All right, Alexander, let's talk about Avdefka. Collapsing or collapsed? What do you think? Right, that's a very good question. The situation is utterly chaotic. I think if we have to be We have to be objective. It is I'm not saying that there is no organized defence of this town underway at the moment.

The question is no longer can the Ukrainians hold on to Avdavka. The question is whether they can extract their forces from Avdavka, and it's clear that they've left it far too late, and the defense such as it is is now becoming incredibly disorganized, and in attempts to pull troops out of Avdavka is becoming all but impossible, and that Ukrainian troops in Avdavka are starting to understand this. In fact, probably they began to understand it yesterday, and that, you know, we're starting to see essentially a disintegration.

Meant soldiers taking decisions by themselves, trying to cross open fields, being attacked by Russian drones, and machine guns, and that kind of thing. Other units abandoning positions. Some people continue to put up resistance in some places. It looks like communications have completely broken. Of it. As I said, of trying to decide what to do with these thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, for all we know, of Ukrainian troops who are still there. That cut off, essentially surrounded, and broken up into various, you know, holding

Doubts, and who don't seem to know what to do, and with Kiev itself not knowing what to do about them either. What is going on with these reports, specifically via Reuters, which claim that Sirsky is sending the Azov guys into Avdefka as he's trying to retreat the units in Avdefka. He's sending these Azov guys to try and hold on to the city. Little bit more for a little bit more time what's going on there yeah I mean right right Reuters is Out two days late.

It was about three days ago that General Tarnavsky, who was the commander of the southern group of forces, a Ukraine southern group of forces, which includes Avdeyevka, said about three or four days ago that the Azov brigade was being sent to Avdeyevka in order to try to stabilize the situation. Of course, what has happened is that since yesterday we've been getting more and more reports from the Azov Brigade itself, from the 3rd Brigade, as it calls itself now. About what they're facing in Avdavka, and they're describing the situation as hell. They say that they are fighting 360 degrees, in other words, that they're surrounded They are saying that they're suffering incredible losses. They're saying that there are no prepared defenses that they can use.

Far from stabilizing the situation, it looks like they're being sucked in, or have been sucked in, to... The engulfing chaos. So as I said, Reuters, if it had published this report three days ago, they would have reported what was… actually correct news. But I mean now it's been overtaken by events. That operation has failed. I mean the attempt to use the Azov battalion to stay brigade rather to stabilize the situation has already collapsed. Now that begs a number of questions is the Are the British concealing what is going on in Avdafka? Or is it much more likely that they're still getting information from the Ukrainians and they're not really looking at the actual situation on the ground?

And the result is that they are themselves losing… Understanding of just how bad and chaotic the situation in Avdevka has now become. Now, you know, again, early this morning, and indeed continuing throughout the day, I've been getting more and more…seeing more and more reports… not just from Russian sources, but from Ukrainian ones, about Russian- Ukrainian troops in Avdovka, thousands of men being essentially… Trapped and coming under enormous relentless Russian fire

of the Russians continuing advances and capturing one location after another. Now, yesterday they captured two major fortifications called the Air Defense Base and the Cheborasha complex. Cheborasha is a cartoon character. It reflects how this place looks on a map, but it seems to me that it's part of the Air Defense complex. I suspect it was the Soviet era. air defense complex where surface-to-air missiles used to be better

It Somewhere to the west of all of these places, shutting off another main road. They seem to be pushing hard towards further roads, closing off all the remaining roads. The Azov people who actually entered Arsteyevka are already themselves cut off. So as I said, the British writers have, it seems to be, got this…

Last, heavily fortified area. There are other fortified areas. I'm not saying that there aren't areas that are being defended or fortified, but this was a fortress. So Bahmut, Ghan, Marinkakan. Afdefka was the last big fortress that NATO had constructed over 10 years. This was their staging area for what would have been an eventual invasion into Donbas, which... If you believe some of the reporting and some of the analysis from two years ago, that was what was eventually being planned and it was all going to originate from Afdefka. Of course, everyone knows that Afdefka was the city where many missiles were being sent from Afdefka. To Donetsk city. But what happens next after Avdefka? I mean, there's Russians are advancing on all fronts, actually. It's not only Afdefka. It's across the entire front line. And...

