The Duran Podcast
European irrationality in Ukraine - Michael von der Schulenburg, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Hi everyone and welcome. My name is Glenn Diesen and I'm joined today by Alexander Merkurs and also from the U Parliament. We have Michael von der Schulenburg, who is a German diplomat also working with the OSCE and if not mistaken, 34 years in the United Nations, which has held positions including the Assistant Secretary-General in the UN Peacekeeping Missions from Iraq to Sierra Leone, and also I would say a very important voice in not just German politics but also European. So welcome, both of you. Yeah. So, we really want to... I know my life is a bit more complicated now, more complicated. I've been almost in any war you have, because I was a specialist in the UN and of course also on the development side, humanitarian, whatever. I've many times been in Afghanistan. I know all the Mujidin commanders, I've met all the presidents, including even Najibullah and things like this one, the Taliban, all the rest of it. So I've been in Iraq and in Iran, I was almost for nine years, three times because of the wars. And then of course in Syria and Somalia and Sierra Leone and so on, you know the... Yeah, you have to look at my real CV, not the one in Wikipedia. They make... I don't know how they... who did this, but I don't want to change it because I don't want to get any attention to it because it stopped fumbling them with my CV and I also don't care really what people think about me. That is not untypical of what many people say about Wikipedia, by the way, that they know attention. And I pay no attention to Wikipedia. I don't think many of our viewers do either. So I've spent basic 34... of these 30 years, I lived actually in these countries. I lived in the countries. I had a mission since '92 and yeah, I was all the time... I was actually living in them, assigned in them and sometimes only came three times a year out to see my family. So I'm very much acquainted with wars and how people think and how they do. I know less about of course the situation in Ukraine, but you know how people behave in war, how they decide, how they... on both sides, it's very similar. It's very similar to Ukraine and Iran and it is for the West and Ukraine. I mean we always think that we are so special. There's nothing special about it. Only the only thing that's special is that we have nuclear weapons in the background. The other countries don't have them. Of course that changes a lot. But otherwise the logic in wars is always very, very similar. Yes, I should have corrected Germany, Europe as well as obviously the wider world. But I was hoping we could maybe start with German politics and then look more into the war in Ukraine. Because in Germany it seems, you know, the German politics is undergoing tremendous change. People are speaking of a gradual de-industrialization. There seems to be a new attitude towards war. There's huge political upheaval as we saw in the elections on Sunday. In the relatively short period of time it appears that Germany has begun undergoing very dramatic change. Now obviously we're standing on the outside of Germany looking in. So we really wanted to ask you how we can best understand what is going on inside Germany at moments. I'm not sure that I'm the right person because I haven't lived in Germany since 1978. That's very interesting. So I see it also from the outside. Now of course very involved in all these elections and the European elections are also life taken in Jackson and Dering and this one. I think we should not forget there is a shift in Germany towards negotiations and not delivering weapons to countries at war. In traditional policy that you had followed and the short sort of throw over and says there's a new time and we have now to send weapons to war countries. And I think this is now going to be questioned. It's about 68% but in the last, and they required it, 68% of the Germans think like this and different levels of course. And the interesting thing is, in Saxony, the majority of those who vote for the CDU for the Conservative Party and for the FDA pay are also against the war. And especially they're against the stationing of medium range missiles. So we have now, it's one of the greatest priority priorities in the war. And I think we have to see if this repeats in West Germany because that's what the elections are now all in East Germany. But we see a change and I think what happens in Germany will be more important than what happens here in the European Parliament in the end. How we decide, how we deal with the war, how we solve the war, especially also. What arrangements for Europe and I mean what type of peace for it will have for Europe. So Germany is very important and I think in this whole thing there are two parties in Europe, basically very different. The half day which has a pro-peace agenda and us the best way. And we are opposed to the half day because of many other things. But on this one, it is on peace and that we will not go along with them. But we give them people now an alternative because in many countries I've been to, in all European countries I know of, if people are against the war they have to vote for the right thing. So in their sense, you see here also something new happening which I think will somehow be repeated in other countries. There is a vacuum left by the social democrats and most countries by moving so much towards a war agenda that now there is an opening for another type of left-wing party, maybe more left-wing conservative as we call it, more open. But basically linking the war also to social justice and I think that very, very important. If this is successful, if we are successful, it's not only important for Germany, it could be very important for Europe. And I'm sitting here in the European Parliament. I realize how important it is. This is a Parliament and I'm really deeply, deeply shocked. I'm just new in the Parliament. It's so pro-war. I think this Parliament is on the moon because in all European countries people don't want this anymore. And here we are completely pro-war. We have two realities. And so I think the German examples will be very important. I don't know if it's clear here, but you know. I completely agree. Just a few observations, more observations than questions, but you perhaps can take them forward from there. Firstly, what you describe, what's called left conservatism, to me looks very much like social democracy. The social democracy that I used to remember in Germany, in Britain, in other parts of Europe, of which I myself was a part of. I mean, I was very much involved in that kind of politics in my youth. And of course, in Germany, Germany was a place where it originated. And I was absolutely bewildered to see it disappear so completely in Germany. And so suddenly disappear in Germany. And in terms of Germany's importance, my own view, again, looking back, and, you know, I lived through this time, is that Germany played an absolutely critical role from the 1960s in ending the Cold War. It was Germany's pursuit of ospolitek, which ultimately led to Détente. It stabilized the situation in Europe. It secured peace in Europe. That peace in Europe made possible, ultimately, German reunification, amongst other things. And it was both economically successful, the sort of social democracy, which, even to some extent, the CDU was conducting. And it was diplomatically successful. It secured peace in Europe, and it invaded possible to