The Duran Podcast - Russia-US meet in Moscow. Spy chief meeting in UAE

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Russia-US meet in Moscow. Spy chief meeting in UAEThe Duran: Episode 2444

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the meeting that took place late last night in the Kremlin between Putin, Dimitriyev, Ushakov, and Kushner, Witkoff, and Josh Grunman, or I forgot that. Anyway, a new guy, a new guy has been introduced to all of this. And he's part of the Trump administration, but more interesting is that he's involved with the Board of Peace. my understanding of things. So I'm not exactly sure where he fits in, but then again, I'm not exactly sure where Kushner fits in either. So, okay, we have a four-hour meeting and Dushikov's statements afterwards. And they're talking once again about the territories, Donbass, and honoring the agreement that was made in Alaska. Alaska feels like it was years

ago, but it wasn't. It wasn't years ago, but it does feel like it. And we have the trilateral meeting that is taking place in Abu Dhabi, Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. We should probably get into that as well. Budanov is going to be negotiating. Budanov also met with Trump. So I guess Trump met the CIA in Advoz. Is that a good way to describe it? Yeah. Here's our CIA guy in Ukraine, Mr. President Trump. Oh, that's the guy. That's in the CIA for us in Ukraine anyway. Also, the first meeting with Putin, Alexander, after going after him with drones in Novgorod in Valdai.

So you have that as well. Your thoughts. Well, there's a lot to unpack. And again, Ushikov's statement, as these statements always do when they can. come from the Russians, repays fairly close reading. Now, this was the first meeting since Valdei. And if I can just address the question of this trilateral meeting of the security group, which is going to take place in Abu Dhabi. You're absolutely correct. Budanov is going to be, I mean, he's going to be there. The other person that is going to be there from the Russian side is Kostyakov, who

is the head of the GRU. And of course, the Americans are also going to be there. Now, I have to say this. To me, this looks like it was an American proposal. This looks like a proposal that somebody in the US has come up with to address the issue, the issues that came up from the Valdai attack. In other words, to try and get the spies together, to actually get them talking. to have them discuss and agree red lines and things of that kind, things that they won't attack,

and that sort of thing. And that this is what this meeting of the security group appears to be about. I mean, Zelensky said it was going to be a meeting to discuss technical issues. And as I said, if you look at the kind of participants, Budanov Kostakov, we don't of course yet know who is going to be. going to be there from the American side. But it looks to me as if it's some attempts by the Americans to say to Putin, well, look, you know, we know what happened in Valdai. We know what happened. You know what happened in Valdai. We need to put that behind us. We need to find a way

forward. Let's set up this group in Abu Dhabi. Let's have all of the intelligence and security people there. Then we can exchange information, we can get a sense of what's going on, and we can make sure that in future something like this doesn't happen again. So that looks to me what the purpose of this group is. Notice there's discussing security issues, and security isn't really exactly, as far as I can tell, about military matters. And I suspect that that was the purpose of that. The Americans discussing Putin's security issues. Well, absolutely Putin's security. It's like mafia stuff.

Well, it was absolutely, but anyway, but I mean, but that was what the Americans appeared to have suggested. They also, according to media reports, suggested an energy ceasefire and Putin rejected it. He said that there would be no energy ceasefire. The war continues. And then Ushikov says that they discussed Ukrainian settlement. and everybody agreed, everybody, the participants, to use the word, agreed that there couldn't be any progress

towards a settlement of the conflict until the territorial issues are discussed, but it was the participants. So, you know, the Americans agreeing with the Russians to return to whatever this mysterious formula that was discussed in Anchorage is returned to. And by the way, I have completely given up trying to understand what that formula was because there were suggestions at various times that the Russians agreed to a ceasefire

in Zaporosian-Herset region if the Ukrainians withdrew from Dombas, except it doesn't seem as if they did. So I don't even know what that formula is or was or how it's supposed to work. It's all completely beyond my understanding. And I should say that. In every other respect, what the meeting appears to have been about where Ukraine was concerned was that it was apparently mostly about Putin trying to get the Americans to explain what the discussions between the Americans, the Ukrainians and the Europeans were all about,

