The Duran Podcast - Three letter agencies take over, asymmetric warfare

Episode Date: January 4, 2026

Three letter agencies take over, asymmetric warfare

All right, Alexander, let's talk about a couple of New York Times articles. The first article talks about a split in the Trump White House, where you have Vance and Colby advocating to finish up Project Ukraine and to dedicate U.S. resources towards containing China, towards pivoting to Asia. And then you have the other side of the Trump administration, which is basically Ratcliffe and the CIA. which is pushing Trump to escalate. And you also had an article from the New York Times, which claimed that the CIA told Trump that the drone strikes towards Putin's residence in the Novgorod region, that this was false. The drones were not targeting Putin's residents. They were targeting some other facility that they do not name, which was in the region.

So not targeting Putin's residence, but targeting a facility which was close to Putin's residence, I guess, is what they're claiming. Once again, they did not name the military facility. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post also ran with similar articles about the drone strikes to Novgorod. So a couple of interesting articles over the after, after the new year. and all roads seem to lead to the CIA. The CIA seems to be running a lot of things in Project Ukraine, and it looks like they may be even getting more power when it comes to Project Ukraine.

You'll explain that in a second. So where should we start? Which are the articles from the New York Times should we begin with, even though they're all connected? They're all connected. And clearly the briefing is taking place on a major scale. and I suspect a lot of the briefing is indeed coming from the CIA. And it confirms what an awful lot of people have suspected all along,

that the CIA has his fingerprints all over the wall, all over the secret wall. They are deeply enmeshed and involved with the various intelligence and security agencies in Ukraine. They have been helping them and assisting them. We know that the Ukrainians have conducted assassination campaigns in the Dombes, since 2014, in fact, that they've assassinated various militia leaders. We know that Kirila Budanov, who was up till today, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, was himself involved in some kind of covert operation in Crimea, which didn't go well, apparently. We know that the CIA, despite publicly the United States appearing to disapprove of assassinations of this kind,

that it went on supporting the Ukrainian intelligence and security services in all of these things. We know that there has been a very close relationship between Ukrainian military intelligence, the organization headed by Budanath and the CIA. And now we have articles in the US media that tell us that the CIA, with Trump's blessing, and this is an essential thing to say, has been heavily involved in Ukraine's drone offensive that has been underway since the summer, targeting Russian oil refineries, targeting Russian tankers on the high seas. You remember, we've had tankers attacked off the coast of West Africa. We've had tankers attacked off the coast of Libya.

Anyway, the CIA has been involved. In all of these attacks, they've been selecting targets, refineries inside Ukraine, which they believe, which they believe the Russians would have difficulty repairing because of the shortage of equipment which Russia cannot obtain because of the sanctions. And in fact, the CIA has to all intents and purposes been running this entire drone offensive that the United States, rather than Ukraine has purportedly been conducting.

against Russia up to now. And they are tightening their control because today there's been information coming from Kiev, which I suspect is absolutely confirmed that Kirila Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, has just been appointed to take the position of Zelensky's chief of staff. In other words, he is replaced Andrei Yermak, who was the disgraced and recently ousted chief of staff. So if you like, CIA's man in Kiev is now moving right at center stage, right at the center of the Ukrainian government. Now, I'm going to make a suggestion.

There's a number of things to be said about this. Firstly, we see again a point that you've made in the past about the compulsive duplication. of the Trump administration, or to be more precise, perhaps, of the president himself. So on the one hand, he is conducting negotiations with the Russians. He tells them that he wants to secure peace in Ukraine. Simultaneously with this, he's authorizing a secret war against the Russians with the assistance using the CIA, a covert campaign. plausibly

deniable except it is no longer deniable that is the first thing and of course inevitably it is going to mean that some people in Moscow and we know that Putin

has been criticised for the fact that he has been dealing with Trump so much some people in Moscow are going to push back and they're going to say that this is absolutely wrong and what on earth have you been doing

negotiating with this man in the way that you have But the second is that now all of this is becoming public, that the CIA is taking an even more prominent role in the war. It's managed to get its placeman Budanov center stage within the Ukrainian government. Budanaf has been increasingly critical over the last year about the military direction of the war. My own sense is that what the CIA, or at least some people are trying to do in Washington, is that they're trying to prepare for the day after the war ends. There's been much speculation going all the way back to 2022 and beyond

that some kind of insurrection, some kind of insurgency against the Russians is being prepared. Budanov would be the obvious person to run it. And now he's been put center stage in the Ukrainian government. You can see that someone, at least I could see that someone in Washington is starting to say, look, this is, we're going to lose the war. The war, the conventional war, is all but lost. It is coming to an end. But the greater war against Russia must continue.