create the European economic community, which eventually evolved into the EU. I do not understand. I cannot comprehend how Germany, which was so successful in doing all of these things, stabilizing the situation in Europe in the way that it did, suddenly reversed itself so completely over the last few years. And I'm completely bewildered as to what has happened to the Green Party, the Grüner, who I remember as being the people who were opposed to militarization in Germany. What kind of line do you have? I mean, you've even more. Absolutely. And now they are the most extreme Atlanticist pro-war party. I don't understand how all of that has happened. So, for me, the arrival of Saava Genecht, the Baergeknecht movement, is a return to, for me, what is, what I was understood Germany to be about, and of course, the idea. Alex, if I can interrupt you, what we see in this election, that the German electorate is sensitive to that. We are only six months' party, and we are the third largest party in the two state elections where we had. It's a huge success. And as we see, there is a demand for people who don't want to follow this policy. But you see, Alexander, it will change quicker. We will see the war in Ukraine getting worse, worse for NATO. And of course, seven, they also burst for the Ukrainian because they have the big betrayed people here in Europe. And it will go worse for Germany. I mean, the economy goes down, I mean, we pretend it has nothing to do with the war. Of course, it's all to do with the war. I mean, all these sanctions, which we suffer more than the Russians, you know, cutting us off from the raw materials. You know, I mean, we happen to be in Europe. I mean, and not in the United States. I mean, cutting us off from the trade with Asia. I mean, it's absolutely madness what we are doing. It is against any interest we have. Now, I have learned in all the years dealing with wars that wars are not about moral, but they are about interests. And we have completely forgotten. We are so subsumed with our moral arguments that we defend democracy, whatever now and whatever. And these type of things that we defend the mothers and children in the war and all the things that happened there, by the way, on both sides. And no, we have to think about our interests. And you know, when I've been here in the parliament, the first time Europe had a chance to define its own policy without the Americans. America has basically said goodbye to the Ukraine war. I know the Americans how it happened in Afghanistan and how it happened in Iraq when they suddenly sort of realized that they couldn't win it anymore and they sort of detached themselves. The war is now ours. And we have all these elections and, you know, they're thinking the other way and, you know, we might have Trump in the end as a president who will make a deal with Putin over our heads. And what Europe does now, it doesn't choose what its interests should be to negotiate how we can establish peace in Europe. No, we choose war. I mean, Europe has just chosen war. On the 16th of July, the European parliament opened the first session. And the first thing we had was a resolution, they called the resolution for the support of the Ukraine. A resolution was the support of the Ukraine. And we had one day to vote for it. I didn't get any vote. I couldn't, couldn't speak on it. I mean, it was rushed through a 3.5 H long document, which says we have to stand to Ukraine until it militarily beats Russia. I mean, two and a half years after the war, you know, after, you know, Ukraine can't win the war. And here we say it should win the war. We say we should give Ukraine every year $127 billion in military equipment. This is as much as we have given them until now. I mean, in Ukraine, which has hardly any people and soldiers anymore, I mean, it will not happen. And we say that all our Western weapons could be used on Russian territory now. I mean, you couldn't say anything worse. At the same time, you say that the Ukraine should now become member of the NATO, should become member of the European Union. All these things will not happen. So the European Parliament has just, what do you say in English, accepted a resolution or passed a resolution, which has objectives, which we can't fulfill. I mean, such an unrealistic thing is very dangerous because it's only provocative. You have no means to change the war anymore, Europe. You know, you see the only two countries which could possibly have an influence as France and Germany. And both have now very unstable governments. And that nonetheless we do this. This is actually almost committing suicide for Europe. Because in the document, there's not one word about diplomacy, not one word. Even if you want to continue supporting the Ukrainians, there's no one word of negotiations, nothing at all. Orban has really been very badly treated in these things, you know, that he has portrayed Europe and all the rest of it. We think he has done the right thing. You know, it basically means that the European Union will not play any role in solving the Ukraine war. We have just put ourselves on the sideline. But it's a war on European soil that means the biggest organization we have in Europe has basically said goodbye to a solution. Because who wants to talk to a unit, which says war is the only solution. Whereas India, the Brexit countries have raised in the meeting over there. They will all want to negotiate. And the Americans go to this too. I mean, listen to the American think tanks. I mean, it is completely changed. But we here still play war. A war we can't even afford. It is madness. I tell you, there is simply, it is a policy that can only be described as madness. I cannot understand anything of it. And I hope very much, you know, we are only six people here in the parliament. And six people, we couldn't even get a fraction together, a political group of 23 under the rubric of peace and social justice. We might still get, but you see how isolated we are on the things which actually should be on everybody's minds. How we bring peace back to Europe. Even if we accuse Russia of all the bad things, I see of course differently. But even then, it must be the ultimate objective. And we have a resolution which has nothing of it. Speaks about the military victory about Russia. We will have very soon Mrs. Kalas speaking for us on foreign policy. I mean, this lady just mentioned that she would prefer Russia to be broken up in small states. And that we should not be afraid of Russian nuclear arms when we decide our support to the Ukraine. I mean, this is absolutely madness. In Europe, we have done two world wars. We should know better. And we don't. You know, Alexander, I think I'm a witness here of a collective madness. And I cannot call it any other way. