The Duran Podcast - EU/UK want UNLIMITED US money and weapons for Ukraine

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

EU/UK want UNLIMITED US money and weapons for Ukraine

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening with the Baltics, the Baltic nations, the Russian migs that allegedly crossed over Estonia. We have the drones in Poland. We had drones in Romania, allegedly, but I think that got the bucked fairly quickly. We had Ursula's plane in Bulgaria. that was jammed. Do you remember that? Absolutely. And they were blaming it on the Russians.

Anyway, I'm bringing all of this up because this has all happened over the past couple of weeks. And it's pretty obvious and clear what's going on. And Reuters pretty much admitted what's happening in an article that they put out the other day, which said that the Trump administration, the Pentagon back in August, approached the Baltic nations. and they told them, look, we're going to be cutting back, cutting back security and support. And it's pretty obvious that this is what has caused all of these incidences to happen in that general area and that general vicinity.

And it's all now being directed at Trump in a message to the Trump administration. you cannot leave us, you cannot walk away, you cannot pull out your security and your military assistance and your money because we have all of this Russian aggressive posturing. And who knows, maybe the Russians are going to actually make a move towards NATO territory. That's the message that they're getting out to Trump. That's why we're seeing all of these things happen in that area. and it does look like, if you go through that Reuters article, that it all comes from that meeting, those Pentagon officials approaching the Baltic nations and telling them that the U.S. is cutting back. So what is your thoughts on what's going on?

By the way, the media also asked Trump about whether he would protect Poland and Eastern Europe if there was an attack. And of course, Trump said, yes. What do you expect Trump to say no? I mean, of course he's going to say yes. But still, you know, it's a trap in a way. If you look at it, it can also be a trap because, you know, Trump says yes. And now I'm sure they're trying to cook up the next incident that's going to happen with Russian aggression towards NATO's Eastern. Yeah, Eastern Front.

Russia's Western Front. Anyway, your thoughts, Alexander. Well, the first thing to say is that Trump's reaction was actually very interesting because he said, yeah. But he said yes in a way that made it perfectly obvious to me that he doesn't believe any of this. So, I mean, this is just something to bear in mind. Now, I have completely come round to the view that you have expressed set out there. Each and every one of these incidents taken by itself, the drones, the drones that went into Poland, and the drone in Romania,

the business of the, you know, GPS being scrambled, allegedly, the Mick 31s flying across the Baltic Sea. If you take them individually, you could have argued to yourself, well, yeah, there is something going on here. But, you know, this might be just an error. It might be somebody making a mistake somewhere. When you get a whole succession of incidents like this, or at least reports of incidents like this,

then inevitably a pattern starts to develop. And can I just say, it's clear to me, it's absolutely obvious to me that this is not the Russians who are driving this, because if they really wanted to send warnings or to threaten people in Europe to test European defenses, they wouldn't do it in this way. I mean, they wouldn't send three of their best fighter jets to fly over a rock in the Baltic Sea or inert decoy reconnaissance drones to fly into Poland. Either these things have been staged.

And I think I'm absolutely coming round to the view that in the case of the Polish drone episode, I think it was staged. I mean, this is my opinion. You remember, I was skeptical before. Now I completely come round about it. Either they've been staged or some people are seizing on particular events like Mick 31s doing routine flights over the Baltic Sea and are now spinning them to make them look menacing and dangerous in a way that they clearly are not. And Reuters, as you absolutely rightly say, has now provided the explanation for this, that there was this meeting between the Europeans. and the Pentagon, in which the Pentagon said to the Europeans, look, we can't continue the same

level of force posture in the Baltic area in Eastern Europe that we had previously. We're also going to have to stop supplying you with Patriot Missile Interceptors, because our inventories are so short, and we've had other reports that the supplies of those have now stopped. the Europeans apparently very unhappy, very unhappy when they heard that news. And it's not difficult to understand why, because throughout July and August, we were having this drumbeat of reports in the European media about the Europeans moving towards an sea blockade of the Russians in the Baltic. and Putin's aid, Nikolai Patrushchev, who was previously Putin's national security advisor, but now he's an overall charge of Russia's both merchant marine and he supervises the construction of warships for the Russian Navy.

