The Duran Podcast - Putin's Novorossiya speech. Trump, Ukraine drawdown process

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Putin's Novorossiya speech. Trump, Ukraine drawdown process

All right, Alexandria, let's talk about what is going on in Ukraine. And let's talk about the recent statements from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev. And we also have some statements from the defense minister Belusuf as well at the council for the ministers of defense, which is also taking place interesting numbers on his take on losses, casualties and losses in Ukraine. as well as some other plans that the Ministry of Defense is up to, especially with Horaschniks, mass production of Erichniz. 475,000 Russians entered the military in 2024. Anyway, let's begin with all the statements from these high-level Russian officials.

Let's start with Putin and Bedev. They were speaking to a meeting of the Congress of Russia's United Russia Party, which is, you can call it the ruling party of Russia. It's not actually, he doesn't actually rule Russia, Putin and his officials rule Russia. But this is the party which supports the government. It's, if you like, the governing party, it pays a significant role in, uh, keeping the whole political system united. And it's also the place where you would expect the Russian leadership, the president, Putin and of course Medvedev to express their views and to steer

to give us an idea of the policy that the government will follow. Now, I thought it was most interesting. I thought they both made very interesting statements. Putin talked rather more in some respects than Medvedev. But they both spoke about a Russia, which in effect is at war. If you read Putin's comments overall, he placed enormous emphasis on the war and on the role that the effect the war has had on Russian society, the kind of consolidating effect that the war has had on Russian society, that Russian society has combined behind the war, the role it's playing, the attitudes to the military that the war has created within

Russian society. So it was, I won't say it was a war speech, but it was closer to that than anything that Putin has said. up to now. Generally, when he's spoken about, you know, the overall situation in Russia, he tends to emphasize the sort of civilian life of Russia. He creates an impression of business as normal, life going on, very much as normal. This was different. And again, it was partly, I think, intended to ensure that United Russia not only is harnessed to the task of supporting the war, but is harnessed to the task of keeping Russian society supportive of the war.

But put that aside, the thing that really struck me again is that he's now making, and this has been a trend that we started to see increasingly over the last year, He's now making a distinction between something he calls the Donbass, which we've spoken about many times, and something else which he calls Norvo Rocia. So the Donbass, well, we know or know what the Donbass is. Donbass is Donetsk and Lugansk, the two regions which rebelled against the Ukrainian government, or at least the Maidan government in 2014, where the Donetsk and Lugans people's repuls. republics were created, which fought against the Ukrainian government in 2014 and whose independence,

Russia recognized just before the start of a special military operation and which have now joined Russia. But he has also revised use of this term, Novorossia. Now, Novo-Rosia, New Russia, is an expression. that dates back to the reign of Catherine the Great. And it used to be a Russian province, a territory that was actually administered as a territory by the Russian imperial government until 1917. And the point is, Dombas, Crimea were part of it. So was Zaporosia and Herson, but so importantly were other territories on the Black Sea, including Odessa. Briefly, these were the territories

that were conquered from the Ottomans, or captured from the Ottomans, by Catherine and her general Prince Puttyonkin, and which were annexed to the Russian Empire, and which were then developed over the course of the late 18th and early 19th century, there's the new territories within the Russian Empire. They were considered administratively distinct from Ukraine, which of course, at that time, was a much smaller region within the Russian Empire. And Putin is now again reviving talk about this. Now, the point is, where does the current territory, the current boundaries, where do the current boundaries of Novorosia like. The way he speaks, you could say that it's Zaporosia and Herson, and he merely means those two regions. But if so, why doesn't he just speak of these two regions,

Zaporosia and Herson? Why does he return to the subject of Novorossia? Novorossia was used quite a lot in 2014, but at that time it seemed to be limited to what is now the Dombas, but now he's no longer talking about the Dombas as part of Novorossia. He's referring to other places as Novorossia, and he's not been precise as to what places he means. He talks about protecting the people of Novorossia. Now, that could mean again, protecting the people of Zaporosia and Herson. But if you take the meaning of Novorossier to be wider in the way that it was in pre-1917 Russia, it could include places like Adessa as well, just saying.

