Transcription
All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. And uh, we have a lot going on, so uh, let's jump right into it. What is the the situation on the ground? What is the situation with the blockade of Odessa?
>> What is the situation with the gas stations? We are getting news that uh that gas stations in certain areas have been completely destroyed by Russia. And what is Ukraine uh doing? What is the retaliation from Ukraine? A lot of news about Ukraine focusing now on the Caspian. So, what are your thoughts on everything going on with this war?
Well, I I think that we are in terms of the ground war actually pretty close now to a very very decisive moment which is basically the big battle for Donbass. The final battle if you like for Donbass. Donbass is going to fall. Um, I'm not going to give a date on it, but it it's coming and it's coming on us fast faster I think than many people imagine. I mean, I know that there's some people who think it will drag on into 2027. It might do, but at the moment it doesn't look like that.
And >> is there a reason for that by the way >> that it may be it may be going faster?
>> Well, I think there is. I mean, we will come to that. And I mean there are there are multiple reasons actually but um and the same I I'm going to get I'm going to say is true of what's happening in the south in Zaporizhzhia. I mean we've had in Zaporizhzhia and in the south we had very very rapid advances by the Russians in 2024, 2025. They um advanced all the way from basically Donetsk, the city of Donetsk, all the way past Huliaypole um over 2024, 2025. Then they reached the sort of eastern defense lines of Orikhiv and at that point the Ukrainians understood that this is a real major crisis that if Orikhiv falls the Russians will be able to move on there will be nothing between the Russians and Zaporizhzhia city. So over the course of the uh spring, the the late winter and spring and early summer, the Ukrainians carry out a lot of counterattacks against the Russians um in Zaporizhzhia region. They threw in large numbers of troops. This is, you know, what apparently Syrsky, you know, General Syrsky commander who's just been dismissed. [snorts] This was his priority to try to hold the lines um in Zaporizhzhia because as we've discussed in many programs if the Russians reach the river in the in the Dnipro in the central regions of Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia is in the southern edge of the central regions but we're already getting very close to a decisive point if the Russians reach there then frankly it is existential for Ukraine. Ukraine's viability as a state begins to um end. And Syrsky understood this very well and as I said he threw everything that the Ukrainians had into trying to stop the Russians advancing towards capturing Orikhiv. So we've had a whole succession of Ukrainian counterattacks in um the spring and early summer and late winter I should say of this year. And that has slowed the Russians down. However, we seem to be past the point of Ukraine being able to sustain these counterattacks. So though the Ukrainians recaptured some villages both in western and eastern Ukraine, the Russians are now quickly capturing them all back and especially in eastern eastern Zaporizhzhia I should say not eastern Ukraine, eastern Zaporizhzhia and in eastern Zaporizhzhia where one gets the sense that the main force that's going to capture Orikhiv is located. They're now starting to move again and they seem to be breaking through the defense lines, the very last defense lines to the east of Orikhiv and they're approaching now the supply roads to itself.
Now, if the Russians break through, and it looks as if they are going to break through, um, then we're going to have an effective encirclement of Orikhiv because the Russians have powerful forces to the west and to the south and if they break through where they're now breaking through, they will be in the east and in the north. So, it'll be a complete encirclement. It will be in effect a cauldron of Orikhiv. It will be a bigger version of what we have seen in other Ukrainian fortress towns. Avdiivka in 2024, um, Severodonetsk at the end of 2025. And what tends to happen when a town is encircled in that way is that the collapse comes very fast. So perhaps sometime in September October we could see a collapse in Orikhiv. Again one has to be careful with dates because the Ukrainians will no doubt do whatever they can again to slow this down. A collapse in Orikhiv will be a disaster because I said there is no obstacle at that point for the Russians to move on further towards Zaporizhzhia. The city of Zaporizhzhia, the city of Zaporizhzhia and the city of Dnipro are the two big industrial cities that Ukraine has um still under its control in central Ukraine. If it loses either one of these two cities, it is a catastrophe. We're talking in the case of Zaporizhzhia of a city of more than a million people. By the way, just to say so. I mean, this is a big big place. If they lose Zaporizhzhia, it's a disaster. It closes the southern um the southern uh part of the Dnipro, all of the Dnipro that leads towards the sea. And the fall of Zaporizhzhia city potentially creates opportunities for the Russians to do a whole set of further things. They can then move north towards Dnipro, the city of Dnipro. Zaporizhzhia, I should say, is on the east bank of the um river of the Dnipro. Dnipro is on the Ukrainian West Bank. Expressions that we're going to have to get to start using more and more I suspect and which are going to become increasingly common. There is this expression left bank Ukraine and right bank Ukraine that goes back to the 17th century. Left bank Ukraine is all of Ukraine east of the Dnipro. Right bank Ukraine is all of Ukraine west of the Dnipro.
