The Duran Podcast - Dialogue with Russia, walking away from Ukraine

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Dialogue with Russia, walking away from Ukraine

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the talk about Trump-Putin meeting. We've got a few more days left of the Biden administration, and then Trump takes office. And the word is that Trump is going to go for a phone call with Putin. Actually, Mike Waltz, the incoming NSA said as much during an interview with ABC News. he said that there will be a phone call between Trump and Putin within the next couple of days or a couple of weeks. So we said it on this channel, I believe a month ago, that the first stage of a Trump-Putin dialogue is most likely not going to take the form of an actual physical meeting.

It'll probably happen via a telephone call or a video call or something like that, which makes sense because they have to establish some sort of dialogue. some sort of contact, given everything that has happened over the past three, four years under the Biden administration. So what are your thoughts on what Mike Waltz said with regards to a call taking place between Trump and Putin? Waltz also said some other interesting things during the interview with ABC News. And he said some alarming things as well.

For example, the mobilization of 18-year-olds in order to stabilize the front so that the Trump White House can get leverage in possible negotiations with Russia because right now the front line is collapsing. So Waltz talked about the 18-year-old's mobilization. He talked about the North Koreans as well. It led me to believe that Waltz is getting up to speed on Ukraine, but he still has a lot of gaps as well. At least that was the impression.

It was very much a mixed message. I think the overall impression that I have of the Trump administration is that they still have not formulated an approach to. to dialogue with Russia. I believe Kellogg's initial approach, the ceasefire, the DMZ, all of that stuff, I believe they've scrapped that. Because at the end of the day,

what Putin wants is something that a U.S. president probably cannot give, which is a new security architecture in Europe. Anyway, it was a most interesting interview. And by the way, I absolutely agree with what you've just said. The Trump, the incoming Trump administration is still educating itself about the issues of Ukraine. I mean, they made all kinds of assumptions right at the start that a deal could be done by basically repackaging some of the same ideas that had been lying around for a long time, you know, delay NATO entry, bring in European peacekeepers, allow the Russians to offer.

occupy eastern Ukraine, but don't recognize it. What I don't think they fully understood is that these proposals had already been made to the Russians before and had been rejected by them. And I think they're now starting to understand that. And on top of that, and this is where Mike Wolts' latest comments were interesting, I think they've now finally grasped, or at least are starting to grasp that we are not looking at a stalemate in the war or any of the anything like that, we are looking at an ongoing military collapse, a military collapse by Ukraine. So absolutely, I think they're on a steep learning curve. And the fact that they haven't been able to speak directly to the Russians up to now has slowed this process of learning about

the war because they do need to speak to the Russians. And that's what Mike Walters has said. that is what Kellogg has said, and most important of all, that is what Trump himself has said. So the first step they're going to do is a telephone call between Putin and Trump. Now, Waltz spoke about it happening over the next few days. Now, I take that to me that Trump, who has now been formally elected the next president of the United States. The electoral college has now actually voted him as the next president of the United States. He's got that issue behind him. He's got Johnson, a speaker.

He's looking likely now to get his nominees passed through the Senate. All of that's coming together. So I think what he's now going to do is he's going to move forward with this call. And when Wolves talks about days, I think, that the first Putin-Trump call is now going to take place before the inauguration. Otherwise, why use the word days? At least I think that's the plan. Whether the Russians want to have a call before the inauguration, I am not sure. But I think this is what Trump wants. I think it's what the Trump team are now trying to set up. And Wals spoke as if they're actually

trying to set up this call now. So, you know, perhaps there's discussions, there's the first profit contacts. So we're going to get a call. There's the Trump and Putin are going to speak. They're going to speak directly. They won't be having to use intermediaries like Fidzo and Orban, who've been fulfilling that role up to now. My own guess is that the primary purpose of the call will be to set up a proper summit meeting, an actual physical summit meeting, which will happen in a few weeks' time. I think Trump will also ask Putin to agree to receive Kellogg in Moscow, which of course Putin will agree to. And we will finally have the breaking of the ice, and we will have contacts between the Americans and the Russians, which we have not had,

to any real degree since February 2020. The Europeans are not going to like it. They're going to be very, very upset about this. Zelensky is going to hate it. And we're going to see a lot of nervousness and anger in Europe. And you can get a sense of how nervously Europeans are by the way in which the Financial Times has covered the story because it has discussed Mike Waltz's interview.

