- 6/1/2025
🔥 As the Istanbul peace talks approach, Moscow issues a chilling warning: if negotiations fail, Kiev could lose control of Odessa, eastern, and southern Ukraine ⚠️. The stakes couldn’t be higher — and the West is watching closely.
With signs that the U.S. may be stepping back from the conflict, the UK and EU face deep uncertainty over their next moves 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇺. As public support for the war wanes and diplomacy stalls, the geopolitical balance begins to shift 🌍🕊️.
Join Alexander Mercouris as he breaks down what’s at stake, how the territorial fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance, and why European leadership is spiraling into gloom and confusion 🧠🔍.
#UkraineWar #MoscowWarning #OdessaCrisis #IstanbulTalks #AlexanderMercouris #USExitsWar #RussiaUkraineConflict #Geopolitics #UkraineNews #KievLosesOdessa #EastUkraine #SouthUkraine #PutinUkraine #USWithdrawal #EUGeopolitics #UKUkraineSupport #UkrainePeaceTalks #OdessaFrontline #RussiaStrategy #UkraineUpdate
With signs that the U.S. may be stepping back from the conflict, the UK and EU face deep uncertainty over their next moves 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇺. As public support for the war wanes and diplomacy stalls, the geopolitical balance begins to shift 🌍🕊️.
Join Alexander Mercouris as he breaks down what’s at stake, how the territorial fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance, and why European leadership is spiraling into gloom and confusion 🧠🔍.
#UkraineWar #MoscowWarning #OdessaCrisis #IstanbulTalks #AlexanderMercouris #USExitsWar #RussiaUkraineConflict #Geopolitics #UkraineNews #KievLosesOdessa #EastUkraine #SouthUkraine #PutinUkraine #USWithdrawal #EUGeopolitics #UKUkraineSupport #UkrainePeaceTalks #OdessaFrontline #RussiaStrategy #UkraineUpdate
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NewsTranscript
00:00good day today is saturday 31st may 2025 and we are two days away from the next meeting between
00:08the russian and ukrainian delegations at the domal budget palace in istanbul at which the
00:14russians will deliver them memorandum setting up their ideas for the final settlement of the
00:22conflict in ukraine and also apparently a separate document in which they will respond to the ukrainian
00:31ideas for a ceasefire or perhaps there will be no such meeting in istanbul on the 2nd of june 2025
00:44because so far apparently according to the russians there's been no confirmation from the ukrainian
00:51government from the ukrainian officials from zelensky himself at least no confirmation to the
00:57russians that the ukrainians do indeed intend to come to istanbul at all zelensky continues to complain
01:06angrily about the fact that the russians have not provided their written response to his ceasefire
01:13proposals or their memorandum in advance of the meeting he says that this is unprofessional that
01:20it is wrong uh he's making far too much of this entirely understandable and commonplace negotiating
01:30move by the russians i've explained both in yesterday's program and in the program the day before
01:38why the russians would have good reasons not to provide the memorandum and their written response
01:46to ukraine ceasefire proposals in advance of the meeting in istanbul why they would wait until the
01:56meeting took place before handing those two documents over but anyways zelensky is making a big play of
02:03this he's saying that this proves that the russians aren't serious about negotiations he says this all the
02:08time he says that the russians are string is stringing things along he says that this isn't this is an
02:14act of extreme bad faith by the russians and at times ukrainian officials have sort of hinted they've
02:23never outright said at least i've never seen them outright say that the ukrainians will not even turn
02:29up at the meeting in istanbul unless they are given these two russian documents in advance something
02:38which by the way the russians categorically refuse to do well in spite of all of that in spite of the
02:44fact that we still have no uh confirmation that the ukrainians are indeed going to go to istanbul
02:51on monday i expect that they will be there on monday or maybe not on monday but on tuesday on the
02:59following day or something of that kind we are it seems to me going through a minor rerun of the
03:07circus we saw back in may when putin said that he was going to send a delegation to meet with the
03:14ukrainians in istanbul on the 15th of may and zelensky said that there would be no ukrainian delegation
03:22going to meet the russians on the 15th of may or he would be going to um istanbul on the 15th of may
03:30and expected putin to come and if he didn't come there would be no negotiations or that um the he would
03:38allow some ukrainian officials to go to istanbul on the 15th of may but they wouldn't actually meet
03:47the russians unless putin himself was there anyway the whole tiresome circus which ultimately ended
03:58in a damn squid squib of an outcome when the ukrainians did in fact sit down at the domol
