The Duran Podcast - Full circle and no closer to end the war

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Full circle and no closer to end the war

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the diplomacy that took place yesterday at Marilago with Zelensky meeting with U.S. President Trump. We also had a phone call between Trump and Putin before the Zelensky meeting, and we had a mini press conference, a very short press conference, where most of the questions were directed towards Trump. To be quite honest, I think Zelensky only got one question directed towards him. But I would say the outcome of the Trump-Putin phone call, as well as the outcome, if you want to call it an outcome of the Zelensky-Trump meeting, was that there's going to be no unconditional ceasefire. And we're going to try to return to what was agreed on in Alaska and working groups and working groups as well.

I think that was an interesting outcome from the Trump Putin phone call. And Trump even mentioned it in the press conference as well that you could see, Zelensky was not too happy about the working group's idea. Anyway, I think that's a good summary of what happened yesterday. Your thoughts. Well, this is a very interesting situation because we had that meeting in Anchorage. There was a lot of speculation about what Trump and Putin agreed with each other. There was a lot of speculation that Putin agreed to a ceasefire in Zaporosia and Herson region

if the Ukrainians agreed to withdraw from Donbass. I think it's now clear that was never quite the case. But anyway, there was an understanding, and it clearly leaned very much towards Istanbul Plus. I mean, we've been watching, we've been listening to many comments that Putin has made and Lavrov has made since then, and it's quite clear that the Russians all through this have stuck with Istanbul Plus. The terms that Putin set out when he spoke to the foreign ministry on the 14th of June, 2024. And then we got a whole very complex, very, in fact, disastrous period after August, where the Europeans, the UK, Ukrainians, the neocons in Washington, Lindsay Graham, and all of these people pushed back

and pushed Trump back away, back off Istanbul Plus. And he started to talk about an unconditional ceasefire again and a seized fire on the conflict lines. And he rolled out sanctions against Rosneft and Luke Oil. and there was talk about sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. And it looked as if that whole process, the anchorage process, was falling apart. And then in November things started to happen. The Russians broke into Bakrowski.

There was fighting in many other places. The military situation on the battlefronts began to shift decisively against Ukraine. We then got Dimitriov going to Washington. We then got the Americas coming up with a completely new set of proposals, 28 points, which were closer but not identical by any means to Istanbul Plus. And the Russians said, look, this is a basis for negotiation. We agree with parts of this. We disagree with other parts of it.

And then again, the same pattern as what happened in Anchorage. after Anchorage. The Ukrainians come back, the Europeans come back, the neocons are busy in Washington. We get a 20-point plan from Zelensky, which is obviously identical in effect to the unconditional ceasefire, freezing of the conflict situation that we've heard about so many times. And they brought it before Trump, again in Florida. But this time, Trump talks to Putin the night before and he stands his ground. He's not doing what he did in August. He isn't going back on what he agreed with the Russians. I think he understands that the military situation is now changing so rapidly in Russia's favor that it is Istanbul plus or nothing. And I suspect that this is what he said to Zelensky. And he didn't, he made

of the point that he does not agree to an unconditional ceasefire or even the kind of ceasefire that Zelensky was talking about. The Russians pulled back from Donbass, and the Ukrainians pull back from Donbass. It becomes a free economic zone, but under Ukrainian control. I mean, there was none of that nonsense. I mean, the Russians said unacceptable and Trump doesn't seem to have endorsed any of that. They both agreed that both Putin and Trump agreed over the phone, all this talking about ceasefires, about pauses, about referendums, that Zelensky and the Europeans have been coming up with.

I mean, it simply will not fly. And this time, Trump stuck to the understandings he's reached with Putin. So this is the difference. This is the difference from August. In August, Trump was pushed back. The neocons, the Europeans, the Ukrainians, pushed him, of course. This time he's sticking by his positions. So we are back in effect to Anchorage and to Istanbul Plus.

