The Duran Podcast - Black Sea Now Russian Lake, West's Grain Gamble Backfired

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

Black Sea Now Russian Lake, West's Grain Gamble Backfired

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Odessa blockade. And it is indeed a blockade, correct? It is absolutely a blockade. MISC, the biggest ship-owning company in the world, which is Danish, have now said they're no longer sending ships to Odessa. If they take the lead and say that, then nobody is. And if you go to statements by Ukrainian officials, they are in absolute panic about this. It is not just Adessa. When we talk about Adessa, we mean in the whole of Ukraine's Black Sea coast, all its ports, all its ports.

Adesa, obviously, is the big cluster of ports created by the Soviet Union long ago and before that by the Tsars. But there are other smaller ports across the Black Sea. All of them are now closed. How did we get here? Well, this is an interesting question because, of course, we've been hearing for years about the great naval victory that Ukraine won in the Black Sea. And I have made points on various programs, and you have made points on various programs. We said this together, that this great naval victory is really mostly imaginary. that if the Russians ever took it upon themselves to close Odessa and seal the Black Sea Coast,

they have all the means necessary to do it, and they have now decided to do it. Now, I think they always had this plan to do it eventually when military developments on the front lines made it appropriate. But I think what was the trigger was a disaster. decision that somebody in somebody, probably in Washington rather than Kiev, took, which was to start attacking Russian grain ships in the Sea of Azov. Now, the point about that was that, you know, they'd conducted the attacks on the refineries, they'd conducted the attacks on the Nororosier Highway, they'd conducted the attacks on Crimea, using drones, American drones with American guidance

made from Chinese components fabricated in Europe, as we've discussed in many programs. None of these attacks were producing the effect that the Ukrainians, the Americans, the Europeans, all of those who are invested in Project Ukraine were hoping for, which is a major crisis in Moscow, putting pressure on Putin to, as they say, sit down and come to the table and talk. which means, of course, in their language, it really means capitulate. So they looked for another target that they thought would hurt Putin and would hurt the Russians and might finally provoke this crisis in Russia because the grain export trade is big business in Russia. I mean, the agricultural economy plays a big role in Russian politics.

Russia has its own agroindustrial complex, which is enormous, and plays an increasing role in the Russian economy. So they said to themselves this is another piece of leverage, which we can use. We'll attack the grain ships in the Sea of Azov. So they attack the grain ships in the Sea of Azov, and the attacks of the tank is there as well, and they attack other merchant ships. And then that, of course, gave the Russians the excuse and the reason to impose the blockade on Adessa. And that has now been imposed. And we can see the difference.

I mean, the Russians are always able to redirect shipping through other ports. They can cover the costs of ship owners and agricultural exporters. They're making billions. through the oil export trade so that they can comfortably cover the cost of these things. My sense is also that air defences on the Sea of Azov have probably improved as well. So it was another escalation, which has resulted in a far more powerful counter-escalation, which for Ukraine is a disaster. Now, we have discussed the option that the Ukraine,

have of using Constanza in Romania as an alternative port, access port. But I read a report by a Russian site called Two Majors, I should say it is Russian. So, you know, take it with a pinch of salt if you prefer. I mean, but they say that Constanza can only operate around a fifth of the maritime traffic that Adessa could. And that even that depends on things going wrong and the Russians not taking counter steps against the railways, the railway lines from Ukraine to Romania and against the barges that will be sending grain down the Nista River.