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to speak here because we are too small and you have to have a fraction, whatever. But you know, that's why I issue these articles. And I help you, this article which I wrote as the only article in German language on this resolution. I mean, already that. I was just in Germany in many states in Germany. Nobody knows anything about the resolution. And this is a resolution, of course, the European Parliament is not very important. But in which the bureaucrats in the European Union is from the line, these Kalas and all these people now build. They are just doubling the budget on military spending. I mean, we are militarizing the European Union and it will not go down well. So I'm actually shocked. I mean, I've seen many wars in my life and I couldn't believe that in Europe we have such a war language. Which I haven't even seen in the Iraq-Iran war. You know, because we did a lot of these negotiations. We could talk to them. Here, it's basically impossible. You have completely gone mad. Sure. What more did this? I completely agree. Just wanted to quicks say one thing because, of course, people make this distinction between East Germany and West Germany. Yes, the politics are different. But I know Western Germany quite well. I was recently in the line land. I spoke to people there, cross-section of people, young, old. I found exactly the same worries and our knees amongst them that you've been speaking about and which exist in East Germany. Maybe the political expression is different. Maybe they won't vote for the IFD, for example, because there are reasons why they wouldn't want to vote for the IFD there. I think they would be much more open. It might be much more open, by the way. This is my own view. Because some of the younger people might be much more open to voting for the Saha Baganek movement. But, you know, I'm not going to predict the future of German politics. But the fact was all of the things that you said people might not have expressed them in the way that you have. But I found, worry, unease, concern about the state of the economy, worry about the war, fears of greater conflict. They are growing. And I think the political class in Berlin doesn't see that based on what you've just said. It looks as if the political class in Europe, the European Parliament, are just closing their ears and shutting their eyes and are living inside their own world. Anyway, that's just what I wanted to say very quickly. Now, let me just say about East and West Germany. Because, you know, I grew up in East Germany, so I have a lot of sympathy for them. We shouldn't forget that the last time we had a huge geopolitical change was, of course, due of course global traffic and so on. But it was also due because East Germans peacefully demonstrated 500,000, 750,000 every week. And that's why this transition was peaceful. Not a single person was killed to end the Cold War. And of course, other states or two, it's not only. But I mean, huge, so why not now, too, in East Germany, where they are more sensitive, maybe politically, if they come out and vote and ensure that, you know, you can vote for this time. It's more political parties than really Union, but a different type of expression. I think why should they not take the lead? And I think West Germans should follow. It is more difficult there. The big issue we have as a political party is how come that 68% in a recent, what do you call it in English opinion poll, opinion poll, said that they are against weapons sending to war countries and against stationing of a very dangerous thing. These medium range missiles, I mean, we have to realize what that means. But it doesn't come yet in a political expression. Neither informal, mass demonstrations, nor of a real change in the electoral attitude. And this is why I think what Zara is doing, I'm sorry, Zara Wagner. I know her quite well. So it's doing, and I think really a courageous woman as she is, because I think she's really badly treated. And luckily, the other day, the men had never pistol in the center. You know, she offers an alternative. It is very difficult because in most of the places, we don't even have a political organization yet. And we don't have any money because, you know, when you're a new party, you basically have to pay everything out of your own pocket. The only one who get money is now the sixth one here in the parliament. But this is really what we have to do in the future. And I don't know. You know, I've just been to Saxony and I've made a suggestion how we could formulate in the preamble with its radio something, which says, you know, which says in the preamble that we want to have negotiations and we want to have people's referendum. It's, we have a different expression for referendum, which is not binding, but, you know, we can do that. And that would be, and I think in Saxony, that might be possible. That means we do something that said, because if we want to have peace, we have to penetrate all of the other parties. I see a possibility, especially in the SPD, which breaks my heart because it's a party, of course, I voted all the time for it. I really can't see it. But I see, just yesterday also, I see, you know, recently I was invited by a mayor to speak in the Mary, or what do you call it, the ratos. And he is a city woman, he is a city woman, invited me, of course I go there. So I think we have to, there is a beginning of a political change towards peace and some reason. I mean, we're talking about reason, we're talking about being irrational, what we are doing now, and we play with fire. We play with fire. The medium range missiles on German soil is basically giving up our sovereignty. Schultz has signed off our sovereignty in Washington. You know, they are on an American basis. We don't even know whether they have a nuclear armed or not. We have no say on it. We have no say of when they go off against whom, maybe they have shot against China afterwards, I don't know. So I think they're using our territory to turn it in their battleground, which is very convenient for them because it's on the other side of the Atlantic. And we have to stop that. You have to stop that. I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned this violence against Saravagan, I'm wondering if this is something you're concerned about in Germany as well as wider Europe, because when this man threw these things at her, the media seemed somewhat dismissive. And I couldn't help but see some comparisons because in Britain, it's similar things happen to Farage and the media almost mocks it when Robert Fizzo was shot in Slovakia. Some some reports suggested it was almost just the Trump, you know, he was kind of good. And yes, I miss Trump. I tell you, I think it's a great deal. She's in great danger, because the party is so much dominated by her personality. So it's the, which is also a disadvantage, but for the time being, it's an advantage. And that makes her, of course, a prime target. And I hope the state protects her because it would be really a disaster if something happens to her, it would be a disaster. After the attack, I think it was political. I wrote, I read that, you know, when discussing this that she was perhaps far right, which is very strange for someone who started the political party on the left. So either, you know, it's not far left and it's far right. So now, again, it's concerning to me because these are, you know, in contrast, if you have violence such as they had on 6th of January in the US, then they make almost a national holiday out of this. So it indicates that political violence, it's not a principle anymore if it's not elevated above politics, but rather becomes an instrument of politics where we ignore or justify one side while condemn it on the other. Yes, a lot of it is immediate. I mean, there's a lot of hate speech. I mean, an unbelievable accusations, you know, that we are red brown in color. I don't know what that means, but then all these type of things. So people who feel very strong about it. We don't even know the identity of the person who attacked her now. Apparently, this is for her Eastern language. No, she is in great danger. And I think we have to be, we hope that the state takes it seriously. But