Kiev Panic, Budanov Blames Syrsky, Troops Surrender, Shoigu Runs Rus MIC, Belousov DefMin

last 24 hours have seen more dramatic events um um infighting in KF further Russian advances in Haru region and an important government reshuffle in Moscow and it is to the last that I will first turn because it has been widely reported in the west and I think as is so often the case nowadays I think a lot of the reporting is wrong and isn't taking into account all of the decisions that have been made first of all what exactly has happened in Moscow well Putin has essentially reappointed the same government that um served him in his previous term as President Putin Putin's term expired on the 7th of May he was successfully reelected President of Russia in March with a huge majority on an increased turnout he is the unchallenged leader of Russia and um as always happens in Russia as in fact Russian law requires the government formerly resigned um on the occasion of the expiry of Putin's term and as new as at the commencement of his new term Putin chose to in most respects reappoint the government that had existed previously so many of the key figures the people we know are back in their original posts the Prime Minister Mr mishustin he is prime minister still there is universal agreement across Russia that mushin has been an outstanding success in his role as prime minister the economics ministers mainly remain in place so there's been a significant reshuffle there which I'll come to shortly but we've seen um um nabul she's still at the head of the Central Bank um rashnikov is still the economics Minister however the man who had overall charge of the economy and who had that who ran that post as first Deputy Prime Minister Andre bosf he has now left that position and his place has been taken by a much younger man Dennis manturov who was Russia's industry Minister and who also by the way it is generally acknowledged has been a success in that role now the events that have attracted Global attention mainly concern Bell USF and one other person the defense minister sge Shu now Shu has been dismissed as defense minister and appointed Secretary of the security Council in place of the security council's longstanding secretary Nikolai petrusev who apparently will soon be filling a new role we're not yet told what that role is going to be so Shu has been sent to the security Council where he will now be secretary and bosf civilian official is now taking over the defense ministry as defense minister and this has provoked some surprise both in Russia and the west and there's been a great deal of commentary about this in the west and people are again linking it to the recent arrest on corruption charges of a deputy defense minister who supposedly was an ally of shy Goose there's no real reason to believe that and um it seems by the way that this person has been under investigation for something like 5 years so this has been a longstanding operation by the Russian security Ser uh Security Services and police agencies but anyway put that aside there's been the usual discussion and speculation in uh the West that Shu has in effect been sacked that the position that he's been appointed to is in some way a titular or norminal one that he's been parked in some way that this is all a face saving measure to somehow allow shu to save face we've been told incessantly that Putin and shyu are close friends and that they go fishing together which by the way happens to be true and that it's basically Putin um giving a face saving um job to an old friend whom he's had to sack because of shu's supposed incompetence his corruption his failures at the start of the special military operation and all those other things now there is in my opinion absolutely no truth whatso ever to that um um to that view for once I find myself in agreement with Reba Reba I think is an outstanding or at least a very important reporter of military developments on the front lines in Ukraine though one who should be uh followed critically but generally I think that his political assessments about events in Russia are almost completely wrong but on this occasion I think he's got it right I think he's absolutely correct in saying that shu's supposed dismissal is in some respects a promotion now this brings me to what is for me a somewhat sore Topic at the center of Russian government at the center of the Russian political system there is this body called the security Council it meets every Tuesday Putin is its chairman and if one reads the very brief summaries of the meetings that are provided on the kremlin's website one sees that it doesn't just concern itself with foreign and security policy as its name might suggest but that it is in fact um responsible or for the whole range of Russian policy Russian government policy foreign security and domestic obviously it does have a particular role in security matters but it touches on every aspect of policy that concerns the Russian government it is also the case that the people who are members of the security Council are the most powerful and important people in Russia all the top uh all the top figures are there lavro for example is a member medvedi is a member um Shu as defense minister was a member and of course he still is a secretary of the security Council the intelligence Chiefs are all members um the prime minister mushin is a member as well as are the speakers of the Russian Parliament the Duma and of the Federation Council it's incredible to me that a body the security Council that meets every Tuesday makes decisions on Russian policy and which has a membership a a very restricted membership by the way that includes all of Russia's most powerful people gets almost