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June 2, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:29
Alastair Crooke : A Storm is Brewing in the West.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, June 2nd, 2025.
Alistair Crook will be here with us in just a moment on the first of our many analyses of just what happened over the weekend in Russia.
A mammoth, massive Ukrainian drone attack.
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Alistair, welcome here, my dear friend.
So over the weekend, in what appears to be a well-calculated, well-planned, sophisticated attack, the Ukrainians managed to deliver serious blows to the Russian military.
As far deep as 2500 miles into Russia, apparently the drones had been smuggled into the country, established by Confederates and set off by remote control.
Before you and I begin our chat, we found, Chris found, a very excellent BBC summary.
Of what happened.
We're going to run that clip now.
Chris, cut number one.
Far from Ukraine's borders, an attack of astonishing audacity.
Russian strategic bombers picked off, one by one, by a fleet of drones.
Ukraine calling this Operation Spider's Web, personally overseen by President Zelensky.
One of Kyiv's boldest attacks so far, a reminder, despite Russia's overwhelming strength in numbers, That Ukraine is a resourceful, determined enemy.
Sources say this took a year and a half to prepare.
Dozens of drones smuggled into Russia, stored on wooden pallets, loaded onto trucks, driven to distant airbases and launched remotely.
Swarms of drones picked up on social media from Siberia to the Arctic Circle.
At a petrol station north of Irkutsk, a glimpse of the operation in progress.
With smoke already rising behind, a drone emerges from the truck and heads off to join the attack.
Moments later, another, and gunfire as police officers try to bring it down.
Ukraine claims to have done a staggering $7 billion worth of damage and knocked out a third of the planes Russia uses to deliver cruise missiles.
We know exactly whom we are dealing with.
We will defend ourselves by every means available to us.
Available to Ukraine.
Available to Ukrainians.
Not for a single moment did we want this war.
We offered the Russians a ceasefire.
Earlier, a different kind of wreckage.
This, the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, after the country suffered another major drone and missile attack.
Elsewhere, 12 Ukrainian soldiers were killed at a training base, the head of Ukraine's land forces tendering his resignation.
What chance then for another round of peace talks set to take place in Istanbul?
Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to be there.
But after 24 hours of mayhem, the omens for a breakthrough do not seem good.
How do you interpret all this, Alistair?
Just the usual BBC propaganda straight out of Ukraine.
You know, there are bits of it that are vaguely correct, but it's just typical of the BBC.
They're not reliable sources of news on Ukraine at all, I'm afraid.
And this was the case.
Yes, it was an extraordinary event.
They had these trucks fitted with retractable roofs.
And the drones had been manufactured and put within them, and that at a certain point they were placed very close.
They were driven across by unsuspecting Russian drivers who didn't realize what they were doing in many cases, driven across, placed near two airports, and then the roof.
Automatically retracted.
They were using the Russian telecom system in order to have, if you like, a simultaneous retraction of the roof in five and next to five airbases in Russia.
And then the drones flew and attacked or attempted to attack because only two of them actually functioned.
There seems to have been a malfunction in the retractable roof in several occasions.
In other occasions, the Russian defense systems took down the drones before they did damage.
But in three areas, now there's no absolute confirmation about how much damage has been done, but it looks like that there were overall about five strategic Tu-95 bombers who were damaged, two possibly destroyed, three Damaged heavily, but maybe recovered.
A transport plane and one other plane, which the Ukrainians have said was an AWAC plane, an A-50, but there's absolutely no evidence at all.
So we're talking about the loss of about five, maybe more, in these areas.
And it was right across Russia, the basis.
That documentary suggested far away.
But these had all been pre-positioned and these were locally fired, killer drones fired out of the back of a truck.
And five, probably five.
Now, Russia altogether doesn't produce these TU-95s anymore, but they still estimated to have 45 to 55. Of these in service.
So it's not going to change the course of this history.
Not going to stop.
In that big bombing raid, the Trump miscast and saying it was, you know, they were just attacking for no reason, but which followed a similar failed drone attack on Moscow, which did actually close down.
The four Russian airports at the time.
But it's not going to change it.
It's not a threat to Russia's strategic nuclear capabilities.
Is it?
But there is one thing that is very important to understand.
Because I've seen a lot of comments saying, but, you know, the Russians had all their planes out in the open, and they were lined up on the tarmac, and silly Russians.
Actually, this is the requirement of the START and SALT nuclear treaties, that the strategic bombers have to be observable by visual and electronic means and out in the open.
And the same applies, by the way, to American strategic bombers.
But what this is, is, you know, this enters, we're entering a new era of war, because this is somewhat like what we saw with the attack on Hezbollah, using pages that are so damaged, and after which you can't really trust.