So the whole thing is a disaster. It is a disaster for Ukraine. It means that Ukraine's position as an exporter has gone. And it also, and I think this is something just to bear in mind, it could also mean higher food prices in Europe. Because as I understand it, at least a few years ago, the major buyer of Ukrainian grain was not the global south, as was often said, but actually the European Union. Europeans, yeah. The Europeans. So they have now lost access to cheap grain from Ukraine,

and it's going to result in higher food prices in Europe. Yeah, Europe is going to be hurt big time from all of this. I know that about it. Simplicius of thinker also wrote an article and confirmed what you said, that redirecting the grain through railway and to Romania via via barge and Constantin and stuff like that. One fifth to one-sixth of the grain that was moving through the port. So even if Russia, the point to all of this is even if Russia decides not to go after the rail

or the barges or anything like that, Ukraine gets one-fifth of what they were moving through Odessa. It's a huge hit on the Ukrainian economy. And that's if they beg and hope that Russia doesn't go after the railway or the barges. And the barges, I imagine, must be an incredibly easy target. Of course they are. Of course they are. Much easier than ships. Yeah.

Because remember, they can't maneuver because they're in a river. They can't maneuver. So very much easier than ships. And they're slow. And barges, by definition, are relatively slow. So they're incredibly vulnerable to drone attacks. So the plan. Hatched probably in D.C., probably by the neocons, maybe at NATO HQ, who knows.

But the collective West plan was hit the refineries. Yeah. Ramp up the sanctions or keep the sanctions escalating. Yeah. And then go after the agriculture. Yeah. Now you have the hitting of warehouses as well, which is an act of desperation more than anything else going after the online commerce. But the overarching strategy of the collective West,

the victory, the winning strategy, as Alexander Stoop declared a couple of weeks ago that Ukraine has won this conflict, was crushing, trying to crush Russia's economy. Exactly. Believing that they could crush Russia's economy by hitting the oil, keeping the sanctions going and then destroying Russia's agriculture. This was their plan, their master plan at bringing Putin to the negotiating table, which, as you rightly said, is code for Putin capitulating. Yes.

What a dumb plan. He's an absolutely crazy plan. What a dumb, dumb, dumb plan. And that's why all these guys were running around, all these Europeans and collective west officials running around saying, Ukraine is won. The tide is turning. Ukraine is victorious. The momentum has shifted. You still have U.S. senators and U.S. lawmakers saying that the momentum has shifted. How dumb was this plan? They actually thought that a country,

the size of Russia could be demolished, could be easily destroyed their economy by going after, by launching drones to hit oil refineries and trying to sink their agricultural sector. Did they not anticipate a Russian retaliation? Or did they think that? that Putin and the Kremlin would stick to this maximum restraint policy forever and ever. Well, indeed, that's exactly what they thought. They thought all of those things, and of course they're wrong. I mean, the word is now that the refineries are now coming back online, the ones that were hit. They seem to have become more difficult targets.

We're hearing less about attacks on refineries. I suspect the reason for that is that the refineries have been hardened, by which I mean probably the Russians have put protective covers on the sensitive installations, nets, shields and probably some level of air defences as well. So the refineries are coming back on stream. The fuel situation in Russia is stabilising. I mean, Valore did. the Speaker of the Parliament said that this is going to happen very rapidly. He's probably wrong about that. It'll probably take until the autumn before the thing fully normalises.

But it will normalise. So they're stabilising there. And now, of course, the grain attacks. Well, we saw what the effect of that was. What is so weird about this is that every one of these escalations, Ultimately, they do have an effect which is on the Western economies. The Russians, I think, used as an excuse the attack on refineries to stop exports of diesel oil, because I don't think there's any shortage of diesel oil in Russia.

But the Russians imposed a block on exports of diesel oil. And we know that in the West, diesel oil and aviation fuel, which the Russians have imposed a block are also not exporting, are in short supply. Nonetheless, we try and disrupt the Russian energy complex in order to aggravate energy shortages in the country that is now probably the major swing producer of energy at a time when we are facing an energy crisis. We are attacking grain ships in the Sea of Azov, precipitating a crisis in the food. system, we're going to start to see rises in fruit prices in Europe as well. Kaya Kallas, of course, won't stop.

