Russia Hits Decision Making Center, Ukr Drones Hit Moscow, Refuses China Mediation, Kosovo Crisis

good day in this program once more I returned to the perennial topic of these programs which is the conflict in Ukraine where it must be said that things are now reaching a kind of boiling point or at least a situation where one senses that major events are about to happen Joseph Burrell the eu's well let's call him foreign minister High representative on foreign policy Foreign Affairs and security um has said that um he's not optimistic in his expectations about how this conflict May develop over the summer not optimistic means that he feels that the situation is going badly for Ukraine and so it seems to me is the case now these enormous Russian missile and drone offensives which we have been witnessing over the course of May continue unabated we've had more missile strikes on Kiev including apparently an attack on some kind of facility which caused an explosion on such an enormous scale that it caused Earth Tremors which were registered which register on the Richter Scale apparently this was a huge explosion which took place in the Kiev area just a few minutes ago just as I Was preparing for this program the Russian defense Ministry confirmed certain comments made earlier by Dimitri paskov Putin spokesman that the Russians have also attacked in Kiev a decision-making Center or centers not entirely clear what this means but the defense Ministry has conveyed the impression that this attack focused on the buildings that house those agencies that have been responsible for some of these attacks that Ukrainian organizations have been undertaking in Russia the recent incursion into belga Road the various bomb attacks assassinations drone attacks such things and we haven't had a huge amount of information about this the Russians haven't told us as I said which agency was involved but it does seem that there have been major traffic jams in Kiev around the building that houses the interior Ministry so it's likely that that was one of the structures one of the buildings that was attacked but it could be that there were others as well anyway lots of attacks on Kiev but not just on Kiev attacks right across Ukraine and even as I am making this program more reports of more attacks more Russian missile and drone attacks coming um I've just seen a report that ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are now maneuvering into position preparing to launch their caliber cruise missiles apparently for a further attack on Ukraine and of course the Russian Air Force has been busy as well there have been lots of strikes missile strikes um with um aircraft Airborne cruise missiles again right across Ukraine most of these attacks as far as I can say are now taking place with little in the way of interference by the Ukrainian air defense system which is now also it seems to me largely concentrated on trying to protect and defend Kiev and by the way in Kiev lots of pictures of buildings the mayor of Kiev mayor Klitschko is warning people to remain indoors or to go to bomb shelters there's rather distressing pictures of people including young people children in some cases in shelters in the Metro System um thankfully they don't seem to be many civilian casualties as a result of these attacks as a consequence of the steps that the Ukrainian authorities are taking to tell people to stay indoors or underground but also and I have to say this I suspect in part because the Russian authorities are concentrating their missile and bombing strikes on locations that from their point of view have a military significance they don't seem to be targeting civilians but anyway it's nonetheless affecting to see these people huddling in their bomb shelters as the missiles and the rockets and the drones fall and this has been going on for days and it means that people's sleep patterns are becoming disrupted and of course this understandable fear and understandable stress there's even a picture now of the former Ukrainian president president poroshenko um you know hiding in a bomb shelter with people um nearby looking pale and stressed I ought to say that Russian um journalists have not been able to resist reminding every one of the of a speech and notorious speech that poroshenko delivered back in 2014 in which he compared the fate of people in donbass with people in the rest of Ukraine he made comments such as such as to the effect that whilst children in donbass would huddle in bomb shelters children in Ukraine would be able to go to school that was what he said in 2014 at a time when it should be stressed the conflict was still very much underway and at a time when it was Ukraine that had secure control of the air well the Russians perhaps unsurprisingly in light of those comments are now drawing attention to the fact that it's poroshenko who is now hiding in a bomb shelter I personally find these pictures affecting as I said distressing but they do give one a strong sense of the scale of what is happening in and around Kiev and my impression is that alongside these attacks on these decision-making centers and on these important facilities that Ukraine has in Kiev whatever they are um part of the purpose that the Russians are pursuing in conducting these missile and drone strikes is to damage deplete even further the Ukrainian air defense system which at least in Kiev seems now to be almost entirely based as far as I can see on Western missiles on Western air defense systems and the mayor of Kiev mayor Klitschko has actually warned people of the danger of debris which is an admission well so it seems to me that some of the missiles that fall in residential areas are either presumably drones or missiles that the ukrainians have shot down Russian drones or missiles that the ukrainians have shot down or quite often drones and missiles that Ukraine has launched into the sky that have either malfunctioned or failed to hit a Target and have themselves Fallen back to Earth and I've noticed that at least in Kiev because these missiles that fall these Western missiles