The Duran Podcast - Election Interference in Georgia & Moldova - Ian Proud, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Election Interference in Georgia & Moldova - Ian Proud, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi, everyone. I'm Glenn Dyson, and I'm joined today by Alexander Mercuris and Ian Proud, who has been a member of the British Diplomatic Service from 99 to 2023. He's also served at the British Embassy in Moscow between 2014 and 19. And I would add also a prolific analyst and a writer who appear almost everywhere this days, it seems. So it's really great to have the both of you back. Thanks so much, Glad. And nice to join you both again. Well, our topic today, though, is that of Georgia and Moldova and their elections, because I think there's a lot of parallels to be drawn to Ukraine.

Indeed, I published a book back in 2014 where I addressed the failure of constructing a common European security system after the Cold War and by instead expanding exclusive blocks, be it both NATO and the EU. So my conclusion was simply then that we were reviving this Cold War logic. But instead of fighting for influence in the third world, we would fight more of where to draw the new dividing lines in Europe. And the problematic issue of, of course, being European integration now entails decoupling from Russia, which is the largest state in Europe, and pursuing a very pro-NATO EU policy and the anti-Russian one. So this continuation of block politics would then also be continued under often the guise of liberal democracy, but it wouldn't always coincide. And I think this is especially true in the common neighborhood, be it Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and I guess you can even put Belarus into the same category. That is, once you're entering the immediate border of Russia, it becomes an issue of international security. But in addition, one has to also be honest that the society,

are deeply divided. And if you ask them to choose between eastern west, it would be very easy to destabilize these societies. And indeed, integrating into either the West or towards Russia would most likely be a very undemocratic process, possibly sparking civil war or even a proxy war. And yeah, this is indeed what the CIA director Burns concluded in 2008 would happen by pulling Ukraine into the NATO orbit.

And I concluded that this could also have, happen in Georgia and Moldova. So I guess here we are today. The experiment to some extent have been run because we now have these elections in Georgia and Moldova, different outcomes, but still, the reactions by us in the West has been quite remarkable. So I thought we could start, of course, comparing them,

but perhaps we could start with Georgia, given that the violence is there. and, well, I guess we've got to keep with you with you. Could you give us an overview? Because it's something you cover extensive as a diplomat. Briefly stepping back to Belvoir for a moment in the context of your very helpful book from 2014. Actually, Belovus was making some quite small,

but nevertheless positive steps towards opening up this economic relationships with Europe at the time that I was based in Moscow. That is very small, snails pace, but nevertheless, they're quite positive, whilst also maintaining sort of good relations with Russia, with whom it has this kind of Commonwealth arrangement in terms of its kind of monetary policy and that sort of thing. But actually the big blockage, as actually happened in Ukraine, was the EU kind of the customs union itself, which, you know, if you choose to sort of buy into that and eventually sort of become members, that makes it much

harder for you then to have open economic relationships with other kind of Eurasian countries, obviously in this context, in the former Soviet Union. And that's the very same issue, which actually caused the splintering, you know, within Ukraine that we see with tragic consequences today, you know, on the battlefield, this idea that if, you know, by one day, maybe in 20 years' time, if you're to believe, kind of Varek, Sikorsky and Emmanuel Macron, you know, might join, but have to make a cardinal choice and cut off economic relations with all the countries to its east, which is a completely sort of crazy position to put any small and vulnerable and developing country in. Now, fast forward that to go to Georgia, of course, recently, but also actually the same,

exactly the same thing, you know, applies in Moldova. You know, Georgia signed its deep and comprehensive free trade agreement in 2014. That was implemented in 2016, you know, with the EU. it has lost out in its trading relations with the EU as the bigger Western European countries, likes of Germany, France and so on have profited, and their trading surpluses with Georgia have grown as the EU writ large has imposed all sorts of investigative trade protection measures, you know, on Georgian imports. So Georgian imports to Europe have practically not changed at all. over the past decade, whereas European exports have grown. And so this idea that actually, you know, the elections,

a general election was really about some sort of European choice. It's a false choice. You know, what actually, what is the European Union actually offering Georgia beyond widespread and disruptive change to its culture, its kind of political system? And actually, you know, its political settlement, you know, in the context of election where most people have chosen one party, which happens to be a party that kind of European leaders don't prefer.

You know, and that it's just remarkable that European leaders should be and actually supported by the Americans, of course, as happened obviously in Ukraine and to a lesser extent in Moldova, sort of egging them on, you know, egging as a protest movement so on. It's quite an astounding situation that that small but emerging country finds itself in. I'm glad you bring this points up because, again, I remember what happened when back in 2013 Yanukovych suspended ratification of the association agreement with the EU, which is very controversial in Ukraine, and I spent a huge amount of time running through it, and I could see why it might be

controversial, because, of course, it required Ukraine to convert completely to, well, to complete many of its standards to conform with European standards and to adopt much of the EU's acquies, you know, its laws into basically Ukrainian laws. So it was clearly, it would be very difficult for Ukraine to do and very economically problematic for Ukraine to do. So he asked to, he wants to, he suspended ratification. He said we've got trading links with the Russians. We need to preserve. The Russians are concerned about this. And you may not like the Russians, but they did have a very strong economic and trade footprint in Ukraine, which was very important for much of the Ukrainian economy. Anyway, he did that. He said, I want discussions with the Russians. And I go to suspend this until, you know,

we can find a way through to iron these problems out. The reaction, as I remember in Brussels and in the European capitals was completely hysterical. I mean, they were absolutely furious. They said that they would not, as I remember, they would not change a single punctuation mark in the EU Association Agreement. And of course, that eventually led to the crisis. All sorts of European dignitaries came and supported the protesters on Maidan Square. It was all represented as being part of Ukraine's European choice. It called itself the protest movement in Kiev called itself Euro-Maidan. And, well, we've come to the position that we are in today.

