The Duran Podcast - Starmer's Quest For Conflict With Russia w/ Ian Proud (Live)

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Starmer's Quest For Conflict With Russia w/ Ian Proud (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander Merkiris, and today we have the honor of having with us, Mr. Ian Proud. Ian, great to have you with us on the Duran. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you very much, both who invited me. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you on the show, and I believe you have a new book. Would you like to tell our viewers about the book? Well, it's not that new.

I published it last year, but it's timely in the context of the recent. expulsion of British diplomats. It's called a misfit in Moscow. It describes my four and half years in Moscow from 2014 through 2019 through the Solisbury Novasian to experience and all that malarkey. So yeah, but really to talk about a year on from that, you know, latest developments and how actually strikingly very little has changed, unfortunately. All right. Now we'll have a link to that book in the description box down below and I will also add it as in the comment as well when the live stream is over. So let's say a quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey on Rockfin, everyone that is watching us on Rumble as well and YouTube and the big shout

out to our locals community, the durand.locals.com. A big hello to our moderators as well who are helping out in the chat. And Alexander, Ian, we've got very interesting topic to get to. And that is the UK Stammer and Russia long-range missiles and all kinds of interesting, scary stuff going on with Kirstehm. Anyway, Alexander and Ian, let's get started. Let's indeed. Now, before I do, can I just say I've read to Ian's book and I want to strongly recommend it. If you want to understand many of the things that have gone wrong with British policy, it's actually very revealing about the state of the British embassy in Moscow and how it functions or perhaps doesn't function very well. And of course, just to also clarify, Ian was a diplomat at that embassy

and one of the very few people who actually seems to have actually left the embassy and tried to get to know the country that he was posted to better. Anyway, just to move on and to discuss things because we're in an extraordinary situation today in British policy. We now have the British government advocating lobbying for long-range missile strikes against Russia. We have information that the Foreign Office, I took this from the Times. There was an article in the Times the day before yesterday, and they mentioned that Kirstama has actually, as they put in, it faced down advice from the foreign office, that Britain was going far out on a limb,

and that it might have been better for the British government to pull back and go back into the centre of the pack on the issue of Russia, rather than be right at the head. But apparently, Starmer wasn't interested and paid no attention. And we, well, we had this meeting in Washington instead with the president, President Biden. We've had a situation where the Russians are talking about a potential war, which is an unnerving thing, to put it mildly. And we've had six diplomats from the embassy, the British embassy in Moscow, expelled. And very surprisingly, so far, there hasn't been a response

from the British government. I was expecting a rapid expanse. by the British of Russian diplomats from London. And of course that may come. But it, well, get the sense that seems to have taken people in London a bit by surprise. And I wonder why. But perhaps we can start with the last, because of course you were familiar with the embassy in Moscow. And perhaps you can tell us a little bit about what losing, having people expelled, means and what it does to the diplomats in question, perhaps.

but also what it does for Britain's contacts with Moscow and what the Russians were signalling by doing it. Well, I mean, there are two aspects to that story. There's a human story, kind of what it feels like, kind of to see colleagues kicked out with seven days notice. In fact, in our case, they left within six days of getting their marching orders. And what it actually means for our ability to engage with Russia to actually operate as an embassy,

which exists really to advise government ministers to ensure that they have valid and valuable insights to help with policymaking, right? That's why embassies exist. And on the first, it's kind of heartbreaking. You see, it's not, you know, for the officers, they all get another job, you know, when they get back to the foreign office.

But it's really kind of, for the kids, particularly, you know, having to kind of leave their school friends at a moment's notice, and go home and, you know, that for me was a kind of sad thing. But actually, it's a process. It's quite a sad process kind of when you see it happen, but everybody moves on very quickly because you know that the people will get another

job when they get back to the office. I actually bumped into one of the 23 just last week at another diplomatic function in London, so funny enough, and he's doing perfectly fine, you know, a few years on that time. But critically, the question is, what does it mean for our ability? actually to perform and function as an embassy, gaining insight about what's happening in the country. In this case, Russia, very complex, difficult to understand, you know, country. And for us back in 2018, I think also now, frankly, in 2024, it's pretty crippling.

I mean, they basically, when I was there, cleaned out our political section, they left a handful of us. Three of us were going to be leaving within four months after the Solzbyn Air Agent attack had happened anyway. So it's like a two for the price of one deal. I was due to go in July. They kept me on figuring I'd just be around for a few more months. So we got down to like this tiny operation that could barely do anything. And of course they effectively crippled our ability to function as an embassy by doing that.

They wiped out our political section. I think what you have now this week is the same thing. Six people, all from the political section I understand from having read the FSB information about it, which anybody can read online, by the way. look up the FSB website. You can even access it in the UK, bizarrely. You can't access RT, but you can access the FSB website. Funny how this world is today.

But they were in the political section, you see. And again, that would have put a big dent in the ability of the MC to operate and give advice to London, because you don't have people, politically savvy people getting out and about meeting Russians, meeting Russian decision makers, meeting ordinary Russian people, and feeding that sort of insight back to London. And so that would have had another kind of crippling impact on our ability to act. But actually, there's a wider question here about whether anyway, you know,

government ministers really care about what the embassy think. So there's a separate question too. But, I mean, that's my sort of a quick take on it if that helps. Well, let's actually explore this last point about whether the ministers actually listen. Because I was listening to an interview that David Lamney, who was our new foreign secretary, was giving in which he got actually rather a moment. He was waving his hands a bit around, which I found strange. But anyway, he, it seemed to me, was scoring points of Vladimir Putin.

It was like the kind of debate that you get, or discussion that you get in British politics when opposition leaders score points off their opponents or political leaders. So, I mean, it was as if David Lammy was treating Putin as if he was a British politician. that he was scoring points on. It didn't seem to me to make any real sense at all. It was all about whether, you know, we should adhere to Putin's red lines, and he was knocking off all sorts of examples

when we were supposedly crossed red lines. I have to say, to me, it looked completely surreal and almost completely unconnected with the crisis, the actual crisis that we are in at the moment. And I wondered, frankly, whether David Lammy even understood that we are potentially in a crisis. You've written in your book about your difficulties getting things through, particular foreign secretaries. And obviously, David Lammy is not one that you ever had to work with. What are your general comments about this?

because, I mean, is the political leadership in London? It's a question, an open question, I'd like you to discuss. Are the political leaders in London actually very interested in what Moscow is saying and what is going on there? Or are they, as I said, still operating very much within the parameters of what they know, which is British politics and how that is conducted? Yeah, well, I think it's the Latin. and it has been that way for a decade.

And what I mean is that actually really since Philip Hammond became Foreign Secretary in 2014, everybody is performing to a UK audience on this. There's almost complete sort of bipartisan support for this bizarre kind of hawkish line where we kind of insult Putin as if he really cares what we think as a country with the least influence in the big sort of powers, who think about Russia at all. So the problem is that there's all politicians since Philip Hamid's Foreign Secretary.

Lammy is now the ninth, since 2014. He's the ninth foreign secretary since 2014. Basically performing to a UK audience. They're not really thinking about how we engage with Russia to try and influence, try and have some sort of conversation because we're not the people that the Russian authorities will listen to anyway. they do ultimately want to talk to the US. They see the Americans ultimately as a people

that will be able to kind of broker a deal. They will probably talk to the French and the Germans, who they see as kind of leaders in the EU PAC. They obviously talk to the Chinese, you know, the Indians, the South Africans and the Brazilians, as they're kind of a BRICS partners. We are no way in that frame. So, you know, we kind of locked ourselves out

of the possibility of direct dialogue with Russia on Ukraine in June of 2014, when this Normandy format of dialogue was created, that was a kind of shot in the own goal, so William Hague shooting himself in his foot and losing his job, you know, as a result of it. We've been completely excluded. Can you just, can you just, can you just explain that a bit? Because I know about it for your book,

but I think it is important if you explain what happened in June 2014. and the Normandy format and what happened exactly because I think this is a crucial moment in the diplomacy and it explains an awful lot about the way in which Britain has acted ever since. So in the, if you like, the kind of three or four months after the Ukraine crisis really bubbled up, you know, Russia moved on Crimea, Sepatist action was happening in the Dombas, you know, lots of people in the West thought that actually we could quickly

come to some sort of negotiated settlement to this. Sanctions will only be a short-term thing by the end of the year at the most. And by the time we get to June, the memorial of the kind of anniversary of D-Day, you know, the kind of landings in Normandy during the Second World War, fast while long, the then president of France decides to kind of get together with the Vladimir Putin, who'd be in Normandy, with Petro Poroshenko, the then president of Ukraine, and with Angela Merkel, to have this four-way format of discussions where, you know, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and anybody else, you know, who wanted to get involved, you know, could start to have a dialogue about, well, how can we kind of step back from this

precipice of escalating conflict and actually find a resolution to this situation. Now, David Cameron, at the time the Prime Minister of the UK, he was preoccupied with this bid to kind of stop John Claude Juncker from becoming the European Commission. President, totally kind of focused on that above everything else that is happening, including what's happening, frankly, in Ukraine, believe it or not. And somehow, the UK just doesn't get involved in the Normandy format. We just kind of stay out of it. We make excuses where the Americans aren't involved, so why should we be involved? And of course, by the time he gets to Normandy, that ship, that landing craft has sailed, and we're left out of that conversation completely.

