The Duran Podcast - Bizarre negotiations and intel back channels

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Bizarre negotiations and intel back channels

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the diplomacy that took place over the weekend in Florida between the United States and Ukraine. On the U.S. side, we had Rubio, Whitkoff, and Kushner. And he's a new addition to the negotiations, by the way, Jared Kushner. They're taking him from the Gaza negotiations. Trump is taken him from the Gaza negotiations, and he's now put him in a position to be a negotiator in Ukraine. And on the Ukraine, side, you had, you had Umarov, right? He's the new chief negotiator because Yermak is out of the picture. We'll talk about that in a different video. But last week, Rubio was negotiating with Yermak in Geneva. Yermak has now resigned because of the corruption scandal. And now it's Umerov,

who's the chief negotiator, who is also implicated. Allegedly he's implicated in some of this corruption, Nabu investigation stuff. So we'll even see if Umeirov remains as the chief negotiator. But that was the situation that took place over the weekend. Rubio Wikov-Khkhov-Khner with Umerov on the opposite side. And it looks like the negotiations did not go too well. They lasted about two hours. Whitkoff is now on his way to Moscow to meet with Putin.

Rubio said that, O'L.A. put a positive spin to it, as did Whitkoff, but Rubio said that there's a lot of work. That still needs to be done. And we are getting early reports which claim that Ukraine refuses NATO neutrality with NATO. They refuse the withdrawal of troops. They demand a ceasefire along the current front lines. I just find you the whole exercise. Alexander, very interesting. The United States negotiating, pretending to negotiate with the country that they basically control from top to bottom. I mean, the whole thing is theater, kabuki theater. Can you call it that? I mean, if the United States really wanted to impose its will on Ukraine, they could do it like that, right? Yeah. I mean, so why this exercise? Why these theatrics. Why does Rubio say that what's most important to us is to negotiate with Ukraine and to leave it in a position where not only the conflict has ended, but Ukraine can be a sovereign nation. Ukraine lost the sovereignty in 2014, maybe even earlier than that. But it definitely

lost it during the coup, the Maidan coup. Anyway, your thoughts on everything that is not funny. In Florida, in Florida, right? That's right, in Florida. I believe in Miami to be. You're absolutely correct. This is exactly what you're describing is exactly what, as I understand, it has happened. So Rubio, Wittgolf and Kushner, meet in Miami, in Florida anyway, with Umerov, as you said, is the chief negotiator. The one wonders for how long. Budanov is number two in the negotiating team. If you look at who makes up the negotiating team, it's entirely made.

up on the Ukrainian side of intelligence officers. Was Budanov there? He was Budanov was there. He was number two. There was some talk even that he would lead the delegation, but then he was sideline, apparently Zelensky put in Umerov. There was clearly a negotiation because then Budanov apparently insisted on his number two in military intelligence being added to the negotiating team.

So as an afterthought, this guy was also brought in. second person, the person who is just below, Budana himself, then a lot of other people from other parts of the intelligence apparatus in Ukraine, which is very big and very complicated, and there is a complex range of different agencies. Anyway, they were all brought in and this really rather strange negotiating team, which it is, by the way. I mean, you know, you would expect diplomats and people from the foreign ministry to lead it, but instead, as a said it's Umerov, the head of the National Defense and Security Council, the former defense minister, close friend of Zelensky's Crimean Tata, by the way, just to add. He is leading the

negotiation instead, despite the fact that he is himself under investigation. And Umerov is not the kind of person who's going to be interested in agreeing to any kind of compromises with the Americans. As a Crimean Tatar, he will not want to give up Crimea for Ukraine because he wants to go back there, have to lead the Crimean March list, the Crimean Party, the Tatar party that is strong or was strong under when, you know, Ukraine, Crimea was in Ukraine, was strong in Crimea. But put all that aside, he depends now completely on Zelensky. He's loyal to Zelensky because he has to be, because the investigators are closing in on him. Everything about him suggests that he's very much of a hardliner.

