- 5/5/2025
🔥 Major geopolitical tension is rising as Russia and China issue a warning to the EU over Zelensky’s May 9 moves 🇷🇺🇨🇳⚠️
With Trump now pushing for a Russia Summit 🗣️🤝, and controversies surrounding a minerals deal grift, the global balance is shifting fast.
In this breakdown by Alexander Mercouris, we explore:
🔹 Moscow’s May 9 sensitivity
🔹 China’s position alongside Russia
🔹 EU reactions
🔹 Trump’s strategic play
🔹 What the “minerals deal” is really about
💬 COMMENT your thoughts below.
📢 LIKE | SUBSCRIBE | SHARE if you want more uncensored geopolitical analysis.
#RussiaChina
#Zelensky
#TrumpRussiaSummit
#Geopolitics
#May9Threat
#EUForeignPolicy
#UkraineCrisis
#AlexanderMercouris
#RussiaUpdate
#ChinaWarning
#TrumpNews
#MineralsDeal
#UkraineWar
#PutinNews
#GeopoliticalTension
#EasternEurope
#USRussiaRelations
#WorldPolitics
#ChinaNews
#EUvsRussia
With Trump now pushing for a Russia Summit 🗣️🤝, and controversies surrounding a minerals deal grift, the global balance is shifting fast.
In this breakdown by Alexander Mercouris, we explore:
🔹 Moscow’s May 9 sensitivity
🔹 China’s position alongside Russia
🔹 EU reactions
🔹 Trump’s strategic play
🔹 What the “minerals deal” is really about
💬 COMMENT your thoughts below.
📢 LIKE | SUBSCRIBE | SHARE if you want more uncensored geopolitical analysis.
#RussiaChina
#Zelensky
#TrumpRussiaSummit
#Geopolitics
#May9Threat
#EUForeignPolicy
#UkraineCrisis
#AlexanderMercouris
#RussiaUpdate
#ChinaWarning
#TrumpNews
#MineralsDeal
#UkraineWar
#PutinNews
#GeopoliticalTension
#EasternEurope
#USRussiaRelations
#WorldPolitics
#ChinaNews
#EUvsRussia
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00good day today is monday 5th may 2025 and before i get into the ukrainian discussions the ukrainian
00:00:10part of this video i think it might be useful to discuss briefly um recent developments in the
00:00:20indian pakistani confrontation there are reports that the indian military is preparing for a major
00:00:27operation against pakistan but there are also telltale signs that there's now a scramble
00:00:35to try to get negotiations between india and pakistan underway and that at least one of the
00:00:43parties probably pakistan is now urgently asking russia for mediation to exercise its good offices
00:00:53as a mediator between these two countries between pakistan and india and i ought to say that this
00:01:03is perhaps not entirely surprising there are reports i should say in the indian media which claims that
00:01:13pakistan is very short of ammunition to be precise artillery shells that it would only have about four
00:01:21days of artillery shells if an all-out war with india were to begin and i understand that again according
00:01:30to these indian media reports which i only know about by the way from second hand that the pakistan military
00:01:42has at this moment in time a reduced capability altogether it's not just short of artillery shells
00:01:50it's short of other things as well and for those who are interested and i'm sure that this will not come
00:01:58as a surprise the major reason supposedly why pakistan is short of artillery shells and critically
00:02:07short of artillery shells and of other military equipment is because pakistan for the last two years
00:02:18has been shipping weapons weapons shells and military supplies to the extent that it can
00:02:27disproportionately to ukraine it has been under heavy pressure from the united states to supply ukraine with
00:02:37shells and other military equipment it has run down its stockpile of shells it has sent it sent
00:02:47these shells to ukraine it has sent other military equipment to ukraine as well now these are indian reports
00:02:56indian media reports which again to stress i have not seen so it may be that they're being misrepresented
00:03:03and of course people in pakistan will say that what the indian media is reporting isn't wholly reliable
00:03:12anyway however however it does seem that they the export statistics of pakistan do show a sudden and
00:03:21extraordinary jump over the last two years in pakistani military exports and that is consistent with a
00:03:30wholesale transfer of military equipment to ukraine now of course if all of this is true if pakistan has
00:03:40indeed been supplying ukraine with all of these weapons and has done so at presumably the request of the united
00:03:49states then that was an incredibly short-sighted move by pakistan's military and political leadership
00:04:00some would say pakistan's military leadership because as many know the pakistani military has
00:04:08a dominant say in policy in pakistan um but i have to say also that it wouldn't surprise me
00:04:16um the connection the affinity between the pakistani military and the us has been very very long
00:04:26standing and of course it's widely believed probably correctly that the united states played a significant
00:04:35role in fact i'm sure correctly played a very significant role indeed in engineering the
00:04:42removal of the former pakistani prime minister imran khan a removal in which the military also in pakistan also
00:04:53played a significant role as well so anyway let's move on um there'll be there's probably an awful lot
00:05:02more that can be said about this topic i am sure as night follows day that there will be allegations of
00:05:10corruption involving this transfer of weapons if it has indeed taken place i would not be surprised if
00:05:20those allegations were true but i don't want to move beyond what i actually know let us discuss the
00:05:27moves towards mediation which are clearly taking place or so it seems to me the first thing to say is
00:05:34that this morning the pakistani ambassador to moscow uh muhammad khalid jamali gave a very what looked to me like a very urgent
00:05:51interview to the russian news agency tas tas is of course the official news agency of the russian state
00:06:02and i noticed that tas is giving particular coverage particular uh particularly prominent current coverage
00:06:10to this particular interview and i'm not going to read the entire interview though it is actually quite
00:06:18short i will say that there is a very strong undercurrent of urgency in this interview which suggests that the
00:06:32authorities in pakistan have been pulling out all the stops to try to get the russians involved and to try to
00:06:40get some mediation process underway and that um ambassador jamaali has been extremely active and um
00:06:53that um he has particularly pushed for this interview with tas and that there are requests from the pakistani
00:07:03government for this interview to be given prominence so anyway i will read some of the some of the
00:07:09questions and answers um the first question reads mr ambassador do you plan to hold consultations at the
00:07:16russian foreign ministry in connection with the aggravation of the situation between pakistan and india
00:07:24and then the ambassador replied we are already in touch with the russian foreign ministry
00:07:29country since the last meeting between president putin and pakistani prime minister shabazz sharif
00:07:36we have had many exchanges of visits there is no need to go into details but we have had at least four
00:07:42high level uh meetings um um over the recent period and i think you have already seen reports
00:07:52reports following my meeting with mr rudenko deputy minister uh of foreign affairs of russia these
