Tensions escalate on the northeastern front 🔥 as reports emerge of a Russian breakthrough near Ukraine’s Sumy region 📍. Once considered a buffer zone, Sumy may now be at the center of a renewed Russian offensive 🇷🇺.
Join The Duran 🎙️ as they break down the strategic implications of this latest development, the shifting battle lines, and what it could mean for the broader conflict. Is Ukraine’s defense weakening? Or is this part of a larger tactical reshuffle? 🧠🗺️
00:00All right, Alexander, let's talk about the military situation in Ukraine. Russia continues to advance. It looks like they are now in the Dnipro-Petrovsk region, which is significant. Talk about advancing in the Sumi direction as well.
00:18Actually, Ukraine is evacuating civilians from Sumi in preparation for what could be a Russia offensive in that direction. And just in general, a terrible state for the Ukraine military and the Russian military continues to push forward.
00:39Of course, the collective West media tells us that Russia is not pushing forward anywhere and that essentially we have a stalemate that is playing out in Ukraine at this moment.
00:50Well, there's actually an article in Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, you know, one of the big flagship magazines of the US foreign policy establishment.
01:00So Foreign Policy, which says that Russia is losing the war. Ukraine is winning, apparently. I mean, quite where people get this idea from or whether this isn't just another exercise in narrative construction.
01:13But anyway, I mean, that is so completely at variance with the actual reality of the situation on the battlefronts that it's just difficult to understand how articles like that continue to get written.
01:28Now, with every day, the Russian offensive began immediately after the collapse of the Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
01:37So we're talking about a steady offensive that has been gaining power and strength every day since roughly the end of March.
01:47And the pace is accelerating and it is accelerating fast.
01:52So firstly, going from north to south, absolutely, the Russians are now in Sumi region.
02:00One gets the sense that Ukrainian defense is in Sumi region, right up in the north.
02:06Sumi region, by the way, if you capture the city of Sumi, which is around 30 kilometers from the border with Russia, if you capture it, it's a straight road to Kiev.
02:19Kiev, just to make that point, you can trundle up the main road to Kiev.
02:27It's a certain distance, but it's the direction the Russian army followed when they marched on Kiev in 2022.
02:37Of course, this time we're talking about a much bigger, far more powerful Russian army.
02:44And of course, now a experienced Russian army, very different from the one we saw in 2022.
02:53Anyway, so Sumi, the Ukrainians are now evacuating civilians from there.
02:59There's an exchange of conversations when Putin is talking to people from Kursk region.
03:08They tell him, we want, we have to have the city of Sumi itself, because if we don't, Kursk region is not safe.
03:17And Putin didn't seem to say no.
03:20He seemed to hint that perhaps the Russians ought to take Sumi, the city of Sumi.
03:27Last year, when there was talk about creating a buffer zone in Kharkov region to protect Belgorod,
03:37Putin repeatedly went out of his way to say that the Russians were not interested at that time in capturing the city of Kharkov.
03:49The tonal difference is striking, and I don't think people have noticed, have noticed the difference this time.
03:59So, Sumi region, absolutely a massive crisis for the Ukrainians in the Kupiansk area, an even bigger one in the Liman area.
04:10There's reports that the fortified village of Erkomyansk has now conclusively passed under Russian control,
04:18which means that the Russians are very close, four kilometers away from the town of Siversk,
04:25which is another one of the major fortified positions that the Ukrainians have had.
04:29That would once have been considered hugely important.
04:35It now seems less important because there are crises pretty much everywhere else along the front lines, too.
04:44There's talk that the entire Ukrainian defense position south of Konstantinovka has crumbled,
04:50that a whole area of a kind of semi-cauldron, around half of it, has now been brought under Russian control.
05:01That means that all of the defenses around Konstantinovka are collapsing,
05:09putting the Russians in a position to start an operation against that town,
05:13which is the southern part of the series of cities that start with Slavyansk in the north and go down to Konstantinovka in the south.
05:25The Russians are very close now to the important town of Liman.
05:29They might be thinking of capturing that as well.
05:31The Russians have been steadily tightening their grip around Pokrovsk,
05:38and there are lots of reasons to think that the Russians are already fighting inside Pokrovsk.
05:47There's not been absolute confirmation of this, but the reports suggest that it's very likely to be the case.
05:55And, as you rightly said, the Russians pushing westwards, also towards the Dnieper.
06:01They've now entered the Dnieper region, and as has been commented by a lot of commentators,
06:08this is the point where the landscape changes.
06:13So, instead of getting the industrial and urban sprawl of the Donbass,
06:19you start to move into open ground, much better adapted to rapid advances towards the Dnieper.
06:27And all of this, as there's been sackings across the Ukrainian army,
06:35officers either resigning or being sacked, more reports of further desertions,
06:42deeply unhappy posts appearing right across the Ukrainian internet,
06:48reports of mass desertions from certain military units.
