The Duran Podcast - NATO's war with Russia w/ Dmitry Orlov (Live)

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

NATO's war with Russia w/ Dmitry Orlov (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander Burkirce, and we are joined today with Dimitri Orlof. It is our pleasure and our honor to have you with us, Dimitri, on the Duran. How are you doing today? Very good. It is my pleasure to be with you. Dimitri, I have your link to your Boosti page in the description box down below. Is that the best place where people can find you? Yes, that's where I publish all of my articles these days. Seems to be working relatively well for me.

All right. I have that link in the description box down below. I will also add it as a pinned comment as well. Definitely follow Dimitri's work. Fantastic articles, fantastic analyst. And let's say hello to everyone that's watching us. today from, from Odyssey, from Rockfin, Rumble. How is everyone doing on Rumble?

And on YouTube and a big shout out to our locals community, the duran. Dot.com. How is everyone doing in the locals chat? How is everyone doing in the YouTube chat? Tish M. moderating Peter is with us, moderating. Who else? Zareel is with us as well. And I think that is everyone moderating. So, Alexander Dimitri, a lot of escalation is going on.

So let's discuss everything that is happening in Russia, in Ukraine, in Europe, and in the United States. Where are things heading? Alexander Dimitri, the floor is yours. Well, indeed. And can I just say, nobody better. to discuss these topics with and Dimitri, I've been reading a lot of things that Dimitri has been writing for well, a very long time, long before I started, we started on the Duran. And always insightful, interesting, interesting about Russia, interesting about Ukraine, interesting, very interesting

indeed what Dimitri tells us about the West as well. And I think if you track what Dimitri has been writing about the West, especially. But, you know, Russia and Ukraine also, profoundly prescient as well. I mean, you know, things don't turn out exactly always in the way that one expects because none of us has a crystal ball. But Dimitri gets pretty close to saying things, you know, have got pretty close in describing how things have indeed. turned out. And we are indeed in a period of extraordinary escalation, escalation of rhetoric,

all kinds of dangerous moves, extraordinary anger, hysteria in the West as well. Astonishing contrast by the calmness and as Russians like to increasingly say rhythmic quality with which policy and actions are conducted there. And I have to say the thing that is that really strikes me about the West at the moment is you have an astonishing grandiosity of language combined with inept execution and remarkably limited resources. The resources simply do not come anywhere close to meeting the sweep of the West's ambitions, a fact which seems to have surprised Western leaders as they encounter it and which they don't really seem to know how to cope with. And I kind of would think that a lot of the tension and anger and hysteria and paranoia

that we're seeing at the west of the moment is because this realization is now suddenly dawning upon them. And of course those who have a historical bent as I do will know that grandiosity and paranoia, megalomania and paranoia are kindred cousins. they go together. Anyway, Dimitri, this is my few comments about the state of the West. Firstly, would you agree? Are we, are we, am I getting it roughly right? Have you ever known the time? Yeah, go on, go on. I think you're right. And things look very different from the West than they do from the East where there is really no escalation going on really worth mentioning.

Strategically, Russia is doing extremely well. Tactically, Russia is doing extremely well. It's sustaining a certain amount of damage, but it can go on sustaining for all the people who can hear care. Is the audio breaking up? breaking up? Just slightly, but I can hear you. Yeah, it was a little, it was a little

breaking up a little low. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I'll try to speak up. But in the West, I think the situation is rather different because of something that could be called auto training.

You know, it's where people tell themselves that they're good enough and they're smart enough. And they can get the job done and they're still very important and everyone respects and likes and fears them and they will continue telling that to themselves and to each other no matter what's going on so uh afghanistan is a complete fiasco they fall out but let's forget about that uh they i've lost you again um really yeah it's briefly the audio is breaking up it's

sometimes yeah we lost you sure again yeah yeah well yeah the chat is saying that the volume is is also low turn up okay yeah that's very strange usually it's just fine as is there any here um let me think that's input the input thing on the side. It's working on my end. Okay. Chatty, let me

Can you boost the volume on your? Yeah, yeah. Let me see if I could boost. Okay, I boosted it. No, I lost them. I think the mic I think the mic can only go up so high

from my side. Okay. So, So I suppose, check. Yeah, chat, can you hear the B3 better now?

The B3 could do. One, two, three, four, five. Can you hear me? Testing,

testing. Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. Okay. So should I? I think, I think,

let's go on. Let's try and go on. Yes, let's continue. Yeah. Let's continue. Yeah. Yeah.

So the West is facing a sequence of theascos of various kinds, but they're telling each other that they're still very powerful and very important. Even though the Houthis in Yemen can shut down the Red Sea and the Suez Canal at will, that they still think that they have a powerful military and powerful Navy, for instance, that can still threaten countries at will. So there's a complete disconnect between what the West can actually do and what they think they can do. And it's a bit of a problem that's coming to ahead in the Ukraine because the Russians are very eager to pretty much kill all the Ukrainians that want to fight them, that want to shoot at them. And they're doing that successfully. They've upped that level to about 1,400 dead Ukrainians a day at this point, which is a just a record. They don't have that far to go because the Ukrainians are pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as recruitment drafting.

They think that they can change the situation by supplying the Ukrainians with weapons, even though 90% of the weapons, the artillery, the guided artillery, the rocketry that they provided is now useless because, because the Russians have invented electronic countermeasures that throw them off track. So 90% of everything that gets launched just gets lost, doesn't hit the target. All they can really do is randomly shell civilian districts because there at least you'll hit something,

maybe a car, you know, maybe a school, who knows. But they satisfy themselves with that. And so there really is a complete discreet discreet. between what the West can do and what the Russians are doing. The Russians are taking it slow. They could probably take a great deal more land, but you see they don't want to discourage the Ukrainians because they don't want the Ukrainians to just fold up

and stop fighting. They don't want the West to stop supplying whatever weapons they have left to the Ukrainians. They don't want the West to stop bankrupt by bankrolling this corrupt regime. That's all going the way it's supposed to. So the Russians are taking it easy. They're not really working too hard.

They're working to minimize casualties on their end. That is a big priority. They're working very hard on drone technology, on artificial intelligence to pick out targets automatically. They're working very hard on radio warfare. Those are priorities. And the latest thing that they're trying to do is try to optimize the entire area of military production. So there's no repetition of effort.

And it's a very directed effort designed to produce the maximum output for the minimum price, which is probably at this point 20, 30 times better than in the West. I think you've put your finger on many of the kids. key points. I think that the kind of war, the Russians are conducting in Ukraine, is not only one that the West itself has never conducted, because attrition war isn't something that they've done, at least not in the modern era. They've never actually sought to conduct attrition war. Maybe Ulysses Grant did it briefly in the 1860s, but that was long ago. If you're talking about the allies in the First World War who did conduct what ultimately came to an attrition war,

that is not what they wanted to do at all. They were always looking for some kind of mythical breakthrough that they would achieve in order to try to get the attrition happen faster. So it's not something the West does or can even imagine. And I think it has them completely nonplast and unable to understand it. Even, you know, the more realistic people within the militaries of the West who perhaps understand or beginning to understand what a problem the situation is, what a crisis situation has been reached in Ukraine. They don't, still, I think, don't fully get what it is that the Russians are doing. And I think, they don't fully get what it is that the Russians are doing. And I think, that this is compounded the sense of crisis in the West because one of the major problems

that you encounter, at least one of the, well, let me put it this way, you can never solve a problem unless you're able to ask the right question. You can't answer, give an answer, without understanding the problem that you're encountering. If the West can't answer the right question, because it is so completely beyond its imagination. How is it going to come up with the solution to the problem that it faces? And you touched on the question of military production, of technological development, of all of those things. And to an extent that has astonished even me and I used to work in industrial industry. I used to see how industry work.

