The Duran Podcast - US-Russia Diplomacy & the Ceasefire Proposal - Dmitri Polyanskiy, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

US-Russia Diplomacy & the Ceasefire Proposal - Dmitri Polyanskiy, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi, everyone, and welcome. I am joined today by Alexander McCurs and Dimitri Poliansky, the first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. And it's wonderful to be able to speak with you, especially in these diplomatic, interesting times. As we've seen, the Trump administration appears to go from Biden's forever war to, well, seemingly seeking a peace. but a lot of us were a little bit perplexed, I guess, by the ceasefire, because the Russian position seemed to be very clear that they wanted a political solution, not just a ceasefire, which wouldn't be used to any clear purpose.

So I wanted to get your take on this. How are you understanding the new American approach? Well, I think that the main idea was to get something from Ukraine, something that will be different from previous narrative that they were pushing, and they succeeded in this, because you see that all of a sudden Ukrainian officials, I don't know what were the arguments that the US side used, but all of a sudden they started to sing a different tune. Before that, Zelensky himself was saying that there will be no ceasefire because ceasefire is in Russian interests. and Ukraine will never agree to this without guarantees and so on and so forth.

But all of a sudden, after the meeting in Wichida, they started to say that, yes, we are in favor of ceasefire, now the ball is in Russia's field, and you will see that Russia doesn't want peace, and that was all games and all these things. For them, it was kind of a maneuver with which I think they wanted to put us in a position which wouldn't be comfortable, because previous, we repeatedly explained that it's not about ceasefire. Of course there will be a ceasefire at some point, but before we come to this, it's a big work to be done.

And it's about the root causes, it's about the situation, what will happen during this ceasefire. And this is exactly what my president and other officials explained, that they accept this proposal, of President Trump because the ceasefire is a good thing. But ceasefire alone will not solve this issue, this crisis. We had ceasefire in the framework of Minsk agreements, the ceasefire which was allegedly monitored by the OSCE.

And it led to more bitter and more severe hostilities. And Ukraine was using it as a smoke screen to rearm. And Western countries were not We are not doing the good faith. So we all know this story. That's why, of course, nobody is speaking in Russia about 30-day ceasefire as ceasefire without getting anything in exchange. We say that we need to understand the details of these proposals.

What will Ukraine do in the meantime? Because Ukraine is already starting to speculate that it would be a good opportunity to rearm, to bring more soldiers to the front line. Some European politicians are also promoting the theme logic. And in our understanding, this is totally different to the logic of President Trump, because he wanted a ceasefire to be something that would lead to a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine. And it will not be the case for sure.

So if we just agree to a 30-day ceasefire, of course, the Ukraine will try to heal its wounds and to rearm and fastidities will happen inevitably at the end of the ceasefire. And I think that was the core of our position. We want more explanation from the U.S. A more detailed plan, not only to declare a ceasefire, but what accompanies the ceasefire, what is the ceasefire, what is the ceasefire, what is the, the task of the ceasefire, what are the parameters of the agreement or deal, as President Trump likes to put it? We need to know all the details. And of course, there is no longer trust to the European side.

There is the reason there will be no trust to the Kiev regime, which has repeatedly deceived, not only Russia, but its own citizens. So I think we need to be more to behave in a more adult way, you know, not like childish joy about declaring ceasefire and thinking that it will solve all the problems on the ground. I was reading Mr. Trump's two posts, true social posts today. Two things struck me immediately when I read them. The first is that he seemed to be looking at negotiations directly between Russia. Russia and the United States. This follows from the previous admissions that this has been a proxy war between Russia and the United States.

In his first post, he doesn't even mention Ukraine. And he also in the second post talks about a ceasefire and a final agreement, and that is the necessity, the thing to achieve. So I think that actually, can I just say, Ambassador, to me, that's a need. that looked like a significant shift by the Americans, by the President of the United States, towards the Russian position. But can I ask a very simple, very practical question? What is the extent of the contact now between the United States and Russia? I mean, there was talk about your embassies being restarted. When we last spoke, I remember that there was still difficulties having communications between the two governments. The president, your president,

today has talked about relations being re-established at various levels, but this has been very complicated. Are there now proper contacts between the Russian delegation and the American delegation at the United Nations? I mean, is this freeze coming to an end? Thank you, Alexander, but I would correct you a little bit. I think that the new rhetoric of President Trump is not, you know, siding with Russia's position, but it's more with the common sense and with the reality. And that's how it looked like. I don't think he's doing this because he's kind of Russia, whatever. He understands he has the understanding of the real situation.

Unlike a Kyiv regime, which makes absolutely propagandist moves and declarations, President Trump has information about situation on the ground. And we also need to mention another post social media that he made today and this was about the Kursk, the Kursk incursion, which is coming to the end. You know that there was a very brave operation by Russian paratroopers and soldiers recently when 800 people used the pipe, the gas pipe, to come into the areas of the Ukrainian troops in Tsudja in the biggest city of the territory that is under the country. they are controlled. And there was a complete fiasco for the Ukrainian army. And now, nine-tenths of the territory that they were holding five days ago is already liberated.