all these meetings in Paris, all of this. extraordinary mess of proposals and plans, which proposals are being brought by the Americans to the Russians. And notice again that Ushikov's read out or statement actually doesn't refer to any plans. So he actually says it was just basically Putin asking the American. questions, and we're told that it was a frank, heart-to-heart-heart discussion. So the suggestion seems to be that, you know, the Putin spent much much of the time asking questions, and the Americans weren't always perhaps entirely happy to answer them. But anyway, that's one thing. But then the discussion, and it lasted four hours, a lot of the discussion then seems

to have been on completely different matters, completely unrelated to Ukraine. So, again, it looks as if the Americans proposed a meeting to discuss economic questions between the United States and Russia. This is going to be a purely bilateral working group between the Americans and the Russians. The American chief negotiator on that group is going to be Wickoff. The Russian chief negotiator is going to be Dinitriev. And, well, I'm not sure where that's supposed to need, but presumably Abu Dhabi again. But anyway, this was an American proposal. And a lot of it, apparently, involved discussions about the Americans explaining to the Russians,

about all of the discussions that took place in Davos, not just about Ukraine, but about all the other things. Greenland as well, there was a lot of discussion about Greenland and where all that is going. And then, of course, it all focused on the Board of Peace. And this person who came from the, who joined the meeting, seems to have been there to try to get Putin to agree to join the Board of Peace. And as we know, Putin said, well, you know, you can have the billion dollars. You can take it out of the assets, the frozen assets, the Russian frozen assets in the United States. And it turns out that Trump himself is happy with that, is okay with that. So that is quite an interesting development.

So then apparently the Russian said, okay, well, you know, you can have the one billion in frozen assets. And the other four billion, I believe it's about four billion. I'm not exactly sure how much money Russian assets are frozen in the U.S. Because you get all kinds of. They say five billion. Five billion. Let's just say, up or down. The Russians are saying, well, you can have part when, when we.

when all is separate, you can have part of that made available, you know, to conduct reconstruction in what is now, you know, in the conflict area in Ukraine. Part of that could be used for reconstruction in Dombas and those sort of places. So, I mean, you know, it's all very vague, but apparently the Americans are happy with that as well. It is, it does not, by the way, they did not discuss the far. larger amounts of frozen assets in Europe, in Europe clear. That was not a topic that appears to have been discussed over the course of this meeting.

So anyway, a meeting, the Americans, as I said, trying to put Valdei behind. I mean, this is what the security working group seems to me to be all about, trying to sort of find a way forward with that. Putin's saying no to any proposals on an energy ceasefire. They haven't moved forward as far as I can see in any way on the overall settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. No discussion as far as I can see. No further discussion about peace plans or anything of that kind.

And Trump, perhaps, the Americans perhaps, trying to get Putin more interested in this Board of Peace. And this now seems to be Trump's priority at the present time. Why do you need Ukraine at the security meeting? I mean, are they trying to tell us the United States? Are they trying to tell Russia that it was Budanov and the Ukrainians that set the drones into Valdei? Do they actually believe that people are going to believe that, or that the Russians believe that it was Budanov and the Ukrainians that sent the 80 drones into Valdaa towards Putin's residency.

I mean, is that, or is this, or is Budanov just a cover, just a cover? I think it's just a cover. I mean, I think the, and this is the other thing to always understand. When the Russians and the Americans are in the same room, the Russians and the main discussion is always going to be between the Americans and the Russians. I mean, that's what happened in the negotiations in Paris to end the Vietnam War, or at least America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The South Vietnamese were also there, but ultimately became a discussion between the North Vietnamese and the Americans. It happened also with Afghanistan. It's going to be the Americans and the Russians, mostly, talking with each other in Abu Dhabi.

they will be having not just the discussions, you know, in plenary sessions, they'll be the people who were meeting afterwards and the bars that there are, that do exist in that, would doubt be and all of that kind of thing, where much of the real discussion takes place. But having the Ukrainians there enables the Trump people to say that back in Washington to people like Lindsay Graham, well, the Ukrainians are not being cut out. And at the same time, it does make it easier, I suppose, for the Americans to tell Wadanov and the others that this is the agreement. These are the agreements with the Russians which we have reached, and you can't pretend that you don't know about them.