And from that point on, that June of 2014, the UK was outside, completely outside of a possibility of dialogue, you know, with Russia and Ukraine, you know, with key European states to resolve that conflict. That left the UK searching for a role, and our role became the flag pair of the sanctions. That's when we decisively kind of aligned ourselves with the US as a kind of flag bear for sanctions, you know, and really kind of taking this hawkish line on Russia, having a policy where we wouldn't, going back to the landing point, where we wouldn't talk directly to Russia, no, we'll talk about Russia. We won't talk to Russia, we'll talk about Russia. And hence this kind of always performing to a UK audience point comes in. And it really, really stems back to that kind of critical June 2014 moment over 10 years ago. Because to be clear, it's the first time I can think of in post-war British history that a major decision has been made about the situation in Europe, about peace in Europe, with Britain not involved. We managed to find ourselves, we excluded ourselves from it because we were focused on, frankly, an incidental thing. and we've been resentful about that ever since. And I'm going to express my in personal view. I think when the Minsk Agreement was negotiated a couple of months later,

I think that at some level that must have been also a shock because we have an agreement made about peace in Europe in which we have had no part and no role in negotiating or agreeing whatsoever. And I think for a government, like the British, where a country like Britain, to have something like that happen, must have been extremely unsettling. Just, just, just, my own, my own observation. I agree. And let's be completely clear, and this is something that many people don't understand it. I think most people actually, you know, in my circle of friends, I don't even know what an instant agreement is.

Lots of people talk about it. But, but that emerged out of a drive. by Petra Praschenka himself. I mean, that whole Minsk won agreement, shortly after Normandy, the Minsk two agreements in February, that all emerged from an initial draft from the Ukrainians. You know, this idea that Minsk has been forced on Ukraine, it started as a Ukrainian idea. And that's something that very few people actually understand

of Petro-Parshenko draft, which has evolved into the first Minsk agreement, and then the second Minsk agreement in February of 2015. But we have continued trying to make ourselves relevant by acting in effect as spoilers and spoilers on a massive scale. And I personally think that he's getting now extremely dangerous. I mean, we are now talking about long-range missiles. And you've written extremely well on this topic on your blog. But I was wondering if you could discuss that briefly here now.

Well, what the effect of this would be hit? Why we shouldn't be doing this up? Russian decision makers, including Putin, are very, very reciprocal in how they think of things. In fact, I've sat in St. Petersburg and listened to Putin on stage saying, well, you know, one reaction will always lead to an opposite, you know, a reaction, an equal kind of reaction. And the Russians will always respond to attack.

Now, what's happened today in the conflict is that, you know, both sides have seen the battle space as being essentially a war between two competing parties, albeit with material support from other countries. Obviously, we're providing material support to Ukraine, Iran, North Korea, possibly China, providing some sort of, you know, material or other kind of support, you know, to Russia. But it is a conflict essentially between two nations, right, in terms of how they think about the rules of engagement. You know, once you start to kind of have UK missiles, which depend on US intelligence and satellite systems to function, you know, actually turning up on Russian soil, possibly killing, you know, Russian civilians, that is a massive step over a Russian red line in terms of the rules of the game. You know, the Russians kind of love rules of the game. And that essentially means, you know, Britain is attacking Russia in terms of how they can see it. And all right. And all the, all of Lammy's kind of pandering to his kind of domestic audience, you know, misses that key point. You know, is anybody really thinking about how Russia, you would respond?

My sense is that Russia would respond militarily in some way. They wouldn't bother with any sort of asymmetric cyber response because they would want to respond in the way that was attributable to them. They'd want to respond in the way that, you know, their people saw that they were responding because not responding would be politically kind of difficult for, you know, for Putin. I mean, it's because, you know, as soon as the first storm shadow were to kind of be launched on Russian territory, well, it's then an open-ended thing.

I mean, you know, we don't know when war's going to win. There could be months of kind of Western missiles firing into Russian soil. Putin would feel he had to act quickly because of the political risks of not doing so would be too high. And so it's very obvious to me that, you know, there would be a direct and attributable Russian military response against a UK or US kind of asset. And that doesn't necessarily have to be in Europe.

It could be in the Pacific, you know, Russia and China have these kind of massive seaborne drills at the moment in the Sea of Japan. It could be, you know, we don't have to think in a linear way that it's going to be happening in Europe, but I'm pretty sure it would happen somewhere, and I think that would certainly start a conversation. As indeed, you know, Putin tribe,

start the conversation with his statement, you know, shortly before Stama flew, you know, to Washington last week. Do you get the sense that other allies of Britain are getting frustrated and worried about this? Because I actually am. I think we, that we've had very forthright statements from Chancellor Schultz, who's hardly a, who's hardly a dove on the Ukrainian crisis. Maloney in Italy seems to be annoyed. And I get the sense the Americans are divided. And I wonder whether this is being understood in the government in London. Kim Darrick, I believe you probably know it also, or at least he came across. He has spoken out very clearly against this idea.

He said this is something that isn't being thought through. He, of course, is familiar with the Americans. He was ambassador in Washington. what are your feelings about this? Because I looked at the pictures of the meeting in Washington and it struck me that the Americans didn't look at all pleased. That was my own sense about this. And before we proceed, just to also say,

I was talking with Daniel Davis, who was a former US military officer. And he also said to me, you know, the Americans are asking themselves, what do we do if the British do this thing and get themselves into trouble. What are we supposed to do with that situation? Do we want to be in a position

where we have to make that choice, that decision? It's crazy that Stama and Lammy are going on their own with this. And you're right, actually, to point to divisions within the kind of U.S. side as well, because shortly before, you know, Lammy and Blinken made their kind of trip to Kiev, Lloyd Austin the previous week in Ramstein, where Zelensky had turned up asking for more weapons,

they quite pointedly said that no single weapon is really going to turn the tide of the battle. Even Varek Zikorsky, in that kind of bizarre, and if you've seen it, pranked kind of video that was released recently, even Vadik Zikorsky, one of the most kind of hawkish, you know, Polish kind of political figures on Russia is saying that kind of, even, you know, Polish missiles

shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine is probably a no-go even for Poland. So, you know, why the UK is kind of going out on a limb on this isn't really clear. I think there is a division between State Department and the Minister of Defense in Washington. I do think Blinken is in a different place from where Austin is. That's very clear from everything that Blinken says, which is aligned with everything Jake Sullivan says, you know, the National Security Advisor there. So they're clearly divisions on the US side.

but it goes back to that point about the UK having to be the kind of massive spoil in all of this. And, you know, I think the reality is that come November, that's going to leave us even further adrift, particularly if Trump comes to power, because there will be some sort of ship. We don't know what it'll look like yet, but it's certainly going to be not as kind of hoss-armed and technistic as it is under kind of Biden's presidency. That will, as it did, you know, at the start of 2017, leave the UK flailing in no man's land again. when the Americans pivot and go in a slightly different direction. Well, look, can we pivot to another topic, which is the sanctions, which I know you are very familiar with,

because if you can also explain to people, you were in the embassy, the point man, that's how I would describe you, on the sanctions issue. And you were giving advice to London, explaining that, you know, the sanctions, we're talking about the pre-2020 sanctions, by the way, that they weren't working in the way that people expected, that the Russians were well organized about this, that the soft ruble policy that they were pursuing

was intended to counter sanctions, that they were doing all of this thing. And I get the sense that you might have been talking into the wind because people in London were not listening. You get the sense that's the same with the missiles. The people in London are probably being advised by the foreign office now, this isn't a good idea. But they're simply not listening.

Yeah, they're not listening. And, you know, there's that, as I said before, that kind of weird bipartisan kind of unity within mainstream British politics between the Conservatives and certainly Key Starmes to part of the Labour Party, you know, on Russia. They're completely immune to advice, independent advice and analysis, you know,

from officials on this. And I'm not really sure, you know, where it comes from. Let's be clear that they're, as a core in the kind of UK deep state, if you like, in the ministries who feel it's in their interest to kind of keep taking this line on Russia. I think the foreign office, you know, parts of the foreign office are still very, very hawkish on Russia. Parts of the kind of intelligence kind of system are extremely hawkish on Russia. If you look at all the think tanks, Chatham, Roussey, they're all saying the same thing. So, you know, I think one of the problems here as well, I mean,

I do think of Lammy is showing a lack of experience actually as a senior statesman, but he's also kind of showing the signs of somebody who's come in and just been fed the line from the state about what our policy is on Russia and hasn't brought any ideas of his own. I think that plays into this as well because big parts of the state actually think we're doing the right thing, 10 years down the track with things getting worse with us kind of creeping ever closer to nuclear immolation. You know, there's still big bits of the state to say, well, carry on as we're doing,

and eventually Putin will, you know, will be gone and we can live happily ever after. I think don't underestimate, you know, how much of the state still believes that. There was an article actually in foreign policy by, I can't remember his name. Anyway, I'm not going to try. But it was an American one in foreign affairs, I believe, in which they actually said that. They said, you know, nothing will change at the moment. You know, we'll continue the war indefinitely. But one day Putin will die.