And it seems exactly the same all over again in Georgia. And in Moldova, absolutely nothing has been learned from the previous episode. It's always, you know, you must do it the way we want to do it. This is the way that you join civilization. This is the way that you become, you know, modern, a proper European country, which axiomatically is what you must want to do. And if it's not, it's not, if you don't do it, It's because you don't have agency here.

It's because of some malevolent Russian influence that is somehow preventing you, which wasn't true in Ukraine. It's certainly not true in Georgia. As I understand it, Georgia is still doesn't have diplomatic relations with Russia, which must at some level make it difficult for the Russians and the Georgian authorities to coordinate with each other. And I've seen no evidence of that.

But there never seems to be any willingness to look at this, to say to yourself, well, look, is this that we are pressing on these people, on these small countries, these vulnerable and fragile countries, something which really is consistent with their own interests? And, you know, when they say, well, you know, slow down, because that's what the Georgians are saying at the moment. Slow down. We want to think about this. We've done, we did this agreement with you. Until a few short time ago, they were wanting to adopt more of our standards and all of those things.

But, you know, we do have our concerns. We do have our needs. Well, this isn't something that's acceptable if we are going to pass an NGO law. And of course, there are, anybody who's been to Georgia knows about NGOs. my brother goes there regularly, by the way. And the role that they have...

I mean, it's just like a whole industry, isn't it? It is, exactly. Western-continent NGOs. And of course, because, of course, you know, Russia introduced its foreign agent's laws. People have just like, you know, extrapolated from that and said, well, Georgia is trying to do exactly the same thing as Russia.

Ergo, you know, Georgia is becoming a puppet state of Russia, which is completely nonsense. I mean, the NGO community is like, you know, taken over, overdriving all sorts of agendas. I'm not necessarily saying they're bad agendas are like diversity and inclusion and all those good things but I live in England and that's important to me

and we're trying to force these things on the unsuspecting Georgia public is not necessarily helpful I think the European dream is broken up into two bits right you know there's the economic bit and then there's a political bit right now you know if you take Ukraine Ukraine wants the economic bits

you know but Europe will never offer that because actually fully accommodating Ukraine within the European Union on the same status as existing members would bankrupt the EU budget, would take away billions of subsidies from French farmers, from Polish farmers, cohesion funds, from the Czechs, slowbacks, and many others. It would completely redraw the EU budgetary map such that it would drive the types of social cohesion we're already seeing in France, in Germany and in other places in the context of this ridiculous war, sort of, you know, in Ukraine. So the EU, even though they'll never say it, they will never elect Ukraine in on the same economic sort of beneficial terms as existing member states.

On the political side, you know, Ukraine can't deliver the political reforms necessary. It remains too corrupted and unreformed from its kind of post-Soviet sort of transition, which, has made very, very little progress over the space of 33 years. And this European dream is only kind of stalling efforts to do so. There's no evidence that Zelensky is any less corrupt than any of the corrupt leaders that frankly came before him. The whole war effort is just a massive gravy train of embezzlement and thievery. Now, you take that into Georgia, actually politically,

Georgia has actually made some quite positive steps. Whether you like the Georgia Dream Party or not, I'm not George and I don't get to vote. But actually they have made some positive kind of performs, you know, in changes there. It's now a sort of high on the World Bankies of doing business index. You know, it's far outperformed other South Caucasian, Central Asian and Eastern European states

in terms of the reforms it has been making. And actually, despite the kind of, you know, the protestations of the senior French diplomat who's currently either the president wants to stay on after her term was expired, you know, in Georgia, most observers, you know, looked at the elections that took place and said, well, on balance, they were, you know, by the standards of Eastern European elections, barely fair, you know, with some minor violations kind of here or there. So, I mean, Georgia is not necessarily a model political, state. But nevertheless, it has been reforming and it has been improving and its economic track

record, you know, has been quite good. This, to me, can, you know, again, reminds me of the need, rather than fixating on some idea of choosing to join some non-existent, frankly, European economic space, because, you know, the Europeans have never let anybody, you know, on the terms of existing members have, but actually to create a much bigger Eurasian political and economic space, where the EU economically, but also to elect with small people, politically, co-exists with wider Eurasia, and actually generates beneficial, mutually beneficial trade and political relationships that way around, rather than the, you know, the, you know, choose us rather than Russia approach, which has had absolutely disastrous consequences over the past decade.

We often speak about narratives on this channel. And I think this is the problem because once you revive this Cold War logic of you have to be either at this side or that side of the dividing lines, the narratives have to be dumbed down as well. And again, this is something with similarities to Ukraine. Because I remember back in 2013-14, you know, he said, oh, Yanukovych is, you know, pro-Russian. These are pro-European. You have people like Cal Bilt coming out saying, this is a civilizational choice. So very similar as what you see now. But Yanukovych, the reason he was reaching out to the EU is they wanted to be a bridge.