And it gives a little bit more plausibility to these discussions. Now, what I would say is that, again, it's interesting. We don't know who's going to be there from the American side. But on the Russian side, it's going to be intelligence and security people. Budanov is going to be present on the Ukrainian side. But again, the Ukrainians, they're not just sending Budanov. In fact, Budanaf isn't even the head of delegation, apparently. The head of delegation is going to be Merov and Arachamir is going to be there

and all sorts of other political people are going to be there. So you could see that the Ukrainians aren't happy that discuss purely security intelligence issues. They're trying to broaden it to discuss more political things. The Russians want to make it a purely technical discussion about security and intelligence issues. We'll see what the Americans, who the Americans sent, because as of now, we simply don't know.

Yeah, the whole thing is just confusing. Who's stringing who along is the United States stringing Russia along? Is Russia stringing the United States along? Are they serious about a deal? Are we really close to a deal? Just real quickly, Alexander, Wittkoff says that they're 90% there. That's what Wickev says. He said it the other day in Davos at this Ukrainian breakfast thing.

Zelensky, after his speech, he said that there's really only one issue remaining, and that's Dombas. Donbos is the only issue, pretty much. And you have Ushakov, as you pointed out, is talking about returning to Anchorage to Alaska. I mean, what's going on here? Nothing. Lov is gone. He's not involved. The foreign ministry is not involved. Not even the U.S. State Department is involved in any of this. You have Kushner there. You have this Josh guy popping up at the Kremlin for four hours, right, to talk about the board of peace. What the hell is going on? Putin is wasting his time. I'm wasting.

Okay, maybe he's not wasting his time. There will be people who are arguing and saying, no, he has to do this. This is important. I think there are other people who are probably going to argue that Putin is wasting his time. This is like seven or eight meetings, four or five hours apiece. Well, I'm sure there are up. There are plenty of people in Russia who are doing that. But, I mean, who is stringing who along, both are stringing each other along,

both the Americans and the Russians. I'm increasingly coming to the view that this whole negotiation is mostly about the appearance of the negotiation rather than actually an outcome of it. That's how it looks to me at the moment. From a Russian point of view, I suppose what Putin is going to say to people in Moscow

is, you know, we lose absolutely nothing. I lose a lot of my time, but I'd be, we're not making any importance. We're not making any concessions to the Americans. We are not agreeing to ceasefires of any kind. We're continuing our military campaign. If this trilateral working group on security comes up with anything so much the better for us,

the Americans with their part, they are going through the motions of a negotiation. But we see that in this meeting, Trump seems to be trying to move the discussion onto other issues, not just Ukraine. So he's talking about, the Americans talk about Greenland, they talk about the border peace, they're talking about economic questions, future economic cooperation. He's using, the Americas look to be using the negotiations as cover to try to move on to other talks. So I think that's really what this is all about now. I don't think that it's primarily or principally anymore about finding a way forward on Ukraine, because bear in mind, as far as I can tell, Zelensky is not prepared to make any important concessions.

And he said that the security guarantee agreement is all but finalized. but apparently, according to the media in Britain, he came to Davos in the expectation that something like that would be offered to him. And apparently Trump refused. No, nothing was signed. All the media is reporting this. Trump signed nothing. Nothing.

Not anything with regards to invest, that 800 billion investment, didn't sign anything, or the security guarantees. Nothing was signed. Nothing was signed. So if you want to say who's being strung along, I see Zelensky is, that's probably, I mean, in the sense that I think the Americans and the Russians sort of understand each other.

But Zelensky is being pushed into a negotiation process, which he must be getting increasingly frustrated by. And we'll talk about Zelensky at another point. But anyway, I mean, the thing is, the other thing I'd say about this particular meeting is that earlier meetings between Wittgolf and Putin the Russian media has covered them massively they were clearly told to downplay

the significance of this one as there was you know you weren't getting updates you weren't getting lots of pictures of Wichdorf you saw one picture of Wittgoss motorcade going to the Kremlin but this one seems to have been significantly downplayed by the Russians as compared to all of the others. And the international media as well, they don't seem to be particularly interested or very interested in this meeting either. So there it is.

