The Duran Podcast - Russia prepares Donbass cauldron. Negotiations dwindle

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Russia prepares Donbass cauldron. Negotiations dwindle

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the diplomacy around Project Ukraine. Dimitriov was in Geneva the other day. Yeah. Was he there to discuss Ukraine, or did he go there to send some sort of message for the Iran talks or something like that? It was Ukraine, right? It was Ukraine that he was there for. Yes. Yeah.

The whole thing is very, very strange because we had this meeting between the Americans and the Iranians in Geneva. Then there were all sorts of rumors that the Russian and Ukrainian and American meetup would happen on the same day as well. And then as far as I can tell, the only person who actually showed up from the Russian side in Geneva was Demetriev, to reiterate again, is not. an official of the Russian government. He's not actually a Russian official. He does have a public position, but he's the head of Russia's direct investment fund, which is obviously a public body, but it is not a government body in Russia. So he turns up, he has his meeting with Witkoff, who's his dear friend. It's not at all clear what they discuss. Peskov tells us that whatever they is talk about is going to be completely secret.

And the Russians are very tight-lipped about the whole discussion as Dimitri of himself is. Now, I'm going to make a guess, which is that we had a showdown last year, last week, when Medinsky and the main Russian team were there. And the Russians, as we know, took a very, very hard line. Zelensky clearly doesn't want the talks to continue. So in the absence of any real movement, there's some attempt to at least keep some kind of dialogue between Russia and the US going. So we're back to Dmitriyev and Wittgoff once again. Remember, Dmitriyov had all that input on the 28 points.

We were talking all about that in November. It seems a long, long time ago. Maybe Wigdorf wants to talk to Dmitrieff again, see whether he can come up with a new package. But my own sense is that the real energy, the real interest in the negotiations has basically dwindled away. And Zelensky is trying to get a bilateral meeting between himself and Putin set up. And he wants Trump there too. And he's talking about Abu Dhabi now has been the place. the Russians seem to be completely uninterested.

Yeah, but Zelensky keeps on saying interview after interview that he's going to make no concessions at all. Nothing on land, entry into NATO, entry into the EU, security guarantees for 30 years or 50 years or whatever he's talking about. There's no movement on Olensky's part. He's still talking about a ceasefire or a freeze. Yeah, absolutely. So I think we can, I get to say it's, I think that unless some big breakthrough happens on the battlefronts,

which it will, by the way, not very, fairly soon in my opinion, we can put the whole idea of negotiations to one side. Medinsky went to Geneva 10 days ago in order to put a full stop to say, look, these are the demands. We've got all of this nonsense of Zelensky. floating around, but this is our position. We're not shifting from it. We got Trump to agree to some of it in Anchorage. We're not shifting from that either. Until and unless the Americans are able to sort out Zelensky or get Zelensky to concede or push Zelensky aside and replace it with someone else. these negotiations aren't going anywhere at all, and we're going to focus in the meantime on the war.

And I think that is what's happening. And I think the US now, or at least Trump himself, is now mostly focused on Iran. It must be monopolizing he's bad with in terms of foreign policy at the moment. He's obviously got to think about his trip to China in a few weeks. So I think negotiations at the moment are a good. to complete stop. Yeah, but the United States is still active in the conflict in Ukraine. I mean, it's still their proxy that is fighting.

Absolutely. No difference. No difference there whatsoever. Yeah, you don't need Trump to provide the intel or the satellite data or anything like that for the strikes into Russia. I mean, that's happening on autopilot. The Americans are slightly road back. some of the sanctions on Luke or Rosneft, but nothing much there. They've been a little less. That's for your own benefit, though, isn't it?

It's for their own benefit, exactly. Because of everything that's happening in the middle. I mean, they're not doing that out of the, out of a desire to show goodwill towards Russia, right? Exactly. Exactly. There's been less, there's been no attacks at the moment on Russian ships. They didn't support a resolution of the General Assembly, an anti-Russian resolution in the General Assembly. But I mean, this is all little, these are minor things. The underlying situation remains the same as always. There is the war. There's the war between Ukraine and Russia.

And there is the proxy war between the United States and Russia. And there is the proxy war between the United States, between Russia, and NATO. All of that continues exactly as always. And it's on the battlefronts that the decisions ultimately are going to be made. So not many people are talking about what's happening on the front line. What is going on on the front lines? On the contrary. It's not in the media. I mean, look, the media doesn't report on it for obvious reasons. They don't want to report on it. They prefer to just run the narrative that it's a stalemate or the European leaders continue to say, well, Russia's only gained 1% territory since 2020 or 23 or 2010, whatever they talk about. It's only 1%.