You know, are you sure your telephone is safe any longer?
And what we are seeing here is several types of What the Ukrainians called asymmetric warfare, but others would call terrorist warfare.
There was just recently an assassination of a Russian general.
A Russian who was unaware of it came up to him and he'd been given a package for the general and it was a bomb and blew them both up and killed the general.
Then we had the bridges which would I mean, we're getting to the heart of the thing.
Supported by its allies in the West, has now bombed directly a part of the strategic deterrence which has got to be visible and out in the open under the treaties.
So it's an attack on the main treaties, which are not with Ukraine, but which were negotiated by Russia with the United States.
And of course, the big question is, And then shortly after that, this happened.
And I think the Russians are furious at this.
They're furious in many ways.
But think what that means more widely for all of us.
Uno, are we going to have to search every container coming into our countries in case it has a retractable roof and drones?
Easy to manufacture.
The parts are available, you can buy them off the shelf, you put them in, and then by remote control someone fires it.
At the nuclear strategic deterrent of Russia or the United States or in the other countries.
I mean, this is a new form of strategic war, which is highly dangerous for the future.
The Western media this morning is reporting the loss of about $7 billion in Russian aircraft.
Is that a number you question?
Oh, totally.
That implies that they destroyed 41 of these Tupulov-95 nuclear-capable bombers.
It's nonsense.
There were only a handful.
Or total.
We don't know the exact number because the Russian Defense Ministry hasn't said very clearly.
But what we see, I mean, the satellite photography, and we can see roughly what's happened at the various As I say, for three of the areas, there was a malfunction or it didn't happen.
And that these figures of...
But the question is, who's behind it?
Was Trump informed?
Did he have foreknowledge?
Clearly, we've been told by the New York Times two months ago that the CIA are in charge, along with their allies in Britain and Israel, in charge of the intelligence for attacking deep into Russia.
Did Trump know?
If not, why not?
And what does that mean for the talks now?
I mean, you're familiar with international use of intel.
Is it even conceivable that something of this magnitude could have been orchestrated without the involvement, not just the knowledge, but the involvement of MI6 and CIA?
I'll ask you about Mossad in a minute.
I don't know what Mossad would be doing.
Certainly MI6 and CIA, no?
Absolutely.
Of course it was.
I mean, you know, first there was a huge investment in these drones, building them, preparing them, preparing and training people, then positioning all of these containers, passing them through into Russia and to trucks with these retractable roofs, making sure that they all work, getting into position.
I mean, it was a very sophisticated operation.
I admit that quite freely, but I don't think this was done just by Ukraine alone.
That sort of operation has a sort of I think the train operation has the hallmarks.
At least these were the operations at which Britain was so specialized during the last war in attacking the Germans during the occupation of France.
OSS specialized in blowing up tracks and trains carrying civilians during the German occupation of France.
I don't know who was involved, but certainly the CIA was at the apex of this cartel of intelligence services.
Why would Mossad be involved?
Doesn't Mossad have enough to do with what's going on in the Middle East and with all their spying over here in the US?
You know, there's been a long, of course, there's a long history, going back to the Tsarist period, of antagonism for supposed anti-Semitism in Russia.
And we saw that with, if you like, the Trotskyists in the United States who formed the backbone of the neocon movement in the US.
They have also a common alignment.
With the deep state and its objectives of destroying Russia because they want to see American hegemony continue because Israel depends on American hegemony.
And if Trump is going to disrupt it by having a relationship with Russia, which is going to change many, many things, that is going to affect or ultimately is going to affect Israel because it is America that is, if you like, the backstop The hegemony under which the mini-hegemony of Israel can extend across the Middle East.
What do you expect will be the retaliation?
You said the Russians are furious.
Is this enough to cause President Putin to reach the limits of his patience?
Of course I don't know.
Because this is what's being discussed at this very moment, I think, in Russia.
But I think, yes, you know, Putin has many things to calculate, but the country as a whole, I mean, the feeling is enough is enough.
We need to get rid of this problem.
And by that, I don't mean a political solution, but I mean a military solution.
We need to finish this once and for all.
So there's a lot of pressure and a lot of feeling of that sort.
So if anyone in America had the imaginings of Zelensky that by doing this sort of operation it was going to make Putin more liable, more flexible in the talks today, I think they're having a daydream.
I don't know what they're smoking because that's not I don't know if it's happening, I can't tell you, but I do think that Russia will nonetheless go ahead and present its probably quite tough terms, maybe even tougher.
Today than yesterday to the Ukrainians.