that fall which are this air defense missiles the Ukraine itself has launched anyway it seems that um it seems to me that there's been fewer claims of Russian attacks on residential buildings than we have seen because as these are Western missiles it's more difficult to pass them off as Russian missiles s-300s and all that I've discussed the way in which Ukraine has tried the spin some of the strikes on residential buildings Earth s-300 missiles used by Russia as surface to surface missiles anyway we've heard less of that this time because as I said it's quite clear that some of these missiles are indeed Western missiles which have either Fallen to Earth because they've missed their targets or which have malfunctioned in some way and I have seen pictures of what appear to be Patriot missiles debris from Patriot missiles amongst them though I say that I should make it very clear that when I identify this missile this missile debris is from Patriot missiles I have to base that on what others say since of course I'm not able myself to distinguish a patriot missile system from another missile system but anyway much of that has been going on and we've also had reports of Russian attacks on the same Airfield where the Patriot missile system was based which the Russians attacked about a week ago now that was the patriot missile system which supposedly shot down six King gel missiles that's the official Ukrainian view endorsed by some in the west or in the alternative the one that the Russians say was at least partially destroyed with a lot of one radar system and five launchers well simplicious the thing has now published a further piece on this particular issue of whether or not the Patriot missile system was successfully destroyed as the Russians claim um at least in part or whether it was the King John missiles instead that got shot down and he's published satellite photos of this particular Airfield which showed the situation there before before the attack and some days after and as he correctly points out at least this is how I read this these photos you can clearly see their big impact craters which realistically can only have been caused by incoming missiles in other words some incoming missiles presumably kinjal missiles got through now what they destroyed I can't say these satellite photos don't show that presumably the destroyed launches and radar if they were indeed there were removed from the scene but something presumably was hit and I don't see any reason to doubt that it was a patriot missile system now if there's been more attacks on this Air Base than presumably what the Russians are doing he's hunting whatever left of this Patriot missile system apparently there's a fair number of batteries still operational but you know I'm not able to guesstimate this but presumably they're still hunting that the Patriot missile system and any other systems that have been positioned on this Air Base either to protect the Patriot itself which would be ironic by the way but it does happen or perhaps to substitute for Patriot launchers which have been destroyed so anyway that's the overall picture from the missile strikes I've focused very heavily on the situation in Kiev but of course it's important to stress again that these attacks are taking place all over Ukraine and they've been happening every single day in what is by far the most intense um air and missile campaign that the Russians have conducted up to this time so that's one piece of news about what's going on in the wall we've also now had some comments from the Russian defense minister Sergey shoigu and I'm going to quote what some of what he said um from the task news agency and he said apparently it's a meeting in the defense Ministry the Russian defense Ministry he said Russian forces continue to inflict an effective fire impact on the enemy its losses this month alone totaled over 16 000 troops 16 aircraft five helicopters 466 drones over 400 tanks and other armored combat vehicles and 238 field artillery pieces and mortars 196 High Mars Rockets 16 harm rockets and 29 Storm Shadow long range cruise missiles were intercepted and destroyed during the reviewed period now this is a pretty astonishing number of men and machines that shoigu says um Ukraine lost over the course of May Note One rather curious Frank he says that over the course of May Ukraine lost 466 drones well of course in the west we've been reading that you know rusi the Royal United Services Institute is one of them that said this um in the words you've been reading that Ukraine is losing 300 drones a day so this is one instance when shoigu appears to be giving a significantly lower figure for Ukrainian drone losses than sources in the west are I suspect that show you is counting drones differently he's probably only counting the bigger more advanced drones or perhaps he's counting the ones that were actually shot down rather than the drones that were brought down through electronic warfare techniques which these Publications in the west tell us account for by far the greater proportion of these losses but anyway let's just consider those figures sixteen thousand troops Ukraine has lost sixteen thousand troops now he isn't saying sixteen thousand Ukrainian troops were killed lost could it could include well would would include dead and injured but it is nonetheless a horrendous rate of loss it's in the region of 500 a day and when sure you talks about Ukraine when you're losing sixteen thousand troops I get the impression that he doesn't just mean dead and wounded he means dead and severely wounded so that they can't participate any longer in the fighting well that would be consistent with Russian claims that Ukrainian losses have been spiking ever since the start of the new year and that in fact since the battle of bakmut started in earnest that Ukrainian losses have been rising and are now rising at extremely fast rates and extremely high levels I think I am writing saying that the figure of Sixteen thousand is the highest number that the Russians claim of Ukrainian troops that the Russians claim um