The Duran Podcast - Zelensky fears Odessa loss. Kellogg offers more concessions to Russia

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Zelensky fears Odessa loss. Kellogg offers more concessions to Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Project Ukraine and let's talk about some of the diplomacy, some of the comments and statements that are coming out of Ukraine, out of Zelensky. He's looking very panicky, talking about Odessa. He's very worried about Odessa. Should have taken Istanbul Plus. Zelensky, Germany is now saying they're not going to deliver the tourist missiles to Ukraine. So I imagine they're going to start taking the tourist missiles that they have in Ukraine and sending them back to Germany now. Is that the plan from Mertz and Pistorius?

And Russia continues on the front lines. I mean, what else can we say? I mean, they advance in Sumi. They're really hammering all of the military facilities throughout Ukraine, especially Kiev and Kharkov. And I mean, they're really going after the drone manufacturing, the supply chain, everything. They're really hitting all of this. And I do think it's having an effect on Ukraine's ability to especially send drones into Russia. Absolutely.

Can I just say, I mean, again, I'm somebody who's quite accustomed to dealing with panic. And you're starting to see signs of panic. You're starting to see them with Zelensky himself. And this is unusual, by the way. Zelensky, whatever you may say of him, has up to now been living very detached from the realities of the front line. He rarely talks about them. But now he's talking about Adessa, as you correctly say, which he's never done quite in this way before, that the Russians are coming for Adessa. He's also clearly very alarmed about the situation with the air defenses.

And we've had an absolutely fantastical situation where even as Ukraine gets hammered every night, apparently there's up to 500 Gerand drones operating the skies over Ukraine every night now. And these are not like the Gerand drones we saw in 2022. They become much more sophisticated. They fly much higher. Some of them have jet engines. So that makes them basically simple missiles, except they're not that simple. Others carry warheads that are six times more powerful than the original ones.

Some of them engage in drone attacks. Some of them use some levels of AI technology. Others are actually controlled from long range by Russian operators. So, you know, we're talking about incredibly complex attacks. using these drones, supplemented by ballistic missiles and all of this. Anyways, Zelensky's people have been claiming that they're shooting down almost every one. 500 drones and only two get through, except that these two then managed to destroy about 20 locations. I mean, ludicrous things.

When that starts to happen, you can get a sense that things are starting to turn very bad. And Pistorius rushes to Kiev, of course, when I say rushes, he has to get there by train. He comes firstly with a bad news. We can't use the tourist missiles. My own guess is that Mertz had his meeting with Trump. We covered it, you remember? Trump said no tourist missiles, no missile strikes against Russia. And I think that the events with the drone attacks on the air bases and the reaction

that's been to that has probably hardened that view. So Bistorius comes to the bad news, no tourist missile strikes against Russia. But apparently he's also gone in order to get a hurried briefing from the Ukrainians about the situation on the front lines. That's the messaging that we are getting. And then even Kellogg makes comments. And people haven't noticed, but he's slightly modifying his plan because his original plan required the Russians to pull back from some of the ground that they'd capture, that they would pull back from the Kinbon Sprit, that they'd hand over the Zaporozian nuclear power plant. he's now saying that whatever the Russians control they have.

So he's slightly changed. Even he is beginning to understand that things are not going, you know, going at all well. So, you know, it's perhaps not yet the full scale. Oh my God, what are we going to do, panic that we saw briefly, well not so briefly, but we saw. for a time after the fall of Avdeyevka last year and which we're going to get when Pakrovsk, Thelk, or Kupyansk, one of these Osumi, all of these places falls. But we are starting to see the first signs of that. Yeah, when all of them fall.

