All right, Alexander, let's talk about the big Russian missile strikes. Not only missiles, missiles, drones. It seems like the Russians threw a whole bunch of things at Ukraine yesterday, and they hit just about every major city as well. I didn't really see much success from the Air Defense Wonder Weapons of Ukraine either. What's going on here?

I think this is absolutely not. Now, this is the first big Russian missile strike of this winter. There's been a lot of speculation about whether the Russians would launch big missile strikes this winter. We've been waiting to see them. There's been some people wondering whether they would in fact do it. Well, they did. They did it, and they did it on a very big scale. Apparently, something like 130 cruise missiles, according to the Ukrainians, launched overnight from strategic bombers, from ships of the Black Sea fleet, and also huge numbers, fleets of uranium-2 drones launched at the same time. Not just apparently missiles and drones, but various decoy weapons. It is becoming incredibly sophisticated, these operations. And as you absolutely rightly say, right across every single part of Ukraine, and this coming after Ukraine itself has been, Kyiv itself especially, has been attacked now for over several nights over the past week or so. This is a huge attack. It's interesting because of the number of things that it tells us. Firstly, you're absolutely correct. It does look as if a large number of these missiles and drones got through and hit their targets. Now, Ukraine has said that it shot down 87 of the missiles, but it looks as if something like 120, 130 were launched.

Even Ukraine is no longer claiming a 90, 100% success rate as it used to do. That's I think, already a concession. In practice, many people, even EpoC times I noticed a short time ago, conceded that many, many more of these missiles and many, many more of these drones get through. They have hit lots of different targets up and down and across Ukraine. That then brings us to the question of what exactly is it that the Russians are up to? What are the Russians doing with these big missile strikes? Now, last year they were attacking the Ukrainian energy system. A lot of people, ourselves amongst them, assumed that the plan was to knock out the energy system. The energy system was never fully and completely knocked out. It seems that a decision was made in Moscow that they wouldn't knock out the energy system, at least not completely last year. They don't seem to have been mainly focused, primarily focused on the energy system last night. I'm going to suggest that the real objective that the Russians follow with these attacks is that they are depleting. They were doing this last year and they're doing it again this year.

They are depleting. They're weakening Ukraine's air defense system. Now, it seems Ukraine, both last year and with its new Western systems this year, needs at least two air defense missiles to shoot down any single Russian missile or drone. The Ukrainians are therefore given the impossible choice. Do they expend all their missiles trying to shoot down these Russian cruise missiles and drones? Or do they husband their missiles, their air-defense missiles and drones, and let the Russians devastate their country? Well, they obviously can't do the second, so they have to do the first. And the result is that the problem of keeping the air defense system operating becomes increasingly difficult and it starts to break down. That's what happened last winter, which enabled the Russian Air Force this summer and autumn and winter to start operating in a big way. The same, I suspect, is true with this latest missile offensive now. We already know that there are shortages of patriot missile systems. We all are patriot missiles. We already know that the United States is pleading with Japan to supply patriot missiles to Ukraine because the United States is so desperately short of its own. Even though Japan giving up air-defense missiles, and this has been very controversial in Japan, has apparently created shock there because Japan is supposed to be preparing to defend itself against North Korea and China.

We've been hearing from the Americans themselves saying this is the big defense priority. But no, they're going to be weakened instead to reinforce Ukraine. What the Russians are doing is they're testing the resilience of Ukraine's air defense system, depleting it, degrading it, weakening it still further, opening it, opening up the skies for their air force to intervene even more.

Yeah, they're getting demilitized, the collective west. Even the United States. Yes. I've been reading a lot of articles which have said that the United States is running low on many weapons systems. They're having to go into their own stockpiles and hand them over to to Ukraine. And the Patriot missile systems are one of those systems. And Ukraine, last winter, when the Russians employed the same tactic, Ukraine was able to get the more air defense systems and the more missiles from the collective west. This time, they're not going to be able to get that.

No, they're not. This is the thing, which is why some people in the Pentagon opposed this idea in the first place. The decision to supply Ukraine with patriot missile systems was strongly opposed by many people in the United States because they were worried about exactly the scenario that we're seeing playing out now. They say, Look, we've got all these commitments around the world. We've got our situation in the Middle East is unresolved. Blooming over everything. There is this likely big confrontation with China that is coming over the horizon. We need our patriot missile systems, we need our attack of missiles because they are part of our strategic arsenal to contain the Chinese in the Pacific. I'm not saying that this is a wise strategy anyway. I think that they should not be aiming to try to meet the Chinese on military terms, but that's what they've been doing. They said, Why therefore are we sending patriot missiles to Ukraine? And then, of course, Joe Biden, the Biden administration decided that they would. They overruled all of those objections. They said they would send one patriot missile system, and they did send one patriot missile system.