But instead of laying emphasis to the fact that Trump and Putin are going to have a call, they led on Wolfe's comments about Ukraine reducing the mobilization age to 18. So they made it seem as if that was the primary topic of the interview rather than the Trump-Putin conversation. which the Financial Times vehicle for globalist and neocon thinking clearly isn't happy about. Yeah, well, there was a statement that Mike Waltz probably should not have made, in my opinion. Absolutely. Because it signals that it gives the impression and signals that the Trump administration is just going to do much of the same of what Biden was doing or what Sullivan was doing. To me, to me, that statement from Mike Waltz, I believe, came from his confirmation.

conversations with Sullivan. I mean, you could still see a lot of Sullivan's influence on, on what Waltz is saying with regards to Ukraine. I imagine they've talked to each other. I imagine Sullivan has briefed Waltz on many things. And you could see a lot of that come out during a Walt's interview. And I think the 18 mobilization is something that Sullivan has been pressing for. And he's been telling Waltz, this is just a guess on my end, that what Ukraine needs is men, has a shortage of have been. And one way to stabilize the front is to mobilize 18-year-olds. I mean, you know, this is this was a Sullivan talking point that Waltz was putting out there.

Oh, that's just a guess. You are, no, you are completely right. Because what Walt said was exactly what the Biden administration is now publicly saying. The Biden people are saying, look, we've just now sent a whole lot of weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine is now fully armed. And, fully ready, it's absolutely able to deal with the Russians. The only outstanding problem, the reason the front line isn't stable, I think, is because Ukraine hasn't, doesn't have enough men in its army. And the reason it doesn't have enough men in its army is because it's not recruiting 18-year-olds. I mean, they're actually saying that that's been the line from the Biden administration over the last couple of days. You only have to go to. You only have to go to

the statements that they've been publishing to see that. So exactly, Waltz is exactly repeating Jake Sullivan talking points. No doubt about it. I mean, I would just make one point there, though, which is that he was repeating Jake Sullivan talking points, that he did do so in a way that Maybe the Ukrainians might find a little disturbing in which, in that he said, look, you know, the Ukrainians tell us that they're fighting for democracy, that they're fighting for freedom, they're fighting for the West, Europe and all of those things. But if they really are, then why aren't they, why aren't they going all the way? Why aren't they recruiting 18-year-old?

So it almost says, you could almost get the sense in a sense. kind of a way that Walses say, well, even the Ukrainians ultimately don't take this quite as seriously as they're pretending, because if they were as serious about it as they say they are, then they would have gone for mobilization. But, you know, you can argue that. But, I mean, basically, I agree with you. He should not have said that. This is an interview about, this is intended to be an interview about starting dialogue with the Russians. And going down the whole mobilization thing tells us to the extent. to which the Biden people are still dominating the narrative.

Well, that's exactly how he said it, the way you described it. Yeah. That's exactly how he said if they're fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights, why are they not mobilizing the 18-year-olds? But he also said, yeah, why are they not mobilizing the 18-year-olds? Because it would be the mobilization that would provide stability to the front line, which would then give us leverage in a future negotiation. Exactly, exactly. I mean, which is just false. It's completely false. It is a completely false. I think this is something we need to say, actually.

All that would happen is an awful lot of 18, 19, 20-year-olds and young men up to the age of 25 will die for absolutely no purpose. There is no time to train these people to anything like the level that they would need to be trained in order to fight the Russian army. Everybody, everybody who looks at this thing seriously understands that. The Russians now are just too strong. It would just be throwing more. It would be more blood sacrifices to absolutely no purpose.

It is not going to stabilize the front lines. The front lines cannot be stabilized. Yeah, exactly. So let's go back to the negotiations. The things that Trump can discuss with Russia. NATO, no Ukraine-NATO entry. Yeah. Russia is interested in that, obviously.

Removal of sanctions, whatever Trump could do. I mean, there are reports saying that the latest Biden sanctions and many of the other Biden sanctions, I believe Kirby has even said as much are going to be very difficult for Trump to roll back. Okay, accepted. Maybe yes, maybe no, but he could float that proposal out there. I'll try to remove X, Y and Z section, Swift or something, something along those lines. Then you run into, I mean, that's pretty much all I can see as far as real, tangible things that Trump could offer to Russia, that Russia is genuinely interested in.