They wanted to integrate with both sides. I mean, even Belarus, which is the closest one to Russia, now, they still want to diversify. They don't want excessive dependence only in Russia. So they want some with the Europeans, some with Russia, some with China, and some with Africa. But again, we kind of already want the same thing, but they don't want to end up choosing. And I think this is what is so strange for me. Because we see the same thing play out in Georgia. That is, everything is this binary choice.

You want freedom or a tyranny. And if you accept, if you buy into this premise, then if you see people protesting and news anchors say, well, the government, our puppets of Putin, then, okay, well, now anything is legitimate. Now you can demand new elections. You can sanction them. You can incite riots. We even saw NATO Secretary General come out and said that, you know,

it was unacceptable for Georgia to move away from its path towards the EU and NATO, because this is democracy, and you can't move away from this. This only makes sense if you buy into this idea that anyone who's marching is for democracy and anyone who might set up their own conditions. And can I just say that nobody ever elected the head of NATO? He's as democratically unaccountable as Ursula von der Leyen, frankly, and the other five presidents of Europe. This is not a Democrat telling, you know, Georgians what to do.

And what's it got to do with NATO anyway? Isn't this about sort of the European dreams such as it is? It's quite remarkable. I mean, you know, NATO should just stay out of these conversations all together because that just always seems to make things worse. And always kind of encourages, not that Russia necessarily wants to get involved. It has far more things to deal with right now, but always encourages a kind of Russian response.

But it's just terrifying how simple it is to win over the public. All you have to do is show on the screen some people marching, refer to government as being put in puppets, and everyone suddenly seems to be on board on toppling, democratically elected government and it's just very obvious that this is not about values this is about Cold War politics you want to you know them to allow that's because we don't have to be an open media in the UK you know watching the BBC is a bit like watching a russia semodonia possibly even more bias than that so you know the availability of independent news and analysis is in the

UK actually unlike in the US where it's much more so open I find extremely limited. And it's a grisly to say that. And that's why I'm glad that you both have discussions such as this. I just wanted to bring up this point that you made about Eurasian, about Eurasian economic trading systems and that the EU could actually fit into that quite well. And that would make things much less tense in places like Georgia and Moldova. Indeed, once upon the time Ukraine,

I think we're past that point in Ukraine now, sadly. I can very clearly remember. The only, I've only seen Putin in the flesh on two occasions. Both of them at Spief in St. Petersburg, you know, with a vast hall, big plenary session. And I think it was in 2016. He did this long speech there, went on for about an hour talking about very much the sort of things that you've just talked about, developing, building up Eurasia. He talked about a greater Eurasia project that, you know,

Russia was building all these economic linkages with China at that time, which of course, not anywhere near as developed as they are now, but he was talking about them then. And he was talking about how the Europeans would be very welcome, it would be excellent if they could participate. Now, the guest, the big foreign guest at that meeting, was Mateo Renzi, who was the... I was there.

I was in the same thing for you as we could have met for coffee. Well, you will then remember that Putin was saying all of those things. And then Matteo Renzi said absolutely nothing. It was as if Putin had been talking into the wind. I mean, he never mentioned or discussed any of these things that Putin had been talking about. And, you know, I did think that you've come to Russia. Are you even listening to what the Russians are saying? If you don't agree, you know, say you don't agree.

You know, you think that the European Union is doing very well by itself. And we don't really need to do all of this. But it was as if Putin was talking into the wind. It was very strange. It was as if Renzi simply wasn't taking any of what Putin was saying at all seriously. I remember him waffling off. great and poetic length about what a fabulous city

St. Petersburg was and trying to avoid talk about Ukraine at all costs and not much else. Yeah, exactly. I mean, in fact, if you remember he even said at the beginning that he wasn't going to speak from his prepared speech he was going to exemplarise

because he was overwhelmed by emotion at being in this wonderful city and all of that. And wonderful it is. And wonderful it is. But this is so characteristic of Western or these European leaders, I think, is that they don't seem to take seriously or listen at all to what the other side is saying. And this must be very, very frustrating for the Russians. I think it must have been very frustrating for the Russians in that hall where they were.

And it continues sense because we see this in Georgia. We see this play out in Moldova. Huge effort to try and get this referendum, you know, across the line, a big vote to join the EU. Massive support for the president of Moldova, all kinds of claims of Russian influence, buying votes, all of that sort of thing in Moldova, of which there was, I mean, no evidence has ever appeared,

at least not that I'm aware of. not since the election, not in fact, now that she's re-elected, the whole narrative seems to have been quiet. And yet the votes that swayed her election were votes from outside of Moldova, the kind of Western livings of diaspora, in the context of there only being two voting booths allowed in the whole of Russia for Moldovans, you know, to vote. So there we go, election meddling, I think it's a Brussels possibly election meddling.

So the question I go to ask is, I mean, is this straightforward with cynicism? I mean, is this a very cynical, geopolitical project now? Or is there still some kind of idealistic momentum behind this? I mean, when they do these things, I mean, are they basically intentionally setting up an anti-Russian bloc? Or do they really believe that what they're doing is somehow in the interests of the people that they're inflicting all these things on? I think the narrative has been so strong for so long that people have just brought into it unquestioningly.