00:07:59consultations are not interrupted and we consider russia an important player in international politics
00:08:08we have very good relations with russia at the moment and we continue to consult on many issues and
00:08:14then the question came back including the issue of pakistani indian escalation and the response from the
00:08:20ambassador was of course this is one of the main issues currently facing our region and then the
00:08:29question the further question came is pakistan interested in moscow's mediation to de-escalate the
00:08:36current situation in relations between pakistan and india and the ambassador replied we consider russia an
00:08:44indispensable force when it comes to matters of international politics indispensable forces very very
00:08:54strong words indeed it's obviously an immense compliment to the russians but again
00:09:00i sense a degree of urgency behind the use of that word and anyway the ambassador continues russia is playing
00:09:14its part it has always played a certain role in if you recall history during the conclusion of the tashkent
00:09:22declaration now what the ambassador is referring to here is something that happened
00:09:29back in 1965 in 1965 in 1965 there was an earlier war this time an all-out war between india and pakistan
00:09:42over the cashmere dispute and i don't pretend that i know the whole story but suffice to say that india and
00:09:53pakistan at pakistan at that time agreed to accept soviet mediation and a meeting took place in tashkent
00:10:04what is now the capital of uzbekistan but which was of course at that time a soviet city and the meeting
00:10:13was chaired by the then soviet prime minister alexei korsigin and korsigin acted as a mediator between
00:10:22pakistan and in india in that meeting and successfully brokered a ceasefire and an end of hostilities
00:10:34along the existing line of control now i understand that there was some criticism in india subsequently
00:10:45concerning that agreement but anyway it was an example of successful mediation and it was conducted
00:10:54by the soviet union specifically by alexei korsigin and it ended a military conflict which of course was
00:11:05an all-out war uh we're not yet at a state of all-out war between india and pakistan
00:11:13but it looks to me as if the pakistan is by reminding everybody that this is what the soviet union was
00:11:20able to do back in the 1960s is sort of asking the russians to do something similar all over again
00:11:31and he then went on to say and right now because russia has a privileged strategic partnership with india
00:11:40as well as very good relations with pakistan it can play a very important role in de-escalating
00:11:47tensions between our two neighbors nuclear neighbors i would emphasize of course in 1965
00:11:54pakistan and india were not yet nuclear powers as the ambassador has just reminded us they are today
00:12:01and um the question all of these questions and answers clearly look to be pre-prepared by the way
00:12:09uh the um russian the question at task then puts the question will pakistan welcome any efforts by russia
00:12:18to reduce the level of tension in pakistani indian relations and the ambassador replied as i said due to
00:12:26russia's special relationship with both countries russia has a great advantage in reducing tensions
00:12:34between the two countries that's for sure and then we're told um the next question again from tass is
00:12:42pakistan interested in some kind of platform for negotiations with india for example in moscow
00:12:51and then comes the giveaway because the ambassador then says this is the next step at this point we
00:13:00need to see if the other side is ready for this or not we made official statements after the recent
00:13:07incident in pahal gam that's the terrorist incident in cashmere when literally 10 minutes later the indian
00:13:15media and leaders began to accuse pakistan and then there's a long discussion and the long of the short
00:13:22of it is that that is clearly a request um for mediation by the russians and um we see that this is the next
00:13:36step according to the pakistani ambassador perhaps a meeting between the indians and the pakistanis
00:13:44in moscow with the russians fulfilling a mediation role and then further down over the course of the
00:13:54interview the task asks the ambassador would pakistan cooperate with an official investigation of the
00:14:05the incident the terrorist incident and one which was conducted by russia and he responds we are open we
00:14:17want this investigation to be conducted and this blame game to stop and then inevitably he brings in
00:14:26china as well and suggests that china might also have a role in the investigation china of course
00:14:33is an ally of pakistan so that looks to me very clearly as evidence that pakistan finding itself perhaps in
00:14:45a very dangerous and difficult position is now asking russia to intervene and to try to broker some kind of
00:14:56ceasefire between pakistan and india uh with pakistan apparently already giving promises that it will cooperate
00:15:07with an international investigation of the terrorist incident this time uh conducted by russia with perhaps
00:15:18china also involved china also involved now at some point and i don't know the exact timing but at some point
00:15:27either before or after this interview by the pakistani ambassador uh was given to task
00:15:36modi the prime minister of india and vladimir putin the president of russia had a telephone conversation
00:15:45and the russians have provided an interesting readout which i will now read the president of russia
00:15:53once again expressed his sincere condolences over the death of indian citizens killed in a barbaric
00:15:59terrorist act committed on april 20th in pachal gam jamu and kashmir both leaders emphasized terrorism
00:16:09must be fought against uncompromisingly in all its forms during the conversation an emphasis was made
00:16:17on the strategic nature of the special privileged partnership between russia and india impervious to
00:16:26any outside influence the relationship continues to develop rapidly across all areas then modi congratulates
00:16:37putin on the anniversary of the great victory which will be celebrated on the 9th of may
00:16:46modi was of course expected to attend that celebration but he wasn't able to go because of the crisis with
00:16:55pakistan the readout says that a representative of india will take part in the anniversary events to be
00:17:05held in moscow and then we read that the indian leader confirmed his invitation for the president
00:17:11of russia to visit india to hold the traditional annual bilateral summit the invitation was graciously
00:17:18accepted now there's no mention here of mediation of the russians fulfilling a mediation role but i would
00:17:28not be at all be at all surprised if that was actually the main topic of the whole discussion
00:17:34so we're not yet there uh pakistan this is my guess but pakistan from the tone of the interview
00:17:45given by the pakistani ambassador to tas is now asking the russians urgently to agree to mediate between pakistan
00:17:58and india they've already agreed to a independent investigation of the terrorist incident
00:18:08apparently an investigation in which the russians will play some sort of role and in some context or