Well, if they capture Zaporizhzhia, I think it is the beginning of the end of Ukraine's ability to um control any part of East Bank Ukraine, left bank Ukraine. And if they control Zaporizhzhia, then the Russians also have the ability to advance westwards across the Dnipro. It becomes easier for the Russians to cross the Dnipro because they control one of the big cities there. And then a whole chain of cities in the south southwest of Ukraine begin to open up. Nikopol, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa. [snorts] It would be and of course Kherson as well the city of Kherson. It is easier for the Russians, or so it seems to me, to advance towards these cities on Ukraine's Black Sea coast by crossing the Dnipro [snorts] further north in the um Zaporizhzhia area than it would be further south in um [snorts] in um Kherson region where the Russians already are because there are many more river obstacles in the way of the Russians if they want to push westwards from Kherson towards Mykolaiv and Odesa than there would be from Zaporizhzhia. However, obviously there are the big cities in the way Nikopol, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv and potentially these are places that the Ukrainians could defend. But then bear in mind um we would already be looking at that point at a Ukraine that is in a position of catastrophe and um Ukraine's ability to organize defenses once it's lost big industrial centers like Zaporizhzhia and Donbas which I'm going to come to in a moment and with the Russians probably likely pushing forward elsewhere in eastern Ukraine as Um I mean attrition is not a linear thing. Uh, one of the big mistakes it seems to me that many many people make is that they imagine that because the Russians are moving slowly through Donbas um once um that that they will be moving slowly right across the whole of Ukraine moving at the same rate across the whole of Ukraine. The fact is um attrition depends on resources. The Ukrainians have had resources to slow the Russians in Donbas and in eastern Ukraine. But beyond a certain point, the more territory they've lost, the more critical territory they lose, the faster the rate of collapse comes, attrition speeds up, and defense becomes increasingly difficult.
So I I started with Zaporizhzhia because as I said we've had over the last week information about significant Russian breakthroughs in eastern Ukraine in eastern Zaporizhzhia and in western Zaporizhzhia too. The Russians are advancing further. Now that is one front. The Russians are attacking simultaneously in all at once.
But >> can I put a Yeah. Can I put a pause to that? I just I just want to clarify.
Yes.
>> Right bank is west.
>> Yes.
>> Left bank is east. Because it can be confusing I get confused with that as well.
>> Absolutely.
>> I just want to clarify. It's when you're looking at the right bank, you're talking about everything in the west.
>> Yes.
>> When you're talking about the left bank, you're talking about the east.
>> The east. Exactly.
So So this is this is a key thing to understand. And I I predict because the Russians and the Ukrainians themselves, by the way, both use this expression. They talk about left bank Ukraine and East Bank Ukraine. We're going to be hearing this more and more um as the special military operation, which will I think very soon cease to be special military operation.
