The Duran Podcast - Kursk Changed the War - Dmitry Polyanskiy (Russian Rep to UN), Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Kursk Changed the War - Dmitry Polyanskiy (Russian Rep to UN), Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi, everyone, and welcome. I'm joined today by Alexander McCurris and also Dimitri Polanski, the first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. Welcome. So, we really appreciate you taking the time because we have been wanting to speak with you regarding this invasion of Kursk to get the Russian perspective from the seemingly objectives of this to, how the Ukrainians have been doing, and also the Western position, the impact on the direction of the war, Russia's response to both Ukraine and NATO for that sake. So I thought maybe you can start with the Western position because it seems to be riddled with a bit of ambiguity.

The UK obviously seems very excited, but the US has been very quiet in terms of commenting on the invasion. They appear to have at least some involvement in terms of supplying the intelligence. I was just wondering how what's happening on the diplomatic front. How are the Americans explaining these actions to you and their involvement? It's very easy to answer your question, Glenn, because they are not explaining it at all in terms of diplomatic action at the UN. And in general, I need to say that our Western colleagues are very modest in expressing any reaction to what's what happening and this is quite visible if you compare the situation a year ago we take like you know a benchmark the Ukrainian Independence Day so I recall that a year ago there was a

big performance people standing in front of Security Council telling that they will support Ukraine until the end and all these things this year not Nothing happened like this. One reason, of course, is that it is Saturday, but it has never prevented UN members and security council members to express their support if they want to. They can do it on Friday or Monday. No problem.

This time, my impression is that they were waiting until the last moment to call for a meeting on Ukraine, which they did, and it will happen tomorrow afternoon, because they were really at a loss on how to react to this. adventure because this adventure opens a very unfavorable side of the Ukrainian regime and of the Ukrainian armed forces because what we saw in Kursk, actually we saw it earlier, but it was very hard for many people to believe, especially in the global south. Now they see quite visibly the true colors of the Kiev regime.

So first of all, it's an aggressive regime and it started the war. of aggression again and its own people in 2014. That's the important threshold we warned about it repeatedly. We were saying that there is a war that we need to stop. We were counting on the members of the Security Council. It endorsed a resolution 2202 about Minsk agreements, but it had done nothing to implement it. And on the contrary, under the guise of this resolution, Western countries were arming Ukraine. the Kursk incursion also showed the terrorist nature

of Kiev regime. They are targeting civilian population. They are taking people hostages. They are killing pregnant women. They are targeting civilian cars and ambulances by UAVs. This is visible. It's important to conceal it. They are looting

stores and they are boasting about it on social media that they are looting these stores. This is the picture that the West always tried to kind of not to highlight. Now, it's very difficult to do so. And of course, a lot of countries from the global south in the cul-hours of the UN are now saying that why did Ukraine attack Russian territory, which is internationally acknowledged before 1991.

We do not distinguish in Russia between this territory and the territory of the new subjects of the Russian Federation that joined recently. But for the world, I understand that this is a problem for some countries. they will say that we do not acknowledge these regions to be part of Russia. But this is about Russian territory that was there after 1991. And this is a problem for a lot of our partners from the global south, and it's visible that Western countries are a bit perplexed by this action. It's hard for me to judge whether the UK is celebrating or not celebrating,

because there are different reports, and it's hard to imagine that it was, frankly, it is very hard to imagine that it was concealed and performed without approval from the West, especially from the United States, because U.S. provides intelligence. U.S., there are mercenaries, there are military advisors from U.S., U.S., and other countries. There are a lot of witnesses who are saying that there is a lot of English, Spanish, and Polish speech there at the border. So it's clear that they were involved. To what extent? I don't know, frankly.

I don't have the information about this. It's for the others to judge. But of course, because the West is covering all the actions of Kiev regime, the West has given a kind of a blank check for Kiev regime for quite a long time. It's always covering and it's responsible for this adventure. As for the targets, well, it's very difficult to read a madman's mind, of course. But it was clear from the outset. I think they were not concealing the aims.

