The Duran Podcast - Trump stuck in worst of all outcomes in Ukraine

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

Trump stuck in worst of all outcomes in Ukraine The Duran: Episode 2291

All right, Alexander, let's talk about some of the diplomacy that has taken place in Project Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. That happened the other day. I think it went as many analysts expected it to go, which was that it was mostly focused on prisoner exchanges and humanitarian issues. It was brought up by the Ukrainian side of Merdof, once again, to get a meeting between Zelensky and Putin and Medinsky, skillfully shot that down, saying that the meeting's going to take place when we have an agreement in place. And then the leaders will turn up and they'll sign that agreement, a capitulation. That's when the meeting's going to take place.

When there's a capitulation and whoever the leader is of Ukraine, if it's Zelensky or somebody else, then that person will turn up to sign the those papers, those documents. But that was pretty much how the meeting went. And then we have the issue on the front line with weapons going to Project Ukraine, the search for Patriot Systems. Germany is talking about eight months to deliver a patriot to Ukraine. And the Trump White House is giving some weapons to Project Ukraine about 320 million. worth of weapons, hawk air defense systems and Bradley's and stuff like that. So what are your thoughts

on what's happening with Ukraine? You want to start a diplomacy or the weapons? Well, let's start with this Istanbul negotiation because it is, I mean, the outcome was exactly what you said. I mean, in terms of actual movement towards a diplomatic solution, there wasn't any. I mean, in fact, one gets the impression that the two sides just talked past each other. The Russians argued the points about their memorandum. The Ukrainians argued on their memorandum, which basically seeks us a freezing of the conflict. The Ukrainians went there trying to get the summit meeting set up between Zelensky and Putin. The Russians utterly, predictably shot that all down. Medinsky dominated the press conference. It's not a lot of. It's not a

I have to say, I mean, this is a completely different Medinsky from the one I remember in February, March, April, 2022. I mean, at that time, everybody was saying what a weak negotiator he is. He's certainly not proving to be that this time. I mean, he's turning out to be on the contrary, a very tough and very skillful negotiators. So he's clearly evolved into the role or perhaps, you know, the situations in 2022 and now are, quite different. But I mean, he didn't give an inch and he brushed off the talk about sanctions and secondary sanctions and all of this. He said, you know, we're not paying any attention to that, basically. So the question is, why do this meeting in Istanbul take place at all? Because just

over the last couple of weeks, Zelensky's been making one statement after another saying that that Istanbul isn't going anywhere. The first two meetings didn't result in anything. There was no point in going to the third meeting. The only way forward was to have a direct meeting between himself and Putin. And then suddenly everything reverses. Ummerov doesn't go to Washington. He remains chief negotiator. And he sent to Istanbul. And we have this whole performance in Istanbul, which, which, leads nowhere at all. And this is the question that nobody really is asking, as well as I can see, what caused Zelensky to change? Now, my best guess is that the Trump administration told him, you cannot give up on these negotiations. You've got to continue with them. Donald Trump wants this. He's still hoping that there's going to be some kind of a breakthrough. And that was what persuaded Zelensky to send his team to Istanbul. But, you know, this is a guess. It's the best guess I can come up with. But anyway, Zelensky reversed course. He went to, he sent his people

to Istanbul. We got the result that we have seen. It could be the other possible explanation is that there is growing concern in Ukraine that the situation on the front lines is now becoming worse and worse, and maybe the Ukrainians are trying desperately to find some means to persuade the Russians into some kind of temporary ceasefires or something of that sort, and that was maybe why they sent their people to Istanbul. But if that was the intention, then he didn't get anywhere at all. Anyway, there we are. At the moment, the big take from this is that the Russians are not budging They're not budging on their demands. They're not intimidated by the secondary sanctions, the threats that Trump made about sanctions.

Another view, and just to quickly say, is that Zelensky may have thought that Trump's statements about the tariffs on Russia, the tariffs on China, that they might cause the Russians to waver. If that was the thinking, that clearly hasn't happened either. So the Russians aren't budging. They remain as tough as ever and they're not de-escalating the war on the contrary. They're making further advances on the battlefronts. There's supposedly going to be a fourth meeting. Nobody knows when. Suppose the Russians proposed working parties to study the various issues, the military, the humanitarian issues and all of those things. The Ukrainians didn't agree. Probably they don't want to get into detailed discussions with the Russians about those kinds of things. So it's a normal part of negotiations. Anyway, they didn't agree. They're supposed to go back to Zelensky to talk about these things.

