The Duran Podcast - Russia prepares for NATO 2030

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Russia prepares for NATO 2030

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's speech to the defense ministry. We can also talk about what defense minister Belusuf said as well. And a lot of analysis and talk from the media about what Putin said a couple of days ago. And my sense from what Putin said during his speech and Belusuf is that Russia continues to to be focused on root causes. They're ready to negotiate with the United States. They have no interest in negotiating with these leaders in Europe, or they're unable to talk to these leaders in Europe.

So they're saying maybe a new crop of leaders in Europe will be elected, and then perhaps we can talk to the Europeans again. But Trump is someone we can talk to, but root causes. That's what we're sticking with. That's the minimum. And the other alarming part to both Putin's speech and Beluso's speech is that they're fully aware of NATO's rearming and NATO's desire policy maybe even to go to war with Russia by 2030.

They even put a date on it. Belusive actually said by 2030 NATO is planning to go to war with Russia, conflict with Russia. So your thoughts on everything that Putin said. And Putin seemed very, very medvedev-like in his portrayals of the Europeans. He used medvedev-style language with the whole biglets comment and degeneracy and stuff like that. But anyway, I think that's something that you can talk about. The main message was that they're sticking with their June 2024 root call. causes goals and the goals of the SMO, and that seems like they're not going to deviate

from that. Absolutely. I think this was a very interesting set of speeches indeed. And it's important to say that in order to get a true sense of what happened, you obviously need to read Putin's speech, but you also need to read Bel-Uzssev speech, which you can only find in a very, very few places the complete text of. And it was enormous. And it goes back directly to the point that you made, which is that mostly the far and away the greater part of Bel Osset was talking about was of preparations for a war with NATO, which the Europeans are

talking about starting in 2030. They did talk about the diplomacy, about Ukraine. They did talk about the state of the war, and what they said was very interesting. But as I said, about five, six, a bellows of speech was not about the war at all. It was about reorganizing the army, improving its effectiveness, developing its technologies, preparing for the long-term struggle with NATO, which is being threatened. Now, I don't mean by that to suggest that the Russians expect that war to happen, but they have obviously been hearing the rhetoric coming out of Europe. They have concluded that there is no possibility of any kind of detente or rapprochement

with the current crop of Europe. European leaders, that that is absolutely impossible. And Putin used extremely strong language, which many people have repeated in describing them. And anyway, and he made it clear that while they're in place, there is no possibility of any kind of rapproch or of any kind taking place. So the Russians are aware of this rhetoric that's coming out of Europe about war in 2027, 2030, or wherever. Russians are making preparations. And this is where I think it becomes really interesting, because what we have been getting out of Europe is rhetoric, almost entirely. I mean, there's been promises for mouths mostly to spend more money on rearmament and that kind of thing.

But as we've discussed in several programs, in many programs, in terms of actual military equipment, building up of militaries, that kind of thing. In Europe, we're not in fact achieving and perhaps we're not able to achieve very much. Whereas Belauosov speech was completely different. He said, look, we're not going to spend more money than we've already been spending. We've reached the limits of what we are prepared to spend. But we're going to use that money very, very efficiently. And this is what we're going to do. The whole thing was a long list, you know, reorganizing the military education system, improving the system of conscription, organizing developing new types of weapons, introducing new types of weapons, creating new military

formations, all of that sort of thing. It was much more practical. In fact, it was entirely, practical in ways that you never see anything that comes out of Europe ever come across in that way. So what all of this military rhetoric in the West is causing, in Europe is causing, is it's leading to an aggravation of tensions, but it is also leading to a Russian military buildup, which unlike the one in Europe, is going to be very real and is going to tilt the military balance further in Russia's favour. And I think these points need to be made, because obviously, they're not being made in Europe at all, even by critics of the policies there. Now, for the rest, there were two things to say. I mean, Putin and the Russians are in no mood to compromise on root causes, Istanbul Plus, or any of those things. They have made this repeatedly clear time and again. They are obviously aware of what's been coming out of the various meetings that have taken place between the Americans, the Ukrainians and the Europeans in Berlin and in other.

