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All right, Alexander, let's talk about the NATO summit, which is wrapping up from the Netherlands.
And this was a NATO summit, which was not focused on Ukraine.
We haven't seen that in the last three years.
The NATO summits have pretty much been all about Ukraine, giving money to Ukraine, giving weapons to Ukraine, as long as it takes.
And Ukraine's irreversible path to NATO.
This time around, we had a shortened NATO summit.
But the focus was on Russia. Of course, Russia is the enemy, along with China, Iran, North Korea,
but it's definitely still about Russia. And the main focus was on U.S. President Trump.
That was the main focus of this NATO meeting. Trump did meet with Zelensky.
Zelensky wants Patriots Air Defense. Trump is thinking about it.
Zelensky said he'll buy the Patriot missiles, which is basically Zelensky saying, the U.S.
gives me money, and I'll use the U.S. money to buy U.S. Patriot missiles.
That's pretty much what Zelensky is saying.
But it was really all about Trump and giving Trump a big win.
And I think the big win that they gave Trump in order to get the commitment of the United States,
in order to feel that the United States is still committed to NATO and Article 5 and committed
to Europe, the big win that the big win that they gave Trump.
They gave Trump is 5% GDP spending by 2035.
Your thoughts, Alexander.
Well, I have to say, I mean, I found it the most surreal and bizarre NATO stuff we've ever had.
I mean, we've discussed previous meetings that, you know, these various Western bodies, the G7, NATO, they've all had.
And we said that, you know, sometimes they come across as meetings of ghosts and people of that kind.
This meeting, though, was on a completely different scale in terms of its sheer weirdness as compared to any other.
Now, it reminded me, by the way, of a comment that Vladimir Putin made before Donald Trump became president,
which is after the election, but before Trump's inauguration, in which he said that Trump would have no difficulty,
bringing the Europeans into line, people who were expecting some mighty clash between Trump.
and the Europeans were disappointed. These are all vassals and satellites of the United States,
and they will always end up doing whatever the United States tells them to. And Trump, as I remember,
like that comment of Putin's, and he republished it on truth social. And here we are, Donald Trump
comes to the NATO summit. It's shortened to the point where I gather just, you know, one morning,
is devoted to business, except as far as I can see, no actual business is done. All that happens
is that they give Trump this absolutely unaffordable promise to increase defense spending
to 5% of GDP, which they have no intention of ever fulfilling because it is unaffordable and cannot
happen. And they just poor praise.
Trump throughout the day to the point that, I mean, it was ludicrous.
I mean, Mark Rutter calling him daddy and all of those things.
It was absurd.
And as far as I'm concerned, what it basically showed is not that NATO exists and is a viable
and strong organization.
It shows the absolute opposite.
it. They're so in awe and fear that Donald Trump might actually lead the United States away from Europe, that they will do anything. They will, you know, prostrate themselves in front of him in order to try to keep him committed to Europe. And if you actually, and NATO. And if you actually listen carefully to the various things that he was saying, use Blanky's usual gay. Oh, yes, you know, don't worry, Article 5, you know, we're with you all the way.
things. Then he goes off and says something completely different, which appears to undercut back
entirely. He then, I mean, he plays this game, which he clearly likes playing and which he knows
I have to play very, very well of, you know, teasing and infuriating them and at the same time
to appear to promise things to them, which you analyze his promises, they never really amount
to very much at the end of the day. It's important to say that he committed him.
himself in the end to absolutely nothing. Donald Trump made no commitments to the Europeans
in response to all that forning and all those promises of 5% of GDP defense spending.
He gave himself complete freedom to do whatever he chooses to do going forward. And, of course,
the extent to which he has absolutely no interest or regard for these people.
is that it's the same group of people who he met at that G7 meeting in Canada a few weeks ago that he walked out of.
And it's absolutely clear that he never informed them in advance that he was about to attack Iran.
He never solicited their opinions.
He never discussed it with them.
He did whatever he chooses to do.
And here they all come and they praise him for doing it.
And as I said, he just goes away and we'll do whatever he chooses to do.
from this point on, because he's seen these people for what they really are, and I suspect
his contempt for them, has hardened still further.