We'll see whether anything comes of it. If there was infinite time, if Ukraine, the war was likely to continue for another five years, you might say that something might come out of this process. But I don't think the war is going to last five years, and I don't think anything is coming out of this process. No, I agree with you. Nothing's coming out of this process. But the good thing of these talks is that you have talks,

and you have the prisoner exchanges and the bodies of the deceased soldiers. They can be returned for a proper burial. I mean, you know, those are good things. come out of these talks. And you're absolutely right. Medinsky dominated. He completely dominated. And you can tell that Russia is very confident going forward when you see Medinsky talk.

And he answers the questions from reporters. You can tell that Russia is very confident in this process. What about the situation with the weapons? What about the situation with Germany and the Patriots? What do you make of Trump's 322 million in weapons to Ukraine? The Hawks and the Bradley's. A lot of the package deals with maintenance and training and spare parts and stuff like that. I know the hawk is a fairly old system.

I mean, it's been revamped and upgraded, but it's not a patriot. It's not a patriot. It's not a hawk. It's a hawk. It's an old system. It's what the US is going to be giving to Ukraine or selling to Ukraine, whatever, whatever Trump says about this. I say giving to Ukraine. What do you make of all of this? Well, as I understand it, this is a package which is being given to Ukraine. So when Trump says that, you know, they're only selling weapons to Ukraine from now on, that's not the case. at the moment. They're still supplying weapons to Ukraine. They're not supplying patriots because they're

short of patriots. And this has been made absolutely clear. The Pentagon is very alarmed about its stockpiles of Patriot missiles. So they are obliged to supply the Hawks. Now, the Hawks are a very old system. Dates back to the 1950s. It has been repeatedly modernized. One can't say it is of no use at all, hawk missiles could shoot down Gerard drones, for example. But then they're still more expensive, far more expensive than Geron drones. And there isn't an infinite supply of them either. Bearing mind that the hawk has been out of production for a very long time in the United States. So it's a system of limited utility for the Ukrainians. And it is not a system of limited utility for the Ukrainians. going to resolve their underlying crisis. Bradley's, by contrast, are necessary. Again,

Amysirski, the Ukrainian military commander said that they're very, very short of armor, and the Bradley's will be useful. But again, they're not going to solve Ukraine's underlying military crisis. So what we see with weapons in their totality is that the weapons, is that the West is now finally up against that problem, which we've discussed many times in many programs. Brian Belletti discussed it. Alex Vashin, the American officer who writes for Roussek, has been talking about it. The United States, basically, it is the United States, but NATO in general, have run up against the underlying problem of capacity. This became clear about a month ago when a delivery was paused because Patriot missiles had run out, had run out, or were running out.

And the United States, the Europeans, NATO, they're struggling, they're hunting around, trying to find a few weapons from here and from there. They're drawing down on some stockpiles. They're trying to maneuver each other into supplying whatever remaining weapons they have to Ukraine. But we are now at that point of exhaustion. It can't continue for much longer because there isn't very much more to give. And that's a point that we've reached after three and a half years of war. And three and a half years of war isn't a very long time if we're talking about the combined military power of the collective West.

Right. One final question. What is the Trump White House looking to achieve with these weapons packages, which make zero real difference in the trajectory of the war? If anything, it just keeps Trump, the Trump White House bogged down in Ukraine. Even Bloomberg came out with an article a couple of days ago and pretty much said that Ukraine is Trump's Afghanistan. What Afghanistan was to Biden, that is what Ukraine is going to be to Trump. Alluding to the fact that Ukraine is going to collapse and it's all going to be blamed on Trump. All of it's going to be blamed on Trump in much the same way that Afghanistan was blamed on Biden. But what is the Trump White House looking to achieve? This is not a strategy. I'm trying to figure out.

What are they looking to achieve? Hawk missiles here. Okay, Bradley's, you explain. Bradley's fine, but it doesn't make a difference. Nothing is going to make a difference anymore. 50-day tariffs, these threats, truth. social posts. Why is he bogging himself down in an eventual catastrophic defeat for him, for his presidency, for his White House? Why is he doing this to himself? The Trump White House, it was what I'm talking about. Why are they doing this? You're completely right. And this is where I think he made the massive mistake in his approach to this entire conflict. Now, we said it, you know,

you know, almost a year ago, if he wins the presidency, he should walk away. He should say, look, the United States has done everything it possibly can to support Ukraine. It's not my war. I never believed in it. It was not my idea. From now on, if the Europeans are so invested in this war, they can deal with it. The United States itself is walking away. If you taken that position, When he became president in January, it would have been a strong, clear position. And he would have been able to walk away. And if Afghanistan had imploded, he could have said, look, this is never anything to do with me. I never believed in this.

