The Duran Podcast - UKRAINE ceasefire and the negotiation trap

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

UKRAINE ceasefire and the negotiation trap

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the trip from Modi's national security advisor to Moscow. He's going to be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to various news outlets in India, he will be discussing a possible peace plan for the conflict in Ukraine. What is going on here? Well, you remember about, I think it was two weeks ago, we did a program. We said that the one thing that the Russians have to worry about in the war, they're now winning the war in Ukraine. Nobody, I think, any longer has any real doubt about that.

But the one thing that they have to worry about is their allies and the fact that they have been coming under pressure from their allies to try to find a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine. And we've now learned that the Russians were indeed under significant pressure to begin negotiations or to agree to negotiations with the Ukrainians over the course of the summer. Then the Kusk offensive, Ukraine launched its Kusk offensive, which caused that pressure to be lifted for a while. but it looks as if the Indians are now coming back and they're again apparently talking about negotiations that they're trying to get negotiations

or some sort of a dialogue going between the Russians and the Ukrainians. Now, everybody who has been following this knows that the Russians don't want this. Putin gave a press conference whilst he was in Vladivostok at the Far East Asian Economic Forum. He was asked about negotiations. I got the sense that he was very, very tired of the topic and very exasperated. He complained at one point that he's gone to great lengths many times

to explain the origins of this conflict in the coup that took place in Ukraine in 2014. and the subsequent policies of the Ukrainian government. He says that people don't seem to want to listen. He was ambiguous as to who he meant, but I got the sense that he meant his allies, the Indians and the Brazilians. And he mentioned countries that he was asked, who might be mediators, that he spoke about China, India and Brazil.

China, I think we can discount the Chinese seem to be on very strong terms with the Russians. At the moment, I don't think that the Chinese are interested in inserting themselves with the Russians in this kind of way. But the Indians and the Brazilians have a joint position and they've been trying at various times to get negotiations going. And Modi, of course, went to Kiev about a week ago and met Zelensky there. So that's the background. Now, about this trip by Ajat Doval, who is Modi's national security advisor to Moscow, I think before we explore and discuss what's going on there, it is very important to understand that this meeting cannot be connected specifically with any plan or discussion to conduct

negotiations because the Russians some time ago arranged a summit meeting in Moscow for this week of all the national security advisors of all 10 BRICS member countries. And Doval was of course invited to participate in this meeting and that is why he is going to Moscow. That is his reason for going to Moscow. And he's not only going to Moscow to discuss peace plans about Ukraine. He's undoubtedly going to be involved in this discussion with the other national security advisors, where they're probably working on preparing a joint statement to be released by the various BRIC states on national security and foreign policy issues. at the forthcoming Bricks summit meeting in Kazan.

This is what this is all about. And there are also reports in the Indian media. The Doval is also going to be speaking to his Chinese counterpart in Moscow in order to try to arrange a summit meeting in Kazan, an actual bilateral meeting in Kazan between Modi and Xi Jinping, and that this is at least as important as everything else. but he will be going obviously to discuss peace in Ukraine and he's going to apparently not propose an actual peace plan

this is what I've read in the Indian media but he is going to talk about seeing ways to start negotiations the Russians are not happy about this they don't like it Putin again went into into this rearguard position that he took over the course of the summer. He's saying, right, we've never rejected negotiations. It was the Ukrainians who rejected negotiations. If there is a demand for negotiations, we've set out what our position is.

It's the four regions and Istanbul Plus. And the Ukrainians have to understand that is the only basis upon which an agreement can be reached. If the Ukrainians want to negotiate in the meantime, they're free to do so, they can call us up, but there will be no ceasefire whilst those negotiations are underway, unless and until the Ukrainians withdraw completely from the four regions. So he's fallen back on that position. And we can see that he's doing this, not because he really wants to negotiate or because he has any belief in negotiations, but because he's faced with this pressure from the Indians and the Brazilians,

and he feels he has to deal with him. Let me do Medvedev put out a post maybe like two weeks ago, where he talked about the negotiation trap. That because of the curse concussion, the negotiation trap has now been averted, but that doesn't look like that's the case. Two weeks ago, we were saying that it looked like that it was India and China, and specifically China that was putting pressure on Putin to look for a ceasefire, to search for a ceasefire and to go slow as far as the conflict was concerned.

