The Duran Podcast - Trump closer to deep strikes inside Russia

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Trump closer to deep strikes inside Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Wall Street Journal article, which says that the Trump White House is green lighting, the sharing of intel to strike deep into Russian territory. According to the Wall Street Journal, it's so that Ukraine can hit energy infrastructure inside of Russia, and that the Trump White House is getting very close to green lighting tomahawks. And barracuda missiles, barracuda missiles, I believe, are a new missile. They have about the 500 kilometer range. I've read some reports which say they can reach up to 900 kilometers. But it's a new missile that, if I'm not mistaken, Taiwan has been testing this missile to use against China. It's not as big as the Tomahawks or the terrorist missiles. It has not been tested like the Tomahawks.

Once again, you're talking about a new system. But the advantage of the barracuda is that it's cheap, easy to produce, smaller than the tomahawks, but they can get a lot more of them to Ukraine. And of course, you have the military industrial complex and the company that manufactures the barracuda. I'm certain that they would like to test this in a real battlefield. scenario. So the Trump White House, as the Biden White House before it, they are going to give the long-range missiles to Ukraine. There's no doubt about it. Maybe the Tomahawk, because of the complexities of the launching system, maybe that may not be given to Ukraine. I still believe it

will be, but it does look like some other type of long-range missiles will be provided to Ukraine. What Zelensky asks for, Zelensky gets, even if he goes to the White House and insults Trump and mocks Trump and mocks the Oval Office and the Office of the President and the Vice President J.D. Vance never apologizes, by the way. He still demands from the United States, and the Trump White House absolutely bends the knee and provides to Olensky whatever he asks for. Of course, when we're talking about Zelensky, we're talking about the people behind Zelensky, which are the neocons and the globalists, the Europeans. So that's where we are. Trump is heading for war with Russia. This is the United States,

the Trump administration taking things one step further than Biden ever did. And they are preparing for a conflict with Russia. They're going to test Putin's red lines. This is the way it looks. All the evidence, all the signals, all the signals are pointing in that direction. And there's this belief that he's going to be able, that Trump is going to be able to damage the energy infrastructure of Russia. Anyway, what are your thoughts on all of this? I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. And I hope this is some sort of 2070 chess bluff from Trump. I mean, it's not. Anyway, I hope I'm wrong about this, but this is where everything is leading towards. What are your thoughts? No, I would just add one other thing, which is that I think the also, the other part of the plan here is to provide this 140 billion euros alone to Ukraine, which is intended to be secured against the frozen Russian assets and which I am sure will be used to pay for these things for all the missiles, the tom,

Hawks and all of those things. You're talking about the 90 billion? Yeah. The story that ran about a week ago, where Zelensky said that he presented a plan for a 90 billion mega deal. For a 90 billion. Exactly. So you're saying that 90 billion of the 140 is, okay, got it.

Is earmarked for this? And it's going to be used primarily now because it's not going to happen all in one go, but it's going to come in tranches. But it's going to be used to buy these Tomahawk and Barakuda missiles from the United States. Now, there's a number of things I want to say, first of all, why this extraordinary decision? I mean, last, just a few weeks ago, Putin and Trump were meeting in Alaska, and things appeared to be getting better between the two leaders, and now we have this extraordinary swing in the opposite direction. I mean, there's these dizzying pendulum swings that we

repeatedly get from this president. And I think the short-time. answer is this. I've described it before as government by tantrum. And I think that what happened was that Trump very much wanted to bring the fighting in Ukraine to a stop. He endlessly talks about this. It seems incredible, but he does generally seem to desire the Nobel Peace Prize. He's now talking about it quite openly in ways that I find very strange. Anyway, he thought that he would be able to get this trilateral, bilateral meeting between Zelensky and Putin set up after the Alaska Summit. He thought it would be done quickly. He thought that the Russians would agree to a meeting in which Trump himself was involved.

He imagined that the Russians would agree to peacekeeping forces European peacekeeping. It seems so, and security guarantees. We pointed out on many programs that it's inconceivable that the Russians had agreed to any of those things. And there was no evidence, really, that they were agreeing to any of those things. Anyway, at some point, over the last couple of weeks, it's finally dawned on Trump that the Russians have not really moved. or in fact, they have not moved beyond their initial demands set out in Putin's speech made on the 14th of June 2024. And what we have, as a result, is a massive, furious tantrum.

He's also realized that China is going to go on buying Russian oil, that India is going to go on buying Russian oil. We don't hear any more about Lindsay Graham's bone crushing sanctions, or at least We're not hearing very much about them. He's tried to get the Europeans to go along with that. We've seen that the Europeans are not able to go along with that. They've produced a very watered down statement yesterday at the G7, which commits no one to anything. So he realizes that the Russians are not moving, are not shifting, and he realizes that he has no economic leverage over them.