And then you get to the big one, the one that's unavoidable if you really want to enter into serious negotiations with Russia, taking into consideration. in Russia's national interest, which is the security architecture in Europe, which even the financial times in a recent article said that this would effectively mean the rolling back of NATO. I imagine they're talking about NATO going to Germany lines, which would mean what, Poland, Romania, all the missiles, all the troops, everything that's on Russia's border, go back. Yeah. I mean, how realistic is this for an incoming president?

Even with Trump, who won such a big mandate. It isn't realistic. I mean, it just isn't going to happen. I mean, we're going back in effect to what was set out in the December 2021 treaties by the Russians. The Russians wanted all of those commitments agreed in an actual treaty. There is no conceivable way that the Senate is going to ratify a treaty like that. It needs a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and that simply isn't going to happen. I mean, bear in mind, Trump has a majority, the Republicans have a majority in the Senate now.

But that majority is only a majority if you include Mitch McConnell, and he's a neocom group. They're never going to vote for a treaty of this kind. They will scream that, you know, this is an absolute betrayal of the U.S. a treaty like that will never happen. And I think Trump knows that. And even if Trump comes along to Putin and says, look, I'm not interested in Ukraine joining NATO. I can make a commitment that the United States is not going to support Ukraine joining NATO. The Russians will simply say, well, you're making us that promise. But unless this is set out in a binding treaty, we don't believe you, because you may be completely honest in what you're saying, but you can't bind your successor.

This is the problem that the United States has now. Now, this is what I think is going to happen over the course of these discussions. I think at some level, Trump probably now understands this. He can see that negotiations are going to be very difficult. The Russians are winning the war. They have no incentive to negotiate and compromise in the way that, some people would want in the US in a way that would pass through the political system in the US. But the US does need to speak to Russia. They need to speak to Russia about many things.

The Russians are about to sign, as we've discussed in other programs, a partnership agreement with Iran. The United States is in confrontation with Iran. They need to understand what that partnership agreement means, what the Russians are going to do on behalf of Iran, whether the Russians have any red lines, how the Russians intend to enforce them. The Americans need to speak to the Russians about that. They need to speak to the Russians about North Korea. They need to speak to the Russians about nuclear proliferation. They've got a huge number of things that they need to talk to the Russians about. It is incredibly dangerous that the United States has not been talking to the Russians for almost three years. It's not just dangerous. It is potentially

catastrophic. So what I think is going to happen is this. Trump is going to restart a substantive dialogue with the Russians, a kind of ongoing dialogue that we always had during the Cold War, post-Cold War period, and which we need to have in the future. I mean, these are two nuclear-armed superpowers. They need to be speaking with each other. And at the same time, I think the U.S., the Trump people, are going to go through the motions of talking with the Russians about Ukraine, obviously. They're going to go through the motions of talking with the Ukrainians about Ukraine. The Ukrainians are showing absolutely no flexibility whatsoever at the moment. The Americans, the Trump people, are giving themselves 100 days or perhaps six months to see what they can do. I suspect that at the end of their

100 days, six months period, the US will say, the Trump people will say, look, we've done what we can. Ukraine is not pulling it together. They're not listening to what we're saying. This is the moment we walk away. I think that's what is going to happen. It may not be the plan. It may not be the intention, though I wouldn't be completely sure about that. But it is a a graceful way of exiting. And at that point, the Americans can also say, do the Europeans, look, you're the people who care so much about Ukraine. You're the people who say you're being threatened by the Russians. Now it's time for you to step in. If you really believe in this, as much as you do, it's time for you to step in, take over Ukraine, arm it, support it,

do all of those things. We have done all that we can. We have done enough. So at that point, as I said, the Americans can walk away. Yeah. Medvedev said that there's going to be no ceasefire, no freeze. German type of freeze said none of that's going to happen. No. He said that in a social media post. Yes. So yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You know that's probably, yeah, just to wrap up the video, you know, when you look at what the Russians are looking for and the fact that the Trump administration, the incoming administration, has very little leverage over Russia in a negotiation. negotiations, which has got to bother someone like Trump to go into negotiations in such a bad position. Absolutely. That's got to be difficult for him, someone that's so much about negotiates, whole personas about negotiations.

