The Duran Podcast - Russia Votes for Stability. West Panics Over Looming Defeat

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Russia Votes for Stability. West Panics Over Looming Defeat

All right, Alexander, we had the elections for the Duma, the Russian Parliament, and United Russia came out with around 57%, give or take, of the vote. The Communist Party was in second place with around 13, 14%, and not much has really changed, actually, now that I'm thinking about the parties and the numbers of the election. for the Duma. It seems like Russia voted for stability. Yes. It voted for stability and ultimately it voted for one man, which is Vladimir Putin. That is the way to understand this election. Now, of course, many, many people in the West will tell you these are not real elections. It's all a sham. They will point to the fact that an absolutely discredited, why is it discredited?

It may be not discredited. It's actually, in some ways, a party of great principle. But Yarbou, which is a small liberal party, which back in the 90s used to be a major political force in Russia, that it was prevented from participating in this election. Yablokor, in my opinion, is an exhausted political force. It's most unlikely that it would get even 1% of the vote in a parliamentary election in Russia. the reason I think the Kremlin prevented it from standing. I'm going to take, you know, a somewhat more, you know, a similar line that it was prevented from standing.

I mean, there were apparently procedural reasons why it was preventing for standing. But, you know, I'm going to put those aside. I think the reason the Kremlin prevented it from standing is because the Kremlin is doing what he has long been trying to do, which is create, a liberal party, which at the same time is sovereign-ist. When I say liberal, I'm an economic liberal, a party perhaps like the CDU once was in the 1950s, in Germany, in the Adinau period, a patriotic, nationalist, liberal party, but one which supports free markets and that kind of thing.

It's something the Kremlin has been trying to do for the better part of 30 years. They've never quite succeeded. They've tried it with a party called Just Russia. They've dropped them. They've now created this new party and a new party, new liberal party. They didn't want Yablok or muddling, mudding things up. So they stopped it from standing. The fundamental problem is that Russians tend like liberalism in any form, economic or in any conceivable way.

And in all other respects, and I personally have no doubt. that the current Duma does represent actual political opinion, political forces inside Russia, vast majority of Russians who voted, voted for the usual parties for United Russia, which is obviously the dominant party, because it is so associated now with Vladimir Putin, the communists still have a core of support, which continues to be very stable, and apparently they're attracting some support from younger people, and the liberal Democrats, the most nationalist party in Russia. Well, they're there as well.

So mostly it was, as you correctly said, a vote for stability, a vote of confidence in Putin, a vote of confidence in how he's handling things, the economy, the war, the relationship with the West, all of those things taken together. And of course, this all comes after this enormous attempt that we've seen over the course of this year to disrupt the situation in Russia, to destabilize this condition, which, if you remember, after I came back from Russia, I described as normalcy within Russia. Ordinary life continues, leaving standards continue to rise, the economy continues to grow, even as there is a war going on.

There was this massive attempt this year with a drone of, offensive with the spread of rumors about mobilization, you know, a massive new round of conscription and all of that. There was a major attempt to try to disrupt that. It has clearly and totally failed. Vladimir Putin, the political system, continues to be completely stable. And anybody who looks at the new doomer can see that Russians are. united behind Putin and support the war.

Yeah, they tried that they stabilize the elections on Election Day. Absolutely. A huge, massive drone attack into Russia. Yeah. Massive, the biggest one of the war so far. But as I said, it didn't prevent people voting. By the way, turnout was slightly high of this year than apparently it was previously, but probably a product of more people voting because of the war.

of the war. But parliamentary elections for Russians are not the big event, presidential elections are. And that's the thing, something that people do need to understand. Whatever the outcome of the elections in Russia, whatever the results, the West will always say that it's a sham. Absolutely. If they have no elections, they'll say it's an authoritarian dictatorship. If they have elections, they'll say the elections are a sham because it's an authoritarian dictators. I mean, you know, you're not going to to win with these people. And I don't even think Russia or the Russian people even care what the West thinks about the system in Russia anymore. I think they couldn't give a damn at all. Absolutely. 20 years ago, even 15, 10 years

