🔥 Major geopolitical shifts are unfolding fast.
In this urgent update, Alexander Mercouris breaks down four explosive developments:
🇺🇸 The U.S. walks away from Ukraine peace talks — diplomacy dead?
🇬🇧 UK Labour leader Keir Starmer crashes in the polls as backlash builds.
⚠️ The strange pattern known as the “Elensky Curse” strikes again — coincidence or consequence?
🇷🇺 Russia advances into Pokrovsk — a key move on the Eastern front.
🎯 Mercouris offers sharp, fact-based insight into what mainstream media won’t cover.
💬 Watch, think, and share your thoughts below — the narrative is shifting fast.
🔔 Subscribe for more in-depth geopolitical analysis from a trusted voice.
#AlexanderMercouris #UkraineCrisis #USExit #Pokrovsk #RussiaUkraineWar #ElenskyCurse #StarmerPolls #UKPolitics #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #WarUpdate #PeaceTalksFail #EasternFront #RussiaAdvances #UKLabourParty #GlobalTensions #RealAnalysis #WorldAffairs #MilitaryUpdate #TruthMatters
In this urgent update, Alexander Mercouris breaks down four explosive developments:
🇺🇸 The U.S. walks away from Ukraine peace talks — diplomacy dead?
🇬🇧 UK Labour leader Keir Starmer crashes in the polls as backlash builds.
⚠️ The strange pattern known as the “Elensky Curse” strikes again — coincidence or consequence?
🇷🇺 Russia advances into Pokrovsk — a key move on the Eastern front.
🎯 Mercouris offers sharp, fact-based insight into what mainstream media won’t cover.
💬 Watch, think, and share your thoughts below — the narrative is shifting fast.
🔔 Subscribe for more in-depth geopolitical analysis from a trusted voice.
#AlexanderMercouris #UkraineCrisis #USExit #Pokrovsk #RussiaUkraineWar #ElenskyCurse #StarmerPolls #UKPolitics #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #WarUpdate #PeaceTalksFail #EasternFront #RussiaAdvances #UKLabourParty #GlobalTensions #RealAnalysis #WorldAffairs #MilitaryUpdate #TruthMatters
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00good day today is friday 2nd may 2025 and i think the big news that we can discuss today
00:00:08will discuss today is the ongoing russian offensive in um ukraine which is now gaining
00:00:16more and more momentum as one would expect all of this happening even as the united states
00:00:23has implicitly admitted that its negotiation drive which it launched after donald trump was
00:00:30inaugurated president of the united states has in effect come to an end but before i talk about
00:00:38those things and also try to touch on some recent revelations about what's been going on
00:00:45in the united states and also between the united states and china and iran let me just first of all
00:00:52turn to the situation in my own country which is of course britain because yesterday we had important
00:00:59local elections in britain as well as a parliamentary by-election in what was a safe labour seat which is
00:01:08runcorn in the recent election that took place general election which took place in britain the
00:01:15one which brought keir starmer and the labour party to government the labour party won runcorn and i
00:01:22understand that they had around 52 percent of the vote in this seat in this constituency this
00:01:29parliamentary constituency well the story of the election is still coming through there are still
00:01:37lots of results about from local um councils and local um governments coming in from across um britain
00:01:48but the overall story is quite clear to me is of a complete collapse in support across britain or at least
00:01:57across england for the established parties labour and conservative a disastrous result for the
00:02:05conservative party and an equally disastrous result for the government party the labour party of prime minister
00:02:14keir starmer and this is unsurprising in fact recent opinion polls have put both of these parties
00:02:23labour and conservative as polling around 24 percent of the vote each i say 24 percent at least 24 percent
00:02:34of those who might conceivably be motivated to vote which is of course well below the entire british electorate
00:02:45so the conservatives and labour at 24 percent this of parties which historically have when they won elections
00:02:57won more than 40 percent of the vote in the 1950s they used to occasionally win
00:03:06just below 50 percent of the vote um margaret thatcher in um 1979 won 44 percent of the vote in the election
00:03:18which made her prime minister tony blair won 42 percent of the vote in the election which made him prime minister um
00:03:27teresa may in at the 2017 election um which in which she was widely seen as unsuccessful one around
00:03:37won around 44 percent of the vote and the labour party in that election one under jeremy corbyn's leadership
00:03:47won around 40 percent of the vote won around 40 percent of the vote on significantly higher turnouts
00:03:54in the 1950s on much higher turnouts than you tend to see today well today as i said labour and
00:04:03conservative are at each polling at around 24 percent catastrophically low levels and what is
00:04:13extraordinary is that the party that is now breaking through right across england is reform a relatively
00:04:23new relatively untested party but led by the veteran politician nigel farage now i'm not going to discuss
00:04:33the results in any great detail in this program um what i would say is that it's clear that farage
00:04:41has the momentum at the moment we will see whether he maintains it and i suspect that the inability of
00:04:49the conservative party to capitalize on the failure and deep unpopularity of the labour government could
00:05:00provoke a crisis within that party and perhaps a change of leader but what i want to talk about briefly
00:05:12is the complete collapse the implosion in support for the labour party which of course won an election just
00:05:2110 months ago with a landslide victory in terms of parliamentary seats though not one in terms of actual
00:05:30votes and the implosion in popularity of the british prime minister sakir starmer who i believe according to
00:05:39some appealing polls is now the least popular or perhaps i should say most unpopular prime minister
00:05:51in british polling history now i find this entirely unsurprising given the visionless leadership that keir starmer has provided
00:06:04britain since he became prime minister his inability and his government's inability to wrestle with any of
00:06:12the profound problems that britain is facing and which get worse basically
