Oct. 8, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. | |
| Today is Wednesday, October 8th, 2025. | |
| Professor Glenn Diesen from the University of Southeastern Norway, one of our regular guest joints is now Professor Giesen, a pleasure, my dear friend. | |
| I want to talk to you about the state of things in Ukraine. | |
| But before we get to Russia and Ukraine, this uh Trump Netzanyahu, Whitkov, uh Kushner so-called peace deal, is this just sort of uh a guise for Palestinian capitulation? | |
| Well, it appears so. | |
| It doesn't feel much like a peace agreement, anyways. | |
| It's more take it or leave it, and uh in other words, capitulate or we will destroy you, and that's more or less what has been communicated. | |
| The problem is that uh the deal is as you said, it's captured uh it's uh capitulation. | |
| That is they have to disarm, they have to give up the tunnels. | |
| So effectively everything they need to to be able to defend themselves. | |
| So Israel has is having a very hard time to defeat Hamas, and what they're asking for now is just uh yeah to surrender. | |
| The problem is if there's an ultimatum between capitulation or being destroyed, uh once they capitulate, it's gonna be much easier to destroy them. | |
| So it's all based on the you know, if you would uh accept such a deal, which doesn't even have anything at end, there will be no Palestinian state. | |
| Uh all they have to look forward to is uh living under uh what looks like a uh colonial rule, that is an administrative system which might be led by Tony Blair and uh Donald Trump. | |
| I mean it's quite absurd. | |
| So it's um no, it's yeah, it's uh it's a terrible terrible deal. | |
| Does uh Netanyahu have any intention whatsoever of removing his uh troops from Gaza and stopping the war? | |
| No, well, after uh the Hamas has uh disarmed, given up their tunnels, handed over the hostages. | |
| Uh actually I do think that they might be willing to give up the hostages. | |
| Uh you know, they're a bit of a leverage in this uh negotiations, but uh in that area I think something can be done. | |
| But nonetheless, uh after this, uh yeah, that there's a plan for uh Israel to gradually remove itself from uh Gaza's territory, unless at some point uh Israel decides not to. | |
| So it's uh it's not no, it's it doesn't put any pressure on Israel. | |
| I mean we can ask ourselves if Israel tomorrow then would say, well, we decided to stay there for security reasons. | |
| We haven't uh properly re-educated uh the Palestinian authorities yet, anyways. | |
| The governance over them uh can't be completed yet. | |
| Who's who's gonna pose uh Israel? | |
| Uh is it gonna be Mr. Trump or whoever succeeds him? | |
| No, I think uh uh I I think uh yeah it doesn't really come with anything for the Palestinians at all. | |
| Uh it seems as if it's uh some narrative building uh worked into this. | |
| Why would Hamas give up the only leverage it has, the hostages, and the only means it has to repel the occupiers, which is its weapons. | |
| No, they wouldn't. | |
| And I think this is why it's predictable that uh this deal won't go through. | |
| But uh but uh Netanyahu, he kind of gave away part of the game. | |
| He was making the point that well uh now the world can see that it's Hamas that opposes peace, it's not us. | |
| We are for this peace, you know, after making some changes to it, of course. | |
| But uh again, it's a bit like we see in Ukraine, that is when they're suggesting unconditional ceasefires, which means just freezing the front line and having NATO re-armed Ukraine, they know this isn't gonna work. | |
| Uh when you're having uh proposed uh Zelensky-Putin deal when none of the uh work or agreements have come in place, uh they know this isn't gonna happen. | |
| So but it's a way of managing the narrative, and I think to this extent is uh it can turn out to be quite successful because they have to shift it now, that it's uh Hamas that doesn't want any peace and Israel is making any every effort. | |
| Are the European countries preparing for war with Russia? | |
| Well, it's hard to say. | |
| It it sounds like madness. | |
| That is uh there is no way of winning this. | |
| Uh first of all, uh, whatever armed forces are are sent into Ukraine or directly against Russia would be destroyed. | |
| And but even if we would win, what exactly would such a victory look like? | |
| How are we gonna defeat the world's largest nuclear power? | |
| In defeat Russia would see its existence being threatened, and this is uh definitely the main trigger of uh using its uh nuclear forces. | |
| So there's no there's no pathway towards this uh can be successful. | |
| So I would think no, given that it's so crazy. | |
| On the other hand, um this is what they're talking about. | |
| You're having the Chancellor of Germany talking about building a big army to fight the Russians, uh we're talking about seizing Russian ships, which the French uh well thought they did, which is an act of war. | |
| We're talking now openly about deep strikes inside Russia, which we're participating in, which is an act of war. | |
| You're having um the former uh yeah Ben Wallace in Britain arguing that we have to suffocate Crimea, make it unlivable, and they're not hiding anymore that they are also engaged in the fighting against Russia. | |