00:18:16in some way modi and putin have spoken and i suspect that putin will be looking to see whether modi is
00:18:26indeed interested in mediation by russia of this dispute well there it is now i get to say something
00:18:33else briefly here before i move on to other topics which is that if it is indeed the case that the
00:18:42pakistani military put themselves in an incredibly difficult mid military position by shipping weapons
00:18:51on a mass scale to pakistan then they were fools that's the first thing and the second is that it
00:18:59must be particularly humiliating in that kind of situation to have to turn to russia for mediation to
00:19:08ask russia for mediation and to ask russia in effect to help pakistan get itself out of this confrontation
00:19:19with india um again to stress there is speculation on my part here i don't know what the exact
00:19:29relationship between pakistan and ukraine is i don't know whether those indian media reports are true
00:19:38but assuming they are true then pakistan has surely been given an object lesson not to
00:19:52follow the bidding of the neocons in washington stripping itself of weapons doing things that are frankly
00:20:02hostile hostile to russia the country that the pakistani ambassador says has very friendly relations with pakistan
00:20:14and um
00:20:18finding self later in a position where it has to turn to that
00:20:24that same friendly country against which it did that hostile act has to turn to it for help
00:20:34now again to repeat there is some degree of speculation on my side but you can see
00:20:42how all of the pieces if i could put it like that fit together and i strongly suspect that again
00:20:50my inferences here are correct of course knowing the russians knowing putin he's most unlikely to point
00:20:58that out to the pakistanis in quite the way that i have just done but i suspect that quietly um if a
00:21:06meeting in moscow does take place um there will be people on the russian side who will say to the pakistanis
00:21:17what on earth did you think you were doing and if the pakistanis were in some way involved in the incident
00:21:28in pach al gam the russians will probably tell the pakistanis also what on earth did you think you were doing
00:21:38carrying out something like that bringing the wrath of india down upon you
00:21:49and doing so at a time when you have in effect disarmed yourself yourselves by supporting ukraine
00:22:00anyway let's wait and see how things shape out it's as i said a complex situation an awful lot is going
00:22:08on and it may be as i said that there won't be a mediation after all or maybe there will be and we'll
00:22:14just have to wait and see i doubt that it will be quite as prominent as the mediation that took
00:22:21place in tashkent all those years ago in 1965 that mediation was attended by prime ministers i think
00:22:30it's more likely that if there is a meeting in moscow to try and agree a ceasefire it will be conducted at
00:22:36a significantly lower level but anyway we can see possibly where events over this conflict
00:22:44are taking us and if there is going to be a mediation given that we are talking about nuclear
00:22:50powers can i just say that would be a very good thing and i am confident also by the way that china
00:22:58has been consulted and is also involved and that china probably is giving advice to pakistan its long-term
00:23:07ally also to turn to the russians and to seek their help with mediation just to say now there is one last
00:23:18point that i want to discuss with respect to the readout of the conversation between putin and modi that
00:23:31the russia russian the kremlin has provided us it speaks about a partnership between russia and india which
00:23:43is of strategic nature and which is especially privileged privileged and which is impervious to any outside influence
00:23:56well it's not difficult to guess who that refers to it clearly refers to the united states and i can't help
00:24:06but think that this comment relates also to the so-called bone crunching sanctions that lindsey graham has been
00:24:16playing with about imposing massive tariffs against countries that buy russian energy products indeed pretty much any
00:24:30exports at all from russia and um murmurs that donald trump himself members of his administration are also
00:24:42looking to impose secondary sanctions against countries that trade with russia
00:24:51from what i've been able to understand the secondary sanctions that the administration has been looking at
00:24:59are significantly more modest than lindsey graham's sanctions but they do nonetheless involve some
00:25:08secondary sanctions against countries that import prohibited goods prohibited by the united states i should make
00:25:17clear from russia now what this readout is saying is that this
00:25:29um relationship between india and russia is impervious to outside influence that is in effect a warning
00:25:42to the united states that if it does go forward with these sort of secondary sanctions
00:25:50then india will defy them and of course given that india plays an enormously important role
00:26:00in u.s strategic calculations the united states has been courting india to try to forge some kind of
00:26:08de facto alliance against with india to contain china then i think that american officials
00:26:18really do need to start paying attention to what these readouts say now i haven't yet seen the indian
00:26:26readout of this conversation i expect it will be up soon i don't suppose that it will differ fundamentally
00:26:34from the russian one anyway there we are i will now move on to other topics and i will return now to the
00:26:43perennial topic of these programs which is the conflict in ukraine and what has been taking place there now
00:26:52over the last couple of days at the end of last week we were all given to understand that the point
00:27:04of decision had finally been reached and that the united states had concluded that um the gulf between
00:27:17russia and ukraine was unbridgeable and that the united states was pulling away from the negotiations it was
00:27:27finally walking away from the negotiations there was great uncertainty which i discussed
00:27:35in many of my programs as to what exactly it was
00:27:39that the united states would do from that point going forward whether it would continue to supply
00:27:47uh weapons to ukraine whether it would share intelligence with the with ukraine whether it
00:27:53would scale back its support for ukraine or cut ukraine off entirely there was lots of discussion and
00:28:03theorizing about this and speculation but it did look last week as if the united states had finally thrown in
00:28:13the towel with respect to its mediation efforts and that those efforts had now been finally called off
00:28:23and then donald trump spoke and in fact he gave interviews and surprise surprise he is still trying to
00:28:32mediate he tells us between the ukrainians and the russians things continue to move forward
00:28:40apparently they're going well there are of course problems one side seems to be more amenable to
00:28:47negotiations than the other he can't this time at least he's admitting now he can't guarantee
00:28:56that the negotiations will be successful he spoke he speaks about the loathing that the ukrainians and
00:29:04the russians putin and zelensky feel for each other but nonetheless and despite that negotiations of some kind
