The Duran Podcast - Modi, Erdogan and Tokayev Gang Up on Putin

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Modi, Erdogan and Tokayev Gang Up on Putin

All right, Alexander, let's break down the SCO meeting. And it was an interesting summit, an interesting event, which brought together all of the leaders of Eurasia. And the one theme that came out of this summit, at least with regards to Russia and the conflict with Ukraine, is that you had many of the leaders of the leaders of, Eurasian countries begging Russia to agree to the U.S. ceasefire. What do you make of this? This is exactly what happened. And it's not been reported fully and well. But there was something that closely approximated to a gang up against Putin in Peshkech. And the leader was Narendra Modi, who was the president. Prime Minister of India.

And the long and the short of it was that they were all trying to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire. And obviously we've already spoken about President Lula of Brazil, who was not at Bishkek, because Brazil is not a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But Lula has already been pressing Putin to agree to a ceasefire in the conflict. in Ukraine, but Modi himself weighed in, and he weighed in in in a very public manner that we had this happen over the course of a meeting between Putin and Modi. And over the course of this meeting, Modi straightforwardly said that there has to be peace, all the world wants peace between Russia and Ukraine.

I am aware of many of the things that you've been telling me about the situation in the conflict area. But in spite of that, if war continues, humanity takes a step back. If peace comes, humanity takes a step forward. India will always support peace. India is the country of Mahatma Gandhi and of the Buddha. it always therefore stands for peace and there needs to be a cessation of hostilities as soon as possible. It was as straightforward, he said as that. And I was looking at the footage of this meeting.

And I've followed Putin many times and I could see that he was furious. He was extremely angry to be lectured by Modi in that kind of way. And it wasn't just Modi. Erdogan was there. He was talking in much the same way. He was saying essentially the same kind of things. And Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, also supposedly an ally of Russia, apparently weighed in and said the same things.

And, well, one leader, ultimately perhaps. the most important one, didn't, and that was Xi Jinping that we're going to come to in a moment. But Putin had to parry all of these demands from ceasefires made by his erstwhile allies. And in his press conference, he actually complained about it. He said that we have the Ukrainians when we took the action in the Black Sea. They went to all of our friends and allies. They went to all the Arab states. They went to India.

They went to Turkey. They begged these countries to get us to stop. And, well, Putin didn't say what followed, but he made it clear that the Russians were not going to stop. And then a journalist, a Russian journalist, asked him, was Russia put under any special pressure under Bishkek, in Bishkek. And he said, we weren't put under any special pressure, but we had to listen to all our respected friends, make their respected contributions about

wanting the conflict to be ended quickly. But, you know, this is something that we've learned to expect by now. And we've got no problems with it. When Putin talks like that, you know that they do have a problem with it. They didn't, Putin wasn't happy about it. at all. But the key thing is, at the end of this meeting, Putin went away having conceded nothing. And the final statement that came out of the meeting in Bishkek didn't refer to Ukraine at all. So Putin held to his position. He refused to agree to a ceasefire. He had, as we will discussed in a moment, the backing of Xi Jinping, and he won in effect a diplomatic victory. But you can see that the pressure on Putin from some of his erstwhile friends was considerable

over the course of this meeting. Do they really care Modi and Tokayev and all of these guys about the ceasefire? Or is this just the U.S. that is placing pressure on them? I mean, you know, to say that Ukraine called them, called them up and was begging them to to pressure Russia to agree to ceasefire. I mean, the U.S. is calling up Kazakhstan and India. And they're using leverage. They've got leverage over these countries in one form or another,

and they're exerting that leverage to get Russia, to put pressure on Russia to agree to the ceasefire so that Ukraine can get the time that it needs to rearm and restart the war further down the line. Well, that is... I just want to say Brazil, for example, For example, Brazil, it's, I understand what Lula's doing. He's got elections.

The U.S. is probably telling Lula, look, we can make the elections easy for you or we can make the elections difficult for you. If you want the elections to go smoothly, well, then you have to put pressure on put. I mean, the U.S. has those tools that they can put on all of these countries, including BRICS. members. They probably don't have the sufficient tools to put on China. And that's why you see a different reaction from China. But is Modi or Tokayev then going to go to the Americans and say, I tried, I told Putin exactly what you told me to tell him. Now, leave me alone. Or do they really want to keep on pressing this issue with Russia?

You are absolutely correct. That is exactly what he's driving this. I mean, this is, I think, what perhaps particularly angered Putin about Modi's comments. because trotting out people like the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi and claiming that India, you know, is a country that always stands for peace. India, of course, when it has to, and, you know, I'm not saying that India is a belligerent or warlike country, but India is perfectly prepared to use force to defend its interests. It doesn't, it's not a country that, you know, always turns its other cheek, the other cheek, absolutely not.