Anyway, he said that the NATO is now heading towards imposing a blockade of. of shipping, merchant shipping that is trading with Russia in the Baltic. Anyway, that particular project is now obviously in jeopardy, because instead of coming in, the Americans appear to be pulling out. Now, there is no doubt about this. One shouldn't look for, you know, misdirections or things of this kind. Because bear in mind that meeting that took place between the Americans and the Europeans in August was kept private. So it's not as if they're trying to fool the Russians, because if they were trying to fool the Russians,

they did make that meeting public. They actually, the Americans actually mean what they are saying. They really are pulling support away from the border. countries. They really are stopping further supplies of Patriot missile interceptors. And this is because they are running short of all of these things and they have commitments all around the world. So the Europeans are not happy about this and they're doing exactly what you said. They are either opportunistically misinforming the Americans and the world about certain minor trivial routine events like Russian fighter jets crossing the Baltic Sea to go from one Russian

air base to another Russian air base. Or as I said, they're fabricating events like I believe they fabricated the whole episode with the drones. So this is what is going on. And they are doing exactly what you said. They're trying to trap Trump into making commitments. And for the For the moment at least, Trump is not falling for it. I mean, his mild response to the drone episode apparently shocked the Europeans. That was also in Reuters and in other parts of the European media as well. And it seems they're not happy with the way he responded to the big 31 flights. And we've now had that article in Reuters, which by the way catalogues are whole.

succession of meetings between the Europeans and Trump, going back to August, but also including conversations he had with them in September, which apparently were tense and unhappy. Can I make just a general observation and comment? There's no doubt that the United States under President Trump is telling the Europeans, you guys need to be. handle your own security and you guys need to take on Russia because we want to focus elsewhere, right? Brian Berlietic correctly talks about this and he's correctly analyzed this. So he's absolutely right about the continuity of agenda and basically the United States telling Europe, you guys need to handle Russia. Right? We need to go elsewhere. The interesting part to all of this

is that the Europeans don't want to. No. Right? It's almost as if it's a child that has gotten so used to getting everything that they've wanted from the parents that now that the parents are saying, look, we don't have any more, any more money to give or anything more to give you. You have to go out on your own. You're 18 years old now.

You have to go out on your own. It's like the child is saying, no, no, no, I don't want to. And the Europeans believe that the United States has this unlimited supply of money and weapons. It's really weird because I just get a sense that the Europeans have not understood that the United States, at this moment in time, does not have unlimited weapons supplies. And for whatever reasons, doesn't want to spend the money that they're in a huge amount of debt with as well, right? We all know the debt issues in the United States, but they don't want to continue to invest the amounts into Europe that they invested in the past for whatever reasons. I think

that's a whole separate, separate video, right? But I find it very weird, very bizarre that the Europeans have this belief and NATO has this belief that the United States has this unlimited supply of weapons and those weapons need to be given to NATO and to Ukraine. And Europe obviously is unable to produce the weapons because one of the major reasons is that they've sanctioned the cheap source of energy that helped them manufacture stuff. It's a very bizarre, interesting dynamic that has taken place now. But here we are. So the Europeans need to decide what are they going to do?

You are absolutely correct. It is not a question of will. This is a thing that people find difficulty in Europe, understanding. They always come up with these theories that it is somehow a question of will in the United States. If Trump or whoever, you know, Hegsus or Rubio or whatever, the U.S. government discovered the will to provide unlimited support to Ukraine, unlimited funding for Ukraine, unlimited, unlimited weapons supplies to Ukraine, really decided to clamp down on the Russians to crush the Russian economy. If the United States willed itself to do those things, then it would happen and Russia

would collapse and the West would win. It is not a question of will. It is a question of resources. The resources to do these things are not there. And this is what European leaders simply will not ever accept. They are always telling themselves if we can somehow persuade the Americans or manipulate the Americans or trap the Americans into doing these things. This unlimited support that we are entitled to, and you're absolutely correct, the sense of entitlement is phenomenal. The sense of entitlement on the part of the Europeans, the even greater sense of entitlement, by the way, on the part of the Baltic states and the Ukrainians. they assume that they have a right to all of this

and the expectation that it's just that the Americans are not willing to give it, to give this support that the Europeans believe that they're entitled to, that is the problem. And they can't get it into their minds that the United States is running an overdraft. that it's in debt, then it can't just go on supplying weapons at this level and on this scale.