And we must do it through, as I said, sabotage, insurgency, assassination, assassination. all of those kind of cloak and dagger things. And we see how Radcliffe, according to the media reports in Washington, is now stepping in, trying to keep this campaign going. He's telling Trump, look, there was a drone attack on Novgorod. Now, by the way, that undermines the narrative that we were being given just two days ago, that there was no drone attack on Novgorod at all, that the Russians were making it all up. That was all over the media in Britain, by the way. But yes, there wasn't drone attack on Novgorod.

It is against some undisclosed military facility. So it wasn't directed at Putin himself. It seems to me that this is an attempt by the CIA again to keep Trump supportive of this drone campaign because the CIA is heavily invested in it, and they want it to continue, and they wanted to continue beyond the end of the fighting, if that happens any time soon, which it probably will. Yeah, the reports are that Russia, the Ministry of Defense,

is now turning over to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow data from one of the drones to make the case that the drones were indeed programmed to talk. target Putin's residence. If that's going to make any difference whatsoever, not at all. The media is not going to pick this up. It's not going to make a difference when it comes to the CIA or even with Trump. Trump has taken a path of flip-flopping between both sides, right? That's how he's been running the Ukraine, his Ukraine policy.

And most of the times he chooses poorly. It has to be said. Most of the time, he's gone with Kellogg, and it does look like this time he does side with the CIA. Exactly. Exactly. Just just a quick note, the article in the New York Times, actually, let me read you for everyone to know the title of the article we're talking about, the separation inside the unraveling U.S. Ukraine Partnership. That's the article from the CIA. but the article talks about the oil tankers in the Mediterranean,

not only in the Baltic, but also in the Mediterranean. I guess you would assume also the tanker off the coast of West Africa, that this was the CIA that was ultimately behind all this stuff. Yes. By the way, I mean, I think that this is something else, which I just wanted to say as a British person, which is that the Russians have a habit of blaming everything of this kind on the British, and there might indeed be some degree of British involvement.

But I think it's absolutely clear now that the major Western intelligence agency behind all of this is the CIA, which has far bigger reach and far more extent, and that they are the people who are behind all of these operations. I am starting to wonder whether when the Russians talk about Britain and the British, what they really mean is the CIA,

that this is some kind of code that exists between the Russians and the Americans, which I don't completely understand. I just want to say that, and I don't want to discuss that or dwell on this any further. But the CIA has been obviously deeply involved. They've been deeply involved in the covert war against Russia since 2014, and they still are, and they continue to be.

And they are obviously the single-eastern, agency that wants to keep the war going. Now, we see that the Pentagon, and this, by the way, was also true during the Biden administration. I remember this, that there were officials in the Pentagon, even in Biden's time, who were coming along saying, look, in Ukraine, is absorbing too many U.S. resources. So there were officials of the Pentagon who resisted the supply of attack of missiles. they resisted the supply of F-16s. They resisted pretty much all the big weapons deliveries. Eventually, the Biden administration went along with that.

And within the uniformed military, there's a set of generals, Millie, and others, who were obviously fervid supporters of the conflict in Ukraine. But clearly, there's always been a group within the Pentagon that was skeptical of this. and they have come, they've been strengthened since Trump took office. I think that is plausibly true. But we've discussed Kellogg in many places and the important role that he has had in influencing Trump to take hardline positions against the Russians. I think we now need to modify that because one of the New York Times articles suggested

that Trump didn't actually have a very high opinion of Kellogg. He apparently even called him an idiot at one point. The people who have been advocating and telling Trump to keep the war going, clearly, is the CIA, the U.S. intelligence community, and that perhaps shouldn't surprise us. Yeah, but it was Kellogg's plans. Oh, absolutely. That's, that were put in the forefront for, for the negotiating with, with Russia or the possible negotiating with Russia, the freeze plan, the revelation that there was