This is going to be the solution. So all we have to do, apparently, is to wait until that day comes. Well, you know, he'll be gone or he'll be dead. That might be five years or ten years' time. You know, just wait and keep your fingers crossed. And it will all turn out right in the end. On that brief, can I say, if you'll bear with me for just a moment, you know, when I arrived in Moscow, you know, the topic of Putin's imminent death came up, you know,

surprisingly often in our political section meetings, you know, we'd be speculating on this, his latest disappeared from public view, is it back cancer, is it all sorts of kind of things. And you see this in the kind of, you know, the media all the time as well, speculation about Putin's death seems to be affixed, we're fixated that he's going to die any time soon, but 10 years down the track, he looks as healthy as ever. So I don't know, it doesn't seem to be the right strategy to wait for Putin to die. In fact, I say in my book that waiting for Putin to die isn't the strategy. I'm fairly sure I say that.

You do say that, I remember it. So we're not talking to the Russians. We are sticking with this policy. It's not really worked on the sanctions front. There was an article today by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. All right, he's a bit of a dissident, but he's quite intelligent. He's very intelligent. And he said the sanctions have been a complete disaster in terms of world trade, living standards, oil prices, energy prices, food prices.

We've just had a long report from Mario Draghi about the situation in Europe. He says that prices, energy costs are three to five times higher than in the United States in Europe. And this is one of the reasons for our various economic problems. So this isn't working. Policy isn't working. On sanctions, it's not working. It's not achieving the objective. It's not changing Russian policy.

Yeah. We have a policy of launching missiles. All those negative things are happening to us. I'm not sure it's a glacial. global phenomenon. I think, you know, Russia economically seems to be doing sort of perfectly fine, you know, through all of this.

The Americans aren't suffering. They've got inflation, they got their own domestic economic problems. The economic blowback has all come back onto Europe. Not into Russia, you know, that they've had 10 years getting used to sanctions, certainly not onto the US. They're, you know, their trade and

investments sort of bind into Russia so small that the blowback on them has been sort of fairly, fairly you know they have the big energy sector they're not there either so you know the blowback has really been all on you mostly not not the world as a whole and I think there was of course a short-term blip as you'd always expect in the situation where global energy prices global food prices went up we had the cost of living crisis but you look at it now when a aISG is people in europe that's still feeling the effects of war

Ukraine is basically funding the war completely on credit cards, you know, because it doesn't have any money of its own. You know, Russia has no significant debts. Its economy is growing. It's kind of able to kind of carry this on. You know, this doesn't sound to me like a long-term credible strategy. And in fact, the people losing it most, firstly, the Ukrainians, and secondly, people in Europe. So is that why we are now talking about missile strikes? because everything else has been tried. And this is the next thing left because, you know, we've tried everything. We've ticked the sanctions boxes.

But we can't change directions. So we're now coming to missile strikes. What is the reason for coming up with this idea of missile strikes? Obviously, Zelensky wants this. But why do we want it? What is it exactly that is driving us to push for this, frankly, very bad idea. I was thinking about this this morning, actually,

and I think there's almost a kind of pathological desire not to be seen to fail. If I take you back to February 2022, and Boris Johnson had this kind of slogan was that, you know, Putin must fail and be seen to fail. I mean, that was, you know, Johnson's slogan. And the ghost of Johnson continues today with this kind of fixation on Putin must fail

and be seen to fail. stepping back from that line is psychologically very difficult because actually increasingly if we negotiate, you know, we are seen to fail. We will have failed because actually if we negotiate, if there's a negotiated ceasefire, then at best that will end up with a solution which largely mirrors, you know, what was agreed at the Istanbul's of talks in March of 2022, with Ukraine having gained no further territory back that it lost at the start of the war, with Ukraine having become massively more indebted as a result of this kind of continuation of this pointless war, egged on by Britain as the chief kind of flag bearer,

with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people killed or injured, cities completely flattened, you know, leveled, you know, to the ground. You know, if they sue for a ceasefire now, you know, the only thing they will have suffered since 2020 is cost. know, and there'll be no better off. And they, you know, Zelensky will have failed. He will, he can't go back to comedy. He'll be out of politics. What happens to him next?

We will have been seen to have failed as well. So I think, you know, that will create a sort of critical risk for Kirstama. So, you know, they can almost driven on, you know, by this kind of mad desire to kind of prevail in the end, despite the overwhelming. It's a bit like the charge of the light brigade, almost bizarrely. Well, as I always say, if you're in a hole, stop digging, but we seem to want to continue digging. I mean, it seems most strange. Do you not feel, as a diplomat, you were there, you met the Russians many times, you went to places like St. Petersburg, you went outside Moscow, not everybody in the

embassy was doing it. But do you not feel a huge missed opportunity? I mean, I used to, I haven't been to Russia for a while, but I remember, for example, going, visiting the British Council meeting the staff there, who are Russians, all very exasperated by the fact that London wasn't taking an interest in what they were doing. This is before the current iteration of the conflict, all of them telling us, telling my wife and me how a British culture, for example, was very, very highly regarded by sections of the Russian elite, you know, Sherlock Holmes and Dickens and Shakespeare and all that, which, you know, let's not discount. There was a desire, certainly an interest in some sort of contact.

There was even talk, I remember, about a television program that there was going to be set up, talking about literary issues and comparing Russian and British literature. None of that ever crystallized. Nobody showed any interest in it. And the places where the lack of interest came from always, ultimately was London. And, you know, whether, whatever you may think of Putin, Russia is the biggest country in the world. It's the biggest country in Europe. It is a major European power.

It has been so since the 18th century. We have to deal with it in some form. And they seem to want to deal with us. and instead we're in a situation where Putin is talking about us being at war with them. That seems to me one of the most catastrophic failures of diplomacy. I can ever think of. Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And, you know, it may seem bizarre to the people watching this.

But, I mean, I was there during a pretty tense time through to the style of 2019. Even then, you know, I found this affection amongst ordinary Russian people about the cultural links, you know, between our countries, a real kind of fascination to kind of understand better about sort of UK literature, UK art, you know, we, our shared history during World War II, for example, was an area of a great collaboration. Princess Anne even came out, believe it or not, in 2016. You know, people seem to think that in, we almost kind of perpetuate this narrative in the UK

that the Russians hate us. but I never really found that to be the case in all the people that I met. I found a real affection for the UK. They didn't really understand us. They didn't really understand how we got into this situation that we were in over Ukraine. But it was always possible to make friendships with Russian people who I found warm and welcoming. So it's a bizarre kind of living this kind of point man on sanctions and actually making Russian friends.

Syria was kind of an odd balance for me to strike, but I'm glad that I did because I saw aside kind of Russia that actually doesn't really want a war, doesn't really want to be at war with Europe, didn't really want to have a war for Ukraine, you know, which I think was completely avoidable right back in February of 2014. I believe, I still believe now that it's possible to actually get back to a situation where we can start to rebuild, you know, relations, you know, with Russia. I think I'm quite sure that the Russian people want that. I think deep down probably Putin wants that too, although he's never going to lose face publicly by, you know, by saying that sort of a too openly. But I think, I think most Russian, senior

Russian people would, would want there to be some sort of decade, decade generational kind of shift in, in the dial. I mean, it's quite bizarre. I mean, you've been to Moscow. I mean, it's a fantastic sort of, you know, cosmopolitan city, very nice place, nice people. I mean, it's, you know, we're driven on by these stereotypes of each other that Russians hate us. I'm quite sure that kind of Russian state media says that people in the West hate them too, but we just need to kind of break this terrible cycle we've got into and stop the war. I mean, it would be a good place to start with that. Now, one of the most interesting things in your book, if I can just go back to it,

is that you talked a lot about problems within the foreign, office and the fact that it's not working as it once did and it's or should do and that there's problems with the way it's organized and the way in which foreign secretaries have managed it. And I wonder whether part of that is part of the problem, whether the foreign office itself has been something of a Cinderella institution within the British government for quite a long time. foreign office ministers come and go, as you said, we've had nine since 2014, that there isn't, it's seen as a stepping stone to something else. And perhaps we don't get people put in charge who are very interested in diplomacy. I can remember, I'm just old enough to remember,

the days when Alec Douglas home, who was British Foreign Secretary in the 60s and 1970s, had a very good relationship with Andrei Grumiko, who was the Soviet foreign minister, I remember at that time. Do we need to re-emphasize foreign policy? I mean, do we really need to start doing a major change in the way in which the foreign office is run? And can I make a possible suggestion, which is perhaps the right people to put in charge of the foreign office now, might not be politicians, but professional diplomats again? That has happened before at other times in our history. Yeah, I mean, that's completely right. I call it a lack of statesmanship.

