FLASHBACK: Ukraine's Inevitable Loss: Revisiting Key Developments In The Ukraine War
FLASHBACK: As Ukraine's loss becomes inevitable, travel back with us to some of the key moments in System Update's coverage of the war. Featured in this 'Special Edition Episode' are previous interviews with John Mearsheimer, Michael Tracey, and Glenn Diesen.
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TIMESTAMPS:
Biden Wants Billions MORE for Ukraine (0:00)
U.S. Exploits Navalny Death (8:44)
Interview with John Mearsheimer (23:47)
Michael Tracey Interviews Glenn Diesen (39:48)
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Most Americans are now turning against this board.
They do not want any more of their taxpayer dollars.
Going through this war, the Congress has already authorized over $110 billion.
And there's just no one in sight to this war.
The only possibility, if the United States doesn't withdraw or forge a diplomatic solution, finally, is to just keep spending.
Tens of billions and hundreds of billions of dollars more to destroy Ukraine, to kill Ukrainians, and eventually probably having to then paying for reconstruction of that country through all kinds of private hedge funds and investment funds like BlackRock and J.P. Morgan and others, which are very excited as well about this war.
No matter, public opinion makes no difference.
They sufficiently propagandize the public to get the public on board at the start of the war in a bipartisan way.
And the fact that Americans are now wanting to get off this ship does not mean that this ship is stopping to let them off.
In fact, it is escalating in terms of how quickly it seems to be moving.
From the Associated Press earlier today.
The headline, quote, Biden will ask Congress for $13 billion to support Ukraine and $12 billion for a disaster fund, an AP source says.
So that's $25 billion.
You'll notice they paired the war spending with a disaster fund so that that way anybody opposed to the spending package will instantly be accused of opposing the $12 billion in humanitarian spending.
Here are the details.
Quote, President Joe Biden on Thursday will ask Congress to provide more than $13 billion, $13 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, another massive infusion of cash.
That's the Associated Press's characterization as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin's deeply entrenched forces.
A person familiar with the Associated Press said, The last such request from the White House, May to November, was met and then some.
Congress approved more than what the Democratic president had requested.
In fact, you'll recall that in May of 2022, President Biden originally requested an allocation of $33 billion for the war in Ukraine.
Congress received it, arbitrarily threw another $7 billion on, just locked it up to $40 billion, just rounded up by $7 billion to $40 billion.
And that was really the only time Congress was required out in the open to approve a standalone expenditure.
That was when every single Democrat, as well as every single Democrat leaning independent, such as Bernie Sanders in the Senate, the entire squad in the House, every last Democrat, every single one of them voted yes.
And as usual, they got enough support from the Republican establishment, from the neocon and pro-war wing of the Republican Party to pass that $40 billion expenditure by a very lopsided bipartisan majority.
They had already approved very early in the war $14.9 billion, which they were drawing down rapidly.
So before you even blinked, The United States has spent $60 billion on the war, which is almost equal to the total military budget for Russia for the entire year, which is $65 billion.
So in a matter of three months, the U.S. blew through $60 billion.
And the same thing happened in November when Biden had made a request, and then the Congress not only approved it, but lopped a bunch of money on top of it.
And the Associated Press says, The White House also is expected to ask for $12 million to repunish federal disaster funds,
according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about a request that had not yet been made public, and spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Note here, just as an aside, this rotted journalistic practice, that they just give anonymity to anybody without even bothering to pretend to have a reason for doing so.
The justification here was they were given anonymity in order to speak about a matter not yet public, but obviously the source was authorized to leak this.
They wanted to kind of do a test case.
It's not like some inside-the-government whistleblower This is just a Biden official going and wanting to announce it through the Associated Press and not wanting to be named.
And, of course, they immediately grant that anonymity so that government officials can do everything in secret.
Quote, Biden and his senior national security team have repeatedly said the United States will help Ukraine, quote, as long as it takes to oust Russia from its borders.
Privately, administration officials have warned Ukrainian officials that there is a limit to the patience of a narrowly divided Congress and the American public for the cost of a war with no clear end.
As you likely know, we've been reporting on this for a while.
Well, as the public support for the war has been eroding or softening in the words of AP, the attempt has been made propagandistically to convince Americans that there's this great counteroffensive coming.
And all you have to do is hold on a little longer.
The counteroffensive is going to be this explosive momentum change in the war.
The Ukrainians are going to break through these incredibly entrenched defensive lines.
The Russians have spent months entrenching and building and that was going to finally be what enables the Ukrainians to expel Russians from their land.
Remember, Russia occupies more than 20% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which they have had possession of since 2014.
I don't know how you perceive it, but for me, I have a very hard time envisioning Ukraine driving Russian soldiers entirely out of eastern Ukraine.
All of those provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that they are now very aggressively occupying, as well as Crimea.
And the problem has become that both sides, Russia and NATO slash the U.S., have asserted absolutist goals as their non-negotiable, uncompromising demands for ending this war.