00:06:18by the day now i notice with great interest that not a single commentator in britain nowhere in the british media
00:06:29does anybody link this collapse of keir starmer's popularity or the popularity of his government
00:06:38with his obsessive focus as i've discussed in previous programs with ukraine with his leader vladimir zelensky
00:06:50with support for ukraine it seems to me and i've said this in several programs now that keir starmer at
00:07:00least for the time being is much more interested or has been much more interested in keeping the war in
00:07:07ukraine going and in supporting president zelensky and ukraine than he has been in governing britain itself
00:07:16so the result is the problems are piling up people across britain are feeling increasingly ignored
00:07:25as the prime minister's attention lies somewhere else and well given that this is so and can i just say
00:07:35even before the period when donald trump became president this this period of intense diplomatic
00:07:45activity that we've seen concerning ukraine since keir starmer became absurd since donald trump
00:07:53became president even before i was hearing reports that keir starmer devotes as much of his time to foreign policy
00:08:01as he does to domestic policy which given the realities in britain today makes absolutely no sense to me
00:08:11whatsoever the ability of a british prime minister to change things to shape events internationally is
00:08:20limited and of course he anyway has a compellingly important series of things to do nearer home but
00:08:33anyway that was before the election when he before donald trump's victory when he was supposed to be
00:08:38devoting as much time to foreign policy as to domestic policy over the last couple of weeks as well we've
00:08:47seen peace plan and counter peace plan and visits by zelensky to washington and meetings between trump
00:08:56and zelensky in rome and whit goss visits to moscow and all of that it seems to me that the prime
00:09:02minister keir starmer's major focus has been overwhelmingly on ukraine and i haven't really got
00:09:10much sense that he's taken very much interest in domestic policy during this period at all and well
00:09:20we now see the result we now see that the british people have become completely disenchanted i don't
00:09:26think they ever particularly warmed to keir starmer in the first place but well it looks as if they're
00:09:35gradually making up their minds that he is more interested in another country than his own and that
00:09:44he's not really interested or caring in any way about their affairs i have to say something else at this
00:09:52point which is that my colleague and friend alex christopher who coined the expression the alensky
00:10:00curse and he has mentioned and he's absolutely right to mention the disastrous political consequences
00:10:10for every western leader who has got too close to the person of vladimir zelensky i mean look how many of
00:10:19them have failed or go or gone down in smoke i mean joe biden olaf schultz uh baerbock and harbeck
00:10:31well you can probably find lots of others in britain we've had in quick succession boris johnson
00:10:38liz truss uh rishi sunak one prime minister after another well one person has insisted
00:10:49on disregarding the warning of the olensky curse and that of course is keir starmer far from being careful
00:11:00to keep his distance he has gone out of his way to embrace it as he showed when he hugged zelensky outside
00:11:11downing street well i'm not a superstitious man i don't assume that that is cause and result i don't
00:11:22suggest that hugging zelensky was what brought about the electoral debacle right across the uk
00:11:31that we see today and i should say that despite runcorn being a seat which previously was securely
00:11:38held by the labour party um reform has now won it by just six votes but under the british system six
00:11:49votes is enough and of course kirstama conspicuously failed to campaign for his party in this constituency
00:12:01perhaps if he had done the size of the reform victory might have been much greater just saying
00:12:09but anyway if the consequences there's no cause or consequence for that hugging of zelensky outside
00:12:20downing street in terms of these results well maybe there isn't but all i could say is
00:12:26maybe just maybe kirstama might be well advised to hug zelensky a little less from this point on
00:12:41now in saying all of this i'm going to quickly add a personal note as many of you will have gathered i am
00:12:49no supporter of kirstama never have been i've never thought that he was the right person to become
00:12:56prime minister of britain in fact i would go further and i would say that not only am i
00:13:01not a supporter of his i am somebody who perhaps could even be defined or described as an opponent
00:13:10though i have no party affiliations um in british in british politics but anyway there it is you could
00:13:19take it as you wish the fact is labor is going down in flames kirstama seems to be going down with it
00:13:30and it was he and no one else who chose to hug zelensky outside downing street maybe it is the
00:13:38elensky curse maybe it is not whatever it is it suggests incredibly poor judgment and a complete
00:13:47misjudgment of the mood of the british people on the part of our prime minister anyway let's move
00:13:55on to other things now i have been discussing in recent programs um the various state of the
00:14:02negotiations that donald trump initiated to try basically as far as i can see first to get a
00:14:08ceasefire in the conflict in ukraine and then when that didn't work to try to get the kellogg plan
00:14:15accepted by russia and ukraine and the important thing is that over the last two weeks it's become clear
00:14:24that neither russia nor ukraine are prepared to accept the kellogg plan even the modified version
00:14:31of the kellogg plan that was presented to zelensky and the europeans at meetings in paris and london
00:14:42last week and the russians were not prepared to accept the kellogg plan when we got brought it with
00:14:50him and presented it to putin last friday so um the kellogg plan failed and as for the ceasefire idea
00:15:01the russians made it clear that they were not interested in an unconditional ceasefire they set
00:15:07conditions for that ceasefire interruption of military aid to ukraine ending of intelligence sharing