So what he does, and he discussed this before, in a telephone call that he had with Zelensky, I think, back in July, or was it June, missile strikes on Moscow, missile strikes against Russian energy facilities. And suddenly we're getting the green light to do that. And Kellogg is once again whispering in his ear and proposing this and talking about Tomahawk missiles as game changes and all. of that. So we are now on that path. And of course, it will fail in its own terms. I mean, even assuming that the Russians take no counteraction directly against US assets, Tomahawk missiles, we've discussed this already. There are massive problems about deploying them in Ukraine. There's no land-based version of the Tomahawk missile system in widespread operational use. The United States has all of two typhon launches and they're enormous and they're very bulky and their meat on the plate for the Russian military to destroy. And so the Tomahawk idea isn't really going to work. So we come up with the barracuda instead.

The problem with the barracuda is that as far as I understand it, it is not yet even in serial production. So we're talking about a missile system that has not yet been put into production, that has not really been fully tested, that is extremely raw and very very very, very, new and which the Russians anyway probably, well, definitely would be able to counter. So, I mean, we see this constant oscillation, these swings. I don't believe, by the way, and I mean, I want to say this, I don't believe that this is all done in order to scare or intimidate the Russians. I believe this is absolutely for real, except that I don't think it's going to work.

What it's going to do is it's going to make the Russians even more deterrent. to see this war end on their terms because one of their initial reasons for starting the special military operation was concerned that the United States might position long-range missiles in Ukraine. And that is precisely what Donald Trump and Keith Kellogg and all of the others who are promoting this disastrous plan are now seeking to do. If they want to destroy Ukraine, completely and ensure that the Russians take over all of it, they're going about it the right way. Yeah, well, what this long-range missile plan that Trump is putting together and the tomahawks

and the barracudas, what it will do is, most likely what it will do is it will prevent any type of normalization between Russia and the United States. Though I say that, but, you know, when you read statements from Lavrov or Putin or you listen to what Lavrov or Putin are saying, it'll probably take more than than Tomahawks of barracudas for them to sour on Trump. They're still under the belief that Trump is an honest actor in all of this and that he really does want peace. at least that's the public perception, that's the public image that the Russians are putting out there of Trump, that Trump is the only person that they can deal with, and he really is a man of good faith, and they respect him at the same time while Trump is bashing Russia. I mean, it's such a bad look. It's such a terrible look. But anyway, can I just say something

about that? I think what you said roughly approximates. to what Peskov, whose Putin spokesman had been saying. But I've been reading more carefully what Lavrov has been saying. And I think Lavrov's words are a lot more nuanced than Peskovs. And I think that what Lavrov, I don't think Lavrof is as convinced that Trump is in good faith, as Peskov pretends or claims that he is. So there is a difference. And I think that this again reflects the pattern of decision-making in Russia.

My own view is that if these missiles are deployed in Ukraine, and we're talking about Tomahawks and barracudas, I think that will be the end of it. And I think that some of the more emollient words that Lavrov was making looked to me more like an attempt to offer Trump an off-ramp from this disastrous idea. Just say. Well, they've given Trump a gazillion off-ramps. Oh, I know. A gazillion plus off-rant, Putin, Lavadov, Russia.

And he's managed to take zero of them. Zero. He would listen to Vance a little bit, listen to Wittkoff, and then immediately he would just go back to the Kellogga camp, the Neocon camp. And now it looks like that Vance has moved over to the Neocon camp as well. So, I mean, it's a lost cause, I think, at this point. I think it is a lost cause. Trump is gone.

Trump is now full neocon, Kellogg, Lindsay Graham, side of things, along with the vice president. There are rumors that Whitkoff is on his way out by the end of the year. Anyway, we'll see if those rumors are true. So they've seen Whitkoff off. The neocons have seen Whitkoff off if those rumors are true. At the end of the year, Wickoff is done. Okay, Wickickhs done. The Trump administration is a full Neo-Con administration now, full, from top to bottom.