Now, even as Putin says this, his colleague, Dmitri Medvedev, the former president, strong political ally of Putin, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, former president, former prime minister, who's just returned from a very high-level trip to China where he's had a meeting with Xi Jinping. Anyway, Medvedev says, we've got to be prepared for the possibility that new regions might join Russia. And if you put all this together, I'm starting to, it seems to me that Medvedev and Putin together are now seeing, signaling that other regions may be west of the Nipa, Zaporosia city, NEPRO, perhaps also places like Nikopol, Krivoj, Ragh, and Odessa itself might one day soon become parts of Russia also. Now, they're not saying that, but that's what they're floating, or so it seems

to me. And of course, they're doing that in advance of the negotiations. with which Donald Trump, we're told, wants to launch, but on top of all of these military advances that the Russian army is conducting. You see that the closer we get to the start of a negotiation position, the Russians, because they feel that the momentum is working behind them, are starting to raise the bar on the... kind of demands that they're likely to make.

Yeah, but taking Novorocia, I mean, we all know what Novorossia means. I mean, everyone knows when Putin says, Nafrosia, everyone understands what it means. So talking about Novorosia coming back to Russia or being a part of the Russia Federation as Putin puts it, or Medvedev as he puts it. I mean, that would nullify any of what we understand are Trump's plans. Because Trump's plan, whatever it is, whatever the Trump team is thinking about, there's going to be some sort of a ceasefire or freeze involved. That's obvious.

And that freeze is going to happen along either the current front lines or maybe a little forward, maybe a little back. I don't know, whatever they're planning. Who knows what Kellogg and Watson Trump and all of them are planning. But obviously, a Trump plan, which would involve some sort of a freeze, would not be able to reconcile with Putin or Medvedev's discussions and statements about Novosia. I mean, so what are we looking at? Absolutely. But, of course, the point you understand about Trump's proposals is, first of all, as they stand, the Russians have said that they are completely unacceptable.

They're not prepared to accept a freeze. They're certainly not prepared to accept a freeze on the present. ceasefire lines. They want an overall settlement. They're prepared to negotiate with the Ukrainians, but it can't be on the basis of these proposals. And, you know, not on NATO or European peacekeeping forces in Russia, not on the basis of Ukraine. Joining NATO at any time, even keeping that possibility alive as far as the Russians are concerned is unacceptable. So the Russians are saying no, but they're saying that yes, nonetheless, we are prepared to talk. What the Russians, I think, are doing through these statements is that they are signaling to Trump and also to the Ukrainian,

and Zelensky for the moment is ruling out negotiations. He's saying that he's only prepared to sit down and talk if Ukraine is given firm security guarantees by the Western powers, and by that he means entry into NATO, which, as we know, is for the Russians a completely unacceptable red line. What the Russians are saying through these statements, and I wonder whether people in Washington are sophisticated enough to pick this up. What they're saying is, Look, if the Ukrainians retain preserved this stance, if they refuse to accept the current realities, then the war will go on, we will advance into these new territories, into these other territories. We have long-standing historical connections to these territories.

And once we are there, we are not leaving. So the longer this takes to set up and get organized, the longer Zelensky is allowed to continue to remain intransigent in the way he is. The more unfavorable to Ukraine and to you in the West, the eventual outcome of the war is going to be. Because if we get to Nikopol and Nyepro and Krivoj and Adesa, we're not going away. These territories will become conclusively Russian again. So the Russians are basically signally to the Americans, to the Ukrainians, obviously, but I don't think Ukrainians are in any mood to listen, to the Americans, that, look, you don't have an open window here. If there's going to be a successful negotiation, you have to

explain to the Ukrainians the risks that they're running, and you've got them to understand that and accept this now. Yeah, I understand that, but the Russians are also signaling to the Trump administration that they're absolutely open and ready and waiting. I would say they're waiting for the proposal in the negotiation, and you see that by their actions. Forget about what they say. Their actions, specifically with the long-range missile strikes, the last attack-em strike, six attack-ums into the Rostov region. The Russian retaliation was really no retaliation, at least that's the way it looks. So, okay, another, a red line has been crossed. This time Russia said that long-range missile strikes into Russia would be a red line.

there's no disputing that. It was crossed. Yes. The Russian retaliation was not a retaliation. This looked like it was an already pre-planned drone and missile barraged to Ukraine, which must have been planned days or even weeks in advance. But it looks like they're passing that off as that being the retaliation to the attack. It wasn't.