00:15:16with ukraine which of course the united states was not prepared to concede and the ukrainians for their
00:15:26part while insisting on a ceasefire have rejected russian proposals of direct negotiations and i said that
00:15:38the point had come when donald trump needed to make a decision as to what he was going to do was it going
00:15:48to continue to push for negotiations or push for ceasefires despite being told both by the russians and
00:15:57the ukrainians that his approach was wrong in much more insulting terms by the way by the ukrainians than by
00:16:05the russians or did he go on taking up his time trying to press forward with a plan which basically wasn't going anywhere
00:16:17well today perhaps just possibly just possibly we have an answer because the state department spokesman
00:16:30tani bruce has now said that the united states is no longer prepared prepared to play the role of mediator
00:16:39in negotiations between russia and the u and ukraine we will not be intermediaries we will not fly to the
00:16:46other side of the world of the drop of a hat to moderate meetings the work must now must now be done
00:16:54by the two sides and she went on to say that it's now up to russia and ukraine to sort it out between
00:17:03them and that does look like the united states is finally pulling out of this attempt to try to engage
00:17:14the two sides in negotiations and trying to broker a settlement of the conflict i say that it looks like it
00:17:22but of course with this administration in washington one can never be completely sure now of course here
00:17:33we see tammy bruce talking about the united states acting as a mediator in this conflict and as many many
00:17:42people who watch this channel have been pointing out on various threads it has always been a very strange
00:17:52idea indeed entertained by president trump and his officials that the united states would act as mediator
00:18:02in a conflict in which to all intents and purposes it has been a party after all it has been arming ukraine
00:18:10and as the new york times recently told us it wasn't just arming ukraine it was providing ukraine with
00:18:18intelligence providing ukrainian army with command and control it was planning ukraine's military
00:18:24campaigns it was guiding ukraine's missiles to their targets it was in all conceivable respects acting
00:18:34as a party to the military conflict it was also simultaneously waging a massive sustained economic war
00:18:44against russia which continues and might possibly even escalate so on what possible basis does a party to
00:18:57a conflict choose to a conflict choose to become a mediator it is a very strange idea and i think the russians were far
00:19:07too polite to point it out but the very fact that the united states was a party to the conflict or has been at least an indirect
00:19:16party to the conflict must have called into question the wisdom of this whole strange
00:19:29affair now having said that i'm not wholly convinced that the united states really has pulled the plug
00:19:39on its involvement in the war i mean they say that they're not mediating but they haven't said what else
00:19:45they're going to do president trump has made various statements at various times indeed he's been doing
00:19:53it over the last few days in which he appears to say that he will not authorize any further arms
00:20:00transfers to ukraine but there's no word that the united states is considering ending intelligence sharing
00:20:08with ukraine with ukraine or cutting off ukraine's access to the starlink system for example which provides
00:20:16ukraine with its military communications um and even the statements about not private providing arms to ukraine
00:20:26have been contradicted by a recent request to congress to license the transfer of 50 million dollars
00:20:36of weapons of weapons to ukraine which however it should be said ukraine is
00:20:44apparently proposing to pay for in cash how it's going to do it of course is a completely different matter
00:20:53and then there is the issue of that investment fund
00:21:00agreement that the united states and the ukrainians um signed two days ago and which i discussed in my
00:21:14program yesterday and well the white house has now provided its own um its own interpretation
00:21:23of that agreement there's been a statement to that effect it is not by the way entirely in accord
00:21:34with my own understanding of the text that i have just seen that i seen but then i do accept that the text
00:21:45is perhaps incomplete in the sense that it appears to be only one text amongst three for example it says that
00:21:56the united states will have um first right of over the development of certain natural resources and um
00:22:10um that um in other words that the united states has been given a preferential position in terms of
00:22:21developing ukraine's natural resources and rather rather that the fund that has been created will have
00:22:29that first um preferential right i'm not sure that that is exactly what the text actually says as i said
00:22:39it's a very loosely worded document in some ways even though it is written in copious and very dense
00:22:50legalese but i'm not going to i'm not going to analyze or discuss that in any detail what the white
00:22:58house statesman statement says at the very end is this natural resources projects will include minerals
00:23:06hydrocarbons and related infrastructure development if the united states decides to acquire these
00:23:13resources for ourselves we will be given first choice to either acquire them or designate the
00:23:18purchaser of our choice well that's as i said what the americans say i'm not sure what that that's what
00:23:24the actual agreement says but maybe it does i'm not going to waste time on that but then it goes on to say
00:23:30this economic security is national security and this important safeguard prevents critical resources
00:23:41from falling into the wrong hands importantly this partnership sends a strong message to russia
00:23:52the united states has skin in the game and is committed to ukraine's long-term success no state company or
00:24:01person who financed or supplied the russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction
00:24:08of ukraine including participation in projects supported by fund resources now eve smith in a series of
00:24:18extremely fine articles which you can find on naked capitalism the website naked capitalism has been
