The Duran Podcast - Ukraine wiretap. Russia's tough terms will shock Collective West

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Ukraine wiretap. Russia's tough terms will shock Collective West

All right, Alexander, let's talk about a statement from Russia out of the United Nations, an interesting statement which confirms much of our reporting with regards to the conflict in Ukraine and what a possible endgame may look like, at least from the Russian side of things. And let's also discuss the wiretapping in Zaluzzi's obvious. office. Why not? Maybe it was the Obama administration trying to find some Trump-Russia collusion. What do you think? I don't know. Was it Obama wiretap, didn't he? He wiretap Merkel. Denied. Who was wiretap? Trump was, if you remember. But that was, that was back to you. Oh, yeah, they wiretap Trump. Yeah. That's right. In Trump Tower, and he did a tweet about it. And it was all denied. And it turned out of me, it was true after all.

I remember saying at the time. It was like the FBI Kobe. Absolutely, Comey, CoMe and all that, yes, all those times. Wiretaps are great things, if I may say so. But anyway. You remember saying you remember saying at the time? I remember saying at the time, I remember when Obama published this extraordinary denial. And I remember pointing out that actually, if you passed it carefully,

this is always the case with Obama. You have to pass everything he says very carefully. It wasn't actually a denial. People took it as a denial. But he basically was saying it was, you know, the Justice Department and the FBI. But you had to go, you had to, you had to break down his words very, very carefully to see that. As you always do. As you always do.

All right. So let's just talk about the wiretapping then since we're already discussing it. What are your thoughts? Well, I mean, as you correctly said, it could have been any. lots of people, but it seems it wasn't just Zalusinik who was being wiretapped. It seems many of his aides were. And the universal assumption in Ukraine is it's the SBU acting on Zelensky's behalf, that this is all part of the power struggle that is underway there.

This particular wiretap, the first one that was discovered, was apparently in an office building which, where to which Zalusini, is intending to transfer his office, which is an interesting fact in itself. But what this whole episode shows is that we've now reached the situation in Ukraine, because I'm sure it was the Zelensky people, where everybody's wiretapping everybody.

I mean, everybody's threatening everybody. We've had people being blown up with hand grenades, when they pull the pin out. We've had other people being poisoned with heavy metals. We've now got a situation where the wiretaps are operating and everybody's spying on everyone else. So that gives you an idea of how fraught the situation in Kiev has become. And if you noticed when Zelensky went abroad, he went to Buenos Aires, he went to Washington, he went to Oslo, he went to Vizbaden, I think he also went to Poland. he's obviously not very keen to be in Kiev.

And again, the reason he isn't keen to be in Kiev, because all of this plotting and all this intriguing and all these conspiracies are taking place and people are maneuvering against each other and they're responding on each other. Any chance that this would not be the SPU? Yes. I mean, it is a chance. CIA, MI6, even the Russians conceivably.

but by far the most likely is that it is the SPU. Look at all the other things that are happening in Kiev now. As I said, the man who got blown up with a grenade on his birthday, the person who got poisoned, the rival briefings, all of those things. Why look beyond that and ask yourself, well, who else it might it have been? Far more likely it is somebody within, the Ukrainian political system. And the reports from Ukraine that I've seen all talk about the SPU and they all say that it's been done at the instigation of Yermak, who is Zelensky's chief

of staff. Right. Before we talk about the United Nations and what was said there, what do you think the SPU is trying to find out about Solutioni? Well, they're trying to to figure out here. But they just can't ask him. I mean, at the end of the day, he works for Zelensky. Yes, but you see the point is that they're not on speaking terms. And it's now increasingly clear that Zelensky and Zalusin

he don't attend the same meetings. So about two weeks ago, Zelensky did this tour of the battle lines. He met with various generals. He met with Tarnas. He met with Siersky, but he didn't meet with Zoluzzi. He didn't mean with the man who's in overall charge. And he's got this really rather thuggy-ish MP. She's actually a woman, a Buziglia, maybe I've got the name wrong,