I do think the West understands how industry works anymore. I mean, I've come to that absolute conclusion that politically, leaders and military people just don't understand industry. They don't understand technology. They have a completely misconceived conception of what it does and of how it works and of how to get production organized. Now, this is not new to you because you've been talking about these things for years. But I just wanted to say that I have

been reading you, but I never imagined that it could possibly be on this kind of scale. So what happened? Why have we lost those abilities, that capacity for imagination and that capacity for industrial organization, which, by the way, in the West we did used to have? Well, it's, it happens back to the collapse of the Spanish Empire. You know, they, they made so much gold or stole so much gold from the various tribes in the Americas, that they didn't actually have to do anything. They bought everything they could possibly need until the money ran out and then they folded. The United States did a similar thing by printing money for a really long time.

Exporting inflation, we know the whole story, basically borrowing itself out of existence. Right now we're witnessing the debt spiral where they have to borrow more and more just to pay the interest on the existing debt. Never mind new debt. So that's happening and while that was happening, they've exported all the production, all the dirty work, let the little yellow and brown people take care of it, but we'll just take care of servants. And, you know, lo and behold, it turns out that if you run a massage parlor, you know, that's a service sort of industry, but you still need massage oil. And that's an import.

And if the container ports aren't running, you're not getting the massage oil and your massage parlor has to close. So it's down to that situation where 70 probably more than that percent of the U.S. economy and other Western economies is services. They're basically scratching each other's back and calling that GDP, but they don't know how to make anything. And when it comes to making something, they've read about making things, but they don't have any industrialists. They have people with MBAs that can pretty much run anything as a financial institution, no matter what it makes.

It makes pencils, but it's still a financial institution. Their compensation depends on stock prices and not on the quality of the pencils. So they follow this pattern where they come up with a business plan and maybe even some kind of a Gant chart and they hire some designers to produce 3D models and PowerPoint presentations. and they show those to investors, and maybe they select the board of directors, and then they sit there and realize that they've just spent half the money. And then they have to do it again, but they haven't produced a single pencil.

So that sort of thing happened. We can watch that happen. The Americans decided that they have to make their own microchips. They can no longer trust Taiwan to produce the microchips. They've allocated billions of dollars. They spent half the billion. a billion of dollars. They've maybe dug some foundation fit somewhere,

and I'm not sure, somewhere in Arizona. But there's no factory and there are no chips. And that sort of thing just keeps happening over and over and over again. Because to have industry, you have to start with industrialists. And they don't have any industrialists left. Let's look at the other side of the picture.

because of course the West, we've just described the situation in the West. Why is Russia so completely different? Why has Russia proved so resistant to these trends of deindustrialization that have become so generic in the West, not just deindustrialization, but at the loss of industrial and organizational skills that we have seen in the West? after all, starting from the late 1980s and going through the 1990s and even into the early 2000s, there was a very clear, I can remember it, very clear effort made amongst many people, including in Russia itself, to convert Russia themselves, to convert Russia to the Western model.

Why didn't it happen? Was it something about the basic culture of the country, the education, system, the nature of the institutions, was it all of those together? What was it that caused this resistance? Or was it the way in which the West itself tried to pursue this policy of de-industrialization and whatever it is, westernization of Russia in the 1990s that caused the Russians to reject it? Well, if you drive around Russia, small towns and Russia, big towns, as I have, Every place you go to, there's going to be a war memorial, not just a tiny little war memorial, but a huge one.

And it'll have recently placed fresh-cut flowers in front of it. And on major holidays to commemorate various occasions, schoolchildren will come and lay flowers at those memorials. bands will play, choirs will sing. And people who have had anything to do with that victory will be honored. In memory, if they're no longer alive, it is the state cult. Victory in war is Russia's main state cult. You can compare it to pagan cults of old empires. It is really an awesome force.

The Russians like to say that our fallen are our sentinels. They will not abandon us. They will not allow us to be defeated. As far as military production, to the Russians, to the engineers, that is a type of warfare. It's just that warfare has two components. One is the front and the other one is the rear. And they're equally important and equally heroic.

as far as crafting yet another victories concerned. And Russia is not the Soviet Union, which had this internationalist flavor to it. It started out with this idea of world revolution. Of course, Stalin realized that that was no go. So he decided to instead build socialism in just one country, which is the USSR, and went on doing that. But Russia is a different place now.

It's a different country. It is not internationalist. It is multi-ethnic, but basically it is a multi-ethnic Russian state. And it has a certain idea. I don't know if ideology is the right word to use, but it has something, an ethos, similar to the samurai essence, Bushido of old imperial Japan.

When Putin put it suddenly, and everybody thought that was a bit of a joke, but it's not a joke, it's deadly serious, when he said that, well, if there's a, if there's Third World War, then we will go to heaven as martyrs, and our enemies will, will just die like dogs because they won't even have time to repent.

Because you see, in order to get to heaven, you have to repent. But if you don't have time to repent, you end up in hell. So that is the mentality of the people. And so infinitely patient, but victory or death is basically a very different from what's going on in the West. It's completely different. Now, speaking about Russia, being different to death, that it's not as internationalist in the way that the Soviet Union was.

I mean, that is completely true, but it's also paradoxical, because, of course, Russia is not internationalist, yet it has far better relations with far more countries than the Soviet Union ever did. I remember that. I was there in the last period of the Cold War, and a far more wider range of countries. So it's friends with countries like Saudi Arabia and Colombia

and most of the Asian states, Malaysia, wherever, Indonesia, wherever. And at the same time, it is far more open to the world, which, of course, the Soviet Union was not. The Soviet Union was much more careful about allowing, you know, people from outside and ideas from outside to come in and to involve themselves and Soviet things. How do you explain this paradox? Why are the Russians so much more successful in their international relations today than the Soviets were? And how is it that they preserve their Russianness, if you like to call it, that with the fact that they're simultaneously much more open to the world?

And is this also partly a reflection of the policies of the West, which has become more unpopular around the world than I have ever known it to be in my lifetime? Well, first of all, I don't think the West is altogether unpopular. It is still the most popular Circus Act in the world, but it's not taking seriously because there's nothing left of it to take seriously. That is the death of postmodernism. You can basically get rid of all traditionalism, and then the traditionalists say, well, you know, that's nice, but let's cross it all out. Let's toss it because it's just some junk that you've come up with.

So basically what the West has is a whole pile of junk that is sort of entertaining to look at, but not to take seriously. as far as Russia's ability to interact positively with the rest of the world is because the Russians, they treat everyone as equals. They don't have this legacy of imperialist domination. They never had the idea of the white man's burden.

They never looted the rest of the planet. Instead, themselves have been looted a few times but the difference is and this is why Russia is so inspirational to the rest of the world outside the West Russia has never been conquered ever it is unconquerable and that is something that people really love because they want a piece of that themselves they want to be unconquerable so they're very eager to invite the russians there to teach them how to become unconquerable and some some of them are are doing pretty well with it. Look at where Nicheir is now. They kicked out the French.

Now they're kicking out the Americans. They love it. That Bismarck actually said that about Russia, that is the unconquerable country. And he won Germany, the German leadership at that time of this. And of course they ignore what he said. But anyway, that's, that's a bit of, that is a bit of history. Now, is that why the West is so antagonistic to Russia that it looks of this country that to some, in some superficial ways, looks very similar to the West. If you travel, if you go to Moscow and St. Petersburg

or another Russian cities, at a certain level, they do look very like cities in the West. If you spend any time there and go a little bit under the surface, you realize you start to see the differences and they are marked, but superficially it looks similar. But at the same time, it's not different. it's not playing the same game as the West is. It's not being part of what the West wants.

