The Duran Podcast - 15 minute meeting. Kellogg minus plan

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

15 minute meeting. Kellogg minus plan

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the U.S.-Russia negotiations that are unfolding. We had the historic, it was historic, Alexander, the historic 15-minute meeting between Trump and Zelensky, absolutely historic meeting. The world has changed because of that meeting. And then we had Lavrov, the whole. full interview on Face the Nation. The segments of the interview were published on Thursday, but we actually got the full 40, 45-minute interview. And Lavrov said many interesting things in that interview,

which is significant because it is the Foreign Minister of Russia appearing on Collective West Mainstream Media, which must signal something. We also have some statements from Rubio, and we also had a Lavrov-Rubio phone call. and Trump also commented on the meeting that he had with Zelensky and a lot of talk about Crimea. Hyper-focused on Crimea, which I think Alexander is a red herring. If that's the correct word to use, I do believe that Crimea is something that Russia never asked for.

It was never part of their terms. No. And all of a sudden, it's what Trump is talking about. It's what the collective West Main Street media is talking about. It's what they're trying to get Zelensky to bend on, just accept Crimea as part of Russia, and then we could move forward with the Kellogg plan. Anyway, get into all of this that is unfolding.

The whole thing is the whole process of the last week is strewn with red herrings. You're absolutely correct. Crimea is a red herring. Crimea is, it's not the substantive issue. that we are constantly being told that it is. Or to be more precise, American recognition de jure, that Crimea is part of Russia is a complete red herring because, as you rightly say,

the Russians are not demanding that the United States recognize that Crimea is a part of Russia. It has never been a proposal, a serious proposal, or any kind of proposal, that the Russians have ever put forward. Now, the other thing that is a complete red herring is the meeting in Rome.

The meeting in Rome was, as far as I'm concerned, ugly far as I'm concerned, ugly because it took place in a cathedral on the eve of a funeral. And I don't like that, but okay, let's move on beyond that.

No, no, you're right. You're right. That's my feeling. Absolutely. And I noticed that you made that point in your program. I mean, Zelensky turns up again in his trademark

battle fatigues. He doesn't go with in a suit, tie, or anything of that kind, to a funeral. And I'd just say a few things about that meeting. As you rightly say, 15 minutes. But they facilitated it, Alexander, correct? The Vatican, Maloney, the West. Everybody. The Vatican authorities. I mean, they were all involved in trying to get this meeting together. I mean, the Vatican, I mean, I have to say this. It tells you a lot about what's going to happen in the Vatican. now after Francis's death, because we must prepare for a significant shift in Vatican, in the church's policy, the Catholic Church's policy on the Ukraine conflict. Because, I mean, they not only made St. Peter's Basilica available for a meeting between Trump and Trump and Zelensky,

but they also arranged for the media to be there to photograph the meeting. and all of this was done, as I said, literally moments before, the funeral service for the Pope begins. I mean, it shows I feel extraordinary disrespect to the Pope who was being buried, but it also shows that the Vatican is now shifting very, very much behind the Europeans and the British on the Ukraine conflict. And I think that's a thing, yeah, it may not be an important thing, but it's something to take note. of. And the meeting was clearly arranged by the Europeans. In fact, we were being told for days in advance and Zelensky wanted to meet Trump in Rome. It doesn't seem to me, despite what the Americans are now saying, that Trump was at all keen on this meeting. As you said, it lasted for

all of 15 minutes. Macron was hovering around. There's been attempts to pretend that Trump didn't shoe him away, though it's clear to me that he did want to participate in the meeting. We now have a lip reader coming forward and giving an account of what was said based on lip reading, which seems to confirm that. Three chairs. Three chairs, absolutely. And we would tell it was now for the interpreter, which is ridiculous. I mean, anyway, 15-minute meeting.

and clearly nothing of any great substance or moment can have possibly been discussed in just 15 minutes. And after that, we were told before that there was supposed to be a follow-up meeting between Zelensky and Trump, which would have been the substantive one, presumably, except it never happened because Trump went straight to the airport and went back home. So he obviously wasn't keen on meeting Zelensky again. So this whole story about this meeting is a complete red herring as well. It's a massive media operation we've seen put out over the last couple of days, which really isn't meaningful. And I'm going to say something else. I think to a great extent Trump's true social post in which he critical. criticised Putin all over again for the missile strike against Kiev.