Because, yes, it does have still a very large military-industrial complex and industries, but we all know the problems producing weapons in the United States. And the United States is a superpower with global commitments, and Europe is only one of them. So you're absolutely right. It's not a question of will if the United States really did have the infinite resources that the Europeans like to believe. Then no doubt, it would continue to supply weapons and money and all of those things in exactly the way that the Europeans say. It's a question of resources.

Now, the Americans come back and tell the Europeans this. Look, you're coming to us all the time. You're telling us that your GDP is, you know, 10, 15 times bigger than Russia's, that Russia's GDP is the size of Portugal's or whatever it is that they're coming up with. How can it realistically be true in that case that you can't provide all these weapons and do all of these things by yourselves? You are rich countries, or at least that's what you tell us all the time.

So, of course, we have limits on our resources and we have all of these things that we need to do. You absolutely can handle the Russians by yourselves, and it's time for you to do so. We don't have unlimited credit on our card. We've got to economize. We've got to set priorities for ourselves. You say Russia is your priority. You've got all of these resources. It's time for you to do it.

the reality is, and again, this is perhaps something that the Americans don't understand, is that in fact, Russia has many more resources than perhaps the Europeans are saying. And I'm getting the sense, by the way, increasingly, that it's the Europeans who have been telling the Americans for many years now that Russia is bankrupt, broken, whatever. I was reading in the British media a whole analysis of Russia. provided by the outgoing head of MI6, the British intelligence. And he was basically talking about a country that's a declining basket case. And I'm sure this is what the Europeans have been telling the Americans for all of these years.

And the Europeans also are nowhere near as rich as they've been telling the Americans and want the Americans to think they are. So this is the problem. Again, the Europeans won't listen to what the Americans are telling them about the fact that America's resources are finite. And they demand and expect all of this help, but they won't admit to the Americans. They also have fundamental resource problems, which put them in a very, very awkward position. because realistically, they cannot take on the Russians by themselves.

And then, of course, we get to the real heart of the problem because the Europeans won't listen to what the Americans are saying. The Europeans are aware of their resource problems. I was reading again over the weekend that the joint project between France and Germany to produce a fifth-generation fighter jet, Russia has fifth generation fighters. America has fifth generation fighters. China has fifth generation fighters.

Rich Europe is still struggling to get fifth generation fighters up and running. The Americans, the Chinese, and by the way, the Russians, are already working on sixth generation fighters. So you can see the gap. Anyway, the project in Europe to create a fifth generation fighter between Germany and Germany in France is on the brink of collapse. They're now talking about starting up production of the ASPED air defense system, which the French and the Italians co-produce. Apparently they produce something like a dozen missiles a year. I mean, nowhere near enough. And again, this is something that the Europeans confront with, but they still insist, despite the problems with their own

resources, despite what the Americans are telling them about the fact that their resources are finite, they still want this constant confrontation with the Russians. We still have all of this war rhetoric. They want to do the obvious thing, which ultimately perhaps could sort their problems, which is talk to the Russians and see whether you can come to a long-term understanding with them, which would be the logical thing to do and which could resolve all of the problems, the security problems, that the Europeans are scaring themselves with all the time. Yeah. Remember when Runeutte called Putin the governor of Texas? Exactly. And yeah, no doubt about it. You're right. It's the Europeans have been giving

distorted data and information about Russia to the Americans. Ukrainians give. Ukrainians give, distorted information and data about Russia to Keith Kellogg. The Americans buy into it to a certain extent, and they start to believe that Russia's in a weak position, but then they take a step back and they say, how are they in a weak position when they're out producing all of us combined in manufacturing? And the Europeans go on and on about how they're going to manufacture all of these weapons systems. When they've cut off their one reliable. cheap, dependable supply of energy. Exactly.

