Russia Mocks EU Demands; UK/EU Plan Arms Spend Debt Surge; UK Gov Implodes; Merkel For Russia Envoy

[00:00:00]Good day. Today is Friday 12th June 2026 and this is another program which I'm making from Russia from uh Scoff region where I have been attending a conference um discussing various matters related to contemporary events. I made um my own presentation um at this conference yesterday. Um, I understand that it was videotaped. Um, I've been promised that I will be provided with a copy of the video and um, once it is available, if it ever does become available, I will pass it on to Alex and ask him for to publish it on Substack on our Substack site, the Duran Substack site, where you will be able to see it and judge the presentation for yourself. Anyway, in the meantime, um obviously um events continue to happen around the world and um perhaps the most striking event again is that after multiple threats of devastating action against Iran, overwhelming um attacks and um strikes upon Iran, all following the sequence of the uh following the sequence of attacks that happened after the still largely unexplained downing of the Apache helicopter.

[00:01:40]President Trump did that which he continuously does, which is that he pulled back from attacks, said that a deal was about to happen with Iran and left us all again wondering about what comes next. I don't know how often this has happened now. Um Glenn Greenwald did um a post on X about this very thing.

[00:02:09]Um, but I myself have not been able to keep count of the number of times Donald Trump has taken us to the brink ever since the um period on the eve of the ceasefire back in April when, as I remember, he appeared to threaten to wipe out the entirety of Iranian civilization.

[00:02:32]Anyway, he has taken us to the brink repeatedly and then pulled back repeatedly and always of course there's been uh movements in energy markets and always one gets the sense that some are doing very well out of these movements and perhaps have inside information assisting them in relation to these movements. But anyway, there it is. The Iranians deny that a deal is um imminent, something which they also have consistently done. And to say it straightforwardly, I see no evidence whatsoever that there is a deal imminent at all. As far as I can tell, the two sides remain as distant from each other as always. Anyway, all of this um appears somewhat remote from where I am here in Russia. Here, of course, in Russia, it is the war in Ukraine that remains by far the most important event.

[00:03:39]Though I have to qualify that immediately by saying a few things, a few further things about the situation here. I have been in Moscow. I have been in Scoff. I've been in Scoff for several days.

[00:03:56]Scoff in some respects could be called a frontline city.

[00:04:03]It is located very close to the border with Estonia and um it has as I said uh military connections which go back centuries.

[00:04:17]It's the sort of place which you would imagine given that it is roughly on the front lines would be exposed to some level of attack from Ukraine, drone strikes or something like that.

[00:04:32]If one were transported here and one was not aware that there was a war going on um in Ukraine with Russia involved, there would be no sense that this country is actually at war that it were that is immediately visible. One does not see large numbers of uh men in uniform certainly not large numbers of armed men. Um security has been tightened and you can see this in many places and um one gets sometimes one is asked to show one's passport or identification documents.

[00:05:17]But in Russia, when anyone who's been traveling in Russia, this has actually always been the case to some extent.

[00:05:25]Perhaps the requests are made somewhat more often and have become more intrusive, but not to any extraordinary degree, and the guards and security people remain polite.

[00:05:44]economic activity continues as normal.

[00:05:48]The shops are full. There's no shortage of gasoline. Um, there are very few public signs about the war. I've seen one or two posters that refer to particular officers who have been in the war. I'm not sure what they are exactly, whether they're intended to be recruitment posters or perhaps uh they might be intended to um highlight particular individuals in the special military operation in the runup to the elections which are taking place in Russia, parliamentary elections which are taking place in Russia in a few months time. So it may be that it's to some extent connected with that. Um I'm not sure but anyway um there is very little visible obvious sign as I said that this country is at war and no sign no indication at all by the way that would lead it lead one to think that there have been enormous casualties on anything like the kind of scale that the western media um are reporting that western governments apparently believe and which the Ukrainians themselves say. If anything like that is happening, then it is being very very well disguised. And I wonder whether that is even possible to disguise losses on that kind of scale to this degree. So overall, this does look like very much like a country of peace. Though this is a deceptive impression when you do talk especially with elite people, people who are involved either on either in decision making at some level or perhaps on the periphery of decision making or in media commentary then obviously the war is a continuing topic. Now I have to say um that the people that I have been talking to are absolutely clear that the war must continue until victory is achieved. I've not noticed any wavering in um the demand that that victory be achieved.

[00:08:34]It could be the case that I am meeting people here in Russia who are predisposed to those views reflecting perhaps the attitudes of my hosts. But then last year I attended a much larger conference in St. Petersburg of lawyers and essentially the sentiments there were very similar if not identical about the war to some of the sentiments that I have heard here. And I wonder whether despite claims that have been made in the media and the west, there has actually been that much change about discussions of Russia's future direction.

