The Duran Podcast - Russia-Ukraine Energy Ceasefire? Europe/Neocons Turn on Trump

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Russia-Ukraine Energy Ceasefire? Europe/Neocons Turn on Trump

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the diesel deal between the United States and Russia. And let's also talk about Trump's Truth Social Post, where he claims that there is a ceasefire agreement and energy, ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. What are your thoughts on these developments? Well, first of all, let's talk about the ceasefire. Of course, he said this before. He made almost the identical post back on the 14th of September, and now he said it again. Zelensky says, I don't know what he's talking about, but this is all news to me. And as of this moment in time, to the best of my knowledge, the Russians have remained completely silent about it.

The attacks continue to take place by each against the other. And of course, Putin and Trump spoke with each other a couple of days ago. But Putin's foreign policy aid, Yuri Ushakov, has given us an extremely detailed summary of what they talked about. And there isn't the single hint of a ceasefire anywhere in it. On the contrary, Ushikov gives the impression that Putin is taking a very implacable line. he said there's no point in having a meeting with the Ukrainians this October. They're attacking our country. They tried to disrupt our elections. There's obviously no good faith on their side. So given that there's no good faith on their side, what is the point of even meeting with them

and meeting with you as had been originally planned? And if one follows the logic of that, what would be the point of a ceasefire either? So I must assume that there is. is not going to be a ceasefire. Zolensky is trying to make most of it. He's saying that he's going to observe the ceasefire. He says he needs a 60-day ceasefire, that if he gets a 60-day ceasefire, he'll call elections. He's putting all the blame on Putin, but I don't think the Russians any longer care. I think the Russians feel they're in a strong military position, and I think they feel they're in a strong political position, and I think they don't want to agree to something that is against their interests.

I think Axios kind of explains what Trump is trying to do. Not the best of sources, Axios, but I think they nail it down in this instance. And in an article that they discuss this ceasefire post on True Social, they say that Trump appears to be single-handedly trying to will a partial ceasefire into existence. In other words, Trump threw this out there in the hopes that Ukraine, but I think more so Russia or Putin would agree to him. In other words, Putin would kind of bail him out in a way and say, okay, I'll go along with this for a certain amount of days or something like that.

What do you think? That's exactly what it is. I think that Trump urgently needs a ceasefire in Ukraine. He needs a political success before the midterms. He's not got one. He needs something that will impress the markets and cause prices, energy prices to fall. The events in the Middle East are pushing very much in the other direction. And on top of all of that, he's coming for a certain amount of criticism from some Republicans

about this deal he's done with Putin. The Democrats, of course, are complaining noisily about it. And the Europeans are going absolutely wild about it. So a ceasefire, which appears to try to bring everything together, would serve Trump's purposes exactly. The point is he doesn't serve Russian purposes. And the Russians are not going to agree for that reason. Yeah. What do you make of the diesel deal?

You commented on it on your channel. I commented on it on my channel, but just for the Duran. What do you make of it? My own personal view is that it is less than people imagine it some ways. First of all, the amount of diesel oil is not huge and it's not going to move the dial very much. It might cause a dip in fuel prices, diesel prices, in the United States before the midterms. I mean, if there is a, you know, diesel entering the United States in quantities before the midterms, then that might actually reduce prices in a tight market.

So, I mean, one can't say it's not going to have any effect on the midterms at all. But my own view is that this, what is really driving the administration's actions, and why the administration is publicly remaining united around this, by the way, is worries about the underlying situation in Ukraine. The Russians are continuing to advance. Kiev is being battered every day. I mean, there's repeated blackouts. The bridges are apparently still not usable or are not usable.

There's been outages in the metro system. The last I heard was that the water supply is now under intense stress. And many people in Kiev are without water. The mayor says people must leave. All of this is coming together. and this is a problem for Trump because, of course, the United States is, let's face it, a party to the war on the losing side. So he needs to find some way to get the Russians to stop. So he sent Radcliffe to Moscow and the Russians wouldn't stop. They ignored his threats. He sent Whitgolf

and Kushner to Moscow and the Russians wouldn't stop. They ignored his bribes. So he needs to get some way to bring about a stop. If he can at least get Zelensky to start making concessions, perhaps by the end of this month, he can get negotiations. The negotiations that Putin is currently rejecting, he can get those negotiations started. And then he can tell everybody, well, look, I'm making progress. I've got them all together.

We're going to actually see a ceasefire. very soon, and that in itself is going to bring energy prices down. And I am the great foreign policy president. I should have been given a Nobel Prize. It's terrible that someone else was. So I think this is what this is all about. It's more about Zelensky and trying to put pressure on Zelensky than it is about anything else in my opinion. In order for Trump to get out of Project Ukraine at this point in time, he has to get the CIA to disengage from Ukraine. How's he going to do that?

Because if the CIA tells him no, we're going to continue this conflict, we're going to continue to help Ukraine to strike the oil refineries and deep strikes into Russia or whatever, we're not going to play along with you, President Trump. Then he has no exit option. He's stuck. He has to get the CIA and three-letter agencies to buy into this. I mean, it's Radcliffe at the end of the day. say that's running this, or at least that's running the majority of this proxy war.