You know, European leaders, people like Giva Hofstadt, who was on the stage in the Maidan at the back end of 2013, completely barking mad. And, you know, people have just brought into this. I don't even think it's ideology. People have become over-convinced about the kind of virtues of the European project. And I'm pro-European. Don't give you wrong. I think it has achieved tremendous things, frankly, since the end of the devastating Second World War.

But we're starting to see in the context of the war in Ukraine also has some quite deep fissures and actually risks, if it continues on this ever-centralising, ever-politicizing route that Erso-Lubon-Dalian has taken it on, imploding one day, you know, because actually, you know, existing member states, not even thinking about the Ukrainians and the Georgians and the Moldovans, existing member states worry about the creeping, ever-creeping loss of their own sovereignty and say, well, actually, we'd far soon and govern ourselves, thank you very much, and we'll leave. And I think that's a real risk in France more than in any other country, even, you know, compared to, for example, the Hungary.

So, I mean, I think, you know, the Europeans need to get back to the basics of what made them a success in the first place. And that was kind of a breaking down barriers through commerce so that people could, interact more freely and to quit this drive to kind of over centralize and try to turn peripheral countries into kind of small and mini-me virtuous versions of themselves. But it's all before Alexander mentioned that we don't listen to the other side, the Russians, but again, the same applies to the Georgians because they actually do want to join. They actually want to be close to the EU.

They want all of this, much like. the Ukrainians said in 2013, but much like them, they're just saying, listen, we live on the border of Russia. We can't be anti-Russian. We can't be on the front line against Russia. We would like to be pro-both. And we're learning that this is, well, they're learning that this is not an option. But I wanted to ask about Moldova, because this is, you know, when we say we stand with the people of Georgia, I mean, you know, toppling their government, but when we stand with the people of Moldova, it has a different meaning because there, of course, yeah, we got not, well, not our guy, but our woman in, or, you know, we're on the side of the government. But if you

criticize the democratic credential of the election in Georgia, I mean, it's not comparable to what happened really in Moldova. As you mentioned, within Moldova, the majority did not vote for Sandu. Indeed, she relied on the vote from abroad. And from abroad, we mean the West. You pointed out that there's only two polling stations in Rund, Russia for Moldovans. And this is where most Moldovans live abroad. That's Russia. That's number one destination. And they're overwhelmingly very favorable of Russia. Meanwhile, in Italy, I think there's 60. Why? Why would it be 30 times as many? And of course, Transnistria, you know, they were supposed to be able to vote. But they had to travel to even though Moldova insists that Transnistria is a part of the state of Moldova as a country. people who lived in that part of Moldova, as they see it, had to travel across the border into the, you know,

the unoccupied or unfrozen, if you like, part of Moldova. I mean, it's completely ridiculous, you know, and blatant and cynical, I think, to pick up on, on Alexander's words from, you know, from a moment ago. Just have an election, but make it free and fair. Let people vote where they want overseas polling stations should be made available.

apparently 150,000, up to 150,000 Moldovan people live in Russia more than in any other country, I believe, but, you know, people feel free to correct me if that's incorrect. But, I mean, 150,000 people and two poorly booze, you don't need to be a mathematics genius to realize that that will present logistical challenges. And you saw, even if they were sponsored by the Russian state, you saw these kind of rather theatrical kind of braids of people with Moldovan flags in Moscow, you know, protesting about these limitations. but to me it just seemed like an own goal, you know, a ridiculous own goal.

And there's no responsibility to your accountability in Moldova itself, but also in Europe, which is kind of really pulling the strings on all this about sort of how, you know, warping sort of this type of behaviour is. You know, you talk about democratic freedoms, criticize other countries of democratic backsliding, well, then ensure that sort of democratic elections

take place as free and as very a way as possible. Well, indeed, because one of the effects of this is it's going to weaken the legitimacy of the government of Moldova. I mean, people in Moldova know perfectly well what happened. I mean, I think this is another thing where people get this very wrong is that I think that they consistently underestimate the understanding of events that people in these countries have. You look at, you see people in Moldova,

you may think that they look poor, which they are, that, you know, they live in conditions which we don't have in the West. But that doesn't mean that they don't understand these things. And they know perfectly well that Sondu is not supported by most of the people who live in Moldova. And yes, it's entirely proper that a diaspora should be entitled to vote in elections. It happens in many countries. It happens in Greece. I am Greek. I actually don't vote in Greek. elections as it happens. But that's my choice. I absolutely accept the right of people who don't live in Moldova, but who are Moldovans to participate in Moldovan elections. But having a situation where some are entitled to, but others are not simply because of geography and the place

where they happen to live, is, again, deeply manipulative. And people in Moldova will understand that. So as a result of what has happened, yes, Sunday was still president, but there is a political cost in that her legitimacy has been weakened. And given what is happening across the border in Ukraine, what we see there, that really ought to be something that ought to be of greater concern than it appears to be. Yeah, exactly. And what's really interesting, I think, for me, about the Moldova election, is actually the Russian-speaking sort of community, you know, within Moldova,

including within Transnistria itself, is now in quite a significant minority, you know, within Moldova. But nevertheless, you know, the proportion of people living in Moldova who wanted to have balanced relations, both, you know, with the U.S., of course, but also with Russia, was actually significant. So it's not just the kind of Russian-speaking sort of communities within Moldova that actually want a balanced relationship, where Moldova can prosper by engaging with whomsoever it wishes. But it's kind of Moldovan speaking, Romanian speaking, sort of, you know, people, too. And I found that actually really fascinating in terms of looking at the electoral data. But it's like what you said about gaining back to basics, too, because, again, for the 90s and early 2000s,

was like the golden era of the EU, because all these countries, they really wanted to join the EU. And in order to do so, the EU could put conditions in terms of how. having some democratic reforms, and it could be a force for good as it wanted to be. But now, this attempt for regime change toppling a democratic elected government in Georgia, which might even result in war like it happened in Ukraine or now in this very, let's say, it's fraudulent election in Moldova. But not only fraudulent, but it's also deeply problematic because when you have pockets of the population, which is very, very different from others, it can be very destabilizing.