When all of them fall. When all of them fall. Do you think Russia is going to fall for any of this stuff from people like Kellogg or, let's say Germany comes out and says, you know, we're ready to talk? I believe Merck said something the other day that he tried to reach out to Putin. He alluded to some sort of reaching out from the Europeans to Russia, but Russia wasn't having any of it. I mean, do you think that Istanbul Plus is still on the table? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, going back to Kellogg, I mean, Kellogg, he comes out and he's now talking about, you know, if the Russians accept that, you know, freeze on front lines. they hold what they have. He's basically saying all the sanctions, all of the sanctions, going back to 2014, will be lifted. The Russians are not going to accept any of this. I mean, the chief negotiator, the Russian chief negotiator, Medinsky has now been speaking. And he's made it absolutely clear that the Russians are not going to retreat one millimeter from Istanbul Plus. So, I mean, that is, if you want to do the deal, Istanbul Plus is still there. Still there. It's still there. I mean, do that deal before all of these terrible things that people are worrying about happen. I mean, the Russians are now advancing into Nehpro-Petrovs.

It's actually apparently still Nehropatrovsk region. The city is called Nehprop. The region is still Nehropatovsk region. There are apparently very few citizens. settlements that can be converted into fortified positions there. There's little scope to create, you know, trenches. The Ukrainians there are outnumbered five to one or so they claim. I believe that, by the way. I mean, one gets the sense that the Ukrainian army is becoming increasingly thin on the ground in many different places. So, you know, the Russians can advance, you know, once they clear the remaining places, places like Norvo Pavlovka, which they will clear, that they could perhaps start to advance quite rapidly.

So I don't think the Russians are under any incentive, any real incentive to slow down. From their point of view, I don't think they believe that the sanctions are going to be lifted. I don't think they're impressed with the idea of having the sanctions lifted because there's all sorts of people in Russia who say, Why do we want to lift the sanctions when we're doing actually quite well with them better than would be the case if they were lifted? There's even been an article for the first time acknowledging this in the Financial Times, by the way. They were talking about the company that's taken over the McDonald's franchise in Russia and the fact that they're coming along telling Putin, for heaven's sake, don't ever agree to. let McDonald's back because that would be, we would have to hand over all the property and that would be a disaster for us. And Putin's giving them assurances that's never going to happen.

So, I mean, the point I'm making is I don't see that the Russians feel under any pressure or feel any incentive to make fundamental concessions. I don't think they're impressed by Lindsay Graham sanctions. I think after Xi Jinping's warning, the United States. is not going to go ahead with those sort of sanctions. The situation in the Middle East anyway is probably now going to be the major issue for the United States with a conflict between Israel and Iran. I think the Russians would feel that this is the moment for them to achieve victory and to dictate terms and that the opportunities for peace have been thrown away by the Ukrainians

and the Westerners, Western power. repeatedly and if they come to their senses and go for Istanbul plus at some point within the next few weeks it's still there on the table but by autumn when cities in the Dombas start to fall when Pachrovsk and Kostentivka and other places perhaps are captured when the Russians are deeper inside NEPROBed region Then, of course, the Russians might say, look, that was a proposal we made in June 2024 when the conditions were very different. Then from what they are now, now the situation has changed.

You can't expect us to go back to that which we proposed in June 2024. Medinsky has said it. Putin has said it. Medvedev has said it. Lavrov has said it many, many, many times. The more proposals, reasonable proposals, as the Russians would say, are rejected, the steeper the price for a settlement becomes. And I think that is going to continue to be the Russian view. So as the United States is, as Kellogg, as Kellogg is reworking his freeze plan and Russia is advancing, the Putin administration is building up its military.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Outside of Ukraine, I mean, it's connected to Ukraine, but it's also connected against the moves that Europe and NATO is allegedly making with their 150, 800 billion funds and the NATO buildup on the eastern flank and all of this stuff that they're talking about. I mean, Russia's reacting to this as well. They are absolutely reacting to this. Now, there was a massive, there was a huge meeting in Moscow, in the Kremlin, which Putin chaired, all the top civilian people were there, the people for the military industrial complex,