The Russians have made unequivocally clear that they will never accept being expelled from these territories in eastern Ukraine, which they claim has been used to oppress and mistreat Russian-speaking ethnic Russians, as well as to allow all sorts of Nazi battalions to fill up in that region and to threaten Russia as well with the presence of NATO on their soil.
And meanwhile, the US has said we will never allow this war to end if it means the Russians gain even an inch of Ukrainian territory as a reward for this invasion.
And so the war by design, in terms of the framework that has been imposed, the framework asserted by Western leaders, is almost designed never to end.
And if it does end, it's going to be a very long time before it does.
And Joe Biden is saying, as of the Democrats, that we're going to keep putting money into this war for as long as it takes.
That is, by definition, an endless war.
So this $110 billion on top of now this $25 billion that Biden is seeking is just a very starting point for what the U.S. will end up spending if, in fact, Joe Biden gets his way and continues to have authorization to spend as much of your money as he wants,
to fatten up the armed industry, to launder money through the CIA, to pour all this money into the most corrupt country in Europe, a country, by the way, Where Joe Biden and his son Hunter and his family have not only been aware of the corruption, but participated in it.
With Hunter Biden making a huge amount of money in Ukraine in order to sell his father's influence and access to his father during the time that his father was vice president and basically running Ukraine.
It'd be one thing if Alexei Navalny were some sort of gigantic figure in Russia.
The only reason you know the name Meglexi Nalvani is because the West has turned him into this mythological figure.
There was a documentary made about him.
It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2022.
All of Hollywood stood and cheered for this documentary about the hero Nalvani.
In Russia, he's a minuscule figure.
He's not some giant of the Russian political stage.
He is useful to the West for propagandistic purposes, and that is why you have this incredibly inflated imagery of what he is.
Here's Reuters on February 21st of 2018.
Putin nemesis Navalny barred from the election tries political siege.
Remember when the proof of Russia's totalitarianism was that the opposition leader was barred from the ballot?
Isn't that a situation similar to what we have in the United States?
Isn't it the case that the primary political opponent of the current government in Washington Is in the process of being stricken from the ballot as a result of judges and Democratic Party leaders bringing cases to have them stricken from the ballot and is in the process of being criminally prosecuted by Democratic partisan prosecutors like Fannie Willis in Georgia and Alvin Bragg in New York and the Obama DOJ? Why
is it that when we hear that Russia is banning from the ballot The primary political opponent of Vladimir Putin, and then trying to imprison him.
We make one conclusion, but then we hear in the United States that the exact same thing is happening.
But an actual significant political figure, not like Navalny, but Donald Trump, who was actually the president already, narrowly lost in 2020, is leading almost every opinion poll for 2024, when he When he is threatened with in prison, a completely different narrative about that is presented, even though they're the same acts.
And I know a lot of people just intuitively believe this is what propaganda does, this is what tribalism does, is that we just inherently believe that when it seems like the two things are the same, the fact that one is happening in the United States and the other is happening in Russia means they're completely different.
Question, though, whether or not that's what you believe because you're an American, because you were born in the United States, because you've been told from childhood that that's how you should see the world.
Here is Reuters.
Now, this is not RT. This is not Sputnik.
This is not Tucker Carlson, whoever you want to dismiss as some sort of pro-Russian source.
This is Reuters in 2018, which said the following, quote, Opinion polls put Nalvani support at less than 2%.
And many Russians who still get much of their news from state TV say they do not even know who he is.
He's incredibly more famous and more notable and more popular in Western political capitals than he is in Russia.
The idea that he's a threat to Vladimir Putin in any way is laughable.
Let's try and remember as well a couple of things about who Alexei Navalny is, the new hero of Western liberals.
From Yahoo News in February of this year, actually yesterday, Alexei Navalny's, quote, far-right racist past brought back in spotlight after Putin critic's death.
As world leaders pay tribute to Russian opposition leader Alex Nalbani, some have drawn attention to some inconvenient aspects of his past.
Really, what's inconvenient?
Quote, as Western politicians pay their respects, some more uncomfortable aspects of Nalbani's career have been brought back to the surface.
Quote, Nalbani took part in the Russian march, an annual demonstration that draws ultra-nationalists, including some who adopt swastika-like symbols.
Oh my, that is uncomfortable.
Quote, he has never apologized for his earlier xenophobic videos or his decision to attend the Russian march.
Rahman appeared to be referring to a notorious video from 2007 in which Navalny appears to compare Muslim immigrants in Russia to cockroaches.
As he advocated for gun ownership.
In another video, he is dressed as a dentist and appears to compare migrants in Moscow to tooth cavities, Radio Free Europe reports.
He says, quote, I recommend full sanitization.
Everything in our way should be carefully but decisively removed through deportation.
Shortly before releasing both clips, Now, Bonny was expelled by the liberal Yabloko party over his, quote, nationalist activities, having participated in the Russian march, an annual rally associated with ultra-nationalist far-right groups chanting slogans such as Russia for ethnic Russians.
Now, anyone in the United States who has a past like that, who called immigrants cockroaches, who advocated gun control, handing out guns as a way to exterminate them, as cockroaches should be exterminated, who attended an actual neo-Nazi march, I don't think they would be described as having an inconvenient or uncomfortable past.
