The Duran Podcast - Performative diplomacy as Ukraine continues to lose big in the war

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Performative diplomacy as Ukraine continues to lose big in the war

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the diplomacy that is taking place between the United States and Russia and Ukraine. We had Debitriev in Florida meeting not only with Kushner and Witkoff, but also with Bessent. So what does that tell you the fact that Besset was at that meeting? And we were supposed to have the third, the second or the third, depending on how you look at it, meeting between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, though the United States was not going to have Whitkoff and Kushner participate in the next round of talks. They were supposed to take place in Abu Dhabi yesterday, actually. But they have been postponed, and they will now take place.

I believe the date that they're floating is 4th or 5th of February. The Kremlin actually came out with a statement and said that the reason for the change is for scheduling issues. So Lensky pretty much said the same thing. That's where we are with the diplomacy, Alexander. Yeah, a lot of talk about scheduling issues. I don't myself see what these issues are. None of the people who are now involved in these negotiations,

the tripartite working party negotiations, are the sort of people who you would imagine have such full timetables, doing other things that they wouldn't be able to come and attend a meeting of this kind. So the reason it was postponed, the true reason it was postponed, is because Zelensky and the Ukrainians were unhappy. And they were making that very clear before. They said that it might have to be postponed because there was going to be in war with Iran. Of course, that didn't happen.

So we've come up with the alternative explanation, which is scheduling issues. Now, I think we need to be completely clear about where the negotiations are. There's negotiations, there's no actual negotiations at all that I can see. There is meetings taking place within a working party that is made up mostly of military and security officials. Zelensky at the previous meeting sent a lot of his political people. He sent al-Ahamia and he sent to Mer. And it was Budanov, is both a security person and a political person at one at the same time.

But the Russians only sent military and security people, intelligence officers. Witkoff and Kushner are not coming this time. So it's again going to be just military and security people from the US. So this is not a negotiation. This is an attempt both to discuss military issues like attacks on the Russian presidents, you know, residents in Valdei, which you've talked about many times. And it's also the Americans and the Russians trying to get the Ukrainians to debate and talk about the mechanics of a Ukrainian withdrawal from Dombas. And this seems to be the central issue, topic of discussion. Now, Zelensky and the Ukrainians are absolutely refusing to discuss this.

And that's why they didn't want this meeting. They wanted this meeting postponed because they don't want to pile up in which both the Russians and the Americans are telling them, look, we've got to talk about the mechanics of how you're going to withdraw from Donbass. Because remember, if you start discussing that, if you start discussing that, if you start discussing, discussing how troops are going to leave Slaviansk and what the corridors of withdrawal are going to be, then you are in effect agreeing that your troops are going to leave Slaviansk. So the Ukrainians don't want to do that. And that's the real reason why this meeting didn't take place when it was supposed to.

The Americans told the Ukrainians that there has to be this meeting. but the mood in Ukraine has not changed, and Zelensky has already said that the next meeting of the Working Party is not going to achieve anything. From the Russian side, we did a program last week in which we discussed what the Russians are saying. Both Lavrov, who is the foreign minister, and Ushikov, who is Putin's foreign policy aid, and said, look, yes, of course, Donbass is important, but it's not the end of it. There's an awful lot of other things to discuss as well. It's only the first step that the Ukrainians mistake. There's lots and lots of other things.

There's questions of rights of ethnic Russians. in Ukraine, there's the status of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, there's Ukraine's non-aligned and neutral status. We did a program last week in which we pointed out that Lovroff, who was clearly talking on the entire Russian government's behalf, said the whole story about security guarantees that we've been reading about in the newspapers, you know, the idea that, you know, the United States is going to give a backstop and there's going to be French troops in Ukraine. Well, nobody's talked about any of that with us. We haven't seen any papers.

Nobody's shown us any papers. This is not acceptable to us. Another senior Russian official said yesterday that the Russians are not prepared to see any European troops in Ukraine at all, regardless of what flag they come under, whether it's the NATO flag or the EU flag or whatever kind of flag, that is absolutely unacceptable. So quite apart from the fact that Zelensky doesn't want to withdraw from Dombas because he doesn't want to withdraw from anywhere at any time. The Ukrainians have a further reason for not agreeing to withdraw from Dombas. Because if that ever were to happen, the Russians would

come back and would demand progress on the many other things that would remain unresolved. So this is performative. It's a series of meetings, working party meetings. They are not going to lead to any negotiation, any serious negotiation, because this isn't a serious negotiation. It's a purely performative exercise. In the meantime, the wall continues. We can touch on what's going on in the wall. And that's where the real movement, the real movement actually is taking place.

Now, the meeting between Bessent. Dimitriiv and Bessent is actually quite interesting. And you're absolutely correct, Because, yes, Wickev was there. He was chairing the American side. But, of course, Bessert is by far the most important official on the American side. He is the U.S. Treasury Secretary, arguably the most important person in the U.S. government, other than the Secretary of State and the Secretary of War.

