Brussels/Berlin Panic: AfD Wins Thuringia, Gains Saxony; Ukr Defences Donbass Crumble; Selidovo

today is Monday 2nd September and though the bulk of this program as of so many other programs um that I've been doing over the last two plus years will be taken up with the events in the conflict in Ukraine I'm going to start with the recent elections in Germany in thuringia and Saxony two regions of Germany I should say which I do not know personally I've never VIs visited them though I am quite familiar with parts of Germany further west and of course with Berlin itself so just a few quick observations about these election results which have sparked shock waves across Germany and indeed across Europe and in the west and I'm going to say that in my opinion nearly all of the commentary about these electoral election shocks is wrong um in its most fundamental and simple ways now the first thing to say is that if we look at the results in thuringia this is a region of beautiful towns and cities which used to form very much in some respects one of the great intellectual powerhouses of Germany it's apparently a region of great natural beauty as I said I've never been there myself but if we look at the results in thuringia well here the IFD the right-wing party that attracts so much attention and so much criticism both in Germany and abroad um came first with around a third of the vote the CDU the main opposition party in Germany which defines itself as being on the center right came a distant second with 23rd 23% of the vote in my opinion the single most striking result in seringa apart from the Breakthrough by the IFD is the very very strong vote for Sara vag's left-wing party breakway in some respects from the old delinker party a party that ultimately emerged out of the old East German Communist party they did establish connections with various political groups in Western Germany as well Dinka was for a long time the standard Bearer not just in East Germany but across Germany of what might be described as the traditional left but for some time now it's clear that he's lost lost its way and where at one point it won as I remember in a bundestag election around 12 to 133% of the vote across Germany as a whole it has been gradually dwindling away well out of the husk of the old delinker a new Phoenix if you like has emerged in the form of SAR vagex party which despite some rather labored attempts to pretend otherwise is very very much a party of the old classical socialist or Social Democratic left now I want to say that because I've been rece reading articles both in the British media including one specifically by the U British journalist John cner in the guardian but also several articles in the German media as well which are trying to represent U SAR vagen and her movement as being somehow on the far right now I don't want to devote too much time to debunking this absurd claim but suffice to say that it is absurd there are fundamental differences in historical interpretation and political character between Sagan's movement and that of the IFD in addition the if overall has what one might expect of a right-wing party a strong bias towards Market Solutions and those sort of things whereas as one would also expect of a self-proclaimed socialist or Social Democratic party the the sarag movement inclines more to State intervention the fact is as I said it is a classical leftwing party there is a certain sharing of positions between the Sarah vagen party and the IFD on certain topics like for example relations with Russia both want improved relations with Russia an end to support for the Ukraine war a reconciliation with the Russians in some form and both also have opinions about immigration which are in conflict with those of what one might call the um Center the the predominant neoliberal Center that represents Germany's establishment however you examine them carefully the positions of the I and sagenex movement on immigration are by no means identical again I'm not going to discuss them in detail here but briefly the IFD clearly doesn't like immigration at all whereas SAR vagex movement tends to have a more conventional View that immigration needs to be something that is brought under control but it is not opposed to immigration per se on the issue of relations with Russia the fact that there is an overlap between the opinions of the IFD and of SAR vag's party does not mean that these parties are identical or that they are both part of some notional construct called the far right not so long ago there was a political consensus in Germany one which spanned both the right the center and the left that good relations with Russia was something the Germany should seek and which ought to be be a foreign policy priority so just saying parties that disagree with each other on fundamental things can often find points of agreement between them and that's all that one should see in the fact that both sarag and the if agree on the one issue of relations with Russia anyway the point is coming back to the election in three gear the IFD which is an anti-establishment party what the Russians like to call a non system party it is not part of the political establishment of the political of the established mainstream political system the IFD which is a nons system party of the right has won a third of the vote and two parties on the left Sarah vagin which got um around 16% of the vote in thuringia and the the left party which in thuringia still exists and which still has residual support and which must also be considered like Sagan's party at least for the moment a non-system party well the left got 133% of the vote so what this means is that inther ringia the right the anti-stem right the IFD got 33% of the vote and the anti-stem left got just under 30% of the vote roughly 60% % of German voters in thuringia voted for non-system parties they might not agree with each other these parties as I said the ifda has different views on economics and indeed on immigration than SAR vagan and the left party but the fact is that they're all of the non-system parties and the voters in thuringia supported them now there were also elections in the neighboring state of Saxony and here the results were not that dissimilar now the CDU which is one of the mainstream parties a system party in fact in some respects when we speak of the Federal Republic of Germany we are perhaps justified in describing the CDU as the system party of the Federal Republic of Germany it has been the dominant party in German politics ever since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany um in the 1940s early 1950s anyway there in Saxony the CDU just managed to hold on to emerge as the biggest party