He's probably deeply corrupt, but then everybody in Ukraine is deeply corrupt. So he comes along and all the indications are that on the really important issues, territory, NATO membership, the size of Ukraine's armed forces, all of those things, he digs in his heels. And as you rightly said, Rubio puts an optimistic spin. He says that the talks were difficult but constructive. The word that really matters is difficult. When negotiators, when diplomats, when people like Rubio use the word difficult,

what they mean is that there was no agreement on the substantive issues. And if you looked at the body language, the faces, especially at Wigov, I should say, of the American officials, it's clear to me that Witt Goff, at least, came away deeply frustrated from the whole discussion. So no progress made at all. However, you also make the absolutely key point about this, which is that the United States doesn't need to consult Ukraine. It's a point we've made in program after program. If the Americans really want to negotiate the end of this conflict with the Russians, what stops them?

The Americans are themselves admitted. Rubio has admitted that this is a proxy war between the United States and Russia. In reality, it's much more than a proxy war, as we've discussed many times, American troops have been involved in various forms. They've been helping to launch the Himas missiles and the attackers missiles. The U.S. has been providing Ukraine with intelligence, it's been providing Ukraine with military assistance of every conceivable. Kind and American generals, as the New York Times helpfully explained in an article that wrote some months ago, American generals were in effect commanding Ukrainian troops during the 2023 counter-offensive.

And it was all being run by headquarters in Wiesbaden, which from what I know is still in existence. So there is no reason at all why the United States cannot negotiate directly with Moscow and come to an agreement with the Russians. and simply tell the Ukrainians. And by the way, the Europeans, this is what we, the Russians and we have decided. And if you don't like it, you can lump it. I mean, there's nothing that prevents them doing that. And if the Ukrainians don't like it, the Americans could switch off all assistance, intelligence assistance, military assistance, financial assistance and all of that.

And Ukraine goes, well, what can Ukraine do? And, of course, the Europeans have been talking for months now about how they're going to help Ukraine and how they're going to take over the burden of supporting Ukraine from the United States. But we all know that they can't do that. That the Europeans simply do not have either the economic strength or the military capabilities to replace the United States. But the United States doesn't do that. It still goes through this bizarre charade of consulting Ukraine and also talking to the Europeans. They had that meeting in Geneva at which the Europeans were present.

Putin's foreign policy advisor, Uschukov, said, I don't know why. that meeting even took place, we've asked ourselves exactly that same question. Why do the Americans continue to discuss things with the Europeans and continue to discuss things with the Ukrainians in this way when the Ukrainians and the Europeans are simply going to act as spoilers, which is precisely what they are doing? Well, the only explanation is that the Trump administration understands and realizes that Ukraine still has enormous amounts of support in Washington itself. There's the Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, Axis in the Senate, which has been getting stronger over the last couple of months. There have been the people in the deep state who have also been busy.

We've had all those leaks that have been appearing in the media recently. We've had all of that commentary that's been all over the place in the media as well. And they still hope, therefore, to try to put pressure on the Ukrainians to give ground so that they can turn round to all of these critics in the United States and say to them, look, it's fine, we're able to move forward with the Russians because the Ukrainians have agreed. The Ukrainians have made those concessions. In reality, and this is my view, and I'm sure it's also your view, the Americans going through all of this charade, all that it does is it weakens and dilutes their own negotiating position with the Russians, because they're

giving the Europeans and the Ukrainians. opportunities to sabotage and torpedo any plan and to ally themselves with the neocons and their friends in Washington. And the result is that instead of the Americans doing what they should be doing, which is negotiating with the Russians, they end up negotiating with the Europeans and the Ukrainians instead. And that guarantees that the negotiations will go nowhere. And that's, That's what we saw happen over the weekend when the Americans met with the Ukrainians in Miami. Yeah, the Europeans provide a cover, right? Plausible deniability, cover, whatever you want to call it.

If things go bad with Russia, the United States trying to get Russia to freeze the conflict, which is effectively the ideal scenario. The ideal scenario for the United States, even the Trump administration, is a freeze. That's the ideal scenario. Yes. going to get that. But they're not going to stop trying, right? And so if, if negotiations do break down, I'm not saying they will or they won't. I'm saying if they do, then of course the Trump administration can blame Russia. It can also blame the Europeans. It can blame the Ukrainians, right? It's never going to blame itself.