And my understanding of what's going on in Germany is that manufacturing is just shutting down. Business after business is collapsing and shutting down. How are we going to, how could you be in Brussels in EU headquarters and possibly expect looking at the data of what's coming out in Germany, the big manufacturing power of Europe? How could you expect to be this big MIC powerhouse when Germany, German business, German manufacturing is in collapse? Why isn't it in collapse? Because you cut off Russia.

Yeah. It's that simple. It's that simple. You're completely right about this. There's been a fascinating survey and statement from the German manufacturer, a machinery Association, you know, machinery, talking about machine tools, about the products that go to make up the factories, that keep the German factories humming and modern and all of that. One of the core industries of Germany, ultimately perhaps the core industry of Germany, because

it is machinery that has made German manufacturing strong. And by the way, it's also, in itself a major export. They've come back. They say they are in crisis. They had a 7% contraction. Last year, they're now expecting another 5% contraction. This year, they say that manufacturing in Germany is impossible because energy costs in Germany are three times greater than in the United States. They don't, by the way, they're not honest. Even they are not honest as to the course of that. They talk about the green transition and, you know, the various things that the Greens have done. And with some cause, I'm not saying that hasn't played a role, but the big ultimate course is cutting off cheap pipeline gas from Russia. Everybody knows it. But very, very, very

few people are prepared to come out straightforwardly and say it. And the story is that German manufacturing output is a fifth below what it was in 2019. Obviously, there was a contraction during the time of the pandemic, but that contraction has continued since the pandemic and is getting one. worse and why? Because energy costs in Germany are so high. And it's true right across Europe. It's true in every part of Europe now. It's true in Britain, by the way, which is of course not part of the EU, but which geographically and geopolitically falls within Europe. Energy costs in Britain are even higher than they are in Germany. Our energy costs in Britain are four times higher than they are

in the United States. So how can we compete? How can we compete in the face of all of that with American manufacturing, with Japanese or South Korean or Chinese manufacturing? The short answer is we can't. Yeah, they can't. It's obvious, but they don't want to admit this. And when I listened to Ursula, when she was giving her statement about the 19th Sanctious Package, she made it out as if this is the package that will sink the Russian economy. She actually said that. She said that we've been hearing from our sources that whenever Russia is is negotiating. The first thing they ask for is sanctions relief, which indicates to us that how we're 19 sanctions packages are working. This is what she actually said. This is what

she's using. This is the logic that she's using to justify a 19 sanctions package that the previous 18 sanctions packages did not do anything. They didn't do anything to stop the Russian Russian manufacturing or the Russian economy. But she's using all of this as a basis to justify a 19th sections package because there's a part of them that actually believe that the Russian economy is a war economy and that if they just give another push, it will collapse while at the same time not accepting their own reality. No.

Exactly. You're completely correct. I mean, even the economist, which is as anti-Russian as you can get a magazine to be, it's got a piece today about the state of the Russian economy. It wants to be as critical about it as possible. But they admit underlying stability. They admit that the economy is not on the brink of collapse or anything close to that. And they admit further that real wages are rising, which is absolutely not.

what happens if you're talking about an economy under siege in the way that Ussila is saying. And by the way, the claim that every time there is negotiations, the Russians ask for sanctions relief is flat out untrue. It has never been true in every discussion between the Americans and the Russians. The Russians have never asked for the kind of sanctions relief that Ursula is talking about. The only thing that they've suggested, and in fact, sanctions apparently weren't even discussed during the Anchorage Summit, the only thing the Russians have suggested is the restoration of direct air links, which, of course, economically speaking, is inconsequential. So it's, she is living inside her own reality, a reality that won't acknowledge the desperate

situation in Europe, which is going from bad to worse, and is getting worse with every sanctions package, or the realities of the situation in Russia, which concerns both its, the state of its economy, the rise in living standards there, and the way in which the Russians conduct their diplomacy, in which they have never shown any sign that sanctions. work, I can remember an article that was published in Germany about how Olaf Schultz and Emmanuel Macron had a discussion with each other. And Schultz expressed his dismay about the fact that when he did have contacts with Putin, Putin never brought up the subject of sanctions and that Schultz was worried about this. But, you know, that's not the reality that Ursula wants