Why do you now believe that it's more India and Brazil and China is not putting as much pressure on Putin? Because of the list of countries that Putin identified, he mentioned China, India and Brazil. China, I think, and I've been reading their statements and their commentaries and the media there, I think the Chinese have completely lost patience with the Ukrainians. They've given up on this whole idea of negotiations. I think Kuzk, for them, was the final straw. The Indians and the Brazilians are different. And the reason I think that Putin mentioned the Chinese alongside the Indians and the Brazilians

is because he couldn't very much talk, very well talk about India and Brazil, without mentioning China. The fact that he talked about India and Brazil tells us that it is from them now that the pressure, principally, is coming. So I think it is the Indians and the Brazilians. that he's having to deal with at the moment. So that's, I think, where the pressure is. And you're absolutely right.

The Russians see this as a negotiating negotiation. Trap and they have to perform a very careful balancing act as they were doing over the course of the summer. They don't want, they don't really believe in negotiations. As Medvedev said, if they start negotiating, that could evolve into a trap. But at the same time, they can't reject negotiations completely because their friends, the Brazilians and the Indians, have clearly signalled that they want to see the Russians showing at least openness to the idea of negotiations. So Putin is taking his position.

he says this is the only basis that I'm prepared to talk with the Ukrainians about, which is Istanbul. Plus, if the Ukrainians want negotiations, they have to do two things. They have to accept that Zelensky's peace plan is over. It's hopeless. They have to agree, in other words, to discuss Istanbul. Plus, and of course they have to cancel the decree that Zelensky published back in the autumn of 22, in which he ruled out negotiations unless Putin steps down. So this is, it's his, if you like, his rear-guards position.

It's the position he's created because he knows, and I'm sure he's right, there's been a really good article about this. by the Indian commentator M.K. Badrakuma. He knows that the Ukrainians will never agree to this. So he's telling his friends, the Indians and the Brazilians, look, I'm not saying no. I'm being very reasonable, but the Ukrainians are not being realistic. And until and unless that changes, the subject of negotiations is ultimately

an academic one, because if negotiations were to take place at the present time, they would lead nowhere. So India and Brazil must know this as well. I mean, why are they continuing to push for a negotiation, a piece based on Zelensky's peace formula or not based on Putin's proposals? I mean, Putin has been saying for the past two and a half years that Russia is open to negotiations. I mean, he has been saying that. After the Kersk incursion, it seems like, it seemed like the door had been closed on negotiations, even from Putin's side. And Putin has been

offering various proposals for a negotiated settlement. They've all, for negotiated settlement. They've all been rejected by Ukraine. India sees all of this playing out. They've seen the incursion interk. Modi has not happened. very good meetings with Zelensky. Zaleski's been very rude to Modi every time they have met. They must understand what's going on. They must understand the dynamics of what's happening in Ukraine. Why would India and Brazil want Russia to fall into a negotiation trap? And what exactly is the trap that Medvedev talks about? Right. Well, let's deal with the trap. First of all, the concern the Russians have and it was explained very carefully by Medvedev, by Lavrov in various interviews

that he has given. And it was repeated, by the way, to us, to Glenn Dyson and myself by Ambassador Poliyanski in a recent program that we did with him, which is that whenever you talk about anything with the Ukrainians on any issue, eventually what you discover is that, you know, the Ukrainians will try to bring you round to Zelensky, to try you bring you back to a discussion of Zelensky's peace formula. Zelensky's peace formula is that Russia would accept Ukraine's territorial integrity, based on its 1991 borders, withdraw from the four regions and Crimea, in other words, capitulate, and then negotiate, and then negotiate. on Ukraine's further demands, which are reparations, war crimes, trials, and that sort of thing.

The Russians do not want to be discussing with the Ukrainians, anything like that. They have categorically ruled it out. So for that reason, the Russians are very, very unwilling to enter into discussions with the Ukrainians at the present time at all. They say that's why they insist that the only basis for negotiations must be Istanbul plus. Otherwise, the whole thing becomes a trap and it becomes pointless and the negotiations will go nowhere. But in the meantime, the Russians could find themselves in an awkward position. So that's the negotiation trap. The Indians and the Brazilians understand this very well.

or at least the Indians do. I don't know to what extent Lula does in Brazil. He's more distant from this conflict. But I think Modi, who, as you correctly say, has had difficult meetings with Zelensky. The two don't get on. He's last meeting with Zelensky in Kiev. His whole trip to Kiev lasted just seven hours.

Just saying. So it was not particularly successful and a happy meeting. And apparently Zelensky refused. to budge from his formulas, you know, the peace formula, in spite of Modi trying to get him to shift on it. Well, the reason they are doing this is because India and Brazil are preparing to sign up to some very, very important long-range commitments at the BRIC summit in Kazan. And they're about setting up financial systems and trading systems and agreeing foreign policy positions and all of these things. At the same time, they are independent countries. Each has its relationship with the United States.