00:24:27repeatedly making the point and you just reminded everybody about this quite properly in a recent article
00:24:34that she has always said that however this agreement whatever form this agreement ended up in
00:24:43it would mean a further commitment by the united states to ukraine um an economic commitment by the united
00:24:56states to ukraine and given that that was so how does the united states propose to defend that commitment
00:25:10is it going to do so by increasing arms deliveries um to ukraine for example or providing more military support to ukraine
00:25:23i should say that i have received an email from someone well-informed person who tells me that there are
00:25:33people in russia who are saying to each other that uh the way that the united states proposes to safeguard
00:25:43its investment if you like in ukraine ultimately is by deploying troops there now maybe that is the case though i
00:25:56have to say i personally think that is unlikely eve smith suggests that if the russians
00:26:02do ever take over the whole of ukraine or at least all the territory where um all of the minerals and natural
00:26:09resources which the americans are eyeing are located maybe at that point the americans will say that
00:26:17this creates an outstanding debt to the united states and that the united states is in a position
00:26:26thereby to seize russian assets in compensation it's an argument it's a legal argument it's not one i
00:26:34personally think holds any legal force but well we see that arguments that hold legal force
00:26:44aren't perhaps um well legal force isn't perhaps any longer quite the important thing that it used to be
00:26:55maybe as i said you can just justify it and do this thing and get courts to agree with you even though
00:27:02as i said conventional judicial ridical thinking would have argued otherwise but anyway that's
00:27:11that's another story i'm not going to get get into that but i don't myself personally believe that the
00:27:19united states is going to send troops to ukraine maybe one day if the russians do take over the
00:27:26whole of ukraine they will seize assets there russian assets where they can find them but
00:27:34whatever the fact that this agreement exists suggests to me that the united states is not going to
00:27:41completely wash its hands of the crisis of of ukraine and of the crisis there that at some point
00:27:50diplomatic engagement of some kind is going to resume especially if the russian army
00:27:57accelerates its advance westwards and well we will see what it is that the americans are going to do
00:28:06i don't think anyway that they have washed their hands of ukraine of ukraine they may be talking as if
00:28:14they have but i don't think they actually have i would add that there might be again misunderstandings
00:28:25underpinning these decisions um the decision to go ahead with this investment deal i will call it from
00:28:33now on an investment deal um marco rubio the u.s secretary of state continues to insist that there is no military
00:28:43outcome to this war that russia cannot take over the whole the whole of ukraine any more than ukraine can
00:28:52drive the russians out of the territories that russia currently occupies i think it may be true
00:29:03that the russians might choose not to take over the whole of ukraine but i think a granular assessment
00:29:13of what is actually going on on the battlefields is not consistent with the assumption that they are
00:29:21not capable of taking over the whole of ukraine but it may be that that is what the americans believe
00:29:31the daily telegraph today is talk is talking about an intelligence assessment which has apparently been
00:29:39provided by the to the trump administration by the u.s intelligence community which for the first time
00:29:46acknowledges the president putin's objective has not been to take over the whole of ukraine but to
00:29:55um consolidate russia's positions and to focus on russia's domestic economy i suspect that this piece of
00:30:09realistic assessment assessment is the outcome of the recent change in leadership of the u.s intelligence
00:30:19community with the appointment of tulsi gabbard and john radcliffe to the respective positions of director of
00:30:27national intelligence and head of the cia but again i think that is a fair description of putin's intentions
00:30:40when he launched the special military operation in february 2022 it is still the position that putin held
00:30:49obviously when he spoke to the foreign ministry on the 14th of june 2024 he was at that time only talking about the four
00:30:58regions plus crimea it is still putin's position today as he is outlined to wit gov but of course as the war continues
00:31:13as the russians advance westwards as they take control of the four regions unless there is a peace agreement
00:31:25then the russian calculus might change especially if they see that ukraine however much territory it loses
00:31:33is not prepared to agree to peace so anyway let's put all that aside for the moment as i said we have this
00:31:43agreement i don't think the americans have washed their hands of ukraine i'm not sure whether they
00:31:48intend to stop all military supplies to ukraine president trump has been indicating that he doesn't intend
00:31:56to supply more weapons to ukraine unless ukraine buys those weapons if it's a question of buying weapons who's
00:32:06going to pay for the weapons it's been suggested including by dmitry medvedev the vice chairman of russia's
00:32:16security council and one of the most powerful people in russia that the united states might agree to supply ukraine
00:32:26ukraine with weapons on credit based on the proceeds of the future proceeds of this investment
00:32:38fund but that would be taking an enormous risk an enormous commercial risk that this investment fund
00:32:49will ever come into operation which given that the war is ongoing it might never do i wonder whether the
00:32:59business people who are prominent in donald trump's um entourage will point that out to him if he's ever
00:33:10inclined to take that step anyway let's not spend more time on this um
00:33:19the united states is saying that it is no longer prepared to conduct mediation i said in my program
00:33:27yesterday that the russians had concluded that the whole negotiation process has hit an impasse
00:33:35and has in effect failed and i treat this statement by the state department spokesman as
