As tensions between the US and Russia continue to escalate, high-level talks reveal a deeper divide — Realists vs Neocons.
While one side calls for diplomacy and balance, the other pushes for dominance and confrontation.
In this episode, inspired by The Duran, we break down:
🌍 The latest US-Russia diplomatic moves
⚔️ The ideological clash between Realists and Neoconservatives
🧠 What this means for global security, NATO, Ukraine, and beyond
Are we headed toward peace… or further into proxy conflict?
🧠 Deep analysis. No mainstream spin.
🔔 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical content.
#USRussia
#Geopolitics
#TheDuran
#Neocons
#RealismVsNeoconservatism
#ForeignPolicy
#USPolitics
#RussiaUkraine
#NATO
#GlobalConflict
#USRussiaTension
#Diplomacy
#GeopoliticalAnalysis
#WashingtonPolitics
#WarOrPeace
#DeepState
#InternationalRelations
#TheDuranStyle
#UkraineWar
#NeoconAgenda
While one side calls for diplomacy and balance, the other pushes for dominance and confrontation.
In this episode, inspired by The Duran, we break down:
🌍 The latest US-Russia diplomatic moves
⚔️ The ideological clash between Realists and Neoconservatives
🧠 What this means for global security, NATO, Ukraine, and beyond
Are we headed toward peace… or further into proxy conflict?
🧠 Deep analysis. No mainstream spin.
🔔 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical content.
#USRussia
#Geopolitics
#TheDuran
#Neocons
#RealismVsNeoconservatism
#ForeignPolicy
#USPolitics
#RussiaUkraine
#NATO
#GlobalConflict
#USRussiaTension
#Diplomacy
#GeopoliticalAnalysis
#WashingtonPolitics
#WarOrPeace
#DeepState
#InternationalRelations
#TheDuranStyle
#UkraineWar
#NeoconAgenda
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Project Ukraine, the diplomacy that is taking place, Witkoff in St. Petersburg, meeting with the Russian president, the continued escalation from the Europeans, the possibility of Taurus missiles now going to Ukraine.
00:26The Europeans want to escalate. Witkoff wants a deal. Kellogg and Waltz and all of these guys, they want an unconditional ceasefire. They're aligned with the Europeans.
00:40So Trump is not taking a side. He's kind of playing it down the middle. Okay, maybe that's an acceptable policy.
00:52Maybe you can make the argument as long as he doesn't side with Kellogg and then the unconditional ceasefire, then you could kind of escape Project Ukraine, the catastrophe that is Project Ukraine.
01:07But the best outcome would be if he followed the Witkoff track. Obviously, that would be the best outcome.
01:15Trump did start to say that this is Biden's war, which is an interesting change of messaging.
01:21Yes. Perhaps that means something. Of course, he could flip-flop back to Putin's to blame position again in another statement. You don't know.
01:29Anyway, what are your thoughts on what is happening?
01:32Well, if you remember last week, I think it was last week, we did a program in which we said that there were clearly two parallel Ukraine policies being followed.
01:41One was a sort of neocon-like foreign policy, Waltz-Rubio-Kellogg, which basically saw this as forcing the Russians to accept a ceasefire, getting the European troops into Ukraine,
01:58ultimately preserving the possibility of one day Ukraine joining NATO, but allowing the Russians in the meantime to control the areas that they control in eastern Ukraine.
02:10What was eastern Ukraine? A totally unrealistic plan, but the kind of plan you would expect people like that to come up with.
02:19We said that there was that strand. And then there was the alternative strand, which actually understands that this thing has been a disaster,
02:27that it needs to be ended as quickly as possible, that the United States can't continue with this policy,
02:34that the Russians are winning and are going to win the war in Ukraine, and that the interests of the United States is having a rapprochement sorted out with Russia.
02:48Now, what we saw last week, over the course of the last couple of days, in fact, is proof positive.
02:57And again, I'm saying this, I'm blowing our trumpet a bit here.
03:01Proof positive that that theory is absolutely correct.
03:05Firstly, we got a report from Reuters saying that there'd been some kind of argument, maybe even a row, between Kellogg and Wyckoff in Trump's presence.
03:20Kellogg, sorry, Wyckoff told Trump, look, if you want to end this war quickly, accept Istanbul Plus.
03:28It's in no sense affects our fundamental interests.
03:34We can end this conflict. We can extricate ourselves from it.
03:41The Russians keep the four regions. Ukraine stays outside NATO.
03:46That doesn't ultimately have any bearing on our critical security interests, and it de-escalates the situation.
03:55Anyway, Kellogg immediately pushed back, said the Ukrainians won't accept that, because if anybody in Washington really cares what the Ukrainians think about these things.
04:06But anyway, since Kellogg opposed it, he said that we still got to go ahead with this idea of getting the Russians to agree a ceasefire,
04:14to try to try to force the Russians into a ceasefire and do those kind of things so that we end up with the kind of scenario that I said,
04:23a division of Ukraine into spheres.
04:27And he then went ahead very unwisely, in my opinion, and made comments to that effect.