Lula has a very strong relationship with some people in the United States. We've had information recently, and I don't know how true this is, but we've had information recently, which appears to come from American sources that the Americans helped him to win the election against Bolsonaro and to come back into power in Brazil. So he has to contend with all of that. In Modi's case,

he's been triangulating between China and the United States, trying to keep a sort of balance between them. He's also got to contend with a very, very strong Atlantisist community, with opinions on the part of some of his principal financial backers in Mumbai. So Lula and Modi have to maintain a balance. They don't want the West.

They don't want their own Atlantisists in their own countries. saying, look, you've gone over completely to the Russian and the Chinese side. And so for that reason, they're trying to maintain, preserve their freedom of manoeuvre in advance of the Brick Summit by saying, look, we're not fully committed to the Russians. We believe in peace. We want negotiations. trying to get the two sides to talk to each other, we're finding it very, very difficult to do so. And this is where the Russians are more sophisticated, because they're not slamming the door

in Modi's or Lula's face. They're not saying, look, negotiation with this man in Kiev is impossible. We can't speak to him. The idea is ridiculous. They're saying, look, we are prepared to talk, we're prepared to put forward reasonable ideas. The problem always is that the Ukrainians are not. The Ukrainians cannot move from Zelensky's peace formula. And that works very much. That works ultimately in Moscow's favor, in Putin's favor. Now that, of course, begs the question, And if the Ukrainians were a little bit more sophisticated and were prepared to show more flexibility, if they were prepared to come along and say, look, we're prepared to move on NATO membership and neutrality. And we're prepared to talk about rights for Russian speakers in Ukraine and were prepared to acknowledge territorial changes in Dombas.

Well, the Russians would be under a lot more pressure than they currently are. But by sticking to Zelensky's peace formula, the Ukrainians are making it much easier for the Russians than it might otherwise be. Ukraine will never do that. Zelensky will never do that. No. And the Russians know that. And the Indians know that. And the Indians know that.

So it's a complicated dance that all of these countries are playing. It's a tiresome one. The Russians, I think, are fed up with it. And that was very much my impression from Putin's comments, actually. I mean, he's tired of going over the same ground again and again and again. But he understands he has to do it. I think he and Modi understand each other very well on this issue. but each of them has their own pressures that they have to contend with and they have to go through the motions of looking for a negotiated solution

even as each of them knows it's never going to come the Chinese have been there already if you remember last year Xi Jinping the Chinese came up with their principles on how a peace should be organized fairly very detailed in some respects very vague in others it was never fully a peace proposal but it was a set of ideas they then appointed a representative lique who was supposed to act as a broker and potential mediator he went to moscow he regularly goes to mosk he's still around he went to moscow he went to kiev he went to the European capitals. He found that the Russians were prepared to work with him. The Ukrainians were not, or at least not on any rational basis. And I get the sense that the Chinese, after Kusk, have just had enough. And we hear a lot less about Li Kui anymore. And if you

look at the Chinese media now, and the way they're commenting, they are, I think, I think they've basically given up on Ukraine, and they've come to the conclusion that their relations with the West, with the United States, have now moved on to an altogether more difficult than more complex level. And there's no point any longer in pretending that they are, you know, seriously trying to mediate. So they've given up on this. The Indians and the Brazilians are going to have the same education over the next few months. All right, so let's try to connect some dots here as to what's going on with the type of ceasefire. I guess you could say the peace plan, whatever that is.

We have Zelensky in Germany saying that there has to be a peace to the conflict in Ukraine by this fall. That's what he said, this fall. we have Olaf Schultz saying recently that there has to be a peace fast faster he said that's what oliv Schultz said faster we need a faster solution a peaceful solution to the conflict in ukraine blinkin is going to be meeting with his UK counterpart this week and they're going to be talking about Ukraine Burns and his UK MI6 counterpart were meeting the other day and they were talking about Ukraine. What is going on? What do you think might be going on here? What they're trying to do is to get a ceasefire because that's the only thing that can now save Ukraine. Ukraine is losing

the war. We've had more news over the course of the last couple of hours and they point to a further deteriorating situation for the Ukrainians on the battlefronts. We've had articles and I believe it was CNN talking about mass desertion from the Ukrainian army. So they have, have to bring the fighting in some way to a stop. But they're not prepared to agree to any terms that the Russians would demand. They're not prepared to go beyond a ceasefire, a ceasefire on the existing contact lines. And the Russians say no. And that's where we are.