no attention in the west at all I assume that the Western intelligence agencies do devote a little more time to it but if you were to follow Western media discussion about events in Russia you would barely know about this particular body's existence in Russia of course it is a completely different story now the only explanation I can find for this complete lack of interest in the Security Council is that um talking about it discussing the security Council would contradict the accepted Western narrative that Putin runs Russia as an autocrat or as a dictator that he makes all the personal Decisions by himself after Consulting with a small group of cronies and that he therefore doesn't need to work through any and doesn't work through any sort of Institution structure at all the reality is completely different Putin principally governs Russia through the security Council that is his inner cabinet and it is an institution set up created under Russian law with clearly very extensive Powers indeed and suffice to say it also has a very um powerful Secretariat which at least in emphasizing the point of what a powerful institution it is well it's um this the Secretariat of the security Council apparently op o occupies the same premises as used to be occupied by the Secretariat of the Communist part's C Committee in the time of the Soviet Union and as if perhaps to push the parallels further um just as Putin himself um works from the office of the Secretary General in the Senate building in the Kremlin the SEC the same office that was once by the way um Stalin's office in the Senate building in the Kremlin when Putin meets with the security Council in person in the Kremlin which by the way happens relatively rarely meetings now seem to happen mostly on a virtual basis and he also often meets the at his um country residence in noo orovo but when he does meet them in the crowning more often than not apparently he meets them in the he meet the security Council in the same rooms where um previously the polit bureau the Soviet polit Bureau used to meet as anybody who's worked in a government setting will know cont um particular buildings and particular locations carry weight and meaning especially to the bureaucracy and the fact that the Security Council functions in these type of settings is backed by a powerful Secretariat and meets every Tuesday and is staffed or rather um its Personnel are all the top people that would signify to the bureaucracy that this is in fact the single most important and most powerful decision making body in Russia the fact that it exists at all incidentally ought to refute the theory that Putin runs Russia singlehanded as some kind of dictator or autocrat in the way that he's often described as doing in the west so the position of Secretary of the security Council in overall charge of its Secretariat is an extremely powerful one and of course the secretary of the security Council is by definition the president's National Security advisor Nikolai petrusev has been Putin's National Security advisor a secretary of the security Council for some years now and Shu as Secretary of the Security Council is going to fulfill that same role but it is clear that he's going to have a further role over and above and beyond this one because the task report task being of course Russia's official news agency commenting about shu's appointment as Secretary of the security Council has quietly informed us of this as the Russian Security Council secretary Shu will among other issues oversee the work of the federal service for military technical cooperation which recently became directly subordinated to the president in other words to Putin apart from that shyu will also become the president's Deputy in the military industrial commission the President Putin in other words is its chair whilst up to now Medvedev is the first Deputy in this body so shu is not only going to replace petrusev as head of as Secretary of the security Council but he's also seeing he position as effective head of the Russian military industrial complex now regularized now at this point it's necessary to say a few things about shyu firstly like belus of his successor he is a civilian now contrary to what is widely believed and assumed in the west and surprisingly even by some people in Russia the pra practiced in Russia since the revolution has been to appoint civilians to head the defense Ministry um in Stalin's time the defense ministers were in succession of Vil a civilian official who had been a party official within the Bolshevik party joined the bolic party before the Revolution Stalin himself and a civilian manager and administrator mik bulanan the very first Soviet defense minister was of course leev trotski just say um under brv the defense minister was um Demitri who was also a civilian at times military officials military men have headed the defense ministry as they tended to do in kev's time and for the first part of brf's time but mostly over long stretches it is civilians who head the defense Ministry and that by the way has been Putin's practice he's generally appointed civilians to head the defense Ministry and shyu was one and Shu came into the defense Ministry with a background as an engineer and first and foremost as a manager his job was to bring order and stability to the defense Ministry after the chaos of his predecessor a man called sov who carried out all sorts of ill-conceived reforms which destabilized the defense Ministry and fostered Corruption and um made s of Duke of himself very unpopular and eventually led to a criminal investigation which I'm not going to discuss in this program so Shu studed the ship reorganized the defense Ministry U stabilized the