For example, in this region of Gagaosia, I think it was 95% of voters voted against the EU. I mean, how – and they sit there. In our media, of course, they can just explain that this is democracy versus tyranny, democracy one. But the people living there, they know what's happening. And you're going to get a region where 95% don't want this, and you've got through fraud, pull them in to the EU. And the Gagauz people are actually, Russian-speaking, but they're ethnically distinct. They don't see themselves as Russian people.

They just happen to be kind of Russian speaking. That's their lingua, kind of, Franco. So, you know, people in Brussels can't even label them as kind of being Russians. They just happen to speak, you know, Russian. But as you say, the majority of them, the vast majority of them say, well, actually, you know, having a balance approach, you know, must be better for our country. You know, of course, Kegovia was right in the heart of the kind of the games

in the 19th century, of course, you know, people like Tolstall who could have, you know, and others, you know, vote about, you know, trying to the first Crimean War, let's put it that way. So over the centuries, you know, that whole region has seen the ebb and flow of conquests and so on, understand me as a country with only about four million inhabitants. You know, they want to just live in peace and prosperity

with all of their neighbours. Who wouldn't want that? Can I pivot to the Ukrainian conflict about which you have written extremely thoroughly and very well? Because I am moderately, slightly hopeful that we are now finally exiting this long, dark period when there was a conflict, and we weren't talking to the Russians at all. Biden wouldn't talk to Putin. our prime ministers wouldn't talk to Putin, the Germans wouldn't talk to Putin, the French wouldn't talk to Putin, no diplomatic contacts to speak of. Now we have the United States, they've appointed, the new administration is going to appoint an envoy, General Kellogg, many views about him, but he's going to at least presumably go to Moscow at some point, speak to the Russians. At least that, it seems to me, is movement.

But again, I wonder, and this is what my concern is, are people, even as talk about negotiations is beginning, are they listening at all to what the Russians are saying? Because again, I feel a little bit like it was with Renzi back in 2016. The Russians have said all sorts of things. Putin spoke at the foreign ministry back in June. He set out various conditions there. You might agree with them. You might think that you can find ways around them. You might want to think all sorts of things.

But the point is, you should at least listen to what he is saying. And instead, I don't get the impression we are. We seem to be doing what a friend of mine said. We're spending all our time negotiating and debating peace plans with each other. In isolation. In isolation. in a vacuum. Forgetting, in a vacuum, forgetting that this isn't, you know, there is another side. The latest, maybe there could be German peacekeepers that came out.

Was it yesterday or the lady before on the back of Boris Johnson's deep and helpful suggestion of British peacekeepers, not recognizing the fact that any NATO troops on the Ukrainian soil would obviously be a Russian red line. So, yeah, I mean, we come up with all these amazing ideas, all these kind of, you know, desperately intelligent people who've got us into this mess in the first place. Actually, we just need to kind of have a negotiation with both parties to the conflict, which is Ukraine. You know, obviously Zelensky has made illegal any negotiation with Russia and Russia. You know, there's nothing complicated about this.

You know, peace talks take place between the, you know, the parties to the conflict. and you know we can't ignore Russia forever and of course the longer I mean it's almost three years now the worse the situation gets for Ukraine the more indebted it becomes you know the more people it loses

creepingly kind of you know kilometer by kilometer small additional bits of Dignetsk fall to the ongoing sort of Russian advanced gradually kind of Western support for supplies dries up actual freebies have been replaced with loans,

which are just making over time Ukraine more indebted than it already is. Zelensky's unconstitutional mandate continues, of course for him, if war ends, then he has to face elections and probably be replaced by his former head of the military who now resides, probably quite close to you, Alexander, somewhere in London. So, you know, none of the numbers, us look good for Ukraine the longer that we wait. And so I think the Kellogg thing, I mean, he voted a very good piece, slightly kind of

a slightly obsequious, you know, with the Trump audience in mind piece. But nevertheless, I thought were quite a good piece in April about how the Biden administration is so catastrophically sort of got, you know, the situation badly wrong, you know, in Ukraine. And therefore, essentially kind of helped to precipitate. this disastrous war. I get the impression that, you know, he's a pragmatist and he won't sort of side with the kind of head in the sand merchants

who think that it will if we, you know, if we just keep, you know, our bottoms facing towards Putin, everything will be okay, Wonder. You know, I think he is a pragmatist. Everything that Trump said indicates that he is to, obviously, bounce has been, I think, quite coherent in terms of what he has said, on this conflict, I hope that common sense will start to prevail.

You know, the talks will be tough. I mean, Russia's hand is stronger now, frankly, than it was in March 22. But it's only going to get worse the longer we delay this. And so, you know, I wish him well and fair speed to Moscow as soon as you can, quite frankly, because we really need these negotiations to start. You mentioned, yeah, that they don't discuss Russia's concerns. And I saw it was a piece in, well, maybe it was today or yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. And also some American official pointed out that they needed a sustainable peace that was acceptable to United States and Ukraine.

