The Duran Podcast - Russia retaliates.Trump morality. EU complete mess

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Russia retaliates.Trump morality. EU complete mess

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Ereznik strike into Leviv yesterday evening or early this morning, however you want to look at it. Your thoughts, Alexander, on the strike. Ministry of Defense clearly said that it's a response to the drug attacks on Putin's residence. Yes. Yes. They always, they would, that is what they would predictably say. And we may as well accept it as correct. What I would say is that we've been expecting the Oresnik to be used basically since midsummer.

It has been in serial productions throughout 2025. The first Oresniks were deployed in Belarus a few weeks ago. And just before Christmas, Putin said that it had finally entered active service in Russia. So I personally have been expecting an Oreschenic strike to come fairly soon anyway, but the Russians for the moment at least are tying it to the attack on Valdai, on Putin's residence of Valdai. We don't have the full details of what the strike achieved, but the evidence suggests, again,

a very powerful, very devastating strike. The Ukrainians are admitting that they have no ability to counter the Ereshnik. This is by far the most powerful missile that's being used in the area of the city of Volf in western Ukraine. The attack took place close to the Polish border. And perhaps the most interesting information that we're getting is that it struck a major gas,

reserve facility, which contains supposedly around 50% of Ukraine's total gas reserves. It's probably the biggest gas reserve in Europe. It was created by the Soviet Union as part of the Drushma Pipelines system of pumping gas, natural gas, to Europe. And it was created, I understand, in the 1980s. So this is a massive attack with a missile. A missile, the West, there's no counter to. It was first used in November 2024 to attack the Yuzmash factory, which is a sprawling complex, vast complex that used to build the Soviet Union's ballistic missiles. Again, there's been many claims and counted claims about what that strike on the Yushmash factory achieved.

for the record. I've heard nothing very much about the Yuzmash factory since then. And there have been other reports that say that Ukraine's ballistic missile programs, such as they were, basically collapsed, which suggests that the strike on the Yushmash factory was devastating. And I suspect this strike has been devastating as well. and it will create a massive problem for Ukraine if half its gas reserves have been destroyed

over the course of a single strike. There are more and more of these things coming off the production line. I read a report back in the summer that production was running at around 25 a month. Now, that may sound extraordinary given the size of these things. But I understand that production

of these particular missiles is not particularly complicated, just to say. And it might be true. Anyway, we're going to get more of Russianic strikes by the Russians over the course of this year. It's something else that the Ukrainians and their Western backers must now worry about and think about. And, of course, the other thing about this particular strike is happening as it has in Western Ukraine, close to the Polish border. Emmanuel Macron was saying at the time of the meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing that the French and British troops, if they're ever deployed to Ukraine,

will be based in Western Ukraine far from the front lines. The implication is that they would be in no danger. We can see that the Russians can reach them in those places. to with a weapon that to which there is no counter, no defense to and no counter. Yeah, no alarms went off, no air defense, no patriots, nothing. And the distance is pretty great from where it was launched to get to the west of Ukraine. And I've read reports saying that if this were to be deployed further west, then then it would just be a difference of minutes if that and uh and and no one would no one would be able to detect it and this is the nuclear capable as well absolutely the audashnik so so the damage

that's being done is is is conventional it's not even nuclear so i mean i think the devastation of this weapon is is pretty um it's pretty terrifying yeah i i just wonder if if the west is going to to get the message. Well, indeed. By the way, I also say that the media here in London have been reporting this strike, but in very, very muted terms, they've been basically saying nothing about it,

nothing very much about it, other than the fact that it took place. I don't know whether the West will get the message. I think if you're talking about Kirstama and Emmanuel Macron, well, let's start with the Europeans and the UK, and then you can also comment if the US has something to respond.

to this strike if they're going to say something or do something. Maybe the release of the two crew members from the Mariner. Maybe that's connected. I don't think so, but I don't know. Start with Europe. Start with Europe, UK, and then your thoughts on the Trump administration. I would like to talk about the, we will talk about the Russian crew members because that is another very interesting story, by the way.