I think that's also a bit of a red herring as well in the sense that Trump made that criticism of Putin before. It's nothing new on Trump's side. But by far the bigger part of that truth social post was a criticism of the New York Times over the course of which he made a number of quite interesting points about the conflict, such as that any idea of returning Crimea or indeed any other territory to Ukraine was ridiculous. Secondly, that the war is losing, that they are losing the war in Ukraine. That is, as far as I'm aware, by the way, the first time that any Western official has come close to saying that, if you actually read the post, it is there.

Now, I wouldn't put too much weight on that either because, again, this wasn't a true social post really about the war. It was more about Trump's feud with the New York Times, but there it was. I think there are reasons to think that Trump is irritated with Putin. But I do think the missile strike on Kiev is really the course of his irritation. So anyway, we need to put all of that aside, you know, the Rome meeting, the stories about, you know, Crimea. the true social post. We need to try and focus on what is really going on. And the two most important events that happened over the course of the last week

were first the Americans unveiled their proposals to the Europeans last week, which I would refer to as Kellogg Plus. It makes a few tweaks in the Russian direction. The second was the meeting with... Kellogg plus or minus. More minus. You could argue that it is minus. It's a little less of Kellogg.

It's a little less of Kellogg. It's a little less of Kellogg. Exactly. So anyway, Kellogg Minus, let's call it Kellogg Minus, because in a way that's what it is. So Kellogg Minus, we had an absolutely crazy European-Ukrainian proposal, which, I mean, it was absolutely bonkers. but the Americans are clearly working with Kellogg miners. We know that Witkoff took that to Putin. Putin, from everything that we know, said no.

And if you actually follow closely what Lavrov said on face the nation, the Russians are also, he confirmed that they are going to say no. In fact, the interview, I forget her name, she actually said it seems to... Brennan. Yeah. I think Brennan, yeah. That's right. She actually said towards the end, it seems to me that Russia is not making any concessions at all.

It's actually there in the whole interview. By the way, again, CBS published excerpts of that interview over the course of the previous days. And as I rather suspected, overall, they were quite misleading. I don't know whether that was done intentionally. I mean, often, as we know, American media TV channels published tasters of an interview. But the excerpts they published before sort of gave the impression that the Russians were being more flexible than they were. they were heading towards accepting Kellogg Miners. But when you listen and watch the entire interview,

it is absolutely clear that that is not the case. So Kellogg goes to Moscow. He meets with Putin. Putin clearly says no to Kellogg Miners. But he does say, look, we're now at that point where we can sit down and negotiate, the Ukrainians, which is, of course, what the Russians have been saying all along at no point since the start of the special military operation, how the Russians refused direct negotiations

with the Ukrainians. The people who have refused direct negotiations are the Ukrainians. They've even published a decree which forbids direct negotiations. Now, What I am guessing perhaps happened at that Rome meeting, which lasted all of 15 minutes, is that maybe, just maybe, Trump told Zelensky, I want direct negotiations between you and the Russians to begin. And this is perhaps the message that he conveyed. And we see that apparently, again, according to the lit reader, Zelensky, wasn't telling Trump, I don't particularly like the way you're going about things. So, I mean, that, it seems to me, is probably where we are.

As I said, put aside crime. Put aside the Rome meeting. Put aside all the other things that we're hearing about, the truth social posts. Focus on what is actually apparently being discussed. We're now in a position where this talk finally of direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. The Russians, as they have always done, are saying yes, the Ukrainians, well, we just

don't at this moment, no. Yes, with no preconditions. Yes, with no preconditions, yes. And Ukraine is saying, no, we want an unconditional ceasefire before we go into bylawful negotiations. Correct. And if you go to the European proposal, the one that the Europeans put, as a counter to Kellogg Miners.