with 31% of the vote the if came second with 30% of the vote the Sarah vagen movement here got 11% of the vote and by my understanding the left party managed around 4 and a half% of the vote so again if you put together the votes that the non system parties got in Saxony the right the non-system party on the right the IFD which got 30% of the vote and the non system parties on the left SAR vag's party and the left party who between them got around 16% of the vote where you find that the non system parties in the regional elections in Saxony got roughly 46% of the vote less than the 60% that they achieved in the ringia but nonetheless a strong comment on the political situation the political mood in Saxony I'm going to suggest that the reason why the system parties the mainstream if you like the ne liberal Centrist mainstream in Saxony did better than in thuringia is because of course Saxony is where two of the main cities the big cities in Eastern Germany leig and Dresden are located and these are cities with a more International and European flavor than the more German kind of politics that you will find in theia and then the small places in Saxony and well for the moment at least the if and the leftwing parties have not yet been able to break through in um leig and Dresden to the same degree that's my guess I should say I say this this is purely a guess because I haven't actually had a chance to look at the U votes the breakdown of the votes in these two cities leig and Dresden and if I'm wrong about this I will welcome any corrections but the point is that again in Saxony the anti-stem parties the non-system parties got around 46% of the vote now there's been a huge amount of literature discussion commentary about the vast dis differences that still exist between West Germany and East Germany that East Germany and West Germany are supposedly drifting apart from each other that uh the we might even eventually see the breakup of Germany and all of these things this is in my opinion a complete misunderstanding of the Dynamics of these elections the reality is as we have discussed many times on the Duran and as I have also t touched on in programs on this channel the mood the economic situation in Germany both in the East and in the west is bad the economy is sagging and has been doing so ever since the 2022 um cut off from Russian gas and all the various problems that arose from that but it also needs to be said that despite all the appearances of German economic prowess those who have been tracking conditions in Germany closely for a while as I have been doing have been saying for some time for a decade at least that behind all the strong figures and optimism boasting about German economic PR product activity was basically stagnant there was a failure to develop new uh Technologies and new Industries the Germany was living on its economic Legacy and was in effect stagnated and the point I have made many times and it's a point that Alex christophor and I have discussed on many occasions on the Duran is that the ultimate cause of this is the extent of the political immobilism in Germany this was already starting to appear in the '90s and early 2000s but it gained full institutional force during the long Premiership of Angela Merkel who developed or established in Germany a a type of politics of A Sort that is called in Italy transformismo whereby government essentially limits itself to managerial and administrative duties does not have D dynamic or energetic policy objectives but governs from the center till ing a little to the left or a little to the right depending on the edes and currents of German opinion and the result was the result of this political immobilism has been a devastated landscape within the political mainstream with no strong political leaders emerging to take merkel's place when she eventually left the scene um and also no real plans or ideas about how to address Germany's deep and increasingly long seated deep-seated problems which would be getting worse and worse as the years have passed and well there been other factors which of course have reinforced the immobilism the extent of Germany's uh sense of or at least the German leadership sense of political dependence on the United States their willingness to follow in the track of American foreign policy especially with regards to Russia but also China as well H rather than pursue German national interests their intimate interconnection with the European Union and the European Union project which means that power has gradually shifted from Berlin to the EU Center in Brussels But ultimately it's this construct of immobilism which has been buttressed by the way in which Germany has been able until recently to reap rewards from Germany's position at the center of the EU system which explains the malaise and of course what has happened over the last two and a half years is that with the loss of cheap energy flows from Russia with the deterioration in the geopolitical climate with the weakening of trade links with Asia and specifically with China all of the problems all of the accumulating problems which were gathering and building up even as Merkel acted as the queen of Europe they've all come out into the open and this weakened and reduced neoliberal mainstream establishment Center in Germany has no answers for these problems now why then is the Revolt if you like against this against the the center happening in Eastern Germany uh um faster than it is in Western Germany there's a very simple reason and it this does go back to the way in which German reunification was conducted in the 1990s because what essentially happened in the 1990s was that West Germany took over East Germany and the the West German political system with all the established parties that were parties of the West German political landscape the West German form of the CDU the West German form of the fbd the SBD which of course had no official presence in East Germany at all anyway they were all then grafted if you like onto the East German landscape so it's unsurprising that East Germans as they begin to become increasingly disaffected with a malaise which it must be stressed again is a general German malaise are more willing to turn against the West German ultimately the ultimately West German political esta lishment than West Germans themselves are and that is why we have seen these results in Saxony and in thuringia it's not because the Mustachio gentleman from the 1930s is coming back it's not because a supporter of Stalin is sweing uh uh um in communist votes in former communist Eastern Germany it's not because ger East Germany is very much poorer than West Germany it is still poorer but not to the