04:06palace on the 16th of may after having keeping the kept the russians waiting for 24 hours and had
04:14a brief two-hour meeting with the russians at the domol badger palace so as i said the whole tedious
04:22business is being replayed but without the same conviction or so it seems to me now the reason why
04:31we can be i think confident that the ukrainians are indeed going to turn up at the domol badger palace
04:37on monday so second june to meet the russians and to accept from the russians their memorandum
04:44and the russian written response to ukraine ceasefire proposals is because the americans are
04:50insisting on it and interestingly enough the person who has come out and spoken about this
04:55is none other than keith kellogg general kellogg and he has said that the ukrainians would be
05:02extremely ill-advised indeed not to meet with the russians not to negotiate with the russians he didn't
05:09say that he was referring specifically to the meeting on monday monday 2nd june but it was difficult to
05:20avoid the absolute definite certainty that that was indeed what he was referring to so the americans are
05:29insisting that the ukrainians must go and kellogg went on to say some other very interesting things he said
05:39that if the meeting didn't go well if the americans concluded that the negotiations were going nowhere
05:46in fact he was careful to blame on the russians not on the ukrainians even as he puts pressure on
05:54the ukrainians to turn up to the meeting in istanbul suggesting that the ukrainians are far from keen to go
06:01anyway if that does indeed happen he again was floating the possibility of the united states of
06:11donald trump of the administration walking away and ceasing its involvement in the negotiations any further
06:21and from what he was saying i got the distinct impression also that he was indicating that um it
06:29would be the end of us involvement direct us involvement in project ukraine he was asked why was the united
06:39states prepared to walk away from ukraine entirely and he said well the world has changed since the way it was
06:49during donald trump's first term at that time the united states was indeed faced with very various adversaries
06:58china russia north korea iran but they were not yet working with each other they were not yet in
07:08partnership with each other and that meant that the united states could deal with each separately
07:15and did not have to think all the time about the potential responses of the others
07:22this time today kellogg said that the situation is different they're all working together they're all
07:30in league together against the united states that makes the situation for the united states
07:37far more dangerous and far more complicated than it was during donald trump's first term and he gave
07:44an interesting example he said that what might happen if the fighting in ukraine escalated is that perhaps
07:53perhaps the ukrainians might encounter north korean troops fighting on their own territory fighting
08:03alongside the russians and that would be a further sign that there was a military alliance developing
08:10between russia and north korea and then something else might happen which is that as the united states
08:19uh became distracted if it was still involved in focusing on project ukraine as the united united
08:26states became pro distracted and became involved countering the north koreans and the russians
08:33in ukraine the north koreans might start something something big and something serious
08:41in the korean peninsula itself and then because the north koreans were fighting alongside the russians
08:51in ukraine the russians might actually start helping the north koreans might become directly involved
09:02in the fighting in south korea and that of course would be a catastrophe for the united states it would
09:10mean that a superpower adversary was involved in the fighting on the korean peninsula and that would
09:18create a crisis well the like of which we haven't seen since the end of the cold at the end of the second
09:25world war so this is a much more dangerous international environment than the one
09:31which existed in donald trump's first term um kellogg didn't specifically talk about china but one could
09:38sense that looming just over the horizon is the growing power of china itself and for all of these reasons
09:49um kellogg said that the united states needed to tread extremely carefully in ukraine and that it would
09:58not be able it did not have unrestricted freedom of action in what it could do in ukraine and
10:09kellogg also went further and said that if the united states did was forced to take these decisions
10:20then ukraine would not be abandoned but it would be up to the europeans to step in and to try to do
10:29something whatever they could to help ukraine despite the significant scaling down of military support
10:39by the united states now i have to some extent perhaps amplified kellogg's comments but not i think by