And I thought the same, where does Russia fit in? Like, where is its security interest? But this is a wider problem because during the Cold War, of course, you can say, well, you know, what are the Soviets worried about? What is the West worried about? And then you can start to talk about how to mitigate each other's security concerns. But since over the past decades now, I can't remember a single time. I've opened a newspaper or watched the TV where we discuss, well, what are the Russian security concerns? Indeed, discussing Russian security concerns seems to be some admission that perhaps, you know, NATO is not simply a force for good and a defensive alliance.

It might actually threaten Russia. And this has become almost something for heretic, some new, you, yeah, some buying, again, we. can censor it by referring to it as Russian talking points or, you know, whatever we say to cancel or censor people. But this is a... Repeating historical grievances, the same old phrases that come out of the kind of white all script, you know, every time they ignore. But I mean, the thing is, you know, Russian security concerns are quite simple and have been clearly articulated at least since 2008, and actually arguably since 2006. So at least for 18 years now.

you know, about NATO expansion. There's nothing more complicated or, you know, difficult to understand than that. And, you know, that has always been the issue, the causes spell eye of where we are, you know, today. And, you know, we just have to sort of finally have a reckoning with this mother of all elephants in the room, you know, that actually kind of Russia, under no circumstances will accept a situation. which Ukraine joins NATO. And for Zelensky now to kind of start talking about, well, okay, he'll accept some partition, but only if the rest of Ukraine, you know, is included

within NATO, it's, I mean, illegally, as he himself, in fairness, pointed out during his interview, you know, it's just clearly deluded, you know, because that is never going to wash. you know we just have to have a reckoning with this in circumstances where Ukraine can also feel satisfied that it does have some sort of security guarantees that there are kind of arrangements in place to prevent the possibility if it has neutrality you know and some form of demilitarization that it wouldn't be subject to further attack and if it would there would be an appropriate response you know from the wider world i mean it's it's really as simple as that Why do we find it so difficult to listen to what others say, the Russians say, the Georgians, the Moldovans, all of these people? I mean, or I accept in Georgian Moldova, we will also find people who are close to our way of thinking.

They're the people who are protesting. They're the people who are voting for Sando. One shouldn't ignore them or pretend that they're not there. they clearly are there. But the fact is that there are an awful lot of people who think differently. And they have a point of view and they're entitled to express it and they have agency as well. The Russians obviously have agency. They have very, very powerful agency. Why do we continue to think that their opinions are things which we can disregard? And I have to say, I'm sure you're aware of this, this extraordinary common.

by Mark Huta, that isn't the right moment for Ukraine to negotiate. We've got to give Ukraine more weapons and more support so that it wins its way back to some kind of position of advantage in the negotiations, which is, of course, are no different from what we've been doing for the last three years with the result we've all seen. But again, what that almost says is we don't really want to talk to the other side.

We don't want to address their concerns, their views, their worries, their fears. We want, essentially, it has to be our way or the highway. I mean, you know, we are the people, the only outcome, the only negotiation, the only acceptable outcome to a negotiation is one where we dictate the terms. But our way has failed.

Oh, yeah. Catastrophically failed. It failed in 2014. It failed, you know, in 2021 after Biden came to power and restated, re-stated Jake Sullivan, Victoria Newland, yeah, Anthony Blinken, who was a deputy national security advisor, you know, under the Obama administration, when the kind of, my dance of revolution was all kind of, you know,

bubbling up, bringing in all these hawks, going back to the same old script that they've been using back in 2014, sort of, you know, saying, well, let's not have any truck, you know, with Putin's concerns about sort of NATO enlargement and just carry on regardless, after a period of relative stability, actually. I'm not necessarily praising the previous Trump administration,

but a period of relative stability on that, so line of contact in the Donbass, at least, you know, and some sort of low level. But so, you know, Putin and Trump had met and that sort of thing, you know, engagement sort of taking place, a sudden ramping up, you know, to the point where, you know, Ukraine felt backed up enough to sort of essentially declare the Minsk Agreement,

the second Minsk Agreement, to be dead in the water. And with the results that we see today, you know, it's an absolutely kind of failed policy, and it has been for a decade. Why don't we listen to kind of Russian concerns? I think the truth is it's quite a ritual thing. We hate the fact. that actually we have failed.

It hurts at quite a deep level that politicians, you know, like Philip Hammond, like Liz Truss, like Boris Johnson, obviously kind of Biden, the functionaries like Sullivan and Newland dreadful, dreadful human beings, frankly, in my view, that's just a personal opinion, not a professional one, you know, have failed. And it hurts them.

And I think that's why we don't. want to listen because all this talk about well, we just, you know, give Ukraine a few more weapons to get them into a better position. You know, they're losing ground every day on the battlefield. You know, how many more weapons do we need to give them before we realize that actually

they're losing? And, you know, that's not going to change until the war comes to an end. So it's that kind of, it's a deep sense of hurt and bitterness that somehow Putin's got one over on us because we couldn't organize ourselves. organize ourselves well enough and marshal of us also sufficiently to win the day through force, which is what we wanted all along. There we go. Can I just suggest something further, though,

which is that again you, and I want to just mention in this program your book, A Misfit in Moscow, and it's an absolutely wonderful book which describes the work of the embassy, the British embassy in Moscow. And this very fascinating thing that I found reading it, the thing that really stays with me, which is that you were one of the very few diplomats who actually went out of the embassy on a systematic basis and met with Russians, Russian officials. You have obviously not always the easiest people to speak to and get on with, but I mean, you did. And eventually you found that there was a way you could develop a dialogue with them, you can understand them, They would put their bombast to one side and you'd find a way.