It's not been prepared to provide the West with the unlimited resources and raw materials of the West expected. But fundamentally, it remains both defiant and different. Is this what it is about Russia that makes the West so antagonistic? Because I have to say, I have genuine difficulty sometimes understand, the intense antipathy, the hostility that exists towards Russia and the West. I can understand why there might be a geopolitical conflict. But if you listen to the way some Western leaders speak, you get the impression that they actually hate the place.

Now, I mean, has that anything to do with the topics that we've discussed? I think it has to do with a great deal of that. You see, the leaders in the West are weak. They're specifically chosen to be weak, especially in Europe, where the only people who are allowed by the Americans to stand for election are somehow flawed. There's some compromising evidence on them that will allow the CIA or whatever other group is in charge of. of jettisoning them to jettison them very quickly by causing a scandal. And there is a powerful way of powerful methodology in place for basically keeping them in line

and making them do whatever Washington wants them to do. And then they look at these Russian politicians who do whatever their people tell them to do. And they go into shock. You know, the idea that there might be a democracy where politicians, politicians make promises to their electorate, and then if they don't abide by those promises, they're thrown out of their job. You know, it's just such a shock to them. And then on another level, you know, they're all about their bankers and they listen to their bankers and investment advisors and all of that. It's all about money.

And from that point of view, the modern new Russia, unlike the post-Soviet regime of Yeltsin is just not really providing the money that the West needs. The fact that the Soviet Union, after its collapse, got thoroughly looted, gave the West and gave the United States an extra 30 years during which they definitely avoided national bankruptcy. And now that Russia is not playing ball and is not exporting all of the horrendous profits that it makes by exporting various types of raw materials and energy, and keeping that to itself and using that money to finance its internal development or maybe lending it to various friendly countries, that is a disaster for the West because it breaks their business model of the Russians working hard, making lots of money, and then giving that money to them. They're no longer doing them.

And so that's a shock and makes them very angry. Now, where does Ukraine fit in all of this? Because Ukraine historically has been part of Russia, very close to Russia, very close cultural relationships with Russia. I know that there are some people who say that the relationship is so close that, in fact, ultimately,

at a certain level, they're almost one and the same. Why did Ukraine turn out so differently from Russia? And what explains the antagonism to Russia that you find amongst some people there, and which is driving this war, and which is playing such a big role in this war? Well, there are a few problems to get through. You mentioned history, so let's just point out

that there's no such country as, as Ukraine historically. It's a Soviet project. Basically what happened was that Lenin decided to lump a whole bunch of Russian lands together with a little bit of not sure what and call it the Ukraine. And those Russians balked it being called Ukrainian, but the Soviets were very forceful in hiring local thugs to convince them to start speaking this local dialect, which concocted language called Ukrainian, which some of them made an effort to do and some didn't. And then after World War II, Stalin made the terrible mistake of lumping in some lands that were part of Austria, Hungary, together with this concocted enemy called the Ukraine.

And that's where all of the Nazi fascists, all of those thugs, came from. That particular place was really ravaged by a combination of Polish and German influences into being basically mental cases. They're very hard to deal with, very hard to understand. And then over the past 30 years, those people were put in charge

of the whole place by the Americans who infiltrated the place and tried to turn it into an anti-Russian. So for 30 years, they've been destroying the educational system and brainwashing people to hate Russia. That is what happened. And, you know, it's a very sad result, because once you start brainwashing people from a young age, teaching them this fake language that doesn't really teach them anything, and then doing something else with them is trying to perform some kind of psychiatry on the level of a huge territory with a multi-million population, which there isn't enough psychiatrists in the world to handle. So the only choice then is to have them come and try to kill you and kill them instead, which is what's going on. It's very, very brutal and very, very terrible to watch.

What do you think is going to happen? I mean, we can all see that Russia is going to win the war. I don't think there's anybody now, even in the West, even in, you know, the sort of commentary on any longer, who doubts that Russia is winning. And, of course, we have all these extreme ideas about, you know, giving the Ukrainian missiles to launch at Russia, sending Western troops there.

I think anybody deep down really believes that this is going to change the outcome anymore. So how is it going to end? I mean, will we see the whole thing collapse? Will we see some kind of Ukrainian state continue to exist and survive and come out of this process? Or will it all be brought back into the Russian fold again? I get asked this question all the time. And I'm going to be so straightforwardly, I myself have not sure. But what are your thoughts?

Well, these ideas are not mine. They're ideas expressed by various people in Russia. But what makes the most sense to me is that the Russian parts of Ukraine who've only been there for less than a century lumped into the Ukraine and until the collapse of the USSR, it didn't really matter because it was all one country anyway, that spent just the last three. 30 years, most of them that period of time speaking Russian, you know, all of that time speaking

Russian and being part of the Russian world, they'll go back to Russia as has already happened in Donetsk and Lugansk and Crimea and Zapatojia and Herzl. So there are other Russian parts of the former Ukraine that will be folded into Russia. And further west, there's an area which is sort of a no man's land, but it's some of that is really, really good farmland and it's becoming largely depopulated because people are leaving because there's no way to make a living there. That'll probably just be farmland and a sort of buffer zone. And then even further west, there's a couple of districts, a couple of regions that I think are destined to become major headaches for Poland and Hungary and Romania. Let them handle it. And the buffer zone will be wide enough so that the Russians won't have to worry about security too much.

but none of that will ever be fit to join NATO under any circumstances. And Russia will simply not allow it. So that's probably how it's going to evolve. It'll come apart the same way it was put together. So you could call it desovietization. Which is something that Ukrainians sometimes talk about, that they talk about it in a completely different way. If I can just ask you a few more questions, and then, you know, we can perhaps switch to Alex, if that's all right.

How did the West underestimate Russia so completely? Now, this is a issue that, you know, is close to my heart because I've traveled to Russia a couple of times. Not as, you know, deeply or as extensively as many people who claim to know the place, but clearly don't have done. but I've been to Russia, I've been outside Moscow, I've been to the Urals, and places like this. I've seen Russian factories, I've talked with Russian engineers. I had a clear conception of the scale of the place, and this is all documented.

I've been writing about this for many years, and I said that, you know, when it came to it, the military-industrial economy, and indeed the economy as a whole, would be able to withstand the sanctions shock, very successfully and that there would be an enormous production surge which would carry

Russia forward and that all the expectations of political crisis, protests, all of that that would not materialise. I cannot begin to tell you how many people in the West, not just recently, but throughout the time I've been saying these things, had insisted to me

that I am completely wrong. I've had most astonishing things said, people, for example, telling me that, you know, the Russians didn't know how to do direct satellite broadcasting for television. And I said, they actually pioneered it. Things are that guy. So why, you know, the West supposedly studies Russia minutely. You would expect that they would know something about the scale of the factories.