And yet it is amazing, just like we find in Ukraine, with all the neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine that the American liberals love and want to arm, that if you're somebody who doesn't love the Democratic Party in the United States, you will get called a Nazi and a fascist and a white nationalist.
And American liberals and Western liberals will try to have you barred from the Internet and fired from your job and basically expelled from decent society in every way.
And then Western liberals encounter actual Nazis.
People with actual neo-Nazi ideology, with actual overt ties to white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups, and they want to embrace them, they want to arm them.
The hero Nalvani.
Here's the hero Nalvani in 2007.
Hello.
Today we're going to talk about violence against victims.
No one is afraid of us.
So just for the people listening, I'm going to just read the screen.
It says, background left, Alexi Nalvani, certified specialist.
Hello, today we have to talk about insect control.
No house is safe from cockroach infestation.
Ooh, where a fly gets in through an open window.
And there's all kinds of demons being shown as he says this.
We all know the cure against flies, a fly swatter, a slipper against a roach.
But what to do if cockroaches are too big and flies too aggressive?
In such cases, I recommend a handgun, as he shows a handgun.
Yes to allowing firearms.
Now, anybody involved in an ad like that in the United States would be deemed a Nazi for the rest of his life.
The Western media looks at this and because of his propagandistic value, they turn him into some kind of like civil liberties leader.
And of course, the same exact thing has been happening for the last two years in Ukraine.
For the last decade in the Western press, every time the Azov battalion has been referenced, it has been described as a neo-Nazi group, as a group with Nazi ideology.
And to this day, you see Azov battalions and their leaders and their soldiers, and they have all kinds of neo-Nazi insignia on them.
Here's how the New York Times tried to grapple with this in June of 2023.
Quote, Do you love these words?
uncomfortable, inconvenient, thorny when they're talking about actual neo-Nazis?
Quote, the troops' use of patches that is bearing Nazi emblems risk fueling Russian propaganda and spreading imagery that the West has spent a half century trying to eliminate.
So far, the imagery has not eroded international support for the war.
It has, however, left diplomats, Western journalists, and advocacy groups in a difficult position.
Calling attention to the iconography risks playing into Russian propaganda, saying nothing allows it to spread.
Even Jewish groups and anti-hate organizations that have traditionally called out hateful symbols have stayed largely silent.
Privately, some leaders have worried about being seen as embracing Russian propaganda talking points.
Now, that is how the New York Times has grappled with the fact that we are arming actual neo-Nazi militia groups in Ukraine.
Now, as I said at the start, there is a similar case to Nalbani dying in prison.
Although, this is a case where the person who died in prison was an American citizen.
His name is Gonzalo Lira.
We covered this case on last week's show when we interviewed his father.
And you may recall that Gonzalo Lira was in Ukraine.
He married a Ukrainian woman in 2016.
And he was an outspoken opponent of President Zelensky and of the war.
And because of that, he was twice arrested.
The U.S. government never once uttered a word of protest about this American citizen being arrested, even though he posted a video pleading for the government to help, and he warned that if he were arrested a second time, he would die in a Ukrainian prison.
And he did die in a Ukrainian prison, just as he predicted at the age of 55.
And he was in prison solely because he criticized President Zelensky in the NATO-U.S. narrative about the war.
Now, you would think That when it happens to an American citizen who dies in a Ukrainian prison, after criticizing President Zelensky, that all these people who are so deeply concerned with civil liberties in Russia might have something to say about that.
After all, this is not a Russian citizen, this is an American citizen.
And it's not done at the hands of a foreign government on the other side of the world who is our enemy, but an allied state that we are funding and financing.
And they killed an American citizen.
For the crime of speaking out against the war.
And there's barely any media coverage of this.
It happened just last month.
Because that has anti-propagandistic value, because it shows what a joke it is to claim that Ukraine is a democratic state.
One of the very few outlets that covered the death of Gonzalo Lero in prison was the liberal tabloid Daily Beast And they ran this article in January of 2024.
And there you see the headline.
It's a repulsive, repugnant headline designed to justify Gonzalo Lira's death.
Quote, the U.S. finally confirms that the American dating coach turned Kremlin shill died in Ukraine.
Quote, Gonzalo Lira, a blogger who pushed Kremlin propaganda in Ukraine, died after apparently coming down with pneumonia.
We're arrested in Ukraine's Kharkov region in May of 2023 and charged with spreading Russian propaganda by posting videos that cheered on the Kremlin's act of aggression against Ukraine.
After being released on house arrest, he was jailed again in July after fleeing while out on bail, though he claimed in hysterical tweets to followers at the time that it was all part of an attempt by Ukrainian authorities to, quote, disappear him.
Right-wing pundits back home in the U.S. soon seized on his unfounded claims to criticize the Biden administration's support for Ukraine, holding Lear up as a, quote, journalist they said had been unfairly persecuted by authorities in Kiev.