04:34And then he repeated them in a post on X, which was intended to rebut an article in the London Times.
04:47But basically, he again conferred what his ideas, his thinking was, which is a ceasefire, a frozen conflict.
04:55The Russians remain in control of the four regions, and the Europeans occupy.
05:00The French and the British have areas in Western Ukraine, which they basically control.
05:08Proving conclusively that Kellogg is not just on the same wavelength as Macron and Starmer, but is working with them.
05:21He is he and presumably Wolves are telling Macron and Starmer, go ahead with your plans for a coalition of the willing.
05:34Go ahead with your plans to send troops to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire.
05:40This is our plan, and this is what we're working towards achieving.
05:47So you can see, you can understand better why the British and the French are now taking that line,
05:53because they are getting encouragement from within the administration.
05:58They're getting it from Kellogg, and no doubt they're getting it to some extent from Waltz and from, I suspect, Rubio as well.
06:07So there is these two different groups within the administration.
06:15The realists, Wittgoff, others, and Reuters said that Wittgoff has his supporters within the administration.
06:28And we can guess who some of them are.
06:31Vance, maybe, Gabbard, others.
06:34And the Walls-Rubio-Kellogg near Conlight axis, which still wants to preserve some kind of Ukraine, which will be eventually a part of NATO, and which is basically only looking at a frozen conflict.
06:51So we see both of these foreign policies play out last week.
06:58We saw threats that there'll be more sanctions against Russia if they don't capitulate.
07:05Reports that Trump sent a letter to Putin basically giving the Russians until the end of this month to accept the ceasefire.
07:17Russia reports that Rubio's comments about the fact that Russia has only a few weeks to make a decision whether it wants peace or war, that kind of thing.
07:28So we see one side of the administration, Donald Trump himself, going to some extent with the Neocon light group, the hardliners.
07:38And then we have Wittgoff, and he goes to Russia.
07:43He meets Putin for four and a half hours in St. Petersburg.
07:47He has more discussions with Dmitriev.
07:51He comes back to Washington, apparently.
07:56And he says to Trump, look, you know, the Russians are firm on their positions.
08:02We don't really want to escalate sanctions.
08:05All that will do is that it will solidify even further this alliance between China and Russia, which is causing us so much worry.
08:16And the Russians will be able to absorb the blow.
08:19But the Russians are making proposals to us for substantive economic cooperation, which it is in our interests to follow.
08:28So you see Wittgoff saying that.
08:31And we also see other signs that the administration, parts of the administration, continue to pursue this more realist line.
08:39So we have the meeting in Istanbul about the reestablishment of embassies and diplomatic contacts and possibly air links.
08:48And that meeting between the Americans and the Russians went very well, apparently.
08:54And we have now comments from Trump himself, in which he finally seems to be distancing himself from the war.
09:05Now, we have these two groups.
09:09Trump, for the moment, is not making a decision between them.
09:13This is not a sustainable policy over the long term for two reasons.
09:21Firstly, sometime in the summer, the weapons that Ukraine has been were supplied by Biden and the money will run out.
09:31And Trump needs to make a decision.
09:33Does he use his drawdown authority again?
09:36Apparently, there's three and a half billion dollars still left.
09:40Does he eventually go back to Congress to ask for more?
09:43Does he, in other words, go completely with Walsh, Rubio and Kellogg?
09:48Or does he make the decision finally to make that break and the conflict and America's involvement in the conflict?
09:58Go with Wittgoff and the realists and do the deal with the Russians, which will probably not be about Ukraine.
10:08The deal, basically, to reestablish proper relations, civil relations, to sort out all of those problems.
10:16So we have, again, divisions within the administration.
10:20The latest indications suggest that Trump is leaning more towards Wittgoff's ideas, which, as I said, I think are the more realistic ones.
10:31But he doesn't seem to be able to make a final decision, at least for the moment.
10:40And I think, realistically, perhaps we shouldn't expect a final decision until the moment comes when the money and the weapons start to run out in the summer.
10:51The other thing he has to worry about, which may force his hand more quickly, is what happens with this Russian offensive, which is now playing out.
11:04The Russians have been making, gaining significant ground in various places.
11:11This is a topic to discuss in another program, maybe.
11:15But for the moment, at least, he's still got a few weeks, maybe.
11:19He's got a few weeks where you can avoid making a decision, but probably not very long.
11:25Yeah, the decision will basically mean either Trump is going to take the blame for the conflict in Ukraine, or he's going to get out and not take the blame for the conflict in Ukraine.
11:39I mean, that's basically what a lot of this comes down to, how history will remember or judge the Trump presidency when it comes to Ukraine.
11:52Either he acts on what he said recently, just now, which is that this is Biden's war.
12:04It had nothing to do with me.
12:07It wouldn't have happened if I had been president, which, by the way, is probably true.
12:12I mean, on the last part, Putin has said it's true.
12:16And I agree.
12:17I don't think there would have been a war if Trump had been reelected in 2020.
12:23But that's another story.