It's a stalemate, 1.5 million Russian casualties. The Russian economy is in collapse any day now. They keep on running the same fiction. But I mean, the reality is much different than what the media is not reporting or what the EU officials are saying in their statements. Yes. The point I wanted to make is they talk an awful lot about the war, but the narrative that they are spinning, which is not substantiated, by the way, by any corroborative information, is that, you know, it's all in stalemate. exactly as he said the Russians are suffering horrendous losses. 2025, the losses have been higher than ever and all of that and that they can't sustain it and all we need to do is to give

a little bit more support for Ukraine and the Russians are on their last legs and they're about to lose and victory for Ukraine is just round the corner. All we have to do is to keep supporting Zelensky, we need to give him a lot more money, we got the IMF to give him another loan, we're going to keep providing him with the 90 billion euro loan that we promised. And then, of course, if that runs out, we need to give him another 500 billion euro loan. And we need to get the Russian assets and all of these things. And then all will be well. The realities on the front line are actually completely different.

The dynamics, in fact, over the course of this winter, really strongly point to 2026 being the decisive year, especially in Dombas and Zaporosia. And to say this clearly, Donbass and Zaporosia are the battlefields. If Ukraine loses these battlefields, then it's lost the war. And we're not just talking about losing the war in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine loses the war period in its entire position starts to become critical. So just a very quick overview. We've heard an awful lot over the last few weeks about a big Ukrainian counter-offensive in Zaporosia region. It looks as if this counter-offensive was mostly a

media rob. It doesn't seem to have achieved anything. In Zaporosia, it is the Russians who continue to gain meaningful territory. The Ukrainians suffer losses, but they don't actually capture ground that they're able to hold or capture ground that changes the overall dynamics. And in Donbass, the Russians, over the course of this winter, captured the second biggest urban conurbation, which was still under Ukrainian control, which is Pachrovsk-Pakros, Middnograd. And now we are preparing for the battle, which will start in the spring, for the last big urban conurbation in

Dombas, which is Slaviansk Kramatosk. And the Russians are now very close to capturing Konstantinovka, which is the city to the south, and they're making big advances in the north. And there's an important village

called Raya Alexandrovka, whose importance is not that it is a village, but that it is on a elevated position so that the Russians can look down on these two cities. And the Russians are already talking. There's lots of discussions across the Russian internet that we're looking at the biggest cauldron in the war so far.

If the Ukrainians don't retreat from Donbass and Zelensky's refusing to let them retreat from Donbass, then the better part of the Ukrainian army is going to be trapped and ultimately surrounded in Slavianskramatosk. And if you look at the map, it's not difficult to see how that will play out. In the meantime, you know, the war in the sky, Ukraine pounded every day, missiles, drones coming across the border, knocking up power stations. That goes on continuously. What do you make of Putin's appearances?

It seems like his appearances have gone down significantly. Or at least his comments about the conflict have dropped off. Is that correct, do you think? They have dropped off drastically. That's my sense of it. I mean, he doesn't really talk about it much. Do you think he's? No, right.

So a number of this is, and this is very interesting. And again, it's strange that people are not talking about this, either in the West or in Russia. But in the autumn, we had a whole succession of meetings between Putin and his generals, detailed briefings, detailed discussions going on about what was going on in the battlefield. Putin was making all kinds of statements. He was talking with Trump. Usha Kov was coming out, giving us very interesting briefings. We had a very, very clear picture of what Putin was thinking at any one time. Since the Valdai attack, Putin has gone into a virtual hibernation. He had a meeting with Kushner and Witkoff on the 23rd of January because Kushner and Witkoff came to see him. That meeting, as we now know, did not go especially well.

But anyway, there was that meeting. Then Putin also spoke just a short time before to the, ambassadors in which he, again, as far as I could see, was hinting that the Russians were hardening their positions on Ukraine. But since then, he's said virtually nothing at all. So we've had the 23rd of February is a major public holiday in Russia. It's the time when the Russians celebrate their army, their armed forces. It is, in fact, the anniversary of the creation of the Red Army shortly after the Revolution. So it's an important day for the military. Putin delivered a speech, a nationwide address. He went to meet with widows of soldiers

who died in the special military operation. He gave decorations to other soldiers. But the one thing he did not give is an overview of the state of the war or further insight into his own thinking about the way the war is going. So again, it's interesting and it does beg a lot of questions. Now, I'm going to suggest that there's one of two explanations for this. Either there is a continuing debate about the war in Russia. We know that Medinsky and And Kostakov, after the last meeting in Geneva, went to the Security Council. Not just to Putin, they didn't just report to Putin himself. They reported to the entire Russian Security Council.

