The Duran Podcast - Putin's long silence, Russia debates future dealings with Trump

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Putin's long silence, Russia debates future dealings with Trump

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Russia, specifically with Putin. Seems like he's disappeared for the past couple of weeks. Of course, you had the holidays, Christmas, New Year's, actually New Year's and Christmas for Russia, for the Russian Orthodox. And Putin has been silent. He appeared at church services over the holidays, but after the holidays, he has been low-profileks. profile. We had the Ereznik strike for which Medvedev has sounded off on that, but Putin has not said anything about the Ereznik strike into Leviv either. So what are your thinking about what's going on with Putin? I believe he has given an interview the other day. So he has

appeared again. Usually when he goes silent, it means something big is coming. What do you think? I mean, as you rightly say, this was the holiday period. There was the New Year holiday. There was the Russian Christmas, which is on the 7th of January. But even allowing for that, this has been a very unusually long period of absence. I mean, he basically disappeared for about 12 days. I mean, he has now resurfaced. He's had an important meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, Dennis Manturov, who is an overall charge of the defense industries. And he's back. And this is the usual type of very detailed and thorough meeting with all the instructions given and all of that that we're used to from Putin.

But over the period of that 12 days, I mean, it was almost complete radio silence from him. I mean, he had one meeting in which he received a report about an attack by the Ukrainians on a hotel building in Harrison region, where civilians were killed. And he had a brief telephone call with a boy, seven, which is over Christmas. Very unusual. But he didn't speak to any foreign leaders over that time. He didn't make any important public statements. He left it to Lavrov to speak to Delci Rodriguez when she became the interim president of Venezuela. This is extremely unusual for, Putin to disappear so completely and so totally and for such an extended period, even allowing, as I said, for the fact that this is the holiday period. Now, I have to say, I think the explanation is that there has been a major ongoing debate taking place within the Kremlin about what to do. And I suspect that the event that probably was the trigger was the drone attack on Valda.

I mean, there's been a lot of difficulties with the contacts with the Americans. There was the meeting in Anchorage. Putin obviously expected that he was making progress with Trump then. Then, as we know, Trump backtracked. We got the talk about the U.S. delivering Tamahawk missiles to Ukraine. We got the sanctions on Rosneft and Luke oil. Then things seem to go back on track. again in a kind of way. We got the 28 points. Whitgolf and Kushner came to Moscow, but then

immediately, almost immediately, things began to go wrong again with the 20-point plan, which is completely different in which the Russians have categorically rejected, and all of that. And then there was the drone attack on Valdai, even as Trump and Zelensky was supposed to be meeting. Trump says to Putin, I'm shocked, I'm horrified. I'm appalled. He then has a meeting with Radcliffe. He then turns out he says it doesn't appear as if it was an attack on Valdei after all. It was an attack on some undisclosed military base or installation or facility.

We're not told what that was, by the way. And at the same time, the American media is itself telling us that the US itself, the CIA, has been basically running the drone offensive against Russia. So it looks to me as if there's been a major debate, Putin told Trump over the phone that in the light of the Valdai attack, the Russians were going to harden their positions in relation to the conflict in Ukraine.

They're going to reverse some of the concessions, take back some of the concessions they had previously made. I think it's getting a lot further than that. We had the Eurasianic strike, which it now looks like it was against a military base where there was some kind of command center. But I suspect we're going to see some important decisions, maybe not straightforwardly announced, but becoming increasingly more clear over the next few weeks, strongly suggesting that the Russians are going to be taking a much harder line in future. And one of the other indications that they're taking a harder line is obviously that they're now conducting heavy strikes on Odessa. They're destroying merchant ships in Adessa. They did this again over the last 24 hours.

Clearly there is a blockade of Odessa underway. And there are apparently attacks on American economic facilities across Ukraine also. You think Putin has woken up to what's going on, the game that's being played by Trump? I think he has been pushed towards doing that. I think that probably he's not going to cut off contacts with Trump entirely. But I think that from this point on, we're going to see the Russians focus mostly on the war and less on the diplomas. In fact, I mean, I've heard it said that in the Duma, the Duma, the Domew, the

diplomacy is now seen. The word charade is apparently the one that's used. Right. So if Trump gave the green light for the drones to go into Valdae, into Novgorod, if let's assume that's what happened. I'm not saying it did, but let's assume it did. The CIA tells Trump, Putin's there, give us the green light, we'll tell our guys. We'll tell our guys for Ukraine or whatever to launch the drones, and that'll be that.