some two plus two plan that Kellogg initially floated out to Putin. You may want to talk about that as well. And it was Kellogg's plans that, yeah, the CIA may have been behind all of this, but they put Kellogg out in front with the plans and Trump went along with all of it. Even though he had doubts in the exchange plan, the two and two plan, he still pitched it to Putin, via Whitkoff. So, you know, Kellogg did play a central role in all of this. Of course, you know, with Trump calling Kellogg an idiot, Trump flip-flops back and forth every, every couple of hours. And the article even says that Trump's Ukraine policy is based on the last person he talks to. The article actually says it. And of course, we have to say, if you believe the New York Times reporting,

so I always have to have to put that in there. But, It seems fairly in line with our analysis and many other people's analysis over the past year. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, with Kellogg, and maybe this is a point which perhaps does need explaining, because the whole narrative that was spread in the summer was that the, was that Whitgov met Putin, and Putin offered Whitgoff this proposal that if the Ukrainian

withdrew from Donbaths, then Putin would agree to a ceasefire in Zaporosian-Herson region. It was all put on Putin's side. We now know that this was not the case. I'd speculate, I'd always thought it was most likely an American proposal. I'd assumed it originally came from Whitgoth, but it now turns out it came from Kellogg. So Kellogg, who is the great supporter of the freeze idea, was apparently the person who suggested to Trump that the proposal be made to Putin, that the Ukrainians withdraw from Dombas, and the Russians, they don't just cease fire in Zaporosia and Herson regions, but that they actually withdraw from Zaporosia. and Herson regions, and hand those entire territories back to the Ukrainians. And Trump said, this won't work.

Putin won't agree. And Witkoff nonetheless was sent with that proposal by Trump to Putin. And Putin did not agree. He said, no way. There's absolutely no way we will agree to this. And it is inconceivable that the Russians would agree. because for the Russians to agree to withdraw from Zaporosia and Herson regions would mean the Russians giving up the land bridge to Crimea, which is absolutely essential for them,

something which Kellogg would obviously have known, and whoever was advising Kellogg, would also have known. So this is clearly intended to be a proposal which Putin and, the Russians would reject. And of course, they did reject it. So then Whitkoff comes back from Moscow, tells Trump that the Russians have rejected this proposal, but they've said that if the Ukrainians withdraw from Zaporosia and Herson region, they might be prepared to have a ceasefire in Zaporosia and Herson regions. There is every reason now to think that this is also wrong and that the Russians never, Putin never said anything of the sort. Putin has now made comments after comment,

statement after statement. He's met with the generals many times. It's absolutely clear that he envisages Zaporosje and Herson regions being transferred in their entirety to Russia. I think probably what happened was that Putin said to Whitkoff, look, if the Ukrainians do withdraw from Donbass, from Donette's region, we will take that as a sign that they are indeed serious about negotiations and the negotiations can then start to move forward and move forward in a more active way.

In the event, none of that has happened because Zelensky categorically refuses to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Donbass and he's said this repeatedly and he continued to say this repeatedly over the course of the New Year holiday. days. So this whole plan, such as it was, has turned to dust, and it was never as worked through as some people are suggesting. But it does, going back to your point, show the pivotal role that

Kellogg did play. Trump might not have thought much of him. I mean, he might have called him an idiot on one or two occasions. But nonetheless, Kellogg was there always going into the Oval office, always talking to Trump, trying to push Trump towards a freeze. And we now know that behind Kellogg was the CIA. And no doubt some of the generals within the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well. Yeah. Going back to your comment about the UK, the telegraph picked up the New York Times article, and they ran with the title. CIA taught Ukraine how to target Putin's Achilles heel. Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow, $75 million a day, according to U.S. intelligence.

So, yeah, the New York Times puts out this stuff. The CIA gives this information to the New York Times. The New York Times puts it out into the public domain, and then the British media, the world, to the collective West media. They pick it up, and they run with it. as well. The article also makes Biden look very, very good and makes Trump look very, very bad. Well, exactly. The article makes it a point to say that Biden, the brilliant military strategist and foreign relations guru that he was, was on the path to victory. He had it all figure

out how to defeat Russia. And Trump came along and he was chaotic and indecisive. that's that's that's that is exactly what the article says so your comments on that and there are other reports and there are other reports in the coming out of the united states as well that the democrats are quietly advising Zelensky to dig in his heels and not to agree to any of trump's proposals so obviously i mean this is they're all setting up trump for the moment when everything goes wrong in ukraine and he can take the blame and other democrats can come in and their friends in the CIA are they're unleashed, fully unleashed, and the secret war against the Russians continues indefinitely. And this is a new way for, you know, the neocons in Washington to get their objectives.