but she's out there. She's constantly sniping at Zoluzni on behalf of, no doubt, at all, Zelensky himself. And you can see that they're not. the struggle is going on. So they don't talk to Zalusini. And a couple of weeks ago, about a week ago, actually,

there was a report that Yermak, who is the man who many people think, actually runs Zelensky, called together a meeting of internal security agencies, the SBU, the Interior Ministry, the National Guard, and told them, You know, we've got to prepare for Maidan three,

that there's an attempted coup being prepared in Kiev. And it's quite clear again that Zaluzzi himself is in the spotlight. And bear in mind we also had, and this now makes a lot more sense of who's bugging him. You remember last week we were discussing that conversation between two Ukrainian oligarchs, who was former president and the Rinaat Ahmedov, they too were discussing a coup. And we were speculating as to who perhaps had made the recording of that conversation. Well, now that we know that all these bugs, all these listening devices have been planted,

it's starting to look again as if that was the SPU. Yeah. And so I imagine it was Zaluzni and his people that released the information that his office, was being budged. Of course, yes. And by the way, on that front, lots of rumours repeatedly that every couple of days we hear reports that Zelensky is about to fire Zalusini. A couple of, about a week ago, again, reports started to appear, even while Zelensky was abroad, by the way, that Zalusni was about to be fired. There was a response. Some units, apparently military units, threatened to move on to Kiev, if anything like that happened.

A political movement said that they would protest if Zillusioni was indeed fired, and the Ukrainian Defence Minister, Rostemu Madov, who is an ally of Zelensky, how to rush out a statement saying that that wasn't the case. So we can see how difficult the situation is. We have a situation where the president doesn't trust he's commander-in-lawful. chief. He doesn't, he believes the commander in chief might be considering a coup. The commander in chief has been wiretapped by the president and his officials. The two people, the two men don't speak to each other. There is clearly a deep political crisis now in Kiev itself. And

Zalusini has obviously been checking out and finding out all about the wiretaps and he's disclosed and he's disclosed the fact that his aides are being wiretapped as well. Yeah, it's a really interesting situation. Either you, if you're Zelensky, either you arrest Zolluzni and you may face some sort of protest, which may topple your government as well, maybe. You take a risk there, or you're forced to keep Zillusion. in his current position where he might overthrow your government. I mean, it's a very interesting situation that Zelensky finds himself in.

The Russians call this type of scenario a dual power situation. That stems from a period just after the abdication of the Tsar when power in Russia was divided between the provisional government, which took over from the Tsar and the Soviet of workers' deputies that was based in Petrograd. And each of these two groups was constantly in conflict with the other, and the work of government and the management of the army in wartime, by the way, of course, became paralyzed. And that's exactly what we have now. All right.

So let's, that's a good way to segue into the statements from the Russian representative in the United Nations, Mr. Bolianzky, and the first deputy permanent rep of Russia in the UN. And he put out a statement, a post on Twitter X, where he basically said that Zelensky has squandered his chances for favorable off-ramp from this conflict. And any peace deal from here on now it is going to essentially be surrender, capitulation. And I think that Poliadsky was actually replying to some comments made by Michael McFowell. We talked about him in a video. We made a couple of days ago.

This echoes many of the statements from Russian officials over the past couple of weeks, which has been pretty much along the lines of capitulation on our terms. And the terms aren't going to be very favorable, not only for Ukraine, but not very favorable for the collective West as well. But that's what we're hearing from the Russian high officials, all the way up to Putin as well. Even during his Q&A, he pretty much said the same thing. Absolutely, absolutely.

But the point to understand is that this was said by an official, the very senior official by the Russian foreign ministry. Now, you come from a diplomatic family. I don't disclose anything when I say that your father had great experience of diplomatic activity. I believe he actually represented his country at the UN. You can confirm that the ambassadorial team that a country sends to the UN

is it elite. I mean, they're the elite diplomats. They are the highest people within the diplomatic cader. And if you are a permanent security council member, such as Russia is, you make absolutely sure that your best people are at the UN. And Poliansky is the deputy head of mission directly below Versili Nibenzia. But Nibenzia at the moment is on leave. So, Poliansky has been acting as head of mission and he's been dealing with the Americans. He deals with the other members of the security council. He's been playing a leading role in organizing the Russian responses over Ukraine but also over the Gaza crisis, for example.