I mean, it's quite clear that the Ukrainians are still angling for a security guarantee from the United States. And they're saying that the security guarantee must be at the level of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. In other words, the United States must enter into full-fledged alliance with Ukraine. Something the Trump administration, Donald Trump himself, have consistently ruled out the Ukrainians are still insisting on it. And the It's not entirely clear, but looking at that European proposal, I strongly get the impression that the Ukrainians want that guarantee. They still want that guarantee alongside any unconditional ceasefire that is put into effect. Trump, when he arrived in the United States, I believe he made the statement either before he was boarding Air Force One.

when he arrived back to the U.S., he said, he was asked by a reporter what he wants from Putin, and Trump said that I just want him to stop shooting. He said, I want him to sign the deal. We have all the terms in place. And he said that he wants this deal signed and to be done with so that we can just get back to life. I think statements like that from Trump are not proper. I think they're not helping the situation along. I mean, the Russians understand, I think the Russians understand that this is Trump,

and this is the way he deals with the media, and this is the way he phrases his remarks in this type of manner. But, you know, you just can't say as the president of the United States, I just want you to sign this thing, which is very far off from June 2024. Absolutely. Very far off, but over time, which I think is the point that Lavrov was making on Face the Nation, give it another six months, give it another year. Over time, that Kellogg-Meynes plan could get closer to Istanbul, plus, of course, six months to a year, everything on the ground, on the front lines, changes as well.

But anyway, I think that, you know, by saying, let's just sign this thing, which is a framework, let's sign it, and just get back to last. life, it doesn't, it shows a lack of understanding as to, as to how existential the conflict in Ukraine and NATO expansion, this proxy war, NATO expansion was and remains for Russia. It, it downgrades the entire conflict in a way. And maybe it's Trump's way of just saying, you know, I just, I want to be done with this thing. I want to announce a ceasefire, I want to announce negotiations, and then I can just drop Ukraine. But it doesn't take it to consideration that you're not really getting a lasting solution to this problem, which calls it to question, does Trump really want a lasting solution to this problem? Because that's definitely what Russia is saying. Ukraine and the Europeans, they want to keep the conflict going. Russia is saying, we want the lasting solution. Trump is saying, let's just sign this thing and let's move on. Well, he doesn't want a

lost solution. He wants an end to the fighting, which will help him politically, or so he believes, in all sorts of ways. It doesn't help the Russians. And I think that's the problem. I think he is focused on getting the fighting over as quickly as possible, so that he can start to move troops out of Europe and start doing all kinds of other things that he wants to do and say that he's a great deal maker who achieved all of this and doesn't have to, as he thinks, worry about this conflict in Europe any longer. The Russians have a completely different perspective on all of this.

And you said that these kind of statements by Trump are improper. my own view about this is that Lavrov was saying exactly the same on face the nation. He said, I'm not going to discuss what is actually going on in the negotiations. There was constant attempts to try to get him to disclose things that are being discussed and spoken about in private. And he said no. And at one point he said, you know, if you want to talk to somebody about what's going to going on in the negotiations, why don't you talk to Zelensky? But I think actually, he wasn't

really thinking about Zelensky. He was actually thinking about Trump. He didn't want to speak about Trump. He didn't want the name Trump. But it seems to me that there was a gentle rebuke of Trump there from Lavrov saying, look, you know, if this is a serious negotiation, and Trump, and Leverald said this, if this is a serious negotiation, it has to be conducted in private. We cannot have, you know, people going out and saying this has been agreed and that has been agreed and we moved forward in this way. And we're almost on the brink of getting a deal done. And these are the terms and all of that. We cannot, we cannot conduct negotiations in this sort of way.

And I don't think Trump is listening. I do think he's listening very much to all that the Russians are telling him. I don't think he's really understood the conflict. I don't think he particularly wants to understand the conflict. He's grasped the point about NATO. But you see, even on NATO, Kellogg Minus is an advance on Kellogg in the sense that the original Kellogg plan basically was about kicking, postponing Ukraine's NATO entry. by 10 or 20 years, Kellogg Miners simply says that Ukraine won't seek membership of NATO.

Well, Ukraine previously has not sought membership of NATO. When it became independent, it actually enshrined neutrality in its constitution. And then it changed. It changed its policy entirely and came back and said that it did want to become a member of NATO after all. And we are now reading in the New York Times that American officials, and that is clearly Clark Kellogg, were telling the Ukrainians in Rome, in London, go ahead, sign up to this, because when Trump is out of the way, the next administration will support your NATO membership bid. So the Russians, obviously, read the New York Times, and they could see all of that. So this is not a negotiation that works for the Russians.