In other words, Gonzalo Lear deserved to die in a Russian prison, in a Ukrainian prison, because he had the wrong views about the war in Ukraine.
He was a pro-Russian propagandist.
And therefore, he deserved to die.
And if you think I'm exaggerating, even though I just showed you this repulsive daily beast headline that was obviously designed to stir up hatred and contempt for Gonzalo Lira, here is Mark Thiessen, who used to work in the Bush White House and is now a columnist for the Washington Post, classic warmongering neocon, the kind that cheered the Iraq War and the War on Terror and every single war since.
You know that type.
He was one of the few people in the media who actually acknowledged the Gonzalo Lira case and this is what he said to distinguish it from what happened in Russia.
"Gonzalo Lira was not a journalist.
He was a pro-Putin propagandist who was spreading Russian disinformation inside Ukraine during wartime, praising the Russian invasion and denying the Bukha massacre.
No country which has been invaded would allow that in its territory.
He was arrested and released on bail and then re-arrested after violating his bail.
He was not killed in jail.
He died of pneumonia.
There is no comparison to Nalvani.
None.
How is it that the people who pretend to be so upset, so angry, so enraged, By the fact that Vladimir Putin imprisoned somebody for their political views and then allowed them to die in prison, can turn around and justify the same exact thing when done by Ukraine, but this time to an American citizen.
He's essentially saying Gonzalez-Lear deserved to die in prison because during wartime he criticized the government.
That's exactly what Vladimir Putin's view of Malbani is.
We're in wartime and we're not going to allow people to criticize the government or war effort.
After all, says Mark Beeson, no country could possibly allow during wartime any free speech.
These people do not care in the slightest about civil liberties.
They don't care about that at all.
It is a pretext, a tool, to bludgeon foreign countries that we want to demonize to continue wars against.
And the way you know that it's a pretense, that there's no sincerity or authenticity as the belief, is that they will turn around and justify the same exact acts by the United States government or our allies as I just showed you.
They'll say, they'll either ignore it because they don't care about it, Or they'll say Gonzalez deserved to die because he had the wrong views.
Exactly what Vladimir Putin says about Alex and Albani.
You've referenced a few times, not just a few times, but a few times even in this conversation, many times since, including your article, that the Russians regard NATO expansion into Ukraine or significant Western influence into Ukraine as some grave threat to their security, as basically an existential threat.
And you also talked about how the Russians believe the West can't be trusted.
One of the big agreements that is often cited by people like yourself, even leftist scholars like Noam Chomsky as well, is the fact that when Germany reunified, which is obviously a huge threat to Russia, they agreed to accept that, provided that NATO never moved one inch east beyond Germany.
And of course, NATO has repeatedly moved well east, closer and closer to the Russian border.
But the argument is we did do that.
We did move east.
NATO did move east toward the Russian border.
Russia never went to war over that.
What is so uniquely threatening about Ukraine from the Russian perspective that they consider this particular kind of expansion to be an existential threat?
Well, it's right on their border, and it's a huge piece of real estate.
The first tranche of NATO expansion, the first major tranche, took place in 1999, and it involved Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
Now, it's important to understand that the Russians screamed bloody murder about that expansion, that first tranche.
But they couldn't do anything about it.
They were too weak in 1999.
This is before Putin even becomes president.
Yeltsin is the president at the time.
So the Russians were too weak to do anything about it.
But, furthermore, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are quite a distance away from the Russian border.
The second big tranche takes place in 2004, and this is when the Baltic states come in.
This is when Romania comes in, Slovenia, and a few other countries.
The Russians, again, scream bloody murder.
And there's not much they can do about this one, either, because they're still too weak.
This is 2004.
Putin has been in power for four years.
The Russians are coming back from the dead, but they're not all the way there yet.
And furthermore, although the Baltic states are close to the Russian border, they're really not a meaningful threat in any way.
Then the next big expansion is going to be Ukraine and Georgia.
That's the third big tranche.
And the Russians put down their foot and they say that this is not going to happen.
And just to focus on Ukraine, you want to remember, Ukraine is a big piece of territory right on Russia's border.
And the idea that that's going to be a NATO member and that the Americans may be able to put missiles that can hit Russia I think?
Part of NATO and that Sevastopol may become a naval base is just unthinkable.
This, again, is why Bill Burns, who's now the president of the CIA, the head of the CIA, said in 2008 that Ukraine was the brightest of red lines.
It really was.
Or is of major strategic importance to the Russians.
It's just very different than the Baltic states.
It's very different than Finland, Poland, and so forth and so on.
So the Russians are deeply committed to making sure that Ukraine never becomes a member of NATO, or if it does become a member, it's a dysfunctional state and basically useless for NATO. So the argument of people who see the world through the NATO and EU and U.S. perspective is twofold about that argument.
One is that no one was really talking about putting Ukraine in NATO.
Secretary Blinken, when the Russians objected, defended this principle, this open-door principle, that we're never going to close the door on anybody, that everyone has the right to join NATO.
If we want them to, we're not going to tell Ukraine they're forever out.
But that there was no real movement to put Ukraine into NATO.