That is the only plan on the agenda. And if you followed, if you watch the news conference, which is relatively short, by the way. I mean, Zelensky's face said it all. He looked to me exhausted and defeated. Now we've gone a whole circle. All the circle back to Alaska. Which Trump, we have to always point it out, Trump walked away from the understanding in Alaska.

Yes, yes. That's important to point out. There was some sort of an understanding. I don't want to say a deal in Alaska, but there's a important. was some sort of an understanding in a process as to how to move this thing forward between Putin and Trump. Yeah. And it was Trump that walked it all back.

Yes. And so we've come back to that point now. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, one of the interesting parts of the press conference was Trump actually saying that he understands why Putin does not want a ceasefire, even with the referendum.

That's the new scheme, the new plan, is to try and get a ceasefire and put it under the cover of a referendum, right? Yeah. We're going to get a 60 or 90-day ceasefire. And the reason we want a ceasefire is because we have to have a referendum. So that's the excuse that they're going with for a ceasefire now. That's how they're hiding it. But Trump didn't fall for it.

You didn't fall for it and even said that I understand why Russia does not want a ceasefire. I thought that was a pretty incredible statement. It was. It was. And of course, he agreed with Putin over the phone. And we've got Ushikov's very full briefing about this, that a ceasefire of any kind is not going to work. And that's been the Russian position all along. And Trump has endorsed it. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the person who first came up with the idea of an unconditional ceasefire was not Zelensky. it was General Kellogg. Keith Kellogg came up with the

hydroce, he's fine, and the freeze. And Zelensky, who initially resisted it, then embraced it, because of course he's losing on the battlefronts. Trump finally realized that the Russians

weren't buying it in August, but then, as you absolutely rightly say, he walked it all back after August. And as I said, we had all this terrible language. You remember, disappointed with but it's in Tomahawks to Ukraine, the 500% tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil,

all of these disastrous ideas, one after the other, the sanctions on Luke oil and Rosnev. On that front, by the way, just to say, India is not only buying, continuing to buy Russian oil, but reliance is now, again, resuming buying Russian oil. We've had confirmation of this. So you remember the telephone call with Modi, which Modi agreed that he would not buy Russian oil, which never happened, and that it would all end by the end of the year. Well, we see that we're now at the end of the year almost, and the Indians are ramping up purchases of Russian oil again. So we've gone full circle, but we're back in that.

We're back where we were in Anchorage. An awful lot has happened in the meantime. The Russians have been undoubtedly shaken by the way in which Trump walked back Anchorage. Putin had a meeting with business leaders in the Kremlin a couple of days ago, in which he said that the fact that Trump retreated from Anchorage was a sign of weakness on Trump's side. So we can see that the Russians were unimpressed. Putin, as we know, was heavily criticized. in Russia itself for sticking to this process with Trump. And of course, perhaps most important of all, there's been major, very major changes on the battlefield,

leaving Ukraine in a far worse military position than the one it was in in August. So we've come full circle. A lot of time has been wasted. Thousands of people have died. And by the way, it's important to say this, despite the fact that Putin and Trump are now talking on the same page again, we are no closer to an end of the war because Zelensky is not agreeing to withdraw troops from Donbass. He's not agreeing to reduce the size of his army to the levels that the Russians would want.

He's still insisting on more money, discussed that, no doubt, in another program, but he wants. more money over and above the 90 billion euro loan. I don't get the sense that Zelensky is any more willing at the moment to go with Istanbul Plus, and he was in August or at any other time. The Europeans are still backing him. So the Americans, and it was an American proposal, now has seemed to have accepted what the point that the Russians have been making all along. And by the way, the one that we've been making too, which is that if you're going to negotiate at all, you've got to do this in an organized way. You've got to have proper working parties, proper negotiating teams.