You know, we don't have any states people anymore in the UK. I think William Haig made a good attempt of being one actually, but he was only around for four years since then. It's been a revolving door of political lightways, you know, quite frankly, including David Lammy, I hate to kind of say it. There's no kind of consistency. Lavrov, whatever you think of Sergei Lavrov, he's been around for a very long time.

He's a very experienced diplomat. You may not like Lavrov, but actually he is a very seasoned and a very effective diplomat. We don't have anybody like that in the UK system. We don't have kind of statespeople. In terms of the running of the office itself, I think diplomacy don't underestimate the extent to which diplomacy has been hollowed out as a skill,

as a trade within the foreign office as well. No proper training programs for over two decades. And there's too many people wanting to do policy and not actual kind of meeting other human beings in other countries. So, and, you know, the decision to kind of, if you like, rip apart the foreign office and merge it with Diffid six months into a global pandemic in 2020 has just worsened that situation, it seems to me. I mean, the whole foreign office machinery,

is focused internally on fixing itself and not fixing the world's problems and that's another kind of problem we have here have here too so the whole philip barton hasn't been a great permanent secretary you know but then he followed uh sim mcdald who wasn't a great permanent secretary so the whole thing sort of has been rudderless both in terms of the statesmanship element the people at the top and in terms of the machinery of the thing too i think there's a legitimate question should have a proper executive leader, somebody who leads it as a business, and then leaves the diplomats to do the diplomat stuff, you know, as a part of that business unit. But how you can have solved the political question of actually having somebody in place for long enough to really,

you know, grow into that kind of statesman role is another question. I mean, if Lammy's going to be in the job for another five years, haven't helped us all, quite frankly, but, you know, who would of places. Very last question. This comes back to the question of the missiles. The question almost answers itself, but I just wanted to hear what you were to say. Do you think that there has been a proper assessment, a

genuine analysis, anywhere in London, about this plant that anybody's actually sat down and said to themselves, you know, what does this mean? What do we really think it's going to achieve in the war that, you know, is it going to really change the military situation, the military picture, what are the risks, what are the Americans going to think about it, what are the Europeans going to think about it? Do you think anybody has done that? I mean, I say that because I know there's all sorts of people who think that there is some kind of plan, that this is intended to wreck peace talks or to prolong the war in some way or whatever. I question

whether the government that we have today, that I don't just mean the Labour government, I mean the way the system works, is capable of any kind of thinking of that kind at all. But I just wanted to hear what you had to say about this. I think there will have been planning on the kind of military, the purely military aspects of that, technically what they can do, how it will work,

what systems they need can support in terms of the US systems of that. I'm sure there has been planning. on Victoria Newland's personal website, otherwise known of the Institute of the Study of War website, they even have a map of targets that could be struck inside of Russia, if this missiles

were used. So all that stuff there. What is missing, I think, is a realistic assessment of actually what the consequences would be, what the Russian response would be. And I think there you see, in Whitehall A, a lack

of people who really understand Russia and can give that advice. You know, Tim Barrow is a national security advisor. I mean, he does know Russia and he knows it, you know, very well. But he's been out of Russia so long that is he really up to date with, kind of where Putin's at and so on. So I think we're kind of missing that, I think, advice on actually, you know,

how will Russia respond to this? You know, what are the likely scenarios militarily, you know, if they respond to this? And actually then is, is Lami and Starram are listening anyway? And I think on that it's quite clear that they're not. Actually, I will ask one other very final question. What about the cabinet? Because once upon the time, the cabinet played an absolutely critical role in British decision making.

And we would have discussions in cabinet about these kind of things. And there would be ministers, some ministers would speak out or discuss. And there would be a proper discussion. If you look at the old days, once upon the time, that was how a lot of British policy was worked out. It was actually worked out in cabinet. Do you get any sense that cabinet government works like that today? I think this cabinet is possibly slightly different from the last cabinet. There are differences of view on some issues.

You look at Israel, Gaza, where there has been a notable shift in terms of the government position on that. Not a very big shift, but a shift nonetheless driven by kind of a Labour Party politics. But with any cabinet, and I've always sure spoken about this in terms of, you know, his writing, any minister is struggling to get on top of their brief, make sense of what they have to do in their departments. So conversations about stuff off-topic, like Russia, very quickly descends into kind of generalities. And, you know, the narrative on Russia is so stuck

that people will gravitate to that narrative without any background in reading of their own. So that it's hard to ship that narrative in, you know, in cabinet when you have ministers who don't have formed ideas of their own, and they just relied on briefs from their officials. And I think that's what you have in the case of Russia. You know, Cabinet government can't really work on Russia because, you know, nobody around the cabinet table

is really kind of imbued, immersed in the background to what's happened, what's happening now, and what are the options going forward? And that's why you see kind of policy very much frozen, I think. Ian Pratt, thank you very much for your clear answers to my numerous questions. If you could just stay there, I'm going to just pass over to our... Alex, I'm sure he got some questions for you.

Great. Can we take a couple of, you have time for a couple questions? Yes, of course, of course. Great. Great. Let's begin with, let's see here. Ralph Steiner says, Winston Churchill defined Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

What would Churchill think of Britain being at war with Russia? Well, he might approve. If someone said he predicted it would happen at the start of the Cold War, but he was a man of the 20th century, of course, and he was a man of that time and is a very successful kind of politician in that need for the UK to defend itself against Nazi tyranny. So I suspect Winston Churchill may approve,

but he is yesterday's man. You know, I think we need people, modern-day politicians of Churchillian stature who actually understand the bigger picture of what's happening here, and it strikes me that nobody really does. Sir Muggs Games says, Waiting for Putin to Leave or Die

has historic support. The time-delayed curse of the great leader, Bismarck, dies in 1898, first-post-generation Germany defeated, second generation defeated and occupied. Thanks, gee, thanks, Bismarck. What do you think of the strategy to wait for Putin to pass?

Well, if that is a strike, let's think about this. you know, if that is a strategy, what will happen? You know, if we, the strategy assumes that we carry on doing what we're doing now until Putin dies, right? I mean, that is a strategy. So say Putin lives for another 10 years as president of the Russian Federation, for example. I mean, we're probably all dead anyway if we're going to carry on as we are now.

So let's pretend anyway that he lives for another two years. We might still just about be alive, short of nuclear war. you know, Russian hostility within, you know, the inner, Putin's inner circle against us will be so elevated that we can't really predict who would replace Putin. It's probably not going to be a moderate, like an Alvira, Nabil and that kind of liberal type of person, is probably going to be more like probably not Van Zanker-Dier-of, you know, for ethnic reasons, I suspect, but somebody of that sort of, of hard-line, syllabiki, you know, hostile to the West, ilk. So, I mean, if the strategy is waiting

for Putin to die, then actually I think it's a bad strategy because, you know, hostility is growing so much that whoever would replace Putin in the future would be possibly even more hostile to us than Putin is now, which is already very hostile. All right, and that comes to the following question. Your thoughts, Ian, on Medvedev as a hardliner? I think Medvedev is, is playing an interesting role. I follow his telegram channel quite interestingly. And he's a bit of a, he's a bit of an outlier.

He throws that all these kind of bizarre and really apocalyptic statements, you know, on Medvedev. But I think actually when his president, he wanted to be more of the kind of liberal type. Still very much united Russia, still very kind of aligned with Putin,

but a slightly more modernizing kind of figure. And he could still be that. now, he would have a long way to kind of row back from his position now, which is kind of nuke us all basically and we're all going to sort of die. But yeah, I mean, who knows? I mean, but I think he's already been too discredited by the whole kind of lime green night training shoes, online shopping kind of scandal at Navalny kind of unearthed back in the day. So whether he'd be incredible, he's still quite young, let's remember, but I don't know. I think Putin has, you know, in quite considered way,

you've been promoting young apparatchiks over the past generation, I suspect if a new person would be to emerge, it would be from those ranks, not from mid-vidiv, who's probably yesterday's man. William says, Chilkat, all this would have been avoided if those in government had actually read the Chilkot report

costing 10 million pounds. Chilkot 2 coming soon? Yes, Chilkot 2 coming soon. It's a really, really good question. And actually, I was talking to somebody the other day that I was involved in the intelligence dossier after 9-11 before it was sexed up by Alistair Campbell. I was boy with the story now,

but I played a role in the intelligence dossier before it was sexed up that led to the illegal involvement in the Civil War 2003. But I think all of what's happening now is driven by kind of bad advice. And essentially Chalkot is about, you know, Blair wanted and was given shit advice, you know, what to do with Iraq because he was so determined to get close to Bush.

