The Duran Podcast - Zelensky government shake up aims to end Istanbul talks

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

Zelensky government shake up aims to end Istanbul talks

All right, Alexander, let's do a video on what is happening in the Zelensky administration. We have a very big reshuffling in his administration. He has extended martial law, or the parliament has extended martial law, however you want to look at it. And he has decided after the extension of martial law, which will keep him in power for another three, three months or so longer without an election. He has decided to shuffle the cabinet, the prime minister. Schmigel looks like he will be moving to the defense ministry, and he has promoted Sribri Dienko, who was, she was, I believe, the deputy prime minister, but she was also the economics minister. She was the person who negotiated the brilliant rare earth minerals deal with the Trump White House.

She is a Yermak loyalist, very close to Yermak 100% devoted to Zolensky's entertainment lawyer and the person that many people say is really running the show in Kiev. Anyway, she is now the prime minister. And who else? And Umerov, the defense minister, looks like he is heading to Washington, D.C., to be the ambassador to the United States because the other ambassador to the United States, She is being blamed for the disastrous White House meltdown when Zelensky was last in D.C. And got into the argument with Trump advance. Anyway, your thoughts on this big cabinet Zeletsky administration reshuffling. Yeah, I mean, the key story here is Umarov's banishment, basically to Washington.

I mean, you know, blaming the ambassador for Zelensky's own behavior in February. We shouldn't let ourselves be fooled by this. What is happening is that Yermak is tightening his control of the government in Kiev at the same time that they're shuffling off Merov to Washington, which in effect basically brings to stop the whole negotiation process with the Russians and means that, you know, you. Yermak's control at the center in Washington, in Kiev, sorry, is being tightened. The key thing to understand is that Umerov is not just the defense minister. He's also the chief negotiator with the Russians.

And so if he's been said to Washington, he presumably cannot act as chief negotiator anymore. Yermak and Zelensky have been deeply unhappy with the whole negotiation process. You remember the extraordinary bizarre antics that Zelensky put on when he went to Ankara, spoke to Erdogan, didn't want to send a negotiators to meet the Russians in Istanbul, the way in which they talked down the Russian negotiating team, something which Mark Ruta, by the way, continues to do. I mean, you know, all of that. So they didn't want this negotiation process to take place in the first place. And now basically they are conducting a reshuffle to kill it. And they're sending the chief negotiator to Istanbul and they're tightening their grip. So they're putting Schmigal, who has absolutely no pack around.

The chief negotiated to D.C. To D.C. Sorry. They're sending him to D.C. And they're putting Schmigal, the prime minister. who's, as far as I know, a civilian official with no real background in military matters. It's not that Umerov had much of the background in military matters either, but he's being put in charge of the military, of the defense ministry,

and at the same time, the prime minister is somebody who's closer still to Yarmak, whose control in Kiev is being tightened. There were rumors just about a week ago. There were some people in the Trump administration who really don't like Yermak and want to see him shunted away. Well, this is Zelensky's and Yermach's way of responding to all of this. They're basically tightening their grip on the situation in Kiev because they could see that tough times are coming. They need to hunker down. And at the same time, they need somebody in Kiev who has a good relationship with the Americans. And this is the new prime minister. Yeah. Yerbach may not be

liked by a lot of people in D.C., but I know someone who absolutely likes Yarnock a lot. And that man's name is Keith Kellogg. How does all of this factor in, this reshuffling, the Trump announcement of the 50-day ultimatum to Putin and the 100% tariffs, possibly, if nothing happens in 50 days with Keith Kellogg's one-week visit to Kiev. A lot of stuff is going on in and around Project Ukraine, and you have this big reshuffle, and then you have Kellogg showing up to Kiev, not for one day, not for two days, but he's going to be hanging out in Kiev for one full week. That's a long time for an American official to be hanging out in Kiev.