00:29:16are still taking place and the united states continues to be involved in them and marco rubio the us
00:29:26secretary of state has now come along and made similar comments he's also spoken about how the united
00:29:33states has lots of other priorities china is a more important priority for the united states than ukraine is
00:29:42i think by the way that is the first time that any official in the administration has said it quite
00:29:52so bluntly that it is in fact
00:29:58china that is the priority and that ukraine is not a priority but anyway that is what marco rubio was saying
00:30:07but surprise surprise despite the fact that ukraine is a lesser priority and china is a higher priority
00:30:18the united states is still apparently trying to find a way to bring ukraine and russia closer together
00:30:28now one thing i did notice and perhaps it's more a change of tone rather than a change of fact but it did
00:30:41seem to me as if trump and rubio are now talking less and less about a ceasefire and more about getting
00:30:50negotiations actual talks between ukraine and russia under way direct negotiations between ukraine and russia
00:31:01underway now it is unbelievably tiresome and exasperating um to find oneself again in a position
00:31:16with the american with the americans where they say one thing one week say something different the next week
00:31:24so that a position a decision which one thought had been made it turns out hasn't been made after all
00:31:35the messaging of this administration is absolutely all over the place on this issue of the conflict in ukraine
00:31:44and i do wonder sometimes what if i absolutely do wonder not sometimes pretty much all the time
00:31:54whether there is really any kind of diplomatic strategy here at all or whether it really isn't
00:32:00being made up from one day to the next i suspect i've come to the view in fact that it probably is
00:32:08being made up from one day to the next and i do wonder exactly what it was that has caused this sudden
00:32:16shift in policy i'm going to make a number of guesses because it is a shift in policy i'm going to make a
00:32:22number of guesses which is that last week and perhaps the week before we saw something of a tilt
00:32:31in favor of ukraine we saw the investment fund stroke mineral rights extraction deal finally signed or one
00:32:42document of it signed we saw that meeting between trump and zelensky in saint peter's basilica
00:32:51we've had murmurs and rumors that the administration is very frustrated with russia we've had talk about
00:33:03donald trump thinking of secondary sanctions against russia and we've had some gestures towards arming ukraine
00:33:17firstly an agreement to grant licenses for ukraine to buy up to 50 million dollars of weapons from the
00:33:24united states i don't think that this is actually and i want to stress this again a transfer of weapons
00:33:33from the united states to ukraine it's more a license to to sell certain weapons to ukraine it's not even
00:33:42clear to me that there's a contract in existence for this sale or that the weapons have even been
00:33:49allocated but anyway there was this request to congress for that license there was confirmation
00:33:57that um the united states is providing 310 million dollars of funding to um equip
00:34:08the f-16 fighter jets supplied to ukraine by the various european countries especially well essentially
00:34:18denmark and the netherlands and we've also had a report in the new york times which says that u.s
00:34:30officials and this is all based on our old friends people who are familiar with the situation u.s officials
00:34:40have been telling the new york times that the united states is now looking to try to
00:34:46meet some of ukraine's needs for air defense interceptors that there will be two more missile
00:34:54batteries provided to ukraine one from israel which is at the present time being refurbished one from
00:35:04germany now i ought to say that the delivery of the additional batteries patriot batteries from israel
00:35:13and germany that idea has been floating around for many months this is not new and my own understanding was
00:35:26that it had already been essentially agreed when joe biden was still president so this would not be
00:35:35a direct transfer of these batteries from the united states it would be a transfer of these missile batteries
00:35:44by the u.s's allies but of course the united states is involved it must green light this transfer
00:35:51it must provide some degree of technical backup and ultimately if these batteries are supplied to
00:36:01ukraine it must also supply the interceptors the patriot missile interceptors because germany and israel
00:36:10don't don't make them and presumably they have a stockpile and no doubt the batteries will originally initially come
00:36:19with missiles drawn from those stockpiles but ultimately once those missiles run out
00:36:28unless the germans and the israelis are prepared to run down their stockpiles further which in the case of israel
00:36:35i think is unlikely then the united states presumably will have to step in and will have to supply
00:36:43missiles of its own from its own stockpiles so all of these various telltale signals were suggesting
00:36:54that there was a tilt um going on in favor of ukraine and this has picked up in the media in europe especially
00:37:03in a whole series of articles about how trump was becoming angry and frustrated with putin because
00:37:11putin wasn't agreeing to the ceasefire that trump was committed to uh that secondary sanctions might
00:37:19just be around the corner whether trump had become disillusioned with putin and all of that and all of
00:37:27that did in turn also suggest that um the united states the trump administration donald trump himself
00:37:38were realigning with ukraine and were gradually reverting to the policies of the biden administration
00:37:49of sanctions against russia weapons for ukraine and basically nothing more well
00:38:03perhaps what brought about a change over the last couple of days was the criticism from key members of donald trump's
00:38:16mega movement marjorie taylor green as i said fiery representative for georgia in the house of representatives
00:38:24and an increasingly vocal and influential person indeed a serious politician who repays more attention than
00:38:33she gets in europe at least in my opinion anyway she made it absolutely clear in a post that she published on
00:38:43x that she was very unhappy by the mineral rights extraction deal or investment fund deal that she didn't
00:38:50understand what the point of it was she also made it very clear that she wasn't impressed by um apparent
00:38:59steps to involve the united states in a military clash with iran i will get to that later in this program
00:39:06but anyway she clearly wasn't happy with the apparent shift in favor of ukraine and as i also pointed out in
00:39:17previous programs another key figure of the mega movement sean davis who is the ceo of the federalist
00:39:27um a magazine which is i would say a key part of the mega movement anyway sean davis gave an interview
00:39:39on fox in which he also made pretty clear pretty obvious the fact that he wasn't happy with the
00:39:45mineral rights extraction deal and said that if it was a step towards peace and disengagement with ukraine