| So I think we're already at war with Russia. | |
| We crossed that line from proxy war to direct war. | |
| So it's very interesting. | |
| Is MI6 in Crimea trying to uh uh foment chaos? | |
| I'm not sure if they're in Crimea, but they're definitely uh in in other Ukrainian cities, uh at least in Kiev and in Odessa. | |
| So um so a lot again. | |
| The Ukrainians they're having manpower problems, they need uh assistance with many of the weapon systems. | |
| Right. | |
| Um, it's hardly a secret anymore that uh there are NATO troops already there fighting against uh Russia, but of course not wearing their uniforms. | |
| Uh take a listen to this crazy lady. | |
| You'll know her. | |
| Cut number 13, Chris. | |
| One incident may be a mistake. | |
| Two incidents are coincidence, but three, five, ten. | |
| This is a deliberate and targeted grey zone campaign against Europe. | |
| And Europe must respond. | |
| Russia wants to sow division. | |
| It was Italian pilots and the NATO's air policing mission that escorted Russian jets from Estonian skies. | |
| Ukrainian experts are sharing frontline expertise to help member states counter drone incursions. | |
| But we must not only react, we must deter. | |
| Now the work has already begun. | |
| We are seeing the biggest surge of defense spending in the history of the Union. | |
| Now we need a precise pan-European plan coordinated very closely with NATO on how to move forward. | |
| Tackling Russia's hybrid war is not only about traditional defense, it is about software for drones, it is about spare parts for pipelines, it is about rapid cyber response teams, and it is about public information campaigns to spread awareness. | |
| We either can shy away and watch Russian threats escalate, or we meet them with unity, deterrence, and resolve. | |
| Which, as we know, doesn't exist. | |
| Yeah, well, never let a good crisis go to waste. | |
| This is uh a good way of uh uh centralizing power in the European Union. | |
| This is also one of the reasons why von der Lein also clashing a bit with uh Chancellor Merz of Germany at the moment as well, because the Germans want to take a more leading role in Europe, which then uh undermines the EU's role in wanting to do this. | |
| So uh so it has many levels to it, but uh of but a lot of this, I mean, is already proven to be fake news. | |
| That is all of this hybrid wars, this uh you know we have a hundred incidents now all popping up. | |
| The problem is if they're all fake, it does it amounts to nothing. | |
| And we already learned that the Russian scrambling of the von der Lein's flight, that this was no scrambling at all, it was fake news, it's been confirmed uh as such. | |
| Uh the attacks on Poland with drones, as we say. | |
| The Polish Prime Minister confirmed there was no warheads on any drones that entered, and the Russians claimed that they didn't even send them into Poland, that this was likely a false flag by the Ukrainians. | |
| I mean, they could be true, could not be, but at least it's been confirmed. | |
| There was no attack, so why try to hype it as an attack? | |
| And the Estonian jets, uh, I think was 12 minutes inside uh Estonian airspace. | |
| This is also very doubtful. | |
| You could fly across the country in this time, and uh and um most likely it's them uh reinventing um the the yeah, the the border lines again. | |
| I would like to see evidence of this. | |
| Maybe it's true, but given all the falsehoods, I'm doubtful. | |
| And last all these drones, the EU keeps making this comments that oh, we have now drones from Denmark to Norway and Germany and disrupting, you know, and then suddenly they make a shift. | |
| We have to stand up to Russia. | |
| But but why Russia? | |
| They made many arrests, they arrested Germans or Norwegians, uh Chinese tourists, not a single Russian. | |
| So where does this come from? | |
| It's just this non-ending uh warmongering. | |
| Everything has to be built into this uh idea that we have to go fight the Russians. | |
| Here's um President Putin talking in a rather uh almost humorous way about these drones. | |
| You were there, you asked him some questions. | |
| I'm gonna play in a minute the question you asked. | |
| Uh, but here he is at a conference that you attended talking about drones. | |
| Number three, Chris. | |
| Mr. Putin, why you're sending so many drones to Denmark? | |
| Don't do that. | |
| I promise I won't do it anymore. | |
| Not to Denmark, not to France, not to Copenhagen. | |
| Where else are they flying? | |
| People are entertaining themselves, and they used to entertain themselves about the UI, about the unidentified flying vehicles, about the UVFs. | |
| And they have a lot of weirdos. | |
| We can watch them every day and they can try and catch them. | |
| But if we speak seriously, we don't have UAVs that could reach Lisbon. | |
| We have long-range ones. | |
| But there are no targets there. | |
| That's what matters. | |
| But that is another way of sorting out the situation in order to respond to the orders of Washington and to raise their expenditures on defense. | |
| I know you speak Russian, so maybe you weren't listening to the English translation, but did he actually use the Russian word for weirdos? | |
| I didn't catch that actually. | |