Again, we come back to this point. if you look at what Schultz says, if you look at what Zelensky says, if you look at what the intelligence chiefs of the Britain and the US said, they're not coming up with any proposal that goes beyond Zelensky's proposal. And the Russians have said they won't deal

and speak to the Ukrainians on the basis of Zelensky's proposal. So they need peace. or at least they need a ceasefire. They can't, however, come to a position where they're prepared to take the substantive moves that would end the war. I wonder if there's, just to wrap up the video,

if there's two competing forces in the Biden White House of the U.S., where you have the one side is trying to get Ukraine. through the election, through the inauguration, whoever wins, it doesn't matter, just get Ukraine through the inauguration without it collapsing. And just let's not, let's not entertain the whole peace plan thing. And I wonder if there's another part of the Biden White House, the deep state, whatever, that may be saying, you know, let's try to get a ceasefire. or a seize in the fighting, something, a freeze in the fighting, something that can give Kamala Harris a foreign policy win before the election, because maybe you accomplish, well, one thing you accomplish is you remove a talking point of Trumps, which he says at every rally he talks about the conflict in Ukraine and how he would stop it.

And you do give Kamala Harris some sort of a foreign policy win because she's very thin, very weak when it comes to foreign policy. So maybe you give Biden Harris, Harris Biden, some sort of foreign policy win. Maybe not even a ceasefire, just some kind of a freeze or some kind of a stop in the conflict. I mean, do you think there might be some forces there maybe associated with the Harris campaign that are starting to think along these lines and they may be pressuring Schultz. and Zelensky to talk about peace this fall? I have absolutely no doubt that there are. I mean, my own sense is, by the way, that Kamala is much less sold on this whole Ukraine project than Biden is. This is not because she has different perspectives or more sophisticated understanding of this conflict. It's just that she doesn't have this visceral loathing of Putin and of Russia

that some people, some other people than the Biden. administration do because she's had less contact with them and she doesn't have quite the same backstory as they have and that's that's that's all the risk there so from her point of view getting this problem away you know getting some big diplomatic victory before the election that would be great if they can manage that that would that would be a real you know success she can then deal with it in the election she's and yes i think that problem there is that pressure within the White House, or already within the administration between, you know, the Kamala supporters who would like to see some kind of, you know, enter the conflict for that reason. And sooner rather than later, similar people who think the same thing, but for completely different reasons because they want to bring the conflict to an end.

But they don't really intend the underlying war, if you like, to end. they see it just as a ceasefire so that they can rearm Ukraine and start all over again. Anyway, all of that. So that's, I think that there is that difference. I think that there are pressures in Europe as well. We see that with what things that Schultz said. We've seen that with what Maloney said. And here it's not again difficult to understand.

Schultz has to deal with the fact that anti-war parties are now winning elections. And they've just won elections, as we've discussed in Thuringia and came very close to winning elections in Saxony. The mood in Germany has shifted decisively against the war. We've had an astonishing economic breakdown of the situation in Europe from Mario Draghi. He says we've got to invest twice as much proportionately as we did during the Marshall Aid plan to try and rescue Europe. And one of the reasons is because we're paying so much in energy costs now. So we've got to find some way around all of that. They've got to disentangle themselves of this terrible mess. But they're not prepared to make the substantive concessions. This is true of the various

fractions. In Washington, it is true of the European leaders as well. And I get to make a further a suggestion. I think that in terms of India and Brazil and the various BRIC states, I think this is probably only going to be a temporary thing. I think once the BRICS summit is out of the way in October, and that's for Putin the priority at the moment, keeping the BRICS show on the road until October, dealing with these concerns that the Indians and the Brazilians have. Once that summer meeting is out of the way, I think that the Indians and the Brazilians will be able to relax and start talking about other things because the deals will have been done. The big deals will have been done in Kazan.

you won't have to tell the Americans and your own domestic constituencies that, you know, you're at risk of selling out because it'll all be historic by that point. And from that moment on, the pressure for negotiations will abate. Having said that, I think that Putin is annoyed that he's had to start explaining this all over again. I think he felt that after Kuzk, the pressure had been lifted, and he doesn't welcome the fact that he's having to explain it now once more to the Indians and the Brazilians. But anyway, he's an immensely experienced political leader. I think he knows what he has to do. He has to accept it, work with it, and go with the flow. until he gets to Kazan and then he's

in the clear. As for what the Europeans and the Americans are going to do and the Ukrainians, they're going to get past first base. That's my own view. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, picture, telegram, Rockfin, and Twitter

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