Avdeyevka Total Collapse, Syrsky Full Retreat, Rus Unresisted; Euroclear Rus Asset Seizure Illegal

the last 24 hours have been possibly the most dramatic 24 hours in the enti period of the special military operation that the Russians began in the territory of Ukraine in February 2022 I say that um with um some understanding that we've actually witnessed many dramatic and extraord ordinary events over the course of this conflict but the events of the last 24 hours in my opinion are just unparalleled the first thing to say is that as I have been discussing over the previous two videos there has been a total collapse of Ukrainian resistance in a AFA and not just a total collapse but an entirely chaotic collapse as well um briefly and it's difficult now to provide exact details over the course of the last two days but perhaps most dramatically yesterday more and more reports started to circulate that Ukrainian soldiers in the various um outlying fortified positions that had been established by Ukraine on the per periphery of adus defenses were abandoning their positions often without orders orders or mostly without orders and were fleeing towards adava itself towards the parts of OFA still under Ukrainian control the central and southern parts of OFA but the collapse didn't just concern these soldiers from these outline positions because as it turns out even the soldiers within AF afca were themselves um giving up the battle surrendering positions to the Russians and fleeing on mass to one location which was the heik quarter or the ninth quarter or the Citadel which is the um area of high-rise buildings on the um central western outskirts of AA widely believed to be the most heavily fortified position within AA um before the battle started and it seems that this Retreat it's not perhaps a retreat this route to this these positions was completely disorganized that there was no plan or general order for it to happen and over the course of the hours that during which it was taking place the extent of the chaos was entally confirmed by increasingly strange orders coming from Ukrainian commanders specifically from General tarnavski the overall head of the Tava group who is clearly the general who is Ukrainian General who is overall charge of the defense of AA anyway General tarnavski was issuing bulletins saying that Ukrainian troops were withdrawing to more secure positions he was still giving the impression that the defense of avava was being continued he was denying reports that the supply lines into ABA had been cut by the Russians and altogether he was giving an impression of complete disconnection from the actual events that were taking place in the town it's important to say that the Ukrainian troops who've fled to the ninth quarter and from reports I'm seeing this morning the ninth quarter is the only part of Metropolitan of Deka which remains under Ukrainian control all the rest of OFA has now been abandoned Russian troops are gradually moving in occupying positions which the ukrainians have abandoned but and meeting either no resistance or extremely scattered resistance when they do so anyway um the ninth quarter heik The Citadel whichever you prefer to call it and shattered place already massively bombed by the Russians over the last few weeks all the buildings there as I said are essentially skeletons um um when you go close up the fact becomes obvious and the ground is covered with Dey well that in itself that place in itself continues to be just a staging area for the uh Ukrainian soldiers as they try to flee West um trying to escape um OFA itself trying to escape out of what is now universally conceded to be by all remotely objective observers or cauldron and it's extremely difficult however for them to withdraw because um the fact is that um the feels to the west of the 9th quarter the roads to the west of the 9th quarter which the Ukrainian soldiers in the ninth quarter would have to uh pass well these are apparently these have been mined by Russian troops by the Russians they've used the various um equipment that they have to uh mine the these fields remotely and um beyond that the Russians also have the ability to Shell and bomb and machine gun Ukrainian positions Ukrainian troops trying to Fe flee across these fields and there are nonetheless attempts apparently by scattered groups of Ukrainian soldiers to free to flee across these Fields a few of them do sometimes manage apparently to get through but many others are are caught in the fields and are heavily either wounded or killed and apparently the fields are now covered with the bodies of uh Ukrainian soldiers who have been trying to escape um a afka and already many people are saying that this is a mistake that the ukrainians the Ukrainian soldiers in abka would be much better advised to try to to surrender to accept that the Battle Is Lost that there is no realistic Prospect of escape and that trying to flee across these fields would be well to put it mildly incredibly dangerous and um might indeed result in their death or in their severe wounding well in fact it gets worse than this because it seems that the Russians are not staying idle their forces in Central of Africa are advancing now themselves along the main along the one of these roads and they're advancing towards a village called lorino which apparently is the one place on the western outskirts of ABA actually it appears to be located some distance from left ABA itself but it is the one place there which the ukrainians continue to hold and there are reports that the Russians have now reached that Village and there are further reports that they're likely to storm The Village overnight and by General consensus if they do storm this Village then further exit of Ukrainian troops from aava from this from the ninth quarter it will become impossible well even that does not