He's very active on Twitter X and he speaks with authoritative. for the Russian foreign ministry. And he's a very well-informed man. And when he makes a statement like this, one must assume that he's doing it based on what is now foreign ministry, Russian government policy. And we got confirmation of this

because within hours of Poliansky making that statement on Twitter X, it was repeated, his statement was repeated, on TAS, which is Russia's official news agency. So what he said was, it was very interesting because Michael McFour, former US ambassador to Russia, under Obama, by the way, a man who has been a fervid supporter of Ukraine, a man who's been an enormous optimist, both about potential regime change, in Moscow and about Ukraine's prospect in the war. And a man who we now know played an absolutely key role

in crafting the sanctions against Russia. Anyway, he's now talking about negotiations. Even he's coming to understand that this war cannot end in anything that remotely resembles a clear-cut Ukrainian victory. And Polianzky responded immediately to that. He said, no chance for negotiations now. We negotiated with the Ukrainians in March and April last year. We all know what happened. The West blocked it. The Ukrainians walked away.

The only basis upon which this war ends now is total surrender. Ukraine surrenders completely. Total surrender. And this follows A whole sequence of statements by Russian officials, by Volody, the Speaker of the Duma, by Lavrov and Shoyug, talking in rather more measured ways. Putin himself, as we've discussed, he's been speaking in a more cryptic way, as is his way, because he likes to keep his cards close to his chest. But this is an official from the executive branch of Russia's government, from the foreign ministry, and he's saying the only outcome now is total surrender.

Now, it becomes even more interesting because we did a program a few, about two weeks ago, in which we said that the West would choke on Putin's demands. And I'm starting to get lots of information about the kind of discussions that are taking place in Russia about the kind of things that the Russians would be looking at. And basically all of Ukraine, all of former Ukraine, east of the Nipa, including Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, the entire Black Sea coast. Ukraine will not be allowed to have its own military. It will have to hand over to Russia all of its military equipment,

including all the military equipment that's been provided by the West, the Patriot missiles, the Nassam's missiles, the UNICEMS missiles, the UNICEMS, the UNICEF, the iris-te missiles, the Haimars, the attackers, all these fancy weapons that the West has given them, they'll have to hand them over to the Russians in full. The Russians will have unrestricted access to all laboratories and other research institutions in Ukraine. Well, we know that there's been a lot of discussion about that as well. There will be some people that Ukraine will have to surrender. and who will be subjected to war crimes trials, lots of things.

And these are all apparently being talked about and discussed in Moscow, even as we're making this program. So the terms are going to be very tough indeed. I mean, the West will indeed choke on them. Yeah, but the West would never agree to that. No. They would just, I would imagine that the West would just prefer complete destruction of Ukraine. Yes, yes.

Or, or Alexander, because you are in the UK, what about the reports that the former Ukraine ambassador to UK said that the UK is preparing contingency plans in case things go horribly wrong for boots on the ground? I mean, I guess those could be two options that the West considers. Indeed. And we can guess what those contingency plans were because they were being floated in the early weeks of the war. we were being told what they were. And that is that the British and the other Western powers evacuate the political leadership from Kiev, bring them to the West, set up a government in exile there. And as you're absolutely rightly say,

they do not recognise. They won't accept these terms. And in fact, as I discussed in my program yesterday, it may even sound incredible. But having set up a government in exile, exile in perhaps London or Brussels, they continue to negotiate with that government as if it was the actual government of Ukraine and that government joins the EU and NATO. I mean, it sounds bizarre, but I can even see that happening actually. Or at least that might be what they would try to do.