She now says that EU navies must start intercepting shadow fleet tankers in the Indian Ocean. The Indian ships that are in the Indian Ocean are presumably taking oil to India. So we're going to start interfering with India's economic interests as well. But presumably this is because Russia is now, as we know, importing gasoline from India. So we are doing all of these things which cannot achieve the effects that we want to disrupt and destabilise the internal situation in Russia, to destroy the sense of normalcy, that exists there. You remember I said that during a program some time, I guess. And what we're doing is we're adding us. The EU buys that oil from India too. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We are aggravating,

worsening our own energy shortages and are going to increase further the cost of food for our own consumers. This makes absolutely no sense. It is obsession taken to the point of mania. And of course, the attacks on wild berries would just deal with those. Now, I doubted that wild berries is an e-commerce, by the way. It's an e-commerce online plumber. Yeah. It's an, it's an e-combers. It's the Amazon of Russia. Actually, there is more than one. But wild berries is the biggest and it's the most famous. So attack wildberries. Breiv, who is the person who operates, who is the nominal person in charge of the drone war in Ukraine, was actually, actually said straightforwardly. He was quoted in the Daily Telegraph this morning as saying that this is all intended to make life difficulty

for Russians so that they understand that their country is at war. In other words, to disrupt the that we were talking about. Well, the point is, the Russians will find means to protect Wildberry's warehouses. They will put the shields, they'll put the netting, they'll find ways to harden these sites as well. Wildberries does supply some types of weapons, some types of military gear, not weapons, military gear, camouflage equipment, and that sort of thing. but these are mostly for private buyers. They are not part of the militaries, the Russian military's own logistics change. It is desperate.

It's part of, as you correctly said, this attempt to create a sense of destabilization in Russia to hit small businesses which rely heavily on wildberries. The Russian government, the Russian banks, will support these small businesses. And eventually this thing will stabilize too. But in the meantime, the port of Odessa, the Black Sea remains closed. The Russians destroy all the gasoline stations in eastern and central Ukraine. And they're now coming for the warehouses on the Ukrainian Postal Service, which plays a similar role in Ukraine to the one that Wild Berries does in Russia, though at a different technological level. This is wholly counterproductive from every conceivable point of view.

It's the collective West. Yes, it is desperation from Ukraine, the proxy. But it's also the collective West signaling to Russia that we can hit what we want, when we want. Yeah. That's not the message that the collective West should be sending to Putin or to Russia. I mean, sooner or later, Putin is. is going to have to take off the gloves. He's going to have to.

Well, I don't see any way around it. And the collective West just keeps on pushing and pushing. From all refineries to agriculture, to the hitting of grain ships, which did do damage. Yeah. Yeah, about 100 or so. Some reports have it at 50. Some have it at 150. Ships were hit in the sea of Oz off.

Yeah. And now you're going after online. retailer warehouses in order to disrupt the life of Russians, of Russian consumers, to cause delays, to make it so that their products are not going to get delivered. So then they can be pissed off at the government and at the Kremlin. This is the thinking. But it's also the neocon thinking. It's that neocon hubris and arrogance of sending a message to Putin saying, we can hit you.

Yeah. It also, of course, conveys to the Russians an absolutely implacable attitude on the part of the West. We both have impunity. We can hit you wherever you like. And we, for our part, we accept no restraints at all. Are attacking wild berries warehouses, which is civilian, ultimately, presumably civilian facilities, attacking wild berries warehouses. The UN has said is potentially a war crime. But, you know, we just go ahead and do it anyway. Well, there were restraints on the agriculture, too, Alexander.

I don't know if you want to explain that as well, that there was an agreement back in 2003, a UN-Brockered, UN-Turkey-brokered agreement. And they took off those restraints. Ukraine and the collective West decided to throw away those restraints. Absolutely. In fact, let me just go over that because I think it's an interesting story. It's an interesting story because, you know, the special military operation began. The Russians established a naval patrols in the Black Sea. There was for a time a lot of talk that Odessa was being blockaded. I don't think at that time Odessa was being blockaded. and the Russians denied it. But Giterres, who was the UN Secretary General, and Erdogan, who was the Turkish president, came in and said that interference in the grain trade in the Black Sea is completely unacceptable. It is going to affect people in the global south at a time of high food inflation. And the Russians were put under immense pressure by Giterres and by Erdogan to agree