That's how it looks to me. Well, absolutely. And this exposes Trump's weakness, a weakness of will and a weakness of authority. Because instead of doing the obvious thing, which is calling it Radcliffe and saying, look, this is absolutely gone too far. The war is being lost. We're getting energy prices skyrocketing in all directions. The Russians are leveraging the situation by refusing to export diesel oil, adding to our own problems.

You have to bring this thing to an end. This war, this drone offensive that you've launched against the Russians with the Ukrainians, with Zelensky, is not delivering. The Russians are not making concessions. They're not agreeing even to talk now. So you've got to stop this. Instead of Trump doing that, he's trying to get Zelensky to agree to stop the drone offensive. So that when he turns up and talks to Radcliffe, he doesn't have to tell Radcliffe, well, this is my order. Stop.

He's going to tell Radcliffe, well, now you should stop because Zelensky has agreed that we should stop. So this shows how unable and perhaps at some level even unwilling Trump is. to give those kind of direct orders to the CIA and to the intelligence community. And we now have this absurd situation in which we're getting reports of American officials visiting Europe, saying that the US is now considering cutting off intelligence assistance if the Ukrainians continue to conduct attacks on Russia and trying to get the Europeans in effect to put pressure. on Zelensky to agree to all of this so that Trump doesn't have to order the CIA and all of those

things to deny the Ukrainians intelligence assistance. And when we have Witgolf and Kushner telling the Ukrainians in Miami, well, you know, if you please remember we're providing you with all of this intelligence in order to do these things. And so you've got to listen to us and you've got to stop. In other words, brandishing to the Ukrainians and the Europeans the threat of cutting off intelligence assistance, rather than simply telling the CIA to stop providing intelligence assistance for these strikes. What it shows again to me is how extraordinarily weak Donald Trump's position has become. And looming behind everything is the awareness of all the parties, of the Russians, of Zelensky, of the Europeans, of the CIA, of Radcliffe,

that come the midterms, the Democrats are going to win, probably they're going to win big, and Donald Trump's position is going to be weakened further still. Yeah, Zelensky called Trump weak. Yeah. That's what he called Trump. And you have guys like Ketlock coming out and telling, telling, I believe it was Fox News or CNN anyway, he gave an interview the other day and Kellogg said, no, Ukraine is going to continue to strike all refineries, or they should continue to strike

all refineries, going completely against what Trump's stated position is or what his goals are at this moment, which is to try and get some sort of an energy truce or energy trees sees fire, to get Ukraine to stop hitting the refineries because he's saying that all of this is causing the price of diesel to rise. But you have Kellogg, who would, was Trump's trusted Ukraine advisor going on TV and saying, no, Ukraine should not listen to anything that Trump is saying and they should continue to go after the refineries. Exactly. I mean, this is the man who Trump trusted and appointed as he's special representative in relation

to this war. I mean, what this whole affair demonstrates. is how correct we were back in August 2024, when we said that unless Trump immediately distanced himself from this wall, walked away, what would happen is that the neocons, which is what, of course, we're talking about, Kellogg, Ratcliffe, all of these people, that they would eat him up. And that's exactly what they've done. They've got him exactly where they want him. So Trump is now going into the midterms without any foreign policy successes, with the warring Ukraine still ongoing, with every sign that the warring Ukraine is going to turn

into a massive and terrible debacle. But he's unable to take, he no longer has the political authority or the political will to take action that might actually distance the United States from this pending debacle and put the war, bring the war to a stop. Now, the other side of this, and here perhaps in some ways it's even more extraordinary, we have this crisis in Kiev now. We have the whole situation in Ukraine going from bad to worse. We have Ukraine turning into a bottomless pit of money. We have Zelensky demanding that he be provided with weapons that no longer exist.

And yet the Europeans in this situation continue to insist that Zelensky must be given everything he wants, that the United States must continue to support him. The other people who might in this situation logically also want at this time to bring the war to stop. On the contrary, they're doing everything they can as they have consistently done from the moment the Trump was elected to keep the war going instead. It is very strange, very bizarre. Of course, we've discussed in many places, the reasons for this, the fact that they're thinking about ultimately some grand confrontation with the Russians, the fact that they don't want the Americans to leave Europe, the fact that some of them viscerally hate Russians to the extent

now that they can't think logically and rationally anymore. All of this is true, but it's still extraordinary that they're not backing Trump's peace initiatives now, at a point in the war when it is becoming increasingly obvious that Ukraine is falling apart. What are the chances that Putin might agree to a limited ceasefire, might bail out Trump and say, okay, we'll agree to a two or three or four-day ceasefire or five-day ceasefire. I think it's out of the question, the 60-day ceasefire. Zelensky is talking about. That's ridiculous. But is there a possibility that Putin Once again, because he's done it in the past, I'm thinking of May 9th Victory Day, that time period when Putin did bail out Trump by agreeing to an extended ceasefire.