Well, once you get to seven or eight meetings, I think it's natural that everyone's just going to tone it down. They're not going to focus on it so much because you've had seven or eight meetings, but those meetings have not built up to some sort of a resolution. It's pretty much been the same meeting over and over. I feel like it's Groundhogs Day. It's the same meeting over and over and over again. It is the same meeting. That's why everyone's excited about this Josh guy that showed up.

It's like it's the new guy. The new guy just shows up and everyone's like, whoa, wow. But aside from that, it's the same meeting. But the point about that person is that he's not. part of the Ukrainian settlement. But he attracted most of the attention. He attracted most of the attention, you know, in a sense, in a way,

the fact that he did suggests, as I said, that the sort of topic of the discussions is going sideways. The Russians are going to focus on the war. I mean, this is, it is the war itself, the fighting on the ground, the attacks on the energy system, There's not going to be any respite on that at all. The Americans apparently, I suspect, came up with a token request for an energy ceasefire or a truce of some kind.

And the Russians, well, Putin clearly said now. Well, we know. There's no doubt that he said. Yeah, but we know why they came up with that request, right? I mean, what was the request? The details of the request, according to what's been reported, is that Russia stops going after the energy infrastructure, and Ukraine will stop going after the. the oil refineries.

But, I mean, when you dig deeper. The CIA, the CIA goes, yeah, the CIA. Yeah, the CIA. But I mean, the oil refinery stuff is doing, doing minimal to negligible damage to Russia's oil facilities. You've detailed this at great length. While the opposite can't be said about what Russia is doing to Ukraine's energy infrastructure, this cannot even be hidden anymore.

Klitschko is now openly talking about a catastrophe in Kiev. And that's just Kiev. This is happening across all the major cities in Ukraine. So, I mean, basically the United States was looking at a way to get Russia to agree to stop going after the energy infrastructure, which is doing a lot of damage to Ukraine while giving nothing to Russia, essentially. I mean, what the US was giving to Russia is there's nothing. Do you know, drones hitting a couple of oil depots here and there? Yeah. I actually just, I've seen some of the latest figures.

I mean, Russian oil production, by the way, fell by 0.8% in 2025 as compared to 2024. And that was almost certainly accounted for by economic issues, not by drone attacks or anything of that kind. Of course, that is crude oil production. Production at the refineries has apparently been, is at roughly the same levels. I mean, the damage has been, I mean, minimal. And if we're talking, by the way, about oil exports,

the volumes from what I've been able to see in December and January are holding up. I mean, there's been hardly any effects. I mean, you know, these attacks on tankers, the seizure of tankers, most of the tankers have been seized have nothing to do with the oil trade by Russia, by the way, just to say. And it's been completely unreported, but we've had more tankers traveling through the English Channel, escorted by Russian warships. there was a there was a report about this

buried in an article in the London Times which I read yesterday but as I said so I mean the Russian fuel energy energy generation complex has been almost completely unaffected as you absolutely rightly say the attacks

the Russians attacks on Ukraine are beyond devastating the Americans I don't think they ever expected that Putin would agree to stop the energy attacks. But anyway, they came with that demand, that request, I should not demand, that request, Putin said no. The French, Macron has seized a tanker. I don't know if it was a Russian tanker, but it was traveling from Russia, I believe, and Macron seized it. I think of the Mediterranean, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not exactly sure.

They say international waters, but okay. Exactly. I mean, it's exactly what you'd expect from Macron. It was flying, I understand, with the Cameroon's flag. So, again, probably it was involved in the oil trade. But what the Russians are telling ship owners is, for heaven's sake, register your ships in Russia, put up the Russian flag, do it properly, and we'll protect it. We're not going to protect ships flying the flag of other countries. I mean, that's not what we're about, and that makes absolutely sound. All right. So anyway, that's what's going. Exactly expected from Macron because he was the butt of the jokes in Damos with the sunglasses. So he's got to take it out on someone, right? Absolutely, absolutely. He's got to be a tough guy with someone, so why not Russia?

Exactly, exactly, exactly. This meeting that took place is a punctuation mark. I mean, it's way back in June, July, when Witt Goff was going to Moscow then, it looked as if this was going to lead to something. Events have basically overtaken it. And at the same time, somebody in Washington,

and I'm pretty sure that is Trump himself, understood that Valdai really was going to do real damage if it wasn't addressed. So he's tried to address it by, proposing the setting up of this security working party in Abu Dhabi. Well, that's really the only thing that's come out of this. Well, that's my final question to you, actually. We'll see what's announced from Abu Dhabi.