00:39:53he would back it but if it was a step towards a further commitment to ukraine he would not now i think the
00:40:03one thing that does cause donald trump to sit back sit up and take notice is when he starts to see these
00:40:13murmurings from members of his own base and it could be that this is what has now caused
00:40:22the shift and it may be that another factor that has played a role here is the sudden transfer
00:40:34of mike waltz from his position as national national security advisor to the position of ambassador
00:40:44u.s ambassador to the un a very important position as i've said in previous programs but not one
00:40:52in my opinion which donald trump himself takes especially seriously anyway the point is that waltz
00:41:02together with kellogg and rubio i've always argued formed something of a neocon light faction within the
00:41:13administration the new york times is now i'm sorry the washington post
00:41:20is now saying that the true reason for waltz's transfer is that trump discovered the extent
00:41:29to which waltz was coordinating with the israelis to try to get trump to agree to military strikes against
00:41:41iran that trump was furious about this he felt that waltz was showing greater loyalty to netanyahu and to
00:41:51israel than to the president that he served that's the story in the washington post just say and anyway
00:42:00the point is that the point is that the transfer of waltz from the position of national security advisor
00:42:07to the un ambassadorship will also have removed a advocate for ukraine within the white house and
00:42:20the british media has for some time been reporting that waltz is one of the most pro-ukraine voices
00:42:31within the administration up to now so it could be that all of these various intrigues and moves
00:42:37have caused trump to shift position and whereas previously he given the impression that he walked
00:42:50away from the negotiations but was starting to support ukraine and was signing deals with them
00:42:55now he talks about the negotiations still being ongoing and importantly he now says that he wants to meet
00:43:05vladimir putin and he's floating for the first time the possibility of an actual meeting in person
00:43:13meeting with putin in saudi arabia which donald trump is going to be visiting in the middle of may
00:43:22now the russians again have clearly been taken by surprise by all of this because obviously they were
00:43:34not informed about it in advance um peskov who is putin's spokesman has said that obviously a meeting
00:43:44with trump is a very good idea it might even be necessary but it's a meeting that has to
00:43:51be carefully prepared and the russians have not been um clearly given any um indicator that
00:44:01it was coming and well um the russians clearly don't seem to know quite how to respond at the moment
00:44:12um i'll read out what peskov says in many ways we believe it that is to say the summit meeting
00:44:22between putin and trump the proposed summit meeting in saudi arabia between putin and trump
00:44:27is of course necessary it must be appropriately prepared and this requires efforts at a wide variety
00:44:34of expert levels this requires the continuation of contact between moscow and washington which were
00:44:42initiated and are ongoing there are no details yet now the russians are talking about more contacts
00:44:51meetings at expert levels we have no word that anything like that is actually taking place
00:44:58uh there were reports some days ago of another meeting in istanbul between the americans and the
00:45:07russians but my guess is that that was mostly about uh sorting out the continued problems about the
00:45:14operation of the respective embassies it doesn't look as if there's been any serious preparations for a
00:45:22meeting between trump and putin in the middle of may and the russians again have been taken by surprise
00:45:29and are scrambling to decide how to respond they don't want to reject a meeting outright on the other
00:45:36hand clearly they don't feel that it has been properly prepared so far i'm going to add that from a
00:45:49russian point of view from putin's own personal point of view a meeting between himself and trump
00:45:59is going to have problems if it is going to happen this month on the 7th of may
00:46:08xi xinping arrives in moscow there are going to be four days of meetings between the russians and the
00:46:16chinese between putin and xi xinping we're getting more and more reports that big important agreements
00:46:26are going to be concluded over the course of these meetings and there will probably be signatures and
00:46:33i've already floated the possibility that we might actually see the final agreement for the power of siberia
00:46:41two pipeline though i want to stress again that i don't know that this is a fact now other important
00:46:51leaders are also coming to moscow over this same time period so lula is coming from brazil
00:47:00fitzo and vucic are also coming from europe it's likely well the vietnamese leadership is also coming
00:47:10there will be other leaders as well all of them are coming expecting to meet putin and putin undoubtedly
00:47:19has already agreed to have one-to-one meetings with all of these people and all of that will take
00:47:28a considerable amount of time the victory day celebrations themselves are going to take up a lot of
00:47:36time also there is going to be the parade on red square there's going to be the more immortal resident
00:47:44immortal regiments march when the families the russian families of soviet soldiers who fought and
00:47:51died during the second world war will parade in red square through the kremlin and not just through red
00:47:58square and the kremlin but through the main streets of moscow there will be all kinds of other events
00:48:04events this is a month when lots of things happen and going forward in a few weeks time i mean a relatively
00:48:18short space of time there is the saint petersburg international economic forum a major um forum attended by
00:48:28the russian leadership including putin himself in which to which also foreign leaders and foreign business
00:48:35people will be invited and in which putin is expected to give a keynote speech so where is he going to find
00:48:43the time in all of this for a summit meeting with donald trump in riad well if he must he will find the time
00:48:56and even if the meeting has not been fully and thoroughly prepared in advance the russians will probably feel
00:49:05if trump insists on a meeting that they can't ultimately say no but again these very rushed meetings
00:49:16probably are not the best way to conduct discussions and what exactly is it that donald trump expects
00:49:30putin to say at this meeting which putin has not said publicly already he has already told putin has already
00:49:39told trump's envoy steve wick golf that kellogg minus the peace plan that was proposed two weeks ago now
00:49:49ten days ago now during the meetings in paris and london that that won't fly that the russians can't
00:49:56accept it the russians putin have already told trump that a um unconditional ceasefire is out of the question
00:50:06um putin has repeated the long-standing russian position that negotiations direct negotiations between
00:50:20ukraine and russia ought to begin and that the russians are ready for those negotiations