And by that action, it tells me that Russia is signaling to the Trump administration we're absolutely ready and willing to talk about your proposals because everyone, everyone kind of understands. I'm not saying this is what Trump's proposal is going to be, but I think we do have some sort of an idea as to what his proposal is going to be. We know there's going to be a freeze ceasefire component. We understand that there's going to probably be some sort of demilitarized zone component. Kellogg talked about it. Vance talked about it. we understand that there's going to probably be some sort of a security guarantee or peacekeeper

component. Now, we don't really know what all of these are in details. We've heard a lot of speculation from the media. I don't know if there's going to be 100,000 European troops. Maybe the plan will call for European Chinese and Turkish troops. I don't know. I'm just throwing stuff out there. I don't know if the demilitarized zone will be 400 kilometers, 100 kilometers, or 1,000

kilometers. I don't know. But I think we do not. There's going to be these types of components in Trump's proposal. And maybe some sanctions relief as well will be thrown in there. So it does signal to me that this idea of Novorosia is going to take a lot of time. I mean, we're still talking about Pachrosk. So Odessa, Nikolayev, this is going to take time. But on January 20th, January 21st, If you go by what Trump says, we're going to have some sort of a proposal take shape. And I imagine within the next weeks or months, that proposal will be presented to Putin. And it looks like he's open to negotiating on that proposal.

Given the actions that we've seen over the past week. What Putin is prepared to do is negotiate. I don't think he's prepared to negotiate on any of the companies. of proposals we have seen. Russian officials, and Putin himself, have repeatedly said that the only basis for negotiations is what Putin himself proposed at the foreign ministry in June. But what Putin does not want to do is slam the door on any kind of peace initiative from Donald Trump, because obviously he doesn't want to create a situation where there is an uncontrolled pattern of escalation taking shape. Because that is not in his interest.

interests or Russia's or anyone else's. And I think this is what this is all about now. I think that obviously there has to be a negotiation of some kind, because Trump has committed himself to it. Trump has appointed a peace envoy. He's going to send that peace envoy to Moscow. There's going to be talks. Orban has been talking to Putin. Orban will have undoubtedly communicated to Putin, the fact that Donald Trump himself strongly, vehemently, as he puts it, opposes deep missile strikes against Russia. So Putin and the Russians know or have been led to think that after the 20th of January, these missile strikes are ending. And that Trump himself, who is about to become the president, is going to recognize that red line.

So the Russians, for the moment, are calculating in their interests that it is better for them to play along and to talk with Donald Trump and to reestablish a dialogue because they have many, many other things that they need to discuss with the United States. And this situation which has existed for the last three years of there being no effective communications between Russia and America at all is dangerous and unnatural. But at the same time, and I think this is essential to say, they have conceded nothing. They've given no impression up to now that they are prepared to agree to any of the proposals that Donald Trump is making, be it about peacekeepers, which the Russian intelligence chief has basically said is unacceptable, be it about ceasefire lines along the basic, the current line of control on any of those things. And as for Trump, when he came to Europe and visited Paris and met with Macron and Zelensky, we have reports now in the European media that the Europeans came away, feeling that he had no actual worked-out plan at all.

and that basically what he wants to do is to contact the Russians and see whether he can get a negotiating process underway. Because there's another article in the New York Times is saying this morning, he basically wants to end the wall so that he could start to focus on China instead, to the point that he doesn't even want to give security guarantees to Ukraine at all. All right, so let's get to what Belusuf was talking about. And he put the number of losses in the entire special military operation, the three years of the SMO at about one million. Now, I imagine when he means losses, total casualties, total casualties, one million. in just

2004, I believe he put the number at over 500K losses killed and wounded and then he talked about the territory that Russia has gained over the past couple of months he talked about the

catastrophe that is Kursk for the Ukraine military that numbers at around 40,000 losses he talked about mass production of Orrjniznik missiles, which I thought was interesting. And he talked about the professional soldiers that have entered the Russian military. That was at about 475,000 or 500,000, somewhere around there.