So it's partly intended to discredit Trump and to make him look a fool and an incompetent, the person who botched the great victory and success that the political genius, the Napoleon of America, Joe Biden, and his superb foreign policy team were on the brink. achieving. And obviously, you must bring the adults back into the room. You must have, you know, the EU president from the United States, President Harris or President Newsom or whoever it is. And they, together with the CIA, will be able to finally defeat this wicked person, Putin, and his hordes in Ukraine. You can see all of this. This narrative has already been shaped, and it's been shaped in the New York Times,

so we shouldn't surprise us, because, of course, the New York Times, as to say, straightforwardly, has always been a major advocate for the Democrats in every political campaign that I can remember throughout my lifetime. Anyway, that's, that's all, that all is one thing, but it still tells us that,

and this is perhaps a point which people are not appreciating, that this drone offensive against the refineries and the tankers has been a failure, because $75 million a day is not going to cause the Russian economy any significant problems. And I'm going to make a guess that that is a major overestimate anyway. This is for the Russian small change. and I suspect that as the war progresses, the effect of these attacks is going to diminish because the refineries are going to be hardened and the Russians will find workarounds, as they always do. So a huge effort made and ultimately an unsuccessful one.

And this is the thing I will always repeat about covert operations. The Americans are addicted to, the British are addicted to them. the Ukrainians are addicted to them. They are ultimately counterproductive. They didn't achieve very much, as is now acknowledged, during the Second World War, despite all the films and movies that you've seen about them, they didn't change the course of the war.

Intelligence, the actual obtaining of intelligence, made a huge difference, but covert operations, made hardly any difference. and what the CIA has been doing has, in terms of the overall Russian war effort, had little to no effect whatsoever. Covert operations like this, in fact, in my opinion, have backfired disastrously on Ukraine, and the Wall Street Journal now separately, is admitting that Odessa is now. all but blockaded, that the Russians are taking retaliatory action. They now have all the justification. They need to take retaliatory action. There's probably a massive missile strike coming as well

because of this failed attack on, well, what the Russians say was Putin's residence. And all of these bigger attacks that the Russians do are going to work against Ukraine's interests. If there'd been no attacks on tankers, if there'd be no attacks on tankers at the high seas, if the Russians had been moving towards a blockade of Odessa in the way that they now are, you can imagine the people across the global south would have protested. Now they are mute because the Russians can say this is legitimate retaliation in light of what the Ukrainians have been doing. I agree with you, but I'm trying to put myself in the neocons CIA's position and their goals for the conflict.

Their ultimate goal is to remove Putin, to get regime change in Russia. So for them, they'll gladly sacrifice Ukraine if they believe that they'll be able to get that regime change in Russia. So, I mean, the picture is starting to come together. Actually, the picture is very clear now. We are moving towards some sort of a covert, dirty war. The CIA is preparing for that. They've got Budanov in place, which means that the MI6's guy, Zilluzni, looks like he's not going to enter the picture. Or maybe. Maybe he replaces they swap out Zelensky for Zillusioni. But at the end of the day, Budanov is now the guy that's going to run stuff. And we know Budanov is the CIA because I believe the New York Times wrote as much a couple of years ago. So the New York Times has told us that Budanov is a creation of the CIA.

So the picture is becoming very clear. Trump is chaotic. He flops back and forth between various positions. And he is at one point, at one time, negotiating, with Russia and presenting himself as the neutral mediator. But at the very same time, he's green lighting, attacks on oil tankers and refineries and the such. The problem that I see for Putin is not the winning of the conflict.