10:49very much and it's the closest kellogg has ever come to saying that the united states
10:57really has reached the limits of what it can do in ukraine that it really can't do much more
11:06to help ukraine it can't just go on shipping rare patriot missile interceptors to ukraine it can't
11:14go on supplying ukraine with weapons it cannot afford to be trapped in an open-ended confrontation with
11:24the russians in ukraine far away from its core interests because the situation overall across the
11:31world is so much more complicated than it was until very recently now i would just quickly say a few things
11:39about this the first is that what kellogg is doing here is he is in effect condemning
11:50the policies of the biden administration the preceding biden administration but arguably near
11:57neocons policies going back all the way to the period just after the end of the cold war he's saying that
12:08what the neocons have achieved is that they've brought about a situation where all the various
12:16countries that have issues with the united states the big countries that have issues with the united states
12:21which the big military powers russia china iran north korea who knows perhaps others before long as well
12:30are now combining against the united states and making common cause with each other
12:39previously the united states did have issues with many different countries but they were not united
12:46against the united states in the way that they are now and that is a direct product you didn't say so
12:55but the implication is obviously there that is a direct product of the mismanagement of u.s foreign policy
13:03over the last 30 years but perhaps especially over the previous four the years when tony blinken
13:12and jake sullivan and jake sullivan were running things in washington and i have to say on this it's
13:19difficult to fault um kellogg's analysis and he's absolutely right about it and um he's perfectly correct
13:31many people were saying at this at the time uh we were saying this on the duran that um sullivan and um
13:40and blinken had invented a new theory of international relations which is that the best way of dealing
13:50with your adversaries is to take them all on at the same time because that is the guaranteed way of
13:57having them all combined against you that is the mastery of foreign policy according to jake sullivan
14:06and tony blinken and tony blinken i'm speaking ironically of course and you see that this is what
14:13kellogg himself is saying and it's an interesting comment from kellogg because of kellogg has been
14:20a consistent proponent so far as i can see in conventional foreign policy thinking within
14:26the trump administration but his words suggest that here even he can see how disastrous
14:38the foreign policy line taken to its extreme by sullivan and blinken has become for the united states
14:48now kellogg didn't also say some other things but he might as well have done for example about the limits
14:58of u.s military power and uh there's been an interesting article about this by somebody called michael
15:05keyun on unheard uh published on the 26th of may and it discusses how the houthis exposed um waning u.s
15:16military power over the course of their uh the recent u.s military campaign in yemen i'm going to say that
15:26i think this article overstates a number of things and i'm not going to read it through because it's
15:33very long but it does make some interesting points and these points i believe are true to the extent
15:42that i've been able to check them in the limited time that i have they do seem to correspond with the
15:47truth anyway this article says for example that the the united states has in theory 11 nuclear super
15:59carriers which is of course far more than any other country the reality is that because of maintenance
16:06and repair issues and problems with personnel and problems in the shipyards and problems with some of
16:14the conditions of some of the carriers the actual surge capacity of the u.s carrier fleet is closer to four
16:23than 11. in other words it would take many months perhaps more than a year perhaps significantly more
16:30than a year for the united states to be able to field 11 super carriers at the same time in any proximate
16:42realistic time scale the most that the united states could field would be perhaps four perhaps even less
16:55so already u.s naval power appears to be rather less than um the theory the the actual raw numbers might
17:07imply and he says the same about bombers he said that the six b2 stealth bombers that were deployed against
17:17the huthis actually probably represents the entirety of the b2 bomber fleet that is available for action at any one
17:27time that though there are in theory that though there are in theory 20 b2 stealth bombers available
17:36in reality if you take into account maintenance and refurbishment there's only about six that are fully
17:47operational at any one time and his implication again was that it would take a very very long time