Medvedev, Lavrov, Shoygu, and Bella Usov. They're all there, Michoudin, the Prime Minister, all of these Mornikov from the FSB, Naryshkin from the Svya, all of the top people, the political people, were there, Muttva. I won't give the whole list. Anyway, they're all there. They were all having this meeting. They're all listening to this briefing from Meditsky and Kostiakov. That might point to a continuing debate and arguments about where to go and what to do. Or alternatively, that debate has already happened. The decision has already.

been made. It's already been decided that they're going to downplay the negotiation track, which is why Medinsky was wheeled out 10 days ago and sent to Geneva and took the very, very tough line that he did, and that it's been left to the military from now on, for the time being at least to continue with the offensive. And then when events start to move on the ground, when places like Leman and Konstantinovka begin to fall, in other words, the military timetable is now dictating the events, when those two cities, other big events start to happen on the military front lines, then, but not before, we will be seen. Putin again. And then at that point, we were hear from Putin more about not just the state of the war,

but about the state of policy and diplomacy with the US. So I lean to the second view. I think the decision has already been made. I think that the Russians are saying to themselves, the Americans are not delivery. They weren't able to deliver on Anchorage. The Trump, is no longer interested in this anymore. Let's leave it to Gerasimov and the military to run things. And Putin in the meantime can deal with economic matters. He can deal with the various many topics that he talks about regularly. He can deal with the situation in the Middle East.

He can talk to people like Laredjani. He's got always huge numbers of things on his desk. to keep himself occupied. But we're waiting now for the next big breakthrough in the war. And not before then, will we be seeing Putin once more? Well, the next new big breakthrough is going to be the Dombas, Slaviansk. Yeah. Slaviansk, yeah.

The cauldron. And then, and then it's, I think, not impossible. I'd say quite likely, that we're going to see. a formal announcement from the Russians that they're upping their demands, that Istanbul plus has now been overtaken by events and the moment has come for the Russians to demand more. Meantime, we'll see if Zelensky continues to be president, unelected president, because there's pressure on him as well.

Yeah, there is pressure. There is pressure on him. but he's still there. Yeah. Well, they're still holding him up. I mean, the collective west is still, and the Europeans are still holding him up. Even though the UK is a bit funny in the whole Zelensky thing, it seems like the UK establishment is a bit divided on Zaluzzi and Zelensky.

I think so. I mean, Zelensky has his sworn ally, dear friend and a fervid admirer in the person of Kirstarmer, still prime minister. Of course, Stama's position is also very weak now. And if Stama is pushed aside, and especially if we get someone like Angela Rainer as the new British prime minister, who's got none of these sentimental feelings about Zelensky,

then it may be that, you know, this is the moment the British will wheel Zoluzzi out. At the moment at least, the moment at least the British, the ascendant faction in London continues to back Zolensky. And that seems to be also the position in Europe. Yeah. All right. Anything else that we should add on this, or should we wrap up the video?

Well, I don't think this is going to last very much longer. I think this is the other thing to say. I mean, we did a very good program with Willie O.M., in which he explained the military dynamics, I think, very well. And remember, he did this as somebody who is very strong. sympathetic to Ukraine, as he said clearly during our program. I read a fascinating piece in of all places Medusa. Now, for those who don't know, Medusa is a Russian dissident website publishing in Latvia, which is funded at least partly by Mikhail Hodikovsky, the Russian oligal. Now, Medusa is as anti-Putin as it gave.

Anyway, the piece they said is, pay no attention to all of these figures about Russian casualties that you see. It's all based on utterly distorted data. And they even suggested that the media zoner data might not be as reliable as it appears. So it's quite an interesting article, actually, revelatory. And by the way, they said that the people who are creating confusions in the data, who are involved in doing this are the Russian Ministry of Defence, which is very interesting

that they are actually inserting material into the data, which is creating a lot of this confusion. So it's a very, very interesting article. So things on the Russian side completely different from what you see in the West. And my own personal view is that we're going to start to see the front lines crack in a big way much sooner than people think. And an American contractor, volunteer who's been fighting for the Ukrainians,

has also been saying that the Ukrainians are misusing their FPV drones on the front lines, that the idea that the Ukrainians are using their FPV drones effectively is wrong. The balance there has shifted decisively to the Russians. And there's even been an article in, I think it was foreign affairs, which says all the same. So the accumulation of information is increasing, and it just goes completely against the narrative that has been peddled in Europe. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.locals.com.

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