But let's focus firstly on the irashtonic strike. Let's deal with some of the technical issues. Apparently it was launched from Kapustinjar, which is very far from Ukraine. I mean, it covered an enormous distance in 15 minutes. I mean, it's just the speed of this is astonishing. The Russians did give prior warning to the Americans. The United States, the embassy was saying that they, in Kiev, was warning everybody that a major strike was coming. The reason the Russians did that is because this is a major ballistic missile.

They don't want anybody in the United States worrying that this is a strike. It might be directed at the United States. There are all kinds of early warning protocols. It's basically to avoid giving the Americans the impression that a nuclear strike might be about to take place against them. So there was warning given that a strike was coming, but of course the Russians would not have disclosed the target and the Ukrainians were not able to prepare or to take any step to prepare for the strike that took place on the facility that the Russians attacked.

So a devastating weapon, nuclear capable, as you say, so far the Russians have only used one of these at a time. but Putin said that if more than one of these missiles were to attack a single facility, then the effect would be comparable to that of a nuclear device. So it would be still a conventional device, conventional attack, but one which would be as devastating as a nuclear attack would be. So an awesome weapon altogether. Now, clearly a message directed to the West. Macron's Stama, of course, will not pay any attention because they're so deep in that they will never show a flicker of doubt about this.

They will go on insisting that, you know, they will send troops to Ukraine and all of that. Friedrich Mertz, Germany, where the situation is very complicated, Mitz is dependent. on his majority in the Bundestag. The SPD would almost certainly vote against it. The IFTA and DELINCA would definitely vote against German troop deployments to Ukraine. And the CDU, there would be some people of the CDU who would be hostile. Anyway, Mertz clearly has been rattled by this because he's issued a statement in which he said that European forces can only be deployed to Ukraine with the permission. of Russia. So he admits he's accepted publicly that the Russians have to agree to the European

deployment. The Russians, as we discussed in our previous program, have already said many times that they will never agree to this. And the Russian foreign ministry issued a categorical statement also saying that they would never agree to this just after that meeting in Paris took place. So Mets perhaps is getting the message. The French and the British never will. At least Macron and Stama never will. What about the United States?

Now, this is a very interesting story because a number of complicated things have happened between the Americans and the Russians over the last couple of days. The first is this extraordinary incident with the marinera, the tanker, the Bella one. They all go by different names. Let's call it the marinera, because what happened was that when this tanker was sailing around in the Caribbean and was calling itself the Bella one, it flew illegally a... Guyanese flag, apparently did that despite the fact that it was not registered in the maritime register of Guyana. The Americans accused it of being involved in, well, they would say smuggling,

supplying, delivery, Venezuelan oil, and they claimed that the ship had some kind of Iranian connection. They set out to seize it. Whoever it was, who owns this, ship then apparently gave instructions to have it registered on the Russian maritime register in Sochi. Many different ports have different registers, so he registered it as a Russian ship in the city of Sochi, which is a Black Sea resort, by the way, a bit like Russia's Miami, just to say. Anyway, the ship then the crew of the ship then painted the Russian flag on the hull. Then the they raised the Russian flag itself, or perhaps they did, or perhaps they didn't, perhaps they just painted on the hull, and they steamed northward.

And there was the U.S. Coast Guard then went in hot pursuit. There was a lot of talk that it was a Russian ship. It was referred to a Russian ship with, in inverted commas, as much of the media. There were multiple reports that the ship had an entirely Russian crew. The Russian authorities then started to tell the Americans, please stop chasing this ship. The ship then reached the coast of Scotland, getting closer, in other words, to the Arctic.

There were reports that the Russian Navy were sending ships to try to escort this ship, which is now called the Marinera, since it re-registered in Russia. The Americans, with the help of the British, then seized the ship off the coast of Scotland. Now, then we started to learn more things about the ship. First of all, the crew was not Russian, after all. It considered 20 Ukrainians, six Georgians and two Russians.

The Americans have now released the two Russians. The reports said that it was carrying no... oil and that it was empty. Donald Trump has said that it was indeed carrying oil and the oil is being removed, but it looks as if in reality it wasn't. There are also, Trump also has apparently confirmed that Russian warships were in the area, and I've seen others confirm this too. So this is what I think happened. I think this was not really a Russian ship at all. I think that somebody put it on the naval register and told it to escape to Russia. This gave the Russians an opportunity to set out a red line and tell the Americans, under no circumstances,

will you attack our ships or attack our flag? The Russians did send warships to try to escort the marinera. They did not get there on time. I said this. I noticed that Jennifer Kavana who's based in the United States and who's much more close to reports in the United States says the same thing.