06:51All of this is coming together, suggesting that things are not good for Ukraine at all.
06:59And we are still probably at the beginning of this offensive, which we're only in May.
07:06There's still June, July, August, September, October, November.
07:10These are the major months for advances.
07:13And still two big reserve armies, another quarter of a million men waiting in Russia to be committed to the battle.
07:25Yeah, I wonder if the Trump administration realizes what's about to happen,
07:29and that's why they're pushing so hard for a deal.
07:32This is their last chance to save Ukraine, the state, the entity of Ukraine.
07:39And Putin, it looks like he also understands this, which is once they break through Pokrovsk, everything changes.
07:49I mean, the open terrain, everything changes.
07:51Yes, absolutely.
07:52So, I mean, this is a race against time for the U.S., for the Trump administration,
07:58in order to salvage what they can of Project Ukraine.
08:03For the Russians, they're open to negotiating, but they also understand that time is on their side.
08:10Yes.
08:12The Russians don't want to slam the door on Donald Trump for many reasons that we've discussed
08:16and which we discussed recently in a recent program.
08:20Though, when I say the Russians, to be specific again,
08:25Vladimir Putin doesn't want to slam the door on Donald Trump.
08:30Other Russians are less bothered about that.
08:35And, you know, they would say, look, we're on the brink of victory.
08:38Let's focus on that now.
08:40Let's not worry about negotiations too much.
08:43And yes, you know, we're going to meet with the Ukrainians in the Vatican, which is strange.
08:49I mean, it's an odd choice for mediator.
08:52Exactly.
08:53I wonder whether the decision to shift it to the Vatican, which was first floated by Trump,
09:02is a sign that Erdogan, who hosted the talks in Turkey, is now also becoming uneasy about the military situation,
09:13and that he too is trying to distance himself from what is happening,
09:17and that he also has been talking to the Americans about this,
09:22and that this is why, instead of the negotiations happening in Istanbul,
09:26they've been transferred to the Vatican instead.
09:29That's what the Wall Street Journal is saying.
09:30I mean, if you believe what they're saying, that's what they're saying to the Vatican.
09:33If you believe what they're saying.
09:34But anyway, we'll see.
09:36I mean, usually the Wall Street Journal on these sort of things can be quite accurate.
09:40So anyway, we'll see.
09:41But I think you may be right.
09:43I think Trump himself, it's difficult to know what exactly the briefings he's getting are telling him.
09:51But I suspect that Trump himself realizes that we are seeing the opening stages of the end of the wall.
10:01I don't know how widely this is understood across the whole of the administration.
10:06And I generally do get the feeling that there are many people in Europe who remain in denial about this.
10:15I mean, we talked about the cynicism of many European leaders,
10:18that they would rather see Ukraine defeated than compromise, and that is undoubtedly there.
10:24But I still get the sense that there are some people, especially perhaps in Britain,
10:29who still believe that this war can be won.
10:33All we need to do is give a little bit more help, because they still believe all the narratives
10:39about the Russians suffering astronomic losses, their economy being on the brink of collapse,
10:47the Russian army being out of tanks and all of that.
10:51Well, they believe it because the mainstream media is reporting it.
10:55Yes.
10:56So it's just a circle.
10:58It's a circle.
10:59The one feeds the other.
11:01Because to repeat again, many of the decision makers get their ideas about conflicts from
11:08what they read in the media.
11:10So it is a reinforcing circle, and that is precisely what we're seeing, of course.
11:17Yeah.
11:17The Europeans also probably feel that they can wait out the Trump administration as well.
11:22If they can keep this going for three years, they can wait out the Trump administration.
11:25Once the Russians clear through Pokrovsk, I don't know how long that's going to take.
11:31It may happen quick.
11:32It may take a lot of time.
11:33I don't know.
11:34But once they do, it's going to speed things up.
11:37At least that's the thinking that is out there.
11:41Well, that seems to be the consensus on the part of both Russian and, by the way,
11:47Ukrainian military commentators, that we've now reached that point in the war where Pokrovsk
11:54has become so key that the Ukrainian military effort, basically east of the Dnieper, cannot
12:02be sustained if Pokrovsk is lost.
12:05That it's become the linchpin.
12:08To repeat again, a point I have made many times, if Ukraine loses positions east of the Dnieper,
12:19if the Russians reach the eastern banks of the Dnieper in central Ukraine, if they start
12:26capturing places like Zaporozhye and potentially even Dnieper, then we're justified already in
12:34talking about the end of Ukraine.
12:35Ukraine cannot function as a state if it loses what would then be its industrial and transportation
12:47heartland.
12:49All right.
12:49We will end the video there.
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