The Duran Podcast - Trump, Vance, Kellogg test Putin's restraint and Russia's Red Line

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Trump, Vance, Kellogg test Putin's restraint and Russia's Red Line

All right, Alexander, we have some interesting statements from U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, as well as Trump's Ukraine-Russia envoy, Keith Kellogg, who made the rounds on U.S. media yesterday, and both of them said that the option for Tomahawk long-range missiles is being discussed. The final decision will be made by the president of the United States. States, Kellogg said that they're making lists of targets along with Ukraine. They're consulting with Ukraine and they're putting together lists of what they're going to target. He pretty much said everything's on the table. We have Zelensky talking about decapitation strikes. He's openly talking about decapitation strikes. He's not hiding that. And you have Vance being a huge disappointment

in his statements, basically repeating all of the nonsense that Trump has been. been saying for the past couple of weeks, Russia is taking huge losses. The Russia economy is crumbling. When is Putin going to end this useless war? We as the United States, we want peace. We've always been about peace, but Putin doesn't want to negotiate on a bilateral basis. He doesn't want to negotiate on a trilateral basis. So because we're all about peace as the United States of America and the Trump administration, what we're going to do or what we're considering to do is to send long-range tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. so that they can be fired into the Russian Federation. These are missiles with up to a 3,000

kilometer range that can be nuclear. And when I listened to Vance, I got the impression that the decision has been made. And perhaps the missiles may already be in Ukraine. And of course, Ukraine is not going to be firing these missiles. These missiles will be fired by the United States. It would be a huge escalation. But listening to Kellogg, I got the impression. that the Trump White House is ready to test this Russian red line and the belief that Russia's going to back off, they may not be wrong in testing this red line. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I'm not even saying that the Tomahawks are going to be fired into Russia. I think, listening to these two statements, that that is where we are or that is where

we're going, I hope I'm wrong. I hope this is a bluff. I hope that Vance and Kellogg are just, or at least Vance, who cares about Kellogg? I hope that Venn's. Vance is talking trash or just kind of talking, talking the nonsense that Trump was talking in order to make it easier to disengage from Ukraine? I don't know. I can't figure out any other reason for what Vance said other than they're paving the way for what will be some sort of an escalation with Russia. I don't know. What are your thoughts on everything? There's a number of things to say here. Now, I think the first thing to say about launching Tomahawks, if this is going to be done from the territory of Ukraine, then you are talking about very big installations. I mean, these are not missiles that, you know, you can sort of, they're not like high mass missiles that are there on the back of a truck.

You can, you either launch them from pre-positioned, well-established physical sites and locations, you know, large structures, which of course would be very visible, immediately visible to the Russians. Or there is apparently, or there is, in fact, a mobile, a road mobile system called the Typhon. It has only recently entered service with the United States. there are not that many of them. And it is enormous. I mean, this is a big, long, you know, truck and all kinds of things. It would be, it would again be something which, yes, up to a certain point you could conceal. But it would be similar in size and scale to a patriot system, if I could say.

Did the Germany order those? Exactly. Germany wants those. Right. They're not that many of them. I mean, they're not that many of them so far in service. They would have to be produced in larger numbers. Perhaps the assumption is because, of course, what Vance was talking about was that the United States could sell these systems to the Europeans.

And the Europeans might then pass them on to the Ukrainians. But this looks to me like something that's going to take a while to happen, even if that decision. has been made. Because for the moment, as I understand it, they're not that many of these systems. So I suspect what this happened. And this is where I think we always come back to Kellogg because Zelensky has been talking about Tomahawks. He's been demanding Tomahawks for months. And apparently he brings them up in every single conversation he has with Trump now. He's become obsessed with the idea of Tomahawks. I suspect that it is the Ukrainians who've been talking about particular sites and targets that they are thinking about.