The previous terms have already been refused by Russia because they're just the same terms that Kellogg drafted and asked, if you like, Witkoff to go and deliver them personally to Mr. Putin.
And the Russians said, no, thank you.
We don't need those terms.
We've already rejected them.
If President Trump did not know about this, There's a very, very serious issue, I would think, in the command structure of the United States government.
And if he did know about this, let's assume he did, how is President Putin going to be able to trust anything he says?
They'll never trust him again, if that is the case.
Never trust him again.
But also, you know, we live in an interconnected world.
What do you think the impact is on Iran?
And Iran can see, you know, what was being used and they can suggest, see, you know, when all of these threats are being made to Iran.
The use of drones and through the port, you remember a port just suddenly, accidentally caught fire in Iran.
Destroying a lot of the port infrastructure.
I mean, they can put two and two together and say, okay, now we see what's coming.
This is, you know, we can't trust the United States or the West.
Or Israel on this issue.
I mean, it sends a very clear message.
I mean, I think Mr. Trump will at least privately to Mr. Putin, I don't know when they're going to meet, he'll have to explain what happened.
I mean, because this is so serious.
I mean, this puts the whole start and the SALT treaties into question.
I mean, they are obliged to have them.
Open and observable.
And if what happens is the CIA then plans in coordination with the Ukrainian intelligence services to destroy them when they're out in the open, as required by the SALT treaties.
I mean, there's going to have to be a really tough discussion, I think, there between Putin, Mr. Putin, and Mr. Trump, and saying, well, where does this leave us?
You said you wanted to...
And instead of which your people, if it's not you, or if you did know, can we have an explanation for why you did this?
Now, if there was a thought that, you know, this was going to put pressure on Putin and Russia, you know, this is actually so miscalculated as to be, I mean, this is such a dangerous move.
Now, I don't think...
I think there will be a reaction.
But I don't think, I mean, he knows it's a provocation from those elements.
And maybe he calculates, you know, that this is a provocation against those elements within America who may not have told Trump what was coming other than in the government.
I don't know.
But I think Russia will take that as a possibility.
And therefore, there will be conversations going on even now, I suspect, as the talks progress.
Does it make the likelihood of a political outcome to these talks?
I think the talks will continue.
I don't think there's going to be a political outcome.
I think there's escalation coming.
I would imagine that the meeting in Istanbul, which was scheduled to start today, it's 8.30 in the morning in New York.
It's about 3.30 or 4.30 in the afternoon in Istanbul.
Would have been either aprimonious or fruitless at this point.
I think that's exactly what we may find.
I don't know, I mean, what their tactics are, but certainly I think the Russians will present to Ukrainians terms which the Ukrainians then will say are unacceptable, and they will try.
And then mount pressure from Europe and into America to counter the Russian proposals.
So, you know, we may be in for a long haul.
But meanwhile, the Russian forces are advancing very rapidly on the ground, in Sumy particularly.
I mean, and the Ukrainians are just...
It looks like, you know, at least in Sumy, there's the beginnings of a sort of Ukrainian military collapse.
So I think there's no doubt that Russia will increase the pressure on the Ukrainians during this time and push towards a collapse of their military.
I mean, this has always been the objective.
Actually push it to the point where Ukraine can no longer fight.
The media in the West this morning, the mainstream media, is calling this Russia's Pearl Harbor or Russia's 9-11.
I gather you would think that those are gross exaggerations and not apt comparisons.
Look, it's clearly a humiliation for Russia in the sense and an intelligence failure that these containers come in in this way.
But I mean, I just want to leave you with the thought, you know, we've had the pager incident that came out that, you know, how do you trust your cell phone?
Are you sure the cell phone isn't going to explode and blow your head off?
And now every container is going to have to be checked.
And monitor.
Does it have a sort of self-igniting drone in it?
I mean, imagine what that's going to do to our supply lines.
We're all going to have to be very, very careful.
We're going to know.
I mean, if Ukraine can do that, who else can do it?
Why not do it in America?
Why not do it in Iran?
I mean, you know, these are cheap, I mean, relatively cheap products, drones.
You can assemble them quite easily.
Get a truck to drive in.
Remove the roof, let it fly, knock out something, assassinate someone.
This is a war that is really not only immoral, but it is extraordinarily dangerous, this type of what they loosely, euphemistically call an asymmetric war.
It's nothing of the sort.
It's a terrorist war.
Alistair Crook, thank you very much.
Thank you for your very, very astute analysis on these events that are almost literally Of course.
Coming up on these events later today at 10 this morning, Ray McGovern at 11.30 this morning, Larry Johnson at 2 this afternoon, Aaron Mate at 3 this afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
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