to acknowledge. Okay, so let's get to the core issue then. The United States, they want Europe to handle Russia. Yeah. Right. So they can go do other stuff. Europe is saying, okay, but we don't want, we don't want you, the United States to leave. Right. Well, we'll do it. We'll do, as you say, we'll try to get manufacturing going. We'll try to produce missiles. We'll try to make Ukraine into the Silicon Valley of weapons production. We'll try to do all these things. We'll bump up NATO spending all of these things, right? But they obviously do not want the United States to leave. So where do we go from here? While at the same time, the Trump administration is still providing weapons to Ukraine, no, not at the levels of, say, the Biden administration,

because they don't have them, not because they don't want to, but because they don't have them. And it does provide intel and support in all of these things, especially when it comes to Ukrainian strikes into Russia, for example. It was a lot of U.S. intel that did provide the targeting and all the information for the strikes that happened the other day in Crimea with Ukrainian UAVs. So, I mean, the U.S. is not making a clean break from Europe. Europe is is not making a clean break from the U.S. in order to do what the U.S. is telling Europe to do to handle the Russians. The Europeans still want the U.S. involved. The U.S. is telling the Europeans, you guys need to do this on your own, but they're also still involved as well. So where do we go

from here? And what you have going on is everything that we said at the beginning of the video. You have all of these escalations and provocations and these stories and these narratives about Russia in Poland and Russia and Romania and Russia jamming planes that are landing in Bulgaria and Migs that are flying from Russia to Kaliningrad, that crossover. Estonia, we're going to get something else in a day or two as well, all in an effort to try and keep the United States engaged and try and keep the escalation going. I mean, where do we go from here? Right.

No, there are. No, no. No one's making real decisions. No, no. No one is making real decisions. No. There are only two ways that this can end, because this is a very very, very, you know, messy situation, but there are only two ways this can end. The first is that we think

continue as they are and step by step in alliance with the hardliners in Washington, of whom there are many. Robert Kagan, for example, has written a long piece in the Atlantic, basically urging the Trump administration to take the strongest possible line against Russia. In Europe, all of those people that, you know, that crowd in Washington are still there, they're still focused on Russia. Either the Americans do eventually drift back and reverse all of the things they've been saying and recommit to Europe in the way that the Europeans want and start supplying every weapon that they have left and continue to give economic aid, in which case the United States will be pulled by Europe down. And they're going to. And they're going to

That's a thing Americans need to understand. Europe is a dead weight that America is supporting. It's getting a heavier weight all the time. For all of the reasons we said, the decline in European manufacturing, the energy costs, all of these things. So it is a dead weight that America is trying to carry and it will get heavier and heavier, even as America's own strength gradually fades. in which case, as I said, they continue with that. Europe will eventually pull the United States down,

or the United States finally, at some point, at some point, decides on exactly what you said, a clean break, tells the Europeans, enough's enough, we've done as much as we can, this is where it stops. From now on, you're on your own. And that would be a liberating moment for the United States, which would no longer be pulled down by the Europeans in the way that it is. And by the way, it would be a liberating moment for Europe as well, because finally, once the mirage of unlimited American aid goes away, we will finally. we will finally be forced to confront our actual realities, in which case we might just might start to do something about them. Until that clean break comes, we're just going to continue in the same way that we are.

We're going to pretend to rearm when we can't. we're going to pretend that we're spending 5% of our GDP on defence, which we cannot afford to do. We will go through all of this rhetoric, all of this theatre, whose only purpose is to keep the Americans fooled and to make the Americans think that we're doing what we can when actually we are not because we can't. and we will continuously, as a result, postpone the moment when we start to make the serious decisions that we need to make in order to get our economies and our societies straightened out at last, which is, of course, what we ought to be doing now. Yeah, agreed. All right. The video there, the duran.orgal.com.

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