Going back to sending these units into Avdefka, this elite Azov unit. Do you think this coincides a bit with the Munich Security Conference and the fact that it's rumored that Zelensky is going to be in Munich and perhaps they made one last effort to try and hold on to have DEFG at least to get them through the conference and perhaps to get them through the votes in the Senate and the House for the 61 billion? No vote is going to take place in the Be in recess now until the 20th of February. But perhaps the stabilization was not so much a stabilization, but hold on for a week or two longer. You're absolutely right. Now can I just say Zelensky is actually now in Berlin and he's definitely He's gone. He's gone. And I mean, that in itself is astonishing. I mean, you'd have thought that with a disaster taking place in Ukraine, you know, and with

is what looks increasingly like chaos in decision making, because it's, coming back to your underlying question, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the Ukrainians themselves are absolutely unclear what they should do in this situation, because they've lost this major fortified line. But Zelensky's duty, so it seems to me, as president and supreme commander-in-chief, was in the face of this catastrophe with thousands of Ukrainian enemies. Troops being cut off. It was to remain in Kiev, assume responsibility, help the military people. Do whatever they can to stabilize the situation. But instead he does what he consistently does…what he consistently does in these situations.

Situations. When the situation becomes difficult, when it becomes dangerous, he lives… He goes away. And you know, what is he going to do in Berlin? What is he going to do in Munich? Which is going to help destabilize the situation now. Now, let's come back, however, to your main question, because I think before we ask what the Ukrainians might try to do… Let's just ask how this whole situation has come about. Now, about two weeks ago The Russians started to break into Avdovka itself. They were able to carry... A large area in the south, one of the main Ukrainian fortifications, the Daz Hunting Lodge, was rapidly captured. It was clear even then… That the situation in Avdeyevka was becoming critical.

The Ukrainians needed to do, and I…you know, this is not…you don't have to be a military person or a military, you know, expert to understand this. Remember, you know, I'm not one of these things, you're not one of these things, but lots of people were saying this. They needed to pull their troops… Back. From the outline fortified positions, the air defense base, the filtration plant, places, bring them back to Afdafka, and then organize a fighting withdrawal from Afdafka to save their men. They did exactly the opposite. They kept their men there. They engaged in counterattacks, which were bound to fail. The Azov brigade, the 3rd brigade, was rushed to the scene. And what would have been a serious defeat is now starting to look like a catastrophe.

So why did they do it? Well, firstly, the Ukrainians, and you know, it's easy to just blame Zelensky here, but one gets the sense that all the Ukrainians... In defendable. And they did the same with Afdafka. They were no doubt conscious of the importance of Afdafka. And you're absolutely correct, it was the main, the most heavily fortified position of all, and it was close to Donet City, and it was important psychologically for the Ukrainians It because controlling Africa meant that they still had Donet City under siege and they

one day in their own imaginations, hope to launch an offensive from Avderivka to recapture Donet City. So, there were these emotional things, but fundamentally, I think you are… Not absolutely right. They didn't want to lose Avdafrka. Whilst these arguments in Congress were still underway, they did not want to lose Avdafka whilst the Munich Security Conference was about to happen. Because doing so would have looked like a major loss of face, and might have fed doubts, or so they feared, in the West. That Ukraine is losing the war and is going to lose the war, and that further … Western aid to Ukraine is therefore sending good money after bad.

So they clung on. In fact, they disastrously reinforced failure. And we have this chaotic situation. Now, there is a further thing, which is where we come back to your original question, because as they were not prepared to give up avdafka and say, I'm not prepared to give up avdafka, and say, I'm not prepared to give up avdafka, and say, I'm not Seem unwilling to accept this major fortified position was collapsing. They seem to have done absolutely nothing to build proper fortified lines west of Afdafk. Now, any fortified lines they built west of Afdafk would… Anyway, have been less strong than the ones they've just lost in Avdafka itself. They would have had to be improvised in a higher way.

Sorry. And given how strong the Russian military now is, as we see, it's debatable whether even these fortified lines, had they been built, would have been strong enough to resist But the reality, the actual reality, is that it seems that no significant fortified lines west of Vavderivka have been built at all. We don't know this from the Russians, but Ukrainian soldiers – and I say Ukrainian soldiers, I mean the Azov Brigade, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, which has been fighting in Avderka for a very long time… They've been sending back reports saying there are no fortifications.

In the area. So it looks as if, once Savedevka falls, it's open territory, it's open ground for the Russians to advance further if that is what they choose to do. Now all you You don't know what it is that the Russians plan to do. I mean, the other side of this story about Avdafka is… that the Russian military is now working at full, you know, full range of its capacities and skills. They've conducted a masterly operation in Avdafka. They've captured this place despite the resistance of some of Ukraine's best troops, the 110th Brigade, the 47th Mechanized Brigade. The 3rd Azov Brigade. They are also massively outmatching the Ukrainians in firepower. They're able to bomb Ukrainian 40th.

