Russian Strikes Are Breaking The Zelensky Regime
Executive Summary
On the fourth straight day of Russian drone-and-missile strikes into Kiev — continuous multi-day strikes the hosts say never happened in the entire SMO — the episode reads the campaign as a turning point. Mercouris contrasts today's nightly waves with the 2022 cadence of two big missile strikes a month; even the British mainstream press now admits the effect is devastating, with air-defense and fire crews exhausted, buildings, warehouses and ammunition dumps destroyed, and Ukrainian air defenses — in his account — massively depleted, probably without any Patriot missiles left. The new Geran generation is central to his explanation: jet-powered, higher, faster, vertical-diving, and believed guided by ground controllers through repeater stations on the Belarus border — a cross between a missile and a drone circling Kiev on a carousel. The visible economy is breaking: pictures of empty shelves, a Ukrainian minister's figure of around 90% of warehouse space lost. Christoforou's bookend: Zelensky's announced 40-day 'terror campaign', aimed at shortages in Russia and ultimately Putin's overthrow, has expired with the exact reverse happening to Zelensky. The flood of once-suppressed damage pictures is read as the security services' grip weakening. Ahead, the Russian Defense Ministry's published statement — instructions received, in the hosts' reading from Putin — to begin massive strikes on what remains of Ukraine's energy system, where generation is already down four-fifths since 2022 and last year's transit stop removed any Russian inhibition about the gas network. The second thread is what this does to Europe and to Zelensky's room to move. Kherson's authorities are already telling residents to leave; the hosts expect other cities to follow and ask where the displaced go — the countryside absorbs some, but Europe, Poland especially, is increasingly reluctant, with ugly incidents and the Bandera mausoleums pouring fuel on that fire. Mercouris's reading of Zelensky: temperamentally unable to reverse a failed strategy, financially unable to stop (ending the drone offensive would itself stop the funding flows), and politically dependent on keeping Azov and Western paymasters satisfied. On the European side, gas storage is — dare he say — critically low (the Guardian now concedes it), LNG lost to higher Asian bids, and a large part of the gas in Ukrainian storage is European gas; destroy it and the winter brings much higher prices and intensified deindustrialization, with none of the 2022 fiscal room to cushion it. The third thread is the Western bet on Russian collapse and the mediation endgame. Stubb tells Bild mobilization is Russia's only escalation left and would be the end of Putin; Estonia's intelligence chief tells the Telegraph Russia is on its last legs with revolution round the corner; Budanov's 30,000-a-month minimum mobilization figure — quoted from the Telegraph — gives Mercouris a ballpark for Ukraine's true losses. He rebuts the mobilization-topples-Putin thesis with the calm 2022 precedent and the easier justification now that Russia itself is under drone attack, and reads Putin as having finally given up on a Trump deal and gone hard: the MoD statement, the rejection of Ratcliffe (whom the Russians believe complicit in the December Valdai attack — an attempt, in their view, to kill Putin), the snub of routing him through Bortnikov and Naryshkin, and doors shut on Brazil's and Turkey's initiatives. The front-line wrap runs the same direction: Sumy's defenses collapsing toward encirclement, the Sloviansk-Dobropillya arc, Russians in the center of Orikhiv — and a London Times team in Druzhkivka, officially far in the rear, reporting skies full of Russian drones.
Chapters & Key Takeaways
9 takeawaysThe continuous multi-day strike campaign on Kiev is without precedent in the SMO — night after night, where 2022 saw two big missile strikes a month — and even the British mainstream media now describes the effect as devastating.
The new Geran drones — jet-powered, high, fast, vertical-diving, ground-guided via Belarus-border repeater stations — are a missile-drone hybrid far harder to shoot down than the turboprop Shahed copies.
A Ukrainian minister's figure — around 90% of Ukraine's warehouse space lost — puts the Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian warehouses into perspective.
Zelensky's 40-day 'terror campaign' has expired with the reverse of its goal: fuel and food shortages and empty shelves now inside Ukraine, per videos from Kiev and Lviv.
The Russian Defense Ministry's published statement — instructions received, from someone who can only be Putin in the host's reading — prepares massive strikes on what remains of Ukraine's energy system, where generation is down four-fifths since 2022.
European gas storage is critically low, and a large part of the gas in Ukrainian storage is European gas; destroying it would mean much higher prices and intensified deindustrialization with no 2022-style fiscal cushion.
Budanov's 30,000-a-month minimum mobilization figure — read out from the Telegraph — is used as a ballpark for Ukraine's true monthly losses, killed and wounded together.
The mobilization-topples-Putin thesis is rebutted with the calm 2022 precedent and the easier justification now that Russia is visibly under attack; the assumption is called far-fetched.
Putin is read as having given up on a Trump deal and gone hard — the MoD statement, the Ratcliffe snub routed through Bortnikov and Naryshkin, and mediation doors shut as a decision from Putin himself.
Deep Read
What Four Straight Days of Strikes on Kiev Mean
On the fourth consecutive day of Russian drone-and-missile strikes into Kiev, The Duran reads the campaign as a breaking point — for Ukraine's defenses, for the Zelensky government's own strategy, an…
Read the full articleInterview Highlights
6 exchanges- Q
What makes the continuous Russian strikes on Kiev unprecedented and devastating?