17:54and a deep commitment of resources to bring more than six back into use and he said the same about
18:03pretty much he says he claimed that the same is true about the rest of the u.s military as well
18:12that the united states depends very very heavily now on long-range standoff weapons cruise missiles and
18:19that kind of thing the problem is that there aren't that many of them and that they are very expensive
18:26to produce and they're complicated to produce he said quite a lot for example about the jason
18:33bombs the guided bombs which by the way have also been apparently supplied to ukraine they are very
18:41expensive they're not easy to produce they are complicated weapons and the united states has only limited
18:49inventories of them despite claims to the contrary because not all of these jason bombs
19:00that are in the inventories are fully operational and the article also makes claims
19:08that if we're talking about land forces the ability to sustain long-term military operations with land forces
19:18has also reduced very significantly and continues to do so the way he describes it is of a u.s military that
19:29is heavily dependent upon the massive build-up that took place way back in the 1980s during the reagan era
19:43and as those weapons the weapons that were produced in the 1980s start to decay and run out
19:53of the u.s military finds itself in decline in a caught up in a decline which even higher defense spending
20:06today is not really able to reverse it's an interesting article and it's not out of line with what other
20:16people have been who understand the situation of the u.s military people like daniel davis and douglas mcgregor
20:24have been saying for a long time also it would suggest by the way that the bulk of the u.s
20:31military inventory is dates from the same relative era as the russian one the russians also
20:42have relied very very heavily on old soviet stockpiles of weapons though they seem to have
20:50a far greater capacity to move to modernize those and to produce new weapons in quantity there doesn't
20:59seem to be so far for example in the united states anything like the kind of production that we see of the
21:09new fab um guided bombs that the russians are producing uh at the rate of apparently 75 000 a year
21:21at the present time it seems that the united states cannot produce bombs guided bombs as cheaply or as
21:31simply or as inexpensively in the sort of volumes that the russians able appear to be able to do
21:41which all of which is very interesting and which by the way begs many many questions
21:47anyway i'm sure that kellogg who is after all a military official or former military official
21:53has at least some of this at the back of his mind and probably also understands at some level at least
22:01that ukraine the conflict in ukraine is a black hole that the united states can't simply can't afford
22:12any longer to pour rare and expensive and valuable weapons into
22:19so anyway that then throws it all back on the europeans and by coincidence or not as the case may be
22:30there is now an article about all of this in the daily telegraph as well the daily telegraph also
22:36writing about problems that the western powers the european powers might be having and the fact that the
22:46europeans need to understand that um it will soon be entirely up to them the title of the article is
22:56europe must get real about trump abandoning ukraine british and french officials shift focus from
23:03deploying troops to sustaining kiev's defense without us support it looks as if there's been some
23:13communication between the united states and the british and the french and the europeans and
23:21the europeans are being told by the americans that depending on what happens in istanbul
23:31on monday the united states might indeed pull out of its mediation efforts but also pull back
23:40from out and out support military support for ukraine that there are not going to be more big us arms
23:48packages for ukraine that trump is not going to exercise he's drawn down authority to supply ukraine with
23:58more weapons based on the appropriations that congress made last year and he's certainly not going to go
24:06back to congress to seek another big appropriation for ukraine so according to this daily telegraph article
24:16the europeans are now gradually coming to understand that and that they are now thinking
24:25about what to do once the americans walk away there is now a genuine concern that the u.s president will
24:33follow through on his threat to break to walk away from his role as a mediator having failed to bring
24:39vladimir putin to the negotiating table which is a very strange way of putting it but anyway there we
24:44go let's get real and admit the u.s will never be on board a western official has told the telegraph
24:52describe describing the dire mood at a meeting in the hague this is a meeting of european leaders that has
25:00just happened a european diplomat added it was mostly about how to sustain the necessary support to
25:08ukraine when we assume that the united states would only continue providing some specific assets such as