a grain deal, which they didn't really want to do. I mean, they said, you know, this isn't, we're not blockading Adessa anyway. And why should we agree to a deal of this kind? And besides, we can supply people with all the grade they need, even if Ukraine isn't able to do so. But anyway, the Russians came under enormous pressure. A grain deal was agreed. The grain deal was agreed. The grain deal was agreed in July 2022. It contained a provision whereby the European Union was supposed to agree to the export of Russian fertilizers and food products through EU ports. The EU, of course, ignored that part of the agreement and never implemented it. Eventually, in 2023, the Russians said the agreement is. and pulling is working and pulled out of it. So the formal grain agreement ended, but the Russians continued to be under enormous pressure not to interfere with grain exports from Adessa. So they

did not interfere with grain exports from Odessa, which meant the chips were able to enter Adessa, carrying weapons, or at least that is what the Russians said, weapons from the West, and leave carrying grain. And the Russians were furious about this, but they were put under enormous pressure from the global south, from the Indians or the United Nations, and from all of those people. And eventually on this, they back down. Now Ukraine goes and attacks grain ships, nobody says anything about this. Erdogan, Kiterres, the Global South leaders, the EU, nobody says anything about the Ukrainian attacks on Russian grain ships.

And the Russians say, well, okay, in that case, we forget all about all of the things that we discussed in 2022 and 2023 and 2024, by the way, when Trump tried to revive the original grain deal, and we go back, and this time, this time, we do take off the gloves. And we attack every ship that is going in and out of Odessa and all of the other Black Sea ports. In other words, we impose that blockade, which we say we didn't impose before, but this time, this time we do it for real. Yeah. We all obliterated their Black Sea Navy. That's what we've been hearing for the past three, four years, right?

Yes. Yeah. Well, then how are they imposing this blockade? Anyway. Okay, okay. So it's going to the UN Security Council. I think that's the next step that Ukraine is working on. What happens at the UNSC?

Well, Ukraine will probably get a certain amount of support there. Certainly will get supported by the European countries. But I don't think the Russians are in the present mood. Will the US support? Of course it will support it. I mean, Ukraine was public. The US will publicly support Ukraine. The Europeans will publicly support Ukraine. Some of the global South countries will again publicly support Ukraine because they will say that these were attacks on grain shifts. But all of the messaging that's coming from the Russians is that they're going to remain implacable if it's pushed to a resolution, which it might be,

the Russians will veto it. What will China do? Either abstain, probably either abstain or work with Russia. Okay. All right. I think we can leave the video there. If Russia's response to the collective West hitting their oil refineries is just the cutting off of diesel fuel, then the collective West got off easy. Right? I mean, they got off easy on that one.

The Russians do these things which are invisible. And so that doesn't produce deterrence. Again, the Russians don't understand the absolutely implacable nature of the people they're dealing with. The fact that they absolutely do not have reverse gear. If you are going to get them to stop, you have to punch them in the nose to put it rather, you know, forwardly. doing all sorts of clever cunning things which will create pain in the long term isn't something that they will register. Just a very, very quick final question since you're in the UK.

Did the incident with the Russian ship firing off the ammo in the exercises, 40 miles or 40 kilometers from the UK? Did that have any effect on the UK? Well, it was certainly talked about. It was in all the newspapers. It was, again, you know, Putin taking threatening moves near Britain and all of that. But I don't get the sense that it either caused panic amongst the wider population or affected British policy. If I could just say something about Britain, I did think it was interesting that Andy Burnham did not mention Ukraine in his first speech, the one he made outside Downing Street, without notes.

He didn't mention Ukraine. So maybe he's less enthusiastic about Ukraine than Starma was. But who did he speak to first on the phone? Who was the first person to be called? So it was Zelensky. There's not going to be any real difference, any change. They'll get him lined up. Anyway, all right, we'll end the video there.

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