So, you know, he's suddenly a cabinet-level official in charge of economic policy is talking to Dimitria. Now, it's been widely overlooked, but when Kushner and Witkoff went to Moscow about a week ago, two weeks ago, before the first working party was set up, it was agreed that there would be another working party, a purely bilateral one, between the Americans and the Russians, to talk about economic relations. And Dimitriev would head the Russian side. The Whitkoff would head the American side.

It would be purely to discuss bilateral economic questions. Besant is there, not because there's been any big progress on economic relations or trade. There's no word of any movement on that either, or even on returning Russian property in the US, reopening embassies or appointing the U.S. ambassador, the new U.S. ambassador to Moscow. There's no movement about that. But Bessent is the person who has overall control of sanctions. He is the person who makes a decision about sanctions. Putin has said, well, you know, we're interested in this Board of Peace.

That's President Trump's idea. You know, we're not saying no. But there is this $1 billion entry fee. if we're going to join, we are going to pay our fee out of the assets, the Russian assets frozen in the US, is Besson, who has to green light that. And that's why he's out the meeting. It's basically, mostly, I guess, about the Board of Peace. Bessent is an extreme hardliner. He does not like Putin. He does not like Russia. He has a long history of making that very, very clear, very, very difficult to persuade him to ease the sanctions, to unfreeze the assets so that that fee can be paid.

If he does unfreeze the assets, then the EU is screwed. Yes. They're screwed with $140 billion. Yeah. That's why the Russians are doing this. And Bessent knows this, which is maybe one reason why he might be reluctant to do it. Right. But then, of course, there's another person who's higher than Besson, who's Donald Trump himself. And, you know, Whit Gough might come along and tell Trump, well, you know, Besson isn't being really helpful. And can you make the order anyway and override Besson? It might happen. But I would not have thought that this would have been an easy meeting. Because as I said, Besson is very committed to sanctions policy. He was the man who pushed for the sanctions on Lucho and Rosnev. And he, as a dozen like, right. He doesn't like Putin.

I don't think he's going to be keen to do this. He's a hardliner. He's a hawk. He is very, exactly. Yeah, he despises Russia, best it. Frontline, what's going on over the front line? Well, this is very interesting because there's two things going on at one at the same time. There's the war in the sky.

We had this energy truce, which happened last week. the Trump announced that Putin had agreed to a seven-day energy truce. The Russians were very tight-lipped, unhappy talking about it, as you pointed out in our previous program. They only announced it when the truce seemed to be about to expire. It expired on Sunday. Peskov, Putin's spokesman, has been asked, is it going to continue? you and he said, I've said all that I need to say, which suggests that the energy truth is already over, at which point the Russians presumably will resume their attacks. They launched

90 Iskandah missiles against Ukraine over the course of January, which is a record. They are using more and more missiles. They're using Tercon hypersonic missiles and Kinjah hypersonic missiles, and Kinsha, hypersonic missiles, it's becoming, the Ukrainians still pretend that they're able to shoot down these missiles. But I think even most, you know, observers who are more favorable to Ukraine no longer can see this. Ukraine's had massive energy blackouts. The energy blackouts affected Moldova as well, because remember, this is the Soviet energy grid. They're all interconnected with each other. So there was a total blackout across much of Ukraine. So the result was a total blackout across the whole of Moldova. Temperatures are going to fall. So that looks like it's coming.

The energy system, the electricity system in Ukraine is in deep crisis. In the meantime, we're starting to see an acceleration of movements by the Russian army. So the Russians are doing three things. In the northeast of Ukraine, in Kharkov, Cherningov-Sumi region, they're sort of doing little niggling moves. They're taking a little village there, a village there. They're moving across the border. They're doing all sorts of things, which it's difficult to understand what they are,

and it doesn't seem as if very large numbers of troops are. involved or that there is actually a huge amount of fighting going on, that they're keeping the Ukrainians nervous and they might be preparing sort of base areas for bigger offensives in the future. They're getting very close now to Sumi, the city of Sumi, and to Kharkov and potentially, potentially to Chernikov as well. All the places imported if eventually you're going to push on to Kiev. But the biggest events continue to take place in Dombas. The Russians are focusing on two places in Dombas. One is Leman, which they are gradually putting the squeeze on. The other is the much bigger city of Konstantinovka. I guess that both of these places are going to be captured

by the Russians this month, the trajectory of events points in that direction. That puts the Russians closer to the point where they can put the two key cities in Dombas, Slaviansk and Kramatoskand, and they're working to try to interfere with Ukrainian logistics. The other big story, perhaps the biggest story of all, is that the Russians are, advancing faster in Zaporosia region. I don't think it's an overstatement to say. The Ukrainians are facing an operational crisis there. The Russians are gradually, no gradually, rapidly encircling a town, a big town called O'Rejof, which is the last remaining big town. in Zaporosia region, other than Zaporosia city itself. Once Oreckhoff is captured,

basically the only part of Zaporosia that is left will be the city of Zaporosia. This looks like there's an enormous crisis and a potential collapse in Zaporosia. and the loss of Zaporozia is going to be a huge crisis for Ukraine. There is a part of me which wonders whether the reason why the Russians are happy to keep talking about Donbass all the time in the negotiations is because that's the result of that is that's where Zelensky's attention is focused because he thinks that this is where the big events are taking. taking place and he doesn't want to withdraw from Dombas and it's become politically vital for him not to withdraw from Dombas. So his focus and Siersky's focus is on Dombas, even though it's actually Zaporosia, which is even more important.