The Americans are proposed to working parties. There's going to be another discussion we're told between Putin and Trump over the next few days to basically get this process going. So working parties to be set up. The Americans and the Russians, one to discuss security issues in Ukraine, the other to discuss economic issues. I'm not sure that the Russians are entirely happy with that format, but anyway, it's progress. It's starting to look like a bilateral negotiation between the Americans and the Russians,

though worryingly Trump still talks about the Ukrainians setting up their own negotiating team, which still provides a vehicle for the Europeans to men. meddle and interfere. So we are no closer to an end to the war. Now, that's an important thing to say, but we are back in a situation where Trump and Putin are talking from the same page again. Now, I said that a lot of time has been lost. You said the same. It's important to remember that the clock is also ticking in Washington. 26 is the midterms. Trump. Trump is going to be tied up with the midterms before very long. It's difficult that he can imagine that he can give his full attention to Ukraine, whilst

the elections are underway in the United States, and we know that they are important elections. So the time that has been lost is time wasted, and it takes us further away from the settlement as ever, because at some point, within the next few weeks and months, these negotiations, which frankly, I still think Trump should never have got himself involved in at all, are going to be absorbed by the politics of the midterms. Yeah. Well, you know, Trump went for the military win by walking back Alaska. Yeah. Under the advice, with the advice of Kellogg and who knows, probably Rubio and all of these guys, definitely Kellogg.

He walked Alaska back. Alaska was a good opportunity to get to an agreement, something that was close, if not exactly June 2024 root causes, but that was a very good opportunity to wrap the conflict up. And he decided that it was better to try and go for the defeat. Yes. And the military situation, he was being consulted or advised that the military situation was going one way and that the economic situation, I mean, we know that Besson was also advising him, that the economic situation was going one way. And after a few months, it became obvious and very clear that the economic situation and

the military situation were going the exact opposite of the military situation. of what Kellogg invested in all these guys where we're telling Trump. So that's what's driving all of this is the war, the conflict, what's going on in the front lines, as well as the economic war. And so Trump is now trying to get back to Alaska. And what Zelensky and the Europeans, what they're all about, and I think this is also very clear, is, is there all about getting Trump in the United States to just commit to unlimited weapons and money because they're tapped out?

That's what they want. And they want the unlimited weapons and money so they can, they can try to continue this conflict for another two or three years to get past the midterms, but more importantly, to get to 2028. I mean, that's a scenario that's playing out right now. That is their plan. I mean, you hold out for as long as possible, get Trump committed for as long as possible, get weapons, get money from the United States, and then look forward to the day when there's

a new Democrat president committed to the neocons and the near-con agenda, and then we will continue the war indefinitely in that fashion. Of course, that is also a completely unrealistic plan because, By 2028, Ukraine will be in a far worse military situation than it is in today, if it is even standing at all. And just however many weapons and however much money the United States throws at it. And of course, there is a Ukraine still standing in 2028. Whichever Democrat president may have been elected by that point, he will not be in a position

to change the situation. Now, I should add something else, by the way, because the... Other thing that happened in August was that the Europeans and the Ukrainians managed to maneuver Trump into appearing to make enormous promises about security guarantees for Ukraine, and these have unfortunately worked their way into all the various proposals. The kind of security guarantees that have been talked about, which fall, they're almost identical to NATO membership and would pave the way to NATO membership are clearly completely unacceptable to the Russians.

And the other thing that came out at the press conference yesterday, and in fairness, Trump's own words over the last couple of days is that he's now trying to row back on all of these promises. He's, first of all, linked the whole idea of security guarantees to a Ukrainian withdrawal from Dombas, which, as we see, Zelensky. isn't prepared to do. But my impression yesterday is that he's moved back further still. He's now saying that if it comes to security guarantees, it'll be the Europeans who will basically carry the burden for them, not the United States. He should never have got into this whole topic of security