I mean, that was the whole point, right? Blair was so determined to be close to Bush that he would do anything to make the machinery tell him that he should act in the way that he wanted to act. And that's almost identical to what we have today, that, you know, bizarrely even Stama, he's apparently a new broom, but he just seems to have the same old shoes,

albeit sort of a, you know, sponsored by his, Lord Ali he just kind of wants to be so close to the Americans that he will do anything to pursue this policy that is going to align with the US and now the UK is going to cut

loose foot from the EU and he kind of almost needs the system to give him the shit advice to do these crazy things with Russia so there are some really really good parallels let's hope we don't get to the point of all out war and chill go from

Right. For more, no. Question for Mr. Proud. The campaign demonizing Russia comes from long ago. But relatively recently, Russia, Russia, Russia became an important foreign policy point in the UK and the US, Novichoke, etc. Did he, did you experience that in your position? Did I experience, I'm not sure I fully understand. Did you experience the Russia, Russia hysteria, I guess, the Novichok. Oh, yeah, no, of course, of course. Yeah. Including within my organisation, you know, the phone office. And actually, bizarrely actually, outside of my job, you know, when I talk to Ordnay, you know, I'd come back for meetings in London to pick up with a black cabby at Heathrow airport, take me into London for meetings.

And they'd ask me why I'd come for, said I'd come from Moscow and, oh, what's that like then? And ordinary people are much more fascinated and are open-minded to understand, what it's really like, than people working inside the foreign office and inside government. So I have greater faith in the black cabby, frankly, picking him up from Heathrow Airport than, you know, frankly, David Lammy or anybody of that political class. From Roger A.F. What's up with the British and the Russians? Wasn't Queen Victoria related to the Tsar? Yeah, and Prince Michael of Kent, you know, I mean, he actually looks like.

Sir Nicholas II. I remember walking for a Russian University, the Russian Economic University of Prakhanov in Moscow. And there was photographs of previous deans, and I step back and think, oh, this is a photo of the Tsar. They had a massive photo of Prince Michael of Kent,

and he'd come out often, actually, for a working business. And it's, yeah, the likeness is quite striking. So, yeah, there are good, familiar links of royal links dating back to kind of pre-revolutionary times. I don't really understand what kind of drives this kind of negative sentiment because as I said, when you meet ordinary people, ordinary people just want to get along. They're not really interested in striking up wars and that.

I met sort of kilt-wearing kind of Scottish pub owners in the Ural Mountains to Vajar Kipling quoting taxi drivers in St Petersburg. So, you know, I think ordinary people, your cabies, your cab drivers are kind of the people who can really guarantee world peace, far more. more than politicians. Right. From Ken Media Reader, sanctions certainly made a foundation

for the EU and British economic decline, including the Nord Stream Action. Was stealing of Russian assets a shock and awe that broadened and deepened the demise? Yeah, I mean, I think stealing the, or freezing these Russian assets is a really, really bad idea. And actually, Dan Freed's recent idea to kind of freeze them in,

definitely even after a possible ceasefire happens is totally bonkers, you know, quite frankly, because all that's doing is, you know, saying to people in the developing world, well, actually, we don't, it's too risky for us to use dollars and euros because at any moment, if we fall out with the Europeans or the Americans, they'll just still are, they'll just still our foreign exchange reserves. So that's kind of leading to this drive towards the de-dollarization. You've seen In the past two years, the bricks grouping is just ballooned, you know, suddenly accelerated out of nowhere, the bricks grouping has taken off. Even Turkey is looking to join now. You know, Saudi Iran are looking to have this kind of uposhmoth, frankly unthinkable, you know, two years ago.

The centre of global political gravity is shifting towards the developing world, driven by Russia, China and the other BRICs countries. and the seizing of Russian assets is only really accelerating I see that trend, quite frankly. From Zachary Morrison, is it accurate to call Putin an authoritarian? I hear it all the time, but I'm skeptical. Authoritarian in terms of strong law and order, yes. I mean, Moscow feels like an incredibly safe city to walk around, big police presence and all the rest of it. So is by authoritarian, does that mean having strong law and order?

Then yes. I think authoritarian is a better term than autocratic. And I think that, you know, the people in the West may have moved towards saying he's autocratic. But in fact, actually, if you look at the polls, he does still enjoy kind of widespread popular appeal in Russia. But authoritarian, probably yes. Autocratic, jury's out. From Ralph Stein, or dear Ian, the Ukrainians blew up Nord Stream, crippling Europe. How have the British reacted to this treacherous act of perfidy by Zelensky?

Well, the first thing we did was to blame Russia. I don't know if anybody remembers as to when it happened. Actually, all the Western press just leapt on the bandwagon. I thought at the time, surely not. You know, oh, Russia, you know, they're gangsters. is even blowing up this pipeline. It's completely obvious to me at the time that the people in whose interests,

it was most strongly in favour of doing this, was the Ukrainians. And actually, as it turns out, it looks like it was the Ukrainians. And even Alex Zikorski was sticking his thumbs up and laughing and saying the Americans know about it ahead of time too. So it was catastrophic. But, I mean, you know, the UK actually gets very,

even before that happened, the UK, historically got very little gas from Russia anyway but i mean we would have just shrugged the shoulders and frankly not cared about it frankly because we were always kind of pushing against an all-stream two pipeline um even before it's built even though we get very little gas from Russia anyway so you know i think there'd have been smiles in the foreign office undoubtedly but um frankly not a big deal for us but what why nobody's coming out the question is why nobody is coming out and saying well actually hold on a minute if ukraine has done it what What are the reparations involved in this?

Ukraine is living on Western credit to fight this war. The Germans are kind of foaming at the mouth and steaming at the years. This has happened is active industrial espionage against a pipeline that serves their energy interests. When will there be consequences for Ukraine? Nobody's kind of pushing this in the West, fondly enough. William says Putin was thinking of not standing in 2024. It's only because of us that he felt he must stay.

He said as much and we've made sure any successor is not going to be a Western Pudo. Your thoughts. Yeah. I mean, I've got good information to suggest that that wasn't the case as far back as 2018, but I won't fulfill why. I think Putin was always planning to say the 20-24. But, yeah, I mean, that's his decision. He won by a significant majority.

But, I mean, I don't believe that to be true. I think he was as far back as 2018 already planning to change the Constitution to stay. But I won't go further on that. We'll do one more. From Elza, Bojo is the last British Prime Minister who had a photo from an official meeting with Putin. I think there is no chance Stammer will have a photo.

What do you think, Ian? Stommer and Putin a photo. I don't think Bojo met Putin. Did he? I don't think he did. He met Lavrov. Yeah, I think Cameron had the last meeting with Putin. I've got a photo with Bojo, but not with Putin, but I don't think Bojo did meet Putin, actually. He just met Lavrov.

And Maria Zaharva at the foreign ministry. So even he does, he's probably the last Prime Minister to speak to Putin. I'd be surprised if Starmes picked up the phone dish yet. I don't think anybody of Liz Truss, although I've already forgotten the names have been so many Prime Ministers after Liz Druss, you know, he spoke to Putin. I think he was the last one to speak to Putin. I don't think he actually ever met, you know, Putin, not in Moscow, you know,

when his foreign secretary anyway. Let's do one more from Sparky. I think Queen Elizabeth II was a moderating influence on the UK government. Without her, it runs amok. Your thoughts? Well, yeah, yeah, she was. Although, God bless her soul, she was still alive when this calamity started. I mean, she was the constitutional monarch, and we all kind of miss her terribly.

But even she wasn't enough to stem this madness, which started back in 2014, with Philip Hammond and the whole kind of motley foo that sadly followed on after him. Ian Proud, thank you so much for joining us on the Duran. Once again, tell everybody that is watching this show about your book. I have a link to Ian's book in the description box down below. I also added it to the chat, and I will add it as a pinned comment as well. Ian, your book. Plug your book.

Yeah, Miss Fitt in Moscow, how British diplomacy in Russia Pell. It's really about the bizarre, frankly, for an hour period I spent in, bizarre but wonderful, because much of it was actually really wonderful time I spent in Moscow from 2014 to 2019 through the Sozby, Novation and attack and all the things that happened around that, through sanctions, through Bojo visiting, and not meeting Putin in 2017 and all the kind of fun of games around that. So, yeah, I hope people enjoy it.

It's written for anybody to read. I've not written it as a boring academic thing that, you know, policy won't, would read it. It's meant to be something that anybody could pick up and read and enjoy and get an insight into actually, you know, what a really fascinating and interesting country Russia is and why we should be trying much harder, frankly,

to build better relations and get past this stupid war. Well said. Ian Proud. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, guys. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much, Ian. Thank you.