And that secondly, even if Ukraine did become a NATO state, NATO is purely a defensive alliance.
It doesn't have a history of attacking anybody.
All that it would do is be extending its defensive umbrella over Ukraine.
The Russian fears over NATO on the other side of their border was basically illusory because NATO isn't the kind of military alliance that historically has gone and invaded other countries or conquered them.
What do you make of those two claims?
Which was the first one again?
That no one was talking about NATO expansion into Ukraine in reality.
This is simply not true.
After the Biden administration moved into the White House in January of 2021, on a number of occasions over the course of 2021 and early 2022, they made it unequivocally clear that the commitment or pledge that was made in April of 2008 at Bucharest was alive and well.
They said it in a A statement that was made at the Brussels summit, the Brussels NATO summit in June of 2021.
They said it in a very important strategic document that was issued in November 2021.
And when the Russians wrote a letter on December 17th of 2021 asking President Biden to write To put in writing that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO, Tony Blinken made it clear to the Russians that we rejected that request and that Ukraine would become a part of NATO. That's part one of the story.
Part two of the story is that NATO was effective—excuse me, Ukraine was effectively a de facto member of NATO by early 2022.
The Russians made it clear that they appreciated this fact.
We were arming the Ukrainians.
We were training the Ukrainians.
We were including them in military exercises that we ran, that NATO ran.
We were obsessed with interoperability between Ukraine and NATO fighting forces.
So Ukraine was well on its way to Developing the military capability to be a NATO member.
This idea that there was no chance that Ukraine would ever become part of NATO is a fiction that proponents of the war have invented to defend themselves.
It makes no sense at all.
Now, with regard to your second point, that NATO is a defensive alliance, To be clear, that's not my point.
That's the point of people who would be arguing against you, but go ahead.
Yes, I totally understand.
Sorry for you.
The second point is the argument that NATO is a defensive alliance.
It's not an offensive alliance.
There's a very important concept in the international relations literature.
It's called the security dilemma.
And the security dilemma says that it's virtually impossible to distinguish between defense and offense, whether you're talking about weapons or military strategy or military plans.
So you can have an alliance that you think is defensive in nature.
But if you're standing on the other side of the line, it does not look defensive in nature.
It looks offensive in nature.
Just let's go back to the Cold War.
NATO had what I believe was a defensive strategy.
But that defensive strategy involved lots of German and American and British armored divisions and mechanized infantry divisions.
And in a crisis, what we planned to do was take all those NATO-mechanized divisions and armored divisions and move them up to the inter-German border, close to where the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces were.
Well, if you're a Warsaw Pact general or a Soviet general sitting on the other side of the inter-German border, and all of a sudden you see German armored divisions and American armored divisions Marching towards the border.
Are you gonna say to yourself, those are defensive divisions?
I don't think so.
Are you gonna be able to distinguish as to whether they're defensive or offensive divisions?
I don't think so.
The end result is What we have with regard to NATO expansion into Ukraine is a situation where, on the Western side, we think this is a defensive move, whereas on the Russian side, they think it is an offensive move.
Whereas we think we are containing the Russians, the Russians think we are encircling them.
This is the security dilemma.
And people who make arguments about particular weapons or particular strategies or particular alliances being defensive in nature are whistling in the wind.
It's a meaningless argument to make because you can't distinguish between defense and offense.
Let me ask you about the change of government in 2014.
We all have heard the secret tape recording that's no longer secret, where Victoria Nuland was speaking to the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time, and she expressed her very strong views about who ought to be the new president now that the democratically elected and she expressed her very strong views about who ought to be the new president now that the democratically elected leader was removed from office prior to the constitutional termination of his term.
Obviously, with a lot of U.S. aid, that U.S. senators marched to Kiev and made no secret of the fact that they were aiding that effort.
And we have this little scandal that gets talked about as a domestic scandal where Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, was on the board of Burisma for $50,000 a month because they wanted his help in dealing with some of their potential legal problems.
And instead of paying a son of a Ukrainian official, they paid the son of an American official in recognition of that to wielded real power in Ukraine, especially after the change in this government.
How did that look, this change of government in 2014 and the subsequent influence of the United States and Ukraine to Moscow?
Well, I think that what happened in 2014 with regard to Victoria Nuland's behavior was seen by the Russians as a mortal threat.
So, It's important to emphasize here that the Russians are deeply concerned about NATO expansion into Ukraine, for sure.
But they're also concerned about EU expansion into Ukraine, and they are also deeply concerned about a potential color revolution This is where Ukraine becomes a liberal democracy that's allied with the West.
So if you actually think about the West's strategy vis-a-vis Ukraine, it has three prongs to it.
First is NATO expansion, second is EU expansion, and three is a color revolution.
And the Russians worry about all three.
And what happened with Victoria Nuland and the events in February of 2023 is that the Russians were spooked, not by NATO expansion per se at the time, But by a potential color revolution and also by EU expansion.
Those were the two big issues on the table at the time.
And the Russians clearly viewed this as a mortal threat.