| I was uh also I don't know, I don't know the Russian word for weirdo. | |
| So I was we actually talked about that afterwards because I I have to go through the transcript to see what actual word he used. | |
| But uh well, it was uh yeah, it's a very it's interesting though that you would use this term spot because usually even now that we're almost in direct war, it tends to use terminology which is kind of uh benign, suggesting you know our partners in Europe, but this is weirdos. | |
| I haven't heard this language before either. | |
| Also, this mockery is also Yeah. | |
| I mean you can't blame him for the mockery because the concept of Russian drones over Poland has been debunked by everybody, including the president of Poland. | |
| And how can Mrs. Vanderleyen take that stuff seriously and use it as a pretext for war? | |
| Well, I think it's uh when there's no evidence presented, uh on the contrary, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that this is not true. | |
| Uh One should be skeptical. | |
| And when also you add into the mix that this is used so actively to try to build a EU army centralized power further, and also using it to try to pull the United States deeper into this war, you can't help but uh feel that this has uh perhaps an uh different agenda. | |
| And I think that agenda is that the Ukraine is now or Ukraine and NATO is losing uh at an increasing rate on the front lines. | |
| I mean, across the front lines now, they are they are breaking, the Europe the Ukrainians can't plug the holes anymore. | |
| Is there a huge manpower problem? | |
| And uh the Russians take advantage, and when the Russians can take advantage of holes in the defense, they can begin to surround large portion of the troops. | |
| You see, communication breaks down, troops have to flee, in which they become uh yeah, targeted as they flee. | |
| You have more soldiers uh surrendering. | |
| So as things begin to fall apart, it it goes slow until it suddenly goes very fast. | |
| So I think there's a bit of panic now, and uh that's why you have this. | |
| I think this is why you have the stories. | |
| Again, I could be wrong. | |
| If they presented some evidence, and this was credible, I would change my mind. | |
| But so far, there's so many of these stories have been proven to be fake. | |
| And of course, I come with some skepticism as well. | |
| After years of Russia gate, the Biden laptop, the bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan, all the stories which were fake, proven to be fake, but they never did anything to dent the narrative of this hybrid war from Russia. | |
| Before I ask you some questions about um uh Ukraine and Russia, I I want to show the audience that you were chosen to question the president of Russia. | |
| I mean, this is something that people in in our line of work uh drool over the opportunity for, and it's a great question. | |
| He smiled at you and he gave a very profound answer. | |
| So Chris cut number one, Finland and Sweden having joined NATO. | |
| It uh changes the geopolitical landscape of uh Europe. | |
| And uh I was wondering how Russia interprets this. | |
| We had no issues with Sweden or Finland, no issues whatsoever. | |
| But you see apparently Russia is conducting aggressive politics, it attacked Ukraine. | |
| How about the fact that a coup d'etat took place in Ukraine? | |
| Did you not take that into account? | |
| What about since 2014 they've been killing children in Donbass? | |
| Is that okay? | |
| That tanks and airplanes were used against the civilians in those cities. | |
| Is that acceptable? | |
| They just didn't want to analyze that. | |
| All they wanted to do was join the clique that wants to profit off of Russia's sake. | |
| Now the border between Russia and NATO is growing bigger. | |
| We had no armed forces in that part of Russia, but now there will be. | |
| Now we have to create separate military areas. | |
| Finland said we will not allow the emergence of arms that is dangerous to Russia, especially nuclear arms. | |
| Who the hell knows? | |
| Who exactly will ask the fence for their opinion when making those decisions? | |
| I don't want to offend anyone, but I know how those decisions is made. | |
| Well, uh I mean, I was deeply moved by the fact that they chose you to ask this question. | |
| It was a great question. | |
| Uh and and a fascinating answer. | |
| And this is obviously a concern to him. | |
| The the uh Russia-NATO border was just increased by 800 miles. | |
| That's enormous. | |
| Now he has to put troops along those 800 miles, no matter what Finland thinks. | |
| Yeah, and well, for me, it was also um uh yeah, specific interest to my part of the world because throughout the Cold War, Scandinavia was known as a region of peace because well, uh, Finland and Sweden were not part of NATO, and in Norway we were kind of NATO-light. | |
| We didn't accept foreign troops on our soil, and we limited our activity in the high north. | |
| Now, the problem is now that uh uh that this Swedes and the Finns have joined, and uh also U.S. military base are opening up across the the region uh that were becoming a massive front line against Russia, so becoming uh Ukraine of the north as it is, and as you said, there's it's very problematic for Finland. | |