I always thought it was a mistake. It's Biden's fault. It's the Europeans' fault. We did what we could. We couldn't realistically or reasonably be asked to do more. And besides, our core interests were never engaged. In fact, to the extent that we have core interests, they are in reestablishing some kind of dialogue, long-term dialogue with Russia. That would have a strong position to have taken in January.

Now, what's happening now is because he didn't take that strong position in January, he is being gradually pushed to a position where he's sort of walking away in the sense that he's not able to go on supply weapons to Ukraine because the weapons are running out. He is pulling in a few weapons here, pulling in a few weapons there, but it's not really going to change anything. He's making threats of tariffs and sanctions, which impress no one, apart perhaps from Lindsey Graham and Richard Blument told that the Chinese are not paying any attention. The Russians are not paying any attention.

The Indians are not paying any attention. Nobody really believes that he's going to see this through. And of course, his attempts to get a seized fire, a freeze of the conflict, all of that, the Kellogg Plan and all of that, that has all failed. So in effect, he has been forced to walk away. but what he could have done as a strong act of decision in January is now something which he is in effect being forced on him by events after he's effectively taken ownership of it. So, I mean, he's ended up, in my opinion, with the worst of all outcomes. I mean, if he'd gone all in, supported Zelensky,

he'd continue to supply weapons to Ukraine, given the appearance of conviction. Well, it might have all failed. In fact, it would have failed, and he would still have been blamed, but people might have said, well, Trump did what he could. If he'd done what we suggested,

I think it would have been even better. His base would have been really happy. They would have said, you know, the president really does believe in America first. He didn't do, either of those things. He tried to do a bit of supporting Ukraine, a bit of negotiating without really working out what the negotiations, what was realistic to expect in the negotiations. And as I said, he's ended up in the worst of all worlds where Ukraine is going to collapse. The United States

is still sending weapons to Ukrainian limited quantities because he feels under a political pressure to do it. His tariff threats are not being taken seriously. He's going to look weak and he's still going to be blamed when the conflict in Ukraine ends in the kind of collapse that we're talking about. So it really was a terrible mistake and he should have listened to the advice, which was not just advice we were giving, but his advice to some of the people close to him were giving to walk away. But for reasons unknown to me, he didn't. He didn't do that. We gave that advice.

A year of a year ago. We were the first. We were the first people to, I mean, it's important to say that. We were the first people to give that advice. But he didn't follow it. And as I said, we see where we are. He's now, as I said, it looks messy and weak where he could have looked strong. So a final question.

Do you think this narrative that he's now trying to construct? And that's clearly what the White House is trying to do with Project Ukraine, the narrative that we're selling weapons to NATO or selling weapons to the Europeans. And they're buying weapons from us. And we're making money. That dummy Biden, he was giving weapons to Ukraine, but I'm selling them to the Europeans. And then the Europeans are going to give them to Ukraine. So look at me, the great deal maker.

Do you think this makes matters worse for him? Or do you think that this is a possible exit out of this? I think it makes matters worse for him. And I'll tell you why, first of all, I don't think the MAGA base, that part of the MAGA base that cares about this, which is a substantial part of the MAGA base and includes the most articulate and forceful people in it. I don't think they're impressed by this. I think they see right through this. And I think that's left them even more angry, actually. So it looks shifty and evasive in ways that, as I said, they don't like.

So I think it's making matters worse for him. And the other problem is, of course, I mean, he is still supplying Ukraine with weapons. And at the moment, he's not getting any money. So, I mean, he's looking not like a successful deal maker, but actually like a rather poor deal maker. Why supply weapons to a country that is losing the war that is going down? It doesn't make sense. It's like giving money to a bankrupt. I mean, you're just throwing it away. I think Rand Paul said as much. Actually, in an interview, a couple, it's like giving money. Yeah. Ram Paul said something along those lines. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. At the bottom line,

to all this is why continue to prop up and give money and give weapons to the side that is obviously losing and is going to lose in a big way. Why continue to do this? When you know, the interesting part to all this, when you can align with the winners. Yes. Yes. Now, I mean, it doesn't make any sense. But clearly, Trump listened to the wrong people. He was given a lot of bad advice. He always seems to have this desire

to appear strong, to make the United States appear strong. I think a lot of the clue to understanding where all this has gone wrong is the whole piece through strength, mythology, which I should say you were the first person.

I remember on your channel to point out what a disastrous slogan, because it is only a slogan, that is and has turned out to be. All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble and on X and on Telegram and go to Durand shopping of some merch, like what we are wearing in this video update.

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