They're trying to get Trump to see this. Obviously, I'm sure that they're complaining about all of this to Whitgoth. Whitgoth, I think, has a much clear understanding of the Russian position than any other American official does. Rubio perhaps is starting to get some sense of it. But this constant attempt, which is very American, by the way, to move the deal forward and to get it done fast, which Trump is doing, is, I think, ultimately counterproductive. And if it causes, if the if the negotiations eventually collapse, that will be the reason for him. I want to go back to Kribea and this issue of Kremaya. Is Crimea going to be used as a way to throw Russia under the bus and for Trump to exit Project Ukraine,

for the U.S. media to blame the failure of the negotiations on Ukraine squarely onto Russia, for the Europeans to continue to commit to the conflict in Ukraine by saying that Russia refuses to negotiate. And are they going to say that, you see, even Zelensky has agreed to a de facto, not a de facto recognition of creme? I say that because there is the possibility that Zelensky does come out with a statement in the next 10 days, which I think is the time frame that Trump allegedly presented Zelensky with 10 days to decide.

There is the possibility that Zelensky comes out. and says, okay, I'll agree on the U.S., and that's what we're talking about here. I'll agree on the U.S. is recognition of Crimea. I'll go with that, as long as we're not obligated as Ukraine to recognize Crimea de Jure. Okay, so you can come out with that statement. Once he comes out with that statement, and the Russians are going to come out and say, well, Crimea is not really the issue. Zaporosia is going to remain with Russia.

In our Constitution, we talk about the four territories as being Russian. Sanctions relief was never part of the terms, but okay, we haven't received any proposals for that. There's all kinds of things that Russia and Lavrov said on face the nation, which hinted at the fact that Russia and the United States are far off from an agreement, but they can work on it. But everything seems to be hinging on Crimea. So all the U.S. needs to do and all Zelensky needs to do, and I'm sure the Europeans are telling him to do it, is to just come out and say, okay, I'll agree with the U.S. on Crimea. Once he does that, it looks like everybody will be ready, Ukraine, Europe, the U.S., to blame a possible breakdown and talks on Russia because Russia was not flexible on the Crimea issue or they couldn't see past the Kremaya issue.

You see Zelensky made a huge concession. He made a huge, the biggest concession ever. And Russia just couldn't get past that. I think this is highly likely. Can I just say, there are reports circulating in the, I think it was the US media. I can't remember where I saw them, that Trump is apparently surprised at how inflexible, supposedly, Putin is. That he'd imagine that Putin would show more flexibility and that he's unhappy by the fact. It seems like a setup.

Sorry. It does. Well, I didn't know whether it's a setup exactly because, of course, I don't know what expectations Trump went into when he started this whole process rolling. It needs to be stressed. The person who started this whole process rolling was Trump. But I mean, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the outcome. The Europeans come along and tells Zelensky, look, for heaven's sake, we don't like this proposal anymore than you like this proposal. But ultimately doesn't mean anything.

The Americans recognize Crimea. That's up to them. Like the NATO thing that you're not recognizing it. We're not recognizing. Exactly. Like the NATO thing that you were describing. Just go ahead. Just go ahead.

Just say that you agree to all of this and then demand that the Russians immediately agree to a ceasefire. And then spin it all out indefinitely, which of course the Russians won't agree to. Now, I think this is quite possible. And I think if I was a gambling man, which I'm not, I think there's a chance that we could actually, you know, say that this will be the eventual outcome. At which point, Trump walks out, blames the Russians, imposes further sanctions on Russia, gets his friend Lindsay Graham to pass his bone-crunching sanctions. Notice how completely unfazed about all the threats of further sanctions in the Face the Nation interview,

Lavrov was. and he didn't deny, by the way, that he's a person who actually would prefer to see the sanctions remain in place. He said, I said it. So, I mean, you know, which I think the interview just couldn't quite get a head round. But anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if that is where this whole thing goes. But it's important to say that in that case, Trump is in a worse position. Trump, I'm talking about Trump, arguably the United States, is in a worse position than they were in before Donald Trump became president, because the war will go on. Trump admits that the war is being lost.