extent that some people I think imagine it's because there is a general mood in Germany that things are not going well and in Eastern Germany for historic reasons they're more willing to vote against the establishment than in West Germany they are because in East Germany it's the West German establishment and it's in West Germany it is their own establishment now that then brings us to the long the the the ultimate Point here because logically the most likely outcome of these votes in in thuringia and Saxony is that they must in fact they almost certainly do spell the end of Chancellor Schultz's period in power it's impossible to see how after the results of the European elections and these results in these Regional these Regional elections in Eastern Germany it is impossible to see how Chancellor Schultz's government is going to survive the next bundestag elections in fact already we're starting to see clear signs of disintegration the various parties that make up the Coalition are already um anxiously looking for ways to compete against each other in the forthcoming parliamentary elections and certainly the greens and the um fbd will probably run against Schultz saying you know that it wasn't it was all his fault they Wen really responsible for what were wrong and the SBD and the fdp will also no doubt run against the greens or at least they will try to to some degree so obviously the current German Coalition is living out its final days but note that there is no great swing of support or popularity for the alternative the mainstream alternative which is the CDU Fredick met of at one time much was expected is I understand barely more popular than Schultz himself we're likely to go from one bankrupt exhausted and unpopular system government the one we have now to another bankrupt unpopular exhausted system government the CDU back in charge this time led by frederi matz but with no more ideas about what to do with about Germany's problems than the current government has so we're likely to see a further period of political paralysis and dysfunction in Germany even as the problems there get worse but sooner or later problems this this upsurge of opposition that we have seen in East Germany is going to spill into West Germany as well now there may be particular problems for the IFD given the way it has been labeled and in some cases it has been to say it to say it frankly at least the behavior of some members of the IFD are deserving of some of the labels that have been thrown at them I'm not saying this is true of the if as a whole but if we look at the left party of SAR vagen I can certainly see why how it might eventually begin to gain Traction in um parts of West Germany as well very much in in the way that dinker the the former expression if you like of the left at one point was also able to do and well deteriorating conditions in Germany are probably going to intensify this process though the establishment in Germany is going to hold on as long as it can with a backing of the EU Center and all the other forces in Europe which want things basically to stay as they are and no one should expect or anticipate any early change the one thing I think we can also predict is a concerted attempt by the bankrupt intellectually bankrupt and politically exhausted Center to try to maintain control by tightening the political screws by engaging in more bans more prohibitions more restrictions on protests more restrictions on media flows all of those sort of things more prosecutions as well if that happens nobody should be in any d out as to what the underlying cause is of course there may indeed be some cases when some people have acted beyond the level of the acceptable but overall repression of that kind in Germany will be repression of a bankrupt intellectually bankrupt and politic i al exhausted Center lacking ideas it be an attempt by that Center to repress those parties those political forces which in their very different ways are trying to come up with ideas about how to address Germany's underlying problems in other words it will an attempt to prolong immobilism far beyond its natural Point by repressing anything within the system the challenges it now those of us who are familiar with German history know that we have in fact been here before I discussed this in previous programs and used to bring it up during the time a Merkel I said that one of the things that was that used to be said about the hburg Empire in the last decades before its eventual collapse was that administration had taken the place of government in other words the political system was no longer capable of coming up with Solutions what he did was simply administer the country with diminishing levels ever diminishing levels of competence even as the political system the political polarization intensified and well there was of course eventually a crisis which led to a World War and ultimately the whole thing came tumbling down well I don't want to look too far ahead I'm not going to predict how things are going to go out happen or play out in Germany in the future but for the moment at least in Germany also one could say that Administration has taken the place of government that the administrators which is all that they are who are in charge are trying to manage things with diminishing levels of competence and a bit as they did in late hapsburg Austria they're also resorting increasingly to repression which of course ultimately is going to make the situation worse well that's what I'm going to say about Germany today there can be an awful lot more said many more things we can touch upon and discuss about Germany of course there's also going to be many different views about the if about uh SAR vag about their various uh opinions and about their various views but all I would say is on this topic perhaps even more than any other be especially careful about what you read in the mainstream media because in my opinion almost all of it is wrong anyway let's now turn to our perennial topic the war in Ukraine and yesterday I spoke about the importance of August 2024 and I go to return to that subject at the start of this program for which please forgive me but I'm going to say that August 2024 has been the most single most decisive month in the entire conflict it is the month in which it became clear that the Russians are going to win the war and that there is no Force on planet Earth that can stop them doing so short of the western Powers risking World War II and it is also the month when I think it became increasingly clear that the Western powers are not prepared to risk World War I the United States refuses to allow Ukraine to conduct deep strikes inside Russia macron's ideas of a few