of course, I mean, the state presently sees her as one of the main enemies because she takes votes away from their parties. If you see where the shifts are, they're mostly from established parties. I think in touring, and our party has helped to prevent the majority of her, I mean, of the after. And it's not so much, but I think in touring we did, because there are so many dissatisfied people who, I mean, people who worked for the after days because they're dissatisfied is not because they're suddenly freshest or anything like this. So they had now an alternative. If these votes have gone over to the other side because of all the disinfection, we would have Mr. Hacker as a, as a first prime minister of office of a state inside Germany. I mean, what, what a message to out, out in the world, what a message. So they should be very happy that they're there. They should have absolutely, absolutely, because I mean, this whole thing about, can you actually say a little bit about this because I'm getting very tired of having people tell me that the idea and sound of Ag and X, Megan, next movement are somehow similar. Apart from the one issue of peace, they are completely different. They look at each other. This is, this is, this is something that I find, I, I, we've had articles now. In the British media, the talk about Sarah Valleknecht being on the far right. John Kaffner wrote an article to this effect in the Guardian. People are being systematically misinformed about this. They said the same, but you're kind of leaving a party you're having. Well indeed, Robert Fitzer is now also apparently on the far right. Everybody's on the far right. But I mean, if you look at the programs of these two parties, Sarah Valleknecht and the I have to, they are completely different. There is no overlap at all, except on this one issue. They're not even that one. You know, they are, they voted for the increase in military spending. I mean, you know, they have also this type of thing that you want to have a strong military. You know, we don't think that military is in the end the, the solution. You know, I've just written it last time, the, an article about the UN Charter because, you know, of course, it's somebody, something that was all my life. Important, the UN Charter. In Europe, it's not. And I think it's even in certain parties. I'm surprised about the reaction to it, because I think the Europeans have still instilled in us that an order is only done by force. And, you know, that's how we make colonial powers and, you know, the rest of it, you know, we felt force would in the end decide the things, but it will not in the future. And I want just to remind you on something which happens next month in Russia. The big countries will meet in Russia. And the president of this meeting is going to be Mr Putin. Now that these countries have chosen to go to Russia and not say, yeah, you have a war, we go maybe to Singapore or something like this one. It says everything. They are 45% as they are now 45% of the world population. And they control 37% of the GDP in the world. You know, Europe is a little bit more than 5%. And our GDP in the world is 14%. And ours is declining. They are increasing. There are 30 countries now have applied also to become member. And now comes if Bloomberg is right. And I know that Turks a little bit. The Turks have applied become a member. That means a first time a NATO country, a European NATO country because it's part of Europe is joining. The Turks countries. Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean, the Turks see us now, before they wanted to be part of the European Union, they see us as a declining thing since they jump on something, which they say has a future. It is, I mean, they're not stupid. We make everybody stupid who doesn't agree with us, but it is not the case. I think this movement of Turkey is extremely important, in which German papers do we have that? None. So that was my telephone. Yeah, I have a telephone here, a landline. I think you're right on the Turkish side. But also you saw now recently the Putin went to Mongolia, which is a signatory of the ICC. And we were very upset because he wasn't arrested. It also shows that the power is shifting to the East. I go to do Brazil and not be arrested. I mean, what is this now? No, I think you're correct. But also I think it's important what I think it could be quite positive what Turk is doing because what we really want to avoid is the formation of block politics. So it's often said that regions should have more of the format of Olympic rings, so go a little bit into each other. So the fact that it's not always us or them that Turkey can be essentially in two clubs. It can have a mitigating effect, I guess. But I wanted to just stare a little bit towards Ukraine because you mentioned that the EU seems to have closed itself off to peace. And I was kind of curious because you have written articles as well with the German general Harald Kuyat, who was the former head of the Bundesliga and also chairman, former chairman of NATO's military committee, in which NATO's role has been criticized in this war. And Kuyat, I guess, has been very outspoken in terms of the US and UK role in sabotaging the peace agreements as well in Istanbul in early 2022. So I was just curious, how do you see, is very often very difficult to bring this up because whenever I discuss our role in this war, it's always framed as, you know, excusing or making excuses or legitimizing what Russia, how Russia responded. But on its own, I think this is kind of important, our own role in this war. I mean, the important thing for me is, of course, the UN Charter. When we say Russia does, what we say in German figure is the illegal war of attack. We mean, of course, the UN Charter and we mean, when we see about the right of self-defense, we talk about Article 51. But the Charter has 50 articles before, and we forget about them. And if you read all these articles also 51 looks very different. You know, I think the big, what makes us guilty of the wars that we should have negotiated Russia's concern about security. We are obliged by the UN Charter to seek in any conflict we have a negotiated solution and be refused it. And that means us being part of this war. We cannot only say that it's on one side. It is very, very important. This war was preventable. The issue of that the state feels threatened. And we have a lot of this and follows only the OSCE agenda, the Paris agenda. I mean, it's all in the agreements, would have been, could have been avoided. It's a very typical diplomatic thing you negotiate that you find a solution to. We didn't want to. We didn't want to. We armed Ukraine and we put Russia in such a position that it had to choose either to go for two war or lose its access to the Black Sea and so on. It's one thing. And after one month, when Russia and Ukraine made an agreement on which to which Putin had agreed, actually, you know, this agreement was presented by the Ukrainians. And I can tell you from the UN point of view, because, you know, we know all these agreements, which we have since the Second World War. It is a it's a it's a it's a it's a God standard agreement. We have never seen anything like that. So quickly, two countries could agree on the main principles of how they deal. And it also speaks against our acquisition that it is an imperialistic war by the Russians because in this agreement, the Ukrainians did not give up one square meter of Ukraine. And Putin agreed. The only difference was