complete the picture of chaos and disaster because we're also getting reports now that over the ne next couple of hours the Russians are going to start their mechanized Advance across other fields to the south of the ninth quarter they're going to advance in other words across these field in the south towards the ninth quarter itself and they're going to prepare to storm the ninth quarter itself and given the chaos and disorganization of the Ukrainian troops in the ninth quarter it's difficult to imagine when they do that they will encounter much in the way of resistance there are lots of reports now from the Russians that large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers are surrendering and are being taken prisoner it is difficult to get a clear picture of the numbers involved but pictures have appeared of this and I've seen one report which speaks of at least one Ukrainian officer having been captured and I sure that many others have been captured as well so an absolute collapse in AA itself and to the extent that there is fighting still going on in the metropolitan area of aava and I should say that bombing of Ukrainian positions in and around AA by the Russian Air Force still continues and the Russian Artillery continues to remain very active and I believe believe that the toss one thermobaric multiple launch rocket systems are also still active fully active throughout this area but anyway to the extent that there is still fighting going on it is starting to acquire something of the quality of a massacre rather than a genuine battle it reminds me a little of some of the events at the end of the first Gulf War when the US forces started to attack Iraqi formations and we saw an attack a collapse amongst the Iraqis and scenes of appalling Devastation on the road leading from Kuwait to Iraq itself it's it seems to me to be at least that bad and it's also the case that the troops who are find them finding themselves the Ukrainian troops who are finding themselves in this catastrophic situation can in no sense be described as second line units um I'm getting reports that amongst the Ukrainian troops who are trapped in AA who are either surrendering or being killed on mass our troops from the 110th mechanized Brigade The courageous Brigade one should say that which has defended of dafa throughout the special military operation um I can remember how at an earlier stage in the battle they were issuing appeals to the Ukrainian High command complaining about the fact that their senior commanders had abandoned them but insisting that they would still do their Duty complaining about the fact that another Brigade the 54th Brigade somewhere to the west of AA um was complaining about the fact that the situ for them was becoming intolerable and I remember that the men of the 110th Brigade said that the soldiers of the 54th Brigade were cowards because what the 110th Brigade was experiencing was even worse anyway I can remember all of these things and it must be said and it must be said in acknowledgement that this unit the 110th Brigade has done its Duty the men there have fought with extraordinary courage to defend this position and now as I said they are trapped and in effect abandoned and there is as I said these scenes of chaos and disorganization and Massacre underway and it's not just the 110th Brigade I saw a report that troops another Elite Ukrainian Brigade the presidential Brigade are also caught up in this route and of course the troops from the third assault Brigade rushed to the area by General tarnavski and general syi supposedly to stabilize the situation they too have now been caught up in the wreck now it does seem as if some of the troops of the third assault Brigade are now well inside this cauldron it seems that other troops of the third assault Brigade are trying to defend lorino and there are lines of retreat for these troops but well it's looking increasingly difficult to imagine that they can hold on in lorino for very long against what appear to be overwhelming odds and repeating something which happened in the siege of marup to this identical unit the a of Brigade as it was then called it's now calls itself the third assault Brigade it seems that large numbers of these troops um from the third assault Brigade have retreated into the basement areas the underground areas below the Coke factory the famous Coke factory which we've been hearing so much about and pictures are film is already circulating of these troops there now this is an absolutely bizarre decision at least so it seems to me because if you look at where this Factory is located it seems to me that there are still possible avenues for escape for these troops Going Underground again as they did in the a of style Factory in marup where they were previously fighting I said that this seems to repeat the pattern of what this Elite Brigade does so they're doing again exactly the same thing that they did at the AO style Factory they're going underground anyway retreating underground as they did at the AR of style Factory and as they now apparently are also doing in the Coke factory all that that is doing is that it is going to leave them trapped um before long probably within the next few hours or days at most the Russians will surround the Coke factory as I said resistance in this entire area is collapsing so what is the logic again of retreating underground into what increasingly looks like a trap there we are there is an awful lot about this battle and about Ukrainian decision making over the course of of it which I simply do not understand anyway suffice to say that with Lino um apparently likely to be stormed tonight or perhaps even late later this afternoon who's to say with the Russians advancing towards the ninth quarter from the south they're already got troops um surrounding it from the east and south