[00:09:31]Here I do detect some differences. There are certainly some people who have different views uh very different views about how Russia should develop after the war after the war is won. No one here seems to have any doubt no one I've spoken to seems to have any doubt that the war will be won. But um as I said about Russia's future direction, about how it should develop and the direction in which it should go. Yes, about that.

[00:10:06]I do get the sense that there are some very important discussions taking place, but that is something I'm going to discuss in more detail perhaps um when I return to London. Anyway, that's my general impression of the overall situation here. Um to repeat once more um a superficial impression would be that this is very much still a country at peace. In many respects it is a country at peace. I said that there are few visible signs of the war. Um, compared again to the monuments, commemorations you see everywhere of the second world war of the great patriotic war as it is always referred to here in Russia. I mean the conflict in Ukraine is invisible but beneath the surface discussions do take place but this wavering these doubts about the war that some people are talking about of that I see no sign. Well, on this issue, um, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman has now discussed the five-point statement that the European powers and Zalinski um, issued following the meeting which took place a little while ago. Um this was the meeting that was supposed to reach out to the Russians and begin negotiations.

[00:11:48]And um the foreign ministry spokesman was utterly scathing. She pointed out that the Europeans not only want a ceasefire, but they demand the deployment of European peacekeepers to Ukraine um and security guarantees for Ukraine.

[00:12:09]And they say that the sanctions will remain in place and the assets will still be frozen until the Russians pay reparations to Ukraine. These are from a Russian point of view utterly ridiculous proposals and to say it straightforwardly, they are detached from reality. And the spokesman also pointed out that these are the same proposals the Europeans have been making for at least three years. She reminded everybody of the se series of meetings that took place mostly in Switzerland. Um though there was one in Saudi Arabia which began in 2000 in 2023 at the height of Ukraine's offensive in Zaporosia region.

[00:13:02]the offensive which the Russians completely defeated um and an initiative to support Zalinsk's so-called peace plan for the unconditional surrender in effect of Russia. Well, um, Zahara pointed out that some of the points made in this, um, EU, Ukrainian, UK statement appear to echo some of the sentiments in that utterly discredited and failed diplomatic process that the Biden administration launched back in the summer of 2023.

[00:13:49]and which the Russians totally rejected and well that the Europeans in effect and the Ukrainians are simply not taking no for an answer. Instead, they still appear to want to prolong the war.

[00:14:11]That is the real purpose of making these fantastic demands.

[00:14:18]prolong a war which they and Ukraine are actually losing.

[00:14:27]And well, one can also sense some degree of bafflement on the part of the Russians that demands like this continue to be made. Um, I have to say even more realistic Western politicians still seem to me to have little grasp of the overall realities of the situation in Germany. Ziggmar Gabrielle who used to lead the Social Democrats and who worked in coalition for a long time with Angela Merkel and who was at one time vice chancellor.

[00:15:11]Um he has pointed out that the war might have been avoided entirely if Angela Merkel's proposal in 2021 at the last European council meeting which she attended as chancellor back in the summer of 2021. if that proposal for dialogue and negotiations with the Russians had been accepted. This is of course before the special military operation took place. Uh Gabriel made the entirely valid point that all the European leaders apart from Macron um strongly opposed the initiative for negotiations with the Russians. Um there was fierce opposition from Poland, some of the East European countries, the Scandinavians and the Baltic states. Um and Merkel also faced staunch opposition from the then prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Gutter, who is of course now NATO's Secretary General.

[00:16:31]Now, many of these people who back in the summer of 2021 were categorically rejecting negotiations with the Russians. Now, admit that negotiations with the Russians are necessary.

[00:16:49]And Gabriel says, "Wouldn't it have been altogether better if Merkel's proposals for negotiations, which by the way in 2021, would certainly have been about Ukraine, but also about the general security architecture in Europe, wouldn't it have been better if Merkel's proposal for negotiations back in the summer of 2021 one had been accepted. We are now in Europe trying to get some kind of negotiations with the Russians going, but we are doing so.

[00:17:31]Gabrielle did not say this, but the point was obviously there. We are doing we're now trying to do this from a far worse position than would have been the case in the summer of 2021.

[00:17:52]And one senses that perhaps one of the individuals that Gabrielle might be having in mind here is indeed Mark Rut. that this might be some sort of a rebuke to him. But then Gabrielle went on to say that the European Union does indeed need to appoint a chief negotiator and he again pushed Angela Merkel as that person.