What do you make of Belusive's statements? Well, what he is describing is, first, a massive military political catastrophe, which ultimately Ukraine has suffered. These statements about losses were intended, I am sure, to respond to Donald Trump's recent comment about this. And what Belousuf is doing is he's throwing it back. He's saying, you know, it's the Ukrainians who suffered these losses. We've gained all of these territories. We're going to reproduce the Oreschnik and Kusk for Ukraine has been a disaster. So, again, this has to be understood within the context of the Russians now, maneuvering in advance of the steps that Trump is going to make in the next few weeks and months, once he's become president, to get some kind of negotiating process underway. My own view about this, about the negotiations, is that the best paradigm for them is what happened in the same.

second period of the last period of the Vietnam War. Negotiations did get underway. There was negotiations in Paris between the Americans and the North Vietnamese. There were negotiations between the Americans of the South Vietnamese going on in parallel as well. There was no ceasefire. The war continued. But what the negotiations did enable was an American drawdown. There was a gradual step by step American drawdown throughout that period. And eventually, they did culminate in a peace agreement, which when it was enacted was unworkable and failed almost completely and paved the way full, the collapse of South Vietnam. I think this is probably what we're most likely going to see. So Trump wants to start a drawdown process. And

And the Russians have every reason to help him do that. And the Europeans, where are they left in all this? The Europeans are increasingly sidelined. Macron Zelensky spoke to Trump when he was in Paris. They didn't get anywhere far with him. American officials, or at least they're not officials, their future American officials, seen to have no time for Zelensky himself. And Zelensky himself is getting increasingly agitated and angry and is trying as far as you can to set his own red lines with the Americans, which of course the Americans are ignoring.

And the situation in Bakrovsk on the front line is looking catastrophic for Ukraine military. It's looking absolutely catastrophic. But it is going to take some time. Well, everything takes time. Yeah, to serve out, but across especially. This is the thing I also want to come back to because there is, there is a view that the Russians are somehow rushing forward to win as quickly as they can, to gain as much territory as they can in advance of the negotiations. I don't see any sign of this at all. They continue to move forward incrementally in the same way as they have done throughout the war.

Ukrainian resistance is still too strong to allow for major breakthroughs and big arrow offensives. I do that the Russians are ready for that. I don't think, you know, Ukraine is so broken at the moment as to make that sort of thing possible. So, yes, there's going to be a battle for Prokrosk. It's going to take time, weeks, months. Who knows how long? There is going to be a battle for Pakrosk. But for Ukraine, this is a catastrophe. Ukraine is losing ground. And most people acknowledge that if Bakrowski falls, there is going to be a way, it'll open the way for the Russians to advance to the deep. and going back to what Bel-Usov was saying, the Russian army today is much, much stronger and much bigger than it was back in 2022.

So if there is a breakdown in the defenses in Pacharosk or somewhere else, the Russians are much better positioned this time to take advantage of it. I mean, I think the other thing to say is that if we start to get negotiations going, that will have an effect on the dynamic. of the fighting, just as by the way it did in Vietnam, in the sense that Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the front lines, facing overwhelming pressure from the Russians, are going to be increasingly asking themselves, are we fighting in a war we can still win? Because we know that there are negotiations on the way, why should we sacrifice our lives to control this village

or that village or that particular fortified position, where it's likely when the deal is done that we're going to have to give it away? So that happened again in Vietnam, and I suspect it will start to happen again this time. Yeah, I just wonder, just to end the video, I just wonder what the what the Biden White House is going to do and what the EU and NATO is going to do. They're not just going to no to let this just go away or to allow Trump to to draw down the U.S.'s involvement from Ukraine. They're not going to allow negotiations between the U.S. and Russia just simply take place without them trying to sabotage the negotiations without them trying to provoke the Russian side try to escalate. I'm talking about the EU and NATO because Biden

will be gone by then. But even taking that into consideration, we still have another 30-plus days until Biden leaves. And we now have seen the crossing of a red line with no real Russian retaliation. I mean, the Erznik was a big. That was a big signal. And that kind of pushed the collective West back.

But they regrouped and they sent another six attackums. I understand the attack them. We didn't do any damage and the attack comes are crap. But still, it's the escalation. It's the provocation that matters in this instance. So, you know, they're not going to just sit back and allow all of this to happen, whether it's the Biden White House, whether it's the EU, whether it's NATO, whether it's the EU and NATO once Biden leaves.

They're just not going to sit there and just allow some. sort of understanding to take place between Russia and the United States. You're absolutely right about this. Trump wants to get negotiations underway because he wants to end this catastrophe, which is, I mean, he's the only political leader in the West who has identified the humanitarian disaster that this war has been. So, I mean, that shouldn't be discounted. But of course, he's doing this because he's making calculations of American national interest,

and he calculates from the perspective of the United States. A drawdown in the war is to America's advantage. And Richard Haas and the people of the Council for Foreign Relations agree with him. And there are people in the Pentagon who agree with him. So there is a body of opinion in the United States within the foreign policy establishment who think, as Trump does on this. But the Biden administration doesn't. The Europeans don't.