places, they are clearly very, very displeased by all of that. They're making it absolutely clear now in advance before any further meetings with the Americans take place that they're not buying any of this. And if the Americans think that the Russians are going to, they are completely wrong. That is one thing. But there was something else that came across very strongly to me, both from what Putin actually said and also from his general demeanor from the way he was speaking. And that is that he is now, he believes that he is now on the brink of victory, that a military victory in Ukraine is now just over the horizon, that the Russians are now closing in on that.

and that that victory is not going to be delayed for very much longer. Now, he may be wrong about that, but I got very much the impression that that is what he generally and sincerely believes. And, of course, that makes him even less of a mood to compromise than he might otherwise of it be. Well, all the signs are pointing to a Russian military figure. That's obvious. Yes. And everyone that lives on planet Earth is.

Acknowledges that, understands that. People that are not living on planet Earth are delusional, ideologues. Okay, that's fine. If you read the British media, you believe that Zelensky is about to march on Moscow tomorrow. But okay, everyone that is realistic, pro-Ukraine, pro-Russian, you don't care, whatever. You understand that Russia is winning this thing. Because you can't fight a war. in the way that Ukraine is going about it and the way that the Collective West is going about it.

You can't fight a war with seizing the other side's assets and trying to figure out ways to fund the other side. Ukraine is broke. They have no money. The war of attrition is working. Belusive said as much. Yeah. Pretty much said the war of attrition is working. And Russia's advances are accelerating.

They even gave numbers of all the territories and regions that they have captured in 2025. Belus have even put out a number of Ukraine casualties. I can't confirm it. But he said 500,000 in 2025. He said that this has destroyed Ukraine's ability to replenish its forces. So I mean, the war of attrition is starting to work and Russia's advances are accelerating. So Putin understands this and he's relaying this to not only the Russian people, the Russian military, but I believe he's relaying this to first and foremost the Trump administration. Yeah. Right.

And the EU is, Europe is not listening. They continue to talk about a war in 2030. So, you know, my question to you is the million dollar question, is NATO preparing for war with Russia in 2030? I see three options, Alexander. This is either a bluff, all this talk about war from the UK. You had a UK Army chief or airfield marshal, Air Force Marshal, talk about preparing your sons and daughters for conflict.

He said that a couple of days ago. This is either a bluff for the Europeans to save face. This is either a way to keep the grift going for the MIC or NATO in Europe really is preparing for war with Russia in 2030. Or perhaps it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they are bluffing. Maybe this is about keeping the MIC well-funded and well-fed, but constantly talking about it pushes you to that outcome at times.

So I don't know your thoughts. Well, the first thing to say, just about the fact that the Russians believe that the war of attrition is working. Putin actually spoke for the first time ever of a... of a collapse in Ukraine, that the Ukrainians both politically and militarily are approaching the moment of collapse. So, I mean, that's what he said. One has to assume that he believes it. I've no reason to doubt that he believes it. And as you absolutely rightly say, anybody who's been following the war, objectively, can see why he would say that.

because the Russians are winning on the ground and they're winning in the sky. And the economy in Ukraine is in deep crisis and there's a massive budgetary crisis in Ukraine. And that's why the European Union is scrambling around trying to plug the holes because all of these problems are coming together all at once. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. Now, about the Europeans, do they really plan to go to war with Russia? in 2027 or 2030 or sometime like that. I still don't think so, actually.

I think that this is rhetoric mostly. And I think your point about keeping the grift growing is an enormously important part of it. And I think part of it also is intended to tell the Americans, look, you just cannot possibly go away. You cannot leave us, you cannot abandon us now. The bear is on the prowl. It's moving closer and closer.