It was a conflict just a year ago. Exactly, exactly, with Pakistan. So, you know, I was told a few months ago when I was in Moscow. And I think you heard when you were in Moscow exactly the same thing, that some BRICS leaders, BRICS officials, the Russians have concluded, are afraid of sanctions, not just sanctions against their countries, but sanctions against them personally. And I'm not saying that Modi is one of these people, or Erdogan or Takayev, are amongst these people. I mean, I'm not sure that Kazakhstan is a member of bricks, and of course Turkey is an associate member of bricks, but it is not

a full member of bricks. But there are other people within the government and political systems in all of these countries who probably are nervous of potential American sanctions or secondary sanctions against themselves. And obviously, in the case of India, in the case of all of these countries, they are worried about American sanctions and American threads. And going back to your original question, of course they don't care about Ukraine. Of course they don't care about phone calls from Zelensky

whom none of them like. It's the Americans who have been calling them and who have been telling these countries to put pressure on Putin. But nonetheless, it does, infuriate the Russians, that they have to listen to this sort of thing. And it also infuriates the Russians, that they have to make rhetorical concessions, if you like, to these countries in order to keep bricks and the SEO and all of those other organizations together. In other words,

the Russians have to talk about the possibility of negotiations with the Ukrainians and all of those things. Whereas if you actually read Putin's press conference, it's absolutely clear that he no longer believes in it. Yeah, it makes bricks look weak as well. It makes bricks look very weak. It also solidifies the viewpoint that the access, the partnership that absolutely matters within bricks is China and Russia.

Absolutely. Absolutely correct. Just to finish, I think we discussed this in a previous program. that in Moscow, what I learned was that after the conference in Kazan, the BRICS conference in Kazan, in November 2024, October 2024, when all the arrangements were made to set up all the various bricks payment systems, bricks pay and all of that, basically nothing happened because first the Brazilians and then others showed extreme nervousness in moving forward with it. And again, the reason was, that they were all scared of the US, and the Russians were both scornful of this and deeply frustrated by it. And you're absolutely right. What this does make it look is that the Bricks ultimately is very weak. That collectively they are scared. They're still very scared of the Americans. China is different. And here the dynamic was completely different.

The Chinese have released an extraordinarily long, as they always do, read out of Xi Jinping's meeting with Putin. And it didn't once mention Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't there. And I get the sense that the Chinese have put this topic of Ukraine totally to one side. They are forging for. with their relations with the Russians. There's a lot of talk that the discussions on the pipeline, the second pipeline, power of Siberia 2, that those are now resolved and that we could be getting an announcement for this very, very soon. But all sorts of other things, economic ideas, military ideas, all of that, that relationship remains very, very strong

and very, very stable. And I've no doubt at all that it was China that ensured that Ukraine was kept out of the SEO Summit Declaration's final statement. Because the others, Modi, Takayev, Erdogan would undoubtedly have wanted some reference to Ukraine in this statement, if only to keep the Americans happy. The Russians, if it had been just them, might not have had enough authority to prevent Ukraine from getting into the statement. But China and Russia together ensured that Ukraine was not mentioned at all. Yeah, whatever the U.S. has on Kazakhstan or India, whatever leverage they do possess,

Russia also has leverage. So it really doesn't matter. to Russia if Kazakhstan or India turns on them in this way. I mean, at the end of the day, given everything that's happening in the Middle East with Iran, India needs the Russian oil. They need to refine that Russian oil. They need it for their own economy. Kazakhstan, sure, is influenced.

Maybe even certain parts of that society are captured by the U.S. The oligarch class. They may absolutely be captured by the collective West. but at the end of the day, Kazakhstan without Russia, good relations with Russia is going nowhere. I mean, so, you know, the U.S. has its leverage and it could exert its leverage and its influence. And so the leaders are going to go to Putin. They're going to say whatever they need to say in order to get the U.S. off their back. But Russia knows that they have more a leverage or at a minimum, an equal amount of leverage in the case of India and much more in the case of Kazakhstan.

Absolutely. But yeah, nonetheless, I don't think that the Russians are quite as relaxed about this as that, because what they have seen is that their erstwhile allies are not fully to be trusted on this issue or presumably any other. And there are people in Moscow who do make the comparison with the absolutely unstimed. supporting support that Ukraine gets from its allies and the very conditional support that Russia gets from its allies instead. So that difference is one that they do notice in Moscow, as I realized when I was there. And it is something that does irritate them, which might have impact in the future. Sure, sure. Even China when we talk about the drone components. Yes, yes. Right?

Absolutely. Yes. You could make the same argument, though, from the Ukraine side of things that they're irked when France is importing Russian gas. Yes. Right? Yes. Yes. But the rhetorical support that Ukraine gets to its allies is on an entirely different level.

Absolutely. And the Russians do are developing, and you can see this, they're increasingly developing a sense that really they're taking on the entire collective West by themselves. I mean, ultimately, it depends on them. Well, they are. And which they are. They are. They always have been.

Which they always have been. Yes. But I do think it has ever been so starkly exposed as it was at this conference. And the other thing is that I think the Russians also feel that after, almost five years of war, and the Russians painstakingly explaining the situation to their friends, a fact which, by the way, Modi alluded to, that the fact that their friends show such complete indifference to what the Russians are telling them, that is irritating to. Well, Putin was going very soft with Ukraine and very soft.

with the collective west. Yeah. Because of the friends in bricks and the friends in the east and in Eurasia, they were telling Putin for many years, please don't go too hard on Ukraine. Please don't go too hard on the collective west. Yes. And Putin did it. So this may also be a wake-up call for Putin and for Russia as well.