>> [snorts]
>> And Putin said a few things um the day before yesterday which we'll come to at the end of this program which also point to the moment when this is ceasing to be a special military operation. Anyway, uh I I predict that we're going to be hearing these expressions left bank Ukraine and right bank Ukraine more and more over the next few months. We are almost at the point when these are going to become routine. Maybe not in the western media but absolutely in the Ukrainian and Russian media spaces. So that's that's the first thing I wanted to discuss.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Um the other the other place where there is intense fighting going on, perhaps in some ways more um intense fighting and this has been true throughout the war, but where it also looks like we are now at the final stage of what in some ways has been a continuous battle extending all the way back to 2022 is in Donbas. And before I begin to discuss where we are in Donbas now, I would like to remind our viewers that way back in 2022, in February, March 2022, right at the start of the special military operation, we on our programs were repeatedly saying that Donbas is going to be the place of decision. It's going to be the place where the war is ultimately going to be decided. It is or was Ukraine's most heavily industrialized, most populous and richest region at one time. Um, it's none of those things anymore. I mean, it's been devastated and broken in all kinds of ways, but you know, that was it is it is its historical importance, but it is intense urban sprawl. It is a a place of largeish towns, lots of factories, coal mines with all the big terracons, the you know the slag heaps, natural fortifications, marshy ground, lots of rivers and streams, a a natural fortified position and one which the Ukrainians with American an American engineer, a military engineer, a senior military engineer actually said that the Americans were heavily involved. The Ukrainians built up enormously strong fortifications in Donbas between 2014 uh 2015 after the Minsk agreement all the way running up to the start of the special military operation in 2022. And the problem the Russians have had is that once you advance, once you capture one city, say Soledar, there is another city Bakhmut. When you capture Bakhmut, there is another city Chasiv Yar. When you capture Chasiv Yar, there is yet another city uh Kostiantynivka. You have this happen with place after place. So when I say another city, I mean in very very close uh proximity. So about half an hour's drive one from the other. Anybody who's familiar with the topography of the Ruhr in Germany with which we've often compared Donbas will be immediately familiar with all of this.
Now we are at the edge now of the urban sprawl. It is where the urban sprawl ends. There's a line of fortified towns at the very furthest edge of the urban sprawl, the western edge. And the Russians have reached it. And they've not only reached it, they are now going behind it. So talking about urban sprawl, um in 2024 the Russians took Selidove, they took Kurakhove. In 2025 they took Pokrovsk and they took Mirnohrad. Then they this year they've taken Hirnyk, Rodynske, Bilitske. Bilitske fell a few days ago. And now they're about to take Dori. Now apparently there's a lot of fighting going on in Dori. Um, there are reports that the Russians have entered the city the town. It's about 28,000 people. Dori is in other words been stormed. We don't know the exact details because neither side is telling us very much. But where there are lots of reports which seem to confirm that there is heavy fighting going on there and Dori is likely to fall. Maybe not tomorrow or next week but soon. The point about Dori is that it is at the absolute western edge of Donbas. Around Dori there are no other towns. There are just open fields which stretch for tens of kilometers west, north and south. And the key thing is that the Russians who have now captured the southern town city almost um of the line of fortified towns Sloviansk, Kostiantynivka. They've now captured Kostiantynivka. Um, Dori [clears throat] lies to the southwest of Kostiantynivka, but it has a straight way up north. So, the Russians once they've captured Dori can advance northwards and they can cut off the supply routes to Sloviansk. And there is very little that the Ukrainians can do, it seems, to stop them because the Ukrainians are now very heavily pressed in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk itself. The Russians are on the eastern boundaries of both of these towns. They are in fact heavily attacking um the outward eastern fortifications of Sloviansk, a place called Mykolaivka and a thermal power station which is another big defensive position that the Ukrainians have there. So the Ukrainians have to hold these positions because if they lose them then the entire um integrity of this defense line starts to crumble. So they need to keep lots of troops to hold this defense line. But as I said, they're now at risk of being outflanked from the south and from the west. And several people have been talking about the potential creation of a cauldron in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk of the Ukrainian forces there. And again, I would remind our viewers that we were talking about a potential cauldron for the Ukrainians in Donbas way back in February, March 2022. It is now not just starting to emerge, it is on the horizon.
And then at the very northern end um there is this very puzzling mysterious battle in Lyman which is not I think one of the fortified towns but again is an outlier. Um it's to the northwest of Sloviansk. Um the Russians by their own accounts and I'm talking about the defense ministry control all the territory of Lyman but they've not announced that they've captured Lyman and there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what's taking place there. There's lots of stories again about Ukrainian counterattacks um trying to break through to Lyman um and to push back the Russians in this area and no doubt some of that has been happening. But there have also been scattered reports from the Russians that they have encircled a Ukrainian force perhaps around a thousand men perhaps rather less than that. um made up of the former garrison of Lyman. They've trapped them on the east bank of the river which here is the Siverskyi Donets River. So I understand and [snorts] presumably the Russians are working to try to break this defense um before they finally announce the capture of Lyman itself. Now Lyman is important. It is on high ground relative to Sloviansk. The Russians now control in all other places all the high ground around Sloviansk. So they Sloviansk are on a on a river valley at the base of a river valley. The Russians control all the peaks of the river valley except in Lyman. If they can capture Lyman, they will control all the heights around Sloviansk from the east. Already their drones are operating continuously over these two towns. Um they have complete [clears throat] drone control over these two towns and they can also direct artillery on positions anywhere inside these two towns. And by the way, the Russian air force is also very active in this area. There's heavy bombing with FAB bombs which are also being used in Zaporizhzhia and in Orikhiv especially. So the defenses of these two fortified towns are at risk. We're not risk. I mean they are imminently crumbling.