00:50:28zelensky of course has rejected that idea zelensky insists on a peaceful ceasefire first
00:50:41and then negotiations only after without ukraine making in the meantime any sort of commitments at all
00:50:51a position which the russians have consistently rejected putin has given a long interview to his
00:50:59favorite journalist pavel zarubin in which as i pointed out in my program yesterday he has spoken
00:51:06about how he was repeatedly deceived in the past by the ukrainians and by the western powers that he
00:51:14agreed to ceasefires that weren't honored and agreed to a negotiating formula at minsk
00:51:21which the ukrainians simply used to spin out the conflict indefinitely even whilst they re-armed
00:51:29so putin has already set things up very fully and very thoroughly what does donald trump expect
00:51:36that putin is going to agree to at a summit meeting in riyadh which he has not said already the only
00:51:44thing i can think of is that trump now wants a public declaration perhaps a joint statement between
00:51:55himself and putin that there should be direct negotiations between russia and ukraine now that
00:52:06would indeed put a great deal of pressure on the ukrainians on zelensky himself
00:52:15to agree to those negotiations but again judging from zelensky's behavior up to now
00:52:26he will almost certainly reject the demand and the europeans almost certainly will back him and it's
00:52:34unlikely that such a joint demand from russia and the united states would actually move the process the
00:52:44negotiating process forward in any substantive way in fact we would be stuck in exactly the same position
00:52:55in which we are in at the present time perhaps at that point with zelensky rejecting negotiations
00:53:07direct negotiations direct negotiations with russia then maybe finally trump will walk away from the
00:53:16negotiations and might start saying that he's not going to be providing any further support for ukraine
00:53:25but we have been here so many times already is anybody at that point if trump really is going to
00:53:34going to say something like that is anybody going to really take it seriously unless concrete action follows
00:53:46it will seem to me as if another summit meeting will have happened leading nowhere and with no effective
00:53:55result now one thing i would say and i have already made it made the same point
00:54:02um in a program that alex and i have done on the duran which will probably be appearing tomorrow
00:54:11is that trump having essentially given an awful lot to zelensky over the last two weeks having given zelensky
00:54:23um the um the mineral rights investment deal the investment fund deal which i'm going to return to
00:54:31in a moment having given a few dribbles of weapons to zelensky having given zelensky that photo op of the
00:54:41meeting between trump himself and zelensky in saint peters having trump having done all of that
00:54:50that he's also enormously boosted zelensky's self-confidence i discussed yesterday this
00:54:57extraordinary threat that zelensky has made to attack the 9th may victory parade in moscow
00:55:08now the russians have reacted i might imagine very strongly against that threat there are rumors
00:55:15rumors they are only rumors but they're almost certainly true that the chinese government is also
00:55:21furious and has contacted the key governments in europe and has told those governments under no
00:55:29circumstances must such an attack take place and if such an attack does take place there will be all
00:55:37held to play to pay uh which i interpret to mean that china will then become a party to the conflict
00:55:47which will mean chinese military and economic assistance being provided to russia there's a chinese
00:55:58military contingent due to parade on red square on the 9th of may so one could see why that kind of a warning
00:56:07would carry weight anyway there are reports that privately the europeans and the americans have told
00:56:21zelensky to calm down and to stop making these kind of threats and he does appear to have walked them back
00:56:30to some extent he's now saying that it's the russians not him at all who's to blame
00:56:36for all of the tension but i'm going to suggest that given that zelensky has seen things go his way
00:56:46for the last couple of weeks he's not had to agree to negotiations with the russians he's been able to
00:56:54reject kellogg minus outright and suffer no consequences or even significant criticism
00:57:03he's got the deal the mineral rights deal i'll talk about that shortly uh he's got dribbles of weapons or
00:57:12promises of weapons in the pipeline as well he's heard rumors about the united states um imposing more
00:57:21sanctions on russia it is entirely unsurprising that he feeling confident feeling that he's on a roll
00:57:32does the thing that zelensky in these kind of situations always does run away with his rhetoric make these
00:57:42kind of threats against uh russian parades um he senses he feels this enormous sense of impunity
00:57:54he thinks that things are going his way he believes with some cause that he can get away with anything
00:58:01and he makes threats of this kind that really ought to show to trump to the people in washington what an
00:58:10impossible person zelensky is it's baffling that they still haven't fully registered with this that
00:58:21after the oval office meeting in february they still imagine that zelensky is some kind of potential
00:58:28negotiating partner and that they haven't taken further steps to rein him in maybe maybe if there
00:58:37is a meeting with putin over the next few weeks that will be the moment when the united states finally
00:58:44does that i have to say i have little expectation that that is so now why is zelensky so confident well
00:58:55i've given some explanations but i should say that i've had a discussion with my colleague and friend
00:59:02alex christoforo about the mineral rights extraction deal the one document that has been published about
00:59:12it they're supposed to be three two other documents have not been published we've not been given a
00:59:19satisfactory explanation of why they haven't been published but anyway we have to work with the one
00:59:25document that we have which only gives us a small part of the story and i've already said i've read this
00:59:33document and i've not been able it has never made any very great sense to me and in my program
00:59:42yesterday i discussed strana's account of this document and it's clear that it didn't make very much
00:59:51sense to them either well over the course of this discussion alex christoforo i think nailed it uh he said
01:00:01to me that this is basically a document intended to continue the grift and that brought everything
01:00:10into focus and when seeing it in that in those terms i immediately began to understand what this
01:00:19document was everything suddenly fell into place and in fact it reminded me finally it made not only
01:00:29made sense to me but it reminded me of certain other documents of that nature that i have seen in the
01:00:36past because what is being discussed here what this one agreement that we have seen actually does and
01:00:43it really needs to be stressed again is it's it's not really a development plan to develop ukrainian resources