So, I mean, the Europeans do provide that kind of cover for the Trump administration. So they serve their purpose. You know, they consult with the Europeans, Alexander, because the Europeans are are allies. They're not vassals. They're allies, and you have to consult with your very good, trusted allies, right? But I want to go back to, I have a question to ask about Whitkoff, but I want to go back to Budanov. I was looking right now on X.

Yeah. And it's saying that various accounts are saying that Budanov did travel to the United States. That's how it looks. but he's in the states, but it appears that he wasn't at the table during the meeting. I don't know, maybe he went to the bathroom as they were recording, you know, the video that we've all seen of all of them sitting at the table. But he's not in any of the photos or at the table with all the other people. So what do you think is going on?

Maybe he wasn't the meeting. Like I said, maybe he came late. Maybe he was not in the room when all the photos were taken and the press was allowed entry into the room. But maybe he's in the U.S. taking other meetings. What do you think? Maybe with three-letter agencies, I don't know. I mean, when you look at the photo, actually, when you look at the photo in the video, it doesn't seem like Budanov is there. That is very interesting.

But he has gone to D.C. Indeed. Okay. So what are your thoughts? So this is, by the way, just to quickly make a point to our viewers, this is another example of how when we do programs, Alex and I, we don't prepare them in advance. We have a discussion and we each provide information to each other. So just to make this again. I also want to say that maybe he was at the present at the meeting. I'm just saying from the photos that have been released to the public, he's not in any of the photos. Maybe he doesn't want to. appear in the photos for various reasons as well. Well, indeed. Well, indeed.

But I'm going to give my own speculations here and they're my own, and they might be wrong. But I suspect that there is a great ill of tension involving Budanov. Before this delegation was put together, there were reports circulating, including in Ukraine, that it was going to be led by Budanov, that he was actually going to be the leader of the delegation, and that it was he who was he who was. was going to conduct the negotiations with Wighoff and Kushner and Rubio. And then instead, we got Umerov, who as I said is much more closer, much closer to Zelensky,

was appointed to take charge instead. Budanov, however, was still on the list of the people who were part of the delegation. So I suspect what happened was that he was brought along and then he was sidelined. He was told by Umerov, look, this is the point when we will speak with the Americans, with Wittgov and Kushner and Rubio. You are not wanted here. So I suspect he was actually sidelined and pushed aside. Now, my own sense is this. We now know that Wodanov has been conducting some kind of back channel with the Russians.

By the way, very ugly from every side, ugly in terms of the Russians, and the Russians have had to explain that because bear in mind that in Russia, Budanov is considered a terrorist. Well, he's not considered. He is legally defined as a terrorist. I mean, the Russian law says Kirilo Budanov is a terrorist, and the Russian official position is, you do not speak to terrorists, and yet we now know that they have been conducting a back channel with him.

Murdaunov has been going off script quite a lot over the course of this year. He's been saying that Ukraine is losing the war, not quite like that, but he's becoming very close to it. He said a couple of months ago that if things weren't, there wasn't a deal done and a ceasefire by midsummer, then the military situation would deteriorate. He said that in a meeting with parliamentarians, and that's by the way exactly what happened. He resisted successfully several attempts by the Ukrainians to oust him, by Yermak specifically, to oust him. And again, this is widely acknowledged. It's widely believed that he survived those attempts.

attempts to remove him because he had the support of the United States and that the US made it clear that they wanted Budanov to remain in post. And then we had this very bizarre meeting that took place a couple of days ago in Abu Dhabi, where Budanov had a meeting with, as we now know, a senior official of the FSB, Russia's counterintelligence agency. The very very, agency, whose job it is, by the way, to arrest him if they can, because the FSB also deals with counter-terrorist activities. And then Budanov, abruptly, and to the Russian surprise, introduced Driscoll into the discussion, which made the whole meeting public in effect and exposed the fact that Budanov has had this back channel with the Russians.