They said that would be the only one they would send. Now apparently four more have been sent and Germany is basically stripping itself of its patriot missile systems, and the Netherlands is doing the same, and the United States is running short of patriot missiles, and they're having to beg and plead and take them from their own ally in Japan. It's the sunk cost fallacy, which you talked about in one of your programs, taking to the ultimate point. It's taking it to the point of total strategic bankruptcy. But that's what they're doing.

What does Russia do then in the spring once they've depleted all of the missiles?

Well, this.

Is- The Air Defense missiles of Ukraine.

This is the $64,000 question. None of us, of course, is party to General Gerasimov's plans. By the way-Yeah.

Again- Can I just say that? I say that because I don't know if you read the tweet from Medvedev the other day where he was commenting on the various articles from New York Times and Politico about ceasefire.

Something.

Stuck out from that tweet in that Medvedev said that the Russian cities of Odessa, Tudipro, Petrovsk, all of that has to be resolved. But he also put another city in there, which was Kiev.

Yeah.

I don't know. What happens now in the spring?

Well, I personally think there is going to be a Russian offensive. But I think that what we're looking at at the moment on the battlefront, there's been a lot more news over the last 24 hours we had more Russian advances. Robotinol, remember that place? Russians are about to be about to regain full control of Robotinol. There are two kilometers from Chasov Yard, they're back with the advancing in other words, all along the battle lines, they're even making more advances now. You have to have area. To me, all of these look like shaping operations, preparing the ground, weakening the Ukrainians even more, preventing the Ukrainians from getting any rest, any time to rebuild and restore themselves during the winter. Last year, we had a certain quiet period during the winter and then back, which obviously started up. But the Russians have not given the Ukrainians any rest this time. They've kept advancing right through the mud period into the winter. They're attacking. Now they're launching these big attacks with the missiles. I think we're going to see some a Russian offensive in the spring. The governor, the Russian-backed governor of the Herson region, a man called Saldo, actually said that he actually thinks that the war will end in the spring when the Russians do in fact launch the offensive, which he clearly expects that they will.

That's, I think personally, what will happen. I want to stress I have no direct knowledge of this, but what Medvedef was talking about was first of all, he was refuting all of these claims about cease-fires, freezes, all of those things. That article in The New York Times that we talked about a short time ago, he was basically trashing all of that. He made it again clear that all Russian cities and interesting that he considers Niepro Petrovsky, Niepro a Russian city because that is a bit controversial. As I understand it. It's 50-50, Ukrainian speakers, 50% Russian speakers. I'm not going to get into the internal dynamics of Nepro. But anyway, all of these places that we've talked about before, obviously, he says they're going to become Russian again. But he's talking about Kyiv. He's talking again straightforwardly, very straightforwardly about regime change in Kyiv. He is the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council. He's very close politically to Putin. I am sure what he is articulating are the objectives now that the Russian government is setting itself. Now, it may not be possible to achieve all of these by this spring, despite what Saldor said, but I think that's the direction in which the Russians are going.

Yeah, and just a final note, we have Timo Schengke, who popped up the other day as well. She's someone that is very powerful in Ukraine, or at least once upon a time was very powerful in Ukraine. She still is. But obviously, she senses that there could be a type of shift in power in the government, and I imagine, as you said in your video the other day, I imagine that she is making moves now to position herself for that power shift.

I thought that was the most interesting series of comments that she's made. I mean, she's given this video, she said that the mobilization idea is a terrible one, but that it's unconstitutional. She says, instead of doing that, let's round up all these security forces, the SBUs, and the national guards, and all of these people and send half of them to fight instead of basically terrorizing Ukrainians. Then she said, We need a Plan B. Now, she didn't explain what that Plan B was, but I have to say, to me, it looked like a pitch to both the Americans and the Russians, telling both the Americans, You want to end this war with the Russians on some terms that keep Ukraine afloat? I'm the person to do that for you. Zelensky won't. He's allusioned he won't. I can. So back me, President. I think that's the message that she's telling to the Americans. I think the message she's telling to the Russians is, Look, you want to see a general settlement of the situation in Ukraine, which will be in your interests and which the global community will accept. Well, I'm Yulia Tymoshenko, the Orange Princess, the Gas Princess.

Everybody knows who I am, but everybody knows that I'm not anybody's stooge. If I become president negotiate with me, we'll come to a good compromise. We did so before when I was there, and this time it will be for real and it will stick. I think this was a major big bet for power by Tymoshenko. I don't know that it will succeed. I think that the Maidan movement is very hostile to her. Zelensky is hostile to her. Poroshenko hates her, all of these people. But Tymoshenko, I think that was a very interesting story in the wind. I think it tells us that she, and she's very well informed about the situation inside Ukraine, can see how bad the situation has become.

Yeah, a straw in the wind. She's making moves.

Maiko is making moves.

And others will follow.

And others will follow. But she is a big beast. I mean, she's as big as it gets in terms of Ukrainian politics.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, we will leave it there at thetorad. Locals. Com. We are Rumble, Odysee, Bitchoot, Telegram, Rockfin, and Twitterx, and go to the Durad Shop, 20% off. Use the code Christmas20. Take care.