And that's why they took Crimea.
And that's why the war, in effect, or the conflict, in effect, started back then.
So those events in 2014, where the United States was involved, exactly how much involvement We had is unclear at this point in time.
There's no question we were involved.
But the level of involvement remains to be determined.
But the Russians saw that as a threat, and that's what precipitated the crisis in February of 2014.
With regard to Joe Biden's son, I don't know enough about that to have a strong opinion.
I don't know enough about what Hunter Biden did, what Joe Biden did, or how the Russians view it.
So I have to plead ignorance on that particular issue.
But regardless of the specifics of that case, It is true, isn't it, that after that 24 change of government, the United States played a much bigger role in the internal affairs of Ukraine?
Oh, absolutely.
There's just no question about that.
Right.
No, we're joined at the hip with the Ukrainians.
Just to go back to, you know, you were talking about Barack Obama before, being smart enough not to arm the Ukrainians.
And you're absolutely correct.
It was Donald Trump in December 2017 who decided to arm the Ukrainians.
But Obama agreed to train the Ukrainians.
Obama wanted to put limits on our involvement, for sure.
He was a cautious man.
And I think, deep down inside, Obama understood that this whole situation was a potential disaster.
But you don't want to underestimate the extent to which Obama moved the United States and Ukraine closer together after 2014.
And again, Victoria Nuland worked for President Obama.
And by the way, it was now President, then Vice President Biden, who handled the Ukraine portfolio in the Obama administration.
I don't think most people realize that.
But Obama delegated The Ukraine portfolio to Joe Biden.
And Joe Biden worked closely with Victoria Nuland in 2014 and afterwards.
And this is why when Joe Biden moves into the White House in January 2021, he really turns the pressure up on the Russians over Ukraine.
2021 It's the year when the really big trouble starts, and it's Joe Biden who is in the White House starting in January of 2021.
You know, one thing I've been struck by is that if you survey some of the coverage in the West, in the U.S., U.K., et cetera, there's this note of triumphalism about how Russia has now suffered there's this note of triumphalism about how Russia has now suffered the most far-reaching invasion since World War II.
That's supposed to be inspiring optimism about the trajectory of this conflict, whereas my instinct is, okay, if that is true, and I think it probably is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, then that should really then that should really be extremely foreboding and ominous just in terms of the potential for this now to escalate.
I mean if we really are making direct tactical comparisons between the current status of this war to World War II, then maybe people ought to brush up on their history of World War II just in terms of the epic cataclysm that it was for humanity.
And especially in terms of the psychic impact, it's hard to gauge or quantify.
But given the strength of World War II lore in Russian society and how it's used to justify this current war effort, I've heard Putin even try to kind of situate the Ukraine conflict into the broader spectrum of Russian history that kind of connects it Or puts it in a continuum with World War II. And if that is true,
and then this latest development can further bolster that kind of thematic tie between World War II and the current conflict, then that really should make us all a bit apprehensive or concerned, shouldn't it, about what this could potentially result in rather than something to celebrate, which is kind of the tone that you see in much of Western media.
Yeah, the celebration is very strange because besides the civilians which they killed, a lot of the Russian troops they killed as well, they weren't part of the special military operation.
They were, as you said, they were conscript serving in the army on Russian territory.
So celebrating this kind of shows how the war mentality has really It would become much uglier, I guess, over the past two and a half years.
But also this Kursk, the historical similarities.
I saw a retired, I think it was a German general, or at least a top officer, making this comparison as well, that this is where they suffered in World War II and almost framed it as a do-over.
It was quite absurd.
And you also have...
German military leaders arguing that because the Ukrainians have had such success in Kursk, they need to send extra weaponry to support this.
So very openly participating now, actively becoming part of this war, not in the defense, but in the offense into this war.
No one can argue Russia did the same to Ukraine and all this.
It's all fine and well.
But this is NATO's direct involvement in the invasion of Russia.
And one has to look at the perspectives of the Russians as well, because this now puts us in the category of Napoleon and Hitler.
We don't have to agree with these comparisons, but the perceptions do matter in international politics.
And this is how more and more of Russians are actually seeing this.
That this has always been an existential fight, and this has only been proven over the past two weeks.
And there doesn't seem to be much appreciation of what we have done.
I mean, Washington and Brussels, What this all means.
If you look at the incoming new foreign policy chief of the European Union, she argues that we can't have diplomacy with Russians because they're bad people, and also a possible victory could be defined as breaking Russia up to many parts.
It's just very, very radical.
I think what's most unsettling about this is once these World War II comparisons are made, it's not done with shame.
It's such a self-righteousness and virtue behind it that we're fighting this good fight.
But in large part it's because key facts about this war from day one in 2014 has kind of been scrapped from the narrative.
So if we look at what we've actually done over the past decade, it's quite reckless and dangerous.
You're not really allowed to make this argument in Europe because if you criticize our side, that means you're taking the Russian side.
So it's all narrative-driven, so it's very difficult to have any sensible discussion.