I'm now, Rubio, Kellogg, Vance has now gone, neocon, everyone, Lindsey Graham. They're all, they're all exerting their policy over the Trump administration. And it's a neocon foreign policy. It's a foreign policy rooted in trickery is the way I describe Trump's foreign, it's a neo-con, but it's a foreign policy rooted in trickery because Trump presents the image of the peace president of the Nobel Prize president. But the fact of the matter is that he is a war president. Yes. He is without a doubt a war president. Well, indeed, but that's the point I want to make. I think that, yes, the Russians have been, as I said, Peskov, more than Lavrov,

have made some emolian statements or some statements that are being read as a mullian. But I still think, I'm absolutely certain. I've no doubt at all. And other Russian officials have been talking more strongly that if we do get into the situation where long-range missiles are provided to Ukraine and are used in the way that we are saying, then that is the end. The whole process of a rapprochement is finished. It's over. And I think that, and, you know, one mustn't make the mistake of thinking that because Putin has tried that this will continue beyond that. So this would be the final point of departure.

I think the other thing, just to say this, I think the other thing that probably has triggered this is Putin's decision to go to China, the events in China. I think that the Americans, or at least Trump, finally understood that the relationship between Putin and China, Russia and China, is not up for negotiation. In a sense, that is where the whole crisis in Ukraine began. Because if you remember, there was a summit meeting in Geneva, in June 2021, between Biden and Putin. And the Russians came away thinking that this was a successful meeting. And what actually happened was that Biden was trying to get Putin to commit to break with China, only Putin didn't really understand that.

And everything really went south from that point on when the Americans, when Biden understood that that wasn't going to happen. And I think that the Americans again have come to that realization, that this is not this relationship between China and Russia is not up for negotiation. And again, this is why we see this tantrum playing out now. But to repeat again, I think that if we do get long-range missile strikes or long-range missile deployments in Ukraine, leading to strikes, then that is it. That will be the moment.

Just as the failure of the June 2021 summit meeting between Biden and Putin led to the special military operation. So I expect that long-rage missile strikes of the kind that we're talking about will be the final failure of the elastic. process and will lead to further Russian responses and stronger Russian escalation. The Europeans are going to be happy when this happens. The neocons are going to be happy. This keeps the United States and the Europeans together. The US is now tethered to a sinking Europe and that's not going to change. Now there's no way that the United States is going to be able to join the rest of the world, the United States is now stuck with Europe, and Europe is now tethered to the United States. So the money's going to continue to pour into Europe. Trump can call it whatever he wants.

We're selling weapons to need. He can BS all he wants about selling weapons to NATO. It's nonsense. It's not sense. The money's going to continue to go to the MIC. It's going to continue to go into the pockets of Europe. And then it's going to get recycled back to the United States in ways, like you said, for example, 90 billion mega deal from the 140 billion of Russian stolen assets, the 90 billion mega deal that the Lenzke's proposing is going to go right back to the USMIC. Anyway, they're going to pull off all these tricks and stunts to keep the money in the washing machine spinning. But it destroys.

What this does is that it successfully destroys any chance that the United States has to join the multipolar world. Okay. Maybe the chances of that happening were pretty small to begin with, but anyway, it completely destroys any chance of that. It destroys any chance of normalization between Russia and the United States. Yes. And it makes sure that the United States is connected to Europe for the foreseeable future.

A sinking, broke, bankrupt. Europe, maybe you can make the argument to go along with a bankrupt United States. So there you have. Well, I mean, this is the fundamental reason why the United States is running into major of debt issues in financial problems is because it is involved in this extraordinarily overambitious neocon foreign policy that he doesn't seem to be able to extricate itself from. Look, Donald Trump said when he was standing for the presidency that he was going to try to reduce U.S. overseas commitments. We've had all the talk about the United States retreating

to its own hemisphere, guarding the heartland, all of that. What has Donald Trump just done? He's signed a security deal with Qatar. He's going to defend Qatar now. So, I mean, instead of getting out from the Middle East, he's going deeper in. It's the same with Ukraine, in a sense. Instead of getting the United States out, it is taking the United States deeper in. And the big geopolitical winner from this, very easy to see, Xi Jinping, China, because the United States continues to be bogged down in the Middle East, indefinitely it would seem. It continues to be bogged down in Europe at the losing end of a wall. and its ability to have any influence on Russian foreign policy is ending.

So, you know, the Chinese must be saying to themselves, and it's not the first time, that the United States is its own worst enemy. All we have to do is to sit back. And if it weren't negotiate and come to deals with us, all we have to do is just, wait because soon or later, they will manage to play themselves out of the game. And that is exactly what's happening. Okay. So who wins out in Russia? Does do the hardliners, like Medvedev, prove to be right? The hardliners who have been saying for a while now that continuing to bow down to the United States, continuing to try and believe that the United States wants to be

friends and that Trump is indeed this peace, this peaceful U.S. president who is acting in good faith. People like Medvedev have expressed their doubts about this very openly. I would say he's in the, let's say, the realist. I would call him a realist rather than a hardliner. But anyway, let's call him a hardliner. I think he's a realist. But does the Medvedev camp win? Does the Lavrov camp, which appears to be in the middle?

say a little bit, a little bit realist hardliner, a little bit diplomacy. We need to speak to the Americans. We get along with the Americans. I get along with Rubio. America's rational. It's NATO and the EU. When you listen to Lavrov's statements, it's NATO and the EU. It's never the United States.