Now this is going this has been the biggest you could argue this is a battle for Donbas that has continued constantly since May 2022 when the Russians captured the first two important towns that they captured in Donbas, Volnovakha and then eventually Mariupol and um these are this battle the wider bigger battle of Donbas has been continuous throughout that time as I pointed out at the time even during Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia 2023 offensive the most intense fighting continued to happen in Donbas.
>> Odesa and the blockade as well as Ukraine and the and the Caspian Sea.
>> Just on a side note on a side note listening to you Alexander explain the situation in in Donbas and in Zaporizhzhia.
>> I was reading uh this morning.
>> That Trump is warming up to Zelensky in a very big way.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Because he's very happy and very impressed with Ukraine's military operations.
>> Yeah, I know. I mean, he he he's living in a completely different world. Can Can I say something about Trump?
>> Him and and the people around him.
>> And the people around him. The people giving him information, the people advising him. Yeah. The media as well.
>> Exactly. Which which is what happened if you remember with Iran. [laughter]
>> And it's the extraordinary thing is the extent to which Trump continuously falls for these stories. I mean Putin by the way has repeatedly warned him in phone call after phone call. Don't believe these people who are telling you these things. But [snorts] of course, Trump always does because he always wants to be a winner and he thinks he's going to be a big winner in Ukraine. He's turning going to be a terrible loser in Ukraine. I mean, I want to say that that this because what I am describing.
>> No, you have to say the reality.
>> It is the reality. I mean, it is the reality. I mean, uh I mean, there is no doubt about this. I mean I if you go to Ukrainian sites um the really responsible ones acknowledge these realities. I it's the Ukrainian government. It's Zelensky. It's the PR machine. It's the.
>> Europeans.
>> The Europeans, it's the CIA, the UK. They're all telling this alternative. They're all living in this alternative reality. Um I mean bear in mind they still are in denial that Kostiantynivka has even fallen and uh so I mean so I mean there we go. So I mean this is this is but this is the reality but this is what we're saying and here we come back to the other reality which they refuse to acknowledge which is a desert and the sea blockade that is going on there. Now, um, we've already done a program about this, but this is enormous. This is something that the Russian military, by the way, have been aching to do ever since 2022. You remember Snake Island,
>> The the island close to Odesa? You remember the Moskva, the cruiser that was patrolling around Odesa? I mean the the reason the Russian Navy positioned those things there was obviously because the Russian military wanted to impose a blockade on Odesa. And here we come back to the Kremlin. The Kremlin wasn't keen. It was worried about what the uh global south would say. There was all the issues about grain. The result was that the blockade wasn't imposed. The bombing of Odesa which could have happened then didn't happen. The missile strikes didn't happen. Um, the Moskva was sunk. Snake Island was recaptured eventually by the Ukrainians. Um, there was the whole narrative that we had over the next few years about the Ukrainian Ukrainians defeating the Russian Navy in the Black Sea.
>> And now what has happened and of course we had the grain deal in July 2022 which the military was furious about. I mean I I have no doubt about this but which Putin agreed to because Guterres the UN General Secretary Secretary General wanted it. Uh Erdogan wanted it. Modi all of the global south wanted it.
>> Well, the Ukraine.
>> We did a video on this just to tell we did a video on this a couple of days. You can reference reference.
>> I can reference video. You can look at it and you can see we got into the details [clears throat] of it.