But we have a situation in that case where there are two governments in existence, one. in Kiev, one in the West. The West only recognises the one that is in the West. They presumably do everything they can to prevent the government in Kiev gaining international recognition. And the rest, Ukraine, however, falls completely under Russian control. Now, if we get into that kind of scenario, I wonder whether the Russians might say to themselves, well, in that case, rather than maintain, preserve a government in Kiev, why not just move forward and see whether people in Ukraine might be interested in outright union? And I suspect that there might be quite a few people in Ukraine who would say better that

wrote than be left in a shadow country dominated by Russia, contested by the West. So, you know, that might be the outcome we see. Well, in some regions, that would be the case. Obviously, Odessa, for example. That would be the case where they would say an outright union. But of course, if you're talking about Lvov, that would not be the case. Well, exactly. If we were talking about Lvov, about Galicia, the Russians have shown no intention to go there. And of course, I talked about a government in exile, but that government might find itself in Volf, in which case Lvov becomes, as far as the West is concerned,

the temporary capital of Ukraine, and we have the Taiwan scenario all over again, where you have a government controlling a small fraction 10% of the territory of former Ukraine, but claiming to exercise control over the entirety of Ukraine, whereas the Russians, in practice or in possession. If anything like that happens,

I think that outright annexation or unification, as the Russians would say, between Russia and the bulk of Ukraine becomes almost inevitable, because the Russians would probably be very nervous. Well, they would probably say to themselves, if we have a government in Kiev, it might find it difficult to respond consistently

to this government in Love. So better just finish this thing once and for all, bring this huge territory back under Russian control, after all, it's historic Russia since the 17th

century, and just end this thing once and forever. Yeah, but what kind of future? Just a final question. If this is a scenario and if this is really being discussed, I mean, we don't know if this is if these are like realistic plans, we just know that there's discussion floating around there about this scenario.

But if this does happen the way we're discussing, what kind of future does this country in Levalph, this territory have? Wouldn't it eventually just become a type of republic or autonomous republic of Poland and the Carpathia would just become a type of autonomous republic or something connected to Hungary, et cetera. I mean, because the country wouldn't really have any type of future to begin with. Everything would be closed off to it. I mean, wouldn't that be the natural trajectory?

Absolutely. And can I just say if we have a political entity involved, which continues to claim that it is the government of Ukraine, then the Russians would be implacably hostile to it. And it would be isolated. It would have no access to the sea. It would probably be on very bad terms with Poland, realistically. But looking at things beyond that, it would not be focused on the internal development of Ukraine.

It would be more focused, one presumes, on playing the superpower games that the West wants it to play, trying to create problems with the Russians, trying to hold on to Ukraine's sea, and the General Assembly, all that kind of thing. And it would not be a happy outlook for this region. It would not be focusing on its own internal developments. Because can I just say something?

I mean, Galizier-Lvov, as an independent country, it could probably only prosper long-term itself if it were to enter into a long-term relationship, at least a civil relationship with Russia. If it's not going to do that, how can it, if it's going to continue to pretend that it is the government of Ukraine, how can it do that? All right. So, yeah, we'll soon find out where all of this heads towards.

Yeah. Maybe NATO will get involved. Maybe the UK will get involved. Well, as I said, I don't think they were. without the U.S.'s orders. Yes. I mean, they won't take on the Russian army. I think this is becoming increasingly clear.

So they're not going to try to fight the Russians in Ukraine. I think this is now, I don't think anybody believes that's going to happen anymore. But this last desperate ploy of setting up, you know, a government, either in exile in London or Brussels or perhaps in Levolve is probably the last throw. Now, it would be a catastrophe for Europe, by the way, if. if they were to do that, because it would mean that presumably all EU states would have to recognise this government. Any government that didn't, Hungary, for example, potentially a new government in Bulgaria would come under enormous pressure. By recognising this government, they would close off completely any possibility of normalising relations with Russia. And that

wouldn't be for the medium term. It would be for the indefinite long term as well. We will leave it there. The durand.orgas.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitch, to telegram, rock, fin, and TwitterX and go to the Duran shop. 20% off. Use the code. The Dirad 20. Take care.