situation he was popular with the military and over the course of the special military operation it has become increasingly clear to me that he has been taking the Hands-On role of managing the military industrial complex I've been if if you go to the defense Ministries website or its telegram Channel you will see how shyu very much a Hands-On manager has been visiting Factory after Factory um inspect ing factories where military production has been taking place giving instructions on increased output of various um types of military equipment he has been in other words playing an absolutely key role in Russia's armaments miracle if one can call it that of the last 2 and a half years and and this appointment regularizes that role as I understand it Medvedev will remain first Deputy chair of the military industrial commission directly under Putin but the key work on the commission will be done by shyu as um Deputy he will be um supervising the defense Industries making sure that they continue to churn out the weapons that the military needs in order to conduct the special military operation the role he has been performing successfully for the last two years and he's also going to continue to run the federal service for military technical cooperation what the task report I just read doesn't mention is that until Putin transferred this body to the executive office in effect of the security Council a few days ago the federal service for military technical cooperation was subordinated to the defense Ministry so it was subordinated to shyu before and it will continue to be subordinated to Putin to to shy now and of course Shu a secretary of the security Council will be able to report to Putin who has direct Authority as head of the security Council to give direct instructions backing any decisions Shu makes to the people who work within the military the federal service for military technical cooperation now the point about the military technical service for cooperation is that of course it is responsible for development of new weapon systems um for Technical Innovations for the upgrade for example of missiles drones that sort of thing and for the introduction of new technologies so Shu has been in effect freed of much of the heavy administrative work that he has to do in the defense Ministry he's been given the job of running the military industrial complex and also of overseeing the continued technological upgrade of the Russian military under the direct supervision of the security Council and of Putin himself now what about Bellow USF who's taking over at the defense Ministry now he is indeed a civilian but he's a some respects an interesting man now I ought to make clear that I have never had any contacts myself personally with bellus or with any other senior official of the Russian government but I have spoken with someone who does know or did know Bell USF now this was some years ago when bellus was an advisor to Putin on economic questions before he was given an actual governmental post and this person who is very much I should say on the Patriotic nationalist side of politics in Russia had very very favorable things to say about bosf indeed this person was very much somebody interested and involved in economic questions also and he thought that bf understood the needs of the Russian economy very well and he described beloev to me as an extremely capable one man and somebody who it was good to work with who the people who worked for him liked now belus has an interesting back story story his father was an economist During the period of the Soviet Union who is apparently very close to alexe kigan who was in the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union's prime minister and somebody who apparently wanted to conduct carry out extensive reforms to modernize and update the ad the the management structure structures of the Soviet economy reforms which were never fully seen through now over the period of kin's ascendancy in 1963 to be precise before casan became prime minister but uh when he was head of gosplan the Soviet Union's Central planning agency a very interesting new Institute was set up in Russia Russia creates lots of institutes but this one was the central economic mathematical Institute and its job was basically to introduce mathematical modeling into the um planning system for the Soviet economy and to set up a network of interconnected computer systems providing data um exchanging data across the Soviet economy something which perhaps might have been seen as a Soviet attempt to create something not entirely unlike the internet that eventually developed in the west they of course more like an Intranet in Soviet terms than an internet anyway in the 1960s the infrastructure to do that in the Soviet Union did not exist and the project apparently was well it clearly wasn't successful but the Institute itself survived and it continued to form to operate very much apparently under kin's um Wing as a planning and forecasting agency trying to improve planning systems and planning uh planning predictions and operating very much on the reformist wing of the Soviet government now belos after he graduated with an economics degree from Moscow State University in the 1980 80s joined the central economic mathematical Institute and he served in it for six years and thereafter he continued to work in various institutes connected with the Academy of Sciences very much again in forecasting and assisting with planning matters there's a lot of people who refer to bosf as any Economist and that of course is his training but if you really look at his black background I think it is more appropriate to call him a technocrat and a planner Putin recently in a sort