Alex Christoforou asked00:01AAlexander Mercouris answeredUnprecedented in the entire SMO period, in Mercouris's account. The missile offensives that began in autumn 2022 amounted to two big strikes a month, spaced out, rarely focused on Kiev; today the strikes fall night after night with no pause. Even the British mainstream press now admits it is devastating: the crews still trying to shoot the drones down and the fire crews fighting enormous fires are exhausted, and the barrage is wearing down Kiev's defenses and its local economy — buildings, warehouses and ammunition dumps destroyed — while Ukraine's air defenses are, he says, massively depleted, probably without any Patriot missiles left. The drones themselves have changed: the original Gerans were slow, low-flying turboprop copies of the Iranian Shahed on pre-programmed routes; the new generation is jet-powered, flies much higher and faster, executes vertical dives, and is believed guided by Russian ground controllers through repeater stations on the Belarus border — a cross between a missile and a drone, circling Kiev on a carousel before striking, wave after wave. The visible result: pictures of empty shelves, shops running short of food, and a Ukrainian minister's figure that the country has lost around 90% of its warehouse space.
- Q
If Ukrainian cities become uninhabitable this winter, where will the displaced go?
Alex Christoforou asked13:00AAlexander Mercouris answeredSome, Mercouris says, would go to the countryside — the small towns, the villages, the churches — but those can only absorb a certain number of people. Europe, and the European populations, are becoming increasingly reluctant to take people in, Poland especially: he has seen pictures of extremely ugly incidents, confrontations between Ukrainians and Polish people, sometimes started merely because someone speaks Ukrainian. And Zelensky, in his account, only adds fuel to the fire with the whole pantheon of Bandera heroes — provoking Poland by creating Bandera mausoleums — so that, as he puts it, he is not helping at all.
- Q
What happens to Europe if Russian strikes destroy the gas stored in Ukraine?
Alex Christoforou asked19:46AAlexander Mercouris answeredVery low — dare he say critically low, in Mercouris's words. European gas consumption is 15% below pre-2022 levels, partly because so much industry has shut down, and the winter may be mild; but even allowing for all that, storage levels are critically low, with Europe failing to buy LNG because Asian buyers have outbid it, and no sense of urgency in governments fixated on the war. A large part of the gas in Ukrainian storage is European gas — part of Europe's own reserves — and destroying storage in Ukraine is a complicated military operation, but not one that cannot be done. If those reserves are destroyed or rendered unusable, Europe faces an even bigger crisis: however mild the winter, higher gas prices — already rising — are inevitable, and destroyed storage would push prices much higher, intensifying deindustrialization and cost-of-living problems. Unlike 2022, when governments subsidized consumers through the sanctions shock, debt levels and bond markets now leave them without the financial reserves to cushion it — a very bad, potentially extremely bad, winter ahead.
- Q
Do the stories of a new Russian mobilization after the elections hold up?
Alex Christoforou asked30:09AAlexander Mercouris answeredMercouris is skeptical. The Russian government has repeatedly denied that any mobilization is planned; the talk traces back to the three decrees Putin signed — the secret decree, which some say is a mobilization decree — but that has to be weighed against the public denials. He does not himself see why Russia would need a further mobilization at this moment: there seems to be no shortage of men on the front lines, the Russians are pushing forward, and by their own claims they are enlisting 30,000 volunteers a month. If they did mobilize, the one reason he can think of is to launch a further offensive toward Kiev itself — and on that issue there already appear to be ample reserves and forces ready to launch the strike.
- Q
Would a new Russian mobilization after the elections trigger Putin's downfall?
Alex Christoforou asked31:48AAlexander Mercouris answeredNo — a massive misconception, in Mercouris's view. When Russia did announce a mobilization of 300,000 men in the autumn of 2022, Russian society overall took it calmly: some middle-class, liberal-minded people left for Georgia — most of them, he notes, have returned — but there was no crisis. A new mobilization would probably be easier to justify now: with Ukrainian drone strikes across Russia, Russians can see for themselves that their country is under attack, and there is a standing complaint within Russia that the army is not moving forward fast or aggressively enough. If the mobilization were sold as necessary to defend Russia and to end the war more quickly, he expects society would again take it calmly. The assumption held by people like Stubb — that a mobilization announcement would provoke a crisis and turn society against Putin — he calls far-fetched, to say the least; and he repeats that at the moment he does not sense that a mobilization is coming.
- Q
What is happening on the front lines?
Alex Christoforou asked37:48AAlexander Mercouris answeredRapid deterioration on every axis, per the episode's reading. In the north, speculation about a big Russian build-up in Bryansk and a possible advance into Chernihiv region — which would bring the front dangerously close to Kiev again — alongside what the hosts call the now-clear collapse of Ukrainian defenses around Sumy, a regional capital of roughly 250,000 before the war on the main road to Kiev, which the Russians are positioned to the north, east and increasingly south of, with first forces advanced to envelop it from the west. In Donbas: the Russians reportedly close to capturing Nikolaevka, a suburb that would open a route into Sloviansk itself; a significant breakthrough in the south toward a cauldron around Dobropillya, another town southwest of the fortified line, where defenses are said to be collapsing; and a return to Zoloti Kolodiaz, briefly captured in August 2025 — its recapture cost the Ukrainians reserves drawn from across their front lines, letting the Russians wrap up the battle of Pokrovsk. In Zaporizhzhia region, drone footage now shows Russian troops in the center of Orikhiv. The expectation: the fortified towns tumble fast — Dobropillia, Orekhov, Druzhkivka, Oleksiyivka, Lyman, Mykolaivka — and a London Times dispatch from Druzhkivka, far in the rear on official maps, is read as confirmation of that reading.