25:16intelligence we also agreed to on the need to step up economic pressure on russia the meeting attended by
25:26political directors from foreign ministries marked a stark change in the roles of the coalition of the
25:33willing devised by kia starmer and manuel macron to uphold a possible ceasefire being pursued by the
25:40americans this time apparently the question um was what to do when the americans do finally pull out
25:54and i'm going to say straight away that there is actually nothing they can do there's been much talk
26:02about buying u.s weapons to support ukraine that would be extremely difficult to do to put it mildly
26:16at a time when europe is in the grip of a massive budgetary crisis one which affects virtually
26:24all european states getting money to buy weapons from the u.s at a eu level might in theory be possible
26:36and perhaps you could see how it could be done through floating war bonds something which
26:44e um usular and the eu commission have been keen to do for a very very long time
26:52but then the mood in the bond markets is becoming increasingly fragile um as they start to worry
26:58about the fact that um no european government has its well no western government in fact has its budget
27:05situation under control and i wonder how many takers for these war bonds there would actually be
27:12at the end of the day given the overall perception that ukraine itself is failing ukraine
27:19hasn't helped matters by defaulting on repayment of certain things which it now calls warranties
27:31these were bonds i'm going to call them bonds which was supposedly payable on the basis of supposed growths
27:40in ukrainian gdp um apparently ukraine has decided that it's not going to pay on the latest coupon for
27:52these warranties which we are told nonetheless should not be classified or considered bonds the total
28:00amount is i believe around 650 million dollars so this is not apparently a default we're told the financial
28:07times there's a whole article explaining why this default on this on these warranties is not actually
28:14a default of course it is i'm not going to split hairs about this but anyway um whatever
28:24argument you can make for saying that these are not bonds i i think it's going to be very difficult to
28:32persuade people in the financial markets that ukraine's failure to pay this particular coupon is anything
28:41other than a default of course the imf continues to provide funding to ukraine i suspect the whole
28:53the whole strategy pretending what is a default is not really a default is mostly intended to keep imf
29:02funding coming just saying but well anyway the point is that i think that international investors
29:12who might in better times have been the people who would be expected to snap up
29:20eu bonds might be much more reluctant to do so now especially if those bonds are intended to support
29:29a ukrainian project which is visibly failing there are increasing tensions in the bond markets by the way
29:41and i noticed that japan has also recently had some problems raising funding in a bond market in a bond
29:52flotation that it has just um undertaken i'm not going to spend time discussing all of this as i said
30:00these programs whilst i'm on leave have to be foreshortened a little anyway there we go
30:06so um the idea of the europeans buying weapons from the united states to keep ukraine armed
30:14i think is to say frankly mostly not perhaps entirely but mostly fantasy and uh the amount of weapons
30:27that the united states can afford to give up just by selling them to the europeans um
30:38um is probably limited anyway if one of the purposes of pulling back from ukraine
30:47is to preserve depleting us arsenals is it realistic to go on depleting those arsenals
30:57still further by selling weapons that come from those arsenals so that they can all be burnt up
31:10in the black hole which is ukraine so anyway there it is so what actually is going to happen in istanbul
31:20well the russians will turn up they will give their memorandum provide their memorandum to the ukrainians we can
31:26guess pretty much what their memorandum is going to say and they will almost certainly reject the
31:35ukrainian ceasefire proposals now uh the new york times has told us that this is going to be a ceasefire
31:43which is going to be monitored by ukraine's international partners in other words the united states
31:50and the europeans it is inconceivable that the russians would accept a ceasefire which is monitored
31:59by those actors who are allies of ukraine i mean it makes no sense for the russians to do that and
32:08besides putin has already said that as far as he is concerned military supplies to ukraine must end
32:16during any period of a ceasefire and intelligence sharing for ukraine must also end during any period
32:24of a ceasefire and there hasn't been the slightest hint from russia the russian officials are prepared
32:35to retreat from any one of those points i cannot imagine that the russians would be prepared to do any