of teasing jocular phrase referred to bosf as a former gos plan official in other words an official of the Soviet Union's State planning agency now there's no record that bosf actually ever was directly employed by gos plan but the central economic mathematical Institute would indoubt undoubtedly have had input would have worked with go plan and quite plausibly he did have contacts in gos plan at that time so we're talking about a planner and a technocrat and apparently a very capable one and as Putin's spokesman has pointed out the defense Ministry in Russia Today has become a sprawling bureaucracy over the course of the special military operation its budget has swollen massively it is apparently now comparable in size in AB in you know absolute size to what it was in the mid 1980s during the Soviet period um it's not yet um absorbing as many resources from the economy as the former Soviet defense Ministry did but probably in terms of absolute expend spending it's probably not far short of what the Soviet defense Ministry used to spend um bear in mind that the Russian economy now is significantly bigger and of course more Diversified than it was in the 1980s so um what the system needs is a good reliable manager planner and Technic and that's why beloev bellu has been appointed to that role and apparently as I said he's well-liked um you can find firm of him delivering reports you'll find that he provides um reports very clearly and very simply he seems like the sort of person who can manage the bureaucracy of the defense Ministry and streamline its or operations and work closely with shyu on the Innovation side of the um military um industrial machine quite well military decisions the role of actual command of troops and the structure of the military itself remains in Russia as it always has the province of the general staff headed by its Chief valer gasim who remains in post so that's what I wanted to say about this reform it makes sense um in its own terms it is an adjustment to the changes that have been made over the course of the special military operation it's become important to put someone reliable in charge of the military industrial complex which is what shyu is going to be principally doing and it's important to put a competent technocrat in charge of the defense Ministry which is what bell USF is will it succeed will Bell USF succeed in the defense Ministry he probably has had more contacts with the military than people uh might know about after all he was first Deputy Prime Minister um with some responsibility for military matters as well so he may not be quite as uninformed about military-industrial matters as Su hu he shown significant in interest in development of drones and drone technology and you can find film if you search hard enough on the internet of him delivering a report to Putin on the importance of upgrading um development of drones and of what needed to be done in order to do that but of course all of this is not a guarantee that he will be a successful defense minister so only time can show but for the moment at least and logically it makes sense you have continuity in the military industrial sphere with shy placed in charge and you also have a extremely capable and experienced technocrat now in charge in the defense Ministry now the unknown questions for me is whether um shu is in fact going to be appointed first Deputy of to Putin in the military industrial commission in which case it is possible that medef might be leaving the security Council perhaps to take a position in the judicial system which he's known to take an interest in and it'll be interesting to see what petrusev the outgoing Secretary of the security Council what precise role he is going to have we are told that he is going to be appointed to some new post well we'll have to wait and see I'm not going to try and guess um with Putin it's impossible as I've long since found to make any firm predictions about um his Personnel choices but generally and overall with the odd exception the people he appoints to senior positions tend to do quite well and everything I've heard about bosf especially suggests to me that he will anyway that's Moscow that's this new reshuffle I hope I've explained a few things and of course we'll be getting more information over the course of the next couple of days meanwhile what what is going on elsewhere well if we have had an orderly and logical reshuffle in Moscow we are getting more and more signs of recrimination and infighting and panic and Chaos in Kev firstly it is clear that the situation on the Haru border is a disaster is a debacle now I'm going to come back to that later I'm going to discuss shortly the uh military updates but the firmest sign that a debacle is underway is that we see recriminations between Ukrainian officials so kilo budanov Ukraine's Military Intelligence chief is now openly blaming syki the overall military commander for the failure in harus this comes after commentaries have started to appear in various Ukrainian channels that the reason for the debacco in harus is that forces subordinate to budanov specifically the various special forces units that he concentrated on the border with Russia in har region these so-called Russian volunteer core which this supposedly dissident Russian military unit which is effectively essentially controlled by budanov himself that these special forces units these James Bond type units when finding themselves engaged by the Russian military in a sustained and effective way they immediately broke and ran and that was one of the reasons why the Ukrainian defenses On the Border collapsed so fast so banf never a person it seems to me to take critic ISM of like that easily