Now, I wonder whether what's going on, and I've laid it out in detail. I wonder whether what's been going on is that the Russians and Budanov have been having this back channel, that the Americans have known about this all along, that Budanov has had some kind of longstanding contacts with Driscoll, and whether after Budanov was pushed aside from this delegation, the Americans nonetheless insisted that he must come along to Florida and whether Budanov has had more meetings with the Americans and specifically with Driscoll.

And whether this is, again, in some way connected, to some kind of mysterious parallel track in the discussion. that the Russians are furious have been disclosed and which the Americans using Budanov want to conduct. So it could be that the Americans becoming very frustrated with the Zelensky-Jermak-Umerov axes, which is still in place, are now trying to find some way to circumvent it

using Budanov as an alternative point of contact with the Russians to try to conduct negotiations and to try to shape the situation in Kiev itself. So there's a lot going on here, and I'm sorry if I've gone into this in a bit of detail, but it is interesting, and this is, again, where we are in some difficulty, because we don't have all the details. But anyway, that's the best I can do. Wouldn't Budanov be the link to the CIA to the three-letter agencies,

given that he's a product of the three-letter agencies? Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, it could be a way for Intel agencies to communicate through Budanov, since he would be the CIA guy in Kiev. Yes. But it could also mean that Budanov is perhaps liaising with the three-letter agencies because of the escalation in the dirty war that you also describe.

Yes. Yes. I did attach on this very fact in one of my programs on my own channel. which is that I said that given that it's the FSB, I originally assumed it was Russian military intelligence that he was meeting in Abu Dhabi, but it turns out that he was actually meeting with the FSB, which is the agency which deals with counter-espionage

and also counter-terrorism. I was wondering whether perhaps the main purpose of these meetings was to discuss the dirty war. There is a dirty war. Ukraine has been conducting assassinations inside Russia. It launched attacks, as we remember, with drones on Russian strategic bases, the bases of Russia's strategic bombers. Tankers?

Tankers. Absolutely. Tankers as well. We need to talk about that, too, and we should do so, by the way, because this is a big escalation. Tankers, they were not Russian tankers, by the way. They were tankers of third country. countries, but countries that were going to stock up oil in Novorosk. And it's, everybody says it's Russian oil, but it could be oil from Kazakhstan, from elsewhere in Central Asia, because Novorosisk is a major oil hub.

And Kazakhstan is furious about that attack. Apparently, Erdogan is angry and is now threatening the Ukrainians with investigations about this. But anyway, there is a dirty war going on. The Russians appeared to have taken some kind of retaliatory action as well. They killed, well, it's the Ukrainians say they killed one of the leaders of the Ukrainian SBU, who was involved with the assassinations in Russia. He was killed in Kiev, and then we still have the unresolved question

of the assassination of the Ukrainian far-right politician Andrei Parubi. So when parties are involved in a dirty war, sometimes they do need to talk to each other in order to discuss or try to discuss guardrails and that's what I suspect this meeting in Abu Dhabi was a bit about, if it sounds like a scene for the Godfather movies, it is because that is exactly what it is. So especially given what was probably being talked about in Abu Dhabi,

I can absolutely imagine that the Russians would have been very, very embarrassed indeed by the fact that the existence of this meeting was disclosed. And again, it could very well be that Budanov is in the United States ultimately now to talk about that. Given that, he was pushed aside. He appears to have been pushed aside from leading the delegation. Because I'm absolutely sure that if he had been at the meeting, we would have seen photos of him. By the way, I should have said that. At the outset, in response to your comments, I don't believe that Budanav would be concealing his presence.

I think on the contrary, he would have been pushing himself forward. So it looks as if he has been pushed aside by the Ukrainians themselves. So anyway, very interesting and very complex. And as I said, it's good that we've talked about this because, as I said, this is an important side issue. And one day we will get the whole truth. We don't have the whole truth at the moment. But to come back to the discussions, the negotiations in Miami, the key thing to say is that they don't seem to have gone anywhere at all. They don't seem to have advanced the process in any way.

