The Duran Podcast - Neutral Mediator No More. Zelensky In DC, New Ceasefire Trap

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Neutral Mediator No More. Zelensky In DC, New Ceasefire Trap

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the latest ceasefire proposal or a proposal that is about to be made to Russia, which is a ceasefire in the skies in the air. No use of drones, no use of fab bombs, missiles, air force. No fly zone, I guess, would be a good way to describe it. for all sides. And this is something that the U.S. and Ukraine are working on and will be given to the Russian president. Zelensky will be in D.C. on Tuesday, I want to say, where he will be attending the funeral of Lindsey Graham, and he will be meeting with U.S. President Donald J. Trump. What are your thoughts? Well, this is an interesting idea. And interesting in only one respect.

and that is that Putin told us some weeks ago, I think it was at Spief at the meeting in Spief, that he'd already been given this proposal. So the proposal had already been made to him then, or at some time just before, and he'd made it very, very clear that he wasn't interested in it and that the Russians were going to reject it. So something has now happened to make them come back and to try to get this proposal to Putin all over again. And it follows a meeting, the meeting which happened between Lov and Rubio, which we talked about the other day. But it seems again that Rubio told Lov, let's forget about Anchorage. We need to start thinking about new things, new ideas, and it looks as if one of those new ideas is going to be

this proposal for essentially a no-fly zone. So the Russians already made clear that they're rejecting it. I mean, Putin said he would reject it back at Spief. This is in June. Lavaaroff came away from the meeting with Rubio, and as we discussed in our previous programme, that didn't go at all well. So I don't understand why the Americans believe that they can come back with this proposal again and think that they're going to get a different answer.

I do wonder, though, and this is just a question, whether some of this intense activity that we have seen over the last few weeks, the drone attacks on the Novorossia Road, the drone attacks on Crimea, the deep strikes into Russia, the attacks on wild berries, whether they weren't somehow intended to frighten the Russians into agreeing to this ceasefire. If so, then I'm absolutely sure they're going to be disappointed. Absolutely. That's what it was about. I believe we have a drone official saying that's what the strikes into wild berries was all about. That's what he told the telegraph. It's about making life difficult for Russian citizens and scaring. That's a telegraph, the UK telegraph that posted this article. I find it interesting that the strategy of the collective west of the United States is to try and dupe Putin. That is the strategy. That's how they're, that's how they're, that's how they're trying to pause this war, to win this war, is to try and fool Putin into

another Minsk 1 or Minsk 2. Yes. That's exactly what you. That is the only thing they have at the moment. If I'm not the only thing they have at the moment, it is the only thing they have. They're trying to work on Putin all the time. They're trying to persuade him in some way to agree, as you said, firstly to a temporary ceasefire, ceasefire on the conflict.

lines. We had Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan. He had a meeting with Putin. Tokayev refloated this idea of a freeze of the conflict. He couched it in language that he perhaps expected that it might be attractive to the Russians. Takayev went out of his way to say that he's a friend and ally of Russia. But of course, his country also has good relations with the United States. And many important people in Kazakhstan keep their money in the West, and that gives the West leverage over them. So I wonder whether, again, Tokayev wasn't put up to it to try to pass on this message to the Russians. Again, agree a freeze, agree a pause in the conflict, agree a no-fly zone in the sky. And of course, what's happening repeatedly is that the Russians are coming back and saying

no. Peskov shot down to Kayaev's proposal immediately. Are we finally done with the U.S. as a neutral mediator nonsense? Yes. Are we done with all that narrative? Because another thing that this shows us, the fact that Zelensky is going to the United States. He's using Lindsey Graham's funeral as an excuse. They're using it as cover. He's going to travel to the United States. Not that Zelensky doesn't want to travel, any excuse that he can get to leave Kiev he takes, right? But he's going to be in the United States mainly to meet with U.S. President Trump. We now have the reports that the United States, along with Ukraine, are going to propose a type of no-fly zone to Russia. They're looking to fool Putin or to do Putin.

into agreeing to such a thing, which is an admission that the United States is very much involved in this conflict. It is the main driver of this conflict. The Trump administration is the main driver of this conflict. Now, Putin and the Kremlin, they've played along with this for the past year. They've accommodated Trump, and they've gone along with the lie, right? It's a lie that the United States is acting as a mediator in this conflict. and it's all Europe, it's all the UK, and it's all France. They're the ones that are that are

escalating. We as the United States, we're trying to find a solution to this conflict and we're neutral in all of this. Are we done with all of that? I mean, is it over now? I don't know. And I think this is, we'll have to see what the Russians themselves do. But I mean, in terms of these proposals that come from the Americans, Putin has always rejected them. His method of dealing with the Americans is he says to them, I will talk to you. I won't directly criticize Trump, but I have consistently rejected all your proposals. So that's his style. What it is doing is that the Americans are as a result continuously trying to find leverage to get him to accept their proposals,

something which never works. But that, I suspect. I mean, Putin seems very invested in this approach. Perhaps he will continue with it. Perhaps he won't. We won't. I mean, it's difficult to say. Rubio, for the moment now, appears to be leading this.