guarantees. That was a disastrous mistake, which he made back in August. The idea that the Russians want territory and the Ukrainians want security guarantees is a profound misunderstanding of this whole conflict. Again, it's clear to me that it's taken Trump a very long time to understand this if he's ever even now understood it. But at any rate, at last, he seems to be rowing back on this disastrous plan as well. Yeah, we've gone from security. Security guarantees, unconditional ceasefires to the Alaska terms, back to security guarantees, unconditional ceasefires, to 28-point-piece plans, to 21-point-piece plans, to 24-point-piece plans. And all of that kind of got washed away, and we ended up with this 20-point-piece plan that was hatched

by Zelensky and the Europeans from meeting with Whitkoff and Kushner in Berlin. And so you have this 20-point peace plan, which the Russians reject. And as you correctly said, the 20-point peace plan is nothing more than Kellogg's freeze plan. It's just an updated version of Kellogg's freeze plan. Exactly. With a 60-90-day referendum thrown in there. Exactly. That's it.

Why would a referendum work and an election will not work? You know, no reporter asks Zelensky that question. So Lensky says that he can't have a president, he can't hold presidential elections while his country is at war, but he can hold a referendum while his country is at war. And he was also very, very careful in his answer about the Ukrainian diaspora, the Ukrainians outside of Ukraine voting in the referendum. He was very careful to say that Ukrainians outside of Ukraine in the West and in Europe can absolutely vote in the referendum without mentioning Ukrainians in Russia.

And he actually said that the Ukrainians in Europe is the largest group of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine. I think the Ukrainians in Russia is a pretty significant number. I've heard anywhere between 5 to 10 million. And Russia has linked any type of a vote to referendum, presidential election, presidential election, I believe also a referendum. They've linked any type of voting to be contingent on having the Ukrainians in Russia also being allowed to vote. Yeah. Yeah. What Zelensky, and by the way the Europeans too, is that they want to repeat

the Moldovan, you think, Maria Sandu, where you have people from the diaspora in Europe voting, And you're voting, remember, they will be voting in embassies, just as the Moldovans controlled the embassies in Europe. And, you know, with all the ways that those elections take place there. And it's the same, it's the same this time. And of course, they wanted to completely exclude the pro-Russian, the assumedly pro-Russian diaspora in Russia, Ukrainian diaspora in Russia, which is, of course. was exactly what Sando did in the Moldovan elections.

So this referendum that Zelensky wants or is proposing to hold would simply be a referendum with a predetermined outcome. It's purpose would be to provide a result, which Zelensky could then come back with and say to the, Europeans and to the Americans, look, what you're asking me to agree to is something that the Ukrainian people oppose. And I'm not going to do that. And if you believe in democracy, you must support me, which is, of course, why he doesn't want to have elections either, because he's not interested in elections, because he wants to cling on.

The referendum is a device to enable him to cling on and to vindicate his own hard line. Now, why does the media never ask him this question? The absolutely good question that you suggested, why does he not agree to elections? Why won't he have elections? Why can he hold a referendum but not hold elections? It's because our media sucks. I mean, that's the only thing I could say about that. I mean, we know exactly what the problem with the media is.

I mean, they absolutely support Zelensky. They absolutely support Ukraine. You have a few dissident journalists now starting to appear who are becoming more critical. But, I mean, ultimately, they're covering for him. If we had a proper media, if we had a media that was out there and asking really searching and tough questions of Zelensky, this whole nonsense that he's put together would quickly fall apart. I mean, for me, I mean, an obvious question, for example, is that, just to give another example, I mean, if, as you claim, Kupiansk is 90% under your control, why did you not actually,

when you did your film the other, you know, a few days a week ago or so again, why do you not actually hold it in Kupiansk itself? What was the reason? But he never gets asked these questions. And the result is that he's able to play these complex games and he's able to. And he's able to spin his web stories, narratives, and they never get challenged. Yeah. So where do we go from here?