No, I'm also very much taken back by this now comparisons to World War II. If it was just the Russians making it, it would be one thing, but when these comparisons come from the West as well, it's very concerning.
Well, even going back to the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine, you had lots of indications on the part of American elected officials of this legacy of World War II. We need to We're good to
go.
utilize, as far as I know, which is sort of strange, but they did maybe as a symbolic showing of solidarity.
They passed a lend-lease legislation, which would have enabled the U.S. to basically just send armaments to Ukraine without ever potentially being repaid.
Now, the Congress decided instead to enact these incremental supplemental funding bills that were not structured as a loan, but now even Donald Trump is saying, oh, gee whiz, it's going to be so great because now we can structure all of our further provisions to Ukraine as a loan.
So the World War II iconography and rhetoric has kind of been a feature of the U.S. depiction of the war for quite some time, but obviously it takes on a different perspective.
tenor when we're talking about an ongoing invasion.
One thing I wanted to ask you about that kind of adds to this sense of potentially impending doom is the situation in the Middle East, in particular, the relationship between Russia and Iran.
We've heard lots of reports about increasing operational ties between Russia and Iran, with Russia supplying some of these I think they're called drones, to Russia for to Russia for use in Ukraine, and also Russia pledging certain resources to Iran in turn.
And there was a report maybe last week or a few days ago of Putin issuing a cautionary note to Iran to limit the scope of its potential retaliation against Israel.
And obviously the relationship between Israel and Russia is also quite complicated.
So what is the role of Russia in kind of managing this potential upcoming escalation that we're told, we've been told for now a couple of weeks could be imminent in any moment, between Hezbollah and Iran between Hezbollah and Iran and retaliating against Israel for the assassination of Ismail Hania, the leader of Hamas in Tehran, and also the assassination of the Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
Because it could be another, you know, potential theater in a more wide-ranging conflict that could have, you know, ominous echoes of World War II or a more globally-oriented conflict.
So what's the role of Russia, as far as you can see, in the Middle East conflagration that could be potentially imminent?
Well, a part of it you can link to what is now referred to as the great geostrategic shift of Russia from Greater Europe to Greater Eurasia.
Greater Europe simply means that for the past 300 years since Peter the Great, whenever Russia wanted to modernize, it's always looking towards Europe.
To Europeanize Russia more.
And even since the days of Gorbachev, they wanted to create a common European home or a greater Europe.
This was effectively canceled with NATO expansion and the West toppling the government in Ukraine in 2014 put the final end to it effectively because this showed that the Ukraine could not be a bridge which would gradually integrate Russia instead into the West.
Instead it would be a frontline.
So this was why it was very dramatic.
And this is when Russia began to diversify its economy over the past 10 years, in which it would then integrate more towards Eurasia.
So China, India, and all the others, Iran as well, for that sake.
And then not just diversify and decouple a bit from the West, but creating new economic infrastructure with China obviously taking the lead.
Now this is quite relevant if you want to look at the partnership with Iran because if you want to only go back 15 years ago, the Russians would have used the partnership or friendship with Iran as a political currency.
They would put sanctions, they would trade away this relationship if they might get an entry ticket or something the West would dangle in front of them.
But this was a way of trading to get closer to the West.
But since 2014, Russia has now pursued what they call Greater Eurasia.
And this is very different.
Now, of course, Iran is elevated to one of the strategic partners, because when Russia looks East, they can't only integrate with the Chinese, because the Chinese economy is much, much stronger.
So now India, Iran, all these countries have much more importance.
And you saw that after the Russian and Iranian cooperation in Syria, which was very limited, the Russians and Iranians looked towards how they can expand this to a real strategic partnership along the lines of Russia and China.
And I think this is something that has really developed now over the past two and a half years, because Iran has sent its Shahid drones and assisted Russia in many ways in its most dire time when Russia sees itself as fighting.
In an existential war.
Meanwhile, the Israelis, which Russia has always had very good relations with, always tried to show respect for their mutual security concerns and interests.
Israel turned out to supply weapons and training to the Ukrainians, which then destroyed that partnership.
So you saw a huge shift.
The partnership with Israel declined while Iran is now elevated to a very strategic partner.
So this is a huge, huge shift, which will also impact the wider region.
Now, how Russia responded to this...
The attacks on Iran and the conflict in Gaza is that they've taken very strongly sympathetic and aligned themselves very closely with the Palestinians and also given Iran a lot of support.
Now, their main concern is that once the Israelis struck Iran and continue these provocations, That, yeah, this is a way of essentially provoking an Iranian response to drag the Americans into this war.
Because the Israelis, you know, they're in very deep trouble at the moment.
They're stuck in Gaza.
They're in a conflict which they don't want with Hezbollah, which is very difficult to manage.
And now they want to go out to Iran as well.
So they really need to pull in the Americans.
So this is effectively the dilemma for the Iranians as well.
Do they restore their deterrent and strike hard?
Or do they avoid taking this risk which pulls the Americans into a wider war?
So for this reason the Russians have been urging restraints for the Iranians.
But as you can expect, the Iranians maybe don't want to take that lesson from the Russians, because look what happened to the Russians.