to have put out of action since March last year when the Russians first began their operation I think that in March they claimed to have um killed and wounded um in March last year they claimed to have killed and wounded um perhaps a similar number of Ukrainian troops to the number that we see here but anyway that's what shoigu says and perhaps even more interesting is the toll that the Russian air defense system is according to shoigu exacting on Ukraine's long range missile capabilities so 196 high miles Rockets and we've again had confirmation about much of this in the in the western media that the Russians have successfully jamming the GPS signals to the high Mars rockets that the Russian air defenses are now increasingly succeeding in shooting down high Mars rockets that the effectiveness of the high Mars system has very significantly declined since it was first deployed back in August of last year and 16 harm Rockets now these are anti-radar rockets launched by aircraft there's been much discussion about the effectiveness of these harm Rockets the general consensus both on the Russian side but also from various Publications in the west is that these Rockets are proving ineffectual Ukraine has been launching them but without a great deal of success but note what should you says about the Storm Shadow he says that the Russians have now shot down 29 Storm Shadow missiles now the British only confirmed that Storm Shadow missiles had been delivered to Ukraine a couple of weeks ago and Ukraine started to use them in Earnest about my recollection is about two or three weeks ago and it looks like the Russians are not in that relatively short space of time have not only managed according to shoigu at least to shoot down 29 of these missiles but the impression I'm getting from Russian claims is that the Russians believe that the number of missiles of these Storm Shadow missiles that they are shooting down is increasing of course we don't know how many Storm Shadow missiles Britain has supplied to Ukraine but according to the Russians increasingly they are failing to get through they're being shot down and for the record I think the Russians are right about this so a very very difficult month altogether May has been for Ukraine it's lost Batman according to shoyu is lost large numbers of men sixteen thousand killed and wounded is lost over 400 tanks and other armored vehicles we don't know how that divides the Russians never distinguish in these ballpark figures between tanks and armored vehicles combat Vehicles though there is an important distinction to be made there they've lost according to show you 238 field artillery pieces and mortars again we don't know how one separates the two from each other and increasingly their High Mars systems are not working properly their arm Rockets are not working properly the Storm Shadow is not proving the decisive weapon that Ukraine perhaps hoped it would be and last but not least as we've seen the Russians launching these enormous attacks every day now across Ukraine targeting Kiev very heavily driving people both day and night into bomb shelters disrupting their sleep um attacking facilities in Kiev we don't fully know what those facilities are they claim and I think they're almost certainly correct doing massive damage to the Patriot system that was delivered to Ukraine perhaps doing more damage to the Western supplied air defense system operating around Kiev which is becoming increasingly depleted itself and according to the Russians today for the first time attacking one of the decision one at least perhaps more of the decision-making centers so it must be said so far May has been a very hard month for Ukraine now that brings me back briefly and I'm going to discuss this very briefly now but to the topic of General Solutions and he's curious absence I received an email from someone who um has considerable experience of these things he's seen the the um film the video Absolution and he's taken the view that it could be consistent with somebody who suffered some degree of trauma perhaps from a shell strike or something like that and he goes through all the reasons why it's all convincing he says that you know this I'm sure you sorry not sure his delusion he doesn't seem to be moving his limbs very well um he seems to be sitting one occasion when the impression is given that he's standing it seems that he is nonetheless sitting and it could be that he has indeed been injured in some way against that simply is the Thinker takes the view that shoigu sorry the the losing is probably um all right and that the whole story of him being injured with some kind of presumably Russian psychological warfare operation I'm going to come up with the Third explanation one which so far as I know no one has given up to now which is that zalusians presumably well informed about what's going on on the battlefronts and it could be that he's straightforwardly depressed that he's seeing all of these events he's seen the army that he's supposed to lead suffering these appalling losses he's seen the Gathering collapse as far as I can see of the air defense system he is seeing the missile strikes across Ukraine and that this has put him in a depressed mood I'm not suggesting by the way that he's clinically depressed but as somebody who's had experience problems with depression I can say that some of his vacancy and unresponsiveness on in this video it would not be inconsistent with my own experience of depression anyway that's all I get to say about this I'm absolutely not going to push this far I just think I'm certainly not in a position to conduct a diagnosis or medical analysis and I just offer that as a possible explanation in the light of all that's going on well even as Ukraine is being hammered with missiles and Rockets and bombs on the battlefields um Ukraine has tried to respond and it's just undertaken a very significant drone attack on Kiev 32 drones according to the Russian authorities these were rather small drones um a few did get through but they did minor damage apparently to a few buildings