They've created more obstacles. And now Witt Goff and Kushner are heading to Moscow. I am not sure where the Rubio is going. If he's not going, by the way, then it will be. be a clear sign. It would be the clearest sign we've seen up to now that he's basically opposed to this whole exercise. I mean, that's what we best assume. It sounds like he's not going. It sounds like he's not going. I mean, he said Whitkoff is heading to Moscow. That's what he said. He didn't say me and Whitkoff are. Exactly. But, you know, surely, given the kind of negotiation

that we're seeing and given that Rubio is talking to the Ukrainians, why is he not talking to the Russians? that his job, is his job to go to Moscow and meet with Lovr off and Putin there? So if he's not going, then I think it's the, I mean, he's constantly denying that he is in any way obstructive. He's telling everybody that this is an absolutely united team, that all the rumors that there's some rivalry between him and Vance is absolutely false. But if he is not going and he's not meeting with the Russians after he's met with the Ukrainians alongside Witgolf and Kushner, then I take that as an absolute sign that he is not really supportive of this process, that he is in fact either opposing to it or distancing himself from it. So I think that's the first thing to

say about that. But if Witgolf and Kushner now go to Moscow, well, the Russians have themselves been giving a whole lot of messages over the last few days. It began Wadavkov giving a report to the Duma, in which he said that Russia is in no position to make further concessions. They made all the concessions they can. Istanbul, plus, in a sense, was already a concession from a Russian point of view. Putin himself then gave a very interesting, press conference in Bishkek, in which basically he cast doubt on the whole narrative that the Russians

had agreed to a ceasefire in Zaporosia and Herson if the Ukrainians pulled out of Dombas. He said that what the Ukrainians need to do in order for there to be a ceasefire is that they need to withdraw from the occupied territories, what the Russians consider occupied territories, which include the entirety of Zaporosia. and Herson regions. The media have not picked this up, but that was what Putin said. And Putin also said this,

that we've got no agreements at any sort at all with the Americans. All that we agreed in Alaska was that the Americans would provide a set of talking points. Amongst them was this issue of Ukraine's neutrality and a Ukrainian pullout of Dombas,

and restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces. But there are no draft agreements. We've seen the 28 points. We've seen the 19 points. And now some people are saying that they are the 22 points. But these are going to require enormous amount of discussion. And we need to set up proper negotiating teams to work through them. And our team will be led by the forum.

ministry that, in other words, Lavrov will be choosing, picking the chief negotiators and will be an overall charge of the negotiation on our side, even if he's not actually physically one of the negotiators, though Medinsky, who's been meeting with the Ukrainians and Usherkov himself will also play a role. So the Russians are giving no sign that they're going to agree to anything substantive over the course of this trip. It's not a lot of. It's not a lot of the Russian. It's is if Putin is going to sign anything or sign off on the 28 points or anything like that. All the Russians are going to do, based on what they've been saying now, is that if the 28 points cover issues that they want to talk about and that they want to see in an agreement, such as Ukraine

becoming a neutral country again and scaling down its armed forces and withdrawing. from the occupied territories and agreed to restore the Orthodox Church and all of those things. If they do that, then they will set up a negotiating team, a big negotiating team. There will be a discussion about where the negotiations between themselves and the Americans, and these will be negotiations between themselves and the Americans will take place. Istanbul has been floated as a possibility. Budapest has been floated as a possibility, but the Russians are making it absolutely clear that they've not committed themselves to anything up to now.

I don't understand why Whitkoff is going to the United States. I mean, what's he going to Moscow? Sorry. I don't understand why Wickcoff is going to Moscow, to bring what? To talk about what? Again, I mean, they didn't agree to anything with Ukraine. No. That's the impression that I got.

No. And Ukraine is saying, no, we can still enter NATO. It's enshrined in our Constitution. These are the reports that we're getting. It's enshrined in our Constitution. We can't do anything about NATO. We're going to enter NATO. That's what our Constitution says.

The whole territory thing they rejected, Zillusionni is writing articles about getting nukes in Ukraine and stuff like that and NATO entering Ukraine. I mean, Ukraine is not backing off from any of the demands that they put in place. Key demands, core issues. They continue to lose the conflict. They continue to lose the conflict in a really catastrophic way. Things are going on the front line. But what is Wyckoff?