made that Russia should remain in control of the crime and peninsula and what there should be a political solution within 15 years, but they have not said it should be part of Russia. So I think it would be a very good thing. It was neutrality against territorial integrity. And we should have done this. We boycott it. And people say, Oh, we didn't. But then read the decision of a special summit of NATO in Brussels on 24 of March, to which Biden came in which they say they would support knows no negotiated solution with Russia until Russia withdraws first, which would of course mean that in this case Russia could not have and not be neutral and it would turn into a state unacceptable for Russia. And then, of course, a visit of Johnson and Kiev to tell them, you know, if you if they sign anything with Russia, I mean, they would lose all the support. So I think we bombarded this out of our own interest because we didn't want an agreement, which said Ukraine is neutral, because of course people would ask them why didn't we go why we didn't agree on this before. I mean, why didn't we know leadership before? Why did have Russia go to war for this one? It would suddenly justify Russia's war. So we couldn't agree on this whole thing. But we have now this war. And I think at least since, since April 22, we are amazed, there's a West with guilty of this war of continuing the war. If you apply the UN charter, you cannot call the Jews charter on article 51, you know, and ignore all the rest of it. You can't. But that's what's done. Which is probably why, by the way, the story of the Istanbul negotiations, the negotiations that took place in March and April 2022. In 2009, April, there was this one thing, but it was initial powers aside. We have now, we have the information from, from diplomats who were in the Ukrainian teams who confirmed that they had the agreement. I mean, was initial by two foreign ministers at the agreement of Putin, that this would be the way to go ahead. You know, it's a brilliant achievement of the Ukrainian diplomacy. And we killed it. We killed and with it, we killed now hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian. You shouldn't forget this. Yeah. Well, that's exactly the point because continuing the war isn't helping Ukraine. It is destroying it. It is, it is, it is causing enormous damage and human tragedy to this tormented country. And yet it's always been spoken about in the West as if we must continue to support Ukraine. Now, hardly anybody in Britain knows about what happened in March, April 2022, about the role that Boris Johnson played. Even though, by the way, the London Times was reporting it at the time, as was the Financial Times, but all of that has now been forgotten. It's barely talked about. There were a few articles that appeared briefly, I think, in the spectator, but that's only read by a limited circle of people. Is it any different in Germany? Did your, that the analysis that could be added? You know, the first one I wrote about it was actually I was I know. Yeah. And then it was just clear again, things like this one. And even we even copied the 10 points, they call it 10 points. If I can just say quickly, it's by far the best account that exists of what actually happened in March and April 2022. It's, you, you laid it all out, you provided a quality. It's all there. Anything's in war, you don't know what happens, but this one, there can be no doubt. No, there can be no doubt what happened. I know that quite well, the Turkish diplomats, you know, they're able to push up their able diplomats. Now it's of course, with the president or another access anymore, but at the time it wasn't. And of course, I talked to Schroeder, who was personally also there in Istanbul, you know that. So, and then of course, my own knowledge. There is no question that that happened like this one. And our sources are not Russian sources, our sources are Ukrainian sources. And the Ukrainian will bitter, bitter one day accuse us why we have boycott that is the solution. They would have been much better. And what we also don't know that the third point was that Russia agreed to support EU membership of the Ukraine. I mean, who knows it. Well, that's the point. That's the question I have. Do, does, have you broken through in terms of German public opinion, do people in Germany know about what was lost in Istanbul? I think the next class, more people know it in German than in most countries. I mean, it answers absolutely, you know, knowledge to my knowledge, as much in Italy, not UK is, of course, I mean, you're a warrior country. I mean, if you like war somehow, the same thing, by the way, in the Netherlands, I'm my wife is Dutch. I mean, there's no pre-smovment. There's nothing a bargain next. There's no newspaper bringing anything else. They would not even answer me when I sent an article in on these type of things. I mean, they go to, and you should forget, I mean, the UK and Netherlands are the countries who go and all the illegal wars we had, most of the wars were illegal by the EU and standards. I mean, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Serbia, all the illegal wars, maybe there were two hundred, there were two hundred, fifty-one military dimensions by the Americans. On virtually all the British participators, you know, I mean, you have a society in which these arguments just pay difficult to hold. But, you know, it's a declining thing. We are on the decline. We are on the decline. It doesn't pay anymore. Before, we were strong enough to say our opinion was governed, you know, because you're powerful and people would say, "It's gone. It's gone." I mean, we have not a massive change, global, geopolitical change. We have to account for it. Also, little England. I mean, UK. I mean, who are you over there? I mean, to talk like this one. I mean, this is, say, for Germany, I'm not anti-British at all, but I think I've, of course, seen our army operating in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq, where, by the way, the Iranians helped you not to be beaten into pieces. You will never, they never acknowledged this. I mean, I was personally, I know British soldiers who talked about it. So it's not a connection, but it's absolutely true. But I think, you know, you have to realize it is, I mean, maybe in the 1990s still, we had the power to insist on what we said was right. We don't have it anymore. You know, in 2025, it's not possible anymore. It's gone. And we better adjust, and also the European Union adjusts. And if Mrs. van der Leyen gives you a speech for a re-election being elected more, it sounds a page. She wants to create a sort of superpower Europe, and it won't happen. It just won't happen. And so we want to bring into Parliament a counter-proposal at Christmas, which we call them the Peace Power Europe. Lots of war power. I mean, it's, yeah, Europe is on the European Union, it's on the wrong track, and I think that they will have to pay for it. And they will also pay with their unity on it, because we have Trump, you will see one European state after the other will fall and not adhere to that resolution. This resolution is built on sand, and it's only provocative, but it's not real, and it isolates the European Union. You mentioned before, you didn't have to rely on Russian sources. And I would take further. I think we can use Ukrainian sources, because as I point out many times, on the first day after the Russians invaded, Zelensky himself, which is posted on Ukraine's on government