I'm just assuming this, right? But would you say that Trump really screwed up there? Absolutely. Can I just make a point here? What would you have gained, too, if it was successful as well as well. So a two-part question. Yeah, I mean, if this is what happened. I want to stress it.

Yeah. Yeah, you see, the thing is that the Russians don't know that that was. not what happened. They must be saying to themselves that there is at least a possibility that Trump himself was involved. After all, the CIA takes its orders from him. Trump has a bad record now. He carried out the attack on the Iranian leadership in June, pretending to conduct negotiations with them. There was the attack on the Hamas leadership in Qatar, which is again, as there were negotiations with them ongoing as well. There was the recent kidnapping, seizure, abduction, call it whatever you like, of Maduro, whom the United States also appeared to be negotiating with. How can you be

that this was not an attack in which Trump himself was involved. So those discussions must be taking place in Moscow and it must be pointed out to Putin. I mean, you know, you're trusting a man, you're engaging in a negotiation with a man. You cannot fully trust because there's at least a possibility that he tried to kill you. So already we can see that there is going to be dissonance and argument and doubt, and that is already going to put the whole prospect of negotiations now under serious doubt. Now, what would the Americans, let's, you know, leave Trump himself out of the picture. What would the Americans have achieved by killing Putin? In my opinion, it would have been an utter disaster. If they'd killed Putin, the man who would almost certainly take over

would be Medvedev. Medvedev is the head of the military industrial commission, a fact which people completely overlooked. That is his job. He's very, very close to the military. He's very hardline, as we have seen. He's somebody who clearly believes total war, in total war. He doesn't, he's already said that Trump is an enemy. He would be vindicated. You would replace a more conciliatory leader with a far more hardline one. But I think what the Americans believe, what the Ukrainians believe, and the Ukrainians have admitted, by the way, that they have made attempts to assassinate Putin. They've admitted this in the past. And Zelensky himself on Christmas Day, the Western Christmas Day, actually said, you know, we all wish that he, and it was

obviously it was Putin, he meant, would perish. They all have worked themselves into this belief that Putin is the ultimate, exclusive, sole decisive decision-maker in Russia, that if you eliminate Putin from the scene, the Russian state will collapse into chaos, and that decision-making will fail, and that you'll get somebody, perhaps like Delci Rodriguez, who will take over, whom you can somehow bully or force or coerce into agreeing to the kind of policies that you want. This is a complete total misunderstanding of what Russia is like, but I do suspect there are many, many people in Ukraine, in London, in Paris, in Brussels, and of course, in Washington, who believe it.

Yeah, John Healy just the other day said that if there was one world leader he would kidnap, it's Putin, John Neely being the defense minister. Exactly. Yeah. And the fact, just to wrap up the video, and the fact that you have Budanov now as the chief of staff taking over for Yermak, effectively running Ukraine, solidifies the notion that the CIA is now completely in charge of what's happening in Kiev, because Budanov, as the New York Times reported, and the Washington Post, is a product of the CIA.

So now the CIA has their guy right there in power in Kiev. And it was Budanov, by the way, who previously on behalf of Ukraine admitted that the Ukrainians have made several, he said several attempts to assassinate Putin, though unfortunately all of them have failed. So it was but it was but it himself. So what is the CIA? Because the CIA is now clearly running the war. One gets the sense that the Pentagon, for its own reasons, which have not. nothing to do with being friendly on soft on Russia. They've got more important things to worry about. The Pentagon is taking a back foot. They're not directly involved. They're not sending weapons

they don't have to Ukraine anymore. The United States is unwilling to give money to Ukraine. So it's the CIA now that is running the show in Ukraine. And what does the CIA do? Covert action. What does covert action mean? Assassinations, destabilizations. all of that sort of thing. So unsurprisingly, it's absolutely unsurprising. If the CIA are now at the center, that they are coming up with, frankly, hairbrained and extremely dangerous plans like the drone attack on Valdai,

if it was indeed they who were involved. As I'm sure the Russians believe, and as I think most people who have followed this, conflict closely also believed to. At first, we had our doubts. I mean, I still have my doubts. I find it so hard to believe that a president of the United States would actually greenlight something like this, if that is indeed what happened.