You know, they're not typical to see. You can get satellites. You can see them. You could count the number of employees. You could work out how many machine tools there are in these factories. This is the basic work I thought of intelligence agencies. There are people in the West. I've spoken to some of them, engineers, people like that,

who've been to these places. They tell me no one, no one, I've consulted a few in Britain. No one has ever spoken to them. How does it happen? Why did the West not see that which was always there? Well, I think you could approach it from a couple of different angles. One is that Russia in the minds of many people in the West is a work of fiction of their own. It's a country that they invent and reinvent by doing a psychological maneuver called projecting the shadow,

where you first convince yourself that Russia is the enemy. and secondly, since you don't know anything about what Russia is really like, you project onto Russia everything that you don't like about yourself. And you end up with this image of something that is simultaneously bad, evil, and weak and pathetic. And so you go on with that model in your mind thinking that you're talking about Russia, as you're really talking about yourself. So that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is a lot of this information

about Russia filters to everywhere in the West from the United States, which is think tank land. The United States is just filthy with think tanks. You know, it's like you can't throw brick without hitting it. And think tanks generally are staffed with people. who rely on informants. And those informants are immigrants, and there are lots of Russian immigrants in the United States.

Now, with immigrants, there's a different psychological thing, which is Russian immigrants when they leave Russia, they experience incredible pangs of nostalgia and want to come back with all their heart, but they can't because they told themselves that, you know, emigrating is something they must do and they can't admit to themselves that they've made a terrible mistake by leaving Russia. And so what they, what they, the mechanical mechanism that they use is to continuously tell themselves that Russia is bad.

So they don't, they actually become compendiums, walking compendiums of information about things about Russia that are bad. They parse all the news and find all the news stories about Russia that allow them to formulate this picture of Russia as a bad place. And then they're very eager to share that information with each other and everyone else who would listen, because that will alleviate their pains of nostalgia. There's a third element to it, which is Russians who speak English, You see, Russian is a bear of a language, and it's not a language that you want to speak badly because everyone will just vomit. You know, and so very few people in the West really want to spend six years of their lives studying this beast of a language just for the sake of understanding Russian. Usually it happens if they marry a Russian and then they move to Russia and then they become Russian.

and then from the point of view of, you know, think tank people that they may become somehow polluted with Russianness and not to be trusted. Whereas the people that they do want to listen to are the people who somehow have convinced themselves that they're going to learn English and they're going to escape this terrible country called Russia and live in the wonderful shiny West where, you know, white bread has a crunchy crust. whereas in Russia it doesn't. And that's a terrible thing. So basically they're talking to people who have a preconceived notion of Russia is a bad place and they convince themselves, therefore, that Russia is a bad place.

So those are really like the three mechanisms for relating that. One very last question for me. And this is a huge topic, but just short thoughts about this. The relationship with, China, the relationship between Russia and China. Is it stable? Is it for real? I mean, to give away my view, I think it most emphatically is. I do think it's going to change in the way

that the West hopes. I don't think there's this tension between China and Russia that some people imagine. But what are your views on this? I think China and Russia are becoming symbionts. They're not allies. It's not something that is worth discussing in terms of Western-style state relations. They're really symbiates. When Putin flies to Beijing and brings his entire government with him, his entire cabinet. And on the other side, Shigen Ping's entire cabinet is there to meet them. and there's a pile of paperwork up to the roof that they pour through and sign lots of papers, etc.

That is basically the spectacle of Russia and China unifying at an economic level, not necessarily political level, not necessarily social level, although that's interesting because the Russians and the Chinese get along very smoothly, strangely enough, spite of big cultural differences, they're very compatible. And there's quite a bit of affection, I would say, for each other. But they're becoming symbionts because Russia cannot manufacture everything that it needs by itself. It doesn't have the population. It doesn't have the market. China can do that because China's market is the whole world. So it has incredible efficiencies.

of scale that Russia cannot possibly match. And Russia is happy to let China be the manufacturing mecca. And China's problem is that it's running out of coal. This entire manufacturing mecca thing has been based on mostly energy from coal. And now some of the pits in China are becoming too deep. The easy to get at coal is becoming a smaller and smaller share. They're getting lots of coal from Russia. They need to get more. So Russia is widening its various delivery systems, the railroad system and shipping to produce more coal. The logistics of that are a bit of a nightmare because of the climate and various other things. But they're working assiduously at that. They're building gas pipelines. They're also cooperating on the next generation of nuclear

reactors, which the Chinese are already building like crazy. But the problem is that enriched uranium is in rather short supply in the world. And Russia is the only country in the world that has broken through the closed nuclear cycle barrier that can actually make reactors that will run on depleted uranium, of which there's thousands of years worth stockpiled on the surface ready to be used. So China is ready to tap into that as well. So in terms of energy and in terms of industrial production, and in terms of defense, too,

these are becoming simple. These are becoming not just integrated, but two pieces of one giant puzzle. And in terms of Russia winning or China winning the things going on in the Ukraine or in Taiwan, Russia is not interested in having China lose in Taiwan. China is not interested in having Russia lose in the Ukraine, and therefore, these things will not happen.

Dimitri Oloff, thank you for an absolutely outstanding series of questions. Immensely insightful, as always. I'm going to ask you to stay a moment, and I think Alex may have a few questions, but for me, thank you very much. And welcome to the Duran, and I hope we can have you again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dimitri, let's get some questions from our viewers. Let's start with fantastic. Let's start with Death Dealer 1341. I have been wondering, when will Russia push back the long-range missiles from hitting deep inside their territory?

Well, they're working on that. Putin basically gave the order to create. the buffer zone in the highfield region to prevent missiles from reaching Belgrade. And that's happening. The Russians are not in a big hurry. I can say that there are two reasons for that. One is that they're careful not to have any casualties on their side as few as possible. So they're playing it safe. And the second reason is they don't want to horribly embarrass the Ukrainians and their Western supporters, and they don't want these people to lose heart.

They want them to continue to sending recruits to the front and sending Western weapons to the Ukrainians for the Russians to destroy, because that's going so well. And so there isn't much of a hurry. And then another element to it is that the ultimate is for the Russians to make those rockets, those long-range weapons, weapons obsolete, make them miss their targets by the use of air defense systems and by the use of electronic warfare, which the Russians are getting better and better. Some estimates are that up to 90% of the rockets don't reach their targets. They're off target by tens of meters, which is, you know, if the actual explosive payload isn't that big, that's actually enough.

to spell the difference between destroying a building and destroying a parking lot in front of that building, maybe blowing up a car. So and blowing up some windows, which the Russians are very, very good at replacing. It takes them less than a day these days. So basically, that's what's going on. So again, Russia is not in a huge hurry.

The fact that there are civilian casualties is deplorable. And there will be some criminal cases against the people who launch those missiles. when the time comes. But it's in terms of the overall process, it's going well. A lot of Moro says love Dimitri's sense of humor, always enjoying his interviews with Nima. Thank you, Lada for that.

From F-22, Daniel, Dimitri, how do you think Russia would look like today had the White Army won the Civil War in the early 1920s? No idea. I'll just be brutally honest. I have absolutely no idea. answer that question. I'm not really very good at historical hypotheticals. You know, history is, to me, is what happened. Interesting question. Very interesting question. Let's see. Costa says, finally, great respect to Mr. Orloff, one of the few who presents the situation in the world, logical real as it is, not as people who would like to be.

Thank you for that. Tish M. says, how can Zelensky call a meeting with NATO-EU types when he's not even the Ukraine president anymore? Well, that's an interesting thing because he's basically the squatter in the presidential offices. That's his official title now. The Ukrainian constitution says that once elected and sworn into office, you get to be you get to be the president of Ukraine for exactly five years. And once that term of office expires, it's over. It also says that the old president has to yield power to the new president,

but there's not a word anywhere about extending the term. So Zelensky is no longer the president of the Ukraine. Now, a very interesting thing happened, which is that Putin asked Victor Yonakovich, the last constitutionally elected president of Ukraine, who has not served his entire term, to go from Rostov to Moscow for some meetings. I wonder what those meetings were about, but maybe Yonokovic is the new president of Ukraine and Zelenskyy is not. nobody and there's going to be a deal signed between Russia and Yanukovych who will be asked to return to Kiev and form a new government and complete its term. So that would be a very interesting development. As far as whatever is happening in Switzerland, I guess it is, peace talks to which Russia has not been invited. Now imagine peace talks to which the victor is not

invited. That is a historical first. That has never happened in the history of this planet. So I think it's not going to happen this time either. I think it's just a completely ridiculous ploy. Yes, agreed. Restle says one could argue that Russia was conquered by internal forces in the early 1900s, much as the West itself has gradually been. I agree. to quite a large extent. The huge problem with Russia is that it started up with this communist ideology that was not a bad fit as far as Russian culture, because Russia is very communalist by its nature. But there were parts to it that just didn't work out very well.