Who knows, maybe they'll announce a deal. Who knows? But I doubt it. I agree with you. I doubt it. But we have to say it. Maybe they will announce a deal. But getting back to my final question, the meetings with Putin, the goal of the

the Trump administration to try and sort out what happened with the drones heading towards Valdaio and Novgorod. The Trump administration and the CIA, they're not going to stop, right? I mean, whether Trump knows or he doesn't know, we can't say, if he's being briefed on all this stuff or if he's green lighting this stuff or if they're telling him after the fact. I don't even think that's important to be quite honest. The issue is that the CIA is going to continue to try and take out Putin. They believe this is their path to getting some sort of a victory.

That's the way I see it. I mean, I really believe that the intel agencies have come to an understanding that they're not going to win the war. There is no path to victory except for one. And that is to go after the leadership, which is something that they are doing around the world. world. Does Russia understand this? Does Putin understand this? Well, okay, so this is where I'd like to bring up an article.

The Seymourth. The Seymourth. I was just about to say that. I mean, the great problem with articles, these sort of articles, and not just any, an article by Seymour Hersch, but it's based on information given to Seymourth by somebody within the US intelligence community. But what we cannot know is how senior or well-connected this person was. But I read that article, I found it incredibly disturbing and very, very worrying.

It basically says if you take out all the padding or the nonsense about Russia's army about a collapse, Russia's economy about collapse, all of those things. Take all of that out. It said that there are people in the intelligence community who are desperate and frustrated about Putin's refusal to end the war on American terms, about Putin's rejection of an American offer. And the key word there is desperate, desperate. And it says that the way, it sort of says that the US intelligence community is now talking about a change at the top.

In other words, a removal of Putin. And there are all kinds of references to violence, revolutions in Russia, assassinations. There's actually a reference to Putin killing people and all of that kind of thing. It's full of that. And reading it, to me, it looked as if this intelligence official was telling Hirsch and preparing for the fact that some element within the US intelligence community and, of course, within the Ukrainian intelligence community, that they're out to get Putin because, as far as they're concerned, getting Putin out of the way, killing him, in other words, assassinating him, is the only way they can see towards ending the war.

Of course, the premise, on their terms, on that, because it is, it's about ending the war on American terms. That's absolutely clear. Now, of course, the premise is completely wrong, because if they were to assassinate Putin, it would not lead to a milder, more accommodating. person stepping in and taking over in the way the Delsey Rodriguez, who we now know from the British media, was indeed in on the operation to remove Maduro. We're not going to get that happen. I mean, whoever takes over from Putin is not going to be more accommodating. He's going to be much more hard-lying. I mean, more likely than not, it will be Medvedev. If it's not Medvedev, it's likely to be someone like Ms. Shustin. We're talking about a completely different set up in Russia

from the one in Venezuela or even probably Iran, just to say. But when people are desperate, and the article used the word desperate, when they see everything that they're doing starting to fall apart and fall apart around them, well, people who are desperate start to do reckless and bizarre things,

because they say to themselves, we're going to lose anyway. If we do this thing, if we take out Putin, maybe just possibly the configuration could change and things might turn out the way we wanted. We might be able to create a crisis in Russia. We talked about revolution in Russia. You can see where, in what direction some of the talk might be heading.

So until and unless, that group of people within the intelligence community, within the CIA, because realistically, it is the CIA which would be behind this sort of thing, until and unless these people are smoked out, then frankly, given how desperate and angry and frustrated they now are, I personally can't imagine that they will stop. Whether this security working group that's going to meet in Abu Dhabi is going to be enough to rein them in. We'll just have to wait and see. But at least it's what Trump is proposing,

and it would have been very bizarre if the Russians, having been offered such as things, would have refused it. Could I just make one final observation about the security group, Alexander? I would actually say that going off of Trump's track record so far, the Trump administration and the CIA, what they've done, I would say that this security group meeting is more about getting Russia and Russian intel to drop their guard, not to work some sort of an understanding out, but to try and trick them into dropping their guards so that they can continue to find ways to get some sort of regime change in Russia. That would be my guess.