there's no information that anybody has been seriously wounded the Russian authorities are denying this they claim that 19 of the drones were brought down one way or the other either electronic warfare mechanisms were again up used sometimes apparently they were shot down by Canon and perhaps Miss arts and the Panzer air defense systems located in and around Moscow and in addition the Russians also say that some of these drones were brought down because they crashed into power cables as they were flying at very low altitudes or collided with trees or did things like that in other words they were brought down if you like through natural means without human intervention anyway I have to say this has publicly complained to zelenski that citizens of Kiev are being driven from their homes and their beds they're not able to sleep they've been bombed and he's asked why the same isn't true of people in Moscow well you can object to the sentiments in Mount klitschko's comments but you can perhaps also understand those sentiments and it does seem to me that this drone attack might have been intended to try to redress the balance to satisfy people like Klitschko that Ukraine can retaliate to these enormous Russian missile and drone strikes not just in Kiev but across Ukraine to my mind however what this drone strike has actually done is that it has exposed the extent of the imbalance it shows that the Russians are able to Launch missiles and drones to tremendous effect and on a scale that is far beyond Ukraine's capabilities and that Ukraine for its part all that it can do is engage in minor pin prick attacks and the Drone strike on Moscow which by the way is what most of the British media is leading on there they're not paying very much attention to the far more powerful Russian missile and drone strikes on Kiev and other places anyway this drone strike on Moscow this Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow is to my mind a demonstration of futility and weakness now saying all of this I ought to say that there's been some suggestions again in the media in Britain apparently that the drones the Ukrainian drones were trying to Target some of the wealthier residential areas of Moscow that they might have been seeking to attack people close to President Putin oligarchs Russian oligarchs and people of that kind um that they might even have been intended to Target President Putin himself I'm not sure that this is what the details of these articles are claiming which I have seen some rather disturbing headlines to that effect I've not wanted to be honest to read below them now if that is what people in Britain think and what they want to see happen drone strikes conducted by Ukraine and I should say in parenthesis that Ukraine for the moment is not is sort of denying again that it is Behind These drone strikes though everybody knows that it is in fact Ukraine that it is carrying out these drone strikes I don't think we should continue with this fiction for much longer but if the media in Britain and perhaps elsewhere in the west is happy that Ukraine is trying to use drone strikes against Moscow in order to affect assassinations if that's the plan well all I can say about that is that we have again Fallen very far below our former moral standards whatever you may think about these Russian drone strikes on Kiev and other places and I have said that I find some of the pictures of people in shelters moving and affecting but nonetheless they do not seem to be intended to strike directly at the civilian population and I find it disturbing that some people in Britain apparently are intensely relaxed and even pleased when Ukraine does try to do that I'm not going to say more um I leave it to people's conscience and if the city if I've misunderstood the Articles beneath these headlines then all I can say is I apologize but anyway to proceed this last comment this last Point brings me to Senator Lindsey Graham who's just of course been to Kiev he's had meetings with president zelenski and there's a video there's video comments of him appearing in which he says that um killing of Russians means that the money that the United States has been providing to Ukraine is the best money that the United States could be spending I mean that was I'm not paraphrasing his words exactly but that's it's effectively what this film apparently says now Senator Lindsey Graham has I think entirely correctly said that he that he said no such thing he did mention killing Russians and some of the comments that he made over the course of this meeting with zelenski and he did talk about money well spent in another part of his comments but what has happened is that somebody has conflated those two comments together to give the impression that they're somehow linked with each other when they are not in fact linked with each other and some people including some officials in Russia have mocked Senator Lindsey Graham's explanation but I think he's telling the truth writers that has looked at this apparently sees that there has indeed been edited in the way in which Senator Lindsey Graham's comments have been published now Senator Lindsey Graham he says that this is all the work of Russian propaganda but what he's apparently ignoring is that it seems that the film where there's these two comments juxtaposed with each other in order to make give the impression that they are part of the same phrase apparently it was released by Ukraine he so if that is correct and I believe it is then all I could say is the senator Lindsey Graham perhaps ought to reflect on that and reflect on who it seems is manipulating his words I'd also point out that he set himself up with this some months ago he was speaking in a way that clearly conveyed his wish or belief that the US authorities should collude in the assassination of President Putin so it's unsurprising that Ukraine and Russia have each made mileage of that from that from the sentiments that he expressed then by well in the one case perhaps manipulating these words and in another case publicizing his words in ways that he Senator