And one of them was the communist nomenclature, the new communist ruling class, which with each successive generation became more and more corrupt. And eventually it ended up with a few geriatrics. And then Gorbachev came to power, and he was just a disaster. And then Yeltsin was an even more disaster. And it took a really long time for Russia to form a new elite, a new, a new, a political nucleus around which it could reform itself and reformulate itself. But basically, it was a failure of leadership that went on. And it really didn't produce good candidates to replace aging leaders.

That was a huge problem. So you could say, yes, it was an internal problem. It could do very well economically, yet politically it was doing worse. worse. From Martin, MDL, Tempe, Arizona, why not have Ukraine be a neutral buffer state like Austria was for 50 years before World War II? Is our peace summit here more sensible than theirs? Well, that would be like taking a bunch of hamburger and turning it back into steak by spinning the, you know, the meat grinder backwards. It's already not a neutral state. I mean, that, that ship has sailed. 10 years ago, at least. And so it's no use crying over spilled milk, I would say. There's no way to, there's no time machine to go back to that state of affairs.

Axel O says, is Putin going to create, recreate the union state of the socialist republics if Ukraine is going to stay as an entity? Well, Putin's most famous quote on that is somebody who does not regret the collapse of the USSR doesn't have a heart, and somebody who wants to bring the USSR back doesn't have a brain. I think having said that, he's very unlikely to recreate the USSR. Basil says, does Biden have Putin envy? Biden just generally has a younger man. And I really don't know that Biden is all there. He doesn't seem to be all there.

And I don't really want to dwell on that too much. I think that Biden could be a robot or a monkey or he could be a stuffed animal or whatever. He's a mascot. He's not a president. Life of Bryant says the current NGO problem. remind me of what they called the foundation problem in the 50s. See the Reese Committee on Rockefeller Ford et al. Are NGOs just foundations gone global?

Well, there's quite a spectacle going on in Georgia now, in the country, Georgia, where the NGOs have infiltrated the country to such an extent that everybody realizes that something has to be done about it. to be done about it. They're about to overrule today. They were going to overrule the presidential veto on a law, which is identical almost to an American law, making foreign agents register so that it becomes clear who is a foreign agent and who is not.

Turns out that the president of the country is a foreign agent, I think. But basically everybody is very interested in reining these forces in. Even the French. The French are just passed a very similar law. So yes, NGOs are not a force of good in the world. And I think a lot of people realize that.

Georgians certainly realize that because their main trading partner is Russia. And yet there are all these NGOs who are very interested in lobbying the government to ruin its relationship with Russia. So how is that in the national interest? something have to be done about it. So I think that around the world, NGOs need to be roped in somehow. All right. We'll do a couple of more for Dimitri, and we will then answer the rest of me and Alexander, the rest of the questions. Moon Dragon says, Mr. Arloff, when do you think this SMO will end?

It is sufficiently denazified and demilitarized, and I'm not sure what the objective. objective criterion for that is, but there is some probably some metric being applied within the Russian defense industry. It's just that it's secret and I don't know what it is. But that's basically what it's going to do. There has been some what's going to happen. I think there's been some significant mission creep because it turns out that the Russians have to also demilitarize and de-nazify the West to some extent.

A question is to what extent. And a lot of Europeans don't really want to get involved at this point. And a lot of Europeans are sort of making it look like they maybe want to get involved just to play up how important they are, but they don't really have the guts for it. So we'll see how it happens. And the other thing is that Russia is doing so well, developing all of these countermeasures that make Western-made weapons obsolete. And that is very valuable. And having a proving ground for all of those countermeasures is very important.

So I shut it down before the process is complete. Just going off your last statement, Dimitri, the alchemist says the U.S. needs den justification, not just Ukraine. So I think the alchemist agrees with you. And let's go to one final question for Dimitri. Here we go. From Elaine Maxin, I wonder if Dimitri misses anything in the U.S. now that he's gone back. Does anything in St. Petersburg surprise him?

I love his clarity and humor. Well, in the U.S., I used to live on a boat with my family. and cruise around. And I sometimes miss that. So I wasn't exactly in the United States. I was in the territory of waters, what took the time. But I like that seesteading life and I miss it sometimes.

What surprised me about living in St. Petersburg is that it keeps changing for the better. I keep looking out for, things that are getting improved and that is actually a reasonably satisfying thing to keep in touch with it's just amazing how how the place is getting developed and thriving and getting more beautiful and more fashionable and and the more European I guess they just they just stole all of the stuff that they liked about Europe and they imported it and learned to make it themselves so that we don't have

to go to Europe anymore. We can stay in St. Petersburg and enjoy it right here. St. Petersburg is a beautiful city indeed. All right. Dimitri Orlo, thank you very much for joining us on the Duran. I have Dimitri's information where you can follow him on Boosti in the description box down below and I will add it as a pinned comment as well when the stream is over. Thank you very much, Dimitri, for joining us. And we do hope you come back. the Duran very soon. Absolutely. Dimitri, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Dimitri. Thank you very much. Okay. All right, Alexander. Let's imagine living in a city where things get better. I mean, in London,

that is somehow rather difficult to believe that things can actually from day to day get better. Moscow was the same way. I remember every, every morning when I would wake up and just go out onto the street of Moscow. There was just little things were just getting better and better. Every day I was noticing little things improving.

Well, you see, I used to travel to Moscow irregularly, as you remember. I was there just every, well, every once in a while. And for me, it didn't look as if things were improving slowly. They seemed to be improving very rapidly. It was very, very remarkable. I mean, suffice to say that I first started going to Moscow regularly in 2003, 2002. And I was first there in 1998, 1998, but that was a different historical time. But between 2002, thereafter, I mean, you know, the change was astonishing.

Of course, I haven't been there for a little while now, so I'm told it's got better still. Just saying. From 1998, I imagine the change is... Oh, between 1998 and already 2002. It was like darkness and light. I mean, that was a transformative moment. But after 2002, in some ways, that is when the change became ever more impressive. Because it wasn't, it was incremental, but it was also very, very rapid.

Yeah. All right. Let's answer the remaining questions. Alexander from Lily Todd. Welcome to the drag community. Welcome to Lily. From Elsa. Burrell today said, 1.5 to two countries give the permission to Ukraine to hit Russian territory.

That's a quote. Can anyone explain that number? Which country is the half? Well, that's a very good question. I'm going to make a guess as to which countries it is. I suspect that at 1.5 to 2, they're all in Eastern Europe. What it basically tells us is that NATO collectively said no. Poland and the Baltics.

Poland and the Baltics, exactly. I think that is what it was all about. This idea was floated. I think the Pentagon strongly opposed it. I think that the British were spooked. I think that the French were spooked. I think the Italians and the Germans were against. And this is the kick in this.