Yeah, I imagine that's probably an outcome that's, that is most likely what you just said. I think so, but at least it gets the negotiation, it gets the dialogue between America and Russia restarted again. And that has, that's an essential dialogue he's ordered to preserve peace. You know, the sporadic contacts between generals, you know, Millie and Gerasimov and the Brown and Gerasim of the one conversation between Shoygoo and Austin. That is not a, that is not a substantive dialogue. We need a proper dialogue now. And hopefully that will restart. As for leverage, Well, of course, the Biden administration is telling us all that they've provided Trump with lots of leverage. They've just imposed more sanctions on the Russian oil trade in order to provide the Trump administration with leverage.

What, of course, they're trying to do is the exact opposite. They're trying to wreck any resumption of dialogue between Russia and the U.S. They're laying all of these traps in the way. They've hit the Russians where they think it hurts. The people who are really going to be hurt by this. Our America's friends, Europe. India, which of course imports Russian oil. American consumers, as Biden admitted,

you can see that the old man in the Oval Office and his team are still trying to cause as much trouble as they can in advance of the Trump-Pooten summit that we can now see is coming. But I was looking at the numbers this morning. The ruble has barely shifted in response to these oil sanctions. There's been an upward blip in the oil price. I don't think anyone takes them seriously. So a military outcome is where we're going to head.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's six months. If you look at whether it's 100 days or six months by the time there, they're actually talking to each other face to face. The military situation is just going to worsen for Ukraine. Absolutely. Well, there's four billion dollars worth from the congressional appropriation in April

still there. I don't think Trump is going to go back to Congress to ask for a new appropriation. So they've got four billion dollars to play with when that runs out, which will probably take 100 days to six months. Then, as I said, they'll walk away. Yeah, but you know, just a thought on the $4 billion. How does Trump spin it? I'm giving $4 billion to Ukraine.

His base is going to be furious. Well, absolutely, they are. I mean, they're already saying that the fires in California. Yeah, well, you know, why aren't you spending the money? Yeah, why aren't you spending it on California? Absolutely, absolutely. So he's got to think about his base who are, frankly, absolutely fed up with Ukraine.

I think that's the other thing to say about this. I mean, so he's got to manage his base. He's got to manage all the various expectations. Does he give that $4 billion? Well, I don't know. I mean, that's, we'll see what he does. Does he just keep his hands off it, just let it sit there? Maybe he lets it sit there.

But of course, I gather there's all kinds of regulations there about how money is moved around which count Congress appropriates. I'm not really sure how it works. And I'm not going to pretend that I do. But all I am saying is, way or the other, 100 days, six months time, the Americans will get a walk away. It's played out. There is nothing more that can be done. The Europeans cannot make up the slack. The Americans would struggle to do so. Could we think of them 500 attackers' missiles. 500 attackers'

missiles. They've depleted their inventory by about a third, as I understand it. There's nothing more, the the Americans can do. There's nothing more the Europeans can do. It's going to play out on the battlefields and the Russians are going to win. That's the reality of the war. All right. Well, Kaya Kallas disagrees with you. She said that Europe is ready to take the lead of America, walks away. Well, of course, Kaya Kallas is a person of enormous knowledge and erudition. She understands these things far better than I do. Who am I, you know, a humble commentator? to grasp the details of things in the way that the great mind of Kaya Kala's contemplating affairs of state always manages to do. So, you know, maybe, maybe she's right.

Well, Mike Watts can give an interview and say if Europe wants to step up and take over, then. Absolutely. Well, that's the point. Well, that's the point, isn't it? Exactly. I mean, Kaya Kala's great brain that she is, may not realizing it, but she's actually helping Trump by saying things like that. Exactly.

Because if the Europeans are able to step in and take over, well, why should the Americans still be there? Great. Yeah. Great. You can take over? Great. Yeah.

Go ahead. All right. We will end the video there. At the durand. Dotlocals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitchie, Telegram, Rockfin, and X and go to the Durant shop pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update today. The link to the shop is in the description box down below.

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