NATO and the EU that are the problems. So they never want to really call out the United States. Or does the camp of, say, Peskov and Putin went out, which continue to believe that they have to normalize relationships. relationship with the United States at all costs because it is the United States that that is the one pragmatic and responsible voice in the West that they can deal with. They continue to believe this fiction about the United States. Do they went out?

I think just to explain something about Medvedev and Lavrov. Medvedev is a politician. He is a person who has. been active in Russian politics. Lovrov is a professional diplomat. He's an executive. He carries out Putin's instructions. Sometimes one gets glimpses of what he is thinking, you know, what he himself is thinking behind his instructions. But and when you look at those, when you follow those glimpses, I would absolutely definitely say that Lavrov is more in the Medvedev camp than in between. If I can put it that, I think Lavrov, his instincts, put him more on Medvedev's

side than they do on the side of, say, people like Putin and the others. So, Putin. Dimitriyev, as well, I would mention is in that camp. And you may want to, you may want to comment on the fact that if Whitkoff leaves, what is that for the B3 as well. Well, if we come back to, if we come back to

Peskov and Dimitriov, again, these are functionaries. They're not political figures. Peskov is Putin's spokesman. I mean, he's his master's voice. Dimitriov is a technician, is a banker, who is the former,

who is the current head of Russia's direct investment fund. We are not talking. here about important political figures. And I think this is an important thing to say. The person who has been pushing for better relations between Russia and the United States is Vladimir Putin. Putin is actually, in my opinion, going far out on a limb now on this. If you follow what other people within the Russian political system are saying, I think they have increasingly been expressing, growing and deepening skepticism about this entire engagement policy.

Now, remember, I was in Russia back in June. I attended a conference there, and I said that these were lawyers. And the thing that struck me about those people is that they didn't see to have any real doubts about the implacable nature of hostility on the part of the West towards Russia. I mean, I got the sense that even those people who were the people who had interacted with the West, most as commercial lawyers, had basically had enough of the West and no longer believe very much in trying to agree better relations with any part of the West at all. And it were felt that the time had come for Russia to focus on its own development, make its own security decisions and seek stronger relations with, you know, the BRIC states and all of the

others. Now, the point to say about Putin is that the way Putin works, is that he is that he will take a policy of diplomacy and negotiation to its absolute ultimate far end point. You did that with Merkel. He tried that even with Biden. He did that to some extent with Obama. But eventually, when that point is reached and it becomes clear that he can't take it further and that this isn't going anywhere, however unhappy he is about it, he eventually swings back and goes onto the side of the hardliners. And we saw that with a special military operative. We've seen that in terms of domestic policy decisions that have been made in Russia. Ultimately, he reverts to them.

And I think we can also now say, and this is becoming interesting, one of the people who has been repeatedly hovering on Putin's side whenever Putin goes out and meets people now, is a man called Alexei Duman, who is the former governor of Tula. region and a former Special Forces officer. He's universally believed to be in Russia, a very hardline figure. He has a role in managing the Russian MIC and doing other kinds of things. And it looks to me as if he's a rising man. So I think this is what's going to happen. If we start getting these decisions by the United States, I mean, I say if, I think these decisions have already been made, to deploy long-range missiles to Ukraine.

Then, I think that will be the end of this process between Putin and Trump. It will be the point when it finally ends. And we will see Putin himself swing back to take the position with the hardliners, the people we call the hardliners, the realists, if you prefer, people like Medvedev, and the others in the Security Council, the Russian Security Council, which is where the decisions ultimately are made. Do you think that the US, say the analysts in the US, wanted to trap Putin in this type of dilemma?