and no doubt seeing those criticisms of units for which he is ultimately responsible for as an implied criticism of himself has now switched and is now criticizing cki it is cki's fault that the situation on the borders is border is so bad now syi in response is not openly criticizing budanov though it's entirely plausible that some of these criticisms of budanov which are circulating originate with syki that would not be impossible but syi is now talking about an extremely difficult situation right across the entire conflict line um that the Ukrainian Army is facing and that is an understatement but that at least is what syi is saying he is he is acknowledging the gravity of the situation and so is zalinski himself zalinsky has made various statements about the situation he's speaking in extremely unusually gloomy and pessimistic terms about how bad the situation has become usually zalinski spins optimistic B Ally about how well the ukrainians are doing how they're successfully resisting how the Russians are incompetent or failing in some kind of way but this time his demeanor and his words seem to suggest that he also recognizes that there is a crisis going on and of course we've had confirmation as I discussed in my program yesterday that the um ukrainians have dismissed the former uh their former commander in this region that they have um replaced him with um a new um personality we're told that Yuri galushkin who was Ukraine's former commander in khf region has been sacked and and he's been appointed by replaced rather by General mik drati um now the difference as I understand it is that galushkin um was a professional long service military officer whereas D drati is a much more political figure um he um held previously the post of Deputy Chief of general staff for military training which of course in Ukraine always involves an ideological component and he also played a role in the 2014 crisis when in May 2014 he apparently used an infantry Fighting Vehicle the BMP to B to break through um barricades put up by protesters in the donbass city of marup which had been briefly um which briefly supported the interaction against the Ukrainian government but where the Ukrainian military were able to redeploy and the Azo Brigade was able to redeploy and regain control this was in May 2014 and if the partti was involved in all of those events that suggests that he was in some way connected or at least had connections to the then rapidly emerging aof Brigade just say so he seems to be a much more Hardline more political figure than galushkin which makes one wonder whether there are some doubts in Kiev about galin's loyalty maybe there's some feelings that he allowed the situation in the border to go wrong in the way that he did and that he's some sort of well I'm not going to say traitor to Ukraine but who knows anyway lots of signs then of Chaos in the political system in Ukraine and by the way there's more reports that the Ukrainian authorities are becoming increasingly concerned that with zelinsky's constitutional term in office due to end on the 21st of May there are going to be political challenges to zelinsky's leadership of Ukraine that these challenges might now become stronger given that um um there's been this debacle on the kov border and inevitably and unsurprisingly Ukrainian officials are um giving out warnings about Russian disinformation campaigns suppos which will supposedly call into question president zelinsky's legitimacy beyond the 21st of May so there we go now on top of that we've had several comments from some Western officials which again after that moment of deescalation following the Russian warnings given to the British and French ambassadors last week and the announcement by the Russians that they're engaging in nuclear weapons drills anyway there's again comments by Western officials that look like they're again intended to escalate the crisis or at least to give a sense that the West is prepared to go all the way to support Ukraine up to an including introducing ground troops now macron has been talking again unsurprisingly he also says that it's important for the West not to rule out any options that if the Russians go too far then the West needs to be prepared to intervene he is of course entirely vague as to what going too far actually means just saying but anyway that's um what mrr um has said and apparently there's been similar comments made by other Western officials and I talked about the crazy scheme a couple of days ago um about which has been floating around in Germany of positioning um air defense missiles in Poland and Romania and trying to shoot down Russian missiles from on those using those air defense missiles this despite the fact that the Russians have already made it clear that if anything like that happens they will without hesitation attack those missile air defense missile positions in Romania and Poland anyway to continue clear signs of disarray in KF alarm is in the west and a further sign that the operational crisis in harkov has spooked the west and Ukraine is as I said in my program yesterday that Ukraine is now pulling in forces from all over all across the front lines stripping troops away from places like chuar kopans sector the um um ofco chereo sector that it's redeploying forces hurridly to try to stem the collapse in Haru region and what we're starting to see is that instead of just sending completed brigades though it seems that some entire brigades are being hurriedly redeployed to the har sector Ukraine the Ukrainian leadership General syi short as they appear to be of reserves in fact they must be desperately short of reserves are apparently asking brigades right across the combat lines to