01:00:53natural resources it's a fund it sets up a fund now you could say that it's a fund but funds obviously have to have
01:01:04accounts the ukrainian economics minister says that the funds will remain in ukraine for the first 10 years
01:01:17funds as i said have to have accounts if the funds are going to remain in ukraine for the first 10 years
01:01:24then the account will be located in ukraine so what we have in effect is a kind of offshore account an offshore
01:01:38bank account being set up in ukraine into which both the ukrainian government and the united states government
01:01:47which is to say american taxpayers and others will pour in money the purpose the theoretical purpose is to
01:02:00develop ukrainian natural resources but is there anybody on planet earth who has any real sense of the
01:02:12the realities who generally believes that that is going to happen who generally generally believes that
01:02:20money tens of billions of dollars of money being placed in an account in ukraine is actually going to be
01:02:32used for that sort of purpose after all no less a person than mike waltz recently said in an interview
01:02:40that ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in europe which is by the way absolutely true
01:02:50so it's a to me this whole thing reminds me once again very much of afghanistan 25 years ago
01:03:0324 years ago directly after the united states established its position in afghanistan um it there was talk
01:03:15about developing afghanistan's natural resources i remember that there was an awful lot of talk then
01:03:22about the enormous mineral riches that afghanistan was supposed to possess that all turned out to be
01:03:29massively exaggerated there was also talk about pipelines from central asia to transport oil and gas across
01:03:41afghanistan to the red sea and all that none of that of course saw the light of day but hundreds of billions
01:03:52of dollars were poured into afghanistan in military aid in economic aid in financial assistance
01:04:01three daily three trillion dollars worth according to some estimates
01:04:06and well suffice to say that what came out the other end in terms of things that were actually built
01:04:13and constructed in afghanistan seemed very paltry by comparison there was no for example construction mass
01:04:21construction of railways in afghanistan we much talk over many years about building railways in afghanistan but
01:04:28little sign of that some airports were refurbished a couple of roads were resurfaced there was a fair
01:04:36amount of investment in kabul itself in the consumer economy there but one can't speak of any great
01:04:44industrial transformation of the country afghanistan was a grindingly poor country before these three
01:04:53trillion dollars entered afghanistan and it continued to be a grindingly poor country after all of those
01:05:03funds all those trillions entered afghanistan and what exactly happened to all that money well we don't
01:05:12really know there's been all kinds of reports about how poor the accounting was how everything has gone
01:05:22astray and it's all over the place and nobody really knows exactly where all the funds went and what is
01:05:31even more disturbing very few people seem to care i am going to suggest that this is exactly what this
01:05:38new fund that has been created is all about it's a mechanism to do something very similar to what
01:05:48happened in afghanistan it has been justified with the same sort of arguments that this will be a cornucopia of
01:05:57riches for the united states ukraine is enormously rich in natural resources it's got lithium it's got magnesium
01:06:05it's got all sorts of rare earths it's got natural gas it's got oil there's been all kinds of wiser more
01:06:14prudent people who say well hold on there isn't actually that much there at all in terms of rare earths
01:06:23as for all of these other things well they can still be found
01:06:27uh and developed more profitably in other places and there are so many uncertainties
01:06:38about developing say natural gas and oil fields in ukraine anyway that investing trillions in doing so
01:06:47or billions in doing so is not really a good idea now alex christopher has been pointing out for years
01:06:56that there has been this endless conveyor belt of money out of the united states
01:07:03into all of these various projects around the world nato itself to some extent functions
01:07:10in this kind of way a lot of the money doesn't remain in the countries to which it is purportedly sent
01:07:20to afghanistan or to ukraine i suspect an awful lot of the money ends up in all sorts of other places
01:07:29where it serves all kinds of other purposes but of course what he does do what this constant movement
01:07:39of money into a country does is that he does create beneficiaries within these countries people who are
01:07:48close to the movement of all of these funds and it binds them together it binds them together and to
01:07:56the united states and to whoever it is that the united states is supporting in and in that kind of country if you go back to vietnam by the way
01:08:09it was not that different not as developed or as huge as it is today afghanistan was on a different scale
01:08:17from anything i've ever seen but you could see the same story play out in ukraine again and this gives us
01:08:28i think the clue to why zelensky is so optimistic at the present time because the money flow looks like it's
01:08:37going to resume or perhaps he believes it will resume and of course not only is it possible i'm just floating
01:08:46this that he might personally benefit from this more importantly as a result of that money flow
01:08:54the various members of the ukrainian political elite who have been looking to him to provide them with the
01:09:05financial umbrella if i could put it like that that they are used to they will now feel that zelensky has
01:09:14indeed acted to secure their interests with the americans and is going to keep the money flowing
01:09:23so that will bind them closer to zelensky even than they already are it will mean that he's
01:09:34political position in kiev which has already looked stronger than it has been for some time
01:09:43will be further consolidated and that means that he doesn't have to worry basically
01:09:52about any potential conceivable political challenge he will remain president of ukraine right up to the
01:10:03moment when it is time for him to leave and to take the plane with the suitcases and fly to miami or
01:10:13paris or london or south of france or wherever it is that he intends to go and if he it isn't a plane
01:10:23well might be a train but whatever it is that is the exit that he probably is already preparing
01:10:32so looked at in that way this deal makes complete sense the only question is how it came about
01:10:45that the americans agree to it after all the donald trump himself has been saying about it he has been
01:10:55talking about getting this mineral rights extraction deal done in order to extract money from ukraine
01:11:07in order to reimburse american taxpayers for the hundreds of billions of dollars
01:11:15the united states has previously sent to ukraine the actual vehicle
01:11:22vehicle that is being created seems more likely to do the opposite yes once it starts making a profit
01:11:34money will presumably come out that can be cashed in but if the economics minister the ukrainian economics