32:45anything like this um at a time like this when they are so visibly and obviously with the latest
32:56developments on the battlefronts in a position of advantage so uh the russians are going to put their
33:04own counter proposals about a ceasefire which will be along the same lines as those that putin has proposed
33:11in the past and the russians are going to provide the ukrainians with their memorandum which are going
33:17to be again on the lines of what putin has said in the past the ukrainians will not be happy they will
33:25complain angrily about this and at that point it is at least possible that the but the trump administration
33:34might finally make a decision to walk away now there's been a very interesting article which has appeared
33:43on responsible statecraft and by the way the american conservative by george bb um discussing
33:54why the united states why donald trump should not walk away from the conflict in ukraine
34:01and briefly if we're talking about the situation for ukraine and for the united states um george bb
34:14correctly says that if the united states did walk away completely for ukraine a military collapse would
34:22eventually follow then george bb says some very interesting things which i think i will touch on
34:34because they do go very much to this point um to the points that i have made that and others have made eve
34:44smith in particular has made about why the russians might have some concerns about a total ukrainian
34:58collapse and george bb says this a ukrainian collapse would not be entirely good news for putin granted
35:07russia would be in a commanding battlefield position that would allow it to occupy all
35:13four of the ukrainian regions it is officially annexed but not entirely conquered and moscow could
35:20reasonably expect that zelensky would not survive such a defeat politically paving the way for regime
35:27change that russia claims to want but very likely it would amount to a pyrrhic victory
35:34moscow can break ukraine but it cannot fix it it ukraine's territorial expanse is too vast
35:41and it's war-stricken population too anti-russian for military occupation but beyond ukraine's east and
35:49south to be viable absent absent a compromise peace settlement ukraine's societal repair and economic
35:59reconstruction would be difficult to imagine as few refugees would return and no one would invest
36:07hundreds hundreds of billions of dollars in projects that would be wiped out by russian missile
36:12and bomb barrages in a matter of hours a militarily and politically broken ukraine could very well become
36:21politically broken too leaving putin with a failed neighbor whose dysfunction would in turn radiate problems
36:30such as crime terrorism ethnic unrest and political extremism extremism that could pose threats to russia
36:39itself such an outcome for putin would be preferable to a ukraine that is a military ally of united state of the united
36:50united states and nato but failed peace efforts would still spell bad news for russia's efforts to address
36:58its broader security concerns well i'm going to say this i am not completely convinced that the russians
37:07are indeed so alarmed and fearful of these outcomes i think first of all
37:16people perhaps overstate the extent to which um a defeated ukraine would remain an anti-russian ukraine
37:26the mood in a country after a military catastrophe is often one of trying to
37:35bring things back together and forgetting about the wider ambitions that existed the political passions
37:46which existed before the war and i'm not convinced anyway that the ukrainian population even that in the
37:55central and western regions taken as a whole is as us anti-russian as people imagine i can imagine
38:05that a more pro-russian government in kiev might actually gain quite a lot of support across ukraine
38:15and i can should also say that i think that people again underestimate the extent to which such a ukraine
38:27even one that has lost its black sea coast and its eastern regions um how such a ukraine might benefit
38:36economically and society societally from the re-establishment of the historic
38:45links economic links with russia but the next part of george
38:53bb's article i absolutely do agree with and i think this is the part which worries the kremlin most
39:04absent new arms control and confidence building measures which would be almost impossible without
39:11a settlement in ukraine europe's rearmament would be constrained only by its own political will and
39:18industrial capacity and such informal nato subgroupings as the nordic baltic axis combine a high degree of
39:27military capacity i would debate that by the way with deeply held anti-russian views
39:34even with a massive militarization of the russian economy using conventional forces to defend a border with
39:40nato that has doubled in size since the finns joined the alliance would be almost prohibitively costly for
39:46moscow it would be only a short hop from that dilemma to new more cost-effective deployments of russian