But on a side note, you've talked about the Seymour Hersh article in a video that you, you published about two days ago and Scott Ritter. And I also believe Larry Johnson, they've done very good write-ups on this. So definitely check out their analysis. I know that Scott did a very lengthy analysis on the article from Hirsch, which didn't really get that much attention. It wasn't like his Nord Stream articles, which really went viral. No, no.

Anyway. This one deserves to be more widely read. actually. I have to say, has seen it? Yeah, absolutely. Of course they read it. And of course,

the intelligence people in Moscow will be reading it too. And this is where we come back to it. Because, I mean, yes, I suspect there may be a game plan to try and lull the Russians. And again, all this talk of port of peace and all of that might also be a plan

to lull the Russians. But Russia is different from Venezuela. I mean, they have an intelligence and security establishment, which operates it on a completely different scale. And I don't think that is possible. I think that the Russians are probably much more on their guard now. I mean, I'm sure they've been on their guard all along, but I think they're even more on their guard now. And we come back to the words that Ushikov used, Frank and heart to heart. as describing the discussion.

Frank, I don't get the sense from this that there was a row, you know, Putin was banging the table, but Frank suggests that he spoke quite straightforwardly, quite bluntly, and heart to heart strongly suggests that he, you know, said things that, and went into the details of things, which the Americans perhaps weren't comfortable hearing,

just to say. I am sure that Valdei was pretty high up there in the discussions, just to say. I would imagine, yes. Yeah, okay. Interesting observation about the Board of Peace, that maybe one of the purposes of the Board of Peace is to lull Russia, maybe even China,

bricks to drop their guard on various issues and various policies. Well, also to pacify them. By the way, I mean, I should just quickly say, I mean, putting aside the security working group, which we just don't know where it's going to lead

and what it's going to do at the end of the day. But the Russians have come out ahead on one thing, and that is on the question of frozen assets. if the Americans are agreeing, I didn't think they would agree by the way, but if the Americans are agreeing

that the Russians can pay their membership fee for this border peace out of the money that is frozen in the United States, the Russian assets that are frozen in the United States, then as we discussed in another program, I think that is going to put the Europeans in an impossible I mean, I always think, I already think that per legal position was impossible.

But I think anybody now in Europe who thinks that you can do things for the Russian frozen assets, who still thinks that, and Ursula does, I mean, she's still been bringing up the idea of, you know, using the Russian frozen assets in the future, I think that that has now become impossible, at least legally impossible. If you try to do this, then the Americans have already admitted that these frozen assets are Russian and that it is the Russians who have a right to dispose of them. And that takes away, it seems to me, any possible argument that the Europeans might have about misappropriating the much larger assets that they're.

have frozen in Europe in any way. And I noticed that about the Vava, the Belgian prime minister, again spoke out yesterday against doing anything with the frozen assets in Europe, which suggests to me that he's got the message to. Yeah, well, the Europeans are never going to stop. At least they're pushed for escalation and more with what they're never going to stop. And if they have the regime change, they've ever. though the regime change him if they have to,

just like they're trying to regime change or Bond trying to get him out of office. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the Europeans are. But as I said, I mean, now, even at Daos, Greenland was blamed on Russia. Even in Daoos, the Europeans were probably being greenland on Russia.

Well, well, we'll discuss it. We'll just go out to say they're never going to stop. But I know, I know. But as I said, if, if, from a, from a legal perspective, the Russians have strengthened further what was already an overwhelming. But there's no legal perspective anymore. It's just morality now.

It's Trump's morality now. There is no legal. Forget about all that stuff. And even Cardi, Saitra, you know, we're going to choose things off. I know. But, I mean, within Europe, as I said, and we are talking about funding, and assets and people's money. And, of course, we're not just talking about.

Russia's money because lots of other countries are also going to be involved and concerned about this. Anyway, I mean, I don't want to as this overstate the importance of this, but the Russians gained a point out of this meeting and out of the events of the last few days. And, you know, that's something, I suppose. We'll see. Trump can always flip-flap his position anyway. We'll see how it all unfolds. All right, the durand.locos.com.

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