The idea is then communicated to Kellogg. Kellogg then acts as the big advocate for this within the administration. and you can see that in all of any various interviews he has been giving. Trump, as he so often does, listens to these very bad ideas and doesn't scotch them right away. And the result is that this whole thing begins to develop a kind of, you know, batten. Vance, who doesn't want to contradict Trump and doesn't want to speak, you know, close an option that Trump is supposedly still considering gives this really very weak and very bad interview to the US media. So I think that is probably the route that's been taken. The problem is

it may seem that, you know, I'm taking a slightly more optimistic line on this than you just were. But what we have repeatedly seen over the course of this conflict, certainly this is true under the Biden administration, is that whenever Zelensky asks for a weapon, sooner or later you get it. And this is always true under Biden. there has to be a possibility that it is still going to be true under Trump. And you could see that there are advocates, very strong advocates, Kellogg, for example, and others within the US who will support this. Now, the reason we are now talking about Tomahawks, about long-range missile strikes against the Russians,

about targets against the Russians is because all of these people who are the firm advocates of Ukraine, Lindsay Graham, Kellogg, all of these people, is that they've now, I think, finally grasped that the massive sanctions

that was the idea a few weeks ago, Lindsay Graham's bone-crushing sanctions, that idea has basically been dropped because China has basically, called the bluff on that. India to some extent, to a large extent, has also called the bluff on that. Kellogg still wants to try to force the Russians to freeze the conflict

or to, you know, stop where they are. So he senses his lack of leverage or the US's lack of leverage. Zelensky, of course, always wants to take the battle to the Russians because that's what Zelensky does, and it's out of that that this disastrous idea of the Tomahawks has come. So I think this is what this is all about. It's because the bone crushing sanctions idea has basically had to be dropped, so now they're coming up with this equally bad and disastrous idea, which is the Tomahawks. Now, if the Tomahawks has a small thing, they're going to be dropped, supply to Ukraine and are used. And, you know, we're probably quite a long time from that point. I mean, it might take even a year, as I understand it, for enough typhon systems to be produced

to make this possible. But if these missiles are supplied to Ukraine and if they're used, then this is a dramatic, this is a colossal escalation. These are strategic systems. They have potential ability to be used with nuclear warheads. The Russians will certainly react. I don't think it's, it's a mistake to think that they will simply sit on their hands and do nothing. One thing, which I suspect the Russians would do in response to this is that it will be the end, the final and complete and total end of any steps towards day. reproschement, improvement of relations between the United States and Russia. Why would the U.S.? Isn't that what the Niel Khans want?

Well, of course it is. Why would that matter to them? Well, of course it is. If that was a Russian retaliation, a response to just, yes. I think the Nio Kans would be laughing at that type of response. Well, they would be delighted with it. And this is partly no doubt why this whole idea is being promoted. By the way, I'm not suggesting that's the only response the Russians would make. The Russians might make other responses as well. They are already agreeing to provide nuclear reactors for new nuclear power stations to run, for example.

They might start taking more steps there. Who knows? But I don't want to explore more deeply this programme future Russian responses. Of that nature, what I am saying is, yes, the NIRCONs would be delighted about this. The Europeans would be delighted about this. But the signature foreign policy that Donald Trump used to talk about rapprochement and detente with the Russians, all the various plans to build up economic ties with the Russians to reduce the American military footprint in Europe, all of that will have gone up in smoke and, of course, any idea that eventually you might find ways to work with the Russians and draw

away from China, where you can forget that forever. I think Vance kind of killed that, didn't he? I mean, you know, in the past six, seven months, it's been the Vance-Wittkoff faction against the Kellogg, let's say, Lindsay Graham faction, right? And Trump was discussing with Wittkoff and Vance and having them do stuff, sending Wittkoff to Moscow and negotiating. with using diplomacy, and then he would side with Kellogg and talk about conflict freezes and bone crushing sanctions and more weapons to Ukraine and all of these things. With that statement

from Vance, it seems like he's shifted to the Kellogg side of things. He agreed with Kellogg. I mean, there's no doubt about it. You listen to both of their statements and they're aligned. And even Kellogg in his interview the other day said that that Vance, was speaking about the Tomahawks, the long-range missiles. Vice President Vance is talking about the possibility of sending these missiles. So, I mean, it does look like that Vance, whether he intended to or not, maybe he thought on protecting the president of the United States and covering for him. But by doing so, he is now on record, public record, to be on the side of Kellogg.