and north but the main attack is apparently going to come from the south the battle for the metropolitan area of ABA will soon end and of course we could have again a repeat of the marup scenario with Ukrainian a azof Fighters hold in beneath the Coke factory as they were once hold up inside the the a of style Factory in marup but of course that will be a meaningless defense even if it does provide some opportunity for some Western journalists to go on pretending for a couple of days or perhaps even weeks that avdaa is still holding anyway that's the overall military picture a very chaotic one a very disorganized one now early this morning the new overall military commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General cki seems to have made a decision to try to take control of the situation as I have said already it is clear to me that much of this implosion that's taking place in ofd AFA is not consequent upon orders from the high command telling Ukrainian soldiers to pull back uh and then to try to retreat across the fields it has all the appearance of massive disorganization and chaos and of soldiers trying to take trying to make well making their own decisions as basically they try to flee for their lives well General syi has acknowledged this this morning and appears to be trying to reestablish his authority and the authority of the main Ukrainian command the official Ukrainian command to some extent by giving an order that Ukrainian forces should be with should withdraw completely from AA now as I said this is already happening it was already happening before that order was published but it is a general acknowledgement a formal acknowledgement from the Ukrainian military leadership that the Battle of AA is lost I am going to say once for again this order though it is in a certain respect an acknowledgment of reality is once more inherently delusional it would have made sense if it had been made say 5 days ago when the Russians broke when it became clear that the Russian wedge that had broken through into Northern and Central of afca um had Consolidated itself and that the Russians were preparing to um advance and to capture the rest of of dka at that point it might have been an option it might have made some kind of sense to order a general withdrawal from AA it might have been something that the ukrainians could have done it would already in my opinion by that point have been extremely difficult and there would have been very heavy losses but I remember well how mik valter Swedish military officer um was already talking about the fact that Ukraine needed to think about withdrawing its forces from aava that Ukraine insisting on launching counterattacks to break the Russian hold on of DEA was a massive mistake um and that um it would simply result in an exponential increase in Ukrainian losses I remember how he was saying all of that and that was being said a couple of days ago and he was absolutely right but at that time shortly after General CI was appointed all the Ukrainian decisions went in the opposite direction doing exactly what valter and others it must be said were warning against trying to hold on to AA when it was clear that the situation was already becoming undefendable and I get to say something further still in my opinion and you know I'm an in expert person in these matters it ought to have been clear to the Ukrainian High command at that time still led by General's illusion that Ukrainian defense of Ava was becoming unsustainable two weeks earlier when the Russians captured the Zar hunting lodge position and were able to break through and entrench themselves in the southern Parts southern part of AA and instead of making the obvious at least to me it looks like obvious decision The Logical decision of withdrawing from aava General zusy appears to have been far more concerned with his personal battle with president zalinski to give the necessary orders for the withdrawal from aava General tarnavski his subordinate who was in charge of fighting in AA um I'm not even sure what he was doing and instead the ukrainians remained in position even as the Russian trap closed around them I'm going to say a little about Ukrainian commanders briefly but anyway the order that General syi is giving for a withdrawal from a AFA has come much too late the only militarily rational order that he should give now if he really cares for his men is that he should he should relay an order to whoever is still in any form of command in ABD AFA itself and announce it publicly and take responsibility for it and order the Ukrainian troops in AA to surrender and lay down their arms that it seems to me is the only Humane and militarily sensible thing for a commander in this situation to do now General sisi has a defense here he has only been in charge of Ukrainian forces for well I think it's just over a week he is not ultimately responsible for the chaos and collapse and disaster in AA that we are seeing now and this brings me back to the topic of general zusy and Ukraine's Command Staff generally now the person who failed ultimately in a AFA was the man who was in overall charge of the Ukrainian forces as the situation in adfa with was deteriorating and collapsing and that of course was General zusy General zusy a couple of weeks ago was saying that adeva would be captured by the Russians within two to three months it's now clear that this timetable was hopelessly wrong even when Zusi said it I would say that by contrast valter has got the general scheme of events the general pattern of events essentially right though he got if I have to say it the timetable wrong he did not anticipate the speed of UK of the Ukrainian collapse or the energy with which the Russians would conduct this this operation which I will come back to in a moment but it is important to say that valter did get the