Lindsey Graham and Douglas finds embarrassing I think if I can give him a word of advice I would advise him to keep as far from Kiev as possible the Russians by the way have issued an arrest warrant for him which is of course simply them I think trying to make further mileage of this affair either didn't have any real intention of trying to arrest him so a very brief picture overall for Ukraine over the last month now all of these events with the missile strikes and the drone strikes on Moscow and all that have to some extent have skilled news about what's actually going on on the battlefronts um we've had reports from Jan Garden this is pushilin's um advisor Dennis buschieli the head of the Donetsk Regional government Guardian has said that Ukraine did attempt to carry out another counter-attack in the area of arteomersk town which most of the world knows as Batman but which the Russians call Artimus but he says that this attack failed that it was repelled and that it was thrown back and another one of our regular commentators people who speak discuss things in for the Russian news agency Tas says that the ukrainians are trying to fool the Russians to thinking that they're taking withdrawing troops from zaporojia region because they're moving their artillery their artillery and armored forces from one place to another I think it's more likely that they're trying to keep their armored units in order to prevent them the Russians locating where they are unlaunching missile and bomb strikes upon them so I think that's the real reason why they are being shuffled around in the way that rogoff says but rogoff the duties to insist that the 65 000 Ukrainian troops concentrated in zaporosia region and he continues to think and I know many people on the Russian side also think the same that the Ukrainian offensive is now likely to be launched at any time and by the way and going back to the subject of zelusni yesterday zelenski said that he had another meeting with his top military officials and he said that zalushny and searski were both there and the impression given from the bulletin that publicized this meeting was that this is all about the offensive so it may be that this offensive is about to happen but I would point out that we're now almost at the very end of May if the offensive takes place over the last 20 next 24 hours it will have taken place been launched on the very last day of May and that is already significantly later than we were led to believe earlier um this year I remember that back in January when there was talkers Supply in Ukraine with tanks the suggestion was that the offensive would take place in March then it was going to be April then the Pentagon leagues told us that the start date was intended to be the 30th of April well we're almost at the end of May now it could be as I said that it will indeed be launched over the next day or so now I talked about the ineffectiveness the pointlessness of the Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and about the effectiveness of the Russian drone attack drone and missile attacks on Ukraine it should be said that there are country views The Economist has claimed that the Miss Island drone attacks on Kiev have been ineffective I can't see that that is consistent with the information that we're seeing Richard Kemp in the Daily Telegraph said that the Russian missile and drone attacks on Kiev are the product of Vladimir Putin's fear of the Ukrainian offensive which is coming he's so frightened by this offensive that apparently he's taking out his fear by pouring missiles and drones launching drones and missiles at Kiev well it is a point of view though again I think it wildly exaggerates Putin's operational control over this missile and drone offensive which has surely been conducted by the Russian Aerospace forces by the Russian general staff not by Putin himself and as I said it's actually quite possible to discern a military rationale behind this Russian military and drone offensive which is as I said taking place across Ukraine and there's even been a Russian commentary which said that the Drone attack on Moscow was intended to glean information about moscow's air defenses now I've heard this explanation given for many of these Ukrainian drone attacks it's been an ongoing story since August I have to say that this explanation has stretched too thin for me I have no longer take it very seriously it seems to me that on the contrary these drone attacks are essentially of token or symbolic significance they're carried out by Ukraine not so much in order to inflict any real damage on the Russians or to um somehow expose the realities of the Russian air defense system rather what they're intended to do is to boost morale back in Ukraine itself keep A Narrative of Ukrainian success active in the media the Western media and also in last but not least to so panic and worry amongst the Russian civilian population oh it seems to me that is Far and Away the most likely explanation for these attacks Financial Times however has taken this even further it's talked about how these deric attacks that Ukraine is launching are intended to overstretch Russian defenses and to keep the Russians guessing about where the Ukrainian offensive is going to come again I have to say I find that implausible and besides it overstates the scale and effectiveness of these pinprick attacks which as I said appear to me to as I said before appeared to me to be on a significantly lesser scale than attacks that Ukraine was launching behind the front lines in the summer of 2022 on the either the offensives in her song and harkov region after all during those attacks the Ukraine did carry out significant damage to a Russian Air Base in Crimea as I remember and the high mile systems did indeed cause the Russians some difficulties when they were first used these attacks are hardly it seems to me effective in that way nor incidentally do they match the ambition of the attacks with the converted strz reconnaissance drones these supersonic drones Tuple F drones which of which Ukraine still had a few left