All the best. Speak again. Speak again. Bye-bye. All right. Alexander, you with us? Oh, absolutely. Just to say at some point,

I mean, we really do need to have a discussion with people like Ian, not just about how the British government works, but about how the Russian government works. Because I really do think that many, many people in the West including in the way, in government, don't understand it. So when they talk about Putin being an autocrat or Putin being authoritarian, I think all those words, those labels completely mislead and don't capture the sheer complexity and sophistication of the political system that exists there.

Just saying, anyway, let's move on and deal with the other questions. Let's answer the remaining questions. Alexander, this is a four-part question from Nikos. All right. Nico says, I am going to be brutally honest here. Britain is the most arrogant nation in history. These people have never experienced hardship or poverty or loss. Loss of the 10th of the population, loss of your city's economy,

it's loss of your cultural heritage. This just takes it from others like Greece and Africa. This is their legacy, legacy of narcissism, that Britain gave to Europe and America that made them that they would destroy a superpower like Russia, Russia could take over Europe, Alexander. If Germany could do it with half the population, there's just no value in governing nations that are arrogant. Well, I think you probably summarise pretty accurately a certain part of the British ruling and upper class. It is absolutely not true of the vast majority of people here. And again, I go back to what Ian Proud said,

By the way, I've said this myself many times or many programs, you go an over a lot more intelligent commentary, an understanding about the situation and interest about the situation in Russia. For people that you meet in your everyday life, for people who you meet in taxes and who you meet in bubs or whatever it is, you have much more intelligent and sophisticated and aware conversations with them then you get the impression simply from reading what goes on in our newspapers and what people like David Lammy and the politicians say. And bear something in mind, the political class that we are talking about is deeply unpopular in Britain now.

We saw that in the election. The Labour Party was elected with just one person in five voting for them. I mean, they're not popular. people don't like them, people don't agree with them. But the way the system works is very difficult in Britain to construct alternatives. Yeah, Kuplex, welcome to the Drand community. Ralph Steiner says, I would dearly appreciate it. If Ian could throw in some dry British humor, as we all do, very much appreciate the British for this trait.

Well, Ian has that humor. Can I just say, like so many other good things in Britain, it's a declining thing in Britain now. You won't find so much of it on television, for example, as you once did. So it's always nice to hear it used in the way that Ian does, but it's not as common as it once was. Sparky says, the charge of the not so bright brigade. Tim Poole's teeth says, loving what you guys are doing, keep it up, please.

Peace must prevail. Verdebel, thank you for that super sticker. From Ralph Steiner, the British Empire treats Russia with great disdain and contempt. Do British politicians consider themselves

a superior civilization from a superior civilization? I think a lot of them do, actually. I mean, we still have this extraordinary network of institutions, which are legacies of the times of greatness. I mean, you see the palace of Westminster, the House of Commons, the building of the foreign office. It all makes them feel

when they work inside buildings like that, when they come from the schools that many of them do, it makes them feel privileged and important and better than others. Of course, we have also in Britain this culture of debating, by which I don't mean, you know, talking about things over, but the way in which debates debating societies function, schools and universities and that kind of thing, which makes at one level the British seem extremely articulate and able to make arguments and score points very well. And the British are very good at doing that. And of course, that blinds them to the fact that they don't always understand what they're talking about. Because just as I said during this programme, David Lammy was scoring points of Vladimir.

Putin, as if Vladimir Putin was a British politician involving in British, involved in British politics when of course he's not. So, you know, we have a lot of things that are wrong, and we're not as connected to the realities of the world or as understanding of the way in which the world has changed as we need to be. Princess of Galindo says, I just want to thank you both for the info you give. My eyes and mind is more open to the connection of our world because of YouTube. Thank you for that. Let's see here.

That was from Rumble. Let's go back to YouTube, Alexander. Sisiolas, thank you for that. Super sticker. Elza says, Lami needs to learn that it's the Putin. Correct. Sangeva says, greetings Duran.

Hello, Sangeva. Ralph says, Lord Boris Johnson reportedly said, quote, we shall fight on the Crimean beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall never surrender to the

not sure what to the beaches. I'm not sure what that word is. Yeah. Okay. I mean the Russian, and the message says, I mean the Russians, is he a true British hero? Right. Well, this is all derivative.

This is all based on a very famous speech that Winston Churchill made in 1940. I believe it was in, I think, June 1940 when the situation was becoming critical and the battle for France and the German army was marching to the channel and Churchill had just become Prime Minister and he made this incredible speech to the House of Commons which rallied people in Britain and he said you know we shall fight them on the beaches we should fight them in the hills we shall fight them in France and if you know if our island is conquered which I don't for a moment believe we should fight them. We should fight them in France.

will go on fighting them from Canada, protected by the British fleet and whatever. It's incredible speech. And Boris Johnson, of course, is a biography. He's written a biography of Churchill. And he's constantly, you can see this, he's trying to model himself on Churchill. And of course, the thing is that Boris Johnson is not Winston Churchill. I mean, Winston Churchill and Boris Johnson is different from Chalkies and cheese. So when Johnson does this and talks in this way, which he does, by the way, he talks a lot like, tries to talk like Churchill.

To me, all he does is come across as ridiculous, just saying. Sophisticated caveman says, is Kaliningrad a nuclear threat to Europe? No, it's not a nuclear threat to Europe. It's a part of Russia. Leave it alone. If you leave it alone, it's a threat to no one. Battle Kosak says about meta banning RT. What does this say about freedom of the press? Well, the best person to discuss all this is Jonathan Turley at his blog Recibsop. He has smoke coming out of his ears about this. He's a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. He's talking about how free speech and the right of free speech is under attack all over the world.

He calls it the indispensable right, about which I am complete agreement. And, well, every single day he works hard analyzing, discussing the many attacks on free speech that are going, taking place around the world and about, and you've just cited another example. By the way, I'm delighted to see the Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner, has just been sacked. And I mean, he has been sacked. the Olensky cursed, as you correctly say. It was very funny to see what he had to say. He wrote this awful letter saying, you know,

that Osselaire von der Leyen as a poor manager. Whoever would have thought that, I mean, that's a real shock and surprise. But anyway, so I'm delighted to see him gone. But I don't think anything's going to change. The person who's going to take his place, Monsieur Sejournay, who's going to be every bit as awful, I suspect as Dirivedon was.

Just that. They all hate each other, though. Going back to the elites, the elites, they all hate each other. What unites them is their disdain for us, for the everyday people. That's what unites them. Their lust for power and their disdain for the everyday people. But between themselves, they all hate each other. Correct.

Anyway, Elza says, to outlive Putin, is that the new wonder weapon? Yeah, it is, absolutely. That is the new wonder weapon. There's a whole article about this in foreign affairs. It's been widely talked about and discussed, and many people are talking about it as a tour de force and, you know, a great new strategy. All we have to do is wait out, Putin.

Yeah. Ralph Steiner says, Dear, dear Ian, Lammy is cutting a swat through Kiev with Anthony Blinken. No appeasement with the mustache man. I mean, Putin, he shouts. Is this British bottle? Is this British bottle? I'm not quite sure about the last point, but suffice to say, everybody before he was appointed foreign, not everybody, but vast numbers of people who had introduced in foreign policy, before Lammy became foreign secretary, were saying that this man is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And at this time, of all times, we need someone who understands foreign policy. So, of course, Stama gave him the job.

I mean, it's just terrible. Starma, by the way, has seen the fastest decline in ratings of any government that I can ever remember. I mean, the latest poll rating is 29%. I mean, they're just sinking like a souffle. Sinking like a souffle. Good, good, very good. Sticky Mark says October the 4th, question mark, the day our controllers and banks feel. Well, we will see.

And we'll lots of rumbles and rumblings. But I'm not the best person to try and understand all of that. I've never worked in the financial markets myself. But we'll just have to wait and see. Nikos says, I still want that conversation with Dima, but today I recommend you check out our fellow Greeks, Dimitris Liatos, and Jorgos Romanos. Of course. Thank you for that, Nico.

Let's see here. What else? Ralph says Operation Unthinkable was the name given by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee to attack the USSR after 1945. Is this cunning plan now finally in play? Well, what a reduced level it is, because Operation Unthinkable, to be very clear, was unthinkable. I mean, it's a crazy plan.

But at least in those days, the Americans had a nuclear monopoly, the Soviet Union didn't. It had an enormous army, but they would potentially have been very, very vulnerable to that kind of attack. Had it ever been made, politically, it was impossible. It couldn't have been done.

But today, what has been proposed militarily is a nonsense. You fire launch a few storm shadow missiles, of which the Russians have shown repeatedly that they're able to shoot them down. You have only a small number. You can't produce them in any quantity.