It's going to happen. As night follows day, they will do it. They won't do it now, but they will do it in time. That has been the consistent story. As things get worse, as things become more desperate, so the pressure to escalate grows. The very fact that this has now been discussed at all, And by the way, Putin has been speaking about this whole disastrous idea today. But the very fact that this idea has been spoken about tells you that it's now out there.

And based on what's happened, we can say confidently that it will come. My info, I just saw your question right now. Dimitri, if you're watching the stream, do you have a favorite YT sailing channel? So, so Demetri, if you're watching the stream, maybe you can comment down below on this YouTube video. What is your favorite YouTube sailing channel? Yeah, yes. I mean, again, I haven't into St. Petersburg for a while, but, you know, it is built on the sea. So I would have thought that in time, maybe this is another place where improvements are going to happen.

But I would have thought the sailing is certainly within the realm of the possible. And elsewhere in Russia, in the Black Sea, but also even more. more so I suspect in the Far East, I think the sailing possibilities are astonishing. I speak as somebody who used to mess around quite a lot in motor boats, motor yachts. Never owned one, but I used to be a guest of them once upon a time when I knew people who were prepared to invite me. All right. Latimeros says, hi gentlemen, Dimitri's sound is too low. Could it be increased, please? we apologize if there were some sound hopefully everything turned out all right

exactly I was going to say I mean I was able to hear him clearly he's very clear yeah he explained his voice is very clear and that always it happens it happens with live shows every now and that happens yeah Janour Games welcome to the Duran community let's see here OMG puppy says have you talked to Mike Benz

he's an expert on state censorship, NGOs, AI, and surveillance. He explains how Soros makes billions on insider trading while helping the U.S. destabilized nations. No, we haven't, but we do want Mike on the show. It would be great to have them on the show. Absolutely. Zahir, thank you for that super chat.

Matthew says they would if they could, but they can't, so they won't. That is the hope I'm clinging to. As always, thank you for your summation of events. I think you're absolutely right. And I is the hope I'm clinging to as well. But don't, you know, be complacent about this. They haven't seen a red line, one which normally, more often than not, they've drawn themselves, which they haven't crossed eventually.

Yes, that is true. Ricardo Afonzo says, André Martiano sums it up simply. But hurt. Andre Martiano sums it up simply. but I had trouble saying that. I don't know why. Disham says the U.S. regime has gone absolutely mad

by striking Russia's radar defense systems help. It was a crazy idea. I understand that the damage done is absolutely superficial. I mean, literally a couple of hours of repairs and the system is back in line. Also, notice how completely calm the entire Russian government has been about this. You haven't seen Putin rushing back.

to Moscow, from Uzbekistan where he's been. You haven't seen urgent meetings, security council, you haven't seen angry statements of the defence ministry, the foreign ministry. They have been very, very controlled in the way that they've responded to this, which is a further sign, in my opinion, that the damage has been superficial. Budanov is, in my opinion, the genius behind this particular,

incredibly reckless and dangerous thing. And he's Western sponsors, the people who support him and guide him and to some extent control him, they're also in part responsible for this utterly reckless thing. And I suspect most of them are in London, just so.

Agreed. Mr. Goluff says, Great guest and great work you do. Have you thought about having Aristovich as a guest? Thanks again. valuable work that you do. That would be a fascinating idea. It would be interesting.

Whether he'd come, of course, is another question. But, you know, it's a thought. It would be very interesting. Sparky says maybe the Midri should try co-locating with his microphone. Thank you, Sparky, for that. Let's see, Tish M, we answered that. The Alchemist says, NATO and the USSR have similarities.

NATO is divided while Russia is united, with Russia's economy growing, NATO countries struggling, leading to its collapse as they continue to mimic Soviet Cold War. That's a great... That's a great point, actually. Fantastic. The outcome is very well said. Matthew says, would Biden go all in to save election chances?

That is a very good question. When you say Biden, of course, we don't mean the person, we mean the team around them. My own view, I've been very, very skeptical about this election. I've always felt that they'll pull up every switch, press every switch, pull every plug, and one way or the other, the Democrats would get across the finishing line. I'm starting to have doubts about this. I think that things are beginning to come apart, actually. And I think that they're beginning to realize that too.

that's, of course, we're going to make it a very interesting, by which I mean a very dangerous situation indeed. Trump is pulling away. Yeah. He's pulling away, Alexander. At least that's the trend with the polling. I don't see changing. Yeah. The Uralic tribe says the part about dying as martyrs to get to heaven, you have to be born again by accepting and believing that Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross for our sons.

sins was resurrected after three days and lives. Thank you for that. Putin is a Christian. Putin, of course, is a Christian. Life of Brian says, can anyone name, can anyone name one name of someone who is in charge, one name to whom

Victoria Newland answers? If not perhaps, Mark Dutro can. Is he taking interviews? You know, this is, you've actually put your finger on a very, very important point. Because so many decisions today in the so-called Democratic West, or in the Democratic West, so many debates in the Democratic West take place behind the curtain. We don't really know who are making these decisions. We aren't party to these discussions. We don't see these discussions play out. They aren't spoken about.

of the media. They don't involve the expert community, which does exist still, just about, in any meaningful way. And of course, we don't know what the real hierarchy of decision making actually is. So I can't answer that question. I can't tell you this person is the actual person in charge. Because of course, the way we have governed nowadays makes me wonder, frankly, whether they is anybody ultimately in charge? Because that's one of the features of secretive organisations, which are unaccountable and which operate outside the constitutional and legal and overt framework. How do you work out in that kind of structure who the person who is ultimately in control really is? How do the people who are part of those discussions themselves do?

And that I suspect is part of the explanation for the enormous dysfunctions that we're seeing at the moment. Chris Shipley, thank you for that super chat. Alex Glanz, thank you for that super sticker. Life of Brian, we answered that NGO question. The alchemist says Putin and Xi believe they can outdo the West in war and are trying to be the mature ones to protect humanity. I think that is true, actually.

I think that is how they perceive themselves, but I don't just think that that's how they perceive themselves. I think that that is how they're perceived by much of the world. But that was even most of it. Juman Tu says, can we say that demilitarization and denatification are complicated? Can we call it a win for the bear? Yeah, I think it's how complicated,

but I think that the Russians certainly are working towards a plan and the bear is obviously winning if you want to use that analogy. I think that is clear. I do think anybody, as I said earlier in the discussions we had with Dimitri, I mean, there are all kinds of schemes about how to turn this thing around. But I don't think anybody seriously in the West anymore believes that Russia is going to lose. Some of them are even overtly now, openly talking about the fact that Russia is likely to win. They're scared of the prospect. They're trying to find a way around.

They're coming up with all sorts of desperate and reckless and dangerous ideas. But at the moment, the trajectory is so obvious that I don't think anybody doubts that that's where events are going. Alexander Podiat. Thank you for that. Jack Bickford, thank you for that. Super sticker. Steve resurrected says, I have heard the Ukrainian constitution extends the presidential term in times of war, or that elections are not held in times of war.

Is this untrue? It is untrue. I have actually looked at the Ukrainian constitution, not a document I often referenced, but I've looked at it. What it basically says is this, that if the RADA, the Ukrainian parliament, passes a martial, enacts martial law, then elections to the Rada to the parliament cannot happen.

And the term of the Rada is in effect extended. The constitution is silent about the president. Now, that means that it is only, if you apply strict constitutional interpretation, which I think you should, if you do that, then martial law extends the term of the parliament. It doesn't extend the term of the president. That's what the constitution says. Yeah, I've read the same thing in various analysis.