websites, argued they were contacted by the Russians on the first day, that they wanted to talk about neutrality, in which they said, yes, without preconditions, the Ukrainians confirmed. And on the third day, they said, they were ready now to start the negotiations. Meanwhile, then you saw at the same time across the Atlantic, the US spokesperson Ned Price saying, well, we do not support any negotiations without preconditions. First, Russia capitulates, in other words, leave, then we can talk. And later on, when even confronted with this, when he was asked if, you know, the Ukrainians will go negotiate with the Russians who will support this, and even said, no, this war is bigger than Russia and Ukraine. This is about a much greater gain. And thereafter, you know, the Israelis, the Turkish as mediators, they confirmed, yes, it was sabotaged. But it seems that reality doesn't matter, because these are facts, they can't be disputed unless we're saying Zelensky is lying to us now. But it doesn't seem reality matters that much anymore, because no media will discuss it. It's kind of dismissed as if it would be a conspiracy theory. Politicians don't want to talk about it. So it's a bit frustrating. It does matter. It's very interesting. You know, when America, when the West realized that they were close to an agreement at the time, they met, they were still 15 points. Later, they, in some way, they condensed it to 10 points. A brilliant document. A brilliant document that would have been the document in the world to see how you make peace now very quickly. That's when they had the summit of NATO. And you can read this. I mean, this document basically says we don't want that. And the interesting thing is that three days later on 27th, Zelensky gave an interview to journalists, which also include five Russian journalists in which she is confirmed that this is the way to go. And on 29th, he agreed that his foreign minister initials, the 10 points of Istanbul. So Zelensky actually opposed NATO decision in the initial. We have the poor guy. I mean, you know, and if we hadn't threatened him, and probably he's threatened also by his own nationalists, and, you know, let's be very fair also fascist, the type of armed groups. I mean, he's in a terror was in a terror position. And, you know, also the other thing is that Russia announced on 28, one day before Istanbul, that they withdrew their army from Kiev and Tarkev as a gesture of goodwill, because that's what was foreseen there. And you do that often to to say that, okay, let's sign it because it was very close to it. We say, of course, the because they were beaten, they were not beaten there, they were, they were strong. And, and then of course, which I think we, who knows what to choose this and about the whole thing, but one thing is true that they didn't stop the negotiations, because you have peace negotiations or ceasefire negotiations. Because you want to prevent the step of things, not to stop it. I mean, it's just, it doesn't make any sense the argument we have on the Western. So I think that's a lot of things happening. And I think the history will not give us right on, on how we see it. And we add to one more thing, because, you know, I've lived always in the international community. You must not forget now that this account is only invest in European countries, not even anyone in the United States to that degree. It is not by 90% of the rest of the population, maybe, maybe, maybe this mark mark or say in Philippines, but, you know, that's it. And people don't believe that even India and China are themselves. We also don't want, because the crux of this war is NATO expansion. It's not imperialism of Russia. It's our way of trying to control the world. And that's what India doesn't want, what China doesn't want, what Indonesia doesn't want, what the Africans don't want, and what the Latin America doesn't want. They don't want NATO to expand further and therefore cement the control of the Western world and what they call the world based order, which is basically where they only play a subversive role. And there are why the UN Charter becomes so important. And this is something that you also in the West don't understand how important the UN Charter is. Absolutely. And of course, the point that you always hear from all kinds of states outside the West is that the UN for them remains the core of the entire international system. The UN Charter remains the core of the international system. When we talk about a rules based order, I get the sense that many states we spoke to. We've spoken to two Indian diplomats on these channels on this channel in this format, Glendesen and none. They see talk about things like the rules based order as an attack on the UN Charter and the international system, which they are totally committed to. And I think this is something that people in the West don't understand. The BRICS countries are all and that's why I'm going now also to need, you know, I'm invited that Columbia University because I want to have more contact. You know, my articles are all published by the way in India, IDN, big thing. Yeah, it has a big readership and even in the United States. India is interested in this type of things, but you know, look at NATO. If you sitting on the other side in a non-white Western country, what do you see? The only military alliance in the world, which thinks that they can send their military equipment around the world to China and whatever is, of course, an alliance for them of the ex-colonial powers dominated by white people. Of course, they must object to it. They must object to it. And they don't want this NATO to take control of the Black Sea and the Ukraine. And that's why Zelensky has never gotten really a hold, a grip in the South world saying, you know, they take away our country because these countries are very worried about loss of territory and, you know, this type of things. Yes, nothing like that. No, they don't want this. And we are there alone. And to speak here in the European Parliament is if we threaten countries which don't do the sanctions well, that we will also sanction them, and we don't realize that we have lost it already. I mean, this is pathetic, pathetic, if it wouldn't be so dangerous. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Are we going to have a situation in Europe where the outside world for the first time ever comes and sorts out for us European problems? The Chinese and Indian media comes along and actually plays a role. And that will be a radical change to that, something that has never happened in European history that I can remember. But we are used that for 400 years that we have colonial powers that we, you know, is a threat because of your Christianity. That's because we bought civilization with all the sort of things and the election we bring democracy. I mean, that's how they see us. We are gone. But I think it's important. If we don't adjust in Europe, it will be, we will pay a vape high price. You cannot have politics against reality. I don't know what you say in English, but we say the translated the art of politics is always to do the feasible. I mean, you have the politics is the art of politics. I mean, this is from the line. I mean, she is a dreamer, actually a dangerous dreamer. And it's just is beyond any reality. It's beyond any reality. How do they want to win the war there? I mean, I don't know. I think that when you go to a place like India, when we were wondering why they're not supporting our policies, it's always