overall pattern of what was to happen right but going back to Zusi given that zi was telling us a few weeks ago that ABA was certain to fall it was his responsibility to work out a proper withdrawal and Retreat plan to build fortified positions to the west of ab AFA that the Ukrainian forces could fall back to to do all of those things that he absolutely clearly failed to do now he is Alibi of course is that he was up against president zalinski who was constantly countermanding his Ord or rather preventing him from doing these necessary things I have myself been listening to this Litany of comments which clearly originate from zusy in which everything that goes wrong is blamed on zalinski he supposedly is the voice of reason and he's elusion is supposedly the voice of reason and sense and zalinski by contrast is this erratic irrational eccentric individual who gives crazy orders that leave lead men leave men to their deaths well that might be right but if so it seems to me that the responsibility of a commander in that kind of case faced by a supreme commander zalinski who is making bizarre and self-destructive orders like that is not to cling on to his job in the way that zusy tried to do but rather instead to resign and come out and say publicly that the situation is becoming critical and that the Supreme Commander in Chief is not listening to the appropriate advice and that as a result the lives of soldiers is being sacrificed and the war is being lost now I fully understand that taking such a step is an extreme extraordinary one for an officer coming out in that kind of way and criticizing in public his former Supreme Commander in Chief but had solution done that assuming that he really was giving all this advice which is attributed to him had he done that lives in adca might have been saved this catastrophe that we are seeing now might have been avoided and it still seems to me that the overall responsibility of a commander is to win the battle obviously but also to ensure that the lives of his soldiers are not sacrificed pointlessly and need needlessly in a way that we are now seeing as by the way has happened repeatedly throughout the war for as long as zusan has been in charge so there we are I think we are seeing a critical failure of leadership military leadership by Ukraine on the part of the leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces and of course make it clear in part zalinski itself and that of course tells us an awful lot about the way in which the war has been conducted up to this point and I'm going to make a few quick observations about Zusi and Siri now and I'm going to compare them briefly with that opposite numbers now the overall commander of the Russian forces is of course the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Valeri gasimov he is in his 60s he's an immensely experienced officer he is also a very highly trained officer he was um an officer who went through um military school um he commanded troops he was then sent to one of the intermediate acmis that the first the Soviet and then the Russian Armed Forces um operate these intermediate schools in his case it was the malinowski military academy um which basically trains officers who are going to achieve middle rank within the Army the command schools basically train lieutenants but these middle rank schools train um officers who as I said are going to assume higher positions and then gasim eventually trained at the general staff Academy in Moscow um the school which trains general staff officers um men of men who have already achieved Colonel or Major General Rank and who then learn the learn the lessons or taught the academic lessons of higher command and incidentally the same pattern is true of the Russian officer the Russian commander of the forces who have won the Battle of AA it turns out slav jangad has now confirmed that this is general michev who is the um overall commander of the center group now I would say General michev is one of those Russian generals who in the past Ukraine claims to have killed but he's alive and well and he is apparently the general who commands the Russian forces in aava and michef has been identified by the Russian media and the Russian defense ministry as a supremely talented officer and his virtuosic conduct of the battle of aava which I have discussed in re in a recent program confirms that he is indeed that well he too has been through the same pattern of training as he's Chief General gassim has been he was um he went through command School graduated as Lieutenant um commanded various um platoon and Company units um reached became eligible for the rank of Colonel went to one of the intermediate cannabis that the uh Russian uh military has the same a school the same school essentially as the one that get asimuth attended by now it's no longer called the G malinowski tank Academy it's been United apparently with the fres academy which used to train infantry officers but anyway he trained at this combined arms school as it is now called and then eventually he too after being promoted to the rank of lead General trained at the Academy of the general staff so he has that level of training and experience and of course he is 48 years old General zusy who was Ukraine's overall commander until a few weeks ago until about a week ago he's only two years older and if you look at Z's training background around yes he too went to a military school he too was commissioned as Lieutenant he too went to a Military College an intermediate Military College he never received the kind of general staff training that gasimov and michev have and I think it shows I would also say that I doubt that zusy would have obtained the kind of thorough training from Ukrainian military schools that the Russians would have done from the far better established Russian military schools with