That was what made it possible for the Americans to seize the ship. But the Americans continue to speak of it as not being really Russian. The Americans continue to speak of it as being connected to Venezuela and Iran. in other words, not part of Russia's oil trade, and they have now released the two Russian sailors.

So it seems to me that this whole affair was used by the Russians to send a signal to the United States. Look, we understand that you're seizing tankers all over the place, but if a tanker is registered, properly registered in Russia and is flying the Russian flag, it is not fair game. for you to seize. And Russians must be released. And that is what the United States has done. So the Russians have given a strong warning, and this time the Americans have heeded it. Now, that brings us back to the Orashnik. Trump has again spoken about Ukraine. He's again said that

there are no deadlines. He's again said that it'll be up to the Europeans to do the heavy lifting in Ukraine where security guarantees are concerned. I get the impression that he's continuing to distance himself from the war and that he's not prepared to take on the Russians directly and to put the Americans at risk, American soldiers at risk by intervening in Ukraine. So it's a long answer to your question, but for the moment at least, the Americans are taking a step back. Well, you didn't really answer the question. So let me rephrase it. Was the release of the two Russians on the marinara? Was that helped by the Orrigenic? In other words, was it was the a resinic the cherry on top of the cake or the orejc on top of the cake? Did that help?

the Trump administration to say, we're going to probably release these Russian soldiers, of these Russian, probably were soldiers. Probably were soldiers, yeah. We'll release these Russians. But now after this Oreznik strike, well, better release them ASAP. Who knows? I mean, this is it. What I will say is this, the Americans were backing off in the sea confrontation anyway.

sooner or later they would have released those Russian sailors. I mean, the one given is that the Russians always get their people back. I mean, they've done this with everybody with Victor Volz, with Marina Bhutan. They eventually always get their people back. The Americans know it. So sooner or later, the Russians would have got these people back. The Americans released them almost immediately. They were already being conciliatory.

over the business of the ship. So probably they would have released them fairly soon. But in this case, they released them immediately. And maybe, as you rightly said, the strike by the Oresnik was the icing on the cake. It was perhaps what decided the thing faster and made the Americans decide that the release should happen immediately. So it could be that that, I mean, it may have played a role. They would have been released eventually. Maybe it sped it up.

But maybe it did speed it up. Yeah, maybe. Okay. Yeah. There was not only the Ereznik strike into Leviv. There was also strikes into Tnipro Petrosk, into Kiev. And these strikes also did a lot of damage. We're getting reports that even the parliament, the Rada, is without, without heating, without water, the parliament, even the parliament has been affected.

What are your thoughts there? Oh, the strikes altogether are devastating. They've been devastating throughout the winter. I mean, these are strikes on a completely different scale to what we used to see earlier in the war. I mean, I remember very well the Russian missile offensive in 2022, 2023. And it was pretty devastating. But this is an order of magnitude worse. We're seeing power collapse, large areas.

I mean, the city of Nehpro is in complete blackout. And it's still apparently incomplete blackout. Other parts of Ukraine are in incomplete blackout. Kiev is partly in blackout. People are running out of water. Economic activity, as I said, is all but impossible. I mean, certainly industrial and manufacturing activity is all but impossible. Odessa has been hammered over the last few weeks and it's already been admitted that it is

under block, essentially under blockade. So maritime traffic has collapsed. The Russians have attacked and done serious damage, very serious damage, to the biggest grain terminal in Adessa. This is where the ship's dock to pick up the oil, the grain, sorry, not the oil. And apparently that is American owned, apparently. And that's been attacked and has been hammered. And the Russians are doing this methodically and systematically. They're avoiding attacks on the nuclear power stations, and they won't attack the nuclear power stations. But they're attacking all of the rest of Ukraine's infrastructure on a scale that we simply have not seen at any other point of the war.