He's the person, as far as I can see, who is basically in charge of the diplomacy, if you can call it diplomacy there. And going back to your question, is the United States an impartial mediator? Well, Rubio himself straightforwardly said that the United States supports Ukraine. So if you are in, if you're supporting one side against another, obviously you cannot be a mediator. Well, that's why I say all of this, this fiction of the United States as neutral mediator is over because Rubio has said as much, said it about a week ago. The fact that he's, he's leading the negotiations now is also a sign that, that the U.S.

mediator, this whole narrative is done. It's been played out. That was with Witkoff and Kushner, but mostly Whitkoff, along with Dimitri of Wushakov, Putin. They were the main driving forces in the years-long U.S. neutral mediator nonsense. It was those guys. And Wittkoff, later on, Kushner traveling to Moscow and playing the part of the mediator as they were meeting with Putin late in the evening. But now that it's in Rubio's hands, Rubio's just straight out saying, yeah, we're behind the conflict. Ukraine is our proxy, and the whole Europeans are the driving force behind the conflict is nonsense. We're the ones that are pushing this conflict. We're the ones that are escalating. And now they're the ones that are asking for a no-fly zone

and the strategies, without a doubt, trying to fool Putin and to agreeing to this. Will Putin be fooled? He has admitted in the past, Putin has admitted. Putin has been. admitted this in the past, that he was indeed fooled with Minsk 1 and Mintz 2. Credit to Putin. Credit to Putin for saying, yeah, you know, we were duped with Minsk 1 and Minsk 1 and mince 2. You don't only have Minsk 1 and Minsk 2. You have the Russians trying to engage with Biden and trying to create a new security

architecture where Biden and Blank in. This was in 2020, 2021 where they told Russia to buzz off. You have Boris Johnson in Kiev. Putin agreeing to the Europeans suggestion, their advice to pull your troops out of Kiev in order to facilitate an agreement, which was initialed only for Boris Johnson under Biden's orders to land in Kiev to tear that agreement up. You have all of these, you have Anchorage, you have Anchorage, where Putin traveled to the United States. And he thought that he had something to work off of as far as a peace deal only for for Trump to tear that up in 24 hours.

So the big question is, will Putin be fooled? Well, he's already said that he won't agree to this. So I think we can answer that question very quickly. Putin, Putin, as you rightly say, has admitted that he was strict, duped by Minsk, too. and he's also admitted, and he said this very clearly, that he was duped by the Europeans about the withdrawal from Kiev. He's spoken about the fact that it was Macron who called him, and he says that he has Macron tape. So I don't think he's in any mood to agree to any kind of agreement. Trump repeatedly over the previous year in 2025 tried to get Putin to agree to ceasefires.

know, full-scale, full-on ceasefires across the conflict line. And Putin again refused. And the day before we're making this video, Putin was meeting various senior naval officers in St. Petersburg. And I read through all of the various things that they were saying. And the language there was extraordinary fierce, incredibly fierce. And it was absolutely clear. And Putin joined in. It was war until victory. So I don't think we have any reason to doubt or speculate about this. The message that he's giving to the Russian people, the message that he's giving to the Russian military is we've been duped many times. I've been duped many times, but I am not going to be duped again.

So Putin gave an interesting speech during Navy Day to naval commanders. Yes. He talked about the U.S. is the collective west, the U.S., the collective west is piracy and how they act like pirates. Yes. He talked about the regions in the West and after World War II, how these regions were allocated to Ukraine. And he believes that in one year, five years, ten years, he said, 15 years. years, everything will get sorted out. Yes. And he also talked about to the Arctic as well. Yeah. To the naval commanders. So what do you make of Putin's statements to the naval commanders on Navy Day?