months ago of sending contingents of French and NATO troops to Ukraine well we're not hearing anything more about it anymore and the other idea of NATO Air Forces flying over Ukraine imposing no fly zones shooting down Russian missiles it turns out that there's not much enthusiasm across NATO or indeed in the United States for that idea also so the West is not going to intervene in Russia at least I suspect that this is now the view in Moscow I think that the Russians have come to the view in Moscow that they've come to the in Moscow they've come to the view that there is not going to be a western military inter V vention on Ukraine's behalf and that the war in Ukraine has P its Tipping Point and that we are now moving rapidly or perhaps not rapidly but we're moving conclusively towards a Russian military Victory I think the other factor which served as a break on Russian actions up to now was that I think August also cleared up the Diplomatic atmosphere I think that several countries in the global South amongst the bricks had been floating ideas about mediation about negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end the war um president Lula of Brazil has talked about this extensively Prime Minister Modi made his trip to Kiev president Prime Orban prime minister Orban of Hungary visited Kiev and Moscow and then went onto Beijing and Washington it's clear that Ukraine is not capable of taking advantage of these diplomatic initiatives it cannot imag imagine any settlement of the conflict that contradicts zelinsky's hopeless formula and in fact it destroyed the prospects of negotiations by its operation in K region taking the pressure of the Russians to begin negotiations and so the Russians in a sense now now find themselves in a situation where they are winning the war they are not going to be prevented militarily from achieving a military Victory and in diplomatic terms their position has never been simpler or stronger they have the political space to go on advancing westwards to win the war Ukraine and the restraints that previously existed have fallen away however that places the Russians under the burden of themselves deciding what the final outcome of the conflict in Ukraine is going to be and I returned in my program yesterday to the big question that Eve Smith has been repeatedly asking in um article after article that she has written on naked capitalism which is what if Ukraine never negotiates what if the West never negotiates what if they are not prepared to concede Russia demands demands that anatol Len in that article I discussed yesterday acknowledged um the entire political establishment in Moscow from its furthest liberal end all the way to its most hawkish nationalist end is United about which is that Ukraine must remain neutral it cannot join NATO what if the west and Ukraine don't agree won't negotiate about that regardless of what happens in the war what in that case do the Russians do do they go on advancing westwards do they cross the NEPA do they capture Kev do they try to set up some kind of puppet government in Kiev do they engage in a new round of annexations I am not convinced that even the Russians have worked out their plans up to now I suspect that in the Kremlin in the foreign Ministry and the defense Ministry and the general staff and in the various economic agencies of the Russian government the economics Ministry the finance ministry the Central Bank they've all been thinking instead about how to manage the war itself that's been the priority achieving military Victory but now that military Victory is on the horizon it is starting to appear and come closer they will start to have to think about this and they will start to have they will start they will need to start thinking about what the ultimate plan for Ukraine is going to be because I have come to the view that there aren't going to be negotiations with the government in Kiev I think that the government in Kiev is incapable of conducting negotiations again irrespective of what happens on the battlefronts I think that if Kiev is captured if that government that Ukrainian government survives and transfers to W they will still refuse to conduct negotiations they will continue to insist that zelinsky's formula should be implemented in full however fantastic and surreal that is and if the Russians Advance all the way west to LOL that government goes into Exile and reestablishes itself perhaps in London or in Canada or in some place like that I still think that that government will refuse to conduct any kind of negotiations it will continue to insist that it is the government of Ukraine it will say that Ukraine is an occupied country it will continue to insist on Ukraine's Sovereign right to join NATO and it will refuse to acknowledge or accept in any shape or form de facto or dejur Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Eastern regions and I think that replacing zalinski with some other political figure coming from the existing political system the postm political system is not going to change that or alter the reality I don't think that poroshenko or Zusi or arov or any of these characters that have been mentioned are remotely capable of conducting the kind of negotiation with the Russians that the Russians would need if some kind of a piece were to be achieved and I think that this Ukrainian government which the Western Powers would undoubtedly continue to recognize as the Ukrainian government were it to be still in vve or in or in were it to be still in Kiev or in vve or in London or Paris or Toronto or wherever um I think as I said that it is incapable of negotiations and I think that the West also would be immovable will continue to be immovable un shiftable on all of these matters so then that leaves the Russians with a dilemma do they as I said set up a government in Kiev which exercises effective control but which nobody outside Ukraine recognizes or do they start holding referendums in the central Ukrainian regions which probably by the way without much compulsion would vote for Union with Russia certainly the central Ukrainian regions I suspect that quite a few people there would vote that way if they thought that it would achieve peace and of course it's important to remember that these regions have historically been under moscow's sway so that for the people there this would not be such a historically extraordinary thing and of course that still leaves unresolved the question of Western Ukraine but then who knows that problem might resolve itself maybe as the Russians move westwards the people of Western Ukraine many of them will leave a lamentable fact if it happens a tragic one if it happens but politically one can see how