They wanted to divert Russian detachments from the Eastern Front to weaken the pressure on Donbass, which they failed miserably. And you see that the intensity of fighting in the East has increased considerably. Today I saw the reports of our Minister of Defense that the medium tempo for the liberation of Donbass is now 11 square kilometers per day, which is quite a big tempo. It's much more important than it was for the course concurring. So the fortified positions that had been prepared for many, many years, in 2014 with all these concrete equipment and very much fortified, they are being lost right now.

So now there are the last ones who are doomed to fall, and the Ukrainian public is discussed. this openly so this is the the key result of the Kursk adventure because he had sent the reserves to the Kursk the reserves that people were expecting on the Eastern Front to somehow counter counter Russian Russian penetration there the one thing the other thing of course he was planning to to take more land he was planning to get deeper he was planning to get as deep as to the Kursk

nuclear power station, evidently to bargain it for the future and to kind of reinforce Ukrainian negotiating positions. Again, he miserably failed, this is quite clear. Instead of reinforcing Ukrainian position, I think he weakened Ukrainian position very much because now he has to take care of this territory. They have to militarily provide their detachments for some supplies, other things which is very, very challenging task under the fire of our army. And the losses that they are having there are incredible. They are comparable to the losses that they were having during this so-called counter-offensive a year ago, maybe even more important.

And this is visible. The equipment is damaged. People are being killed. People are being taken. they are being surrender and all these things are also visible on social media so this is a very bad picture for Ukraine so it's really very hard for me to explain

what was the reasoning but if there was any reasoning I think that it didn't work that's quite sure at this stage could I ask because of course Mr. Grossey is now the nuclear power station he's talking about the fact that the nuclear power station is vulnerable in case there is an attack. The Russian side has already reported that one attack has taken place. Is it possible that part of the reticence of Western governments

is because they're not really very happy to be openly associated with what might have been an attack on a nuclear power station? That is one question. The other question I wanted to just quickly say is this. We've had lots of reports in lots of discussions about discussions that were supposedly taking place between Russia and Ukraine using Qatar as some kind of a broker or mediator or something like that about interruptions to the missile wars, which surprised many people. The Russian government has now said these discussions were not happening. But they've also seemed to be saying that for the moment, because of what has happened in Cusk, there aren't going to be negotiations, that the possibility of negotiations has been ended. Can you perhaps enlarge a bit on that? Just those two things.

Okay. So starting with your first question. First of all, we were repeatedly warning about the aims of Ukrainian armed forces of Qaeda. regime of forces to create some kind of provocation on the Zaporosia nuclear power plant. And there are inspectors of the IAEA present at the site, and it's a very hard task for these inspectors to, on the one hand, acknowledge the damage that is being done to the station. On the other hand, to try to ignore the fact that it is being done by Ukraine, because Ukraine is always trying to use this very strange perverted logic that it is Russia. which is really trying to hit our own station, the station which is under our control. So most people, of course, don't buy it.

Some of them don't show it openly. But for IAA, it was an awkward situation always. And Mr. Grossey was trying to avoid putting blame on anybody saying that there was an attack, but it's hard to IAEA to see what was the source of the attack. A very clever position, but a difficult one, frankly. In terms of Kursk, it is even harder because if we imagine that we all of a sudden decide to attack our station, which is deep in our territory with our own UAVs, this is something that I don't know. It doesn't fit even into a madman's mind. So Mr. Grossey is now visiting Kursk and he said that the station was attacked. And it's very easy to connect all the dots, even for those who were skeptical, saying that it was attacked, of course, by Ukraine.

And if Ukraine is attacking Kursk power plant, so of course it's reasonable to kind of connect more dots and saying that it was doing so even before, but in regards to the Porosia power plant. So again, this is from the PR point, a very bad situation for Zelensky and for his regime. As for negotiations, I frankly had no information, and I heard that my colleagues were denying that there were any negotiations in Qatar and I doubt very much there might be some humanitarian contacts on the exchange of prisoners that was happening all the time maybe in Qatar maybe in other things Turkey was very instrumental United Arab Emirates but this is not negotiations this is humanitarian meeting where people decide concrete issues and politics are being put aside this is