00:33:45confirmation of this just saying now
00:33:53one other topic i do not propose to discuss in any great detail is the dismissal yesterday of mike
00:34:02waltz from his position as national security advisor there's been enormous amount said about mike waltz
00:34:09about how he was supposedly incompetent about how he wasn't managing the staff of the national security
00:34:18council properly about how unhappy allegedly they were with him how he's undoubted neocon opinions did not
00:34:28chime with those of the mago movement how laura loomer and tucker carlson and others were speaking out
00:34:38against him to the president how he's been on thin ice ever since the signal gate affair and all of that
00:34:47that um for the record i don't think he does uh his views do correspond very much with those of some
00:34:57members of the um of the maga movement i suspect that you know he is basically a neocon and a supporter
00:35:06of confrontation with ukraine with russia and china apparently in the daily telegraph that it's reported
00:35:15that the ukrainians are alarmed to see him go they worry about the fact that he has gone and i can
00:35:26perhaps understand why um but as i said i'm not going to discuss this this is the product of factional
00:35:34infighting in the u.s government i am i find discussion of tax of factional battles unbelievably tedious and
00:35:47sterile i have been involved in many of them in my life i've been a target myself of some of them
00:35:58i think it is pointless for outsiders to try to understand exactly what happened and what the causes of it
00:36:07of you know waltz's dismissal are and i frankly doubt that it's going to make any very great difference
00:36:16perhaps just possibly the pro-ukraine faction within the administration will be slightly weakened um
00:36:24but i don't think um one can say that with any certainty and of course a lot will depend on who
00:36:32is appointed to take to take mike waltz's place as national security advisor some are saying it will
00:36:40be steve whitgoff i think that very unlikely myself i think that he's completely 70s comes from completely
00:36:50outside the government and i think there'll be heavy pushback against any proposal to appoint him to that
00:36:56post but anyway whoever it is it will tell us a little bit more perhaps about the direction of policy
00:37:05within the u.s government but even that probably not very much the one last point i would make about
00:37:13this before moving on from this dreary subject is that mike waltz by way of compensation is apparently
00:37:23is being appointed ambassador to the un this requires senate confirmation but i've no doubt that
00:37:29he will get it um and by the way i noticed that vance the vice president showing again very considerable
00:37:40political skill has spoken kindly about this appointment in respect of mike waltz and at a time when waltz himself
00:37:50must be feeling very upset by what has happened um i suspect he will remember that and it will be something
00:38:00that will incline him more favorably to vance in the future just saying but putting all that aside um
00:38:08um the point is that appointing waltz to the to head the un team to the united nations
00:38:23might not actually be such a good idea he's never shown as far as i can see any propensity any ability
00:38:31for diplomatic skills the security council where the united states comes up pretty much every week
00:38:38every week against the russians and the chinese is the main cockpit of international diplomacy
00:38:48you need at the security council for the united states to be effective in international diplomacy
00:38:56a skilled diplomat and i don't get the sense that mike waltz is that man but anyway i i i don't want to
00:39:06waste any more time on this let's move on um i spoke when i began this program about the military situation
00:39:16on the battlefronts and i think it was back in april that i said that it was clear to me
00:39:24that the russian offensive was already underway the much talked about russian offensive was already
00:39:33underway um the russians at that time and for the last couple of weeks have been essentially essentially
00:39:41shaping the battlefield they've been making military games but these are not so far decisive ones but they
00:39:49they bring them closer to what look increasingly to be their major objectives and um all the evidence
00:39:59does indeed suggest that an offensive that the russian offensive is indeed underway now what has been happening
00:40:06is that gradually week by week this offensive has been growing in power and force
00:40:17and we appear to have seen a decisive shift up with shift in the gears um over the last couple of days
00:40:32since the end of the easter ceasefire to be precise now over the last 24 hours we've had a whole
00:40:42succession of important news now in the south west donets area this is the area near velika
00:40:51nova silka the important the small important strategic town that the russians captured about six two months ago
00:41:00um the russians have now broken into um a fortified village called bugger tear
00:41:08um there is now apparently video evidence of this it's apparently fighting for this village there is
00:41:16suggestions that the russians are now starting to break through this village this is an area which
00:41:25the ukrainians fortified apparently hurriedly um in the last weeks of autumn it remained it was a kind of
00:41:35improvised defense line after the fall of the andrevka fortified area um the ukrainians managed to slow
00:41:48the russians advance around bugger tear for a few weeks but it looks as if the battle for bugger tear
00:41:57has now begun and quite plausibly bugger tear in a short time will fall
00:42:05so that's one important piece of news um there's been also advances significant advances by the russians
00:42:15we're talking about you know visible movements of territories we're not talking about just a few meters
00:42:23here and there but about a kilometer or half a kilometer of advances right across the front lines
00:42:31and every part of the front lines north of baghater and all the way up to pokrovsk towards the west
00:42:40towards places like novel pavlovka um fortified big fortified village
00:42:47in dnepro region which the russians are now approaching it looks as if they are indeed planning
00:42:56to enter dnepro region in order to capture this village and it looks like they're preparing to