And the attack that took place simultaneously with the attack on Lvov, using the Orishnik, apparently involved about 20 ballistic missiles, large numbers of Calibra missiles launched from the Black Sea, and, well, hundreds of drones again. And the drone attacks have somewhat reduced in scale over the last couple of days. but they're probably going to escalate enormously in size.

Well, I get the sense that the Russians are stockpiling drones, and we're probably going to see the attacks steadily escalate over the course of the winter. This is in itself a critical situation that Ukraine finds itself in. Logically, I mean, it is going to, it will accelerate what must now be an inevitable, ultimately inevitable collapse. So the money is going into Ukraine. Remember, the European Union is promising to give them 90 billion euros.

But the money cannot be spent inside Ukraine itself because there is no functioning industrial economy anymore. And with a complete collapse of the heating energy and water systems, I mean, the civilian population might very well have to leave populated centres. When money comes in and can't be spent, of course it will go out to all the various bank accounts that we see all over, you know, various places. But it also creates a very, very serious threat of hyperinflation or hyper inflation, because when money flows start moving around inside the country, when money increases, inside a country, but there is no economic activity behind it, then inevitably that creates

higher prices for whatever goods there are. So the money from the EU, even if it doesn't, whatever if it stays in the country is not going to produce anything good for the country. You read my mind. It's going to create inflation. You read my mind, assuming that the money actually goes into the economy. Economy, exactly. Right. So, I mean, we don't even know what percentage of that 90 billion is going to actually go to the economy to actually cause the hyperinflation that you're talking about. My guess would be very little of that 90 billion is going to actually go to the economy or to the people.

Well, they were talking about, they were talking about, they're talking about relocating production to Pellon, which which, which, which. of course, already tells you that they're starting to transfer the money out of Ukraine. I mean, they can dress it up and say the production is going to happen in Poland. But, of course, what they really mean is that they're taking the money out and it's passing through Poland. I mean, that's what that's what's going to happen. The washing machine keeps on spinning and spinning. Exactly. Final question, your thoughts on Axios, which claims that, well, which is reporting, that in Paris, Whitkoff, and I believe

Kushner as well. They have already met with Dimitriev and they have presented the peace plan, at least the peace plan that they came up with in Paris, Zelensky, Macron, Stamer. And Zelensky is going to travel, at least he's saying that he's going to travel to the United States next week to meet with Trump and to finalize the security guarantees. So the security guarantees according to Zelensky are final with the United States. He just needs to go there to formalize the finalization. We already know the security guarantees with the three European powers. Yes. Your thoughts on that report? Well, it may be true. It may be true. And it may explain, by the way, why the Russian foreign ministry again published a statement basically rejecting the

plan. I mean, they did reject the plan. I mean, they said this plan is unworkable. They said that what came out of Paris was terrible. They talked about an axis of war. And they set out again in that statement, all the conditions that Putin set out in the speech to the foreign ministry on the 14th of June 2024, Istanbul plus de-uclearization, demilitarization, acceptance of the territorial realities, neutral, non-aligned status for Ukraine. When the Russians say neutral, non-aligned status for Ukraine. That directly contradicts the formula for security guarantees that has been talked about and discussed in Paris and elsewhere. If that is indeed what is going to come out at the United States next week, and Trump did seem very vague about this, and Whitkoff and Kushner would not

be drawn, then, as I said, the Americans are going to pull back, and if they don't pull back, the Russians have already said no, and there's no reason to think that will change. Now, the other story that came out has been coming out of Washington is that Lindsay Graham is saying that he expects next week that the Graham Blumenthal bone crushing sanctions bill is now going to proceed through the Senate and through Congress. And it might be that we're going to go back to what appeared to be happening in the autumn. And admit it so, it doesn't surprise me at all. We return back to the ideas of putting pressure on the Russians,

trying to interfere with the oil industry, perhaps starting to target Russian ships and that kind of thing. That may explain why the Russians took such a strong line over the Marinera, just to say. We'll see how this all plays out. But the key thing to say is that the Russians are not going to accept this. There is no way that they're going to accept. this. And if this bone-crushing sanctions bill is indeed passed, then Trump does go down the root

of the 500% tariffs. Then he's up against China, too, and we know where that happened then. Trump in the New York Times, a recent article asked in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, if there were any limits on his global power, Mr. Trump said, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. I don't need international law, he added, I'm not looking to hurt people. We'll end it on this note. Yeah. Given this statement from Trump.