39:57nuclear forces in the european theater resurrecting the days of nuclear decapitation scenarios and hair
40:05trigger warning times that ended when reagan and gorbachev signed the now defunct intermediate
40:13range nuclear forces treaty in 1987 and i think in a word that is the scenario that worries moscow
40:23they do not want to be fight to find themselves in an indefinite military confrontation with the western powers in europe
40:38one which obliges them to maintain vast armies on a constant basis and they absolutely do not want
40:48a nuclear race in europe which would pose significant challenges and threats to themselves and people
40:59always ask why is putin wasting his time negotiating with the americans why is he working to try to keep
41:12some kind of door to the americans open and i think it is that i don't think it is about ukraine so much
41:22i don't think it is about ukraine at all it is that from a russian point of view
41:30some kind of negotiated solution which provides at least a period of relative stability
41:40on russia's western borders even if that period is relatively short say five to ten years
41:48a period which russia can put to good use to build up its economy strengthen its defenses do all of the
41:54things that it still needs to do would be preferable than one where the russians constantly have to
42:03think about what the western powers might do on their western borders in places like the baltic for example
42:12um conceivably if the european union is still is serious about its fantasies about the black sea
42:19in the black sea also in belarus in um western ukraine
42:29better some kind of agreement where there is at least an understanding
42:36about these regions which as i said provides the russians with more time and space than they can use
42:43than an open-ended extremely dangerous constantly dangerous confrontation with the west in which
42:54the western powers the european powers as george bb actually says might be tempted to develop nuclear
43:01weapons capabilities themselves to make up for their own conventional their their weakness in
43:08conventional forces where there are nuclear missiles capable of striking moscow based in germany and perhaps
43:18britain and where the russians have to constantly think and worry about that and take countermeasures
43:29this is not far-fetched these are absolutely realistic scenarios that any responsible leader
43:39in the kremlin but it is nothing if not irresponsible leader in the kremlin needs to worry about and think
43:48about going forward but coming back to the points that george bb is making if the russians cannot
43:56get the western powers to make serious agreements about ukraine if they can't get the ukrainians
44:09to make those serious agreements about ukraine which address russian core interests then unsatisfactory
44:21though for the russians it would be the russians will nonetheless press forward with ukraine and for the
44:28record i think that though their focus is indeed on the eastern regions and on the black sea coast the
44:36russian-speaking areas if they have to rather than allow a vacuum of the kind that george bb described to appear
44:47in central ukraine in kia for example they would move forward in scenarios of a ukrainian political and
44:59military and economic and societal collapse and they would occupy at least the central regions of ukraine
45:08which were part of the tsarist empire and of course of the pre-1939 soviet union so i don't think anybody
45:18should be in any doubt about this about this last point and in fact a senior russian official
45:28has talked about this the official in question is andrei kartopolov who is the head of the state
45:36duma that's the russian parliament's committee on defense in other words a very senior official
45:44indeed and he was talking following comments made by none other than jeffrey sachs who has appeared on
45:55many programs at the duran we've been privileged and honored to have him as a guest on the duran and
46:02professor sachs has been talking with people in russia he's appeared and given interviews there
46:09he said that ukraine its best interests are served by accepting the current russian proposals essentially
46:17i mean that's basically what he's been saying well maybe i'm going too far but he's been saying it's
46:22certainly in ukraine's interests to make peace because if ukraine doesn't make peace now and the
46:30war continues it could lose odessa and the black sea coast well kartopolov goes actually further than this
46:42and he said this and this is from tass and these comments were made by kartopolov to tass commenting on
46:51american economist jeffrey sachs's forecasts kartopolov said as for jeffrey sachs's statement about odessa
47:00jeffrey sachs is a very experienced and knowledgeable person who can correctly predict certain events
47:07but we have said from the beginning that each day a diplomatic solution to this conflict is delayed
47:15worsens the situation worsens the situation for ukraine the hysterical regime of zelensky behaves like a