release individual battalions so that they can be horridly redeployed to khov now here I have to say I'm not somebody who has ever been involved in military Administration but I have been a manager in the past and I know that one of the fundamental mistakes that one can make as a manager is to try to Cobble together in a hurry um um organizations or institutions whatever it is teams or projects out of various disperate parts and put them together and throw them into some problem um that's not the way good management works far in a way the better way is to keep teams established teams United and working together and if one has to redeploy them onto a new project well that's a better thing to do than to break them up and to reconstitute to create new new teams out of cannibalized parts of other teams and I'm going to make a guess that the same applies in uh what Ukraine is doing now simpli is the Thinker in various artic IC Les and I believe also big S have spoken about cannibalization that you take various bits of your army and reuse it in ways that feed off your army itself rather than introducing new reserves and this it seems to me is exactly what Ukraine is now doing putting together what I suspect will be Frankenstein units or asking battalions which have never worked together suddenly to come together in a single place and work together as a team against a Russian Force which one must assume has clear commanded control systems and um which is probably trained together for some months well that doesn't seem to me like a recipe for success but it's clear that this is what Ukraine is used to and again this demonstrates the extent to which the Ukrainian front lines now are extremely overstretched the UK Ukraine no longer has enough troops to be strong in every location and to be able to create coherent defenses where the Russians start a new Advance as they've just done in harv anyway we'll see how this these Cobble together Frankenstein units perform um against the Russian army in harv now I say all of this all of this is coming as there are more rumors of a further Russian advance in another part of har region in Sumi region to be precise of course if the Russians do launch a further advance in another part of KH KHAK region if they start a new new offensive somewhere else that's going to over strain the ukrainians even further Beyond Breaking Point Beyond breaking point I suspect but anyway what is actually in the meantime going on on the front lines well it is now o I think universally accepted that Ukrainian defense is along the border collapsed there's much criticism of what happened um within the Ukrainian military itself there are the complaints about the absence of proper fortifications and the complete absence of minefields which is astonishing now bear in mind that the ukrainians regain control of this part of Haru region in the Autumn of 2022 there have been in occupation of this ground all that time they've known for weeks that the Russians were thinking of an offensive in KH region they've had ample time to prepare minefields and some fortifications and it seems that they did nothing of the kind so there's understandable recriminations about all of this well what actually is going on well I've discussed how the Russians have captured a whole string of Border Villages this morning there were reports that they have captured two more um Villages called glor and lansi they seem to be very close to a small town called lipy which lies halfway between the Russian border and the City of har itself and it is widely assumed that the Russian objective is to capture lipy and they're coming very close to being in a position where they can attack lip lipy now yesterday I said that the Russians had entered volans and this has now been confirmed the institute for the study of war in Washington never a publication to take a favorable View of Russian military advances is now saying that volchan is effectively encircled there were lots of reports pouring out yesterday that the Russ Ukrainian Army has abandoned volchansk I don't believe that this is correct I believe that there are still Ukrainian troops in volchansk it's been pointed out that it is inter dissected by a river like most of the towns in eastern Ukraine that there's a river that passes through volchan possibly Ukrainian troops um escaped from the northern part of volchansk north of the river and that seems to be where the fighting is going on but anyway one gets the sense that the ukrainians are rushing more troops to try to hold back the Russians in volchansk but it looks as if the situation in volans is becoming critical perhaps the most concerning news of all is that I saw a report yesterday that on the first day the Russians only committed around 7% of the forces that they had on the border to the initial offensive which corresponds closely with my own understanding Landing I thought that the original attack was carried out by around 5,000 men from the Russian army and if one assumes that there's 55,000 Russian troops on the border area well that would be around 7% I think um it's now been said that that number has increased but still only 15% of the total Russian forces in the area have been committed and The Institute of the study of war is saying that if lipy falls the Russians have forces in their Reserve which they're likely to commit to a further Advance perhaps towards har of City itself and of course if vchan Falls the Russians are in a position to advance further um in other directions too and by the way there's a Road apparently going directly for V Chans all the way to kopans further south kopans of course is where the Russians are um um have been located for some months now near the