China encourages Russia to use Oreshniks and finish the fight

 Mon 7:39 pm +00:00, 25 May 2026  

posted by Tapestry

Russia has confirmed that Oreshnik missile strikes on Kiev are not a one-off but the opening of a sustained escalation campaign, as Ukrainian air defenses collapse and the Zaporizhzhia offensive accelerates toward the city itself with the fall of Konstantynovka now looking like the largest Ukrainian defeat since Kursk.

Alexander Mercouris on The Duran delivers a comprehensive analysis covering the extraordinary and largely unreported revelation that Russia is funding the entire war in cash without borrowing, the critical shift in China’s position from restraint to actively encouraging Russia to finish the fight, two explosive confrontations between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump over Taiwan and Japanese rearmament, and the deepening deadlock in the Iran nuclear talks with energy markets approaching a tipping point. Is the West finally about to be forced to confront the reality of where this conflict is actually heading?

00:00:00 Intro: Starobilsk dormitory attack and Western media silence

00:03:42 AI targeting error theory and why no one in the West will say so

00:06:12 European leaders are shaken: reading between the official statements

00:07:17 Ukraine’s air defense collapse: out of Patriot interceptors

00:09:21 Zelensky’s apartment building hit, central Kiev damage assessment

00:13:50 Oreshnik target analysis: the airfield and command bunker south of Kyiv

00:18:35 This is not a one-off: Russia scales up Oreshnik and Zircon production

00:24:30 Zaporizhzhia offensive resumes: Doropasvka captured, Pokrovsk next

00:29:43 Strategic consequences: road to Zaporizhzhia city now open

00:34:25 Konstantynivka disaster: Russian forces cutting Ukrainian defenses to pieces

00:39:34 Slaviansk and Kramatorsk: the coming graveyard of the Ukrainian army

00:43:12 How the war is financed: Russia pays cash, Europe borrows to lend to Ukraine

01:04:18 Trump in China: two explosive confrontations with Xi Jinping

01:12:16 China drops restraint on Russia: the Lavrov signal explained

01:20:53 Iran nuclear talks reach deadlock: enrichment and Hormuz still unresolved

01:24:28 Iran’s assessment of the conflict and what it means for energy markets

01:27:56 Closing analysis: can the US and West face reality in time?