Yeah, when you analyze the meeting, you're exactly right, Alexander. This showed NATO's
weakness. They are absolutely weak. As an alliance, and especially without the United States,
they're not nothing. They are absolutely nothing non-existent.
without the United States is military and most importantly without the United States
is money.
And that's why they were fawning over Trump because they want to make sure that the money
keeps flowing into Europe from the United States.
And I agree with you.
Trump is playing with them.
He committed himself to nothing.
But let me make the argument, Alexander, to you, that NATO, the NATO members,
the European NATO member states really committed nothing.
to the alliance or to the United States either, 5% GDP by 2035.
I mean, you know, it's basically them telling the United States, we're just going to wait you out.
We're going to try and wait Trump out.
What we're really looking to do is just to make sure that in the next three years,
Trump doesn't pull the U.S. out of the alliance.
He's still committed to the alliance.
If we get that, then we're fine.
So just tell him 5%. Tell him 10%. Tell him 50%. It doesn't matter. Whatever it takes to just make sure that Trump continues to say that the United States is interested in NATO.
Correct. That's exactly what they've done. That's exactly their calculation. And as I said, for the moment, at least Trump's playing along with it. I mean, I'm sure he knows that there's no reality or sincerity in all of this. I mean, the one thing he does, I think, understand is, you know, money and the money that people spend on these things.
So I'm sure he's seen through it, but for the moment, it suits him to go along with this fiction, which is, it's purely a fiction. They're not going to go for 5%. Sanchez in Spain, who I suspect for domestic political reasons, he's going through a major political crisis in Spain, by the way, he's involved in a serious corruption scandal. So I think Sanchez is holding out against it because he knows that doing so plays well with his electoral ben.
in Spain, but he's the only person who's speaking out against this thing.
Trump, of course, doesn't like that, but all of the others are just going along,
pretending that they're going to do this, but they have no intention of doing it at all.
And they never will.
I mean, it's impossible.
It's absolutely impossible.
In the meantime...
Economies would collapse.
In the meantime...
Yeah, in the meantime, I think that the Europeans have gradually and grudgingly come
to understand that it is going to be impossible to get Trump to recommit to project Ukraine.
And this is the other, this is perhaps, if you like, the big story of the summit because Zelensky
came along, he put on a suit, but he didn't put on a tie, by the way.
He's getting close.
He's getting close.
He's getting close.
He's gradually edging that way.
He comes along.
He says he wants 140 billion euros, which is probably the Russian money that he's talking about.
He says that he wants Patriot missiles, which he's prepared to pay for, either with stolen Russian money or with American money or European money or somebody else's money, but obviously not his own.
They keep him to one side.
There's no talk of Ukraine joining NATO.
There's none of that repetition of all of those things.
The statement that is published at the end of the summit meeting is much shorter than all the previous statements and has fewer of the criticisms of Russia that we had heard before.
We've had statements from Rubio and an interview which he gave to Politico, in which he again basically said that, you know, the sanctions, further sanctions against Russia are not a good idea.
If we did that, we would lose the possibility of talking to them, including about ceasefires
in Ukraine.
And I noticed that there was no pushback against that in Europe.
The European media, the British media, ignored that interview of Rubio's almost entirely.
The United States has now closed down, apparently.
Another agency that functioned within the bureaucracy of the National Security Council in the
United States, looking to put more pressure on Russia in some way. They've just closed it down.
All of this is going on. Nobody cares. Nobody says anything. Zelensky hangs around.
He has his meeting with Trump. It goes on for an hour. So it's not a short meeting.
Zelensky apparently does all the talking. Trump just listens, walks away, says that he's a nice
guy. Nothing more. Nothing further. No commitments to Ukraine to Zelensky. No promise.
of Patriot Missiles, Trump says, you know, we need Patriot missiles, we need them in other places,
which is true, by the way. But it does look as if the West's commitment to Project
Ukraine is starting to wind down. And I think this was perhaps the single most important meeting
in confirming that. That was my sense anyway.
All right. So let's talk about the other big story connected to Dato.
and I think this is a very big story.