Do you think that they've analyzed Putin? Well, they definitely have analyzed Putin over the years. And they realized that if Trump spoke at times, spoke well of him, then that, then then Putin would fall into the trap of wanting to normalize relations with the United States, which would then lead to a lot of discontent about his policy because he's wanting to normalize with the United States. They refuse to blame the United States for anything that's happening in Ukraine, and they throw it all in the Europeans and NATO, but people aren't fooled by this. They realize that the United States is behind all of all of this. And so there's, I mean, it kind

Maybe trap is a bit of a strong word, but it does seem to weaken Putin's argument, his policy of negotiations at reproschement with the United States. Do you think that the U.S. may have wanted this to happen, or is it just a byproduct? No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. I think that would have been a very clever policy if I'm the same. I mean, the United States had pursued that kind of. policy and had done it in that really very clever way of trying to undermine Putin's position inside Russia by projecting him as the, you know, the softy who is undermining Russia and doing

all that kind of thing. Then, as I said, that would have been actually a pretty clever policy and it might actually have gained some traction in Russia. But the entire rhetoric, the whole language of the United States has been on the contrary, the diametric opposite. And it appears to be based upon actual beliefs within the US political class and the intelligence community. That Putin is the sole decision maker, that all of these people were talking about Medvedev, Duman, all of the others, that they don't count for anything. The Duma is just there for show and it doesn't really matter that the Security Council is never discussed or brought up in any discussion of Russian policies and political structures

in the West, that everything is decided by Putin, that Putin is this extreme anti-American hardliner and that on the contrary, far from trying to. to draw Putin into a trap. It was Trump who was being drawn into a trap by speaking to Putin at all. So, you know, I don't think that the Americans have the sophisticated understanding of Russian politics that would have been needed to play that sort of game. The reality is, I don't think either of these two countries really understand the other very well. I don't think the Russians understand American politics very well. In fact, Putin has even commented about this. And I don't think the Americans understand Russian politics at all. The Russians from the standpoint of how

the neocons operate, you mean? Absolutely. I don't think so. I think they have consistently failed to understand how policy works and policy decision-making works in the United States. I mean, they don't understand. It has taken them a very long time to understand how profoundly implacable people in the United States are towards them and what the real structure of power is in the United States or how the decision-making process in the United States. It works and that the president in the United States doesn't have the enormous freedom of decision making that I think many people in Russia imagined that he did. So I think that neither country really understands very well the political system of the other.

But the Russians perhaps are becoming more realistic about the American political system. The Americans, because they're so obsessed with the personality of Vladimir Putin, don't understand. understand the Russian at all. To repeat a point, which we've made many times in several programs, if you visit Russia itself, and remember I was there even admittedly for a short time, back in June, it becomes immediately clear that though Putin is the president, that he has support, that he wields authority, and is trusted and respected and responsible. expected and even light. He is nowhere near as dominant internally as people outside think. I mean, people don't talk about him anywhere near as much as you would expect them to

if he really was the sole person in charge. You don't see his pictures all over the place. There's no personality cult around him of the kind that there was around the Soviet leaders. I think people in the West simply don't get this, that within Russia, Putin is one person within a complex and very sophisticated political system and that he obviously carries great weight and influence within it, but he is only a part of it. And in the end, if the others take a harder line, he will swerve and join them. Just a final one final question. Trump, what happens to him when if and when Ukraine is defeated?

And the United States is defeated because the United States is now and has been, has been and now even more so an active participant in this conflict against Russia. I mean, the United States is going to be firing long-range missiles into the Russian Federation. Biden did it, but Trump is going to take it even further. I mean, this is, this is huge. Even if it is a Tomahawk, even if the Russians counter it, the United States is going to be attacking Russia with long-range missiles. So what happens to Trump in all of this?

Well, it is the end of his presidency. I mean, it is the, I mean, he will remain president. You won't be impeached. He will continue for the next. the next three years, but the entire process of economic and domestic change that he embarked on, or at least appeared to embark on, when he became president, is going to become increasingly dysfunctional because he will find, as other US presidents do, who go down this route, that foreign policy takes complete control, and everything ultimately becomes subordinated to it.

And of course, it's a foreign policy in which the United States loses, as it did in Vietnam, as it did in Afghanistan. And in the end, he's going to destroy his legacy. He's going to destroy his entire domestic approach, which, by the way, he isn't working very well. I mean, we now have the tariffs, but there's been no great manufacturing or industrial revival in the United States. It is, exactly. It's a failure. It's a failure. It's a giant failure.

Exactly. And in terms of foreign and geopolitical position of the United States, it is going to be much weaker in three years than it is today. Just to go off of your point, the tariffs are a huge failure, a massive failure, maybe even one of Trump's biggest failures, because he weaponized the tariffs and much the same way that sanctions get weaponized. We talked about this in many videos. He turned the tariffs into a foreign policy weapon, which he should have never have done. No, no, no. So yeah, they failed. Because he's constant, I mean, he has this constant need to assert himself

to project strength as he believes. And of course, what he's doing is not demonstrating the very real strengths of the American, that the United States does still have, and which could be built upon. What he's really doing is he's exposing his weaknesses. All right. We'll wrap up the video. The durand.com. We're on X.

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