And Zelensky and his people in Ukraine don't either. If you listened carefully, not forget about Zelensky, forget about Biden. If you listened to Macron, all of his language whilst Trump was in Europe and all of Macron's language when he went to Poland and spoke with Don Tusk shows quite straightforwardly that he wants to continue the war. And he's not the only one. Cayacales and Osir Lovat want to continue the war. Kirstama wants to continue the war. Annalina Behrbock wants to continue the war. All that assortment of people wants to continue the war. They want to continue the war for all kinds of reasons. to keep the United States stuck in Europe, to hopefully achieve regime change in Moscow,

which they've never given up on, and also because they calculate that if they can continue the war, that will checkmate Donald Trump, who wants to do various things in the United States, which will affect the entire globalist project that they are completely committed to. So there is a major, huge coalition that wants to continue the war. And Biden, as you rightly say, is still in the White House and he's still got people like Sullivan and Blinken and Lloyd Austin. And they've been making all kinds of incredibly provocative statements. And of course, on top of all of that, they took this incredible decision to launch

the missile strike on Taga and Roj. in Russia, crossing against the Russian red line, a statement, an action which makes no military sense. It achieved absolutely nothing, but was massively, incredibly provocative towards the Russians, and which is clearly intended to escalate the situation. So, we're not the any people who say these people are dangerous. Victor Orban, who is now the prime who's the Prime Minister of Hungary, who's acting as the sort of mediator, who's using, who's positioned himself as the person who's transmitting messages between Trump and the Russians. He's actually made a statement.

He says we are now in the most dangerous period of the war. And going back to what we were saying before, I am no doubt at all that when Auburn spoke to Putin the other day. He said to Putin, there's going to be these enormous provocations are going to come from the Biden people. We've still got to navigate this incredibly dangerous transition period. We've got all kinds of impossible people in Kiev and in Europe to worry about. Please, please, for the next 30 days, exercise restraint, because we want to get some kind of of negotiation process started and these people want to wreck it. And for the moment, the Russians are going along with that. But of course, we can't count on that

indefinitely. And I'm not going to try and speculate what these people are going to do, but they are going to do something. They might try another incursion in Russia somewhere else. There's some reports that they're thinking is sending Ukrainian troops into Chernigov. Macron seems to be trying to get an expeditionary force together to send to Ukraine. He's just been to Poland. He's spoken to Donald Tusk. He's had, there was apparently a very fractious and difficult meeting of the European Council on all this. It looks like even Friedrich Mez is not keen on that idea, but Macron remains keen. The British are backing him. They might try and send troops into Ukraine over the next couple of weeks. They might try other things I don't want to speculate about and cannot speculate

about, but this situation continues to be extremely dangerous. In fact, we are exactly, as Orban said, in the most dangerous period of the war. And I think the other thing to say is this. Once Trump becomes president, assuming some kind of diet, between the Russians and the Americans begins. It's not going to mean that immediately the situation is going to get less dangerous. It could even continue to get still more dangerous because at that point, the hard line is in Kiev, the hard line is in Europe, the people in Congress, in the deep state, in the United States. They're going to be moving heaven and earth to try to jeopardize and throw back the negotiations,

whatever discussions are underway. So, you know, we are in a very, very rocky. We're going to look at a very rocky, very difficult process. It's going to require enormous diplomatic skill to try to keep this process going. And it's a mistake to think it's going to get easy. after the 20th of January. On the contrary, it could get more difficult. And I come back to what I was always saying, to what I said a few weeks ago when all of these, you talk of all of these discussions began. I said that in my opinion, the better thing for Trump to do would have been to wash his hands of the whole affair, walk away, leave it to the Europeans to sort it out. To sort it out. and say that it doesn't involve or concern the United States. I was saying that precisely because I was worried that we would be in this situation that we are in.

And I feared that there would be all these problems. But Trump made the decision that he does want to negotiate an exit. I can see why. I still think it was probably not the wisest thing to do. But anyway, that was the decision that he made. And over the next few weeks and punts, we will have to see how he, his officials, and the Russians, and anybody else who really does want to see this process continue, how they deal with the problems. All right. We will end the video there.

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