00:43:05take steps to take steps to cut off as i've discussed in several places the supply lines
00:43:13to pakrovsk from the west they already control one of the roads leading to pakrovsk from the west
00:43:20there is a northern road um they're not far from this northern road as well but they're now well to
00:43:27the west of pakrovsk and it looks as if they're in a strong position to veer northwards um to once
00:43:35they've broken ukrainian supplies and to cut off across from the north and there have been lots of reports
00:43:42that they have now accelerated their advances northeast of pakrovsk there are reports that
00:43:51they've now entered a village to the northeast of pakrovsk called malinivka and apparently fighting
00:44:01is going on for control of this particular village and they continue to move gradually towards
00:44:10the village of novel economic big village apparently sprawling village i've seen it described which is
00:44:18just to the east of pakrovsk just north of the road from pakrovsk to konstantinovka if this village
00:44:29is captured then not only are supplies from pakrovsk to konstantinovka conclusively finally cut but the
00:44:38russians would be in a very strong position at that point to cut off all supplies to pakrovsk from the
00:44:44north as well but all of that is all very interesting and it's been happening gradually over the last few
00:44:53weeks but then yesterday we got dramatic confirmation for the first time that russian troops have actually
00:45:04burst into pakrovsk itself now this i suspect was a raiding party a sabotage and reconnaissance group i don't
00:45:15think this small unit of russian troops was intended to capture um positions inside pakrovsk i might be
00:45:27wrong but anyway it seems that they pushed north from the village of shevchenko to the south of pakrovsk
00:45:35the village of shevchenko which the ukrainians have made repeated attempts to recapture by the way over the
00:45:41course of the last few weeks all of those attempts having failed but anyway the russians seem to have
00:45:47pushed north from this village and they seem to have broken into pakrovsk and there were reports
00:45:54or there are reports that they control that they seized some buildings inside pakrovsk on the southern
00:46:03outskirts on the southern suburbs of pakrovsk and i don't know whether they're still in those buildings
00:46:11but anyway even if they've pulled back from them they've held them for a time and um all of this
00:46:22as russian units seem to be moving to consolidate control of certain other small communities immediately
00:46:32south of pakrovsk and of the main russian defense lines um the main russian lines around the village
00:46:40of shevchenko and pishania and those sorts of places now many people are saying that this means
00:46:51that the battle to capture pakrovsk has begun and that could be true more likely it looks to me as if the
00:47:01russians are now conducting reconnaissance inside pakrovsk uh that this this is basically groups entering
00:47:10pakrovsk in order to test the strength of the defenses there and to see how strong these defenses are
00:47:18are but i remember that back in may of last year when the first reports started to trickle in
00:47:29that russian troops had entered some of the um southern suburbs of the town of toretsk i thought the same
00:47:40thing i thought that these were just raiding parties russian raiding parties and it turned out that i was
00:47:47quite wrong and that the russians had indeed launched an offensive on toretsk and the entire toretsk
00:47:56conurbation which indeed continued until toretsk and the whole conurbation did indeed fall
00:48:04fully under russian control over the course of the last few weeks so maybe this is the start of the
00:48:13battle of pakrovsk if it is well we will no doubt find out in a few hours i would quickly say that if the
00:48:21battle of pakrovsk has indeed begun then it is not going to last anything like as long as the battle of
00:48:32of toretsk or bakhmut or of or any of those those other places uh lasted torets bakhmut
00:48:46um solid of all of these places were part ogleda were part of a dense network of towns and communities
00:48:58which the ukrainians were in control of and which they could use to support their forces in any one
00:49:08whereas if you look at a map of pakrovsk pakrovsk looks much more isolated and if its supply lines
00:49:16are cut it's difficult to see how the ukrainians inside pakrovsk can hold the russians back for very long
00:49:26but anyway we will just have to wait and see um one way or the other even if this isn't
00:49:36the beginning of the attack on pakrovsk the very fact that the russians have sent troops into pakrovsk
00:49:44itself is a strong sign that that battle is likely to begin very soon now everywhere else
00:49:53the russians continue to advance and i think this is perhaps an important point again worth making
00:50:02it's not i think generally appreciated but there is no an ongoing advance russian advance right across the
00:50:14entire contact line this has never happened in the war before when the ukrainians conducted offenses
00:50:22offensives in the past the the herson and harikov offensives in the autumn of 2022
00:50:30um the offensive uh the the offensive against um um um zaporozhi and again back against
00:50:41to recapture bahmut in the summer of 2023 these offensives took place on specific
00:50:49uh narrow areas of the front when the russians have conducted offensives in the past they've also
00:51:00tended to be on a fairly focused area of the front lines uh that is if you of course exclude as one
00:51:10should the initial russian advance into ukraine in february 2022 20 20 february march 2022 which was indeed
00:51:20conducted over a very very wide um territory but which was uncharacteristic of the rest of the war
00:51:29but in 2023 in the winter of 2023 the russians were mainly focused on capturing bahmut in october
00:51:38uh 2023 and throughout the winter of 2023 it was to capture of devka then after of devka fell the main
00:51:49focus of the russian pressure was in southwestern donbass towards pakrovsk and uh ogledar and all of
00:51:59those places and um of course in may they did start a secondary offensive towards toretsk today
00:52:08what we are seeing is russian pressure on the ukrainians in every single sector of the front