47:26spoiled child they will be left without zaporozhye nepropetrovsk sumi kharkov odessa and nikolayev
47:40and that's what he said and um he also said incidentally that he expects the meeting that's taking place um in
47:53istanbul to be very challenging and another chairman of another duma committee leonid slutsky who is
48:02the head of the international affairs committee on the duma said that the second round of talks
48:09will take place in a tough environment following zelensky's visits to
48:14mats just meeting in germany where they talked about missiles and all of that
48:18and um slutsky expressed confidence that the russian ukrainian talks will take place and will and will seek to sit to set out a pathway
48:28towards a complete settlement of the conflict however the ukrainian side might not be ready for such
48:36a discussion we will of course discuss a ceasefire the terms and conditions
48:41and everything related to meaningful steps to end the conflict
48:45if we reach a sustainable ceasefire it will be a landmark intermediate result on the way to
48:52ending the conflict we are all we already stand on positions of common sense and humanity
49:00we will count on the ukrainian negotiators to have the same real position not a pretend one as it was in
49:06early 22 but a real position based on common sense so what slutsky is saying is that yes there is a possibility
49:18of moving forward but there's no guarantee that this will happen in istanbul it could be that the ukrainians
49:27will reject all of the russian proposals and of course if that happens then the situation will turn out
49:35exactly as karto paul have said with ukraine using kharkov sumi odessa nikolaev zaporozhya neapropetrovsk
49:50all of the southern and eastern regions that made up post 1991 ukraine
49:59so anyway it looks like it's going to be some kind of high noon situation um in istanbul on monday
50:10it's not impossible that the americans will pull out after these talks the europeans
50:17who seem to be completely unreconciled to any kind of peace agreement that fall short of their terms
50:28seem to be preparing for this with the europeans it seems that they continue to live in a world
50:37where defeat for ukraine outright defeat for ukraine is better than any compromise
50:48and if i was a betting man i'd say that was probably the outcome we were heading towards well we shall see what
51:01happens at this meeting in istanbul um the russians have set out their terms
51:11they're going to elaborate on them in this memorandum parts of the memorandum about nato
51:18expansion i suspect are going to be addressed more to the americans than to the ukrainians the russians
51:26by the way have made it absolutely clear that when the meeting takes place at the domolbachia palace
51:31they expect that only the ukrainians will be there the europeans might be clustered in istanbul
51:39busy briefing and advising the ukrainians the americans kellogg himself could easily could quite well be
51:47in istanbul too but the russians are expecting to meet with the ukrainians and the ukrainians alone
51:58they will give the ukrainians their memorandum and it looks like they're going to demand an answer
52:05an immediate answer from the ukrainians as to what their response will be i suspect the ukrainians will
52:12refuse they will go off to kiev they will talk to zelensky zelensky will have fits and rage about all of
52:23this and then we'll we'll see where it all goes but anyway that i suspect is what we're looking at
52:30in istanbul on monday kellogg the most ukrainian pro-ukrainian of all u.s officials
52:44has i think basically given the game away now he has confirmed that the americans the united states
52:54wants out i suspect that there has been a big discussion within the trump administration about
53:04what to do i would not be surprised if even lindsey graham has been grown drawn in he's talking a little
53:12bit more moderately at the moment or so it seems to me and i suspect that the consensus has finally
53:18been reached that there has to be a decision made now because this cannot go on much longer the united
53:27states has reached its limits and we will see what it chooses and decides to do well this is where i
53:36finish today's program there'll be more for me shortly um um tomorrow um after that i'm flying to
53:46tbilisi in georgia for a conference there where all sorts of people will be attending i believe
53:52professor sachs himself is going to be involved though i understand that his contribution is going
53:57to be a virtual one so he won't be actually physically in tbilisi itself but other people i know glenn
54:03deeson james carden they will certainly be there and i look forward to meeting with them anyway this is
54:10where i finish today's program be more from me soon let me remind you again that you can find
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54:37and to check your subscription to this channel that's me for today more from me soon have a very good day
54:45so
54:53you
54:55you