12:24That's history now.
12:25Either he acts on that and ends America's involvement in the war, in which case you can say, whatever happened in Ukraine is not my fault.
12:40I didn't start this war.
12:42I didn't want this war.
12:44This was nothing to do with me.
12:46This is all Biden's fault.
12:47It's all the Europeans fault.
12:51They didn't come out, help Ukraine in the way that they said they would do.
12:56My concerns are for the United States, ultimately, not for Ukraine.
13:02Either he says that or he becomes Biden, too, supports Ukraine, ends up doing what the neocons want him to do, in which case he's trapped.
13:13They'll take over his administration and his foreign policy will lose cohesion and distinctiveness.
13:23And he'll end up another neocon president responsible for another disastrous project.
13:29It'll be even worse than that.
13:30He's not going to be much worse than that.
13:32It's going to be much worse than that, because what they're going to do, what the neocons are going to do,
13:37and what the Biden administration, guys like Blinken and Sullivan, with the media helping them out,
13:46is they're going to say, we were defeating Russia.
13:48When we were in office, we were defeating Russia, and then Trump came along and he lost the war.
13:53That's exactly what they're going to say.
13:55We had this thing wrapped up.
13:57We had this thing won.
13:58Putin was on the back foot.
14:00He was about to lose.
14:02The economy was a mess.
14:04The military was using shovels.
14:08We were winning this thing.
14:09And then Trump came along and he ruined it all.
14:12That's exactly what they're going to say.
14:14So, I mean, he's got to get out of this.
14:18He's got to get out of this.
14:20Otherwise, he's going to get screwed.
14:22Absolutely.
14:22And in the meantime, I mean, he's setting himself up for taking responsibility
14:28and being blamed for Ukraine's defeat.
14:32And, of course, before that defeat happens, he will be under, if he goes with the Neocons,
14:39if he goes with Kellogg, he will be under relentless pressure.
14:42He is already coming under that pressure to escalate, to ramp up the sanctions against Russia,
14:50to resume arms deliveries to Ukraine, to send ever more arms deliveries to Ukraine,
14:55to authorize maps to supply Ukraine with its tourist missiles, which, of course, would not be Ukraine receiving tourist missiles from Germany.
15:07It would be Germans launching tourist missiles against targets inside Russia using targeting provided by the United States.
15:18So one course means that Trump escapes and the United States escapes.
15:28The other course leads the United States deeper into the conflict, deeper into escalation, drags Trump into escalation in a war he doesn't believe in,
15:42which makes it even more senseless, and ultimately ends up with him being blamed for the outcome, because you're absolutely right.
15:51Whatever he does, even if he gives the Ukrainians everything they're seeking, more perfect missiles, more, you know, tanks or whatever it is,
16:01they will still blame him.
16:03They will still say, well, you know, if it had just been, we just held on and kept going
16:09and built on what Joe Biden and Blinken and Sullivan, those geniuses had set up, we would still have achieved that victory.
16:22But it was all that dithering, all that confusion that Trump created in 2025 that lost us the opportunity to win the war.
16:32And thereafter, everything that he did to try to repair the situation was never really enough to make up for all the muddle and chaos that he'd caused in the meantime.
16:44That's what they're going to say.
16:45That's the narrative that is going to be repeated in every editorial, every commentary, in every big newspaper right across the collective West when Ukraine finally goes down.
16:58What does, final question, what does Russia do if Germany launches Taurus missiles into Russia pre-2014?
17:11That's a very good question.
17:12Well, I'm not going to try and guess.
17:14Maybe Mertz is posturing.
17:15Maybe Mertz is BSing.
17:16I just want to say that.
17:17Maybe he's BSing.
17:20Maybe he's not.
17:21Yes.
17:22Maybe he's not.
17:22If you looked at his comments, actually, it was full of qualifications and conditions.
17:28Exactly.
17:28That's right.
17:29Yes.
17:29I mean, it wasn't full of qualifications.
17:31But maybe he's not.
17:36Let's say that there is continued escalation.
17:40My own sense about it is this.
17:44I think the Russians, their air defense system has now got the measure of all of these missiles.
17:50And I suspect the Taurus is no different.
17:53And I suspect they'll be able to deal with it.
17:56And I think what they will do is they will intensify their offensive.
18:01And of course, they have the Oreshnik missiles at hand.
18:05And they will use them powerfully against targets in Ukraine, probably locating those places where German and British and French advisors are based in Ukraine.
18:24I think given that they're winning the war, I think that there will be obviously a huge argument and conflict in Russia.
18:32And there will be people who will say that the time has come for Russia to retaliate directly against Germany.
18:39But I think the dominant view which will prevail is that since we're winning anyway, we have no reason to take further risks by further escalating.
18:50That was what they did with the Storm Shadows and the Atakums missiles when they were launched into Russia.
18:58And I was surprised that they acted in that very restrained way then.
19:03But I think we can say in the end that that approach was justified because those missiles really didn't end up doing much damage.
19:15All right, we will end the video there, thedurand.locals.com.
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