The problem that they have is how do they establish, reestablish deterrence that they lost, I would say they lost it under Biden. That attack comes, the long-range missile strikes into Russia and, Putin allowing that to go, I think is what has led us to this position. And so now you have the New York Times telling us openly what the CIA is up to, what they're planning on doing. They got their guy in place in Budanov. And this is going to have real consequences for Russia and for the people of Russia, citizens of Russia, who are going to feel the brunt of this, these sabotage covert activities, as well as the Russian, Russian.

economy. Yeah, these are these are small amounts, but the small amounts can lead to to larger amounts. I mean, the more emboldened they get, you know, you don't know what what they could do next, right? You don't know what their capabilities are or what they're planning on doing next. Maybe today it's a drone at a refinery, but tomorrow could be a bigger strike on the refinery if they believe that Putin will not establish deterrence because they probably believe that Putin is so overtaken by Trump and wanting to get a diplomatic solution with Trump that he's not going to risk the diplomacy that has taken place. So, I mean, the goal of getting regime change is the ultimate goal.

And I think for this, for the intel agencies, yeah, Ukraine winning the war for, for them would be great, but that's not the goal. Their goal is removing the man in the Kremlin. I think that they have two goals. One is control in Washington and the other is regime change in Moscow. And these operations serve both objectives. I mean, we see how they are discrediting Trump. And the fact that Trump is unable to conduct a coherent policy and is unable to reign the CIA in, and doesn't want to rain in the CIA. I mean, that's the other thing. He seems afraid to reign in.

Did you get the sense from the article? Yeah, absolutely. He seems afraid to. Yeah, absolutely. He is. That ultimately weakens, not Trump personally, but whatever political forces stand behind Trump that might want to take the United States

in an anti-Neocon direction. So, I mean, that you can absolutely see. would argue, by the way, that's an even more pressing priority for these people than regime change in Moscow is. And they are achieving that objective. I mean, I think this is a key thing to say. I mean, MAGA and what it represented, after one year of Trump is in a much weaker state than it was when he became president. I agree with you. I think, yeah, I just want to say, I think MAGA is. I think the whole America first, no foreign entanglement is over. I mean, I think that's been blown. Exactly. Exactly. He can talk about eight wars ended and all that.

Exactly. No one's buying it. Exactly. Yeah. I agree with you. Yeah, you're 100% right there. Yes. Now, the second regime change in Moscow and all of this, there are people in Moscow who are making exactly the points that you have just made. They're coming along and they're telling Putin, look, you persist all the time in wanting. to come to some kind of rapprochement with the Americans. You talk all the time about us achieving some kind of understanding with the Americans. You talk to Witkoff. You send Dimitriyev to Miami. You come up with all of these plans. Yes, you are not making any critically important concessions.

Yes, clearly you are not going to compromise on Russia's vital. strategic interests. We accept that, but this entire game that you are playing is fundamentally wrong, because you assume a partner on the other side, and that partner isn't there. You are continuing to invest far too much in Donald Trump, and, well, we can see that Donald Trump isn't in control, and maybe he is in control, but he is in control. But he is. He is duplicitous and untrustworthy. So even as he goes through the pretense of negotiating with Zelensky and meeting with Zelensky, you have drone attacks targeting Valdei, which are clearly targeting you.

You are a Markman. The Americans have just published a whole set of articles in which they are plainly telling us that they are behind Ukraine's drone war. So when drones are launched against Valdai, it's not just the Ukrainians, it's the Americans too. So why do you persist in this? Clearly what we must do is now take steps to strengthen our military positions, to strengthen our security, and to accept that for the long term, America is simply not a reliable partner, whether in negotiations or diplomacy or economic outreach or anything of that kind. Now, Medvedev talks like this. Remember a couple of weeks ago, after Trump imposed sanctions on Luke Hoyle and Rosneft, Medvedev published a piece

on Telegram in which he said, let's drop all pretensions that Trump is a partner and that he really wants good relations with us. He's clearly an adversary, just as the United States is. So you can see that this argument is going to be continuing all the time in the Kremlin, and it's going to be intensifying after the revelations of the last few days. Now, Putin persists with this continuous outreach to Trump. He's spoken to Trump six times. He's had 11, contacts with, I don't know, who else, but I mean, you know, Uschakov, he's a foreign policy advisor, went through it all, all these meetings, all these discussions that he's had with Witkoff, with Trump himself, and, but to say this again, Putin himself is way out on a limb in Moscow over this.