not about the parameters of the possible peace deal. There are no negotiations with Ukraine. The last negotiations that took place in Istanbul, and you know the outcome. It was in 2022. We came to a very favorable arrangement for Ukraine. Ukraine initialed all these arrangements. But then UK interfered. Boris Johnson said that there is no need to reach a deal with Putin, because Zelensky is capable of defeating Putin with the help of Western arms. That's what happened. I think now it's a common knowledge. As for what's happening now, you recall that in June, President Putin made a very, I would

say, generous proposal to Ukraine, generous because of the real configuration on the France. It was a proposal for possible peaceful settlement of the country. Ukrainian crisis. But it was, first of all, it was immediately rejected as such. But Ukrainian officials were trying to kind of, you know, contemplate a little bit. And they were philosophic about this. So there were no outright rejection when Kulebo was in China. In context with India, they were saying, yes, we need to think about it. Maybe we should bring Russia to negotiating table. So they see, to be very peaceful and a lot of my colleagues from the global south were encouraged by this. They were saying, oh, you see Ukraine because of the situation on the front would be more open

to real negotiations. So maybe we should take this chance to reach a peace deal. We were not kind of commenting on this, but we were also, of course, noting that there was this change, obvious change of rhetoric and an attitude from the part of Ukrainian officials. But Kursk was a total rejection of this. Immediately, all the hopes for negotiations were bashed. So it was a clear choice of Zelensky. Instead of going to negotiating table, he chose escalation. And this was one of the immediate results of Kursk.

And immediately, they took out of the cupboard the Zelensky peaceful formula. So they started saying that the only way to achieve settlement would be on the basis of Zelensky peaceful formula, which is not a peaceful formula, as you all know. They were saying that they were planning to organize another conference within the line of the Bergenstock and to see how they could further implement Zelensky peace formula. So the rhetoric again has changed. Now it's absolutely funny to listen to all these statements because the Ukrainian-Narmes. is stuck in kursk ukrainian army is losing east of ukraine donbass with a very very very very quick pace and again they had a chance we warned them that uh that any new proposal will be worse than the previous one of course this proposal was worse for them than or the

one that was that was made in july that's my feeling and there is a total unanimity in in Russian society about unacceptability of any negotiations at this stage and the fact that he had a choice he had a good proposal on the table a lot of countries were lobbying for starting negotiations, direct

negotiations with Russia or indirect negotiations on the settlement on the basis of what Mr. Putin proposed. He rejected it. He bashed everything and he bashed the hopes of everybody who was betting on this kind of negotiations. That's what we have

after course. So I was curious, so how do you see how this Kursk invasion would impact further direction of the war because Russia appears, as you pointed out, to be taking advantage of Ukraine opening another front

by pushing towards the Pokrovsk direction. As you said, they have all this multi-layered, defensive, well-fortified lanes, defensive lines there, but they're not properly manned anymore, as all their best men and equipment were sent into Kursk. So I was just curious, how do you see this nation of Kursk impacting the war?

And also, can you say anything about Russia's, have their objectives or priorities changed as a result of this? Will Russia demand, it will increase its demands? Because you mentioned Putin gave a, as you said, a generous peace settlement offer. But in the future negotiations, will the terms change? If so, well, I'm not, I know everything hasn't been determined, obviously. I was wondering if you could say anything about this. Well, I don't want to speculate on this, frankly, because this is the question which is much above my payroll. And I'm not the one who is being part of this decision-making circles on this kind of negotiation.

We are diplomats. We're working at the UN. we receive instructions, of course, we can easily see the change in rhetoric of our friends and foes. So we're involved in a little bit more difficult kind of planning. It will be for my president to decide what to do next. But as for the military situation of Ukraine, I don't think you need to be a military expert to realize that what the Kiev regime has got is a big, big pain in the neck, because they need to provide for this part of Russian territory,

which is very small, as you might see on the map, which doesn't contain anything important because there are a number of villages, and most of them were emptied. There were some people were left there. Mostly they just didn't want to live because of their houses, and it was their voluntary decision. Those who wanted to leave,

they were given an opportunity to leave. though it was of course done in a hurry. But there are some people there. That's true. But it's not something that contains any military objects or any important city, just a number of villages. The biggest of them, I think,