village of Sova just west just east of kin but they've also been capturing other villages to the south of Kian kislova kovka thefa and the rest so if the Russians apparently capture V Chans they would be in a strong position to cut the supply lines to the Ukrainian forces there perhaps and maybe just possibly that would also have an impact on Ukrainian defenses in V Chans sorry in Gans if that is what the Russians are planning to do anyway it's impossible to avoid the sense the smell of Crisis and panic that is floating both from the area of the border and indeed from KF as this development as this battle in har region evolves and perhaps a sense of the impact that it is having right across the front lines has been provided by the telegram channel of the 79th Brigade that of the Ukrainian Army which has been defending Ukrainian positions first in Nova mikova and then in paraska and konstantinovka the two Villages immediately to the west of nov mikova which the Russians captured some weeks ago and the 79th Brigade has been complaining about the extent to which it's not been getting the support from the Ukrainian military that it need needs for some time but they've now come up with apocalyptic comments they're saying that the high command in KF is insisting that they must redeploy one of their battalions to um Haru and they're saying well if so what are we going to be left with in terms of men to hold on to paraska and to constantina if the Russians attack us and they're also complaining that they're not any longer getting supplies the such supplies of ammunition and equipment that as they were getting before has now stopped because all of it is being redirected towards har so the entire front line being weakened to plug a hole in Haru which the ukrainians have called on themselves as I said in one of my programs the entire reason why there is this fighting in Hara for all can be attributed to the border incursions that budanov and zalinski and their Western sponsors conducted towards belgorod they have learned absolutely nothing from that over the last few hours they have again resumed the shelling of belgorod it's completely unclear to me what this is intended to do um it simply will reinforce Russian resolve to push the ukrainians further from the border so as to put belgar Rod completely out of reach it seems entirely counterproductive but it's not without its effects a high-rise building in belgrod has been undermined part of it has collapsed there have been large numbers of Civilian casualties um nobody as far as I know seriously questions that this is the result of Ukrainian military action this counterproductive strategy of attacking towards belgorod has provoked this Russian offensive which is creating this crisis right across the front lines and yet the ukrainians persist in it um as I said difficult to understand the logic and if they were going to launch these bordering incursions stirring back into life a theater of the war which it was essential for the ukrainians to keep quiet well at the very least they should have built proper fortified lines to try to repel a Russian Advance if it ever came and made sure that they had enough troops in the area to hold back the Russians if the Russians did come and clearly they didn't the ukrainians didn't do anything like that and here we are now it is inconceivable that the Russians are not going to take advantage of this situation and we've seen the 79th Brigade complain about how bad the situation is in the novel mikova constantina area and it's likely the Russians will attack there and the Russians as I've said already they appear to have taken control of most of korovka and they seem to be continuing their advances in orovo so sorry not or in um in um otino and AA and inar the problem is because of this crisis in Haru none of the uh reporters from the front lines are very interested in telling us very much about what is actually going on in these places because of all the attention all the attention is currently focused on the fighting in um in um in Haru region and as I said before this is certainly a mistake because if we now go to the very latest report provided by the Russian defense Ministry we can see where the heaviest fighting is taking place the Russian defense Ministry has just released its latest report today and it says that over the last 24 hours Ukraine has lost 250 troops two tanks and two armored vehicles in the kth area where the offensive is taking place they also by the way are giving an astonishing catalog of artillery systems and air defense systems that have been destroyed in this hu area as well even as the ukrainians send their armored vehicles to this area hurriedly along the roads the Russian drones and missiles and artillery destroy them but anyway 250 troops lost in the Haru region um elsewhere however if we go to the situation in ch of yard and area around there and in in the SE area there the ukrainians have lost 540 troops according to the Russian defense Ministry including um um a German made leard 2 tank um in the um in elsewhere in the um otino um area the ukrainians have lost um a further 395 troops um and in other places the ukrainians have also suffered the REM of celan the ukrainians have also lost 135 men as well so yes the fighting in har is intense it is clearly taking a toll Ukraine has lost around 250 troops in the hu area according to the Russians dead and wounded over the last 24 hours but still one can see that the heaviest fighting continues to be in central dbass um with 500 and 40 men um lost by Ukraine according to the Russians in the chaia bmet area along with leopard tanks and a further 395 lost in the aava otino area that remains for the moment the