Trump's Ukraine, Russia, neutral mediator envoy, Keelag, right? He's going to be in Ukraine for one week. What's going on here? Well, he's supervising the reshuffle. I mean, this is clearly why he's there. It is not a coincidence that this massive reshuffle is happening whilst Kellogg is there. I mean, there's obviously been a huge amount of going back with doing and throwing between the Americans and the Ukrainians about this. When I said the Americans, not all of the Americans,

as I said, some people in Washington don't like Yermark and probably won't be happy by these changes. Wick off and perhaps those people, I mean, I'm not absolutely sure, but Kellogg and the Nicon faction absolutely want to see this thing. And they, you know, him, Kellogg is going to be there to talk with Yermak and to talk with Zelensky and to make sure that this reshuffle is carried out in this sort of way, putting all of these important people in place. Now, we said that Zelensky and Yermak have never been keen on the Istanbul process. Neither has Kellogg been. Kellogg's actually tweeted about this. He's consistently argued that there should be a seized fire and a freeze before the negotiations take place.

So he doesn't want to see the Istanbul process continue. The Istanbul process in effect sidelined him. So we now have a situation where Trump has issued what has been described as an ultimatum to Putin to do a deal within 50 days. What that is going to do, whether that's the intention or not, is going to reinforce Zelensky's determination not to send a negotiating team to Istanbul. And Kellogg will back him. Yeah, just a final question. What else is Kellogg doing in Kiev?

Zelensky posted on X that he's going to be planning long-range missile strikes. He said with his team, with his staff, they are already planning long-range missile strikes into the United. the Russian Federation and the next day Kellogg took the train into Kiev is something else being planned. Oh, absolutely. Again, I mean, again, I don't want to guess very much about what Kellogg is doing, but he is a general. He is undoubtedly, as I said, part of the more, so hardline wing within the administration.

We have this disastrous idea of sending Tomahawk crews. missiles to Ukraine, which thankfully somebody blocked apparently at the last moment. I'm going to make a guess that when Kellogg was originally sent to Kiev, the expectation was that the Tomahawks would be supplied, and he was going to coordinate their use with the Ukrainians and set maybe the parameters. The Ukrainians do have other missiles, though, we're telling. which they're going to start using from the end of July. They could be Jasm's from the United States. They could be the system that they have developed with the Germans,

which is identical in all respects to the Taurus. Be careful here. But I would not be surprised if there's going to be quite a lot of joint planning with the Americans and Kellogg is going to be part of that. He is, after all, the general. Yeah, but that also means, just to follow up on that, That also means that the Trump White House is involved in planning attacks into the Russian Federation. Absolutely.

Absolutely, they are. Whether that will continue, whether that will change, we don't know. The fact that the decision to supply the Tomahawks was called off may suggest that somebody is now having a second thoughts about this and that the doubts are growing and that the doubts are growing. The other, the people who are unhappy about this are starting to push back. But there's no doubt at all that people within the administration are involved and Donald Trump himself is. Yeah, there's an article though that says, I forgot with which publication, maybe it's the Washington Post, which says that Trump or political, which says that Trump has acknowledged

that Ukraine can't win this thing. Oh, no. Why does he sideline then Whitkoff, who has now been effectively sidelined out of the picture, And he's doubling and tripling down now on Kellogg, who's a complete failure. Who is it? Who is Ukraine? Well, why is he even knowing, knowing Ukraine can't win, Trump, knowing Ukraine can't win? Why is he doing this?

Why is he even debating supplying weapons to Ukraine, even if the Europeans are going to pay for them? If Ukraine is going to lose, I mean, it's more good weapons being thrown away in a pointless in a pointless operation. This is the problem with Donald Trump. He does things which are completely inconsistent with his own, what we understand is his own understanding of the situation. He knows that Ukraine is going to lose. And so he sends Kellogg to Kiev. He talks about sending cruise missiles, long-range cruise missiles to Kiev. He's giving the green light to the Europeans to buy missiles and other weapons. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I suspect that again,

Donald Trump, who I'm going to say this, appears to me to be an insecure person, finds it very, very difficult to bring the NERCON faction within his own administration, let alone Congress, let alone the deep state, under full control. And he constantly bends towards them in ways that ultimately only emboldened them. All right, we will end the video there at the durand.orgas.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, Bitchy, Telegraph, Finan. Go to the Durand Shop, pick up some merch, like what we are wearing in this video, update free shipping on all orders from the Durant shop link is in the description box down below take

care