They showed restraint at every corner with NATO, and NATO only responded by then being more and more emboldened to escalate further and further.
So this is the concern for Iran.
If they take the Russian advice and don't strike back, then why wouldn't Israel bomb Tehran again tomorrow and kill some other top officials?
So this is the main concern.
But that being said, the partnership between Russia and Iran obviously continues to grow economically and in the military sphere.
Also now institutionally with the SCO and BRICS. And finally, obviously, we're in the middle of a presidential election cycle in the U.S., and that's the frame through which much of what goes on in Russia is viewed in the U.S., for better or worse.
Obviously, there's this longstanding caricature of Trump as somehow collusively in hock with Russia.
I think anybody who's rational probably should realize that that was...
A nonsense at this point, but it kind of continues to linger.
And then as far as Kamala Harris is concerned, we don't know what her independent policy views are on virtually anything.
Obviously, you can infer that she has this association with the Biden administration in which she has been vice president.
But in terms of her own personally articulated views, despite her being coordinated into the Democratic nominee through sort of backhanded maneuvers, she's yet to really articulate a policy platform to any appreciable extent.
So how does that impact, I guess, your general assessment of the current state of affairs?
You know, Trump, he was just once again bragging yesterday how tough he is on Russia, how Putin actually complained to him that Trump was excessively, quote, brutal on Russia by imposing sanctions and by killing the Nord Stream pipeline.
Obviously, there's been some news lately about the ultimate thing about Nord Stream pipeline, but Trump takes credit for economically, you know, ending the Nord Stream pipeline even before Biden took power.
And you have people like Mike Pompeo who are still in the orbit of Trump who are basically talking about a quote-unquote peace deal in Ukraine that would involve escalation in Ukraine.
Obviously, the status quo with the Democrats is support Ukraine for as long as it takes, as much money as it takes, whatever escalations come to pass without any real discernible policy objective in sight other than this kind of inference whatever escalations come to pass without any real discernible policy objective in sight other than this kind of inference that one can make about apparently aspiring for some version of regime change.
So it seems like a pretty disastrous muddle for both parties at this point, which maybe explains why Russia doesn't seem to have quite as strong of a preference this time around.
Obviously, it's hard to tell with any precision.
But what's your sense now of the Russian perspective on the 2024 U.S. presidential race?
Well, as you said, I don't think they see it as mattering that much.
Obviously, Kamala Harris will be a continuation of Biden.
She doesn't say much about foreign policy, which means that the people behind Biden would likely continue the policies behind Kamala Harris as well.
I wouldn't expect any big changes.
So it's continued doubling down on this continued escalations in this proxy war with the Russians.
With Trump, it's a bit different.
Again, he's spoken...
Many times about the need to end this war, how horrific it is, achieving their objectives, it's a waste of money.
And again, he really wants a return on investment in terms of empire.
And also the selection of Vance as his VP, I think that's also quite indicative of the direction he wants to go on Ukraine.
That being said, He said a lot of this already back in 2016.
And he was getting along with Russia would be a good thing, but what did he really do?
He continued a lot of the economic coercion.
He contributed to the military escalation with the javelins, which Obama said he didn't want because he could lead to war.
So he didn't really...
I'm not sure what good policies, how he improved relations with Russia.
And I think this is a problem.
I don't think it really matters that much if it's Democrat or Republican.
Keep in mind that This is a big boulder which has been rolling now since 2008.
In 2008, it was Republican Bush who pushed for NATO to offer future membership to Ukraine, despite the Europeans' warning strongly against it, that this will trigger where we are now.
After that, you had Obama.
He also didn't want to escalate, but again, he contributed to escalation.
Then you have Trump, he also with the javelin and a continued escalation.
Then you have Biden, where things really heated up very quickly.
So it could be a good idea to get Biden out because both him and his family has...
Well, they had too much...
The influence or at stake in this Ukraine war for the past decade now.
So it could be positive to have him out.
But overall, I think the Russians learned the most that it doesn't really matter, I guess, who sits on the throne.
There's limits to how much the policies can change.
Again, that being said, I think if you look at their statements, obviously a Trump advance ticket would be much more favorable to Russia.
But as you suggested, Trump, who markets himself as this great dealmaker, he will come to the Russians and present a deal.
This is not a deal which the Russians will likely be able to accept.
Because in any good deal, you need trust.
And why would they trust anything that the US and NATO puts forward?
Because we already sabotaged and undermined every agreement we had with them, every peace agreement to Ukraine over the past 10 years.
So what are the Russians going to do?
They're going to demand on holding strategic territory to prevent it from falling into the hands of NATO in the future.
And irrespective of Trump being genuine in his effort to walk away from Ukraine and allow it to be neutral, I think you don't know who the next administration will be.
If the next government will come in, they will again rip up all the agreements as they've done before, and they might have to fight this war all over again.
So I think in the absence of trust, That the Russians will have very hard demands, and I don't think that it will be easy for Trump to accept.
So he will do what he usually does, which is max pressure, and again, that will contribute to further escalation.