You're going to launch them against the world's biggest country, equipped with the world's best air defenses. And do you expect to achieve some result? I mean, it's ridiculous. As a pure military idea, it's absurd. DJTW3 says authoritarian or strong man, question mark. Well, he is. He's a very strong lead. He is a very strong leader. But to repeat again, the point I've made many times, he works within a very, very complex and very effective, by the way, political system. And obviously he is the key player and the major decision maker.

But that doesn't mean that he just wakes up every morning and decides everything that must happen. It doesn't work like that. Alexander Pognevich says, thank you gentlemen. Thank you for that, Alexander. Raul Steiner says, Ian, Britain is fondly referred to as the perfidious Albion. Is the British ability to cunningly maneuver other nations into conflict considered a skill? Well, once upon a time, you know, I think it was Napoleon who first came up with that expression.

Once upon a time, that was true. I mean, in the 18th, 19th, early 20th century, the British were enormously skilled in playing European countries off each other, preventing any one country dominating Europe, which would have been seen as dangerous for Britain. They had immense skill in diplomacy in those days. We've just heard this programme. Do you think David Lammy is capable of playing a game with that kind of that level of sophistication? Of course not. The British have lost their diplomatic skills. They cannot be perfidious Albion anymore. Because

when David Lammy comes along nobody takes him seriously. Yeah. Lana, thank you for that super sticker. Lana Garcia, thank you for that. Sparky says ironically, government officials who think they're the most informed,

because they read and watch all traditional news sources and thoroughly briefed by intelligence are the most misinformed. I think one major one major I agree with you in every respect

bar one I don't think they're thoroughly briefed by intelligence I think they're thoroughly misinformed by what they assume as intelligence

to the extent that they receive it at all I mean I've been told informally that the amount of information that British officials and ministers

actually get from the British government's own sources really doesn't amount to very much, and that mostly they get their information from the newspapers, which is an alarming thought. Sir Mugge's game says, Germany also had a plucky hostile hardliner.

How did that work out? That's quite, yeah. Sir Mug's game says it's obvious that the USS ship of state is suffering chronically from the cat in the adage dilemma. Yeah, absolutely. Now we answered the Queen Elizabeth question from Sparky. Martin says, is morality based upon Christianity a common benefit or necessary to successful society? Well, I, as a Christian, I do believe that Christianity did provide a moral coherence to Western societies.

I don't want to overstate this. I mean, we did terrible and enormous and frightful things whilst we were part of Christendom. But I think that since then, we can see that there's been a loss of bearings and it is having an effect. Yes, I'm not going to say it's the only way in which societies can be organized and organized effectively. I think that would be going to far.

But certainly in Europe and in the United States, I think something has been lost. from one second from GL1416 what are the different possibilities on how the conflict in Ukraine could end I think there's more and more likelihood that we're only going to end up with one a Russian military victory with all that follows from that if I had to say what I think is going to happen I think that is what is going to happen and then of course the Russians will have to make some very very difficult decisions about what use they make of that victory, because they will have a lot of problems sorting out and organizing Ukraine,

which is what I suspect they will have to do, and what I think back in 2014 and even 2022, they did not want to do. And the West is not going to make it easy on them. No, it is not. GL-1416 says, what do you think about the neutrality of Switzerland in its history? history and now. Well, it doesn't exist.

Swiss neutrality is the day of fiction is the short answer. I think there was a time when it did generally exist. I mean, it was real, say, at the time of the First World War. It was basically real during the Second World War. So there were times with Switzerland at that time shifted a little towards Germany and then it shifted a little more back towards the Allies. I think during the Cold War, it became effectively a part of the West. And of course, today, I think that Swiss neutrality is a fiction.

Sophisticated caveman says, will EU membership be a bargaining chip for Ukraine? Does the EU even want Ukraine? Could Russian removal from Kaliningrad be another bargaining chip? No, I don't think the Russians are ever going to move from Kaliningrad. I think anybody who thinks they are is delusional. Russians are going to move from Donbass or Zaporosio, heres-on-the region, let alone Kalingrad. And I think that is the reality that people have to acknowledge

and starts to face. I don't believe there's going to be any conceivable land swap idea with the Russians giving up some territory and taking some other territory. I think these are fantasies. they perhaps were true in the 19th century when the colonial powers, the European colonial powers, did land swaps in Africa and that kind of thing. But that was controversial then.

And with the Russians, it is absolutely impossible now. How this ends, I think I've said. I think that the Russians will just dictate terms. Sparky says, although the slide to the Ukraine debacle began while she was still alive, the Gaza thing may not have happened if Queen Elizabeth II had been around as she wasn't too keen on Israel. You overestimate enormously her influence. I mean, she was there. I think she was a positive stabilizing force within British society. I think she played

a significant role in the South Africa situation in the 1980s. and early 1990s, when, I mean, she was pretty much open in her sympathies for Mandela and the ANC, and because she saw that as a way of holding the Commonwealth together. But I think that in terms of of Russian policy, I do think she had much influence. I do think she has very much influence about Middle East policy either. Death Dealer 1341 says Trump will save us all from nuclear war when he is elected as president when he wins. Well, I believe that I believe that his priority very much is to try to dial down the tensions, the great international tensions that we see at the moment. I mean, that's not a guess.

He said as much during the debate, by the way. So I think that that line, which is unpopular and controversial with certain people that he's taking is not only a brave one, I have to say that, but also a correct one. Matlis-X says, if Kiev is willing to move into Kursk, what would prevent them from moving into Transnistria? I am afraid that if they are desperate enough to change the narrative,

Transnistria may be at risk. I think you're absolutely correct. I don't think that there is any reason to think that they wouldn't do that, except, of course, that there are international repercussions. It would expand the wall. It would involve another country,

which is Moldova, and there are still some people in the West who are worried about that. Because of course, if the Ukrainians go there at a time where they're in conflict with the Russians, well, one day, maybe the Russians will follow them. Just saying. Sparky says that Duran are heroes to the geopolitical world in the most heroic sense of the word. Thank you. Thank you, Sparky. Muhammad says, I'm appreciative of the Ian interview. Thanks. Thank you for that. Muhammad. Jamila says,

Great Britain needs real politicians and real leaders. Yes, as we used to have. We don't now. Jahari, thank you for that super sticker. Sir Mug's game says, are Russia and China countering the American century with their version of Apocatastasis? Apocatastases.

Very good. Russian 19. It is a nice word. It is a nice word. I think that the Russians and the Chinese probably don't have it all worked out. They don't have an exact plan. I think at the moment they're still working,

if you like, very much on the defensive. They see the Americans putting pressure on them. They're saying to each other, the Chinese are saying, look, we've got to be prepared for a sanctions war against us. So we need to sort out, we need to get the Russians that are back. We need access to Russian war materials

and Russian reserves. And the Russians are saying to themselves, Well, we need trading partners and we need the Chinese for that. And each country takes comfort from the support of the other. But I think with every day that this continues, this relationship continues, it deepens. The Chinese and the Russians are getting to know each other better. They're working more closely together on lots and lots of topics. And over time, I think this is still very much.

a work in progress, without one, without the being necessarily, as I said, a single plan. I think over time, they're weaving a whole new system around themselves. And that's what the Bricks is all about. That's what the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement is all about. That's what the Belt and Road Initiative are all about. And eventually all of these different pieces will start to come together. and they'll get increased equal mass

and then the world will change. So I think that's how it's working out. Sir Mug's game said Russia 1917 now for the Chinese 1839, 1945, the remainder of the super chat, Apocadasatis. And Sir Mug's game says, yes, Alex, been dying

to use that word in a super chat. No, Alex, I won't escort myself out of the live stream. Thank you for that, Sir Muz game. Wali, thank you for that super. sticker, arcane eclectic says, gents, please invite Whitney Webb on the show. Yeah, yeah. Working on it.

Sparky says, I make the assumption that a thorough intel briefing in modern times is complete and thorough BS. I suspect you're right, by the way. Sir Bugsgate says the cat would love to eat the fish but is afraid to get its feet wet from McGrath. Yeah. Samuel Maroni says, has Ukraine had more than 150 K-150,000 KIA up to now? Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not going to go and try and guess the number. All one can say is this, the Ukrainians themselves, if you read any report now for Ukrainian soldiers, they all complain about the fact that many of their friends and the soldiers they fought with have been killed.