And the rest is either encircled or they are fleeing with terrible losses. Of course, nobody is able to use any armored vehicles. It's only possible to walk and with all the risks that it entails. So President Trump knows it. Only President Zelensky can claim that Ukraine is still in control of Suja as he is doing, he and his commanders. But Ukrainians know the truth. And President Trump understands that there is a big, big number of Ukrainians encircled. He said thousands of them. I don't have the figures, of course, but I think that is very close to the truth. And of course, as you understand, we have absolutely no reasons to be very merciful to these people because these people were committing terrible crimes in Kursk region.

They were acting like barbarians, like German fascists, and they were cosplaying German fascists very often, specifically, to make it more difficult for elderly generation living there to put up with the reality. So these people are encircled, and of course, if they try to resist, There is very little motivation of our soldiers to leave them alive. But President Trump asked President Putin to be merciful. And he responded. He said, yes, okay, we heed to this request, to this demand.

And we are ready to save life to everybody who lays down its arms and surrenders, which needs, of course, an order from Kiev to do so. And President Zelensky is not ready to do this order because for him it's more important to show that his adventure is still ongoing and he's absolutely not caring about the life of Ukrainian soldiers of conscripts of the others who are there. So this was also very important if we speak about President Trump's posts on social media. Coming back to your question, I would say that we started the dialogue. This dialogue is multifaceted. And one of the components of this dialogue is a situation with diplomatic representations in Russia and the US, including our mission. Our mission has a very specific situation because it's not, we don't have counterparts at the year's time.

So embassy, if there is an act against an embassy, then of course there can be retaliation against an embassy. but we are somewhere in between. We don't have counterparts. That's why sometimes we face certain problems that even the embassy doesn't face. So this dialogue has only started. We had a meeting at level of senior experts, at the level of senior experts which took place in Istanbul,

which allowed us to compare notes and to touch base of where we are. But so far from the US side, we see the previous team. It's maybe having a bit different instructions. It has certain incentives to be more forthcoming, but it's the same team and the same faces. And of course, they also brought the same speaking notes, only a little bit adapted to the situation. So I can't say it's a breakthrough so far,

but the dialogue will continue in terms of the situation of diplomatic. representations and there will be at least a couple of meetings before, I assume, before a meeting of meetings or meeting of the presidents, which is planned, but we don't have the date yet because it should be thoroughly prepared. Apart from this, there are other, I would say, situations when we can work together and the US side is already ready to do so. I will give you the concrete examples from my experience. So Russia and the US jointly proposed a presidential statement, draft presidential statement of the UN Security Council on Syria.

After this terrible situation in Western Syria, I think we both were appalled by this. We both said that the council needs to act. The council needs to ask for accountability, for investigation. And we all care about the future of Syria. We all want this country to be peaceful, inclusive, whatever. But not everything that is happening there is really, looks optimistic to us. And we together put aside all the problems that we had on Syria before. Of course, we don't look at eye to eye.

We have different perception of the past, of the immediate. past but right now we managed to work together and we proposed the statement which was adopted today it's a very important document i don't recall any document of security council so meaningful on syria apart from humanitarian resolutions but there were no political resolutions on syria since 2254 the resolution which was adopted like 20 years ago so uh not not 20 years ago sorry so this is important And this is already a concrete result of us restarting a dialogue. Dialogue on many issues and it will be beneficial for the whole of the world when Russia and US speak.

It doesn't mean that we see eye to eye to the world's problems. It doesn't seem that we want to achieve 100% understanding from the US side and vice versa. Of course, there will be issues where we'll be absolutely on different. different positions, but it is important for the whole world that we speak, because that is something that was lacking very much when big powers, not only Russia and the US, I think that if this dialogue was joined by China, by some other countries, influential countries from global south, even by the European Union, but Europeans, unfortunately, they have absolutely different plan in their head, and they really, all they care about is making problems for Russia. and weakening Russia with the hand of Ukrainians, that I think that's the only strategy that they have. They don't have Plan B. And they don't behave like adults, frankly, in this situation.