[00:18:23]I don't think Gabrielle or the Europeans in general understand the extent to which Merkel's credibility in Moscow has completely collapsed and Putin's current feelings about her.

[00:18:47]Putin believes in fact he harps on it.

[00:18:50]He comes back to it again and again that Merkel deceived him over the Minsk 2 agreement that the agreement which Putin thought provided the road map for the resolution of the Ukraine crisis was really as it turned out and as Merkel supposedly admitted nothing more than a device to try to get Ukraine rearmed.

[00:19:28]And Putin believes that Merkel was central to that deception.

[00:19:36]Sending a person about whom Putin has these feelings and these thoughts to Moscow as the EU's chief negotiator.

[00:19:49]seems to me to be strange to say the least. Anyway, there we go. That's the Europeans. That's their um world that they inhabit. One completely detached from reality. In Britain, of course, we're at a a further level again.

[00:20:11]K star the British prime minister has of course been at the forefront of support for Ukraine and as I've discussed in many parts many many videos he has gone out of his way to embrace the Alinski curse on numerous occasions by positioning himself as um Zalinsk's foremost ally and has also publicly, very publicly embraced Zalinski many times, including outside the front door of 10 Downing Street. Anyway, what Starman now finds is that he is in danger of being outflanked by the even more pro- Ukrainian lobby um than he himself is. He is of course already in deep political trouble to put it mildly. There are wonder there are questions about how long he can survive as prime minister. It's universally believed that if his rival Andy Bernham wins the MA makerfield bi-election in Greater Manchester and his return to Parliament, then Burnham will bring a challenge against Starmmer for the leadership.

[00:21:45]Indeed, Bernham has essentially said as much. So given that Starmer is intensely unpopular here in Britain and given that the Labour Party itself has come to realize that he is deeply unpopular and is going to lead Britain the Labor Party at least to an overwhelming defeat in any election in which he is still leading the Labor Party. Well, given all this, given that all this is so, um, Starmmer's position already badly weakened by the Mandlesson scandal is now becoming very, very fragile indeed. And no one that I know expects him to remain prime minister for very long. But well, he's now had to face the public resignation of his defense secretary, John Healey, and the assistant defense secretary, Mr. Khn, about whom I know very little except that he is a former soldier. And both of them have resigned from the government.

[00:22:57]And both of them are complaining that the reason that they've resigned is because Britain is not spending enough on defense. They want billions more to be spent on defense. Basically, so that Britain is in a position better position to fight Russia or as they say to deter Russia.

[00:23:23]Now the unreality in all of this is it seems to me very much on the Healey Khan's side. Um, anybody who looks at the situation in the British economy, in the British public finances, in British industry, the state of British industry would have to concede that the kind of massive rearmament program that they want carried out over a very short period of time is completely fantastic.

[00:24:05]and unsustainable.

[00:24:07]There have been suggestions that the funding for this project should be achieved by pooling resources with the Europeans by floating some kind of massive bond defense bond with the Europeans on the global financial markets. This supposedly would fund a new massive defense program in Britain.

[00:24:43]Of course, doing that will bring Britain in effect back into the European Union in a certain way.

[00:24:54]given that if Britain is pooling debt with the European Union then well it is no longer detached from the European Union in the way that it was. So you could say that this is also part of a plan in effect to um to reverse Brexit. And you wouldn't be completely wrong if that is indeed what you thought. But none of this of course takes us away from the fantastic nature of this plan. Firstly, for there to be debt pooling, the Germans would have to agree. The Germans so far have not agreed. In fact, they have repeatedly said that they do not agree.

[00:25:45]And so what the people who advocate this plan in Britain are advocating is a plan which so far does not agree exist and which has not so far moved beyond first base. That is one thing. The second is of course that ultimately what is being proposed is the Britain, France, Spain, all of the rest of the EU rearm at the expense of Germany because nobody should be in any doubt that it will be the Germans who will carry the major burden of this debt. Germany of course is already piling on debt in support of its own rearmament program. For Germany to take on the debt of the whole of Europe in order to enable Europe to rearm I am confident will not be popular amongst German taxpayers. If you want to turbocharge the IFD I can think of no better way. So that's the second thing. But the third is that this is again a completely fantastic project. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the problem with European disarmament rearmment is not absence of money already. The sums that are being spent are enormous. The total European spending on defense is I believe actually greater than the American.

[00:27:32]It is the lack of a technology and industrial base to manufacture weapons on the scale needed to achieve that rearmament.

[00:27:46]So without that technology and industrial base which would take at least a decade probably much longer to rebuild.