>> We went into the weeds here, but now there is this blockade and it is a total blockade. I mean, the uh western shipping companies are no longer sending their ships to Odesa or to Ukraine's Black Sea ports. There are still some ships that are trying to reach Odesa or leave Odesa and the Russians now come after them and attack them and destroy them. I mean, do you remember a couple of about two weeks ago we were getting all those video footage of uh Russian ships in the Sea of Azov being attacked? We don't see so many of those anymore. We do occasionally that much fewer. But every day the Russian Defense Ministry publishes pictures of bulk carriers of ships trying to either exit or enter Odesa. One wonders who is sending them by the way and how much they're being paid to do it. But anyway, there there no ship now can enter Odesa and um any other Ukrainian Black Sea port. And over the last um two days or so, the Russians have taken this escalation a whole step further because Russian aircraft Sukhoi 34 fighter bombers have started to drop uh these FAB precision guided bombs on the harbor installations in Odesa and in other places which tell us that the air defenses of Odesa have completely collapsed so that Russian aircraft can now operate within range bombing range of Odesa. And of course, FAB bombs um carry explosive charges on a completely different scale from what a drone can carry. You know, a drone can carry perhaps 10 kilos of explosive. A missile can carry more perhaps 150, 100 kilos. I'm sort of you know estimating depends of course a lot on the size of the missile. A FAB bomb can go from 250 kilos up to 500 kilos up to 1,500 kilos some of them. And of course there's the monstrously huge and enormously powerful 3,000 kilo bombs. But of course, the bigger a bomb is, the heavier it is, uh, the closer the bomber has to fly um to the target before it can drop it because the um the gliding effect reduces because of the weight. Against that, the Russians have installed apparently uh jet engines on some of these bombs. [snorts] Um they're not big powerful jet engines, but they apparently lengthen the range. So, you know, we maybe start to see more of that. Anyway, bombing of the port facilities of Odesa if it happens and of the other Black Sea ports, um if it happens systematically is going to destroy the ports. It's going to render them totally unusable. And we're not talking about damage which can be repaired in a few days or in a few weeks. Damage from bombs of this size if it happens on an intensive basis would take months to repair. So um the situation in Odesa in the Black Sea is terrible. Constanța cannot act as an efficient backstop to Ukraine's Black Sea ports. That is well established. And bear in mind, Constanța has to carry Romanian cargo and cargo destined for other um European countries as well. I it can't just operate um you know for Ukraine. And besides, one wonders whether ship owners are going to be very keen on risking their ships in the Black Sea, in the northern part of the Black Sea anyway before very long because it is now becoming a very intense water. So um Ukraine's overseas trade has totally collapsed and that was a critical part of Ukraine's economy. and it was a critical part of Ukraine's agricultural economy which was its major export economy and um the word is that uh Ukrainian agric the agricultural economy is now in a period of massive stress and extreme decline which is completely unsurprising. [snorts]
C Can you just touch on uh on the Caspian real quick? And I have one final question which is not military related, not so much military related, but uh just touch on the Caspian real quick, which is which is Ukraine strikes into into the Caspian.
>> Well, indeed. Yes. I mean, the these now have been they they've targeted this one Iranian warship. So Oh, not warship. What am I talking about? A cargo ship. Exactly.
>> They say they're hitting supply lines is what like Russia. Iranian supply lines as well. That's what Zelensky is saying. Anyway, that that is what Zelensky is saying. So, what what Zelensky is trying to do is he's trying to position um Ukraine as an ally of the United States against Iran. And obviously again this pleases Donald Trump. It's also something that some people in the United States are facilitating. Just to repeat again something we mentioned on another program. Ukraine doesn't have the targeting information to know where Iranian cargo ships are located in the Caspian Sea. It just doesn't have that information. So the only way it can be obtaining this information is from the US intelligence community. I mean that is where it comes from. But you could see the objective here. It is to go the Iranians to conduct strikes against Iran sorry against Ukraine.
>> Yeah.