is a city of 1,000 people. Not that 1,000 were present there, but its nominal was 1,000 before. It all started. So that's what they got. And there are a lot of forests there which really are very

good smoke screen for the sabotage groups, so it's very difficult to fight with them. It was the region which was very bad for Nazi Germany for the Germans in the Second World War because of partisans, because of sabotage groups, which easily operated in the forest. But apart from small sabotage groups which penetrate from the forests in one region and another and being eliminated and targeted, it's very hard to wait. to introduce army there. It's not suitable for army maneuvering. This is also, apart from forests, there is also a lot of open terrain, which is easily being targeted from UVs, from artillery, from satellites. So they are very much exposed there. And there is a price for this

exposure. The price is immense. They are losing a lot of people there. So at the apex of this invasion, they were losing 1,000 men per day. This was a very, very big loss. They've lost a lot of military equipment. You see the pictures of tanks. You see the pictures of artillery and rocket systems. Everything is being damaged. And it's hard to see what is the plan B right now. So they are stuck there, they're exposed. They're losing people every day. They are losing equipment every They have to introduce more reserves there because otherwise they will have to leave and it will be a big, big blow to Zedensky's reputation. I don't see that our military command is in a big hurry to kind of liberate this territory with one push because it will imply certain lossness. I think it's a from military point of view, it's a favorable position that we have right now.

We can further eliminate them and take a push later into the neighboring regions of Ukraine, which will be much weakened and which will not have a lot of troops to depend them. I assume, and that's what I can read from military analysts. But in any case, it's quite clear that they haven't obtained what they wanted, and they got absolutely crumbling of the Eastern Front. everybody is speaking about this even those who are ardent defenders of Kiev regime they are saying that they are losing a lot of villages a lot of cities and they are now about to lose Parkrovsk and they don't have the fortified lines of defense over there and this happened only

because of course because it was weakened all the reserves were taken from there to Kursk so they didn't achieve anything in Kursk and they are losing miserably in the eastern front that's the direct outcome of this situation. It's dynamic, it is developing. I think that we have, before the rain comes down and before the terrain becomes muddy and not very profitable, not very favorable for military action, we have about a couple of months. It's a long time. You can achieve a lot during this couple of months in Donbass, in Kursk and elsewhere. So I wouldn't predict where we will be in October. and what will be the position of the regime in October.

But it's developing very intensively, very rapidly, and we are all following these developments with big attention. I think you're absolutely correct in your assessment of the military situation. And I've been speaking to former American military officers, and they take the same view. There is one thing I would further ask, though, which is that Zelensky, the Zelensky government, is trying to leverage this affair in Kursk,

to try to get the United States to agree to the Ukrainians using long-range missiles to carry out deep strikes into Russia. Now, your president, President Putin, has pointed out, and by the way, the same American military officers I've been speaking to agree with him that it is impossible to use these missiles, the storm shadows and the attackers, without the Americans and the British being directly involved. Now, do you think that is going to happen and what will the Russian response be? I mean, is this something that is going to, you know, provoke a response from Russia if these missiles are used in that way? Just before you answer that, a very interesting article in Politico said that it would make no military sense to do this because these missiles can't reach any particular targets there. But even more interestingly, I thought there was

worries in Washington that if they did this, it would be a line that would be crossed, which would make it impossible in the medium term for the United States and Russia to improve relations, going long, far beyond the situation in Ukraine, the conflict in Ukraine now. Can I have your thoughts about this and whether there's any view that you can tell us about it? Well, first of all, of course, I don't want to speak on behalf of the American side. They have their own considerations and they have a long history of support of Kiev regime, at least from 2014. You recall the investigation by New York Times, which showed that the CIA was there in 2014.