| I mean, they were the greatest success story for neutrality, they had all these problems and conflicts with Russia because the again the the winter war, for example, uh the Russians were worried that uh the Germans would use them as a flank against Russia, much like the war that Finland will be used uh by NATO. | |
| But once the Finns uh after World War II accepted neutrality, that was it. | |
| Uh no more conflict ever again, and now they join NATO and uh and uh as Putin said it didn't happen in a vacuum this war in Ukraine. | |
| But now, of course, the Russians are opening this uh Leningrad military district uh to deal with the new security threat against Finland and uh uh same with Sweden. | |
| I mean, the the Russians defeated Sweden when it was a great power in 1721 in the Great Northern War, and since then they really haven't really had any conflicts. | |
| It's been 300 years, and now they also joined NATO, and you can't help but to think that this is going to change the geopolitical realities, not just in the high north, but also in the Baltic Sea, as we're now starting in Europe to talk about the Baltic Sea as a NATO lake, and we're talking about seizing Russian ships, we're talking of possible blockades on St. Petersburg. | |
| We have General Donigu, uh the US general, uh, talking about uh invading Kaliningrad on the uh which is an enclave, Russian enclave on the Baltic coast. | |
| So it's really getting very much out of control. | |
| So it's it's it's not just limited to Scandinavia. | |
| This is something that could have very wide consequences. | |
| So, yes, I was very interested to hear how he reads the situation. | |
| Well, you asked a very very timely question, and I'm sure he uh he appreciated it. | |
| In the same week, uh this is the week after your uh session at which President Putin um spoke. | |
| Uh President Putin said uh we have reports of Ukrainian troops fleeing the front line and and literally running back in the direction of Kyiv. | |
| And we have Andrei Kartopolov, who's the chair of the Dumas Defense Committee and is himself a former uh deputy minister of uh Russian deputy minister of defense saying today Russia will know if Tomahawks arrive and we will destroy them before they're even set up. | |
| Where do things stand with Ukraine right now? | |
| Well, things are going from bad to worse, uh very very quickly. | |
| And if you look in the key strategic hubs, be it um uh Kupyansk or Pokrovsk, uh, these cities are now especially Kupansk, uh, encircled there um, which means that uh they created a cauldron where the if the Ukrainians try to hold on to it, | |
| but that requires them to send more troops in, which uh again the supply lines aren't secured, which means that they're taking heavy casualties, and uh uh and uh yeah, this uh cities will fall now into Russia's hands, and with this they will be able to concentrate a lot more troops um near the front, and they will have uh greater advantage. | |
| And you see that the key uh infrastructure uh and defensive lines which are set up all the way since 2014, they're now falling apart, and uh so it's happening uh faster and faster now. | |
| And in and the fact that they're also fleeing the front lines faster. | |
| I mean, this is also not that um that's surprising. | |
| And again, this is why me and many others have warned why it's why it's necessary to make uh to start a negotiation, serious negotiations with the Russians now, because the end of a war, this is usually when the when the casualties really begin to spike. | |
| This is when the front lines collapse, this is when communication breaks down. | |
| This is when troops are encircled, when they have to flee, they're captured. | |
| Uh it's uh it's gonna be very gruesome weeks ahead. | |
| So it's uh yeah, quite frustrating that uh there's no real negotiations uh for but I do think that the problem with negotiations is this is a problem which has been building for the past 30 years, which is the absence of a proper European security architecture. | |
| That is uh we just revived the bloc politics of the Cold War. | |
| Indeed, um, last year at the Valdae uh discussion club, I also had a question for Putin then. | |
| I asked him then as well uh whether or not uh he would see any of the experiences they had in Eurasia. | |
| That is the multipolar system of uh organizing or harmonizing relationships between uh China, India, Russia, if there would be possible to pursue a similar format for Europe, because this Ukraine war has surprisingly little to do with Ukraine. | |
| It's more about uh the failure to establish a mutually acceptable uh European security architecture after the Cold War. | |
| As our uh friend and your colleague Professor Meersheimer would say, a rejection of realism, a rejection of the bona fide legitimate security needs of countries. | |
| Uh Professor Diesen, thank you very much. | |
| I was so impressed with the question that you asked uh President Putin. | |
| I didn't even know that you had that opportunity until today. | |
| We'll look for more clips of you uh questioning the Russian president around the next time you're on with us. | |
| But thank you so much. | |
| We'll look forward to seeing you again soon. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Sure. |
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