the assumption that they do not have the right facts that they've been propagandized. But, but I'm also every once or twice a week on Indian TV. You notice there that there's more scope for actual discussion, because if you look at things like Nord Stream, for example, in which now the US attempts to blame the Ukrainians for it. And shorts, by the way, but what I find fascinating is now with this new story from America. They said they're all the new about the attack and they tried to prevent it before it happened. I mean, this is fascinating because, you know, first, they say, we knew about the attack before it happened, but that there wasn't Russia, nonetheless. Then they're admitting to the world that when they said, you know, it was probably the Russians behind it, they lied. And thereafter, they actually use this attack to justify NATO militarizing more the oceans. So the veterans started to balance the Baltic Sea and the Arctic that NATO needed more control over the ocean. Again, they lied and then they admit that they use this to militarize relations further. And I look through the media. There's no discussion of this. There's no other perspective. It's admitted, but no one will report on it. But if you go to India, China, they can talk about it. So it's more ability to live within the real world, I guess. You know, the interesting thing is, when the discussion was in the Security Council, which I listened into, all the states, including America, called this economic terrorism, terrorism, you know, which it is. But outside, we suddenly, we think it's a sort of diving instructor who blew up the whole pipeline. I mean, it's a ridiculous whole thing. But what is important on the news when you read this article from the World Street Journal, what is important, that they accuse Zelensky and Charles of having known that before. They accuse them both. And you know, this is very serious, because if Charles knew before it and hadn't done anything about it, that is what I don't know what the English word is. That's actually betrayal. I mean, this is something which you could really be persecuted for. I mean, his job as a prime minister is to defend your interests. And if he doesn't do anything about it, I mean, he's complicit. And this is very serious. And what I find so interesting about the whole thing, you know, when the Washington NATO summit was basically what was said on the sideline, which was the most important thing, is that now Germany has to take the lead on the Ukraine thing and support Zelensky. And a few months later, these two guys are accused of having done the wrong thing. Why? It's really funny. No, it's not funny. It's terrible, actually. It's tragic, because of course, the other thing to say is that Europe, when it was economically and politically powerful, I mean, because it was, you know, when I was born 1961, when I was born, Europe was still a mighty political economic cultural force politics. A lot of diplomacy happened within Europe, but we did do diplomacy then. There was actual diplomacy. I mean, Adam now was an extremely anti-communist Chancellor went to Moscow, and this is at the time when, you know, the German is were divided and there were all kinds of issues, but he went to Moscow. He negotiated with Khrushchev and the Soviet leaders of that period. We don't do diplomacy anymore. We don't seem to understand what diplomacy is any longer when it was the Europeans. You don't have ministers anymore. I mean, with four. I mean, Mrs. Beiberg. I mean, Mrs. Beiberg is not, I mean, she has a one dimensional mind. And, but I think it's also, yeah, I think it's really a lack of intellectual capacity there. I mean, it's, you know, as a foreign minister, we have invented diplomacy already with the Greeks. You know, when you go to war, you must have one person outside to sort of cease if there is not a more peaceful solution. That's what they are for. That's what it is for, for preventable. I mean, this is what they are for. And then, and she is not at all. And she's a, she's a number one war monger. And unfortunately with Mrs. Kalas, we will have the same, it's a European Union now. So, but you know that time has changed. And all these things will now turn against us. We will not be able to use such an attitude to influence things away. That's gone. And the big loser is this, therefore, of this war is, of course, the is, of course, the is, of course, sorry, it's always a bloody telephone. It's, of course, is, of course, Ukraine, but the second loser says Europe, and the disorder is a loser. It is a loser. I mean, that's, that's very clear. I mean, I just, can you, can you imagine now, Ukraine coming into the European Union? The first country who protests would be Poland, no? They already are, actually. They already are. Well, they said, they said conditions. What she does is so lacking any sense of reality. That is, it's, I mean, it will cost us a fortune. It will cost us because we will have to pay for a collapsed Ukraine. You know, there are reports now from the, from diplomats in Kiev that they estimate that another 10 million people could leave Ukraine and they would leave it forever. But Ukraine is left basically with one third of the population from the time of independence. I mean, you can't lose more of war than that. It hadn't even happened to Germany when we, so many people were killed after taking World War. There are people just run off, not to speak of all the people left behind, which are injured, which are traumatized, which are retired and things like this one. I mean, this is, it's a, it's a huge failed state that if it remains a state at all, which is left over there. We get very excited about the, about the eastern part, you know, the annexation, but let me say also to this one. When you look at the election results, they are much better than any, any, any, any opinion polls, the election results, which are very detailed because Ukraine always had, because of the commerce time, a very good registration system. I know a lot about elections because that is also part of the portfolios when you do peace building is keeping. You know, it was a divided country. Two-third voted pro-Russia there and two-third voted pro-war European parties. It was always divided. Now, we have given the one side, our weapons, which are countering all the time, the Russian speaking part. I mean, they are being pounded with our weapons. We pretend always Russia doesn't destruction, but we send them to. I mean, they've also explored somewhere, you know, except the two percent, which is sent into Russia. They're all, all explode. How do you train in Florida? These people will never be one to be part anymore of a Ukraine. They can't. So I think the thing is that all this is decided, like, very much like actually the war on Kosovo because during the war of Kosovo, of course, Kosovo, they can more Kosovo and they didn't want to have it anymore. You didn't even have to have a referendum. I mean, they didn't want to be part of Serbia anymore. And I think something very similar happens there. I'm going to end on an optimistic note, which is I think that one of the reasons these European Parliament resolutions are completely unreal is because they're losing contact with the overall sentiment in Europe. We've seen that in Germany with the election results. I saw it for myself when I was in Germany a few weeks ago in the Rhineland and talking to people there. They were extremely unhappy. They were bringing, they were bringing up. I mean, I wasn't going out