And that has to do with Medvedev's post on a telegram, quite a long post,
where Medvedev lays out the, what is soon to be,
I believe it's soon to be Kremlin policy,
which is that Ukraine, whatever Ukraine is in the next six months or the next year,
will not be a part of the European Union,
because the European Union is nothing more than a part of NATO or is becoming a part of NATO.
And the purpose of the EU and, of course, of NATO is to destroy Russia, is to wage war with Russia,
is to fill Ukraine up with weapons and with all kinds of sabotage operations against Russia.
And Medvedev spelled it out.
the European Union cannot have Ukraine in as a member state, nor can NATO.
Our red line was NATO, he said.
We were okay.
Once upon a time, we were okay with Ukraine entering the European Union, but not anymore
because the EU and NATO are pretty much one and the same.
By the way, Medvedev's post-a-telegram was preceded by Lavrov, speaking out a forum
where Lavrov said the same exact thing.
The European Union is nothing more, he said, than an appendage of NATO.
And they're both.
Both organizations are hostile to Russia.
So obviously, this has been talked about at the Kremlin.
Obviously, Lavrov and Medvedev are moving towards what I believe is going to be a policy
with regards to Ukraine and entry into the European Union.
We talked about this in the past in many video updates, probably over the last three years,
we've talked about how Ukraine eventually, if things continue going down this trajectory,
Ukraine's entry into NATO will also be off the table eventually.
That's going to be the policy from Russia.
And it looks like that is exactly where we're heading.
I think it's exactly right.
I think what we're now looking at is Russian policy.
I don't think this is just Medvedev.
sounding off or Lavrov sounding off. I think there's clearly been a discussion about this
within the Kremlin, within the Security Council in Moscow, and I think they've come to this consensus.
And there was an important clue about this about a few weeks ago when the Russians published
the memorandum which they presented to the Ukrainians at the last meeting in Istanbul.
And I noticed, and I remember we talked about it, that Ukraine's entry into the EU was not mentioned in the memorandum.
The memorandum did not say any longer that the Russians supported that.
So we've gone a long way.
Back in April 22, at the first Istanbul negotiation, the one that read to the Istanbul negotiation, the one that read to the Istanbul Agreement,
the draft agreement which the ukrainians and the russians both initial but which boris johnson and
joe biden and donie lincoln and all of those people basically torpedo it didn't just say that
ukraine could join the e u it actually apparently said that russia would support
ukraine's application to join the e u and putin actually gave
an interview at that time. I remember it. He said this with the president of Kazakhstan,
to Kayaev, sitting next to him, which he said, we have no objection to Ukraine joining in the EU,
because the EU is purely an economic association. It is not a defense or military alliance,
and whether Ukraine joins an economic association or not is none of our business. That was Putin's
position then, I should say it was already controversial with many people in Russia at that time.
With every step that Osceola and Co. have taken to militarise the EU and to fund massive
rearmament programs and to align the EU more and more with NATO, you've seen criticism
of this in Russia, of the
of this stance in Russia and support for it peeling away.
And it is now absolutely crystal clear that the Russians have finally turned against it,
that Medvedev and Lavrov, and the way Medvedev has set this out,
and the way Matt Lavrov has spoken about this,
as it clearly shows that this is now Russian policy,
that the Russians have now come down and decided that the point has now finally come,
where it is no longer possible for Ukraine to join the EU because the NATO and the EU have merged and are basically the same thing.
Geopolitical project, the European Union, as you said. Yeah. Geopolitical military project is what it's becoming.
Exactly. Not an economic project anymore at all.
They don't care about that.
They don't care about that.
That's not part of it at all.
That's not part of it anymore.
At all.
Yeah, they're letting Moldova in.
They're letting Ukraine in.
This has the European Union has zero to do with economics.
Zero to do with those things.
Yeah.
Your financial situation, fiscal discipline.
And they love that at all.
It is about expansion.
That's it, territory.
How much more can we expand?
And how many more funds can we expand?
can we create military funds, health funds.
Funds, funds, we need to create funds.
That's what it's all about.
Exactly.
Yeah, all right.
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