over from the period of the Soviet Union which Ukraine converted into long-range cruise missiles of a certain type um there were several attacks with these stridge drones back in the Autumn they reached as far as the angles Air Base major bases Russian strategic Aviation we haven't heard of successful attacks with Eastridge drones for a while now perhaps there's still a few left perhaps the ukrainians are hoarding them for use in their offensive but in any event these recent attacks by Ukraine don't seem to me to come close to matching what would really be needed to overstretch and extend and confuse the Russian Defenders to any great degree now say all of this I would just add something else which is that the Russians appear to be beefing up their surveillance and intelligence gathering in Ukraine now amongst the things that the revelations in the papers by the Royal United Services Institute which have received little attention one particular thing stood out for me which is that the Russians have apparently succeeded according to rusich in decrypting some Ukrainian Communications apparently there's a particular system that the ukrainians use which the Russians have successfully decrypted they've broken into it and that enables them to keep track on some you internal Ukrainian Communications that I would have thought is a major revelation it might by the way explain why the Russians appear to have fairly accurate figures for Ukrainian losses because it seems as if their signals intelligence is able to pick up reports this is a guess now but it follows them that Ruthie report perhaps the Russian signals intelligence is able to pick up reports from Ukrainian field commanders relating relaying back to Kiev to the general staff there the level of losses that they're experiencing following any particular Russian missile artillery or airstrike just guessing but anyway presumably this is a game that goes on all the time if the ukrainians know that some of their Communications are being decrypted presumably they tried to re-encrypt them using different systems the Russians for their part will be busy trying to crack any codes that the ukrainians are using in response to all of this so there's probably a constant game of this going on but one gets the sense that the Russians are able to bring to bear enormously greater resources and if the Russians are listening in to Ukrainian Communications at whatever level that must give them a pretty accurate idea of where the Ukrainian forces are and that presumably would make it more difficult for the ukrainians to launch any particular surprises in any particular direction last but not least yesterday we were pointedly informed that the Russians have launched another satellite system one which apparently has some kind of radar array which enables the Russians to locate and up map particular objects in Ukraine military objects which some of which are only a meter in length and we're told that the Russians now have a fair number of satellites operating over Ukraine keeping it track on what the ukrainians are doing and again I would have thought that it would be very difficult given the extensive surveillance capabilities that the Russians now have for ukrainians to really catch the Russians by surprise in any significant way so there we go that's the situation on the battlefronts a very difficult month May has been for Ukraine perhaps tomorrow last day of this month we will see Ukraine make its move we'll just have to wait and see meanwhile there are some very strange things going on in the world of diplomacy now in my recent videos I discussed rumors which originated in the Wall Street Journal that leak way see Shin Ping's a mystery who has been busy traveling in Europe and in Ukraine anyway that the Wars The Wall Street Journal said that she that Lee Hue had told European leaders the rather the European officials that he'd communicated with that the only way that this war could end would be for Ukraine to accept the loss of the four regions except the establishment of Edema militarized Zone and that the Europeans for their part needed to start to distance themselves from the United States which has been driving this confrontation in ways that are proving negative for Europe anyway yesterday we got denials of this story but these denials came in of most interesting way because they didn't originate in China China Chinese government did didn't come out immediately and so that liquids the The Wall Street Journal story was completely false that it wasn't based on anything at all that leeway had said nor interestingly did it come from European governments you didn't get all kinds of reports from European governments saying that Lee Hue had not said any of the things that the Wall Street Journal claimed that he had said the denials came essentially from Ukraine the Ukrainian defense foreign minister dimitro culeba reading these reports apparently became extremely concerned he phoned up European officials European governments not clear whether he tried to contact the Chinese themselves and asked them whether it was indeed the case that um Lee Hue had been saying these things and all of these officials according to the ukrainians denied it and the Chinese then ran with these denials the piggybacked of these denials they came out they said that the Wall Street Journal and by extension by the way the U.S authorities have been engaging in grave disinformation and that in fact um obviously would never have said the things that he did say yeah that I am a little more skeptical perhaps leeway chose his words very carefully indeed as Chinese diplomats actually do the story that they're all wolf Warriors Who come out say whatever they want in the most aggressive terms has no connection to reality in my opinion but I think that he did probably at the very least give some pretty clear hints that Ukraine would have to recognize the territorial realities so it could be that somebody in Washington who was worried about leeway's diplomatic activities set out to ruin his mission by perhaps making liquid's comments