All right, he will extricate himself from the war, but people will nonetheless still blame him for the outcome because the war will continue and the war will eventually result in Ukraine's defeat. and the relationship with Russia, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to repair, will have been destroyed irretrievably with Russia moving closer to China. Now, if you reel all the way back to what we were saying back in the summer, we said if we get into a negotiation process, this is quite likely what the outcome is going to be. which is why it was unwise for Trump to get into a negotiation in the first place. There it is. I mean, he went down this road.

He thought it would be much easier than he imagined. He expected that Putin would jump at any deal that was presented to him. He appears to have imagined that if he offered to recognize Crimea as Russian, that would somehow impress the Russians. And as I said, it's quite likely he's going to find. find over the next 10 days that that isn't so. And as I said, we'll probably end up with that very outcome, which, as I said, is completely contrary to what I think he originally started, wanted to do. Of course, you can make the argument that the reverse may also be the strategy, right?

Alex, and you can make the argument as well, which is that Trump is presenting Ukraine with such an easy thing for them to accept, the Crimea thing, knowing that, that Zelensky for many reasons. I mean, there are reports which claim that a lot of the Bandarites in the military are telling him, don't you dare make any concessions or else we're coming after you. I mean, there's actual videos of Bandarites telling him this. So you could also argue that perhaps Trump is presenting

such an easy thing for Ukraine to go with, which is the de facto recognition, if you want to call it that of Crimea, in order to push the negotiation process along, knowing that Zelensky will not be able to accept it, and then the blame can fall on Zelensky in Ukraine. Well, possibly, and it may very well be. I mean, that's what his son, Donald Trump Jr., appears to think.

That's what David Sachs appears to think. And the idea of entering to direct negotiations with the Russians, which is what Putin talked about at the meeting with Wakeorf, and which Trump also now seems to be taking up, that is going to be very, very difficult for Zelensky to agree to. He's still got his October 22 decree, which forbids direct negotiations with the Russians. He has consistently refused to negotiate with the Russians or to rescind that decree. So, you know, it'll be a very difficult thing politically for him to do,

even though arguably it is what he should do. He should absolutely go forward with negotiations on the basis of Kellogg minus, which, as you rightly say, he should accept. Now, again, it's difficult to know what Trump and his people are thinking, whether they've strategised this in this way. I don't know what exactly it is that Trump is thinking, you know, who he thinks will reject this. Perhaps he doesn't really care. Perhaps if his purpose is just to get out of this, then it really doesn't matter to him, whether it's the Americans,

whether it's the Russians, or whether it's the Ukrainians. If it's the Ukrainians, then he just walks away, cuts off military assistance and intelligence sharing. The Ukrainians and the Europeans look after, take over the war. He goes on, and as he puts it, lives his life or whatever it is. If it's the Russians, it's the same. he walks away. His mediation efforts have failed. He extricates himself from the United States and the

wall. He imposes sanctions on Russia. This is, I think, well, certainly not what he initially wanted to do, but he's still able, as he thinks, to go ahead and live his life. I mean, it could be, it could be as crude and as simple as that. Yeah. Just to wrap up. There's no doubt that for whatever reason, whatever the strategy is, if there is a strategy from the Trump side of things, they've decided that it's going to be Crimea that is going to be the issue that will decide what happens. Which is odd, which is very strange. Well, indeed. Crimea isn't the 2014 issue. When this conflict began, you know, the latest part of the latest part. part of this conflict began in February 2020. It was Donbass.

And the Russians have already moved on to Donbass. Now they've moved beyond Donbass. What Trump wants to do is really it all the way back to 2014, ignoring all that's happened in the past 11 years. It's not going to happen. Yeah, but it's from a U.S. political perspective, he can put the blame on Obama. He can put the blame on Biden. Kremay is a lot easier for people who have not been following the war in detail.

It's a lot easier for them to recognize, to understand. You know, from a marketing messaging perspective, you know, if you're going to make this the central issue of everything that's going on with negotiations with Project Ukraine, then I guess, you know, it does kind of make some. some strange sense in that as it's talking about Dombas and East Ukraine and four territories that even the face of a nation, you know, host could it even say Zapa Roche. I mean, and Lavrov noticed that. I mean, all these other issues, I think, is stuff that will just, you know, go over a lot of people's heads who have not been following this in such detail. But Crimea.