now where, you know, just a couple of weeks ago, he was not. He was, he was the voice of reason when it came to foreign policy. Now he's the voice of war. Well, can I just say it's exactly the same pattern as we saw during the conflict with Iran back in June, where before the conflict began, it looked as if Vance was the moderate. And then when the fighting started, when the United States became involved, Vance shifted back into public support for the president's position. Vance never, ever at any time, says anything which would potentially put him in conflict with Trump. And we talk about Kellogg, but at the moment, the person who is the person who's going to make the final decisions is always Trump. And Trump at the moment is echoing Kellogg's language.

that's I think where Vance comes in. Now, I mean, notice that Vance talked about the Russians needed to come to their senses and things of that kind. He seems to, and this is where I think the real problem is. I think that there is still some inability in the United States, even on the Wic-Goff side, and this applies to Wig-Off as well, to understand that the Russians, really do care about the conflict in Ukraine and do intend to see this through.

I think that there's still this idea that you can somehow get the Russians on side by offering them sanctions relief, by doing deals with them and economic matters, on the Arctic and things of that kind. those discussions are always happening in the U.S. Kellogg, to some extent, has talked like this himself. And I think the Americans simply don't get it, that the Russians do mean what they say about their objectives in Ukraine. Russia's to blame, though, for this.

Did they have a part to play in this misconception from the United States, this inability to understand how important Ukraine is for Russia. Russia has taken the approach where it's NATO and the EU that are antagonizing us, that are provoking us. It's the United States that are our partners. The Trump administration is our partners. We are going to do deals in the Arctic. We are going to do deals with energy and oil and gas. And we do want to do business with the United States. That's the message that that the Putin administration has been putting out there, which may lead some people in the Trump administration to believe, you know what? We can wage a proxy war against these guys. We can wage

a hot war against these guys and they still come and they still come back to us. After everything we've done to them, I'm positive that there are people that are thinking like this. And, you know what? It makes it in a way, it's understandable. It makes sense. They're saying, We've provided weapons. We've regime changed Ukraine. We've cooed it. We've sent javelins. We've sent Haimars, F-16s, everything.

We've committed all these horrific acts against Russia. And they still come back to us. And Lavrov was doing it again at the United Nations. Yes. Because I wanted to talk about Lavrov. Because, of course, Lavrov was making exactly the same points that you've just been making in his speech to the UN General Assembly. and he was also making similar comments in a press conference.

And I agree with you, and so do many, many people in Russia. Now, we've discussed this several times now. And it is becoming a line that Putin himself has stuck with ever since Trump was elected. and which you saw even before. He retains this hankering for some kind of ultimate relationship, some kind of understanding with the Americans. And you could see why he's coming to this, because as we've discussed many times,

the Russians want peace on their Western border. They understand that the Europeans are hopeless. You can never come to some kind of. of any kind of arrangement with them. They note that the United States has agency and they say to themselves, well, we got a president who talks about wanting a better relationship with us. Let's see whether we can find a way towards some kind of agreement with him so that we can sort out these issues on our Western border once we have finally and fully resolved the problem of Ukraine. And here again, I think that Putin, because he's been seeking this objective, and he

talked about it all the way back in his speech that he made to the Russian foreign ministry in November 2021, he talked about the need then to try and find some way of coming to an understanding with the Americans in that form. What he is finding, is that this understanding never materializes. And there are more and more people in Russia. Medvedev, who made some very interesting points, by the way, after Lavrov spoke, you can see that he no longer really believes in this. And I got the sense that more and more people within the Russian elite no longer think like this,

either, but Putin himself clings to this idea. And for the moment at least, he remains committed to it. Now, eventually, as I said many times, Putin, who is out on a limb on this, I mean, when Lavrov talks to the UN General Assembly, he speaks on Putin's behalf. one gets the sense that even Lavrov doesn't fully agree with Putin about this. But eventually, Putin is going to find it impossible to sustain this position. And I suspect Tom Hawks are going to be, if they're ever deployed and launched against Russia, are going to be the moment when finally. No, I think so. They went after the nuclear triad and Russia did nothing. I mean, they've crossed so many imaginary red lines and real red lines.

I mean, they have crossed real red lines in a way. I mean, you know, I think... The missile strikes were a significant red line. I think the attack on the strategic basis, I think that here, perhaps the Russians had reasons to believe that the Americans might, some American officials were certainly opposed to it. But Tom Hawks, it's impossible to, if Tom Hawks are supplied to Ukraine and launched against targets in Russia, it will no longer be possible to pretend that that is, that there's anybody in the United States who has disagrees with this, because this would be an official step taken by the US government.