This is the moment when you have to stand firm and help us keep out the bear because otherwise it will be bursting in and we can't contain it. So I think there's a lot of that going on too. But the problem, and it's the problem that you've identified before, is that some of these people, one senses, that they are out of their senses. they are unable to control their own rhetoric. And there's a risk that they will lose control of their own rhetoric and that they will lose control of this process

and that they could eventually drift into a war, a real war, for which they cannot prepare with the best will in the world. Europe is in no position at the present time to rearm and to match what the Russians are doing, and European populations are not able or willing to bear that kind of cost. So, but, you know, they could quite easily, I mean, that is the danger drifted into something that could be extremely dangerous. Now, it's not been widely noticed, but the new head of MI6 gave a speech. And she talked about the need for MI6.

to rediscover the skills of the Second World War, Churchill's Special Operations Executive. They were the people who conducted what you might like to call today, the dirty war against the Germans during the Second World War, who did all the James Bond staff across occupied Europe during the Second World War. Now, of course, the Russians already believe that the British are involved in all of these activities that the Ukrainians are involved in. They may be right about that or they may be wrong about that, I don't know. But that's what the Russians constantly say and what I think the Russians believe. Here we have the head of MI6, who is going to feed into all of those Russian concerns and

who is effectively essentially now telling them. Russians, yes, this is exactly what we are going to do. We are actually going to engage in a dirty war with you. I mean, the recklessness of this is for me beyond description. If we start doing things like that to them, they're going to start doing the same to us. And imagine where that can lead. We ought to be trying, at this time especially, to lower tensions. And in Europe, we're doing everything we can to increase them. And to come back to your question, this could very easily spiral out of control. And we could find ourselves in a conflict, an armed conflict with Russia, which is not what I think, what anybody in Europe is actually really planning for.

Is there a belief that if Europe does end up in a conflict with Russia, the U.S. will eventually bail them out? So even if we do drift to a war with Russia, yes, we're not able to match Russia, but don't worry about it, guys, the United States will come and bail us out. I'm sure that. There are many people who say that in private. I'm sure those discussions are taking place all the time. And I'm sure that a lot of them believe it too. It's a reckless thing to think. First of all, the Americans, whichever administration conclude that the Europeans are leading them into this, into an armed conflict with the Russians who are, of course, a nuclear power, the Americans might not be particularly keen on becoming involved.

That's one thing. But of course, if the Americans do become involved, and the chances are that they will do, especially under a different administration from the one we have now, well, that could lead to World War III, the use of nuclear weapons, a nuclear exchange, and I don't even want to talk about what the effect of that would be. But we can all imagine it.

Just a final question, Belusov and Putin, they talked about the Oresniks. Yeah. They talked about the Budavestniks. They talked about the Poseidens. This is a message to not only Europe, but also to the United States if there is a conflict, right? Absolutely, of course. We can reach you.

We can reach you. We are in a position to reach you. We're able to do that all the time. The Poseidon drone, the submarine drone, is operational. There are now two Russian submarines, the Belgorod and the Khabaros. The Khabarosk has just been launched that are capable of launching these Poseidon drones. The Borevesnik is now going to start entering service and it's going to go into production. The Oreshnik has been in production all of this year.

Back in the summer it was the troops, the actual troops, the missile troops, were provided with it, and it is going to be fully operational before the end of this year. So this is a message to the United States. These are either strategic systems, like the Poseidon and the Budapestnik, which are clearly targeting the United States itself, or like the Orashnik, they are mostly, one suspects, designed to deal with forward bases, American forward bases in Europe. So it is a message to the United States.

Don't mess with us. Just a final question. One more final question. The Coalition of the Willing, they are talking again, seems like they do this every three months, right? They're talking again about troops on the ground in Ukraine. If there is a ceasefire, if there is a deal, then immediately we're going to put boots on the ground in Ukraine.

You get various reports talking about the troops are going to be far from the front line, or the troops are going to be patrolling the DMZ, no one really knows what the plan is. But, okay, they just, they mention about boots on the ground. So you're talking about UK troops. UK has already said that they're ready. Stommer says we're ready. We've got our plan in place and we're ready to send troops to Ukraine.

Italy is saying no. Germany, Mertz, is saying yes. Yeah. What do the Russians think when they hear, for example, Germany, Marx, saying we're going to place German troops in Ukraine in areas that historically were Russian, are Russian, where they fought World War II over. I mean, what's the thinking in Russia as they hear these statements from the German Chancellor? Well, very great anger and very great alarm. And you saw that expressed in Putin's speech about the fact that.