main center of the battle and as I said I haven't heard much in the way of news about what is actually taking place in these places but I suspect that we're going to start getting dramatic news firstly from korovka and before long perhaps also from CH of Y um perhaps sooner than we do from the har region itself certainly syi the Ukrainian um overall military commander he continued to say that the worst area that for the Ukraine the place where the crisis is deepest continues to be in the pakros sector the area to the west of abeva and otino where the Russians have been making their most powerful advances so there we go that's my uh program for the day as I said the panic in Kev intense and deepening um the Russians carried out an interesting reshuffle in Moscow the indications are that they're continuing to advance in the haraku region as well um that pro pro probable primary targets are Li lipy and V Chans if the Russians capture these two places over the next couple of days then a major crisis for Ukraine in the north will probably come and who knows perhaps for once the institute for the study of War will be Pro prove right and it will indeed be the case that the Russians will redeploy large numbers of forces to um this area of the battlefronts with a view to carrying out a further Advance perhaps towards har and perhaps also towards Kens as well now one last thought and it comes directly from something that someone wrote to me in a private email I said that I didn't think that 55,000 troops which was what the Russians had in the area according to the ukrainians would be sufficient to capture har which is uh a city of more than a million people and by the way a very spread out city as well but a member of the Jiran Community wrote to me and made what I think is a valid point which is that though the sheer size of KH might make it in some respects a difficult place to capture it might also be from Ukraine's perspective a difficult place to defend the sheer size of harak would make it difficult for Ukraine to mount a defense in every part of har and it's quite plausible that the Russians could enter har from various points and there would not be enough Ukrainian Defenders to resist them and this person made the further point that provided the Russians can cut off the Ukrainian supply lines which by the way would be a complex and challenging thing to do but not an impossible one given the size of the city uh provided the Russians can the can cut off the supply lines to kov it might not need quite such a huge Force to capture har after all and I have to say say that's that not only makes a certain sort of sort of sense it's also consistent with what I remember in the one battle that has taken place in one of the big cities in um Ukraine the one big city where major fighting has taken place which was marup marup obviously a lot smaller than KHAK it's had a population of from memory I think it was about 300,000 000 before the war it was defended by two brigades of the Ukrainian military the aov Brigade and a marine Brigade that proved insufficient to guard the entire perimeter and the Russian Force that eventually stormed marup though greater in size than the Ukraine ukra ukian defending force was not so much bigger in size as I remember it included a Russian Marine Brigade a brigade from the Don bass militia and the churching forces so well anyway I don't want to move too far ahead I'm not sure whether it is indeed the Russian plan to attack Haru I should say that if khf is attacked and does fall it is the end of the war uh the military side of the War uh to my mind the Russians would have a clear road to capturing the whole of eastern Ukraine if they could capture har there's no other part of eastern Ukraine east of the NEPA that the Russians wouldn't be able to capture the city of ptera which lies immediately to the west of har would presumably be the next Target but anyway if har is attacked and captured it will have tremendous implications and it will in effect decide the whole war and decid it fairly quickly at least that's my own view but anyway I don't know whether the Russians intend to attack har but I suspect that they are already pleased with the results they've achieved they appear to have suffered minimal losses they've captured a big belt of territory well over 100 square kilometers um relatively quickly um they've created panic in Creek KF uncertainty in Western capitals they've disorganized the Ukrainian Army and they've set budanov and syi set them off against each other quite a successful 4 days work as the Russian commanders are probably feeling and as they're probably going to report to bellus in their first meeting with him anyway that's me for today more for me soon let me remind you again that you can find all our programs on our various platforms locals Rumble X you can support our work um via patreon And subscribe star links under this video don't forget to check out our shop where you can find all sorts of amazing things magic mugs hats hoodies t-shirts sweatshirts all those great things and last but not least if you've liked this program please remember to take the like button and to check your subscription to this channel thank you again more from me soon have a very good day [Music]

Channel: Alexander Mercouris

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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, china, kharkov, Volchansk, eurovision, belgorod, donetsk, budanov, lavrov, shoigu, medvedev, biden, kharkiv, biden ukraine, belousov, patrushev russia, putin administration, russian duma, security council, Syrsky

Id: r9ZERfJSBCk

Length: 77min 28sec (4648 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024