And ours. And ours, exactly. Absolutely. And of course, what happens is that so many of the others in the embassy did not. And they were all spending their time doing their research, presumably copying each other and looking at the newspapers. Or video course to London. Well, video course, Rwanda doing their analysis, as they called. that this practice of talking to ourselves

rather than to the other side has actually very deep roots indeed. And obviously you're talking about the British foreign office and it's clear that other foreign ministries in Europe were better organised in some respects than ours was. I mean, one doesn't want to say too much there. But I wonder whether this isn't actually a more pervasive problem than one that goes just,

one that goes beyond us. We find it easier to talk to ourselves than to do the difficult thing of leaving the embassy or the trade mission or whatever. Yeah, that's completely right. You know, we, certainly in Moscow, I don't necessarily include myself in the royal we,

but different people are tended to kind of hang out with the Americans, you know, the Germans of French, the G8 or G7 kind of embassies and that sort of thing and that's it. Yeah, the European Commission Office. I remember once of the social gathering, suddenly mentioned a really good first secretary of the Filipino embassy, the Filipino embassy.

And people looked at this person, why the heck you were recommending that person? This is not the sort of person we'd normally talk to. We normally talk to our kind of Western Club. the Americans, you know, the Europeans, and that's it. You know, so it's odd, but I completely agree. And actually, I also kind of liken it slightly to Toy Story. I mean, you know, the cartoon movie kind of Toy Story, you know,

there's that we're all desperate to kind of get close to the mothership of the U.S. Embassy and, you know, here, chapter and verse from them. You know, there's that group of cartoon characters in Toy Story, and they're in this machine with a kind of yellow, big yellow claw, you know, from above. And they're all hoping that they're, which I liken to the US, they're all hoping that they'll get picked and spoken to by the Americans. And I kind of liken it to that. You were all desperate to get over here, you're from the Americans. And you saw that certainly in the policymaking process.

So any decision that we took on Ukraine policy, you know, there had to be a film. through Victoria Newlands office. We almost couldn't get up and breathe without having cross-checked through either the National Security Council in D.C. or through Victoria Newland's office in the State Department. And it's also this kind of complete inability to have an independent view in an independent UK position that is separate from where the Americans are. Yeah, I find it often, well, that's almost a remnant of the unipolar era because it's not just about economics, it's also about, again, the expectation that the rest of the world will

abide by your narrative. I remember back in 2013 when we had this struggle over Ukraine, and at that time, the Russians were pointing out, you know, why you have revived this zero-sum logic of us versus them, you know, and effectively the response by the EU then was, well, you know, it's not that the institutions are zero-sum, that Ukraine has to choose between us or them, by definition, zero-sum. Because Russia had a zero-sum mentality. It just had to overcome this and accept that this is going to be great for everyone. And I think this is why it's becoming,

accepting the arguments of the opponent is seen almost as a defeat, a surrender, that somehow you have to give up this idea of your altruism, that you will be a benign hegemon, that the opponent has this complete. security interests. But again, for the EU especially, we envisions that it will rise above power politics altogether to start to accept that the security is about harmonizing competing security interests and we have a security dilemma. All of this, I think they're very reluctant to accept it simply because it goes against the whole ideology of what they're built

around. But I'm interested in this idea. But it also still goes back to the economics. Because as we see today with what's happening in the German economy, it makes no sense at all to have a complete economic rupturing between Europe and Russia. You know, in Ricardo's, you know, comparative advantage, why wouldn't we want to have, you know, really close kind of trading links with this vast country, with this enormous kind of mineral resources that can power our factories in Germany, you know, Volkswagen factories that all been progressively kind of shut, down, you know, why are we making sort of economic choices through a political lens?

Why does it make sense for Europe to buy liquefied natural gas from the US that, you know, 30, 40% price high cup compared to kind of piped Russian gas, you know, you know, from Russia, sitting aside the fact that the Americans, the Ukrainians blew up north stream. But nevertheless, you know, pipelines are still there. It makes no economic sense, you know, at all to, to, to. do this. And the Americans have absolutely kind of driven this rupturing supported by, you know, the UK over the past decade. And we're seeing catastrophic sort of political consequences in Germany, particularly now, given what's happening, you know, with their economy, to certainly send,

you know, in France too, but I thought that's a slightly different dynamic to that, to that situation. You know, that that is creating the conditions for our security, our collective security, to get worse. This feeling that our collective. prosperity and well-being is being eroded by the political choices that are being made, not necessarily even here, but actually in the United States or America. I think we just need to get back to the basics of what made you have successful in the first place and think Eurasian more. I know it can become a bit of a kind of a buzzword sort Eurasian multipolar,

but I do think actually that, you know, we just need to kind of refocus in on, you know, how we can have genuinely mutually beneficial relationships that improve relations with Russia, that allow Ukraine to emerge and rebuild itself stronger, you know, and more prosperous, that allow Georgia and countries like Mordova to trade freely without picking, you know, between whether they want to look west or whether they want to look east,

it's a completely kind of false choice. You know, we just need to get back to the basics here. Absolutely, because, of course, good relations, or at least not maybe good relations, but stable relations with the Russians, is the guarantee of the independence of all of these countries. If there is a mutual, if there is a peace which is stable in Europe, in which all the parties are equally invested, then of course that does provide scope and room for countries like Georgia,