to talk about politics. It was a social visit, but people were bringing up themselves, how concerned and unhappy and worried they are. We've had elections in Britain. And the most interesting thing about those elections was that the mainstream parties saw a major decline in their support, even though there was a lot sided effect because one party saw its decline support declined less than the other. I think Labour was voted only by 20% of the electorate, but something with your electoral system, like in France, by the way, no? Exactly, like in France. So the mood in Europe is shifting strongly in exactly the way that you said. And you mentioned the fact that there are no protests and there's no rallies and there's that kind of thing. The reason that they don't exist, in my opinion, is because the political structures that once used to channel these protests for some reason are no longer there because over time they became assimilated to the system. What we're now starting to see in Germany, some extent in Britain, maybe eventually in France, is that new political structures are emerging, which are going to start to take their place. And when that happens, and when that all starts to come together, we will definitely start to see the protests and the push back and all of that. And it won't just be one demographic, it will be many of them from many different levels of society. I'm afraid we still have some way to go before that happens, but you can see it developing all the time. And the one thing that the war is doing is it's acting as a catalyst accelerating this process of reawakening if you like in European politics. Right. I just want to make one point because in the beginning of the talk, Yumika, we mentioned that the EU only has now moral arguments, which can't be translated into reality. But I just wanted to add that I think this is part of the huge problem we have in Europe because on the face of it, moral arguments should seem like a positive thing, but the problem is all policies are then framed as right versus wrong or good versus evil. So what I often see in Europe, we're all always speaking in slogans, so we're with slogans which everyone agrees with our concepts because we're all pro-peace, we all want to be pro-Europe, we all want to be pro-Ukrainian. We all agree with this, but then when you unpack what it actually means is peace, as Stoltenberg says, weapons are the path to peace. And pro-European means, well, we have to Europe has to be integrated with their military alliance, which redivides, remilitarizes Europe, making us less prosperous, less safe, and also most important of pro-European means the two largest European countries, Germany and Russia, should not integrate economically. And we do the same with the pro-Ukrainian, we say, well, what is pro-Ukrainian? Well, we have to push NATO on Ukraine, even when the Ukraine is supposed to. That's okay, we are creating my view. Sorry? Not to get them all killed. Yeah, well, that would be a pro-Ukrainian, that's how I'm doing. That's how I'm doing my finest. Funny thing, I mean, it's going from bad to worse for you. I mean, why should people now die for a war that is lost? I mean, why? And we give them the weapons and it's like having these dogfights in the old time. They're already bloody and all the rest of it and we throw them some meat all the time to continue fighting, and that's what we're doing. And you know, all these parliamentarians who decide here, you know, they get each day, 350 euros for just being here. Yeah? Just for being here. You know, the average in Ukraine now, you goes to the army and sits there, would not get 100 a month. You know, and we decide here that this war has to continue. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. But let me say something about moral because I did a lot of these negotiations. You always had a saying that if in the negotiations, of course, I'm not against moral, but in the negotiations, if one party speaks about morals, this party wants more. I mean, if the party starts talking about interests, it seeks a solution. Remind this, it's true probably for all the wars, also for them. You like it? Yeah, I like it a lot. It reminds me, it reminds me of something, by the way, which lawyers always say, litigators always say. You know, my background was in law and litigation, which is that anybody who comes and talks to you about principles, that you're fighting for principles, you're going to bring a legal case of principles is a fool, and it's going to lose. It is an iron rule, and I've seen this play out. Time and time again. It's a fact. Okay, very good. Well, I guess this is a good place to finish it off, so... I publish quite a lot, and you know, it's sometimes very, very difficult to get it, you know, and do it also in English now. And there's very few people who will have this insight in wars and in Europe, in what happens in Europe. So I hope it gets spread out, not that I, my name, you can take even off. I don't care about the things, but to realize what Europe is presently doing is to destroy itself. Yeah. I guess that's the moral arguments when we hear a better book say. I will support Ukraine no matter what my voters say. It sounds awfully moral, but what it really means is democracy means little, and also how we define being supporting Ukraine, which means often, you know, pulling into military lines that he didn't want, you know, sabotaging their peace agreements and, you know, pushing war. Of course, our democracy is suffering badly under this war. I mean, you know, it was already a war. I mean, look at this, how difficult it is to publish something in Germany. How difficult it is to get this news into the radio channels and things like this one. We need people like you. I mean, the public radio stations brewing the BBC wouldn't bring this type of thing. We'll just ignore it. Not even as a saying that is another opinion. We don't have that anymore. And they are going to lose. I tell you, they're not going to do it. Yeah. Okay. Oh, no, we almost finished on Happy Note, but. Okay. Anyways, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. You've got no important what you're doing. It's so important. You know, you know, this, I mean, I'm not reading any German newspapers anymore. It's just stopped reading them. It's not that I'm not interested. I'm not interested in other opinions. It's like this. But it's so, so many pallets, the whole thing. And, you know, for somebody who knows a little bit more about the things, you just feel off the stick. Well, how about what it is written there? And you're joining. You're joining. Hmm. You're joining the great majority of people. One of the great, one of the events, one of the things that's been happening. And what we have seen also in Germany. I mean, everywhere is, of course, the emergence of a parallel. News channels, parallel. The newspapers are platforms and things like this one. They're very, very important. You know, I've something. In one, one of my things I usually sort of published in 10 to 15 different platforms. And in one platform already, I got 55,000 readers. I wouldn't have gotten this in any of the normal newspapers. So there's hope. There's hope that democracy doesn't die. Reason doesn't die, you know, that in the end, we do the right thing. And we are for peace and not for war. Yeah. Yes. Hey. Thanks, man. Thank you very much. Michael von Duchildenberg. Thank you very much for coming on our program. A wonderful program if I miss them. Okay. Fine. Okay. [Music]