00:52:16lines not one of them any longer is quiet and in every one of them we get reports of russian gains
00:52:26in fact there are so many russian gains taking place in so many places now that it is completely impossible
00:52:33for me in a program of this sort to actually spend my time going over them if i were to do so
00:52:42this program would travel in length but anyway suffice to say that the russians are making advances
00:52:52perhaps their most interesting advances apart from the ones around pakrovsk at the moment
00:52:57continue to be the ones around konstantinovka which they seem to be attacking from multiple directions
00:53:06and um but from the south um there was pictures incidentally of a russian
00:53:15force that was that stormed and appears to mostly captured a village called
00:53:20no novel novel novel i may have got the name wrong but the interesting thing about that battle
00:53:29is that the ukrainian troops who were supposed to be defending that village uh fled before the battle
00:53:36was fully joined anyway um so lots of fighting going on around um konstantinovka continued fighting
00:53:48around josef yard as i said the russians telling us that they've mostly cleared that they've almost
00:53:54entirely cleared the central area there is still a fortified position the ukrainians still retain
00:54:01that needs to be captured but the russians now also making advances north of josef yard as well
00:54:10not easy for me to understand what the purpose of those that advance is but it does seem to be
00:54:17creating another front for the ukrainians to worry about or perhaps the ukrainians are going to pull
00:54:23out of this territory and that all of it will fall to the russians very quickly who knows but anyway
00:54:29lots going on there and around liman as well more uh reports now that the russians have resumed their
00:54:37attempts to capture torskia close to liman um they seem to be not just very close to liman itself
00:54:46but capturing all the surrounding villages north and east and even south of liman looks like liman is also
00:54:56likely to fall and well even the bloggers and war reporters and all of those sort of people are talking
00:55:08about a general intensification an acceleration if you like of the speed of the russian advance and also
00:55:19importantly of growing weakness in resisting it on the part of the ukrainians and there may be reasons for
00:55:26this um there's been more reports speaking about the shortages the shortage of infantry that now afflicts
00:55:36the entire ukrainian military and well the russians now clearly have the ukrainians heavily outgunned
00:55:46and uh as none other than the institute for the study of war correctly said claims that the russians only
00:55:56conduct attacks using light forces are wrong quite often you see russian armored vehicles being used
00:56:04and they seem to be used used used again in very very significant quantities by the way just just to say there
00:56:14were some people who uh wondered about the scale of the russian build-up that i was talking about
00:56:22in my program yesterday to repeat again the information about it came mostly from the wall street journal
00:56:33which itself drew on sources from within the u.s military and intelligence community which confirmed
00:56:40that the russians have um not only kept up with their personnel and equipment losses
00:56:49but are building up forces in addition to the previous forces that they already had they have enough men and
00:56:58machines recruited and being produced to increase their numbers so yes the russians do sometimes use light
00:57:07forces to storm particular positions and to avoid ukrainian drones but it's a misconception that they don't use
00:57:15armor in fact they do and on a big scale but just to focus a little bit on this and briefly
00:57:30the ukrainians short apparently of infantry armored vehicles increasingly artillery as well shells
00:57:40appeared to me to be falling too completely into the trap of over-reliance upon drones they've been telling each
00:57:54other and the world that drones have completely changed the nature of the battle space and that
00:58:01one can hold light positions with drones um with small numbers of infantry and things of that kind
00:58:13my friend byron baletic has done an actually very very good program um uh he's given a very lengthy
00:58:20interview about this pointing out correctly that if the ukrainians have lots of drones so of course do the
00:58:27russians and that drones anyway are only one weapon on a complex battlefield i'm going to say something
00:58:36else here and this is my own observation which is that i suspect that the dominance of drones on the
00:58:43battlefronts anyway is going to be short-lived it is only a matter of time as always happens in war
00:58:51before effective counters to them are developed and i'm sure the russians are working on those
00:59:00and i expect to see them start to appear this year because that is what happens in war when a weapon is
00:59:09introduced and seems to be effective the counter to it is produced very quickly i'm not going to guess what that is
00:59:19some people are talking about electromagnetic guns whatever that is which i don't pretend to understand
00:59:26but anyway i i am confident that we are going to see that happen and if the ukrainians are indeed over
00:59:37relying on drones because they have too little infantry and too little of pretty much everything else
00:59:43force if their drones cease to be as effective as they were then marco rubio and all of those others
00:59:56who are talking about this being an unwinnable war one that is bogged down one in which success by one
01:00:04side or the other cannot be achieved might find that they that events are going to correct those assumptions
01:00:13i've often heard people by the way talk about unwinnable wars i remember the conflict that was fought out
01:00:22in the caucuses between the russians and the insurgency there in the 2000s was regularly referred to by western
01:00:34commentators as an unwinnable war with the insinuation that the russians should negotiate
01:00:41with the insurgents and ultimately accept their independence or their breakaway into whatever it
01:00:48was whatever kind of islamist republics that they wanted to set up and in fact the russians paid no
01:00:57attention and though it took them time they eventually won just saying i think this is not an unwinnable