Ukraine, the Baltic states, and all of the others. to find their way and to find their place and to do so left basically to themselves. Peace is, I would have said, the precondition for achieving all of these things. If you continue into a situation of conflict with the Russians, like the ones, with the one we have now, you are inevitably going to have tension in places like Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, wherever. because always in that kind of crisis, it's going to be a battle for influence

between two adversary powers engaged in a proxy war with each other, power blocks. So we should absolutely aim for peace. And it's astonishing that this is so difficult for so many people to understand and aiming for peace surely means. taking into account what the other side is saying. I mean, we may not like them. We may not agree with them.

We can, by the way, express our disagreement. And I think you will agree that the Russians actually, when we express disagreement, they're pretty straightforward people. They do listen. I mean, you know, it's no reason why we shouldn't express our disagreements with them. We can push back. We can do whatever we want. But at least we should listen and talk to them.

No, Russian interlocutors like a good argument. They like a, they like sort of a good negotiation. They like sort of searching for compromise. What they hate is being deliberately ignored and having their interests ignored. I mean, I think that is absolutely clear. And diplomacy is not about friendship. I mean, great if you can have it. You know, it's about coexistence.

You know, that's what we're talking about. You don't all have to be friends. you know, Biden doesn't like to have, doesn't have to like Putin, although Biden's going to be shuffling off to retirement home, thankfully, any time soon. It's not actually about friendship. It's about, it's about coexistence,

and it's about respect, you know, respecting that you have priorities, but respecting the person that you're talking to has priorities as well and trying to find a common grounds that you don't end up killing each other, you know, in its simplest form. Well, I'm probably finished for today, but Glenn. I just add, yeah, note because if we go back to the 90s, when we were faced with this two possible framework of Europe, we can either have an inclusive security architecture where we take into account each other's security based on the principle of indivisible security.

But we chose not to do this because we went with the EU and NATO as they were argued to be, inter-democratic security institutions. That is, we argued liberal democratic values were important, so yes, we exclude Russia from them, which can create some problems, but at least will elevate the role of democracy in human rights.

However, we have to take some assessment how is this going now, because of course, in Ukraine, we toppled a democratically elected government, which led to war. In Georgia, we're trying to topple a government. In Moldova,

We stand by what can only be called a fraudulent election. In Azerbaijan, the EU is very happy to congratulate the election victory of over 90%, which also looks a bit dubious. In Armenia, we saw... They need to gas. Exactly. But in Armenian, when they had this ethnic cleansing of all the people in Nagarano Karabakh who lived there for hundreds of years, you know, I look in the media, it's like,

aha, this is bad for Putin. I mean, if the main principle here was our liberal democratic values, and we now have to throw it out in the name of this geopolitical struggles. Maybe we should start to address why we have this geopolitical struggles, whether or not it was a good idea to try to create a Europe without the Russians. Because I think in all this geopolitical struggle, all our so-called values are being used as weapons and thrown away. So at least if you're in Georgia now, what are you going to think about all our liberal democratic values?

They're seen almost as a slogan, as a catchphrase, something to be weaponized. This is not great for anyone. As the Russian saying goes, Jengi ni pachnut, which means money doesn't smell. And that's a good thing about commerce, because you don't need to worry about whether you like the person who's buying the car or the loaf of bread or whatever from you. It's commerce and you have a reason to kind of coexist.

All this stuff about values, I have value. I can't walk down my street without meeting people. with different values to mind. The idea that there's some immutable set of pan-European values that unite us is a total fiction. We all live by a set of guiding principles. They should focus increasingly on the basics,

like commerce and that sort of thing, and ditch all of this kind of woke stuff about sort of income. I think inclusion is great, love inclusion, but I mean, actually, you just focus on the basics. Let's get back to the basics and ditch all this kind of ridiculous this, you know, variety stuff that tries to go to alter the total kind of cultural identity

and the political settlement of quite vulnerable countries in a massively disruptive way. I'm going to go back on what I said. I'm going to ask you one last question. Are you mildly optimistic about the situation, now, as I am, that we are moving away from this very, very unsustainable, ultra-hard-line position? of not talking to the Russians at all, that the new administration looks like it wants to do this, and there's a general sense of exhaustion, at least I think there is, across Europe about this whole policy, and that through sheer weight of events, we're now being pushed forward, however, unwillingly into restarting a dialogue from which perhaps something good will come.

I want to be optimistic. I just wondered what your feelings were. I am optimistic. It's hard to imagine anything more catastrophic than the Biden administration. So anything must be an improvement. But I do think Kellogg is a pragmatist. Vance seems to have his head in a good place. And Trump wants to end the war.

And I think that's what we should try to do. I'm less optimistic about the Middle East, I have to say. But when it comes to Russia and that's next, then yes, I am cautiously optimistic. Well, it's rarely we end on a positive note, so we'll just leave it there as some optimism is good. So again, Ian Proud, thank you so much, Alexander. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, both.

It's nice to talk to you again.