It's nice to note. How do countries, including bricks, Russia, China. How do they react to this? Europeans, Europeans, how do they react to? Well, the, I did say something. People always talk about the bricks. They always talk about China and Russia. Russia and China are strong countries with powerful militaries and strong economies.

They can push back. Countries across the global south, countries like Iran, by the way, needs to be very, very careful now because everything depends on Donald Trump's conscience, apparently. I mean, not the most secure guarantee for anything anymore. I mean, sign a document with the Americans. And if Trump's conscience changes tomorrow, then, you know, that document no longer has any value anymore. By the way, the same would apply to any document the Ukrainians come away with with security guarantees from the United States just saying. But the people who really need to be thinking now are the Europeans, because ultimately we've seen what we've seen over the course of 2025 and in the first days of this year, what utterly powerless countries they have become, how completely dependent on the United States.

States they are. I read an article in the Financial Times which confirmed our analysis that if Trump comes for Greenland, the Europeans will pressure Denmark basically to give it away. It referred to this policy as a policy of a dependent submission. I would straightforwardly call it. I would straightforwardly call it appeaseman. Yeah, yeah, okay. That was a financial time you said? That was a financial times.

So, I mean, yeah, so, I mean, the Europeans are in a complete mess. I mean, they've got themselves into the worst possible position. Europe is weaker now than it has ever been at any time in its. history since the early Middle Ages, since the dark ages. I mean, it is, it is powerless. It is absolutely exposed to predators from whichever side. I mean, you could argue that it's never been weaker since the last years of the Roman Empire in terms of its external policies and its external positions. It now depends entirely on Trump's conscience. Well, just to bring

back to the to the oresnik to tie everything up if the russians did indeed destroy the the gas storage facility i believe it's called stri yes it's to be s t r y i i'm not sure how that's pronounced but if if that was indeed destroyed that's how it looks but i don't think we have final confirmation of this i've read reports which claim that not only is this 50 percent of ukraine's gas storage, this also accounts for around 30 to 35% of the gas storage that actually feeds into Europe. Yes. Which, if this was destroyed, then this would make Europe even more completely dependent

on USLNG and Qatar LNG. That's it. Yes. This is absolutely correct, in fact. And I believe gas problem has warned also issued a warning a couple of days ago. about the low gas storage in Europe as well. Yes, gas storage in Europe is very low, given the time of year.

And of course, winter temperatures have been falling, has been cold. So gas use is increasing. And there's already been a blackout in Berlin, though I'm not sure exactly what the cause of that was. But I've heard the same thing about this facility in Ukraine that in fact it actually contains not just Ukraine's gas, but Germany's too. All of these systems integrate with each other. Remember, this is all created by Gasprom,

gas, both as a company and when it used to be the Soviet Union's Ministry of Gasports, or whatever it was called, they created all of these structures. And there were integrated structures in order to feed gas to Europe. So there were gas reserves, gas reserve facilities created in Germany. And it makes complete logical sense that there would have been gas reserve structures created in the Western Soviet Union, as it then was, in order to feed in and to supply those structures. gas reserve structures in Germany as well. So I'm talking about something I am not informed about in detail, and it's not easy to get this information from German and Western sources,

and it's not surprising why. But it could very well be that this strike has also destroyed a significant part of Europe's and perhaps specifically Germany's gas, and at a time when there are already shortages of gas in Europe, this is going to make that worse. And you're absolutely right. It will have to depend more on further, faster, LNG deliveries from the United States and from Qatar, but mostly from the United States. The United States is probably at the limits now of how much LNG it can export. So we could very well be seeing over the next few weeks and months, another surge in energy prices, gas prices in Europe.

on top of all of the other problems that we have here leading to another cranking up in the de-escalate de-industrialization processes in Germany and the economic problems in Europe with which we're all now so familiar. All right, we will end it on that note. The durand.com. We are on X and Rumble and Telegram.

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