the people from the government, Bellows, the defense minister was there, Muschustin, the prime minister was there, all of the military people were there. And they were talking about setting military development priorities for the next 10 years, which is the kind of thing that the Russians do. So obviously there was the attack on the air bases. So they're now going to start hardening up. the air bases. So that is a big departure from the START treaty. And probably that means the start treaty is dead. I have no doubt that it is dead. And Putin has just signed off apparently

on a huge development program to build up the Navy. And then in this meeting in the Kremlin, the Russians said the time has come to build up the army as well, the ground forces, new tanks, new armoured vehicles, new guns, new drone systems, every conceivable thing. Up to now, in terms of allocations, the ground forces, the military, the army has been the Cinderella service within the Russian military. I mean, after when the Russians began to rebuild their military around the middle of the 2000s. They prioritized their air defense system, their strategic forces, to some extent their submarine forces, their surface fleet. But the army itself was expected to soldier on with Soviet era equipment, you know, the T72s, the BMP3s, that sort of thing.

Now, apparently, there's going to be a massive upgrade. And the Rochev's can do it. I mean, they've shown that they have the industrial resources to do these sort of things. And they absolutely have the financial resources to do them too. I mean, people are not aware of the fact that Russia, the GDP, the debt to GDP ratio over the period of the special military operation has apparently fallen because growth in the economy and tax. receipts have been so high. So they can afford it and they can do it. Now, contrast that with the situation in Europe. We've had a strategic defence review in Britain about upgrading the British armed forces. In fact, if you actually go through it carefully, it acknowledges that the size of the British army is going to be cut. And they are talking about a new factory to build.

how it says. And that factory is going to be staffed. The staff is going to number 200 people. You know, every, you know, the whole person, I mean, it microscopic, I mean, Russian factories, armaments factories, have staffs of thousands. And we're talking about around 200. And so the military balance in Europe is going to start steadily shifting in Russian favor, even as the military situation in Ukraine means that the Russian military is getting closer and closer to Central Europe as well. Just a quick final question. Will Russia retaliate to the airfield attacks and the terrorist attacks on the trains?

have they retaliated? They will definitely respond to the terrorist attacks on the trains. Now, I actually believe, and I have reasons for thinking this, as a British citizen, because I'm getting chatter from people in Britain, people who've had contacts with people in Russia. I believe that the Russians have already been quietly upgrading aspects of their special military operation, into a counterterrorist operation and that they're starting to take reprisals against the British.

There was the attack on the visa center in Kiev. There have been restrictions on contacts between people who are British with people in Russia, even ordinary contacts. I think we're going to see an awful lot more of that. But I think in terms of the attack on the trains, which was a terrorist attack, my sense is that the Russians are going to do a kind of covert operation.

They're going to start targeting senior Ukrainian officials, but they're going to start looking to assassinate them, not by missile strikes, but by sending agents. They're going to start doing the same thing with probably the British as well, which I find absolutely horrifying, but there it is. I think we're going to start to see a steady cranky, up of that kind of thing over the next few months and years. And the Russians have massive experience and huge resources to do this sort of thing. And it will be very, very, very bad

for us when it starts to happen. Now, about the attacks on the air bases, I think Putin apparently told Trump that the Russians would respond. And I think they will respond. And I think that what they're basically waiting to do is to build up their oration. stockpiles and at some point in the summer we'll start to see them being used as well. But the overall priority for the Russians, as I've said many times, is to win the war. But we are now entering into the Dursi War. The Russians didn't start it. We did.

And we're going to see that play out. And unfortunately, it's probably going to play out over many years. Yeah, well, the Russians didn't start it, but I think they're going to finish it. They're going to finish it, absolutely. This is turning out very bad for the Trump administration. It could not be... He really screwed this one out. So many off-ramps.

No. Completely agree. I totally agree. Well, all right, we'll end the video there. The durand.orgas.com. We are on Rumble audits and Bitchie, Tell the Graham Rock, Finanx. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some rich, like what we are wearing in this video update. Link is the description box down below.

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