a immense institutional continuity extending all the way back in some cases to the darar era and the 19th century and in a few cases further still to the 18th century zi has probably received some degree of training from the United States but again I question whether it would have been of the level that his adversaries gasimov and michev have received and if we talk about syki the man who's taken over from him so far as I can the only academic training he has received as an officer was from the uh Moscow higher command School the school where he trained to become a lieutenant to become a commissioned officer he doesn't appear to have trained through any of the higher schools attended any of the high schools that certainly he's Russian opponents have done so I don't think these Ukrainian officers have the degree of training that their Russian adversaries to do and I think in some cases and this is a point which has been made by Daniel Davis they reflect the youthfulness of the Ukrainian military structure zus himself is only 50 years old he's just two years older than morvich um Daniel Davis Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis of the United States has explained in many places how command experience ience is essential for an officer in modern war and I just don't think that zusy has it to the necessary level he's too young and I do think that supplements his um probable lack of training and in s's case he's an older officer and has had more TR more EXP experience more Battlefield experience than zusy has had but again I don't think that offsets his lack of the necessary academic training to command in these battles this is something that again Western governments perhaps didn't take into proper account when they backed Ukraine into waging this war anyway there we are that's all I want to say about Ukrainian officers um as I said it is a disaster on our hands um the only question now or so it seems to me is whether the Russians will close this the lid on this quadron um later today today or by tonight and how big the bag of Ukrainian prisoners is going to be I'm not going to get give any guesses but it's going to be probably well at least hundreds and possibly thousands and I don't want to even try to guess how severe Ukrainian losses overall have been um it ought to be said that the Russian defense Ministry has maintained a total silence so far about this battle I expect that at some point over the next few days or weeks when it is all over we will have another of those conferences between televised conferences between president Putin and defense minister shyu in the Kremlin shyu will then provide Putin with a report and that will give us perhaps a more accurate idea of the level of Ukrainian losses and of the scale of the disaster that Ukraine has suffered now as I always say in these programs the the situation for the Ukrainian forces is very bad on every other part of the front lines as well there's been lots of reports for example about the Russians pushing very hard in the marinka area advancing in various directions towards through Novo mikova I get the sense this Village is probably close to being captured they've apparently all but surrounded paba another Village in this area they're pushing hard through um yorka and they're moving towards kurov they're also moving north towards korovka another Village um by that name there are two Villages called korova one to the north of OFA which the Russians captured in March one but to the south of of AFA and to the north of marinka which the Russians have yet to capture anyway um they're attacking there they're making major and ferocious attacks in the bmud area um most reports confirm that they have now entered and are in the process of storming the village of ianka and further north there also well on the way apparently to storming the other Village or perhaps small town of borova which apparently lies on the way towards cque which must be a Russian objective before very long and there continue to be rumors of a major Russian advance from the south from zapor roia region the tens of thousands of Russian troops are being con concentrated there and that they're preparing to push North perhaps towards orov some suggest even towards zapar roia City itself now I'm not going to go into the details of these of these battles for one thing with all the attention on OFA there's a death of reports from these battlefronts even though we still get a sense of the general direction and of the general picture in every place the ukrainians are crumbling and or are on the retreat but perhaps more important is that I've now been contacted Again by one of my most useful and valuable sources a person who has kept me exceptionally well informed about the state of the war in Ukraine who has provided me at various times with exceptional information I must continue to guard his identity which I have to say I find frustrating because I would like to thank this person publicly and all I can do is do it in the way that I have done anyway this person has been very busy he's been contacting Ukrainian soldiers he's a he's able to do that he's also been able to scan the situation um well he's been able to get information I'm not going to say how he gets information um because that might reveal a few facts about him anyway suffice to say that he tells me and I have absolutely no doubt that this is true that the situation in the Ukrainian Army is now catastrophic it's no longer a case of just talking about morale having collapsed it is beyond that the Ukrainian soldiers are Furious several brig AES apparently are becoming restless and disaffected and are starting to resist the orders that they are being given and that the whole situation across the Ukrainian military is edging towards crisis they are furious with the incompetence of their commanders they they