What's he going to bring to Moscow? I don't understand. What's the point of it? Well, I don't understand the point of it. And again, the whole thing is extremely strange. And to repeat, once again, it has the look of something that is improvised. What was it you said, written off on a cocktail napkin? It has that quality about it still that we don't seem to have left behind.

Now, you can be optimist. You can say to yourself, Witkoff and Kushner are going to come along to Moscow. They're going to meet Putin and Lavrov and the others, and Ushekov in the Kremlin. They're going to say, look, we're not really making much progress with the Ukrainians. Trump told you back in Alaska, because Lavrov has told us that this is what Trump told Putin, that he would have no difficulty getting Zelensky on side with these negotiations. Well, we see that he hasn't been able to deliver. Zolescu wants to meet with Trump.

Well, I know, absolutely. That's another demand. Which he's been making all the time. He incestantly wants these meetings with Trump. And one could see why. And by the way, if Trump agrees to that meeting, then Zolenski is going to come along and say, well, you know, I also want to bring all my friends,

Macron and Stama and Margreuter and all of those people. We're all going to come along and meet you because, of course, we need to explain it all to you indeed. and why we're actually winning the war and what we need to do in order to help us win. And you've got to also understand that if we don't win, then, you know, it's going to be a disaster because the Russians are right to conquer the whole of Europe and all of that. So if Trump falls for that one, by the way, if he agrees to meet Zelensky now and agrees to have this troop of European, well, if he agrees to meet Zelensky, then it would be a repeat of August,

all over again, Zelensky will then say, I want the Europeans there to. After Trump has already agreed to meet Zelensky, it's going to be very difficult for Trump to refuse to meet the Europeans also. And we're just going to have the whole situation go south in exactly the way that he did back in August. But anyway, just to come back to Whitgoth and Kushner,

If you really want to be extremely optimistic, they can come along to Moscow, they can bring their original 28 points and the 19 points and the 22 points and whatever it is. And they can say, look, we haven't got the Ukrainians fully on board. The Europeans are still causing problems. But we are nonetheless prepared to talk about these issues, nonetheless, about Ukraine being a neutral country, about withdraw. from Donvass and other territories, we understand that you want to form a negotiating team, and that's what we are prepared to do. So they could agree to that, and that would be a step forward, because then we would have proper negotiations, finally, between Russia and the United States.

Not this very weird situation where Whitkoff turns up to Moscow every couple of weeks, where we've had negotiations between very low-ranking Russian and American. officials in Istanbul to discuss emphasis, which never in the end led to anything, a single meeting to discuss, you know, the grain ceased fire in the Black Sea, which had a rather stronger delegations on each side, but also which never led to anything. We could have, in theory, the Americans coming along and agreeing that with the Russians in Moscow. will it happen? I frankly don't believe it.

I mean, the State Department, Rubio, seemed to be against it. The Senate, the people in the Senate, Graham, McConnell, the Democrats, they're all against it. I don't think Trump and his people even understand the sense of it. And I just don't think they will do it. So quite why they're going to Moscow, I really don't know. I mean, it's like the whole thing is like a simulation of diplomacy, not listening to what first the Ukrainians had done that Russians are saying. Well, I mean, the only thing that Wickhoff can bring to Russia is to tell Putin,

we're ready to negotiate as the United States in this proxy war that we're engaged in with you. I mean, right, that would be the only thing. For Wickhoff to tell Putin, look, all the meetings that we're having, with Ukraine, you understand it's all just theater. It's all for the media and then it's all for public consumption. But I mean, you understand that we're going to do whatever we want with Ukraine and with Europe because we're the hegemon and they're the vassals and we control both Europe and Ukraine. So we've done all this theater, Mr. President Putin, for the media sake, for the public's sake.

But now we're here as Witkoff and Jared Kushner, we're here to tell you that we're ready to to negotiate as the United States with Russia and the negotiated end to this war that were engaged in with you. Which is exactly what happened in the conflict in Vietnam and exactly what happened in the conflict in Afghanistan. In the end, in the end, in both of those conflicts, it became a direct negotiation between the other side, the North Vietnamese and the Taliban and the United States. And this is the only way this can end diplomatically. I mean, That is, I think, something people need to understand. The Europeans will always oppose any negotiations.