You often get reports saying, I am the only soldier left in my platoon. I'm the only soldier left in my company. My battalion is a shadow of what it was. You get reports all that every day, all the time, that the soldiers that are being called up and are joining the army now are insufficient, that they're inadequate for the purpose, that they have low morale, that their physical condition isn't very good. All of this, taken together, points to enormous Ukrainian casualties. And I read a really rather sad report, very sad report the other day,

a Western person who visited a cemetery, a Ukrainian cemetery, and said that it had doubled in size over the course of the year. So there you go. The Ukrainian casualties are huge and they're getting worse. Sophisticated caveman says, if total victory can the Russians demand Finland, Latvia and Estonia's removal from NATO? Well, I don't think they are telling each other that that is what they're going to do. If they win a victory over Ukraine, the country that they will want to talk to, first and foremost,

will be whatever is left of Ukraine or whatever people there are still there who represent, who can be seen to represent people in Ukraine. There'll be the major priority, but to be very clear, do not underestimate the geopolitical impact of a Russian victory in Ukraine on Eastern Europe. It will mean that all sorts of countries that have joined onto the Western ship, climbed down to the Western ship, will now understand, or will now start to fear that the ship that they've clambered onto has sprung multiple. leaks and might be sinking. And they might start worrying that if they sink, if the ship sinks,

they don't want to sink on it and they might start to bail out. So that's not impossible. I'm not predicting it. I don't know how it's going to play out, but it is a real possibility or so it seems to me. Ralph Steiner says they missed Mr. T again. Was Zelensky behind this? Mr. T? Mr. Trump. Mr. Trouble, indeed. Oh, I see, yeah, of course, yes. Mr. Tidevid, thank you for that super sticker. Jamila says, Alexander and Alex, I think you believe, I think you believing in God and those around the world, religious leaders to not speak out. They are waiting to the end of the world. Why? Well, I mean, I can I just say, I was just reading a report again earlier today that there was a Ukraine, I think he was Serbian, actually.

I think he was doing weights or something in the Olympics, an athlete. And apparently he's been fined. Wrestler, that's right. He's been fined because he made the sign of the cross. It seems bizarre to me. I mean, these things seem so weird and so strange. I mean, I'm so going to sound absurd now,

but what is the world coming to when something like this happens? and we are living through a very strange, very disturbing time when it seems to me that we're not just talking about a non-religious time, but we're certainly talking about an anti-Christian time. There is definitely an anti-Christian wave going on, and it's affecting all the West, and it's very, very troubling. At least to me it is. Sir Mug's game says Apocatastasis is the Greek meaning restitution from

sins and sinners and the creation of a perfect just condition. Yeah, well. Thank you for that. Sir Mugge. Josh Woods says, When Russia wins the war, where do you think the new Russian-Ukrainian border will be, the Dombas region, the Deneper or elsewhere?

I've said many times. I don't think it can be the Dnieper. I think people who talk about the Dnieper as a boundary are completely wrong. And I read a very interesting article by Eaf Smith. on naked capitalism about a week ago in which there was a footnote by some geographer and he pointed out anyway that the NEPA basin has to be regulated because otherwise the whole area turns basically into marsh and obviously people can live there but not in the way that they do now so whoever controls the NEPA must control both banks in order to regulate the water flow.

And I know it's a very interesting article, but it adds to the point I've made many times. The NEPA cannot be the boundary. I don't know whether the political leaders in Moscow elsewhere understand that. But I'm going to guess that in Russia they do. I suspect that Putin and the Security Council in Moscow are getting advice about this. So it cannot be the NEPA. And I can't myself see the Russians stopping before they reach the NEPA. So logically, they must move beyond it.

But how far they move beyond it is another question. Zizi Karayani, thank you for that super sticker. Sparky says, Western governments always worry and speculate on what the Chinese and Russians are thinking when the issue is what they themselves are thinking, which results in Chinese and Russian thinking. You are so completely right. That's a very insightful, a good comment, by the way. I completely agree.

Let's think about what we're doing. Engage in a little self-criticism from time to time. Look at some agency, you know, since I spoke about Eve Smith, it's a brilliant article by Connor Galaher in the site that she does, naked capitalism, which looks at Europe, and looks at this new big memorandum by Draghi about the economic crisis in Europe. And it says it's all, you know,

but a lot of it's 90% of its due to energy costs, huge rising energy costs. And we're getting all this, you know, we used to have cheap gas and now we don't have cheap gas. It says, you know, you read this article and you look to see in the article who has brought this about, who made the decisions that created this mess.

And draggy never says, never says anything. I mean, it's, you know, it all just happened, don't you see? I mean, we've got to start taking responsibility for our own decisions, which is, of course, what the Western political class never does anymore. If only there was a country that made a ton of gas, that provided a ton of gas

that the pipeline that could get the gas into Germany. If only that existed, then Europe would be okay. But, oh, well, they just don't have that, Alexan. They just don't have that. I know. I mean, yeah. These guys in Europe, man. Nova Storm says, thank you,

Duran, as always. Thank you for that. Sir Mug's game says, Sir Stammer is the ten most boring people you'll ever meet. He will have a short half-life politically speaking. He's very boring. Let me correct you. You don't know the minutiae in details of English titles, British titles. He's Sir Kier-Stama.

If you address him in person, you call him Sir Kier, not Sir Stahmer. Isn't that impressive? in every other respect, by the way, you are absolutely 100% right. It's Sir David Cameron. It's not Sir Cameron. It is, in any of he's Lord Cameron. So you call him Lord. He's not, he's a Lord.

He's a Lord. He's a Lord. He's Lord Cameron. So Commer's a Sir. Sir Kier Stama. Sir Kierstama. You don't get invited to the right places if you get all that wrong. At least not the right places in London.

Right. Steiner says Justin Trudeau really stuck stuck into the evil Russians. Yeah, he does. I'm sure they're trembling. They're shaking. Tough guy, Trudeau. Just to say, every couple of months until the Trudeau's days are numbered and that he's about to go.

And I'm afraid he's always turns up and he's still there. You know, when will this man eventually go? I just long for that. He's going to be the last of the let's get cursed. Sticky Marks says, will acrobat Annalina Berbach go back to the circus? She turned up, I think so. She's been missing for a while, but...

She has, she has, absolutely. There was a speech in the Bundestag, by the way, a debate in the Bundestag on budget policy for the foreign ministry. And a member of Saravagenek's party, about it connects party completely took her apart it was quite a thing to see actually just so from sir mugs game i should have known that considering but uh sir sir sir kirk so okay uh mo ell says you'd be you'd be astonished you'd be

astonished to know how seriously some people take that kind of thing i mean it's it's like like you know you know remember there's laura cross and, you know, is she Lady Lara or Lady Croft? Massive debate in some places about what the correct form of the title is. And it depends very much on the exact relationship with the father and all that. Just saying. Moel says, hi, Alex and Alexander. Will Bricks Forum and Kazan still happen, even if Russia is attacked with missiles,

or will it be postponed elsewhere from... Well, we'll just have to wait and see. I think that the Russians will move heaven and earth to make sure that the meeting in Kazan takes place. And it's quite plausible that if there are missile strikes, they will delay their response until after the Kazan meeting has happened. Because I think that is for the Russians at the moment, the absolute overriding number one priority. And tsunami bombs says, fun fact about democracy, Churchill was appointed P.F. in May 1940, the British general election scheduled that same year was cancelled by Parliament. Next time people got to vote in 1945, they got rid of Churchill's party.

The Japanese democracy held their general election in April, 1942, as scheduled. Okay, it's absolutely correct. By the way, in terms of winning plurality of the votes, Churchill lost every election. He lost big in 1945. that he lost again in 1950. The Labour Party outvoted him in 1950. And then there was another election in 1951, in which the Conservatives ended up

with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons and a majority. But even in that election, the Labour Party actually won more actual votes than the Churchill-led Conservatives do. So it's something about Churchill that most people don't know. And Sparky says build a better world with bricks. Well, I think that's coming.

Every day we see it. And on that note, Alexander, we are done with this live stream. That's a wrap. Let me do a quick check on everything and your final thoughts as I check. Hi, it's a brilliant program. And it's very, very, very interesting to see how the system, the system in Britain works. or rather doesn't. Can I just say, I don't think we have ever got ourselves

into as big a mess in Britain as the one we're in today, certainly in international terms. Once upon the time, the closest we got to was Suez in 1956 when we ended up being criticized by the Russians and the Americans at the same time. And I suspect we're heading in exactly the same place again. Tabernak says ASEAN will be larger and more powerful than the EU, question mark. Oh, I wouldn't surprise me. Why wouldn't it be?

I mean, it's something that, you know, the Joseph Morels can't imagine. But I certainly can. Yeah, I can too. Absolutely. All right, we will end it there. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Odyssey, on Rock Finn, Rumble, YouTube, and the durand.com. Tomorrow, Alexander, you will be having your live stream on locals. Is that correct? Yes, absolutely.

In the evening, I'm having my live stream on locals. So, 1,400 hours, ESD, Eastern Time, in the United States, 1900 hours in 9,100 hours in in the UK. So join us on the durand.locals.com and catch Alexander's live stream on locals. Thank you to our moderators as well to Peter. And I think it was just Peter today moderating. Yes, I believe it was Peter and myself.

So thank you, Peter, for helping out. Really appreciate it. Take care, everybody.