that might solve some of the Russians difficulties but of course there's also possibility that they will stay or that enough of them will choose to stay to continue to cause for the Russians long-term political difficulties anyway one way or the other I think that at some point over the next few weeks this debate which has so far in my opinion been def deferred in Russia is going to start anatol Len's article suggested that such a debate does already exist so I suspect very much on the margins I think now important people are going to have to start coming up with ideas and plans in Moscow and perhaps I ought to say uh that if you know your Russian history the Russians do tend to come up eventually with plans and surprisingly enough or perhaps not so surprisingly given how well they know this particular region but anyway it could be that these plans will work but I think that in Moscow from now on politics the politics of the eventual Ukrainian settlement will now start getting more priority from Russian decision makers now of course for that to be a settlement the war needs to be won so what has been happening over the last couple of hours well the first thing to say is that this morning there was another massive Russian missile strike across Ukraine from what I can understand a large part of this missile strike took place using um landbased ballistic missiles most probably isander M Kaku was a particular Target it's been suggested that the third azof the third assault Brigade which is part of the azof Brigade complex um is now located in har and that it was a particular Target the arom factory in Kiev appears to have been targeted again anyway there was a major strike missile strike by the Russians across Ukraine focusing more on Central and Eastern Ukraine this time I'm not going to discuss it further I think we need to wait a little in order to get um more information about the Russian defense ministry will no doubt provide us with details soon this is the third big missile strike that Russia has launched against Ukraine since missile strikes resumed with the gigantic missile strike that took place on the 26th of August so let us now turn to the situation on the battlefronts now yesterday I said that there were reports that the Russians had conducted an frontal assault on vladar uh this fortified town in southern donbass it's been a bone in the throat of the Russian army in southern donbass basically since the fighting began but um with the General deterioration of the situation on the battlefronts the Ukrainian command apparently was planning to transfer the 72nd Brigade which has been defending vladar to some other part of the front line to plug the gaps there well we've had more information over the last few hours and it appears that though the Russians have been bombing and shelling vuga with a degree of intensity that has never been the case before at any point in the war um they have not actually begun a direct assault on the town itself however they are mounting and offensive in the area of vad one was in the area of the coal mine and slag Heap which is located immediately to the Northeast east of vladar and which again apparently Towers over the surrounding landscape it's another one of these coal mines and slag keeps which um enables uh which well enables anybody who is in control to um OverWatch the entire area it seems that there's also been a Russian attack on the village of vodan further still further to the Northeast and the Russians apparently have now broken into the village of PR Prisa which is located some distance to the west of Vadar so it does look as if a Vadar offensive is underway by the Russian army they seem to be taking the first first steps to cut off vladar from any further point of Supply um bres divka is by the way located on the Western Supply road which the ukrainians are probably now having to rely upon given that the main Supply Lo Road um sending supplies to vuga from through Constantin ofka has been lost so pis further cuts off vad the attack on Priska further cuts off um vuga from resupply and it's likely that there will be an attack on Vadar at some point over the next couple of days now I want to say that almost certainly this attack is in some way the timing of this attack though obviously not its planning but the timing of it perhaps is connected with the movements or alleged movements of the 72nd Brigade however it may be the case that the reason for the Russian attack now is not that the 72nd Brigade has actually left vuga it is on the contrary that the Russians want to launch an attack on vuga to prevent it leaving the reason for that is that as I discussed yesterday it makes at least to me logical sense that the Ukrainian command should want to evacuate this Elite Brigade from vad which looks like it's about to be surrounded and redeploy it El Elsewhere on the front lines where it might actually do something useful whereas perhaps the Russians are making exactly the same calculation and are saying to themselves that it is important for them to keep this Elite Ukrainian Brigade in vladar to prevent the ukrainians redeploying it elsewhere where it could do something to the Russians that might affect or prolong or delay Russian offensives in other places so I don't know what the facts are but I am going to make my own General observation about this which is that in a sense it hardly matters the point is that vuga is now living its final days as a Ukrainian controlled town so that's the situation in vladar the big news the main fighting is taking place elsewhere in the pakros region and there's been a Cascade of Articles today two articles in the London times for example all talk both of them talking about the increasingly Grim situation in the area of pakos the one of the articles in the times said that the Russian Force that is closing in on pakros itself not by the way the force that's closing in on Sido UK and which has just captured novog groa but specifically the force that seems to be moving towards pakros numbers around 40,000 men and that the ukrainians whatever reinforcements they send to the area they cannot hold this Force back the Russians have a big superiority in numbers and of course in material as well so anyway let's let's now explore what's going on in the bakos SEL ukraines area well yesterday we got definite proof that the Russians are indeed in ukrain this is this small town around 10,000 people located south of the e50 Highway the highway from donet to pakos um the Russians have entered it there is fighting going on rova says that the Ukrainian Garrison in ukrain is very small and they're also saying that there are no fortifications to speak of in ukin it looks highly likely