Rumors that Zillusioni, maybe leaving the UK and going back to Kiev, that might be signaling something. You have a new corruption scandal, not the 100 million. Energy corruption scandal. Now you have a corruption scandal revolving around the Rada, the parliament in Ukraine. alleging by Nabu, they allege that MPs from Zelensky's party, servant of the people, received money in exchange for votes. And you had this meeting between Trump and Zelensky. Trump said it went really well. Zelensky was putting 90% of the 20-point peace plan was agreed on. 95% was agreed on whatever. Trump said, I don't want to put percentages, but if I had to put it,

percentage. I'll all agree with Zelensky or whatever. I mean, where are we going with this? Because if we are heading towards working groups, of which you could see that Zelensky doesn't want to go that route, even though Trump shoehorned him into the working group, right, which is not going to, which is not going to please Russia. Zelensky also doesn't want to go the route of working groups. It's going to take time. A process like this is going to take a lot of time. Where are we going with this? Well, the first thing to say is the walk will continue. I mean, the Russian advance will continue.

The Russians now are increasingly moving forward on the offensive. We'll do a separate program to discuss all of that. But the war will continue, the Russians will continue to advance. Ukraine will continue to be hammered from the skies. We will have negotiations take place. And at the same time, in Kiev, the political class there are going to be said to each other, Zelensky is failing. He hasn't been able to get the money from the Europeans in the quantities that we need to keep going.

He's not been able to persuade Trump. And this may be the moment when we really do. need to start rethinking whether he's serving his purpose anymore. I mean, he's been able to keep the money flows, the money taps, open. Notice that he's already starting to demand more money on top of the 90 billion euros. A lot more money. A lot more money. As we predicted, we're going to do another, we'll do another separate program to discuss that. But, I mean, the point is that they're going to be saying to themselves, the Europeans aren't able to give him more. The Americas won't give him more.

The military situation is going from bad to worse. So it is highly likely that these corruption scandals are going to revive over the next few months. Because I think that the agenda now will be either to get Zelensky completely removed and replaced by someone else. It might be solutioning. It might be Poroshenko. Could be anybody. The point is that as things start to fall apart, And from this moment on, they're going to start falling apart faster and faster.

As you rightly say, the working parties might need, they might negotiate. But it is terribly late in the day now to conduct negotiations. I mean, if we started negotiations like this in August, there would still have been time to get a negotiation process, a proper negotiation process underway. But Putin has already said, you know, that the Russians are now losing all interest in getting the Ukrainians to withdraw by themselves. Because the Ukrainian positions in Dombas and in Zaporosia are crumbling and crumbling very fast. And not just the Ukrainian positions in those places, but altogether. So the major priority now for the political class in Kiev is to get close to the most. money to the money flows that are still coming through, the 90 billion euro loan, whatever it is,

however much eventually turns up, it's still tens of billions of euros. So you've got to get close to that before the money finally goes and before the Russians come. So we're probably going to see over the next few months a major intensification of the political conflicts and crisis in Kiev, even as the Russian army continues to advance. And at some point, I'm going to say this, the negotiations themselves are going to become increasingly irrelevant because it is impossible that they can keep up with the events on the ground. But what does Trump do? What does Trump do going forward?

The United States, are they going to continue to play this game, to play the theater of the neutral mediator while at the same time? selling weapons to NATO and providing all of the intel and the data for drone strikes or whatever other strikes attack them, stormshadows, whatever. Are they going to continue to play this part? Or is Trump going to say, you know what, I'm completely done with this. I've got all these other potential wars or ongoing wars that are starting up. I've got midterms. I've got all kinds of other domestic issues and scandals and mini scandals and all kinds of other things going on. I really got to walk away from this thing. And by the way, Trump can also say, which is not a

lie, it's not false. He can also say we're tapped out as well. We're tapped out. We don't have the bunny. Hey, Europe, I know you want us to give unlimited money and I know you want us to give you unlimited weapons, but to be quite honest, we just don't have that anymore. We'll sign contracts with you. Our military industrial complex will sign contracts, five, ten, twenty years out. But if you're looking for weapons today, we just don't have any. I think Trump absolutely should say that. And that should be the focus of what he should do.