2015 at the border with Russia and they were already preparing some kind of military action against Russia. This was a big, big revelation, I think. So when I said that there is no plan B for Zelensky regime, but I think there is a plan C for Zelensky. And this is to achieve the involvement of the West. This would be the best case scenario for him because he realizes that, first of all, there is no Wunderwafe that would turn the situation in favor of Ukraine. Neither F-16s, no storm shadow, no anything else. They can inflict certain damage, like everybody was saying, oh, these Haimars, for example, is something, or attack comes, is something that will change the tides. No, we didn't, because we adopted, of course, to do this, and now we're destroying them, and we destroyed them,

even in Kursk during the Kursk incursion. So they were used by Ukrainian troops to target to hit the targets within Russia. So his best dream would be to drag the West into the direct confrontation with Russia, because then he will have the chances. If there is all in all war, then it will not be worse for Ukraine

because everything is already very bad and gloomy. For Ukraine, not for Ukraine as a country, but for his regime, because he has now lost any credibility, any legitimacy since May. He doesn't want to hold elections. He understands that if this military escalation stops and if people start to ask questions, then he has very good chances to get on trial and at least to lose power. That's for sure. So he

doesn't want this scenario. That's why, of course, he wants to provoke the West. He wants the West to engage in direct confrontation with Russia. So his calculations are absolutely clear for me. As for the calculations of the West, I hope that there are still sane people in the West who realize what might be the consequences of such a scenario. And such scenario, of course, will become much more likely if there is an agreement on using long-range rocket systems within Russia. So far, I think they had this common sense prevail. I don't know how it will happen. I don't want to speculate about this, I heard that my colleagues in Moscow were warning about very harsh and resolute response from Russia if it happens, and I don't want to speculate more like this. But again, you should

bear in mind that this would be the biggest present to Zelensky regime if there is more escalation and if the West becomes even more involved in this action than it is involved right now. involved it's not a it's not a secret that there are military counselors from the west and a lot of them die and then you will see some obituaries in in papers about some general falling from the rock somewhere in Switzerland all of a sudden when there is one person it can be happened but when there are dozens of such of such scenarios this is very suspicious but it's up to for the western public to decide. So the West is involved. The weapons is being used. German tanks are on Russian territory, which is a very triggering picture for Russian mine. Of course, now they are being

being there conducted by Ukrainians, but it's still an enemy and it rings a bell very much. By the way, I forgot to mention one more thing, which was exposed during this incursion. And this is the widespread read Nazism in the Ukrainian army. So there were a lot of nazi insinia displayed openly when the Western correspondents who entered illegally our territory with the Ukrainian troops were asking them. And they were not concealing it.

A lot of people in the West saw it and they really, the conclusion was that, yes, this is deep rooted. This is something that Russia was warning for a long time. The West was rejecting it. But, well, if you are, if you are admiring Hitler, if you wear a swastika, then most likely you are a Nazi.

It's no need to explain to us that it's not a Nazi, it's some guy who is just very much wanting best future for Ukraine. What kind of best future can be for Ukraine with the swastika, with the swastikas and nasia and senior? So this was also one of the very important outcomes of this Kursk adventure. I was curious because when this Kersk invasion, began, it seemed as if there was almost a consensus among Ukrainian commentators, Russian, as well as Western, that this would be a mistake. But then once they began to take territory in the

Western media among politicians who were more enthusiasm and support suggesting that this was suddenly a good idea, now we're kind of returning to reality again, where the devastating losses are being accepted. But obviously, there's no good opportunity to restart. diplomacy or a negotiation with the Ukrainians. But is there any change in the attitude among Western leaders in terms of, are they willing to, do you see it in change in the willingness to sit down and start at least to talk about a possible diplomatic solution? Because it's appeared at least in the media to be some shift, that at least now they're

talking about the fact that Ukraine's not going to get its territory back. We're talking less in the media about the fact that the Ukraine needs to restore its neutrality and any peace agreement, but would there be any changes on the ground for you in terms of the, well, at least some shifting attitudes, some willingness, again, after two and half years to actually sit down and talk and, yeah. Well, let's distinguish between two realities. One is what's happening on the ground. The other is what you can read in Western media.

So, of course, a lot of correspondence trying to put, to put. this very upbeat tune about Ukraine being capable of inflicting victory to defend to the to win over Russia in in in a war there were some kind of bravado in in Western media at the beginning and if if you read for example BBC which I which I don't but sometimes I see this pop-up messages saying that Ukraine has achieved something again which is not corresponding to the ground. Then of course you might have an illusion that this was a brave move from Ukraine which will give its benefits. You might recall also how the counteroffensive was also mediaized a year ago.