>> And to merge the two wars. Now um we did a program about this too. We said that achieving this objective from a military point of view for the United States would be piling folly upon folly. There are people in the United States who are explaining trying to get Donald Trump to understand that the United States is now critically short of precision guided munitions. There's been articles which have appeared in in um the Financial Times and in Reuters which are confirming that China is now severely restricting exports of rare earths and is trying to choke off um the access of the US MIC to rare earths. There are also reports from Reuters that the American attempt, Donald Trump's attempt to get the US industry to uh produce rare earths to to replace China as a supplier of rare earths by 2027. That that attempt has failed. It was bound to fail. It is incredible that Trump ever thought it could happen. So um taking on two adversaries like China, like Russia and Iran at one in the same time is not going to help America's problems. One can see how it might help Ukraine's problems, but it's going to compound America's problems. And of course, the ultimate objective that Zelensky has is to try to draw the United States into the war against Russia in Ukraine. Now, again, folly upon folly. Um, a disastrous idea, but you know, we're talking about Donald Trump. Maybe that's what he might be persuaded to do.
>> What will uh happen [sighs] if if and when.
>> The bone crushing sanctions are approved by the by the Congress and Trump actually does implement them.
>> Yeah. [snorts]
>> Big sanction an embargo effectively on Russia is what we're talking about.
>> What will be the effects? Well, what one country will defy will defy that embargo and that is China that we can say definitely that the Chinese are buying every Russian oil cargo they can lay their hands on. Now the big refineries are doing it and we've had the uh um decision from the government in Beijing that American secondary sanctions will not be observed if the United States um then retaliates by imposing 100% tariffs on China, which is what we would be looking at. We've seen what happens. The Chinese would impose 100% tariffs in retaliation against the United States. They showed that they can absorb that blow. They also will stop exports of rare earth and there are already critical shortages. So it will compound again America's economic problems. But to the extent that it is going to disrupt American uh uh uh the oil trade at a time when the Strait of Hormuz is closed at a time when there is a crisis in the Red Sea, it takes another major supplier of oil. Well, it reduces hugely their footprint off the m you know from the market. We would definitely I think at that point be looking at $200 a barrel of oil. I mean it would be an enormous crisis. We could be very well looking at a crisis anyway. [snorts] And then there is a further thing because of course Putin has just had a meeting with his naval commanders. He's talked about um seizure of ships carrying oil. Russian oil as piracy on the high seas. I've checked. I've checked with people who know about these things. He is right. He's legally absolutely correct. Um there's been a decision now that the Russian Navy will provide escorts for uh ships. This has been talked about and it's been sort of happening for some time. um in the North Sea and even by the way in the English Channel. Um this sets up the situation for a potential clash with the Russian Navy on the high seas. The Russian Navy is a you know fairly powerful force. It doesn't have aircraft carriers, but it has nuclear submarines um arguably more advanced even than those that the United States has. And of course in a period of global oil shortage it risks creating tensions with other big oil consumers. China obviously which has the biggest navy in the world and India. [snorts] So um which also has a significant navy. I mean this is a recipe for complete disaster. It is a complete recipe for disaster.
And going back to Putin's meeting with the naval commanders, it was very strange that [clears throat] the Kremlin did not provide complete transcripts of everything that Putin said because I I've now been able to watch film of what he said. He's clearly now hinting at an imminent upgrade of the SMO. He said that he's always getting people coming to him saying, "Can't we increase the pace?" He's explained that the pace was kept at the level it was that it was because it it ensured advances whilst minimizing casualties. But he said that he also would like to see the pace increased and the way he said it sort of hinted that the pace might indeed increase. So um it looks as if we're going to see a major upgrade of the special military operation. Maybe it will cease to be a special military operation before long. Peskov Putin spokesman said about two weeks ago that it's no longer a special military operation. It's an actual war. The West has made it an actual war. What is happening has gone beyond the framework of the special military operation. Some people came back after I said that this pointed that after we said that this pointed to a potential upgrade of the SMO and said well you shouldn't judge from a single interview that Peskov has given but Peskov has gone on repeating those words and [snorts] he's even said that to the Swiss media as well. So I think definitely that an upgrade of the SMO is coming to something else and we are likely to see also the big ballistic missiles, the Iskander and the others also being used soon. Um of that I have no doubt at all. So we're going to see a major military escalation. Um, for the Americans to start thinking of escalating themselves in the face of all of this would be reckless in the extreme. [snorts]
All right, we will uh end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We're on X, on Rumble. We're on Telegram. Go to danchshop.com, pick up some merch. We have a summer special running at the moment. And also check us out on Substack as well. All those links in description box down below. Take care.