Is there a possibility where the Putin administration says, okay, in order to help out Trump, because he's got himself in a big mess, will agree to a three or four days ceasefire? In the Axios article, they do say that the Russians are thinking about it. A White House official said, we will know soon if they are ready. In other words, no response from the Kremlin yet to Trump's post on true social. They're thinking about it. So they're holding out hope that maybe Putin will come out and say, okay, on the initiative of U.S. President Trump, we're agreeing to a three, four, five-day ceasefires or something like that. It is not impossible.

As we know, Putin has formed here. By the way, people tend to forget that he agreed a mutual ceasefire in missile strikes last year for 30 days. And the point was that as the Russian Defense Ministry carefully cataloged, attacks on energy systems, in fact, as the Russian Defense Ministry carefully cataloged, the Russians abided by that 30-day ceasefire, and the Ukrainians didn't. But he did, Putin did agree to it then. I think it is less likely now, and I think were he to do so,

he would be risking a lot of criticism from inside the Kremlin. There's even been now a post from Medvedev, who basically is saying, let's ignore Trump's words. These words really don't mean anything. what we need to do is focus on the war. And I think that is absolutely the dominant mood in Russia at the moment. But if I was to say that it is inconceivable, that it is absolutely impossible that Putin might come forward and say, well, you know, we want to help Trump in any way we possibly can. We're going to give this five days, a five-day pause, see what the Ukrainians are going to do.

there is no diplomatic movement or something like that, then obviously we will resume. I mean, if I was to say that it is inconceivable that Putin would do that, I mean, I would be saying more than I know. What I believe and strongly believe is that he's not going to do that, because if you go back again to Uschikov's readout or summary of Putin's conversation with Trump, Putin seems to have gone again to great lengths to explain to Trump why he can't negotiate with the Ukrainians at this time, why Zelensky is absolutely untrustworthy. And in light of this, it would make no logical sense for Putin to agree to that kind of a ceasefire now. And Putin is nothing, if not a very logical man. By the way, he's spokesperson, Peskov, who is, in my opinion, absolutely his master's voice.

He, what he says reflects what Putin is thinking. Anyway, Peskov said that Zelensky is, you know, all over the place. He uses intemperate and bizarre language. He's not capable of making deliberate decisions. In effect, what they're basically saying is that he's an irrational actor and can't be relied on, which again, argues against the Russians being in any mood to grant a ceasefire now. Peskov said all of that before Trump came forward with his ceasefire post. But I have no reason to think that it isn't what the Russians generally think about Zelensky now.

All right, just to wrap up the video, the European reaction. to all of this. Zelensky immediately went crying to the Europeans. He spoke to Macron, he spoke to Burnham, Stub, all of them. He went around the table, spoke to all the Europeans immediately after this row, this latest row between himself and Trump. And of course, the Europeans, they have pledged their support behind Zelensky, not behind Trump. Do the Europeans even care anymore about Trump? I mean, in the media, they make it out as if the Europeans are worried or afraid of Trump pulling support for Project Ukraine or Trump being in a fight with Zelensky. Is that just theater? Do you think the Pentagon forces in the Pentagon, the neocons, the CIA,

they told the Europeans, just don't listen to the man in the Oval Office anymore. Don't worry. we're going to continue to back this proxy war and we're going to escalate this proxy war. You guys in Europe just stick to the script. Yes. And don't take anything into consideration about what Trump says or any of these things that he's posting on true social.

I think it's an absolute theatre. I don't think the Europeans takes Trump very seriously anymore. I think that they loathe him, which, of course, they always have done. The very fact that he talks about, having a reconciliation with Russia, the fact that he speaks to Putin, the fact that he's even met with Putin, the fact that he's going to meet Putin again at the IPAC meeting. All of that makes them absolutely hate him. But I don't think they fear him anymore as they once did.

Back in February 2015, after he was elected, and when he was at the height of his power, then they did fear him. And they were worried that Trump might carry out a genuine change in US policy. I think now they no longer do. They also read the opinion polls. They see what is going on in the United States. They also expect the Republicans to lose badly in the midterms. They see that they see also that on this issue, even the Republicans aren't fully united behind Trump. There's been about three Republican congresspeople who have spoken out against this diesel oil deal, for example. So I think they're saying to themselves, Trump is isolated.

He's losing control of the United States government. We're basically seen him off. The Democrats will be back in in a few weeks. Come the new Congress in January, it's even possible that there might be steps taken by Congress to remove him. There's no reason why we need to take him seriously. What I would say, and I come back to what I said previously, I mean, given what is happening in Ukraine now, if the European leaders were rational people, if they had an ounce of humanity about them, by the way, they would be seizing every opportunity to try to bring this war in Ukraine to an end. In fact, they are doing the opposite. The ultimate responsibility for starting this war absolutely rest. with the various neocon groups in the United States.

Of that, there is no doubt. I mean, you know, the people who arranged the coup attempt in 2014, all of that, but the Europeans have become not just accessories to this matter. They've gone even further than that now. They have become absolute parties, primary parties, in this matter. And when it all ends, well, we will know where responsibility lies. All right, we will end the video there. You can find us on Substack. You can find us on locals, durand.com, and go to the Durandshop, pick up some merch. The link is in the description box

down below. Take care.