So Russia and the US, we started to behave like adults in the room. And I think many countries felt this after this common move in the Security Council. And I hope that there will be more to come. A lot of regional issues also need our cooperation. And this gives, of course, a lot of optimism as far as Ukraine is concerned, because Americans are absolutely ready to listen to us, to take on board our preoccupations and to really understand that it is not something that we want because of our capriciousness, but it's because of the reality, it's because of history,

it's because of situation on the ground, and it's because of our desire not to repeat this terrible experience that we faced in Ukraine and Ukraine itself faced for at least a decade and even more. I noticed, well, we almost get used to the idea that these two giants, Russian, the United States, will always be on opposite side in the United Nations. So I certainly saw it with great optimism that they voted the same way at the UN. it's over the Syrian issue as well it's really remarkable and again

it does mean that they have to agree on everything but that is some things to agree on the normalizing relations is quite important but you did mention the collapse of Kursk and I'm always asked by different journalists what I think about where Russia's incentives is because on one hand the argument would be that now that Russia's obviously winning the war

if it just goes for full victory, it can dictate the outcome to make sure there won't be any efforts to revive the conflicts later. On the other hand, Russia has an interest in finding a solution to not just Ukraine, but the underlying problem, primarily then the failure and collapse of the European security architecture, originating from the failure to actually include Russia in it after the Cold War. So do you have any calculation in terms of this? What is the benefit for victory or diplomatic solution? Because there's very little trust at the moment in anything that's signed and written. I guess all sides are a bit distrustful this day.

So how is, I guess, Moscow looking at this? Well, I don't think that we are betting only on President Trump's leverage on Europe and Ukraine. We are doing what we're supposed to do. We are continuing our special military operation. And we have quite distinct goals. We repeated their goals. They are very clear. They're reasonable.

We want to see on our borders a predictable, peace-loving neighbor, who is not abusing the rights of Russian-speaking population, who is not glorifying Nazism, who is not prosecuting canonical Orthodox Church. Nothing on top of this. Everything very normal. And we declared these goals from day one. And we also from day one we said that we are ready to see the implementation of these goals on the ground through diplomatic means.

We are ready to stop at any moment. We were ready to stop in April 2020 in Istanbul when the draft was initialed and, you know, the nefarious influence of the Brits and Americans who were. intervened and talked Zedensky out of accepting the deal, which was very beneficial for Ukraine at this moment, given what they have now. We were ready to do it later at any stage in any our statement in the Security Council, which happened at least once per month, we were saying that we are ready for diplomatic solution, but the solution that would address root causes of Ukrainian crisis, because we don't want its repetition. And the root causes are very deep.

And you're absolutely right that they are rooted not only in the situation in Ukraine itself, but they are rooted in the expansion of NATO. They are rooted in reckless policy of European countries, of Russophobia that has been brought to the heads of European leaders by Baltic states and Poland quite successfully. This virus is very visible right now. and the heads of many politicians. So it all implies that we are not sitting and waiting for somebody to come and solve our problem with Ukraine. We are ready to do it ourselves.

And President Trump fully understands that he said it himself. You remember this ugly conversation that they had with Zelensky. He said, you have no cards in your hands. If you have no cards in your hands, he's a realist. He understands the situation on the ground. Now, despite all the propaganda efforts of Zelensky to show to his countrymen that this was a great master plan in the Kursk region, that they really wanted to achieve some goals, and that goals were achieved.

The question is, what goals were achieved? To kill Russian civilians and to let about 70,000 Ukrainians die in Kursk regions, to lose a lot of ammunition. That was the master plan. And of course it led to the collapse of the Eastern Front. So unlike him, President Trump, who has necessary intelligence, who has the data from satellites, from intelligence services, he understands the real situation.

He understands that Ukraine is losing. He understands that Ukraine is not only out of Kursk region, almost out, but the bordering regions of Ukraine are in danger because we understand that we need to have a buffer zone. And President said it openly that we need a buffer zone to prevent such adventures of Kiev regime to happen in the future. That was not the plan before course, but this is the plan now. And I think we have every reason to implement this plan. So President Trump knows the situation on the ground.

He knows that the time is not laying in the hands of Ukraine. If he waits, if Ukraine waits, then the situation on the battlefield would be much worse. And the conditions, negotiating conditions will be much worse. and he is not aware of anything that really can change this can upturn the table the table because Ukraine doesn't have any and any Wunderwaffe that will change the course of the war in its favor and Ukrainian army doesn't have the resources of its own, almost the only the UAVs maybe but this is not something that is sufficient by itself to win the war. The European backers of Ukraine are also have also have very few resources

to help them financially and in terms of ammunition and warfare. So he knows the reality and he takes a decision in this decision is that this should be stopped as soon as possible for the sake of Ukraine, for the sake of Ukrainian people, because the more they wait, the less it will remain of Ukraine and the less chances of course the Ukraine will have to get something better than it can get now. So this is the reality. He understands this reality and that's why he proceeds from from this reality. And again, as for us, we are doing what we were doing, we are fighting, we are defeating the regime and we will do so awaiting serious, meaningful proposal with guarantees with all the necessary outline of how it will look like.

And then we will see, and then we'll see, because it goes totally in what we were saying from day one about diplomatic solution to this issue, which should imply the addressing of the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis. Ambassador, I'm not good. I'm going to say thank you for your very comprehensive answers. I know that you are under always. that you have time needs. But as I said, they're very clear, very comprehensive answers.

And I just want to say, thank you for providing them. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. See you.