At the beginning, Western media was adamant saying that, yeah, Ukraine has started the way the ties are changing right now and now Ukraine is pushing back. I don't think it lasted long. And this time it lasted even fewer time than it was. Last time and Alexander is absolutely right that most analysts are now absolutely blunt about what is the position of Ukraine right now. It has to defend undefendable and absolutely unnecessary, unnecessary operation which attracts,

a lot of resources and which deviates the attention from the crumbling eastern front. This is the sad reality which they face. So it's very hard to put on an upbeat tune in such circumstances. As for the Western countries, well, my observation from what I see in the UN is that they haven't yet they haven't yet lost all the hopes for some positive outcome for them of this Ukrainian crisis, though they have become much less confident. And they also have become, it was on the eve of the incursion, they have become more isolated because this is a group of countries. They have blocked discipline. They deny obvious things. And they absolutely don't want to speak about peace, about realistic peace. The majority of UN members were demanding to start.

some kind of meaningful negotiations, realistic negotiations that could bring an end to this crisis. And they were also very keen to pay attention, pay due attention to the root causes of this situation. Because it's not unprovoked aggression as the West was trying to frame what happened in February, 2022. There were reasons for this. There were roots for this. There was a war which happened since 2014, and we came there to stop the war. So it's very hard to deny it. And the countries from the global south,

especially our Chinese partners, they are quite clear about this. They say, if we want to avoid this kind of crisis, we need to tackle the root causes. We need to tackle the question of European security. We need to tackle the question of the enlargement NATO. All this thing, it should be tackled altogether. That's the most important.

important shortcoming of the Zelensky formula, so-called Zelensky formula, because he just wants to tackle the period from February 2022 and in the way that it is favorable for Ukraine, for everybody to sit and to decide and then to impose this decision on Russia. Of course, it will not work. People, serious people are saying, let's sit together, let's analyze everything and let's do everything to eradicate any possibility that there would be situations like this in Europe, the in the upcoming future. That's the serious approach to negotiations which we share. And we would, again, prefer, I'm not saying at this stage when there is a Ukrainian army in Kursk region, but we would prefer to settle the goals of our special military operation by diplomatic means.

We reiterated it repeatedly. If there is no outcome like this in the minds of our Western colleagues and their Ukrainian puppets, then we will have to decide it on the battle. field. That's what we are doing. In the meantime, we are not wasting time. We are just moving the operation forward. Ambassador, I have no actual questions. I just wanted to say thank you. I know that your time is limited, but I will make two quick observations. I know you're also very heavily involved in the discussions about the Middle East crisis and, of course, the Ukrainian problems. I wanted to say that in my opinion, the fundamental problem, the core reason why none of these crises have ever been resolved properly is precisely the one you've identified. There have never been good faith negotiations.

There have never been good faith negotiations ever since the start of the crisis in 2013 with the protests on my down square. Never at any point. And as for the Middle East crises, you can go all the way back to the 1940s and there have never been good faith negotiations. And there certainly haven't been good faith negotiations since the events of last October. And that is the problem. Until that changes, we're going to have the problems. The crises will continue and they will be resolved in the way that you say. The very last point I want to make it is a quick one, is that I suspect that one of the,

the reasons for the reticence of your colleagues from the West especially is because, as we say, in Britain, victory has many fathers, but defeat as an orphan. And I think that is now becoming increasingly. Yeah. Thank you for these remarks. Yeah. I just want to thank you as well. In our media, we never really get to hear what Russia is arguing anymore. So we do really appreciate this. So thank you so Mr. Plyanski. Thank you. I'm always open to Western media, but they know one rule,

since my experience was not very favorable for them. I said, I can do it only live. And most of them don't want to do it live. They want to edit what I say in the way they want it to sound. And this is not what I can accept. That's why since certain moments,

Western media is not very much favorable for organizing interviews with me and my colleagues. So they want to stay comfortably now. Okay? Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. For the best.