Shell them, they are able to do things which we've never seen happen earlier in the war. And they've also acted with immense tactical skill, keeping the Ukrainians guessing all the time about where towards Ardeyevka they're going to attack, and attacking where the U.S. Crannies didn't expect them to attack so all of this shows that the The Ukrainians are up against a formidable adversary. The question is, what is this adversary now going to do? Are they going to push forward, westwards, from Avdevka, towards other places like, say, the big town of Pakhrovsk, which lies a bit further west? Are they going to push north, towards Avdevka?

Are they simply going to stay where they are and attack somewhere else? We simply do not know. But whatever it is that the Russians do, everything suggests now that it's going to be carefully planned and structured in advance, and you're absolutely right, even as Evdevka collapses, the Russians are applying pressure on every other part of the front lines. Right. What happens at Munich now? What do you think happens at Munich now? The excuse is that the way they're coping with. This, the Collective West. You got a hint at that from Kirby's statement the other day, which is if only 61 billion was approved, then Avdefka would not have fallen. That's basically how they're going to cope with all of this and how they're going to explain this away.

What are your thoughts? Alexander M: Well, a few things to say about this. Firstly, the $61 billion is not going to change the situation on the battlefronts. It cannot do, because the critical things that Ukraine is now short of – first and foremost artillery shells, and by the way, not just artillery shells, but artillery – are the West to be supplied to Ukraine. The same is true of Edif—

And it's been an interview he's given which has received no attention at all in the Western media, even though he's a top Pentagon official. He's given us up-to-date figures, finally, for shell production in the United States, and it's gone up from 14,000 rounds of 155 shells a month before the war started to 28,000 rounds a month now. Ukraine says it needs 6,000 rounds a day. That is nowhere near enough. We know that the shell situation in Europe is catastrophic. We know that all the great shell arsenals have been catastrophically depleted. So you know, past 61 billion dollars. To provide Ukraine with more shells because the shells are not there.

Is for air defense missiles. There's a general shortage throughout the west of air defense missiles. I mean they're just talking about, you know, an anti-air defense coalition. They should just announce that in Ramstein to provide Ukraine with their defense missiles. So, they'd already announced that a year ago. I remember, you know, Ursula von der Leyen, no less, talking about how… you know, this is a year ago, the importance of providing Ukraine with air defence systems. They've given Ukraine all the air defence systems, they've restored them. They realistically can. They're running short of missiles. Ukraine is running short of missiles, which enables the Russian air force now to operate battlefields, essentially it will. So it simply isn't realistic to say just give them 61 billion dollars and that's going to change the

Situation. You're simply throwing money at a problem rather than dealing with the Underlying essential problem. The British have admitted they have no artillery left. I mean, this is an astonishing admission that I read in the Daily Telegraph that the British army has no artillery. It's got no guns. It's got no shells. And the same, it seems, is true of most of the other…

Situation in Ukraine turns to catastrophe and in order to draw attention away from their own catastrophic decision-making, which we have seen throughout this war. I just finished here by saying that there were shelves that could have been given to you that were given to Ukraine Last year about half a million shells bought from North South Korea Americans bought The million shell from South Korea, ruining South Korea's otherwise good relations with Russia by the way. All of those shells were squandered over the course of Ukraine's summer offensive. Ukraine ran out of shows in August. It states at that point how to start supplying Ukraine with cluster shells, if we remember.

So, the shell crisis long predates the problems in Congress that we're hearing about now. Shell production because they've announced this plan of one million drones. UK and the EU partners. To me, I look at that as an admission that we can't make shells. Can't match the Russians on shells? But forget about the shells. Don't worry about shells. We've got a new plan. We're going to make a million drones. This is nonsense. It is absolute nonsense, you're completely correct. I mean, you know, this is just lurching from one stupidity to another. I mean, a million drugs, I mean, can I just say, by some estimates, the...

Right, put that aside. You know, I'm not going to dwell on the Russian figures because there's always uncertainties about those. The drones are not going to make a difference on the battlefields. We've been hearing for weeks now about how Ukraine is able to use FPV drones to substitute for artillery. We've just seen that entire theory collapse in Uvdaevna. If the Europeans are able to make a million drones, which is, I mean, no other promise they've made about supplying Ukraine with weapons they've been able to keep. But if they supply those drones, it won't make any difference. Drones carry a...

Very small explosive charge. The Russians are showing a great ability to jam them. They require extremely skilled operators, of which Ukraine has fewer and fewer, because the Russians are hunting them on the battlefields. And they can't do the things that artillery does. This is obvious. Yeah, Ukraine is out of our two the

the graphic collapse.