Monkfish says, judging by Nigel Farage's understanding of what British values are, shall we say he is a fading light? You know, I'm beginning to wonder that he might be. I mean, he's, he burned very bright for a very, very long time. He made an enormous impact on British politics, but he's made a decision not to involve himself in the election, the current election, which is, by the way, the most dismal election.

I have ever, ever encountered or remembered. I think I counted them. I think I've been through 19 election campaigns in Britain. Just saying, so, you know, I've got lots of experience about elections. The point is say is it's like two parties fighting each other, both led by Theresa May. That's the kind of election we have at the moment. I mean, what I used to say about Theresa May, administration replacing government. And that's what we've got on each side.

Anyway, Nigel Farage was a political figure who was outside the system, who had enormous influence. This is the election where he was needed, but he's decided not to take part. I read his latest piece in The Telegraph. It seemed to me again, well below his usual fire. And I think he's just tied out. I think after all these years, he's become exhausted and they've worn him out. That's my own rather generous view of him. Jamila says Great Britain is not hating Russian, but only media.

Well, that is, you know, again, you make a very important point. I think if you're talking about the majority of the people of Britain, every place I go, many people I speak to, it's quite clear that they're not party to this at all. And by the way, and I would like to say this, I have been witnessed, I've witnessed myself, episodes where British people in London walk up to Russian people and tell them, please don't think that we have anything to do with this.

This isn't part of us. It's the people in power who are driving this anger, not us at all. So I've actually seen that. So I absolutely agree with you. But the political class, it's absolutely united on this issue. It is for them a touchstone of loyalty. If you are not hostile to Russia, you cannot be a part of the current political class. Hitcham says Alex Alexander does Stoltenberg not care anymore as he is on his way out.

I believe sometimes people in positions who did a bad job just mess up more on their way out to make it worse for the ones who follow up who get it more difficult to restore things and do better. Does he have the backing of the USA in his last statements? I think that what you say is true in general terms, but it is not true Stoltenberg. I've come to the view that Stoltenberg is a fanatic. That's the only word I can come up with to describe him. I think I've been following and tracking what Stoltenberg has been saying ever since the start of this crisis back in 2021.

His language has been consistently extreme and inflammatory and incredibly damaging. And his last comments are no different. So I'm afraid I think he believes and is sincere in everything he says. And I think that if it were left to him, we would already be in World War III. That's my view. Yeah. I don't think he's very bright either when you listen to him. But anyway, that's just my view.

Shadowless kick says, although China has not changed, the name of its ruling party, it is not nationalist either. She told U.S. leaders many times that the times that the planet is vast enough for both countries to coexist and cooperate. Absolutely. It says it continuously. That is what Xi Jinping has said. Of course, a lot of people don't believe him.

But I think in terms of Chinese national interest, what C. says, many, makes sense and is therefore, that probably therefore means that he's telling the truth. He really does think that. Now, the alchemist says, do these Western leaders truly believe their own falsehoods, or are they just feigning ignorance? It's difficult to explain to my 10-year-old that these individuals are mature adults. There is a spectrum. There are some who are completely cynical, and I believe that there are those people.

There are some who know perfectly well that what they're saying is, there's no connection to reality, but they're very happy saying them because it works very much to their advantage. They want to rise up. They see politics and bureaucracy. There's the bureaucracies that they belong to as a career path. And by the way, a very lucrative career path. And out of their own self-interest, they say what they do.

But I do think that there is a very significant group, maybe even the majority, who generally believe what they say. And always remember that people who have an interest in believing in something generally tend to persuade themselves that that which it is in their interest to believe is true. Martin MDL says, is Biden the modern day Boris Yeltsin of the USA? Good point. It's a very good, I think it's a very good point. I think the answer is that yes, with the important difference, and I think Yeltsin was both a more intelligent man and a more self-aware man. You remember Yeltsin, I remember him very well. I think he was overcome with doubt and remorse about many of the things. that were happening around him. I mean, it may not have made him change his approach,

but, you know, you saw the man's physical decline. And I think it was born of the great insecurities and sense of guilt that he had over what happened. I think Biden has anything like that. I don't think he has that degree of self-reflection at all. Basil says, is Russia the original United States? It's becoming something much more like the United States that I remember. Just so.

But it's never going to be, it's never going to be exactly the same. Trevor Elsa says Love to Rand. Thank you for that. Elza says, Alenski wears his costume and the West pretends he's the president. By the way, he looked so ridiculous in the green t-shirt next to the Royals in Spain. Yeah, I agree. Completely agree. I mean, this is such a tiresome

show that he puts on, act that he puts on. I can't understand why he's producers and he's directed, don't tell him. Get yourself a suit, man. It's time to wear a suit. I mean, my God. Oh, boy. Basil says, should, so let's keep you nominated for the Oscars.

Oh, I'm sure that's coming. I mean, he'll win. He'll win on everything. I mean, he'll be, he'll sweep the ball. see? The highest paid actor? Deverardly so. Deservidly so. I mean, he's been the great war leader. I mean, whenever, wherever did you see a movie like this one? With so many extras.

Very true. Latimeros says, I didn't know Dimitri moved back to St. Petersburg. Good for him. Beautiful city indeed. It's one of the most beautiful cities. One of the most beautiful cities in Europe. And a most extraordinary place. I mean, you know, there are other cities. I mean, you can Venice, for example, which are beautiful.

But there's a, you know, vibe about St. Petersburg, which is astonishing. And, of course, it's an industrial city in some respects that you have a, you know, large working class population, which gives it a kind of steadiness. And there's an enormous student population there as well, which gives it a sort of more spunky quality. It's a most wonderful city altogether. Jamila says, why the Western leaders hate Russia? I miss something in the past. Is it wrong to hate or nothing? Great work, guys.

Well, that's a good question. Yeah. I think your question answers is so. Yeah. Sparky says, as a currency trader specializing in Eastern European currency, Sotos assisted the U.S. in getting NGOs into Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Sotos exploited the relationship, which continues. I think that is exactly true.

Very interesting man, George Soros. One day, his biography will be written. And it'll be very interesting to read. Zareel says, want to know who's in charge of these war pigs, Satan. Elza says, does anyone in the West still believe in Tatters? In, sorry, in what? Ursula, Ursula, Tatters, in Tatters. The Russian economy is in Tatters and Ursula and all of that.

Of course, oh, absolutely. Well, you still see some people who say, well, you know, it's holding together for the moment. It might be achieving very high growth and incomes maybe rising. But, you know, just wait in one year, two years, five years, ten years, 100 years, 100 years. 200 years. Three years. It will all come crashing down.

All we have to do is wait that long. Yeah. Just wait in 300 years. You wait and see the sanctions will have an effect. AM says a few weeks ago here in the UK, Grant Shaps discussed missile defense for Britain. The idea was torn apart. Fiscal madness. How does Russia manage?

Well, how does? By having a very, very much bigger economy than people in the West imagine. I mean, I've discussed this many times. In my opinion, even the purchasing power parity GDP figures understate the size of Russia's economy by a very substantial margin. And I saw, by the way, that in a recent meeting, Putin's economic, team told him the same thing. So I mean it's a much bigger economy than people understand, a far more diversified economy than people understand. And of course it's got engineers,

it's got machine tool people and skilled workers and factories and he can do all of that. But ultimately the key is economic, strong economic management and organization. And That is the most important skill of all. The Russians have it. The Russians have superb project managers. I've seen this. They have superb industrial managers. That I have to say this is a legacy.