The leaders of Europe are not negotiate, not people that Russia can conduct negotiations with. And that, of course, combines with all the rhetoric about war with Russia by 2027 or 2030. And it must look to the Russians as if the Europeans, the British, the French, the Germans, are intent on establishing forward positions in Ukraine. the better to fight that war with Russia that they're planning to fight from 2030. So, I mean, this is what the Russians will be thinking and what they will be saying to themselves. And the Russians are absolutely furious, I suspect, but I've no doubt they are, that the Americans seem to be going along with all of this.

The security guarantees to Ukraine, some people in the US are now saying these are only temporary. But the fact is security guarantees, nothing like that was discussed in Anchorage. The Russians have already made clear that they are going to reject this. The Russians have already made clear that they're going to reject any proposal that permits for the deployment of European forces to Ukraine. All of these are deal breakers. And again, the Russians remember that Trump told them, apparently, in Anchorage, that he would be able to get the Europeans and the Ukrainians to agree to something

resembling Istanbul Plus. And what they see instead is that instead of doing that, he's going over completely to their position again. So he is destroying his own credibility with them as a future negotiator. I think it's in Tatters anyway. I mean, we've discussed this in previous programs. I mean, during the previous iteration of all of this, when there was the talk of sending the Tamahawk missiles to Ukraine and then when there were the sanctions against Luke Oil and

Rosneft, I mean, Medvedev came out in the open and said, let's stop pretending to ourselves that Trump is somebody who is really interested in any kind of priests or that the United States is anything other than an enemy. And then we had Kushner and Witgolf, Dimitriyff at some level, coming up with the 28 points, we seem to move a bit towards the Russian position. But then we moved all the way back again towards the European position, the Ukrainian position. We have what is essentially the Kellogg Plan now re-emerging. And the Russians feel again that Trump once more,

more, either cannot deliver or on what he promises or is again taking them for a ride. With every iteration of this, the voices of those people in Moscow who talk about rapprochement with the United States weakens. I got the sense, again, over the course of this speech to the military, that Putin himself is again very angry about this. And I noticed that he never mentioned Trump by name anywhere during this speech. You're right about that. You've said that a couple of times now that he doesn't mention Trump's name at all anymore. He doesn't say Donald or Trump or anything like that. Dimitriev in Miami. That's those of the reports over the weekend.

What do you think that's about? So he's going to be in Miami and he's we'll find out what What is said, I guess we'll find out on Monday what was discussed. I don't know if there's going to be any other Russian officials. My understanding is that so far, the Mitreyev has been named as the Russian official is going to be meeting with Whitkoff and Kushner. Um, Um, Um, is also going to have meetings with Whitkoff and Kushner. Um, what do you expect from, from those meetings? And, um, and, and I have one more question, but I forgot. Your thoughts on that and I'll remember what else I want to ask you.

Well, briefly, Dimitriov is not, of course, a member of the Russian government, and it's important always to remember this. I mean, he's somebody who Putin quite likes and is a friend of, and he is the head of Russia's Direct Investment Front, and ultimately he's a businessman. I think he's purpose in going to Miami. The reason probably that Putin is either sending him there or letting him go there is to explain to Witt Goff and Kushner that if you really are thinking of bringing the Berlin

proposals with you to Putin in Moscow, then don't bother, because these proposals are not going to be accepted by him. Putin has already said there has to be a serious negotiation. He talked about this again. He said, you know, we're waiting to see if we're going to get any substantive negotiations, any substantive discussions, because they haven't yet happened. I mean, Wittgolf, the Russians clearly like Wittgolf. Why wouldn't they? They get on reasonably well, I suspect, with Kushner, too. But they made it very, very clear that what these people are doing does not represent

from a Russian point of view a real negotiation. And I think that's the message that Dimitriov is, is being sent to Miami to take with him. Maybe if you want to go and work with the 28 points, if you get everything that was discussed in Berlin, well, we can talk about that. You can come to Moscow. You can set up proper negotiating teams.