that ukin will be captured by the Russians relatively quickly the there are also reports that the Russians have either captured entirely or largely the village of Jalan Persia which is located to the south of gitka and that they are probably close to capturing the next Village further south the village of Jalan Dua um I mispronounced its name yesterday but I believe that is closer to the way that it's name is actually pronounced and there's even some suggestions that once these two Villages have been captured the Russians will swerve westwards to attack the next town which is a town called gnik and Beyond gnik uh there's other places small villages like iska noela and others and I'm not going to go into the details of all of this so that this is what is happening in all of these places now over the last two or three days there's been a lot of talk about a large Ukrainian Force three brigades located south of carova nalo and Peri uh west of NCO um and K uh uh uh and north of korovka which supposedly all of these Russian movements are supposed to surround to create a cauldron around and yesterday I expressed my profound skepticism that this was so that the Ukrainian command has really left three whole brigades of Ukrainian troops in these EMP empty Fields controlling and garrisoning nothing as far as I could see and I also said said that it seemed to me unlikely that all of these Russian movements were actually intended to create an encirclement of these forces which look to me like an overambitious operation and one anyway which given that I don't believe that the ukrainians are actually there um has any purpose to it um I suggested I have suggested that the main objective of the Russians is to secure the road the main road Supply Road from donet City to pakros to assist the Russian offensive when it comes against pakros and I think this is I still think that this is the main purpose of what it is that the Russians are doing but DEA of the military summary channel has I think probably also got another part of the explanation which is that this area continues to be dotted with coal mines and slag heaps which potentially form powerful fortified positions if they are converted to that and garrisoned properly and that the Russians are in the process of capturing all of these coal mines and fortifications and slant Cavs before the ukrainians can occupy them properly and fortify them in order to create potential defense lines in this area and I am sure he is right and I am sure that this partly explains all of the various movements that the Russians are making so capturing Ukraine perhap Jalan pers andalan perhap gik perhaps some other villages to the south of selo and to the west of ukin not only strengthens Russian positions along the main road and secures the Russian advance in celo itself but it also provides the Russians with control of all of the all of these potential fortified positions that apparently exist in this area in some abundance so I think this is logical and I think this is what the Russians are really about and that by the way brings me to what's going on in SEL Theo itself now yesterday we were getting reports that the ukrainians had rushed reinforcements to Cela that the reinforcements counterattacked that there were bitter battles and in fact apparently there's a picture of a Ukrainian tank firing on a Russian armed vehicle in eastern selovo so that is consistent with some kind of Ukrainian Counterattack but the Counterattack such as it was appears to have run its course because last night late last night we were getting reports that the Russians are advancing within selo again that the ukrainians have spent themselves in this Counterattack that they no longer have the forces necessary to hold back the Russians in celal and that the Russians are gradually pushing through selal pushing westwards and that celal well apparently they now control around a third of it and and perhaps at some point over the next couple of days it will fall completely under their control I believe that this is true of course as I say many times I'm not on on location I'm not sure exactly what is the case but I think it is highly likely that this is the situation um at the moment in Cel Devore itself there's no doubt that the Russians are there and there's no doubt that selo fairly soon is going to fall in fact I have no doubt of this at all now the other drama is about what is happening further north around pakros now um reports in the western media confirm that the Russ Russians control all of novag groa there's now pictures which show Russian troops inside novag groda with their Flags uh there's pictures of Russian tanks and armored vehicles in the Central Square of novog groa which does indeed look almost intact um the troops look very relaxed and very confident so looks as if novog groa has passed entirely under Russia Russian control I believe groa itself is under Russian control all of the Russian reporting platforms and the neutral ones like sudak say so um DS the Ukrainian project apparently still claims that part of groa is under Ukrainian control I think it is unlikely myself but it might be the case again I'm not on the scene um I can't say for certain that the main force that the Russians have deployed up to now has tended to be in the South so grfa perhaps has received less attention but there are lots of reports that the Russians have now captured the two Villages of kar and crar and that they have also captured the northern Village of nikolova close to the main road linking groa with mogr there are apparently lots of pictures of wrecked Ukrainian vehicles on this road which shows that if there is still a Garrison fighting in the we western suburbs of groa then the ukrainians are suffering extremely heavy losses trying to keep it supplied but anyway it does look as if I think Gro has fallen and the Russians certainly do appear to be in a strong position to advance further up this road to Mirad itself now there was a very interesting discussion of the potential battle for pakros by rolka Russian newspaper as I've said many times based in smans they have large reporting team working for them um so they're very well informed about the situation on the battlefronts they're suggesting what I myself believe to be the case which is that once the situation in selo and ukin and perhaps some of the other Villages there has been resolved before attacking pakros itself the Russians will then take steps to clear the villages to the north and west of pakros The Villages along the main Supply Road leading ultimately to constantina and chuar The Villages Villages like Vos venka yis Malin mirka and noo eom and that once these Villages are captured