and the events of the last couple of days will have hardened that feeling that exists in Moscow. The Russians are going to provide all the evidence that you remember when the Russians said there's been a drone attack on Valdon, Ukrainian drone attack on Valdi, blanket denials from the Ukrainians, from the media. Now the New York Times is admitting that the CIA has told Trump, yes, there was a drone attack on Novgorod, but he didn't target Putin. People were saying, Russia, provide evidence. We've already seen that part of the original denials are crumbling. The Russians are going to provide evidence. Nobody's going to believe that evidence. When people asked the Russians to provide evidence, it was always a bad faith thing because the Russians, whatever evidence they provided, the CIA, the media outlets in the West, the neocons, would always have said that it wasn't true. The New York Post said it wasn't true. That evidence is all untrue. So people will say to Putin, why are you wasting time with all?

of this, you know what happened. We know what happened. Are you really, you really think you can persuade the Americans to change course after all that they have done? So that argument is going to continue in Moscow. It's going on every day, all the time. Sometimes it waxes, sometimes it wanes. I got the sense that over the last couple of weeks, it's eased off a bit because the Americans have seen a little bit more cooperative with the Russians. They gave Zelensky a very hard time when Trump met Putin, when Zelensky in Miami. But after these latest revelations,

that argument is going to start to crank up again. I don't know how Putin reestablish his deterrence. I'm listening to everything you're saying, and I agree the issue that I have, which I don't know how he does it. I don't know if it can be done. But, you know, you have the collective West, the media saying, where is the evidence of the drone strikes at your residence, Mr. Putin, towards your residence? And they're saying none of this happened.

It's fake news. Russia is scrambling to provide the evidence now, which no one is going to even talk about, or they're not even going to care about it. the narrative has already been put in place. And at the very same time, we're not going to get into the details of it in this video, you have drone strikes doing a lot of damage, not only to Moscow, but also to Herzl. Absolutely. The Russian-controlled side of Hearson. Yes.

And this is, I mean, is it cynical the word for this? I mean, I find it amazing that they're saying no drones were going into Russia towards Putin's residence, while Putin is giving the New Year's Eve speech, while drones are heading into Moscow, as he's giving the New Year's Eve speech. And Putin is talking about negotiating with Trump because Trump is a man who's rational and pragmatic. Well, at the very, very same time, the New York Times is saying that Trump greenlit all of the drone attacks.

I mean, the whole thing is just madness. But I get back to my original point, I believe that a lot of this has happened because Putin failed to establish deterrence back when, back when Biden launched those attack of missiles into Russia. And why did Putin not push back on that? Because he was told that most likely Trump is going to become president. And Trump during the campaign trail said, I'm going to stop all of the strikes into Russia. So once again, Putin depended on Trump. And it keeps on backfiring on him. I don't know. How do you establish your red lines again when it's obvious that the Intel agencies, UK, European and US, as well as the leadership, much of the leadership, believes that you have no, no deterrents and no red lines. So they're going to push as much as they can. Well, what I think is going to happen, and this is what I think. I do think Putin himself can ever fully reestablish that red line. I mean, he said back in 2020,

that if missile strikes happen against Russia, that is a red line and it must not be crossed. And if it is crossed, there will be devastating retaliation. Missile strikes happened against Russia, I mean pre-2014 Russia in November 2024. And he did not retaliate in the way that he did. He said he would. Admittedly, the strikes were ineffective, but a major red line was crossed. a red line which he himself publicly said. I've discussed in many places we've discussed in many programs that most of the red lines that people talk about where Putin is concerned are not

red lines that he ever set. But this one, he absolutely did set. He set it out himself. So he didn't enforce his red line. And when Trump came along, he became involved in this interminable long negotiation with Trump. And well, I think that probably there will be conclusions in Moscow. There will be people saying to each other in Moscow, look, we're all loyal to Putin. Putin has been a superb leader. He has led us through an incredibly tough period, which we came out of in the 1990s. He's reestablished us as a stable economy and as a great power.

we're going to be loyal to him and we're going to win the war but when the time comes for him to go, when we're not here to push him out or anything like that when the time comes for him to go and we're going to leave it for him to decide

we need a much more assertive leader to take over to reestablish that deterrence because Putin himself never can and never will all right let's wrap up with the video just a very, very quick question.