We can move forward with this. But if you seriously believe that Putin is going to agree to the kind of Article 5 security guarantees, and European troop deployments in Ukraine, when Zelensky isn't even prepared to pull out of Donbass, then forget it. It's a complete waste of time. You're going to be wasting Putin's time and yours. Yeah, the point that I wanted to make that I forgot is that we haven't really made any progress

in the negotiations when you think about it. Since Alaska, we've just come back to the Kellogg-Fries plan. We've done a complete circle. And actually, it's even worse than the Kellogg-Fries plan. the point that I wanted to make and ask you is it's even worse than the Kellogg-free's plan because they sell these security guarantees as NATO-like. And it's not really NATO, but it's like NATO. So, you know, NATO has a lot of other different components.

And so it's not as extreme as Ukraine getting into NATO. But even Mertz admitted that these guarantees are even better than NATO. They're even better than Ukraine getting into NATO. Exactly. Exactly. So where have we gone? with all of this. I mean, what's... We have made no progress at all.

Yeah, what is going on with the Trump White House? I mean, what games are they playing? Well, you know, I have to say this. I'm increasingly getting the sense that what Trump does is he meets Putin and he says to Putin, well, Istanbul plus is fine. I'm no problem with it. Putin then asks him, will you be able to get the Europeans around? And Trump says, absolutely, I will be able to do that.

And then he meets or his officials meet with the Europeans and the Ukrainians. And they bring back all of these other things, essentially Kellogg. Only this is Kellogg plus, as you absolutely rightly say. And they ask him, do you think you can get Putin to come around and to accept all this? And Trump says, yes, of course I can. So instead of mediating, which of course this isn't a mediation, and the United States, as we've discussed many times, is not any way in a position to act as a mediating.

But instead of mediating, he's just all the time telling each side what they want to hear and agree with them whenever they present their proposals to him. And he seems to think that if he does that long enough, then somewhere, somehow, some kind of common ground will appear and that he can build on it. And what he is doing instead is that he's destroying his own credibility. Ultimately, well, certainly with the Europeans.

I don't the Europeans trust him at all. But increasingly with the Russians as well. Now, we've discussed this many times. If the United States wants to negotiate with Russia, wants to come to an agreement with Russia on any subject, It has an absolute sovereign right to do so. The Europeans insisting all the time that they should be involved in these negotiations. They have no right to do that.

That's the first thing to say. Given, however, that Trump persists in always negotiating with the Europeans and the Ukrainians and all of that, I mean, that puts into question the logic of conducting negotiations of any kind at all. How much simpler and better would it have been if Trump had done that which we suggested a year and four months ago and simply walked away? Yeah. You know, the speech that he gave a couple of days ago, the 20-minute speech, just to wrap it up on this point, he blamed everything on Biden, right? He said, I inherited a mess. That was the theme of his 20-minute speech, scripted.

scripted, obviously written by Susie Wiles. A terrible speech, if you want my opinion, the way he read it was not a good look. It was all over the place. But anyway, scripted speech, he's speaking to the American people. And the basic theme is, I inherited a mess. And now I'm cleaning things up and we're the hottest country in the world. But I inherited this mess from Biden. The one thing that I thought about, at least when it comes to Project Ukraine, is, well,

Wouldn't it, would it have been correct to just say, I inherited this mess of Project Ukraine, which Biden left me and I'm just not going to deal with it? Exactly. That's exactly what he should have done. That is exactly what he should have done. Not now, by the way, a year on Frugge's election. But, you know, in January when he was inaugurated president, but, but, but, you know, when he was inaugurated president.

But, well, he hasn't done that. And of course, he's blaming Biden all the dark time. But of course, the thing to understand, and this is something that perhaps he doesn't get, but in politics, in the world of politics, in the imagination of people, Biden is no ancient history. A year ago is an age in politics. People are not going to say to themselves, are not saying to themselves every day that, you know, Joe Biden left all this great problems behind and it's now left to our great president to try and sort them out and we should give him indefinite. We should stick with him indefinitely until he does so. Well, people are saying is they go to their shops. They see the price of the grocery is continuing to rise. They see the president spending all his time on foreign policy and seeming to be uninterested with them. And they're not going to blame Biden for that. They're going to blame him.

Exactly. Exactly. All right. We will. ended there the durand.locals.com. We are on x, we on rumble, we are on telegram. We are also on substack as well as to check us out on substack and go to the durand shot pick up some merch. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.