal forces, the oligarchs. I mean, you know, he's got a lot of stuff to consider. But that's how I see it.

Yeah, I think one of the big – and my final question to you is I think one of the big revelations was indeed that Russia's allies – this is a huge revelation over the past couple weeks. They have been telling – I don't know. consulting with Putin so that he can keep the breaks on this conflict for whatever reasons they have. I'm still not quite sure. Maybe you can answer this as we finish the video. I'm still not quite sure why it's so important for, say, China and India in these countries to have the war go in a slower pace or to try and not resolve the war through military means, but through a diplomatic solution. I'm still trying to understand what's the reasoning behind this. Anyway, I gave you a to talk about so you can end the video.

Briefly, briefly, in terms of the attempt to create difficulties between Putin and the hardliners, undoubtedly there is that. But what missile strikes are it going to do is that they are more likely to convert Putin from a relative moderate to a relative hardliner. I think this is the thing to understand. Launching missile strikes is not going to persuade Putin to apply the break even more. It's going to persuade Putin. It's going to cause Putin to take the break off.

That is much more likely in terms of what is going to happen. And it is going to much more likely in terms of what, Russia's various friends will want, will now accept. Because I said, it makes the case. The Russians have been saying all along, Ukraine was a threat, Ukraine was a danger, the West was planning to install missiles in Russia, they were going to, in Ukraine, they were going to use those missiles to threaten Russia. And lo and behold, we are proof of it.

That is exactly what has happened. So it's exactly the scenario that the hardline has always warned about and which Putin himself was concerned about. How is that going to make him remain a moderate? It's just going to prove to him that the only way to end this problem is to see this war through. and that negotiations with the West and with the Ukrainians

are a hopeless idea. By the way, there are some people in Washington who do apparently understand this. There's reports, I saw which I think was in Politica, that some of the people who are arguing back against this idea of launching strikes against Russia are saying that if we do that, we're going to burn our bridges once and for all with the Russians.

There will be no way back towards any kind of future in which we have any kind of diplomatic or civil or a relationship with the Russians, even of the kind that we used to have during the Cold War. And I think that is absolutely right. That's the first thing to say. Now, about Russia's various friends, Turkey, India, China, all of them, why have they been a force for moderation? Well, the straightforward answer to that goes back to what happened in February 22. From a global perspective, sending Russian troops into Ukraine looked like a violation, a massive violation of international law.

It went against the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It was a challenge to the authority of the Ukrainian government over its own. territory. Now, there are lots of reasons and explanations why the Russians felt that they should do that. We've discussed that in many places. But as any lawyer will tell you, when you have to explain, you have already lost. And now, that's not strictly true in this case. Countries around the world were very open to listening to Russian explanations because they've got very accustomed. to the West, but nonetheless, the Russians did have to spend an awful lot of time explaining this. And however hard they had, they tried to explain this, it is still understandable that

countries like India, for example, which have secessionist problems of their own in Kashmir, in the sea carriers, in other places, China, which has the same issues with Tibet and, of course, Taiwan, all sorts of countries. around the world, which take the concept of international law, territorial integrity, state sovereignty, extremely seriously, would say, well, let's try to preserve that as best we can in Ukraine by getting some kind of negotiated solution of the conflict there. And what has happened ever since the special military operation began in February 2022 is that instead of the West, capitalising on those doubts, every single step that they have taken since February 22 has worked to confirm that the Russian case. And I think this summer, this summer when many countries around the global south thought that perhaps finally the Ukrainians and the Western powers were coming to their senses.

And it turned out that they were not. I think that has been an absolutely crucial moment in the war. Because it's all about regime changing Putin. It's this obsession. It's obsession. That's what's done them in. Yes. Okay, we will end the video there.

The durand.com. We are on Rumbleaudy Cepachute Telegram, Rockfin, and TwitterX, and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.