Where is Vance in all of this? Vance Colby. I noticed one thing. They were not, at least I don't believe they were at the negotiations with Zelensky in Miami. I didn't see them in the photos. Maybe they were there, but I didn't see either Vance or Colby. I saw Susie Wiles. I saw Rubio and Hegseth and all of these guys.

What do you think their position is with all of this, given what the New York Times has reported, that they're the ones that want to focus on, on Asia? Well, I think that's probably true. I mean, it is consistent with what they have publicly said, and I don't myself have any doubt about this. But a decision seems to have been made very early on in Trump's presidency that Vance should not be directly involved in negotiations connected to Ukraine. And so they are out of the picture. Instead, Trump has relied on Witgoth and increasingly now on Kushner as well, rather than people within the US government, officials within the US government.

So Vance and Colby, who are officials of the US government, are basically frozen out. And we have two groups. We have Radcliffe, Rubio and Wiles. It's interesting that Susie Wiles, by the way, was in this meeting. I mean, one would assume that the chief of staff is mostly concerned with domestic U.S. policy. The Russians, by the way, the Russian media has regularly, repeatedly said that it is Susie Wiles, who is in fact the architect of Trump's whole Ukraine policy, the real person in charge of him. And sure enough, she turns up and attends this meeting.

I'm not saying that the Russians have got it completely right, by the way, but it is interesting that she was at this meeting. So anyway, you have this group, Susie Wiles, Rubio, Hexeth, and ultimately Radcliffe and Kellogg. Kellogg, of course, is going. And they're up against Witkoff and Koshner. Now, Whitkoff, I think, is, you know, in many ways, a hardworking, decent person, realistic, and all of these things.

But he doesn't have a big department. behind him. Ultimately, the only role that he has is that he's the president's friend. He is connected to the administration, but he's not fully part of the administration. So he's always at a disadvantage against these people. Rubio and Kellogg and Susie Wiles and Bradcliffe, who have the bureaucracy behind him. Yeah, all right. bottom line we're heading towards

towards a sabotage covert dirty war yeah absolutely and Putin is is going to win the war in Ukraine Russia is going to win the war in Ukraine but unable to establish effective deterrence against those who are going to be waging absolutely I mean I don't know

I think that's exactly right I mean what would happen and I think this is perhaps fair to say is that there was an insurgency if you remember in the northern Caucasus after Putin became leader of Russia, and it continued for well over 10 years. Eventually, the Russians got on top of it.

And, of course, and Putin has said this many times, the Russians discovered that the CIA, the Western intelligence agencies, this is what Putin has claimed, were heavily involved and implicated in running that particular insurgency. And Putin has claimed that he brought it up with Clinton and Bush, George W. Bush,

and that these presidents pretended that they didn't know and nothing ultimately changed. But Putin may be saying to himself, well, I got on top of that insurgency. I will get on top of the insurgency in Ukraine. The trouble is that, of course, Ukraine is much bigger. Ukrainian agents will find it easier to work inside Russia. I don't myself believe that there is going to be a kind of massive resistance in Ukraine that some people think there is.

But certainly insurgences of a kind, assassinations and those kind of sabotage activities, they could go on for a very long time. After all, it took the Russians over 10 years to get on top of what happened in the Northern Caucasus. And this is going to take them much longer to get on top of whatever is being prepared in Ukraine. And ultimately, by the way, I just want to throw this thing as the very last thing. I remember that there was a meeting between Putin and his senior intelligence chiefs. And they told him, it was all public. It's on the Kremlin's website. If you can drill back far enough, you will find it.

It was, they said it with the way we eventually ended this insurgency in the Northern Caucasus, is not by fighting the insurgents in the Northern Caucasus, by taking the war to them and starting to work against them, where they were based outside Russia, in places outside Russia. So the dirty war, in other words, was expanded. And I'm afraid we will probably see that happen to. Yeah, I agree with you. The problem with Ukraine, with the dirty war via Ukraine, is that you've got all of the collective West behind Ukraine as well.

NATO, the United States, all of Europe, where in the caucuses you didn't really have that. That's going to be very problematic for Putin. Absolutely. Yes. All right. We will end the video there, the durand.orgals.com. We're our next. We're on Rumble.

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