The Duran Podcast - Putin, Iran air defense and Ukraine military outcome

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

Putin, Iran air defense and Ukraine military outcome

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's interview with international journalists at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which has started. And Putin covered a lot of topics, as always, and he took questions from journalists from around the world, including journalists, I believe, from Reuters and Associated Press. I don't know. Was the BBC there as well? No, I didn't think so. But those two, Reuters was absolutely there. And Spanish media, Spanish media with that. Collective West media, something that leaders of the collective West will never do. They will never take questions from Russian media.

And Putin talked about Ukraine. He talked about Iran. And he said some very, very interesting things about these situations. So should we start with what he said about. about the conflict in Ukraine first or Iran. No, well, let's actually, let's start with Iran. Iran, yeah. I mean, he didn't speak at vast detail about that.

He explained some things which a lot of people are talking about. Yeah, absolutely. With regards to Russia's relationship with Iran and why is Russia not rushing to help Iran and stuff like this? He did put some things in context. So, yeah, what did he say? Well, it was over. It was all very interesting and I'm afraid it supports my suspicions, which is that apparently

the Russians have been in discussion with Iran for a long, long time, and about, you know, developing a close relationship. And the Russians, in terms of this new treaty that was signed and apparently ratified, where it was signed in January and now ratified, the Russians actually did suggest to Iran that the treaty contain some explicit mutual defense clauses, something like on the same model as Russia's treaty with North Korea. And the Iranians refused. And the Russians also offered to Iran to help Iran develop an air defense system, not, you know, to supply individual air defense systems like, you know, the S-300 and the Tor and things like that, but actually create a single unified air defense system encompassing the whole of Iran, in which the Russians are the

universally acknowledged experts. I mean, they've been working on creating air defense systems since the early 1950s. So, I mean, they have done this to a degree that no one else has done. Probably only China can match them in this. Anyway, the Iranians refused. And he also said that in terms of military assistance to Iran over the course of the current conflict, Iran hasn't sought any, hasn't asked for any. So, I mean, I thought those were all actually quite interesting revelations. And I'm afraid they reflect closely a conversation I had whilst I was in St. Petersburg, which is just a, you know, a straight conversation. it just came up with someone from Russia, I'm not going to say who, in which he said to me that the Russians had found Iran a very difficult country to help, that the Iranians were very unsure about how far

they wanted to commit themselves to a long-term relationship with Russia and that there continues to be deep suspicion of Russia within Iran and that this is creating problems in moving ahead with the relationship. And ultimately, Putin seemed to be saying exactly that. All right. So what did Putin say about the conflict in Ukraine? He talked a lot about the frontline situation, the military situation when it came to Ukraine. And he is still open to negotiations based on Istanbul Plus. Yeah, absolutely. But the window's closing. I know. The window, the window is closing and it is closing very fast. The first thing to say about the military situation is that he's extremely confident. I mean, he said, look, if the Germans supply

tourist missiles, it's not going to make any difference. The reality is, that the Ukrainian military on the front lines is down to 47% in terms of its, you know, the units are only up to 47% strength. The Russians are advancing on every part of the front lines. He clearly feels very, very confident that things are indeed moving Russia's way and that the Taurus won't make any difference and that no weapon system that the West sends to Ukraine is going to make any difference. But about the overall situation, he said that Russia had made massive efforts to try to resolve this problem with Ukraine diplomatically.

That they started all the way back in 2014, that they didn't start the war in 2014, that Ukraine started the war in 2014 by attacking Donbass then and by conducting the coup, the Maidan coup in February 2014 as well. He again brought up the duplicity of the Western leaders over the course of the Minsk negotiations that the Russians were tricked into agreeing to the Minsk agreement in February 2015, which was simply used as a means to rearm and re-equip and rebuild the Ukrainian military and clearly that remains a very bitter thing for him. But he said that, you know, the Russians were prepared to negotiate. They were prepared to speak to Schultz and Macron, and Schultz and Macron stopped talking. He discussed the February, March, April, 2022 negotiations. He said that the deal was done almost, but that the Ukrainians walked away from the deal.

He also disclosed something which has never been disclosed before. He said that some Western interlocutor got in touch with the Russians. One senses that it was in late summer, early autumn of 2022 about trying to revive negotiations. And the Russians said, look, we've had this deal with the Ukrainians. we are prepared to only ask for Dombas, we're prepared to return Zaporosia and Husson to Ukraine, despite the sentiments of some of the people there. The only thing we ask is that we be granted a right to send supplies

by land across Ukrainian territory to Christi, that in fact we'd be provided with some kind of easement, as he put it, a legal treaty rights to do that, a kind of corridor, if you like, rather like the corridor that the Western powers had in order to keep there to keep Berlin supplied during the Cold War, West Berlin supplied during the Cold War. And he said, this is, we made this proposal. This person took it with him to Kiev. And the Ukrainians responded by saying, you must be a Russian agent.