Does Putin listen to stuff that Trump is saying? And forget about the truth social post that he put out a couple days ago. That was a nutty, sarcastic, dumb post that he put out there, Trump. I mean, forget about that. But I'm saying everything else. Vance, what he said the other day, what Kellogg is saying, what Trump says when he speaks to reporters in the Oval Office. Does Putin get briefed on this stuff? Because, you know, on the one hand, he's clinging on to the hope that he has a,

a sovereign, rational leader in Trump, or at least someone that can make a decision, which is something the Europeans cannot do. But at least with Trump, he has a sovereign country there and a president who has shown the ability to take a decision, even a decision that may not be popular with the neocons of the deep state. He has that in Trump. You can argue that he has that. So he clings on to this hope that he'll be able to find some sort of an understanding with the Trump administration. But the Trump administration is gone in three years. So whatever understanding he finds with the Trump administration can be switched off or switch back to what it was with Biden with the new election. But even the words from Trump, forget his actions.

His actions show escalation. But even the words from Trump. are now shifting towards escalation, where you could make the argument a month ago or two months ago, say the Alaska time frame or after Alaska, the words were more friendly towards Putin and to Russia. And the actions at that meeting were friendly. But then he switches right back to Kellogg mode, right? And it's not that the United States doesn't want to give weapons to Ukraine. It's that they don't have the weapons.

And Zelensky is talking about a 90 billion weapons package. That's a huge weapons package. That's much bigger than Biden's weapons packages. You have all these things happening, which are all focused on one thing to destroy Russia. And when Zelensky is saying he's going to hit the Kremlin and he's talking about decapitation strike, Zelensky's not coming up with him with this. His puppet masters are coming up with this. And we know, and you mentioned it in a video that you recorded the other day, the fear that I think everyone has is we know that the Trump administration,

their foreign policy is a foreign policy based on trickery and deception. And it's a foreign policy that has embraced decapitation strikes. They have embraced it. They've endorsed it. Yes. And so Zelensky's getting these ideas. Yeah, he's getting it from what he sees with what happened in Iran and Qatar and all these things. But people are feeding him these ideas as well.

And he's coming on and he's repeating these things. So I'm just asking you the question because it seems. that Putin appears disconnected. And in a way, he ran into this trouble with Merkel. When you go back to Minskwan and Minsk, he put so much belief in Merkel that he got burned very badly. And it seems like maybe he's in the same kind of scenario with Trump, where he's put so much belief that this man, Trump, will be able to finally make a sovereign decision that sets in the best interest of the United States of the world, of the entire situation that he's doubled and tripled down on it without seeing everything else that is happening around here.

Right. There's a number of things to say. I said a lot, but you mentioned this in your video and you got into the details of the decapitation strike, Trump's foreign policy, a foreign policy of deception. We are seeing that play out again now with Russia. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a number of things to say here. First of all, there is absolutely no doubt at all that Putin gets fully briefed about everything

that he said in the United States by US officials about what is going on amongst the decision makers there. And we know also, because we have a fair amount of information from what the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, publishes, that the tone that they have, that their understanding their appreciation of Western and American policy is a completely realistic one. I mean, they are not fooled. And we can be confident that in their briefings to Putin, they are not deceiving him or sugarcoating things either.

I say that because the SVR publishes on a fairly regular basis, you know, summaries of what its views are and sometimes it goes into much more detail. So he absolutely gets briefed about these kind of things. About that, I have absolutely no doubt at all. Secondly, you are absolutely correct

that Putin did overinvest in Angela Merkel. And he does have this tendency to do this. He apparently did this to some extent with Bill Clinton as well. he also developed for a time a very close and deep relationship with George W. Bush. So, you know, he has this tendency to forge relationships with people and to have excessive trust in them. And there was something that happened at Anchorage. And we've discussed this.

