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Home » The Greater Eurasia Podcast: w/ Stanislav Krapivnik (Transcript)

The Greater Eurasia Podcast: w/ Stanislav Krapivnik (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of former U.S. Army officer Stanislav Krapivnik’s interview on The Greater Eurasia Podcast: ‘Odessa Is a Key Goal in Ukraine War Endgame’,  January 16, 2026.

Brief Notes: In this episode, host Glenn Diesen speaks with Stanislav Krapivnik, a former U.S. Army officer born in Donbas, about the deteriorating situation on the Ukrainian front lines and the broader geopolitical implications. Krapivnik provides a detailed analysis of recent Russian advances, particularly in the south near Zaporizhzhia, and explains why he believes the Ukrainian defense is increasingly collapsing under the weight of attrition and logistical failures.

The conversation also explores the potential for the conflict to escalate beyond Ukraine, touching on the shifting roles of European powers and the impact of recent U.S. foreign policy shifts. This deep dive offers a sobering perspective on the “endgame” of the war and the strategic challenges facing both NATO and Russia.

The Collapsing Southern Front

GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back to the program. We are joined again by Stanislav Krapivnik, a former U.S. Army officer born in Donbas and returned to Russia. Thank you, as always, for coming back on. Let us perhaps start with the front lines at the moment, because this is something that you’re following quite closely.

It appears that the Russians are moving a bit across the entire front, but especially down in the south along the Zaporizhzhia frontline, where things are moving the fastest, which is kind of critical if the main city falls under drone control. Most of the city is on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. So it seems like a lot of this could have huge consequences fairly soon. How are you reading the current situation?

STANISLAV KRAPIVNIK: Well, you’ve got two major cities left in Zaporizhzhia that are in defensible positions. You have Orikhiv on one side, and then further up, you have Zaporizhzhia city. The eastern front of Zaporizhzhia was being held by Huliaipole. And Huliaipole didn’t wander off too far before it’s now fallen.

Originally, the Russian forces had a lot of problems taking Huliaipole because it’s on a hill surrounded by flatlands, open flatlands, farmlands. So coming up to it is actually pretty difficult because you’re exposed from all sides. Russia had a lot of problems getting at it, especially from the south and southeast for several years.

Eventually, as the enemy forces are getting thinned out, Russia was able to charge in from the east, take out two villages in the east that were fortified as a defensive line, and then come straight across those open areas and invest the city.

Why I’m saying this is for the last couple days, the Ukrainians started trying to do suicidal—and they are suicidal—counterattacks into Huliaipole. As the Russian armies now started moving past Huliaipole and solidify, Huliaipole was a bulge. So from the south, they solidified, made a straight line in the north. There’s about half of those fortified positions still left in Ukrainian hands.

But they’re being rolled up because Russia went flanked around them where there weren’t any troops and built up positions further north. And they start rolling down on them. About half of them have already been cleared, and the remaining are either going to stand and die or surrender because getting out is very difficult. The Russian forces are on both sides of that fortified line and they’re in open areas. So drone coverage is thick.

Suicidal PR Stunts

Well, the Ukrainians have started these suicide attacks trying to charge into Huliaipole. At best, here’s your mission: survive long enough to get a flag up, have a photo taken, and then do whatever. They never get to do whatever. They don’t survive that far because they’re coming across the same type of open fields, except the trees aren’t green. It’s much more open now. There’s even less places to hide, and they’re just being exterminated as they come charging in. A company here, a company there.

So the Ukrainians are doing a PR stunt to try to say, “See, we’ve taken Huliaipole.” Now as for Zaporizhzhia itself, the Russian army has rolled up on the coast of the Dnieper River. South of Zaporizhzhia city, there used to be a huge water reservoir. Remember the Ukrainians, down to Enerhodar, where the operational nuclear power plant is—the Ukrainians blew the dam, which also washed out quite a few Russian positions south across Kherson. They’ve been rebuilt since then.

But the problem is that entire lake didn’t just go away and become open land to charge across. It just became one giant swamp. So you can’t really do anything across it because it’s mud, it’s swampy, and it’s very, very open. So they didn’t get an advantage to try to take the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the nuclear power plant. But they did do a lot of damage to themselves and also the Russian positions, particularly across Kherson. But again, that was a year and a half ago. So those positions have been rebuilt.

Russia’s continued going up the edge of that new swamp marshland. Eventually, the dam will be rebuilt one day, and then that area will become a big water reservoir again. The Russian forces are now about 15 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia city, which means they’ve entered the agglomeration of villages and towns. So suburbia is the other way to put it.

The suburbia that goes about 15 kilometers—and for the Americans that are stuck on the standard system, that would be about 8 or 9 miles south of the edges of Zaporizhzhia city. Anybody living in America is very familiar with giant, endless cities that go past the border and just keep going and going. Suburbia. So that’s what the Russian forces are now entering is the suburban zone.

The Threat to Zaporizhzhia City

The suburban zone primarily runs along the edge of the river. So not that much, not that deep into the countryside. And they’ve got to a point where they’re hitting the suburban area and they’re also branching out east, because they’re now overhanging Orikhiv from the north.