I mean, as I said, it was very, very tough rhetoric. When he talks, when the Russians start referring to the collective West, as opposed to the Europeans, they are, of course, including the United States. So when he says piracy being committed by the West, he means it. And of course, he's talking to the Navy, which is increasingly being the job of protecting Russian merchant shipping. I suspect, by the way, there's going to be discussions, if there haven't already been discussions, but I'm sure they have already been discussions between the Russians and the Chinese, maybe even the Indians, about providing escorts for ships in the future. Because to say it straightforwardly, it is private piracy.

The European Union, as we discussed in another program, has now given itself the right to seize ships, take the oil, the Russian oil that's in the ships, and resell itself and keep the profit. I mean, that is straightforward piracy, given that, the European Union, all the various countries that make it up, and Russia are not in a state of war. So seizing goods like that on the high seas, I think, I checked actually. It does seem to me to conform fully to the law of piracy. So again, I thought it was an utterly uncompromising statement.

As to his point about the regions of Western Ukraine, eventually going to the East Europeans. Of course, he said this many times before. This isn't new. But the way I read it is that he's trying to create splits between the Europeans. He's saying to the Romanians, to the Hungarians, to whoever else it is, look, if you hold out a little, if you stop pushing, then all of these historic territories that once belong to you will become yours again. So it's, in a sense, his bribe to the

East Europeans. So far, they've shown no interest in this bribe. And I don't think they ever will, by the way, but he's played this game in the past and he continues to play it now. Is it a signal that Russia's not going to go all the way to live off? It might. It might be. But I think a lot of that is going to depend on developments. what he is going to do from this point going forward is, again, it's problematic. But I get the sense that we're certainly going to see Donbass, Zaporosier-Hasson, brought under Russian control. The relentless bombing campaign that has now been conducted against Adessa is, I think, a clear marker

that Adessa is in Russian science. as well. The Russians, well, Putin himself, in fact, has on several occasions, but particularly strongly last year, signalled that Adessa is indeed a Russian objective. But it may be that the Russian plan is to capture the whole of Dombas, the whole of Zaporosia, the whole of Kerser, Odessa too, and leave a rump, Ukraine. losing its western regions and with some kind of pro-Russian government in Kiev. That may be one iteration of the Russian plan. But I suspect that the Russians are changing their plans on this every single day.

And I think that increasingly there are voices in Russia that say the only way we can end this is by ending the entire political structure in Kiev, which means taking Kiev, and basically ending Ukraine. Medvedev talks about this perfectly open. He's right to a certain extent, isn't he, Medvedev, by saying that the only way you're going to really end the conflict with the collective West is if you take control of the political structure in Ukraine. I understand the thinking that if you control the Black Sea, then maybe there is no need to look at other parts of Ukraine. You have the industrial heartland, the industrial power of the east. That's under your control. That's the economic industrial engine of Ukraine.

So you have that. You have everything along the Tneepra, let's say. Let's say they go to Dupro-Petrov, and they take everything along in the Dnipur, but don't go to Kiev. You have all of that as well. You have control of the Black Sea. I can see the argument being made. We don't need to go any further. But Medvedev's argument is, okay, if you don't take control of the political structures in Kiev, then the collective West will never stop. I agree. I think more and more people in Russia are agree with him. I think there has always been a current of opinion in Russia. Stronger, I think, than many people in the West understand, including some people who are sympathetic to Russia. There's always been a current of opinion that says, this can only end one

way, and that is by us going to Kiev, occupying the city, taking control of the government, affecting regime change there, that simply carving out slices from Ukraine, getting control of left bank Ukraine, and, in other words, eastern Ukraine, and the whole of Novorossia is not going to be enough because we are still going to be left with a government that is going to be not just hostile to ourselves, but incredibly and fervidly hostile to ourselves. And that will be a danger always for us in the future. So I think that school of thought in Moscow has always existed. Putin was not interested in those views back in 2020.

That's why he went for Istanbul Plus. Istanbul Plus, as we see, oh sorry, not Istanbul Plus, Istanbul, the original Istanbul Agreement of April 2022. He saw that Istanbul failed. He then made his proposal, which was Istanbul Plus, on the 14th of June, 2024. There have been no takers. There's been endless Western escalation ever since. I think that school of thought that says the only way this ends is when we take Kiev,