And I've discussed this in several programs also. which I think highlights this, because if you look at what Putin said after Anchorage, if you look at things that Lavrov said after Anchorage, and Lavrov again, as I said, is echoing Putin's thoughts. It's absolutely clear to me that the Russians, Putin, came away from Anchorage under the obviously completely mistaken impression that Trump and the Americans were prepared to discuss the future security architecture of Europe. Now, this is something that the Russians have been talking about for years. The December 9th, 2021 treaties were supposedly all about this.

And if you remember that famous press conference at Anchorage, in which Putin said that, you know, Trump and he had reached an understanding. That I am confident is what the understanding was all about. Now, what almost certainly in fact happened is that Putin in his usual way explained all the Russian thoughts and ideas about a new security architecture in Europe to Trump. And Trump, in his usual way, appeared to say yes and appeared to agree, but in fact wasn't really engaged with this and probably wasn't interested in it and probably all this was new to him anyway and didn't take any of it seriously. But this is another example of how Putin, despite all the advice that he is getting, remember, he's a person who lived through the Soviet experience

lived through the 1990s, wants to stabilize ultimately the situation on, to say, on Russia's western borders. He wants, therefore, an understanding with the Americans. He has trust, well, he understands the reality of the American power. And of course, he's also, like many, many, very rational, people. He is led along the wrong path by his own rationality because he says to himself

doing all of these things are in America's interests. And so why wouldn't they do them? Just as he assumed undoubtedly that forging all those gas pipeline links with Germany was in Germany's interests, so why not stick with that? By the way, on the gas pipelines, or Nord Stream, as I pointed out many times, gas prompt didn't want to do it. They told him, don't do it. They told him, don't do it. But he did it.

This isn't going to work out. This isn't going to work out well. We made a decision. We're not building any more pipelines to Europe. And Merkel came along, asked him, for it after she'd got him to agree to Minsk too, and he overrode Gasprom and Nord Stream was built with all the trouble that came in his way. So he has this tendency to say to himself, well, oh, surely the other side is as rational as I am.

It's a trap, by the way, into which many rational people fall. But, and this is the last thing to say about Putin, in the end, he will always defend Russian national interests. We've had this big push from the Americans over the last 10 months to try to get him to sign up to ceasefires, to agree to all sorts of things in terms of the conflict in Ukraine, to accept the Kellogg Plan. and he's always stood firm on all of those things. So, yes, he is someone who is led along, but he will never do it to the point when ultimate Russian security interests

or the national interests of Russia are put at existence. So to repeat again, if Tomahawk cruise missiles are delivered to Ukraine, that will be the moment when he changes and when these attempts to try and come to some kind of understanding where the Americans finally end. Just the final question. Is there a possibility that perhaps over the past seven months, the Trump administration and the Europeans, the Germans, because they're the ones that asked for the launch system. for the Tomahawks. Yeah. Is there a possibility that from day one on January 21st, maybe even going back to the Biden administration, the decision was already made and everything that has been happening has

just been a way to just kind of, you know, by time. Well, maybe. So everything could already be in place like they did with the attack homes, like they did with so many other weapon systems, you know, they already had them in place. They were already sent to Ukraine. And then when they announced that they're going to approve these weapons, the next day those weapons were already fired into Russia. The difficulty with that is that all of those previous systems, the M-Triple-7s, the high mass, the attack, and all of that, these were already existing systems, which were available in large quantities. The typhoon system is new, is relatively new.

It's only been entering service with the United States. I believe over the last year. So perhaps within the Biden administration, they already had this in mind. Maybe this had also been discussed with Mertz, possibly quite plausibly Mertz thinks this as well. But I just don't think there are enough typhons despair to do it in that way that you have said. I ought to quickly add something else. Let's say that Ukraine is supplied with typhon systems.

And let's say that these missiles are indeed launched against Russia. They're not going to make any military difference. Maybe we want to test them? Well, they might want to test them. But I mean, when Tom Ork missiles were launched at Syria, for example, the Russian air defense system. And in fact, the Syrian air defense system coped with them quite. well. So, you know, these are relatively, you know, the, obviously they've been updated and they've been modernized, but the Russian air defense system has been built around countering the tomahawks,

which were first developed in the 1970s, well, ever since then. So the Russians know about the Tomahawks. They know their capabilities very well. It'll be ready for. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.orgas.com. We are on X and Rumble and Telegram. We go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch, like what we are wearing in this video update. There's a link in the description box down below.

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