Both of the Soviet system which fostered it and of the Tsarist system which created it. One of the major bases of this was the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, by the way. this colossal project creating this railway and this impossible landscape required Russia to develop a superb

standard of project management and you know it's been built and it's been preserved and that's what makes it in the end possible Basil says Zareel $10

Satan thank you for that puzzle Sparky says for practical purposes, George Sotos is the Five Eyes Plus, and the Five Eyes Plus is George Soros. In the area of intelligence operations, there are informal yet firm and impactful relationships. I am absolutely sure. You're right. And as I said, I'm very, very interested one day to read the biography of this very interesting man when it's finally written. Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, do you think it is reasonable for anyone to consider the referendums held in the occupied oblasts to be

legitimate, even the ones in partially occupied territories like Zampadoza? Well, question of legitimacy, legitimacy in whose eyes? I mean, the Russians consider them legitimate. There's no real overt sign in any of these places that there's widespread or indeed any opposition to this. And, you know, legitimacy is a fact. It derives from what people. accept what outsiders say about it is really neither here nor there. If it's accepted, if it's

supported in these places, then, and you know, if it follows the necessary forms, which in this case it did, I don't see why people would want to go around that. Now that may sound like just me being a bit cynical, but I should say I once had a discussion with the head of the electoral monitoring team of no lesser institution than the European Union. And I'm almost saying exactly what he said to me. So he was discussing that in connection with elections in Croatia. And I said to him, look, there's been all these irregularities and problems there. And he poo-pooed all of that. And he said that didn't really matter. So if, you know, it's goose, you know, source was a goose. if bad elections in Croatia or problems with forms in Croatia aren't the problem?

Well, in the Donbass, in Zaporosia, in Hearson region, where, as I said, all of the facts show the people there supported this process. Who are we to complain? Matthew says, are conservatives leaving in droves due to war? Well, are conservatives? I don't, I have no bigger. I've been leaving from where? I imagine, I don't know. The West, the West, Ukraine.

Maybe the West, maybe the UK, maybe Russia. I don't think so. I don't, I don't, I mean, there are lots of reasons why people are leaving the UK, where I don't think war is amongst them. I mean, the economic problems in the UK are reasons why people would want to leave. And conservatives would have many reasons to want to leave the UK, but probably I don't think that war appears very highly amongst them, because at the moment, the UK normally at least is a peace.

Just so. Life of Brian says, quote, so many extras. Alexander M. at his most accurate. Tabernac says, three fails a charm. If we lose, let's lose it all. Well, I've discussed this many times that this policy of all nothing, which is what the West is playing, has been playing in Ukraine for a very long time, and not just in Ukraine, in many places in Taiwan. It's disastrous because if you do that, and it's a fact that people don't ever seem to understand, if you lose, you end up with nothing. I mean, you know, if you think you're going to win and you're going to get it all well and you do win, well, that's one outcome.

But if you lose, you end up with nothing. And that is a terrible position to begin. Martin MDL says, should, let's get a green t-shirt with a tie and jacket silk screen on the front? It's an idea. It's an idea. It's suggested to you. You might take it up. Yeah. Sparky says, Garland Nixon pointed out, he was speculating that John Meersheimer may be misleading when John speaks of the U.S. pivoting to China from Russia.

They act as one geopolitically, so there's no pivot. Well, I mean, I haven't followed what Professor Meizheimer said on this. But, well, there is no pivot because they are coming together. But I think in the U.S. conception, it's different. Let me put it like that. they still think that the two can be differentiated in some way. And I think the Pentagon is saying to itself, look, Ukraine is a massive drain on resources. The main challenge is in South China City and the Taiwan Strait, where the United States has been conducting some very alarming exercises. So let's focus on that, and it's, you know, part of Ukraine and let the Europeans take care of it.

I think there is that current of opinion in Washington, by the way, in the Pentagon, especially. Death Dealer 1341 says the presidential election is the only way to save the U.S. Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely true. I mean, this is a very important presidential election, just to put it mildly. Yeah. Juman 2 says, NATO provides the weapon system, selects targets, feeds the interagents, makes all the necessary settings on the weapon systems, and tells the Ukrainians you can push the button now is NATO at war?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, I mean, the Russians make this very point. I mean, you know, they are direct participants in the conflict, even if they pretend otherwise. The world thinks the same. And of course, if this ends in a Russian victory, then the world will see it as a NATO defeat. Just saying. Absolutely. Sparky says, growing up, George Soros was forbidden from speaking in any other language, then

Esperanto in his household, he comes from idealist activists. Or maybe. But all I will say is he's a man who speaks with two tongues, double tongues, four tongues, some would say. All right, Alexander, I think that is everything. Any final thoughts while I do a final chart? No, I think that was absolutely brilliant program. By the way,

completely agree with Dmitri's Orlov's point about Spain. I think I brought it up myself in a program we did together in which I said that I actually studied 16th and 17th century of Spain and Dimitri Oloff is absolutely right and I think this is in some respects the single closest parallel with the US which is that Spain in the 16th 17th century had all the silver coming in front it was actually silver more than gold. coming in from the Americas, that enabled the Spanish monarchy to maintain an enormously ambitious foreign policy. It left Spain by around 1600 as this colossal superpower. But what it actually did at the same time, it was the equivalent, if you like, of printing money.

It utterly devastated the Spanish economy. And it also led to Spain becoming over committed in all kinds of wars so that the result was that the population became increasingly disaffective and the military itself stagnated because as they were fighting all the time there had no time to consider the fact that all sorts of military things were changing and then suddenly in the late 1640s the whole thing just imploded at the most the single most dramatic implosion in European history. So I think Dimitri is absolutely right about this. I was very interested to see that he brought it up

and I'd love to discuss it with him one day. But in every other respect, just to say quickly, brilliant program, marvelous guest and I really look forward to having many more discussions with him in the future. All right. Tabernak says, Land, C, or diplomatic victories are unachievable.

Yeah. And from the last live, Alexander from Vladi, the Sanctions and Paler says, no questions, just a simple, the Mitri Medvedev fanboy. Great work to Rand. And Tim Gibson. Thank you for that super sticker from the last live stream. And from one second, from Matthew, sorry, I meant conservatives in terms of the Tories, 120 have resigned. Oh, I see. Yeah.

No, I understand none of the world. I mean, they're running away. I mean, they can see that they're going to lose. And it's always better to resign than to lose your seat. I mean, it damages your future job prospect for one thing. Just saying. And Pabernak says nuclear proliferation is a force for peace. Do you know something?

I once actually remember somebody saying that was doing the Cold War. They said that if every. everybody had nuclear weapons, we would have peace. I have to say I don't agree. I think that giving nuclear weapons to some actors would be very, very dangerous indeed. So I don't agree. All right, that is everything. Thank you to Dimitri Arloff.

Once again, I will have his information as a pinned comment. It is also in the description box down below for you to follow Dimitri. and thank you to everyone that joined us on Odyssey. Thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin and Rumble. Great chats over on Rumble and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone on YouTube. And of course, the durand.com. Big thank you to our locals community.

And Alexander, a big thank you to our moderators. Zareel, Reckless Abandon. Just a lot of blue boxes for this moderator. Is that Alice in Blunderland, I wonder? Anyway, thank you to that moderator. And Peter, thank you, Peter and Tish M. Thank you as well. And did I miss anybody?

I don't think I missed anybody that was moderating. All right, Alexander, that's the live stream. That's the live stream. And by the way, just to remind everybody, I do my locals' live stream tomorrow. That's right. Tomorrow, Alexander on locals, the durand.lotlocals.com. What is the time for everybody, Alexander? 14,000 hours, eastern standard time for those in the United States, 1900 hours London time for those in Europe and in other places.

All right, and you will find a link to our locals paid in the description box down below. All right. Take care, everybody. Thank you.