Well, I think this has played a much bigger role than people realize and understand. I think that in the first two years of the war, the Russians absolutely needed their friends. I think that in those days, India had choices, Kazakhstan even had choices. Russia was in a visibly weaker position then than it obviously is in today. And it's understandable that especially in those first two years, the Russians did slow walk some of the things they did. and did take a much softer line on the diplomacy. But, well, we've seen in Bishkek the kind of pressures they come under and have been under. Previously, they swallowed it and to some extent adapted their policy in relation to it.

I think now they are barely concealing their exasperation. And I'm going to say this. I think that the Russians increasingly feel that mostly they are on their own. But if they have any reliable ally, it is China and even more North Korea. And one of the reasons why we've seen this extraordinary flowering of the relationship between Russia and North Korea over the last two years is precisely because North Korea on this conflict has been fully committed to support for Russia in a way that no other country has been. The more apparent it becomes to everybody, including everyone in the collective West,

that Russia is winning this and will win. the more you will see the Indias and the Kazakhstan's of the world and the turkeys of the world line up in back of Russia to support Russia. Ultimately, yes. And now come, once again, of Putin going soft, much of which was at the urging of these countries. Yes. One of the outcomes was that the information war and from the collective west side of things, they presented a case where Russia was in a stalemate or Russia.

was not winning. And so you also have a lot of doubts in India, a lot of doubts in Kazakhstan. Should we really throw all this support behind Russia? We're reading in the New York Times that Russia is in a stalemate. We're reading that the Russian economy is collapsing. So let's not put all of this support behind Russia because what if these reports for the New York Times are true? We're going to then need the United States. Yes. Yeah. Right. So the whole thing worked against against Russia in a weird way in that they they appeased their friends and their allies. But their friends and their allies then would see what was being reported in the West.

Yeah. And they would hedge against fully supporting Russia. So the more it becomes apparent where this thing is heading towards and the more the collective us media can no longer cover it up, the more you're going to see these countries start to say, you know what, it's Russia's, Russia's got this thing. It's over. You know, we, we can now stand a little stronger, a little firmer against the collective West. Well, absolutely. I think that is absolutely correct. I think, I think that if you want to establish stable, long-term alliances and convince people that you are a strong and reliable ally,

then winning wars is absolutely the way to do it, and demonstrating that you are strong instead of weak is a further way to do it. What I am going to say, though, is that I think that we, on the contrary, over the next few months, as the situation in Ukraine deteriorates, we are going to see some signs of concern with what the Russians are up to in places like Ankara, Delhi, Astana, Brasilia, all of those sort of places. Because Russia winning decisively in Ukraine, first of all, it changes the international balance of power, at least the appearance of the international balance, and that is unsettling for many countries. And of course, various countries have different interests. So in Turkey's case, a Russian victory, which leaves Russia in control of the entire

northern coast of the Black Sea plus Crimea means that Turkey loses its strong position in the Black Sea, and that is unsettling. And it's not something I think that Erdogan would like to see happen at all. Kazakhstan, faced by a far more powerful Russia, He's also going to be nervous. They're going to say, well, you know, Russia, we broke away from Russia because the Soviet Union collapsed. For a long time, Russia was weak, and therefore we were able to do all kinds of things. Now Russia is strong. Russia is coming back.

How are we going to deal with this giant in the north, especially when such a large part of our population is fundamentally aligned with Russia. So you can do see issues in Kazakhstan as well. When I went to Georgia last year, there were already people I was talking to by knowing as pro-American who are telling me the same thing. If Russia wins in Ukraine, how will Russia behave towards Georgia and the other Caucasian states in future? When they become so strong again, I'll, Are they going to try and dominate us, dominate us in the way that they used to do? So, you know, you're going to have a period when there's going to be quite a lot of nervousness and worry. And the Russians will have to find ways to deal with that.

India, of course, is in a completely different category. I think that if you want me to say what I think, I think that there is a very, very large body of opinion in India, which would welcome a decisive Russian victory in Ukraine, because from their point of view, that does provide a counterbalance for India with the United States and China. Russia, seen as a friendly country, Russia once again reestablished conclusively as a global power. Most people in India, most people in the people,

political system would probably quietly welcome that. Yeah, I agree with you. There's going to be a period of readjustment. No. For some countries, it's going to be harder. I think for Kazakhstan eventually, they'll get over it. There'll be no problem. For Turkey, it's going to be a problem.

We talked about this in a previous video. There's going to be a big problem for Turkey and the way they see themselves in their geography with the blacks. Yeah, with the blacks, you know, no doubt about it. But, you know, they'll also have to figure out a way to adjust. Yes. Yes. Yes. Anyway, all right, we will end the video there. Check us out on Substack. Look for us on the Duran shop. Pick up some merch. Take care.