I really have a hard time believing it. But you go back to all the negotiations that were taking place, whether it was Iran or Qatar, are Hamas, kidnapping Maduro. And I mean, you know, what can you say? And we know that whether it's domestic policy or foreign policy, that Trump is easily swayed by very, very dangerous forces and very dangerous people around him. Yeah.

I don't know what to say if that was indeed the case of. Well, you know, it's like, it's like, a foreign policy now, if you like, you can call it foreign policy, conducted in the spirit of the Godfather movies. I mean, this is what it's starting to look like. The trouble is, we have now a pattern that has become clearly visible since the summer of more and more of this thing happening. And absolutely, I mean, it could very well be.

I would like to believe that this is either been done around. or that he is being influenced himself by it. And I suspect it is the second. There's lots of people who say that he tends to go with the last person he talks to. And unfortunately, a lot of the time, it appears to be Radcliffe. The trouble, the trouble is. I think I said that. Yes, I know.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think it was. I think it was, yeah. Well, if it was you, but I think it was you. But now others are, whatever. But I think it was you actually to say that. The trouble is that when that happens, he is the president of the United States.

The buck stops with him. If he is authorizing things like this, then of course, in a sense, it doesn't matter whether he actually proposed them or requested them. It doesn't matter. I mean, if, so, if a hitman comes along and tells you, I can take out so and so, and you say, go ahead, you are responsible. You know, the problem that I have with all of this is, is that at first, the story was that there were no drones launched in that direction. Yes, yes. Then, then we get to the reports, once again, from, from the mainstream media, the Times, the Post, which claim that they,

spoke to their CIA sources and their people close to Trump, which claim that there were indeed drones in the vicinity of Putin's residency, but they targeted some sort of military facility of which we don't know the name. They've hit it in the past, they said. Ukraine hit this facility in the past, but that's what they were going after. Yeah. And we're not going to name it. We're not going to tell you what it was. But we are now admitting, we've changed our story, and we're now admitting that, yes, there were drones going in that direction, in that region, in Novgorod, towards Valdae, but they weren't targeting his residence. And Trump has confirmed that this was, according to his statements, this is what happened.

Drones were set in that direction, but they weren't targeting the president. Oh, my God. That's the part that really bothers me about this whole situation. Absolutely. Absolutely. I completely agree. I mean, that tells you, I mean, first of all, it corroborates a critical part of the Russian story, that there was a drone attack on Novgorod. Because as you rightly said, the media was denying, the Ukrainians appeared to be denying,

that there was any drone attack on Novgorod at all. I mean, they were all claiming there was all fictitious. There were demands that the Russians provide evidence. The Russians started to show as drones. There was a lot of insinuations that this evidence didn't amount to anything, that it was phony, and then of course the admission comes that the drone attack did actually take place. And then, of course, the big unanswered part of the narrative, if you believe this narrative, if you are attacking some facility, some military facility, which one was it? Why not tell us? I mean, obviously, if that was what was attacked, the Russians know, so why not tell us?

Especially if you've done it in the past. Especially if you've done it in the past. That it's not secret. As if it's not secret. So, I mean, I have to say, I mean, the whole thing looks improbable and absurd. Clearly, there wasn't an attack. Clearly, drones were used. Clearly, the Russians do have the intelligence data because the drones were there.

and I'm sure the Russians are distributing all the information about the drone attack to all of their various friends around the world. This looks like a cover story hurriedly cobbled together. You say, well, it wasn't actually Valda, there was something close by. You won't say what, because, of course, you can't. The Russians then come and say, look, we've been able to break the codes in one of the drones, and we can prove definitely that it was Valde. It looks as if, I mean, it looks as if this was a genuine attack on Valdai, a genuine assassination attempt. And as I said, I think that the way the Americans are acting is feeding into Russian suspicions.

And I think going back to the start of our program, it explains Putin's long silence. And it suggests to me that a major discussion in the Kremlin is going. Right. I'm glad you brought it back full circle. Yeah, that explains the long silence. Okay, we'll wrap up the video. The Trump White House needs to get out of this project of Ukraine. Absolutely. It's not going in the right direction and it's getting very, very dangerous. Agreed. Agreed. They need to just drop this whole thing. Yeah. All right. We'll end it there. The durand.orgals.com. We are on X and Telegram and Rumble and go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch. Link is in description box down below. We're also on Substack as well. So look for our

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