01:11:43minister is right that will not be for 10 years once the fund starts after the fund starts operating
01:11:53because in the meantime for those 10 years all the money will remain in ukraine itself now article 6 of
01:12:03this agreement does appear to contain it what does contain a provision which says that any money any further
01:12:12future weapons deliveries to ukraine made by the united states will be treated as an american contribution
01:12:20to the fund and many people have assumed that that is the primary purpose of this fund that is what the
01:12:34vice chairman of russia security council dmitry medvedev for example appears to think judging by a comment that
01:12:43he has himself posted and i could see how it might work like that but i don't think that this is the primary
01:12:53purpose of this vehicle the rest of the document doesn't seem to me to read as if that is the purpose i'm afraid
01:13:06like alex alex christopher looking at this document it does seem to me to be a neck a mechanism to keep the
01:13:18grift going now just to finish we are told that there are these two other documents that have either been
01:13:25signed or have not been signed
01:13:27perhaps they exist probably they exist but until they're produced we can't really be sure um it's
01:13:39been said that the really key document is the limited is the is the limited partnership document which
01:13:47is absolutely true based on what we said the one that will actually allocate responsibilities and
01:13:53management functions as between the parties the fact that these two documents are being held back
01:14:01not just from the people of ukraine but also from the people of the united states that they have not
01:14:10been published there to my mind also clearly points to this thing being a mechanism to perpetuate
01:14:22a grift and well if it was not the case why not publish them apparently in the ukrainian parliament
01:14:31some parliamentarians have been complaining that they this key document has not been published
01:14:39and they are asking how they can be expected to ratify the document that has been published as a treaty
01:14:48between the united states and ukraine if they're not seen if they're not given sight of these two other
01:14:56critical documents well zelensky is not producing the documents he's simply saying to ukrainian mps
01:15:07that if you don't go ahead and ratify this agreement his friends the americans will start to deny
01:15:21these ukrainian mps visas so they won't be able to escape ukraine to go to the united states
01:15:31with whatever they hope to take with them so there it is i think as i said that alex hit the nail on the head i think he's got this exactly right i think this is exactly what this is i've seen in
01:15:51in my previous career all sorts of similar agreements to set up of offshore accounts
01:16:00and frankly this is a highly developed rather um gross or rather the huge version
01:16:14of exactly that now anyway we will see where all of this is going but meanwhile of course the war grinds on
01:16:22and this morning completely unsurprisingly 9th of may is just over the horizon we get reports that the
01:16:31ukrainians are making some further attempts and renewed attempt to break into kursk region
01:16:38to resume the battle in kursk region that is already lost why the ukrainians would want to do that
01:16:48why after being comprehensively defeated in kursk region they would want to restart
01:16:58a battle like that i really cannot well rationally cannot begin to comprehend
01:17:06a few weeks ago i discussed how shortly after the fall of torresk the ukrainians started to circulate
01:17:18stories that the battle of torresk was still underway we then got reports of all sorts of counter-attacks
01:17:25and raids by the ukrainians into torresk all intended to foster the impression that the battle of torresk was
01:17:33indeed still underway all of those attacks failed all of those attacks left the ukrainians
01:17:41with heavy losses but for a couple of weeks the image the story about continued battle for torresk
01:17:53was all over the media the western media and even as of today from my understanding the ukrainians
01:18:06are still denying that torresk is indeed under russian control um i discussed yesterday in my program
01:18:17an analysis of the war done by the former u.s military officer and alex machine about how ukraine
01:18:28constantly throws away lives of its soldiers to pursue pr goals we saw that with the torresk attacks
01:18:42attacks we are seeing this again with this latest incursion into kursk none of this detracts in any way
01:18:54from ukraine's major operational crisis which as of the time of my making this program is getting much much
01:19:04worse now there are reports now that the russians have made very big breakthroughs in the konstantinovka area
01:19:16and that the situation there is moving rapidly towards crisis
01:19:22two three four five there are also reports of major russian advances around pakrovsk a very heavy
01:19:35shelling of pakrovsk and of continued um advances by the russians most specifically in the village of udach
01:19:45near south west of pakrovsk but along the railways from kotlinok towards pakrovsk itself
01:19:53and well we're still uncertain as to what exactly is happening in southern pakrovsk where it looks as
01:20:00if a russians uh reconnaissance group um briefly entered the town or perhaps not so briefly maybe
01:20:07they're still there a couple of days ago but i would say that given that this is very much a holiday
01:20:16period in russia we're caught between two holidays um the first of may and the ninth of may um the amount
01:20:26of information um one gets about the overall military situation is not always as comprehensive as it was
01:20:38though if you spend time which i propose to do over the course of today trying to get it all together
01:20:45probably you can get a fairly detailed picture my my sense again is as i said that especially in the
01:20:53konstantinovka liman and pakrovsk areas things are now starting to move very fast i saw that and our
01:21:01our old friend andrei marochko essentially says the same he says that the line of engagement is actively
01:21:09moving almost breathing anew whilst the liman sector was previously characterized by many positional
01:21:17battles our troops are now demonstrating increased activity across several areas they have begun to push
01:21:24forward in the kopiansk region located in the northern part of the lugansk people's republic zone of
01:21:30responsibility as well as the dorit donetsk direction notably near toskoye toskoye is of course his village
01:21:40just west of siversk solidar and chasovya these are all promising developments and he said all of this
01:21:50in an interview that he gave to the um massive circulation russian newspaper komsomolskaya pravda
01:22:00anyway i will return to all of this tomorrow and i will also look at the situation in the middle east
01:22:07where it seems to be increasingly clear that the united states is becoming deeply frustrated
01:22:12by its inability to get on top of the situation with the houthis in yemen but this is where i finish
01:22:22my program today so there'll be more from me soon let me remind you again you can find all our programs
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01:23:06you