appear more concrete and more definite than they actually were at the moment he's only a mediator or at least trying to position himself as a mediator he's not coming out and saying he's not actually promoting a particular peace plan I've always said that the idea that China has offered a peace plan is actually wrong the Chinese have never never produced the peace plan to end the conflict in Ukraine but they have spoken of themselves as potential mediators but anyway I wonder whether that was what happened what actually happened that the Americans tried to um basically stop leeway's mission by inflating the words that he actually used but I still suspect that this isn't that far from what the Chinese might be actually thinking and I noticed that zelenski himself has made further comments today in which he said that China is not an ally of Ukraine it's not on Ukraine's side in this conflict he's spoken about China in a way that seems to suggest that China does in fact tilt more to Russia and interestingly enough he's gone further and said that um China isn't really a suitable mediator in this conflict so anyway there we go but there are other sources in the European media the Italian newspaper La Republica is saying that is repeating reports discussed by myself and my colleague Alex christoforu on the Duran touched on in previous programs here on this channel that the United States is looking to freeze the conflict in Ukraine that they might be prepared to or might be proposing to Ukraine that it accepts some territorial losses including most importantly the loss of Crimea and no doubt Don Bass in return at the at in return to it perhaps EU membership or conceivably even NATO membership and La Republica is essentially confirming fair or at least is also saying that this does seem to be the plan at the moment so the idea is let the ukrainians launch their offensive if the offensive is successful and regains ground well that will put you in a better position to negotiate with the Russians um if he fails and Ukraine is defeated or repelled or suffers heavy losses or finds itself in a critical position well then you can turn around and tell the ukrainians well um enough's enough we've done for you all you can clearly you're not able to defeat the Russians despite all the equipment that you're providing we're providing to you so what you must do is sit down and talk to the Russians and except that you're going to lose some territory but if you do that and we have peace then you can join the EU and perhaps in time NATO as well so that it seems to me is quite Pro plausibly what the United States might be thinking about so we have those discussions I suspect going underway intrigues Around leeway's Mission thinking in Washington about some way of freezing the conflict in order to prevent it ending in some kind of debacle and that perhaps brings me back to the comments from Joseph Burrell now yours at Burrell who has been a consistent hardliner in this conflict he has made some really very interesting comments at an expert Forum in Barcelona which is I believe his native City anyway he said I see the clear will of Russia to win in the war Russia will not negotiate until it wins I am not optimistic in my expectations about how this conflict May develop in the summer and he said that the only right thing to do in the circumstances is for the EU to continue building up its military assistance to Ukraine that's the only thing you can come up with his only real solution going forward now I find these very interesting comments and I have to say that it seems to me that obviously they're addressed to the participants in this expert Forum but I'm no doubt that Burrell knows or knew when he made them that they would be widely publicized and to me they look to be an attempt to push back on these freezing the conflict ideas that appear to be circulating in Washington what Morrell is basically saying is look I too understand that this offensive that Ukraine may be about to Launch isn't going to improve things in any significant way things in Ukraine in fact are going from bad to worse but it is unrealistic to think that the Russians are interested in freezing the conflict they are now determined to win and they think they can win and they have no incentive to negotiate until they have visibly won at which point of course they will dictate terms so in this situation our only option unless we are prepared to completely elected the Russians and all to cut Ukraine loose is to go on Supply in Ukraine with more and more weapons and more and more financial aid to try to keep them fighting to keep them going even if the offensive fails and the Russians continue their advances to continue in other words doing what we've been doing ever since February 2022 in the hope that somehow somewhere at some point things will turn out right for us it's desperate and what can understand why Burrell is not optimistic but there is also I have to say this a grain of realism here unusual with morale because I think he is right I cannot see what incentive Russia has to agree to the theories the ideas that some people in Washington seem to have why would the Russians agree to freeze the conflict simply so that the West having Frozen the conflict can build up Ukraine integrated into the European Atlantic system and perhaps at some point in the future hope to launch it again in its campaign to reintegrate the territories he claims to its East I cannot see why the Russians would do that and I don't frankly think they are doing it anyway that's my take of the situation in and around Ukraine at the moment we could be on the brink of this offensive if Ukraine promised the Western powers that it would launch this offensive in May then as I said it's only got one day left perhaps it will launch it later in June we shall see I know there are some people who think that Ukraine won't launch an offensive at all I have to say that I don't agree with them I think that there will be an offensive the only question is when and of course what happens when it is indeed launched but in the