[00:27:58]All talk about rearmament is a fantasy.

[00:28:05]One would have to rebuild shipyards factories. One would have to set up laboratories to design these weapons.

[00:28:15]One would have to train engineers and skilled workers to make them. One would have to source the machine tools, work out the supply chains. This is an enormous project that no European government seems to want to acknowledge or appears to have any kind of expertise in. If Healey and Khn's were to get their way, Britain would increase its debt. Welfare spending would probably be cut and there would be very few weapons at the end of the process. We would end up essentially in the same position that we are in now. The reality is that the Russians can increase weapons production. Their economy is geared to do this thing. They're able to do it.

[00:29:21]And as I have seen now that I'm here, they're able to do it without their economy experiencing any real stress.

[00:29:32]There are no none of the signs here that one would associate with an actual war economy what people constantly claim Russia is. There's no signs of rationing um cares about worries about allocation of resources.

[00:29:54]There appears to be an abundance of everything. Yes, there was overheating in 2024, but this largely was the product of an out of control investment boom which has now been disciplined by the high interest rates.

[00:30:19]The Russians can scale up production.

[00:30:23]They can do so much more if they really were to transition to the war economy that people claim that they have. Well, the level of weapons production here would be off the scale, at least by European terms. And the Russians can do it. And by the way, the resolve to do it if the need arose in my opinion absolutely does exist here. But we are not there um at the moment and there is no desire here to do it. But if we do get serious efforts in Europe and in Britain to reality should be in any doubt that the Russians will do it. At which case at which point of course the imbalance in military power which already favors the Russians will become even greater. Now, I say all of this, of course, all of this is happening even as the Americans continue to pull out of Europe. And um apparently there are more reports of the United States wanting to pull out more fighter jets now from Europe.

[00:31:58]and the US commander of NATO forces, General Grinkovich, presumably in order to support this Pentagon decision and I believe it is not just an administration decision. I believe that it is a decision supported across the Pentagon. Anyway, General Grinkovich has said that in fact there is no threat from Russia. The United States has seen no evidence that the Russians really are thinking about attacking Europe at this time, which is of course exactly what the Russians, President Putin for example, the Russians themselves repeatedly say.

[00:32:47]Anyway, I say all of this that um seems to me the situation at the moment in Britain um as I said a lot of fantasy, not just Britain but in Europe, a lot of fantasy, a lot of conjuring, a lot of talk about the disastrous situation that Europe is in and the need to rearm to counter all the enormous threats to European security that supposedly exist.

[00:33:21]one way to deal with the real problem of an actual war that is taking place in Europe, which would be to negotiate with the Russians in a serious way by making realistic proposals, maybe proposals, finally acknowledging that the best way forward for Ukraine would be for it to become neutral and to see its armed forces reduced.

[00:33:59]Well, that sort of thinking of course in Europe does not exist and I don't expect to see it. Anyway, that's uh my points about the situation in the in the world of global diplomacy. Now today I should say that um the war um in Ukraine continues and um there's been more information from the battle fronts and I'm going to wrap up what is going to be a particularly short video today um by briefly touching on it. Firstly, our old friend Andre Marodsko says that the Ukrainian army has withdrawn from the village of Sti Caravan. This is a village located to the west of Leman.

[00:35:01]He said that the Russians have not yet occupied this village which remains in the gray zone but their advanced units have now penetrated west of Sti Caravan.

[00:35:18]Now, if so, that means that must mean that Leman is indeed about to fall because the Ukrainian forces in Leman with the Russians located essentially in their rear.

[00:35:42]If they don't retreat from Leman very soon, um they're going to be, it seems to me, cut off there and the Ukrainians are going to experience, the Ukrainians are going to run into a situation where there is basically another cauldron. I expect the Ukrainians to withdraw from Leman any day now with the town probably already mostly under Russian control falling fully under Russian control fairly shortly. And we've also had a very interesting report about the situation in Constantinfka from the individual who I consider to be the finest war reporter of the war who is Marat Kulin. Now he has recently published a report in which he says that the um Ukrainian garrison from Constantine in Constantin which was defending Constantinovka has largely withdrawn from the town that there is only basically from what I could see a rear guard left holding positions in the north of Constantinfka and that the Russians are continuing an envelopment pro process around Constantinfka which makes the withdrawal of that rear guard also inevitable or at least very plausible.

[00:37:39]He also appears to suggest that with that the battle for the neighboring town of Dujifka, which is in my opinion essentially a suburb of the larger town of Kramatsk, the major town in the Slavans, Kramatsk conniba has in essence already begun, suggesting that there's not going be any operational pause that the Russians are going to move straight from straight from Constantinfka into Dujifka pressing northward towards Kamatsk itself.