ago, they did care. They no longer care. They've got past the point of caring. And I would say, again, coming back to your point, that remember when I went to Russia in June, I went out of my way to try to talk about things with Russians outside the sort of Western, well, the middle class and elite people who speak English. In other words, I try to reach out and speak to working class. Russians. Obviously, it was tiny samples, very anecdotal. But based on what I heard them say, the results we just had absolutely do not surprise me. I think they are completely in line with what I would have expected based on the things I heard people say. There are a few little points to make. In fact, they're not little points. They're important points. One of the differences

between this Duma and the previous Duma is that a lot of people who stood for election, especially with United Russia, but I believe also for the two other big parties, the communists and the, well, the other two parties, the communists and the liberal Democrats. Quite a few of them are soldiers, people who have in other words fought in the special military operation. And this means that the new Duma has a much more, shall we say, character of being rooted in the army. Now, these obviously are nationalist-minded people, but they are people who are going to be more hostile to the West, and they're going to be even more committed in seeing the special military operation concluded as a victory.

But there are also people who have now acquired a great deal of managerial and organizational experience. If you serve in a military during a war, you almost inevitably acquire those kind of skills. to the extent that they're officers, they've also acquired skills which could serve them quite well in a political context. I think this is a new political class that is beginning to emerge, a rather impressive and formidable one and one to be thinking about a great deal in the future. Russia was taking a nationalist turn. When I was in the United States, I spoke to John Meersheimer, who was there, he'd tell me as much. And I think these election results confirm it. Okay, so the collective West media and the leaders of the collective West are telling us that after the elections, Russia is going to launch big attacks, not only against Ukraine, but big attacks against Europe.

Putin is going to expand the war. This is what they're telling us after the elections. The elections are done now. He's going to expand the war and take it to Europe. Well, I think that's absolutely nonsense. And I think Putin has gone out of his way repeatedly to try to explain to people that this isn't true. Here is what I think has happened. This is my own analysis.

And I believe it obviously to be true. And I think there's lots of reasons to think that it is true. But this is what I think has happened. As you remember, they tried the sanctions at the start of the special military operation, and they didn't succeed. Then they tried the big offensive in 2023, the one that was supposed to break through to the Sea of Azov, and that didn't succeed either. Then this year, they tried the third big attempt, which is the massive drone offensive.

And as we've discussed in various programs, if you understand logistics, industry, that kind of thing, that would have taken about three years to get it ready. And they finally got it ready this year. When I say they, I didn't just mean Zelensky and the Ukrainians. I mean the Europeans, I mean the CIA, I mean all of those people in the United States who are, were out to basically defeat Russia. So this is going to be the year of the great drone missile offensive that Victoria Newland was talking about way back in 2023. And it was launched.

In the spring, you remember this incredible period of euphoria that we had in the West, that the Russians, they'd lost the initiative, the war was going bad for, them. I think that a lot of this was based on optimism that this great drone missile offensive was going to be successful. And then shock horror, it all fell flat. It's cost a huge amount of money, but it didn't achieve any of the results that people expected. The Russian economy continues to grow, the Russian military continues to advance. Ukraine is being smashed to pieces as a result of drone and missile strikes and bombing raids by the Russians. The black seaports are cut off. So where a few weeks ago we had giddy optimism. Now we have panic and anger and rage

and also they're feeling that they have really nothing to spare. They've run through all the options. They're out of air defense missiles. Their militaries are in terrible shape, and the Russians are stronger than they have ever been. And this hysteria about the Russians marching west is partly, I'm not to say it's entirely, But I think it's partly a reflection of the growing panic that they increasingly feel as it's finally dawned on them that they're going to lose the war.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think there still are many people in the collective West who want the war. Oh, yeah. They're pushing for a war. Yeah. I believe there are many leaders in the collective West who will probably see no other way out. of this mess that they've gotten themselves into other than to just keep on pushing forward

and try to get a war, right? Because they're in such a mess, they're in such a bind. But that's their only way out of this. Well, I think that's absolutely true. Can I just say something? I mean, the prospect of a Russian victory is not only going to create more and more panic and more and more anger, which is what we're seeing,

and more and more hysteria as well, but when people are frightened and angry and panicking and hysterical, this is precisely when they become more dangerous and more reckless. And they may be saying to themselves, well, things are now so bad that this is the moment where we have to act and we have to do something because we can't allow the Russians to win because that would be the final. catastrophe, we already see that our people are getting restless in Europe as well. So we're going to intensify the domestic repression, crank up the hysteria to even greater levels, and work towards war with Russia.