So that offer no longer applies. He said that in light of that, they now moved forward and had the referendums in the four regions. He made it absolutely crystal clear that the four regions are not going to be returned to Ukraine. He was pressed about whether he's prepared to negotiate with Zelensky. He said, absolutely, I'm prepared to sit down with Zelensky. Zelensky is going to be Ukraine's chief negotiator. But that doesn't change the fact that Zelensky is not the legitimate president of Ukraine. That means that anything he signs has no legal force.

And the question is not whether I'm prepared to negotiate with Zelensky, but about who in Ukraine is going to sign the final agreement in order. it to make it stick. Now, I have to say, I read it all, the cumulative impression I got from all of this is that Putin is still going through the motions of the, you know, conducting negotiations. He is not ruling them out, but he no longer believes, or he doesn't believe, that they will ever achieve any kind of outcome, and that in his own mind, a military outcome is the only one now, which is possible. And I believe that he thinks he has it in his reach. So that was my overall impression of what he was saying. Always, he talks in very measured, carefully calibrated language.

He's always very careful what he says. But that was the overall impression I got. Yeah. Agreed. He said he's open to negotiations, but if a military solution is what's what's coming, then he said, that's what's going to happen. He also took a question about Trump and the United States and the normalization of ties between Russia and the United States. And I believe the question, the reporter actually asked him whether he believes it's true what Trump says about if he was president, this war would have never happened. And Putin actually said he's probably right. Maybe this war would have never happened if Trump was president. Can you talk about the things that he said about the United States and Trump?

I thought it was an interesting reply from Putin. It was a fascinating exchange, actually, because what Putin said was that he did think that there would be, that the war would have been avoided if Trump had been in, had been president. And the reason was, the reason Putin thinks that is a conversation. he had with Biden immediately before the war started. And he went into much more detail about that conversation, the one he had with Biden, than the one that he usually does when discussing conversations with foreign leaders.

And the point was that Putin says that he told Biden, look, we absolutely do not want any kind of conflict. Everything we should be working towards should be intended to avoid any possibility of war. So we need to come to some kind of compromises and arrangements so that that war can be avoided. And Putin didn't really spell out exactly what his proposals were, but you get the sense that they were quite detailed. and he didn't exactly say what Biden's response was. But again, you got the sense that Biden's response was either shifty or evasive or completely negative. And Putin said effectively that he thought that if his interlocutor had been Donald Trump,

the response would have been completely different. So he was making a very interesting comparison. contrast between Biden and Trump. Biden clearly hostile, clearly negative, unwilling to bargain at all, unwilling to make any concessions whatsoever. Trump, much more flexible, much more interested in coming to an actual agreement, a real deal. And with Trump, negotiations were possible, with Biden. they were not. And it was very interesting. And it suggested to suggest to me that in spite of

everything, in spite of what's happening now with Iran and all of that, Trump, Biden, sorry, Putin still believes that going forward, he can establish a relationship with Trump in a way that he can never establish a relationship with Biden. I was going to say the same exact thing in spite of everything that has happened, including everything that happened a couple of weeks ago with the airfields and the attack inside of the Russia Federation and the trains, the terrorist attack on trains, and the posts, true social posts from Trump. Putin is still seeing Trump as the best option when it comes to normalization.

of ties between the United States and Russia. And Putin explained it as the fact that Trump is a transactional president. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Some people might find that, yeah. It might find that surprising in light of events. It was a surprising comment from Putin.

It was a surprising comment. But he made it. Well, he said transactional president makes him more pragmatic is actually to be fair to to Putin. That's what he said. is not just a president, that he's also a businessman. And that makes him more transactional and more pragmatic. So it was an interesting exchange.

In fact, it was striking that he spoke quite well of Trump. In spite of everything, he's part of the fact that they've had apparently some tense words. But he still seems to think that Trump is certainly a improvement, as far as he's concerned, a massive improvement from Biden. Well, Biden is probably just about the worst president that Putin has ever had to interact with. But with Trump, a way forward can be found. Now, some people might think that Putin is wrong about that. But that's what he appears to think.

And you can just go to his comments and read them for yourself. Yeah. All right. Anything else that you want to add about the journalist meeting? or it was a long. It was a very, very, very long meeting. I read somewhere that started it in midnight and it went all the way until the morning. Yeah, absolutely.

It did indeed. I mean, you know, this is Putin. I mean, he seems to be a 24-hour president. One is the same? And he remains coherent and clear. And he never loses his thread or appears to get tired or flags at any point during. It's really quite remarkable, actually. the other thing that came across to me is he's complete contempt for the Europeans

and he sends a betrayal by Germany. Yeah. I mean, he was asked, do you think the Europeans are in a position to act as mediators? And he basically said no. And he feels clearly very deeply betrayed by the Germans. And when the suggestion Germany might be a mediating party came up, He said, look, if Mertz wants to talk to me, I'm absolutely happy to talk to him. But the fact is the Germans are providing leopard tanks to the Ukrainians.

They're doing all of these things. They're in no position to act as mediators. Certainly, they're not in a position to take the place of the United States. So he clearly has no time for the Europeans anymore. He didn't have a good word to say for them anywhere in this mammoth interview. Yeah, agreed. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.com.

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