[00:38:27]Well, that is um Marat Khulin. I consider his reports to be perhaps the most reliable provided by any commentator in the war. Um, I would place his reliability above the Russian Defense Ministry and well above those of most of the other commentators, just to say. That's of course my own personal view. Now, um, alongside all of that, there has been an enormous discussion of the state of the war on the front lines by the superb blogger who publishes under the name events in Ukraine.

[00:39:22]And this blogger pushes back strongly against the entire argument that Ukraine has is in effect winning, that the tide has turned.

[00:39:37]He goes into a deep dive about the actual situation on the front lines and he pushes back strongly against this theory. Um he makes the point that the Russians actually appear to have drone dominance on the front lines. The Ukrainians have indeed been attempting to interfere with Russian logistics on the Novorosia highway.

[00:40:13]I've already discussed this in several programs and have said that in my opinion the effectiveness of Ukrainian drone attacks on that highway has been overstated and that the logistics of the Russian army have been mostly unaffected and that this is more about trying to squeeze Crimea where an appalling thing was done by the way which is an attack on a museum building um which housed a famous painting of the Russian army defending uh Sevastapole during the um Crimean War. Um anyway, um that painting by the way has been almost completely destroyed. The Russians say that it had been digitalized, digitalized, in other words, that they have a um very precise electronic copy so that they can recreate it, which is presumably what they're going to do. But anyway, um it seems to me that the Ukrainian objective has been to squeeze Crimea and its population rather than really to disrupt the situation of the Russian army in Zaporia region where the Russian army for the record appears to be continuing it continuing its advance towards Oraov.

[00:41:45]So, um, this blogger, Events in Ukraine, is more skeptical about, um, all these claims about Ukraine successfully disrupting Russian logistics. He says that the Ukrainians would need to increase their drone interceptions of road and rail traffic by orders of magnitude beyond what they're doing at the moment.

[00:42:19]But on the front lines, the Russians have drone dominance. He doesn't discuss much in this program, by the way. the situation, the overall situation in the sky, the strategic bombing if you like between Russia and Ukraine. And he discusses the situation in some parts of the front line. He's focused very heavily on the situation around the town of Doorelia uh which lies to the west the Slavans Katausk connibation.

[00:42:58]Um, he does so basing his accounts on Ukrainian bloggers, um, who, by the way, I notice continue to insist that the Ukrainians maintain some footholds in the town of Rodinska, which the Russian Defense Ministry claimed some weeks ago that the Russians had captured. Anyway, um even these bloggers or at least the blogger that um the various bloggers that Events in Ukraine has is relying upon and these are Ukrainians.

[00:43:39]All of them talk about a steadily deteriorating situation on the front lines. a Ukrainian army that is overstretched, overextended, which cannot hold positions and which is gradually, remorselessly being pushed back and which is becoming increasingly shocked by the extent of the Russian heavy bombing with the fab bombs which are now systematically destroyed.

[00:44:17]forming its fortifications.

[00:44:19]So that is what this blogger event in events in Ukraine says. There are differences obviously between commentators about specific positions on the front lines. Um he uh events in Ukraine discusses a report by a journalist who went to Doropilia and found that this is now essentially a frontline city and that because of the constant presence of Russian drones entry into Doilia and movements around it are very difficult. Um despite the assertions that the Ukrainians still hold a foothold in Oroditska, no journalist is actually able to go there. So this claim cannot be either confirmed or independently refuted just to say.

[00:45:20]And perhaps in terms of the situation with logistics, Ukrainian logistics, um I read on this blog that the Russian drones are now very active on the highway leading from Pacross all the way to the city of Pavlod, the major city that lies between the Russians and the great city of Diero on the Neper.

[00:45:56]And this blogger also published a series of reports from Ukrainian bloggers about Russian drone attacks in the city of Pavlovrad itself and mentioned how these bloggers are talking about Pavlod no less. As I said, an important city in Ukraine. How Pavlod itself is now becoming increasingly or is gaining the appearance increasingly of a frontline city. I've not appreciated that Russian medium-range drones are now, and I'm talking about medium-range drones, not Garand drones, are now ready operating in Pavlovd. So that's again part of the overall picture of the war. This is where I'm going to end today's program. Let me remind you again, you can find all our programs on our various platforms, Locals, Rumble, X, and Substack. Um, you can also um support our work by going to our shop and by supporting us via Patreon and Subscribe Star. Last but not least, if you've liked this video, remember to tick the like button and to check your subscription to this channel. That's me for today. More from me soon. Have a very good day.