meantime to repeat again Point I've made now many times in this program May has been a very very hard year for Ukraine and the mood overall appears to be bad we see people like Burrell no longer optimistic we see zolusny well I've already said what I thought that you might be depressed we've seen zielinski Keen to be out of Kiev for as long as possible and we see now the Russians starting to take make launch strikes against decision making centers and by the way even as I made this video I've seen a report that Putin himself has said that the facility the decision-making Center that was attacked in Kiev was the headquarters of Ukraine's Military Intelligence which is of course the bill the the agency which is headed by budanov who it must be said appears to have been uninjured and perhaps wasn't caught up in this stride anyway that's that's what I'm going to say about Ukraine there are other things going on in this world in the world and of course we now have more problems in the Balkans there's um being an attempt by the authorities in Pristina the capital of Kosovo Kosovo being a province of Serbia that is broken away with the support of the western powers and which the Western Powers recognize as an independent state but which most of the world refuses to so recognize they still consider it part of Serbia and I should say that I too personally now want to make my own views about this clear I also consider Kosovo to be legally a part of Serbia at least until there is a fair political settlement of this conflict which takes into account the feelings of all of the communities of which for the moment there is no sign anyway the authorities in Pristina have over the course of April conducted what they called um elections in the Serb populated areas of Kosovo the Serb people in these areas refuse to recognize those elections as far as they're concerned such elections arranged by a secessionist Authority have no validity in the part of Kosovo which they occupy the only legal Authority they recognize the only Sovereign legal Authority they recognize is the one in Belgrade and the result was that the turnout in these so-called elections was microscopic in the single figures but the government in Pristina claims that certain officials Mayors were elected and over the last few days it's tried to impose them I tried to leverage them into position and of course Subs in these areas where these Mayors are being imposed I think that is the right word I protested these protests have escalated and they've escalated into attacks on NATO or at least K4 peacekeepers peacekeepers drawn from the Western countries all of which of course support kosovo's Independence which to my mind according to question whether they are properly can be properly described as peacekeepers the serbs of course would say that they're an occupation Authority anyway this is led to and as I said um fights and ugly incidents of that nature but the response of the western powers to all of this to these events has been very interesting because up to this point pretty much anything that the authorities in Pristina have done the Western Powers have tended to support in fact have strongly supported after all the Western Powers recognize the authorities in Pristina as the legitimate government of Kosovo and it is let's be clear about this the western-backed government of Kosovo whose Independence is of course also Western backed anyway this time we've had statements from Western officials that is most inappropriate for Pristina to try to impose these Mayors take unilateral measures to try to impose these Mayors on a community which does not consent to have these Mayors imposed upon them in other words almost the first criticisms by the Western powers of the authorities in Christina Christina that I can remember and I can't help but wonder whether all this is connected in some way with a darkening mood about the situation in Ukraine with the situation in Kosovo again escalating with the Serbian government having to take steps to support people serve people in Kosovo with pressure from the sub-population in Serbia itself to support these people in Kosovo the very last thing it seems to be at the present time with a conflict in Ukraine going so badly wrong is for the last thing the West wants is another conflict in the Balkans which as my colleague and friend Alex christoforu on the program we did on this topic for the Duran correctly said my only highlight divisions within the West with some Western countries Greece Romania Spain several others supporting Serbia against Kosovo and in effect breaking ranks with the rest of the West so a complex situation in the Balkans an escalating situation in the Balkans one where it must be said the Western Powers so so the Dragon's Teeth and a darkening mood and a darkening picture at least from a western perspective about the conflict in Ukraine well that's me for today more from me soon in the meantime let me remind you that you can find all of our programs on our various platforms locals Rumble bit shoot Odyssey rockfin and telegram you can also support our work via patreon And subscribe star links under this video you can also um check out our shop and buy yourself the amazing things that you will find there are magic monks our hats or hoodies or t-shirts or sweatshirts all those great things that's me for today please remember check the like button press the like button if you like this video check the subscription to this channel more from me soon and until then have a very good day [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Alexander Mercouris

Views: 188,967

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, Donbass, putin, russia, ukraine, zelensky, EU ukraine, NATO Ukraine, nato russia, ukraine nato, biden ukraine, nato ukraine, kremlin, kremlin drones, putin assassination, drones kremlin, drones moscow, kremlin security, nord stream, politico, the hague, medvedev, Prigozhin, wagner, bakhmut, shoigu, gerasimov, borrell

Id: wnv0FocRN-o

Length: 74min 59sec (4499 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023