01:01:06war i think that like all wars it has its complexities and its difficulties and of course its great tragedies
01:01:16but that doesn't mean it isn't unwinnable and i've no doubt at all that the russians are winning it anyway
01:01:23in summary the offensive the russian offensive continues and continues to gain pace and in
01:01:33fact not only is gaining pace it is gaining greater and greater pace now in the meantime even as the
01:01:43united states has pulled out of talk of you know pulled out of the talks and even as we wait to see
01:01:50whether the united states is going to supply more weapons to ukraine or any of that uh marco rubio um
01:01:58said that though the president has not ruled out the possibility of secondary sanctions against russia
01:02:05that possibility does nonetheless still exist now actually i took that to mean that the united states
01:02:18the trump has not yet made a decision has not made a decision to impose secondary sanctions tariffs and
01:02:25banking sanctions and those kind of sanctions against russia when the americans are saying that is now up to
01:02:33the ukrainians and the russians to sort this out between them to uh negotiate or agree a ceasefire
01:02:41or that sort of thing it seems to me that the us is taking a step back or at least the trump administration
01:02:51is taking a step back and that they're not perhaps pressing forward with secondary sanctions
01:02:59to try to stop russian energy exports at least not for the moment but everything and anything can change
01:03:09and well we've just seen um something happen which frankly came a little out of the blue which is
01:03:20a angry post by the president donald trump on truth social in which he said that it was absolutely wrong
01:03:30that any country in the world should buy iranian oil that this is unacceptable that any country that did
01:03:39buy iranian oil could no longer do any kind of business at all with the united states and he made it clear
01:03:49that this is secondary sanctions so it's unclear to me whether he was announcing secondary sanctions
01:03:58or whether that is his intention or whether to say it frankly this is just another statement by donald trump
01:04:07which will be left there out in the air and won't necessarily lead to anything now the biggest buyer
01:04:17of iranian oil has been china and of course if donald trump follows through with that threat on the
01:04:25assumption that the chinese continue to buy iranian oil which i suspect they will then
01:04:35donald trump is going to impose secondary sanctions on china which will mean that china
01:04:42cannot continue to do any more business with the united states this over and above the already
01:04:53stratospheric tariffs that the united states has imposed on chinese goods which have led to retaliatory tariffs
01:05:06by china against the united states moreover if we get into the sanctions game then
01:05:18lifting the tariffs isn't going to make any difference because the sanctions will still be there
01:05:23and sanctions are notoriously difficult probably more difficult than tariffs to withdraw especially if
01:05:32someone in congress gets the idea which they might very well do that they should make those sanctions
01:05:40legal through legislation so will donald trump follow through with that threat
01:05:48as i said it seems to me extraordinarily reckless but if he does do it then just just consider what's
01:05:56happening um iran apparently exports around 1.5 um million barrels of oil a day as i said most of
01:06:05it to china if china can't import oil from iran or just presumably is going to have to step up imports
01:06:14from someone else saudis can supply some oil but more likely the chinese will look to the russians because
01:06:21the chinese know that they are in america's cross hairs and the saudis might be nervous about supplying oil
01:06:31to china so the chinese will look to russia um the united states then imposes secondary sanctions
01:06:44on the export of russian oil but of course it is already being exported to china
01:06:52in part to replace iranian oil probably what would happen in fact is that iran and russia would enter
01:07:00into some kind of agreement with each other that they would share the profits of oil oil being provided
01:07:07to china um none of this is making any kind of sense on top of which the united states also has
01:07:18restrictions in place against the export of venezuelan oil apparently there are heavy penalties now to buying oil
01:07:29buying oil from venezuela um if the united states wants to create a worldwide energy shortage
01:07:39and a crisis in the oil market then well all i will say is that it is starting to take steps in that
01:07:51direction all this over and above all the other disruptions to world trade that the tariff policy
01:08:01has already created i would have thought speaking you know for myself that imposing secondary sanctions
01:08:14applying enforcing secondary sanctions on china at this particular time whether they buy oil from iran or russia
01:08:25is not a good idea given the problems that the collapse of trade with china is already causing in the united
01:08:34states and i would have thought that imposing further problems on the energy markets in general
01:08:45is a very bad idea altogether given the fragile state of the world economy as a member of the duran
01:08:56community has rightly pointed out to me if the united states is going to impose secondary sanctions
01:09:04on russian energy exports does that mean that germany for example which is now buying quite a lot of lng
01:09:12from russia must stop doing so in which case not just oil but also gas at a time from gas shortages in europe
01:09:26the oil and gas markets are going to be affected generally as well none of this looks like
01:09:35a good idea to me if you want to make a global economic crisis worse if you want to make the conditions of life
01:09:45for american consumers and taxpayers even worse than they already are well as i said these could all be steps in the right direction
01:09:56this is going to be a very complex and interesting summer i suspect that events on the front lines will decide it
01:10:04we will see how far and how fast the russian offensive goes but it seems to me that the russians have the
01:10:13initiative anyway this is where i finish my program today more from me soon let me remind you again that
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01:10:40more from me soon have a very good day