Now, this is what I personally think he should do. I don't know whether he'll do it. What do you think he should do? But also, what do you think he will end of the first? It's a prediction, and I'm not saying it's going to come out true or not, but I mean, just your thoughts. What do you think is going to happen? He's now committed to a negotiating process.

There's no getting away from that anymore. He's discussed with Putin setting up these working parties, and I think it would look, well, of course, it's Trump. I mean, he might put back on that, but probably the best thing he can do is get the working parties set up, get the meeting and talking somewhere or rather, maybe in Istanbul. someplace like that, the military situation then, as I said, will evolve very rapidly, and the political situation will evolve very rapidly. He can then say, as things start to fall apart of Ukraine, that all of this is happening

because the Europeans and the Ukrainians were foot-dragging, and he did everything he possibly could, reasonably could, to save them from themselves. And by the way, that would be true. and that he's done what he can, and because he hasn't been able to clinch the deal before the war itself ends, what he's now going to do is he's going to divert the negotiations into bilateral negotiations between the United States and Russia in order to try to come to a general understanding with the Russians about European security in America's national interests. Now, I think he's in a better position to do that now than he would have been in August. This is the one thing I would say about the delay.

The delay, whatever else it has managed, the one positive is that I get the sense that the Europeans and even the neocons in Washington are more exhausted and dejected now than they were in August. The opposition to Trump is far less intense, to this dialogue with Russia, is far less intense today than it was back in August. Because I said there's a sense of resignation and exhaustion starting to kick in. I mean, the Europeans cannot sustain Ukraine by themselves. They've come to understand that. The US Congress was only able to chip in $800 million over two years. which is insignificant sums relative to this conflict. So he can perhaps come round and say to them, look, your plan, what you wanted me to do,

the tariffs, the 500% tariffs, well, we saw what happened with China. We see that India is not playing along with that. The unlimited military supplies to Ukraine, there hasn't worked. What the European promise is, they're not working either. So the Ukrainians, I gave them every chance and they didn't take it. I gave the Europeans every chance and they didn't take it. Don't blame me that things are going wrong. The key priority for us is to come to some kind of understanding with the Russians now

so that when this is all over, we have a relatively stable situation in Europe. That is a core American interest. Our security strategy review said that, and then we can focus on those things that are really important to ourselves, the Western Hemisphere, China, and all of those things. Now, that's what I think Trump should do. What I'm afraid he's going to do is that as things deteriorate on the battlefronts, there's going to be the usual whale of people who will say, Putin is taking advantage, he's pulled the wool over your eyes, you need to reopen the weapon supplies to Ukraine, you need to rush Tomahawks to the battlefront, you need to escalate the sanctions war, and if we know anything about Trump, when he comes under that kind of pressure,

he tends to back down and tilt towards it. I'm afraid that is a very real possibility, But I would just say again, the Niercons, the Europeans look absolutely dejected, if I have to say. I think the failure with the Russian frozen assets has brought home to them how played out they really are. So the Europeans, the Niacons, look less dangerous than they did in August. in the autumn. Whether Trump understands that, whether he's able to capitalize on that, we'll just have to wait and see. But with Trump, never expect anything, never say to yourself, it's in the bag because it never

is. Yeah. All we can say is that yesterday Trump appeared to hold firm on no unconditional. ceasefire, forget about it. Security guarantees. You can tell he's not really going for that either. Working groups. Let's get back to what was agreed on in Alaska. He held firm yesterday, which I guess you could say definitely is progress. And I imagine the Russians are probably looking at yesterday's press conference saying, okay, we've made some progress. vis-a-vis our negotiations with the Americans, our bilateral negotiations with the Americans,

has taken a step forward. Of course, with Trump, as you said, he can post something on truth social and he can take three steps back. So, I mean, that's where we are. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. We'll end the video there.

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