are furious with the incompetence of their political leadership they are more angry with them if possible than they are with the Russians themselves and after I received this email there was corroboration open corroboration of what he said because a video has been released made by soldiers of one Ukrainian Brigade and I am confident that this is a genuine video um of real soldiers from an actual Ukrainian Brigade in other words I don't believe that this is a Russian disinformation operation anyway the soldiers of this brigade are saying that they are exhausted that they have been broken that they want to go home that the war is pointless and that the right thing for Ukraine to do is to surrender or at least to seek terms with Russia that is the first time I think I have heard Ukrainian soldiers in the field talk in that way now I am not saying that the latter is a general sentiment across the Ukrainian Armed Forces I think there are many other Ukrainian soldiers who are equally exhausted equally tired equally demoralized and equally angry but I suspect that these soldiers perhaps of a more nationalist disposition still want to continue resisting the Russians but they want to see of they will want to see a fundamental change in the way that the war is being conducted at least that is what they will say they're probably not familiar with the underlying military industrial logistical realities that I and others Brian btic Alex Vini and people like that have been talking about for a long long time about the fact that the West has lost the race in arms production to Russia and is not able to supply Ukraine with the shells and equipment that Ukraine would need in order to successfully change the situation in the war probably these men instead think or continue to think that if other leaders more Hardline more nationalist leaders take over in Kiev then things might still be turned around and that goes back to the information that this person who has been in contact with me has provided because apparently not just talk but even demands for a coup are now spreading through the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces we are possibly close to a moment of breakdown now one always has to add words of caution here the police and um internal security services of Ukraine apparently continue to function and function efficiently and they are still loyal to zelinsky's government and they're still a potent Force But ultimately as was once said supposedly by m z power political power flows from the barrel of a gun and if mutinies Open mutinies start to spread across the Army well we could see a crisis that the zilinski government even with the support of its intelligence and Security Services might struggle to bring under control incidentally since I'm now talking about the intelligence and Security Services I should say that amongst the officers the senior officers who are now coming in for extremely strong criticism in Ukraine from the Ukrainian soldiers themselves elves is none other than kilo budanov I've spoken at length about how he is actually as and as an intelligence officer and abysmal failure he gets the Russians consistently wrong he consistently underestimates their staying power the growth of their army the growth of their military industrial capacity he shows no real interest in any of these things he's gift and skill and Obsession has been in conducting covert operations some would say terroristic activities within Russia itself well it seems that even Ukrainian officers and sold are now becoming fed up with this and they are saying that one of the reasons for the debacle in AA is that budanov has not been providing Ukrainian commanders and Ukrainian Soldiers with accurate in intelligence about Russian intentions and capabilities which is after all the primary job or so one would have thought of the head of military intelligence so there is apparently intense anger also against him now again let me reiterate I do not know where all of this is going to lead lsky himself of course is out of the country to what extent he is aware of all of this disaffection and anger that is spreading in Ukraine at the moment I cannot say perhaps he will decide that it makes sense for him to extend his stay who knows but anyway one way or the other the situation is terrible it is becoming terrible in political terms and it is becoming terrible in military terms because the fall of AA has deprived Ukraine of what is generally ConEd to be its strongest and most heavily fortified military position there is a universal consensus that there are no fortified lines west of OFA the Russians have huge forces gather gathered around abfa capable of still capable of advance and of moving at will the Russians have concentrated huge forces in the zapor roia area they might be preparing a further Advance there there Remains the Enigma of what they might be planning to do in Haru region they might might be preparing a swoop on kiin and Leman um in order to outflank Ukrainian forces in donbas who knows or even to threaten har itself we see further signs of incipient collapse in bmud on the part of the ukrainians the Russians are said to have 85,000 troops con concentrated around bman they might intend to capture chuar and push on towards constantina and then beyond that to katus maybe the ukrainians will be able to pull things together set up further defense lines try to hold out east of the NEPA but it seems to me that we are closer to a breakdown than we have ever been up to now at any point during this war and I think Ukrainian Society is beginning to sense this and the Ukrainian Army certainly is now that brings me back to the topic of Russian military industrial production now President Putin has just toured the Ural vagon zavod military industrial complex in nagil the one that produces the greatest number of