And there is no political figure in Kiev, certainly not Zelensky, but nobody who's alternative to Zelensky, who is going to come forward and negotiate in good faith with the Russians either. The US doesn't need for them. There's no need it. Exactly. The United States. And by the way, they would be perfectly, perfectly within their rights to do that. There is no reason why the United States cannot negotiate with Russia on any matter, any matter at all.

It can negotiate with Russia about any question that relates to its own security, and the conflict in Ukraine clearly does. And they have any way already admitted that they're in a proxy, with Russia in Ukraine. And given that that is so, they have no reason to hold back from negotiating a deal with the Russians to end it. So the United States is at full liberty, if it chooses, to undertake that kind of negotiation with proper negotiating teams. Putin said something very interesting, by the way, which again, nobody's picked up on. He talked about what the makeup of the Russian negotiating team would be like, which is absolutely standard for the way the

Russians conduct negotiations. And he said, I don't know of any other way that negotiations on such a complex issue can be conducted and without it being set up and done that way, the negotiations cannot succeed. I'm not quoting his exact words, but that was very close. to the words he used. If Kushner and Wittkov, come along to Moscow and agree to this, well, then we're forward. We've broken through. We have a negotiation. Of course, the war will continue. The negotiation will take time. The situation for the Ukrainians will get worse and worse. But we might finally start to see a way forward towards some kind of understanding between the Americans and the Russians, not just about Ukraine, but about the wider conflict

between their two countries and the situation in Europe, which the 28 points alluded to, and perhaps some wider understanding being achieved finally between the Russians and the Americans, which will bring us through this very difficult period. Will it happen? I don't believe so, for the reasons I said, but one can only hope. Yeah, the Russian side also goes. goes along with the theater and that the United States is the neutral mediator. So, I mean, you know, there's theater all around. I mean, perhaps the Russian, perhaps the re... Too much.

Too much. But perhaps the reason for Russia to pretend as if the U.S. is this neutral mediator, and they put all the blame. Yeah. They're correct in putting a lot of the blame on Europe, the UK. They go hard against the UK. And of course, you know, Zelensky and his regime. But ultimately, it's the United States behind all of this, whether you're talking about the dirty war, whether you're talking about the tankers, the tanker attacks on the Shadow Fleet, whether you're talking about the drones into the Russian Federation, the attack them. I mean, behind all of this is obviously the United States. But for various reasons, the Russians have decided to say that the U.S. is the honest brokers, is the neutral mediator.

broker in this. And it's the Europeans and the British that are the spoilers. They're the ones driving this conflict. Maybe the reason that Putin has set it up like this is because he's waiting for the Americans to eventually come along and say, okay, we're now ready as the United States to negotiate with you and we don't need anybody else. Maybe that's the reason that he's done this. I don't know. Well, I think it is. I think it's one of the reasons why he's done this. I mean, there's been various reasons. I mean, he said that he said at a security council meeting that there's also been pressure from Russia's allies that they want a negotiation process underway. He also said, by the way, that, you know, from a Russian point of view,

they'd be perfectly happy to go on with the war until they achieve a military victory. So it's an interesting set of comments from Putin. But anyway, put all that aside, what the Russians, The strategy, I think this has now become clear, the strategy the Russians have been following since Trump was inaugurated is to try to persuade the Americans to enter into a proper, big negotiation with themselves. And probably the Russians, at least some Russians, I don't know everybody in Moscow, but some Russians are saying to them, This is how we're going to try and prevent this whole escalatory escalator, how we're going to stop it from going on rising, how we're going to eventually discuss other things like arms control and economic link contacts and that kind of thing.

The challenge is to get the Americans to the table, to get them finally to start talking with us, and then once we start to do that, things will start to happen. Whether they're even right about that is another matter, by the way. They may still be thinking about the United States of Lyndon Johnson's

and Richard Nixon's day rather than the United States of today. But anyway, we'll see. Yeah, all right. We'll end the video there. The durand.com. We're on X, we're on Rumble. We're on Telegram,

and we are also on Substack. There's a link in the description box down below. Take care.