What do you make of France signaling that they're ready to speak with Russia? Yeah. I mean, they've been talking about. No. No, Bertini. You're the hard line of foreign minister who despises Russia. Russia. He absolutely hates Russia. I don't even know his name. It's irrelevant. But he he's the one that he even said that France is open to communicating with Russia.

Well, what stops him then? I mean, what stops him going to Moscow or picking up the phone and talking to Lavrov? What stops Macron going to Moscow and speaking with Putin? Well, we all know that they're not going to do that. They want everybody in the European Union to agree, or if not everybody, at least the big players, Mautz and Maloney and others. Well, Maloney is up for that. Mouts, for the moment, doesn't seem to be, or at least he's dithered about it. And, of course, the European Commission is solidly opposed. And Kala says, well, we must have talked to the Russians because our position is so weak now.

We have absolutely nothing to offer them. We have no inducements to give them. So what we must do is instead parlor more sanctions. I mean, I don't think the French, we're going to see a real French diplomatic initiative because they've been talking about this for, well, Macron, I think floated it about a year ago. We see that nothing much has happened. Then Maloney and Macron brought it up again in the middle of December at the time when they were talking about seizing the Russian. assets, which they didn't do. And, well, we're now in February, all of these weeks have passed

and nothing has happened. So, I mean, you know, I don't see, I don't see why, given that they haven't even chosen a chief negotiator, given that there's no consensus about it, and given that the French don't seem to be ready to go it alone, I don't see why we should expect it. And if it does happened. But then, I mean, are they prepared, the Europeans prepared to make substantive negotiations? Are they prepared to say, no, Ukraine cannot join NATO? No, Ukraine shouldn't get more weapons. Yes, Russian speakers in Ukraine should be given rights. They're not prepared to do any of these things. Well, the United States is not prepared to do any of these things. No. So, I mean, the Europeans are going to do whatever the United States tells them to do.

Exactly. I mean, I was just curious why France would throw it out there. I mean, did someone in the U.S. told them to throw it out there? Did Macron say, I want to show a little bit of sovereignty? I want to try to indicate that I do have some sovereignty outside of what the U.S. orders me to do. Whitkoff-Kusher-Trump administration, they're not prepared to make any concessions either. No. I mean, you see that with the whole Starlink thing. The whole Starlink thing shows me that the U.S. The US absolutely wants to keep this war going because they're telling Musk, they're the ones that are telling Musk, you need to fix Starlink. Yes, absolutely. So coming back to the French, and by the way, you're right about that. I mean, the fact that they rushed out a response to the fact that the Russians were using

Stalin shows that this remains a massive priority for the US. They're not going to let Ukraine simply collapse because the Russians are able to be piggyback on Starlink anymore, which is American technology. So coming back to the French, why is Macron doing it? I think there's two simple reasons. Firstly, whatever they pretend, whatever they say even publicly into each other, deep down, all of them know that Ukraine is losing people. They know this.

And that is now making them very, very nervous. And inevitably, it is creating pressure to speak to the other. side, because if you're going to lose a war, you want to, at least you tell yourself, even if you're not prepared to make any concessions, you do need to speak to the other side. The second is, they are nervous. The fact that the Americans and the Russians are talking to each other does make them nervous, even if those discussions between the Americans and the Russians aren't going anywhere either. The Europeans have always been nervous about the Americans and the Russians talking to each other. And they've read the various strategic reviews, the security strategy review, the Pentagon Strategy Review. They've seen that the Americans are talking about reducing their force levels in Europe, coming to some kind of long-term agreement with the Russians.

That's going to make the Europeans even more nervous. They are indeed going to be left to deal with the Russians by themselves. Well, perhaps the moment has come to talk to the Russians. So there is that. There are all of those things of play as well. But the third reason is Macro. Macrole, he's going to be the great statesman. He's going to be Dallerole.

He's going to be Clemons. So he's going to go and he's going to conduct the great negotiations on behalf of France and of Europe. He's going to be the chief negotiator. He's going to be the person who everybody in Europe looks to. And as the chief negotiator, he's going to be the emperor of Europe, the president of the European Union, the true leader of Europe, because he's going to be the man. He's going to go to the Kremlin and talk to Putin and do so not just on behalf of France, but of Europe as well. With Macron, there is always that side. And that is definitely there. All right. We will add the video there. The durand.orgas.com. We're on X and Rumble and Telegram. We are also on substack. Go to the Dreadshop, pick up some merch, 26% of all merch.

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