I think it's got much bigger. Isn't it concerning that the collective Western Ukraine are launching drones every day into Russia? Sometimes 1,000 plus per day? Absolutely. Of course it is. I mean, they may not be achieving dramatic results with those things, but clearly, I mean, they are attacking Russia, no question. But that, of course, reinforces the arguments of the hardliners, people like Medvedev, who say,

look, if we simply stop at Donbass and Zaporaji and Herson, we've not resolved any problems. Way back in 2022, I remember him saying this in the autumn of 2022. He said that if the Ukrainians start launching strikes inside Russia, then that means that the Russians must acquire even more territory in order to put the Ukrainians completely out of range. But what we have seen is that the technology has evolved. And there is no part of Ukraine now where you couldn't reach drones, which could reach some point inside Russia. So the argument that Medvedev made then, that you have to take normal territory in order to prevent attacks by drones has now evolved, I would guess, into a position that you have to take all of the territory, because unless you do,

they will still be able to launch drones against you. The other thing that I think the Russians perhaps are gradually coming to understand and certainly Lov understands it is that there's never going to be a negotiated piece, not about Ukraine, not about ending the conflict within Ukraine, not about Ukraine itself, not about the security architecture in Europe. I think that Putin, again, had hopes that this would happen. If he still has them, I think he's practically the only person left. Yeah, I agree. Okay, a final question. Wouldn't it be best for the Trump administration, now that you still have a little bit of the neutral mediator narrative lingering floating around there, wouldn't it be best for Trump? He's not going to do this, but I'm just saying

when he meets with Zelenskyy to say we're done. I'm going to call Elon. We're dismantling Starlink. We're pulling out of Project Ukraine and we're completely finished. And we suggest that you, except whatever terms Putin is putting out on the table. Mr. Zelensky, we're completely out of this. Now that he still has some of this neutral mediator narrative still out there, it's out there. Even though, you know, we just said previously it's pretty much over for the Russians. Everyone agrees. Rubio even said we're not a neutral mediator. But still, for Trump, do it now. This is probably your last chance. get out of this, because if you don't get out of this, the Trump administration runs the risk of being a president that could potentially, potentially possibly lose two wars.

Iran and Russia, and things are not going well in Iran, and even the media is saying that Trump is stuck. The U.S. media, the collective West media, the pro-war collective West media is saying Trump is stuck in Iran, but he runs the risk of not only being stuck in Iran and losing in Iran, but as the neutral mediator narrative fades away and more people follow Rubio's example and say, no, we're in back of this war. We're the ones that are escalating and funding and pushing the war forward against Russia. as this starts to gain momentum, Trump could take the blame in the fall for losing the war in Ukraine as well.

Two wars in one administration. Absolutely. This is, I find, the thing which at a fundamental rational level, I simply don't understand. You remember back in the summer of 2024, ahead of the November elections, we discussed what Trump should do about. Ukraine and we said that he should walk away. We said that was by far the best policy. If he tried, if he tried to get himself involved in diplomacy to settle the conflict, the Europeans and the neocons would eventually suck him in and it would take over the whole of his presidency. And instead we had him going off with first with Kellogg, then with all sorts of proposals,

resource for ceasefires, unconditional ceasefires. And what I have to say this, increasingly looks like the duplicity, the trickery of Anchorage. So that, he went on a completely different track. And ultimately, that happened because he took his advice from the same people who led him into the conflict in Iran. It's exactly the same people. If you look at them, if you're looking at the Republican Party, it's the same hardliners. Lindsay Graham was an absolute ferocious hardliner advocate of war with Iran. And he was an absolute ferocious advocate of conflict to the ultimate level with Russia. And those were the people that Trump listened to. And the incredible thing is that he's still listening to them. There are reports that he's very angry with Netanyahu

for leading him into this mess. But he refuses, he still refuses to listen to people like, well, according to rumor, speculation, media reports, people. like Vance, who've been telling him all along, look, this isn't going to work. It's going to fail. You're overcommitted. You're taking the United States into wars, which are not in our interests. We gain nothing from them ultimately. These geopolitical chess games that we hear about are never going to work for us. And all they're doing is that they're sucking up U.S. resources and they're destroying the credibility of your presidency. But Trump won't listen. to those councils, even as everything goes wrong and continues to pile up and go wrong around him.

But there we go. Maybe he feels he doesn't have the choice. Maybe the deep state or whoever it is have something on him. I think far more likely. It's because a side of his personality, the stronger side of his personality is on the same wavelength as there. Niochon wavelength. Neokon wavelength. And his conception of himself as the great deal maker is that he tricks, fools the other side into concessions. I mean, he negotiates in bad faith and imagines that people like Lavrov and Arachshy and Hamenei and Putin are too stupid to see through what he's doing. The trickster.

The trickster. Yeah. All right. We'll end the video there, the durand.com. We're on Rumble, telegram, and X. We also are on substack as well, and check us out on the Durant Shop. All those links are in the description box down below. Take care.