Yeah. Yeah, they can't go back to their people and say, well, you know, we've given Ukraine 20 billion or 50 billion and, you know, it's all been flushed down. And Russia has won. And the part that really worries me is that you have Trump now, who's, we've been. take an ownership of this war. Absolutely. A lot of said as much the other day.

Absolutely. So Trump is also going to start to panic. His administration is going to panic. And the last thing they want to have happen is for this loss to fall on them. Absolutely. Well, we've already seen. And I reiterate this again, I mean, it's a discussion we've had where they've made at least two diplomatic efforts, first with Radcliffe, than with Whitkoff and Kushner,

to persuade the Russian. stop. First the threats, then the bribes. The Russians are not stopping. And they've just held stable elections. The political system in Russia is stable. The economic situation in Russia is stable. There's been a successful BRICS meeting. Both China and India have published strong statements about the Lindsay Graham, Richard Ruman Toll sanctions from Hell Bill that has now just become law in the United States. They're both basically saying, I think with the Chinese you can take this, you can bank this,

that they're going to ignore this law. And if the United States presses forward with it, they will respond. Well, that means the United States is losing two wars at once at the present time to repeat. again, whatever problems in the short term, the conflict with Iran is causing, the conflict with Russia is the more consequential, because Russia is the former and perhaps future superpower. And of course, it is there in Europe coming up against NATO, which is the U.S.'s core alliance.

So you're absolutely correct. There's going to be a panic in Washington also very soon. And when people start to panic, they do reckless things. Yeah, let me read you this statement from Sikorsky. I think he also kind of gives the game away as well. Please note, he said, that because of Russia's various acts of sabotage, we now have public support for a high defense budget. He's pretty much saying it that the whole sabotage narrative and the Russia going to war with Europe or invading Europe narrative is a good way for them to pump up the military spending. Yes, yes, that's exactly what he's saying. By the way, we have higher support for extra military spending. Higher support from whom exactly?

We've had now elections in Germany, several elections in Britain, elections coming up in France. Doesn't seem as if the European electorates are that keen. But of course, if the people who are giving this higher support are the elite class that Rikosky belongs to. Well, absolutely. They don't care about the electorate. No, exactly. What they care about is when they get together in a group,

for no one in the group to dare say, you know, let's not spend so much on the militaries, right? They don't want that. They want everyone in the clique, in the group, to be on board and say, well, we have to spend this money on the military because of Russia, right? Yes, absolutely. Okay.

including upcoming leaders, for example, like Le Pen or someone like that. Absolutely. You're going to go to Le Pen and you're going to tell her, look, here's the deal. You're going to vote for this package and that package. Because if you don't, well, then, you know, we're going to throw the Russia thing at you. Well, we've got the tools also. I mean, that's what they're going to do. Gabe, I can just say something about Poland.

I mean, Poland, which has been economically very successful over the last 30 years, is now living increasingly dangerously, in my opinion. I mean, they're running a very, very high, very hot budget deficit. I don't know that this is sustainable. They are diverting funds increasingly away from the civilian economy into military spending, and military spending buying other people's weapons, basically. And in any case, my own senses, and I've been saying this for some time, that the glory years, the golden years of Polish economic growth, are gradually running down.

So this is reckless, but of course you're not going to get Sikorsky ever to see that. He, if the budget deficit is now 6%, he will be perfectly happy if it's increased to 12% in order to increase military spending. And he said, in fact, that the Russians aren't deterred by budget deficits. They're deterred by more powerful armies. So that tells him what he thinks. He's asking for trouble. Absolutely. Yeah.

Anyway, all right. We will end the video there at the durand.locals.com. We are also on substack and go to the Durad Shop, pickups, subverture, all those links in the description box down below. Take care.