which should be a tale of at most a few weeks then with the Russians positioned all around pakros and perhaps also once they have control of these Villages able to launch drone attacks on Ukrainian Supply convoys or Railways trying to send supplies to Pak from the west or from the north then the Russians will attack pakros and it will be as always a multi-pronged operation intending to capture this place pakros by storming it from various from various directions and I suspect that rova is right it is the method the Russians always use when they attack Urban settlements they like to attack from multiple vectors rather than seek to attack in just one place so anyway that's the situation in pakos as I said there are increasingly urgent and desperate articles in the western media about the situation in bakov heart-rending articles about Ukrainian or at least the population of pakros trying to escape the Gathering storm one gets the sense from some of these articles that the evacuation from pakos is barely is being barely organized most people who are in parros and who are trying to get out are trying to do it themselves there doesn't appear to be any real organization to The Retreat from bakov the evacuation from bakov and again if you read articles like the two articles I mentioned in the London Times they're littered now with complaints from Ukrainian soldiers about the military situation and criticism which I suspect the editors of the times and of the other Western media Outlets have probably tone down criticism of the cous operation the way it's diverted essential forces from the krov battlefronts to the um Adventure in ksk one of the two articles by the way in the London Times is by the London times's longstanding commentator on the war Michael Clark he still seems to hold out the hope that the Russians will divert large forces from the donbass battle line lines he's talking about very depleted Russian reserves and this supposedly explains why the Russians haven't assembled a huge force in the kosk region to expel the ukrainians there he mentions with every appearance of skepticism and even incomprehension the point repeatedly made now by Russian officials in including Ambassador pansi in an interview we did with him on the Duran Glen dies and I that as far as the Russians are concerned kusk is of course Russian territory but so is dbas so is donet and lugans there is no reason why the Russians should psychologically treat this situation in Kos differently from the one from the way they treat the situation Elsewhere on the battlefronts um Michael Clark has difficulty understanding this again I don't think he understands the Russian way of thinking about the conflict at all and as for depleted Russian reserves to be frank I simply don't know what he's talking about I assume that he is still unable to see all of the the evidence of a huge buildup by the Russians that has been taking place um basically since the start of last year um I think that he's in denial about it and um I as I think many people in the west still are but anyway there we go um he finds it strange as that the Russians haven't deployed forces from donbass to kusk they're not going to and I think that the sooner this fact is accepted the better anyway we've had further news from toet I'm going to cover this very briefly briefly the Russians continue their advances in toet they seem to be focusing more now on clearing the villages to the north of tet um I don't think again that this is an encirclement operation exactly I think more the Russians are again intent on cutting off the supply lines and in putting putting themselves in a position where they can attack toret from multiple directions again toret in my opinion is going through its final days and some of the articles that I have been reading in the media at least in Britain also speak without giving much detail about a deterioration of the situation in um chfar um I suspect that we're going to discover at some point in the next few days that the entire Central area of jfa is now under Russian control and that the Russians are now attacking the Western outskirts of chaar and that Ukrainian resistance in chifa is crumbling and of course as I mentioned yesterday the Russians appear to be in the brink of capturing the village of goreva which is located to the northwest of chaia and as for the fighting in kosk region itself the biting wedges attracted all of this attention group of forces North tell us continue to tell us that they're on the attack that they are in fact advancing that it is the ukrainians now who are falling back and interestingly um group of forces North say that the armored vehicle losses which the ukrainians have experienced in kque region are now so severe that the ukrainians are increasingly obliged to conduct operations on foot because they no longer have armored vehicles that can move them around on the battle fronts so I'm not this is a very as I said summary account of what is to all appearances a massive ongoing battle I suspect that selu krin all of these places come under Russian control very quickly then there will be the main attack on pakros um and I suspect pakros will probably fall fall around the same time the chfar and Tores also fall at that point point as I've said the spine of Ukrainian resistance in donbass will have been broken uh the Russians are now literally at the gates of kin in the north they've having captured the village of sinova there and various other Villages they reached the outskirts of C having recently captured the village of yena group of forces North have been making steady progress in volans in the area of the highrise buildings by the end of this month I think that there is a fair chance that all of these places Barros maybe doret chfar will have been been captured and then the last battle for in dbas the battle for katos and slaviansk will begin though the first part of it will probably not be fought directly in those two towns but in this town of constantina which lies immediately to the South and of course when these places are captured by the Russians with slaviansk and katosa captured by by the Russians the donbass all of it will be under Russian control the Russians will probably have an open road to the Neer they will quite plausibly will have already advanced to that to the Neer along the road from pakros by that point and then not only will Ukrainian positions in the North in khf region and in chigu and Sumi regions also become untenable but probably in zapor roia region also places like orov and even zapor roia City and it will be possible at that point to start talking about the end game we could be looking at the start of the military end game around