Crimea is easy. Crimea is easy. Absolutely. But to repeat again. Whichever it is, and I accept completely, you know, that this is something that Trump can sell, it's still a lot less than he said he wanted. I mean, he wanted some kind of long-term deal with the Russians. He wanted to, he wanted to end the wall.

Now, he hasn't, he isn't going to end the wall. he's not going to end the war on a negotiated terms and that is a failure. If you try to achieve a peace, a truce and you don't succeed, that is a failure. And some people inevitably are going to say to him in the United States, well, you know, eventually you came round, but you should never have gone down this road in the first place. You should have backed Ukraine to the hill. Do you see it's really Putin, who's really the evil person? And you were deluded and naive.

So he is, in spite of the fact that I agree, I mean, you know, if he just pulls out, blames the Russians or Ukraine or whoever, it probably doesn't matter too much politically. But he will still come under some criticism if this thing fails, especially if it is the Russians. who ultimately are handed the blame for the fact that the negotiation hasn't succeeded. Yeah, a final question with midterms coming up. I mean, it's not right around the corner, but it's an issue.

They are going to come, the midterms. What would benefit Trump more to get out of Ukraine right away and then maybe take the criticism over the next couple of weeks and then Ukraine just leaves people's minds. They just don't think about it anymore, even if Russia wins the conflict. Americans are just not going to care one way or another what happens in Ukraine.

Or for the Trump administration to try and keep Zelensky afloat, at least until after the midterms. I think the second would be a very bad idea. First of all, it may not be possible. And if Zelensky falls before the midterms, or there's a military collapse before the midterms or anything like that, then if Trump, the United States, are still supporting Zelensky at that time, it won't look good at all.

Also, it won't be popular at any time with parts of the MAGA movement, which are not keen on Zelensky at all. They'll say, you know, this is a man who, in some, halted you at the Oval Office meeting. What on earth are you doing, wasting your time backing him? So I don't think that is a good approach. If the United States walks away from this whole conflict, ends military assistance to Ukraine,

ends intelligence sharing with Ukraine, then whatever happens, I don't think Ukraine itself is a big issue for American voters, a big enough issue for American voters that it will affect the outcome in the midterms. Where the danger lies is that if Trump goes forward with the kind of sanctions that Lindsay Graham is proposing and that creates further complications in the energy market

so that oil prices by the time of the midterms are higher than they are now or higher than they otherwise would be putting more pressure on American living standards than that will not be good for Trump in the midterms. Again, he's talking about energy cooperation between Russia and the United States. He clearly recognizes the advantages politically for himself

and for the United States. in that. The Saudis apparently are lobbying hard in the background for it. All that argues strongly against backing Lindsay Graham sanctions. Again, Trump maybe is using Lindsey Graham to put pressure on Putin. We saw from the Lavrov interview that the Russians are not impressed by that, And they're not letting that affect their decisions. The risk is that we're going to get those sanctions. If they're passed via legislation through Congress, they will be all but impossible to rescind.

And there'll be, at that point, a structural imbalance in the energy market. Because Russian oil and gas will go to China, probably to India as well. the United States will find itself in all kinds of difficult, is economically in trying to enforce these particular sanctions. And I can see how this could play out very, very badly for the United States, for the American people, but above all for Donald Trump. Yeah, you're right. I think the conclusion is that the best option for Trump is,

and for the United States, actually, is to have Zelensky reject Crimea, and then he can walk away from. Ukraine while at the same time doing business with Russia, which would eventually mean to trying to lower energy costs. Absolutely. I mean, energy costs are probably the thing that affect American Motors most, at least in any issue that relates to this conflict in Ukraine. And again, Trump ought to have been focused on this.

He could have said it, I think. could have gone ahead and said it absolutely openly. My concern here is not this war, the outcome of this war. The Ukrainians and the Russians won't agree. That's really their problem. But I was elected to reduce the cost of living pressure on American voters. And that means that I have to cooperate with the Russians on energy-related questions. Now, you know, that would have been a, that would have been a That would have been something that people in, you know, Detroit would have understood. It would have cut through. But for some reason, he didn't do it.

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