Russian tanks he said that tank production has increased fivefold course he never G we're never given the base numbers so we don't quite know what that actually means in terms of exact volumes but anyway that is what Putin said so tank production apparently is increasing he was shown the production line for t90m tanks he was shown the production line for armat vehicles the T14 it's clear that that project has not been abandoned despite many claims by many people that it has been probably it's just been deferred until the special military operation is over though you never know it might be that we're going to see a few more t14s on the battlefronts before the fighting ends and if so it'll be interesting to see how they perform apparently a small batch was sent to the battle battle lines but they acted as artillery rather than actually engaged the Ukrainian forces in full-on tank combat anyway we'll see and he of course he also saw refurbished uh t72 massively modernized or sent to the battle lines and there's been another article this time in the guardian about how the West has been astonished and dismayed by this enormous surge in Russian military industrial output now I ought to say that this article continues to provide us with all a lot of the old cliches about um Russian technological and Industrial prowess um the Russians apparently have large numbers of factories they've been reactivated the equipment that they're producing is however pretty basic um they're going to struggle supposedly to continue to produce Advanced weapons because of the West's technological restrictions all of that kind of thing but finally I saw some of the things that I have been saying for years and others like Jim can who's written books on this subject that you can read have also been saying that Russian Factories do not work to the same in the same way that Western Factories do at least those that are involved in the military industrial field that they are designed with M to possess much higher greater levels of capacity then one tends to find in the west that they are designed to be able to search output when the Kremlin requires them to do do so making it possible for the Russians to increase weapons production at staggering levels which Western industry simply cannot match and they talk about how this makes little Financial or economic sense for uh Western industry to do how the Russians are prepared to keep staff on and to allow machine tools and things like that to remain idle in ways that would be unacceptable in the west how in other words the entire West Russian military industry functions in a completely different way from the way the Western one does it was Eerie actually reading in the guardian things that I was saying two years ago but there we are they finally caught up now I have one point to make here um I'm not suggesting that the guardian in future when discussing these topics speak to me I have only a superficial though as it turns out fairly well informed View of Russian industrial capabilities but there are actually many experts in the west who could have explained all of this to Western policy makers before the conflict began that underestimating the military industrial complex of Russia was a reckless thing to do and I'm thinking of one particular person and that is Jim caner I have learned a huge amount from his books if you want to read about Russian tanks and infantry fighting Vehicles the t80 the t72 the t64 all of those the t55 the T10 well there's no better place to find out about these things than Jim can's books I mean he has written about them with extraordinary levels of understanding and knowledge and OB objectivity and he does so with the expertise of a trained and highly qualified engineer and somebody who's had a military background who's actually served in the British military but above all he has visited these places he has been to ur alvon and cheliabinsk and all of these places he knows these factories he knows the people who work in these places and how these factories are organized as one particular um section of his books which interested me He was discussing the T10 heavy tank which the Russians developed in the 1950s and which remained in service through the 60s and early 70s and he's actually been shown plans the original blueprints for this tank and he's spoken he's been provided with information about how it was designed and who designed it and the arguments about these things what I'm saying is he is a real expert and I am sure that there are other such people around why were they not contacted why did people not speak to them I don't just mean Western governments here though Western governments certainly should have been talking to people like Jin can and giving them the weight that they deserve but why not the media in the west he's available as I said he's published his books you can contact his publisher and no doubt they will put you in touch with him why not go to someone like him he can explain all of this he had that happen and I you know I'm not just I'm talking about Jim caner because he's someone I know because I've read his books but I am sure that there are other people like that also real real people Military Officers who have visited the Russian polygons the training centers um Engineers who have worked in Russia on various industrial projects and who have been in who have experienced and understand ing of how the Russian industrial complex actually works why not talk to these people instead of the usual Cascade of people that you get from think tanks and uh such places who to say it straightforwardly have no clue what they're talking about anyway that's all I'm going to say about this I would strongly recommend and that in future if the times the financial times the New York Times all of these places really want to give their readers informed accounts