October November may be the time when the United States goes to the polls so that it seems to me is well I'm not going to say it's definitely the timeline the ukrainians may still have resources they can throw into the battle though it's increasingly difficult to see what they are but I am going to guess that it's not that far off what the direction of events is going to be and at some point around then I think the discussions and debates in Moscow about the postconflict future of this region are going to start in Earnest and we perhaps will start to see the first indicators of that debate in the Russian media meanwhile the Russian economy continues to grow Anton siluanov the Russian finance minister is predicting that Russia will achieve 3.9% GDP growth this year perhaps could be slightly more 4% who knows these figures anywhere are going to be revised in the future I suspect we're going to discover that last year's growth was not 3.6% but closer to 4% and this year's growth will not be 4% but perhaps a bit more but that's only a guess um economic growth will slow in the next few months in Russia because the Central Bank wants it wants it to it is now Way Beyond its inflation Target though it should be said still that inflation is still fairly under control I think assumptions claims that there is an inflation crisis in Russia are wrong I suspect if you count inflation the way the Russians do you would find that it's not that far out of line with inflation in certain countries further to the West though again in light of the sensitivities of this platform I'm not going to discuss that in much detail and um going beyond that I suspect that we're going to have further economic strength in Russia next year growth targets higher growth results higher than the central bank is expecting even as inflation begins to fall and the problems with the financing uh the financial movements between Russia and certain other countries that the current Administration has been trying to create I suspect that as of next year these will start to settle as well again the direction of events is very clear as we saw this morning with the announcement that turkey has now made a formal public application to join the bricks so there we are now just before I finish this program I wanted to say something which is about a recent Mammoth article very interesting article uh by simpli is the Thinker about maneuver Warfare and I only the most interesting article because um it confirms at least to me something which I have suspected all along I I ask for forgiveness when I say this that in fact a lot of the claims about the um enormous difficulty of conducting maneuver Warfare which supposedly exists nowadays because of the tremendous surveillance that exists over the battlefields provided by satellites and drones and that sort of thing that this these kind of comments are not historically uh well founded it has never been possible at any point since Modern War Began basically at the beginning of the 20th century to take the enemy completely by surprise um even operation Barbarosa did not take the Soviets quite as much by surprise as I think many people think who are unfamiliar with the actual historical material just saying now the point is and I get to dwell on the Soviet German war of 19414 I because that's what suus the Thinker mostly talks about anyway he makes the point that maneuver Warfare Blitz Greek Warfare the kind of thing we all imagine lightning strikes by armored columns moving at tremendous speed across the countryside um gaining control of vast territories and destabilizing the enemy that only happened during the second world war when one side or the other had a major Manpower and material advantage and simpli is the Thinker makes the point that the same is true about the various Wars that have been fought in the Middle East the war that was fought for example by the the two Wars that were fought for example by the United States against the Iraqis in 1991 and in 20 03 and at all other times when we're talking about wars between peer adversaries it is a slugfest a long war of attration before the cumulative strength the cumulative strength of one side grows to the point where it achieves that level of superiority over the other that it is able to switch to maneuver Warfare and start achieving the kind of Des decisive results which people Associated associate with it and he makes the point that the Germans had such an advantage over the Soviets in 1941 and that's how they made rapid advances deep into Russia and then from 1942 until 1944 there was a rough balance in power between the Germans and the Soviets so even though gradually the balance of Advantage material advantage shifted to the Soviets it was a terrible War of Attrition between the Soviets and the Germans on the Eastern front with the Soviets making sometimes substantial but always incremental gains and then eventually the effect of that attrition became visible in 1944 that was the point when the Soviets finally gained a decisive margin of advantage over the Germans and that was what when maneuver Warfare could begin and I think we're seeing exactly the same play out in Ukraine we've had prolonged attrition the Russians Advanced into Ukraine at lightning speed in the first few weeks of uh first few weeks of the special military operation in February and March 2022 then the ukrainians mobilized they brought their army up to strength they received weapons from the West a rough equivalence between the two armies was then achieved we had a very very difficult slugfest in 2022 2023 and 2024 uh and and the early part of 2024 but halfway through 2024 after the fall of aveva the effect of attrition on the ukrainians has be started to become increasingly visible and the Russians as a result are able to advance faster and maneuver Warfare is again beginning to become possible but attrition is not new in war it was how the Civil War the American Civil War was one it was how the war in the Eastern Front during the second world war was one though of course the attrition there came with a human cost which is almost unimaginable and it is how this war is being won in Ukraine well this is where I finish my program today more for me soon let me remind you again that you can find all our programs on our various platforms locals Rumble and X don't forget you can support our work via patreon And subscribe star and uh also don't forget to go to our shop where you can find all sorts of amazing things links under this video and last but not least please remember if youve liked this video to take the like button and to check your subscription to this channel that's me for today more from me soon have a very good day [Music]