I mean, I've been reading comments made by Ukrainian analysts and political…you know, political figures, and they're saying that there's half a million men that Zelensky and Zeluzny were talking about that you needed to be called up. They don't exist. Ukraine can't conscript that many people, not at this late stage of the war. They're suggesting that somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand might be the most that Ukraine would be able to conscript with the available resources. But all the people who really, you know, were capable of fighting have already been conscripted, and the units that they served in have been shattered on the…

Battlefields. And what you would be conscripting now would be very young men in their twenties. If you had the time to train them, you might make soldiers out of them. But training soldiers who have no experience of war takes roughly a year, apparently. If they're to survive in modern combat, Ukraine doesn't have a year. A final question or comment I thought that I'm having with the 61 billion. The goal from the Biden White House is to try and get this passed November 2024. You can see that they're starting to worry that they're not going to.

To accomplish this goal. I mean, Kirby's statement yesterday, you can see that Kirby was shaken. He was in a panic. The 61 billion, obviously it's not going to get you millions of 1.5 five of them shells. I mean, that's obvious. If they had these shells there, they would have already got to Ukraine. You're not going to get these shells just because you give 61 billion to Ukraine. Is the 61 billion, was it really meant to keep the... keep the... Lenski in power from the standpoint of keeping the government up and running. Pensions, paying salaries, paying the parliament members, the oligarchs, just keeping... Everyone well fed for at least six months. Though the military is being annihilated, at least keep the political situation somewhat stable, and then you can have the collapse happen in November.

And now they're worried that Zelensky's position now may be in serious trouble. And I imagine they're going to discuss that in Munich. I'm just trying to... But I guess my question to you, what I'm trying to get out of you is-- you know, obviously the 61 billion didn't do anything from a military level. So... What really was this 61 billion about once you take out the 10% for the big guy and all of the. The corruption, all that stuff. Once you get down to a certain number, say 50 billion, was that just really about keeping the political situation stable while the military situation collapses and now you're going to have... Political and military situation collapsing at the same time? You know, that might make some sense if you were dealing with people who have a realistic understanding of the war. Now, this...

There's 61 billion package for Ukraine. It's important to remember it dates from the fall. They were talking about this way back in the autumn, already at the time when Zelensky was visiting the United States, which from memory was either in September or October. And I think at that time, if it was still Ukraine's so-called offensive… If it was still underway, it wasn't clear that the Russians would almost immediately, as soon as the offensive petered out, themselves go on the attack. There has been this consistent underestimation of Russian military capabilities. And I think they thought that they had more time than they really do. I think they thought that probably things were quieting down through the winter, that the war would resume the spring you give Ukraine 61 billion dollars the European

This year. A massive hole in Ukraine's budget. But also, I suspect they did think that they'd be able to hold things back militarily as well. They didn't really believe that the Russians would go on the offensive in the way that they did. On the contrary, I suspect that there was still some hope – this is, you know, back in the early autumn – that this crinkly operation, which by the way has now apparently been entirely called off, it seems the one thing that Siercy has done is that he's told the Ukrainian command to…

Underestimated the Russians. This has been the story of the war, right from almost the first day. And it's now caught up. They're starting to realize that they don't have the time that they thought they did. That things really are starting to fall apart even faster than they assume. Yeah, all right, my final thought there on the US panic is, you know, just take the L. A much different situation. But Europe is going to still be dependent on the US because the EU has nowhere to go.

To go. So they're going to be dependent on the US no matter what. The best thing the Biden White House could do is take the L. Take the take the Criticism for a month and eventually you own the media. You know, the media will work through the cycle of the Ukraine, Lawson. That'll be that. So they're not going to go anywhere. That would be my advice to the Biden White House. What would it be yours? What would you say? You are absolutely right. I mean, you know, what did Biden, what did Putin say to Tucker Carlson? not win a propaganda battle against the United States. The United States owns

the entire international media. When he meant what he was talking about the United States, he was talking about the Biden administration and his friends. You know, the best aim, politically, that could happen now for the Biden administration is that… Perhaps happens, blame the Republicans and Trump, and just move on. And you know, by November in the United States all of this would be forgotten.

You know, it's absolutely the case. I was reading actually an amazing article, one of the few good articles that sometimes…that used to appear, which is in the Financial Times, which made exactly this point, that ultimately the United States is completely secure. It's surrounded by seas and oceans. All these wars happen far away. They don't affect US territory. They don't affect directly the US economy. The US could just sail through a debacle in Ukraine and You know all Relations management, which is something that these guys excel in.

Oil and gas. Who speak sense? They've got nowhere to go. They are completely, completely… On a limb with this one. If the United States walks away, they've got nowhere to go. And they can't get their military production organized, they can't get their defense systems sorted out, it's a fantasy to think that they ever will. Yeah agreed. All right. vduran.locals.com. We are on rumble, odyssey, bitches, telegram, rockfin, and twitter x and go to the duran.

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