of the adversary that the West is taking on in any future War they actually do the research find out who knows what they're talking about and speak to them it is not difficult and there are those people and I'm sure they exist in abundance and I would add one further thing if you know one that person probably knows the others and it would not be difficult very quickly to bring up to build up a team of people who could provide you with accurate and reliable information which would enable you to prepare and to know what to expect and had that happened bad decisions which might have been avoided could have been avoided though the reality is of course that it seems that Western leaders prefer to and Western newspaper editors prefer to take their advice advice from people who want who tell them what they want to hear not from people who actually know and that now brings me to a very interesting article in the financial times which comes from a person who is a genuine expert the chief executive of Euro CLE the institution the um holding Fund in Belgium where the bulk of the Frozen Russian assets is located well this person who must in this field be considered an expert uh this is uh uh lver uh Mo um Mo sorry she has come for come out and said clearly and categorically that seizing Russian assets is a disastrous idea and this idea of borrowing against these assets treating these assets as collateral without the agreement of the Russians is a disastrous idea also this is what the financial times quotes Miss MOS Mrs MRE is saying using assets that do not belong to you as collateral is pretty close to an indirect seizing or a commitment to Future seizing which could have exactly the same effects on the markets as a direct seizing we don't see how the central Russian Bank could simply accept uh that has been uh that has been seized and that Euro clear obligations towards them have stopped to exist I trust that The Prudent rational will prevail that's a bold hope when we come to a logic of seizing assets then you see the trust in the Euro clear system the trust in the European Capital markets the trust in the Euro as a com company currency substantially affected so there it is it's exactly what I was saying again over previous programs that issuing debt and treating assets as collateral which do not belong to you without the agreement of the party to whom they do belong is T himount to theft it is as bad as seizing those assets stealing those assets and that is exactly what Mrs moer is in effect saying and she is also saying for heaven say don't do this thing don't seize these Russian assets it's absolutely wrong she says that you can use the interest from these assets because the interest actually does not belong to the Russian Central Bank I hadn't appreciated this it actually belongs to Euro CLE that is the arrangement so Euro CLE can actually um transfer the interest to um the Western Powers I would point out that what that means is that if you use this interest to fund Ukraine then you're not using in that case money that belongs to Russia to fund Ukraine you're taking money from Euro CLE a western institution to fund Ukraine and I wonder whether that makes much sense either but no never mind but anyway you could legislate for that but what she is saying is any seizure of Russian assets certainly the assets held by urle is illegal and wrong and it risks destroying the reputation of Euro CLE and exposing it to Legal claims and that this could have a long-term impact on The credibility of the European Financial system and on in trust and European Capital markets and Trust in the Euro will she be listened to will the Geniuses people like Jake Sullivan and Tony blinken and um the president himself Ursula fion the clever people in the government in London who just by the way been hammered by the British public in a series of byelections will they do what Mrs mosery says act in a prudent and rational way and decide not to do this Reckless and wrong thing well we shall see I will say by the way that Mrs M's point that um seizing the assets could expose urle to Legal claims over the assets tells us that if the Russian Central Bank does bring bring claims then EUR clear has been advised that it is no defense to them which would mean in effect the the collapse of Euro clear if the courts do their job which is remains to be seen well as I said experts are ignored experts on the Russian military industrial system have been ignored experts on the Russian economy have been and continue to be ignored perhaps experts on things like this seizure of assets like Miss Mrs marre will be ignored again and that of course explains to a great extent why we are where we are well thank you again 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 um X Twitter X you can support our work via patreon And subscribe star links under this video you can also um support our work by going to um our shop buy yourself anyway the amazing things you will find their magic mugs hats hoodie hoodies t-shirts all those great things and last but not least if you've liked this program please remember to tick the like button and to check your subscription to this channel thank you again more for me soon have a very good [Music] day

Channel: Alexander Mercouris

Views: 150,731

Keywords: Alexander Mercouris, The Duran, duran news, alexander duran, alex duran, Alex Christoforou, duran alexander, duran alex, US news, EU news, Russia news, China news, Geopolitics, GeopoliticalAnalysis, WorldNews, GlobalAffairs, BreakingNews, GlobalEconomy, putin, russia, ukraine, zelensky, nato, china, zaluzhny, budanov, nato ukraine, tucker carlson, trump, tucker putin, tucker moscow, poroshenko, kirby, syrsky, trudeau, egypt, navalny, avdiivka battle, germany

Id: WlAL5afMSAQ

Length: 80min 55sec (4855 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024