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Oct. 27, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:27
Larry Johnson : Ukraine As Seen From Russia.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, October 27th, 2025.
Larry Johnson joins us now.
Larry, you're halfway home from Russia.
Where are you and what are you doing there?
I'm in Doha, which is just Al-Udid Air Force Base is about 15 miles from here.
But I'm not going there.
Doha is the place that the Israelis bombed when they were trying to kill negotiators in a residential neighborhood, right?
Correct.
Correct.
Wow.
And, you know, so I'm headed home, though.
Okay, glad that your long trek is finally coming over.
You must have perceived a lot about the Russian people and the Russian government.
I know from our mutual friend Natalie that you conducted many, many interviews, many more than I did.
I was only there for four days.
You were there for about 10 or 12.
So let's start with big picture.
What is the Russian attitude about the current state of affairs in the special military operation in Ukraine?
Well, if you don't go out and talk to them and ask them specifically about it, it just doesn't come up.
They accept it as a matter of fact.
I did a walk around the sort of the main tourist area, Arbat and the new Arbat Street.
And I did see one recruitment poster at the window of one of the businesses, but that was it.
The people I did talk to, they're insistent that, you know, we're going to win this one way or the other.
We'd prefer to win it and have a negotiated outcome with the West, but the West isn't listening.
They refuse to hear what we're saying, that the five territories that they now control and that have been brought into the Russian Federation, they're permanently part of Russia.
That's not going back.
That's not negotiable.
So people just need to understand that.
And the Ukrainians have to have an election.
They have to have a legitimate government in place.
There is a recognition amongst the Russian people, is there not, that President Putin is intentionally being methodical.
Is that a recognition welcome or are the Russians losing patience?
Yeah, I saw zero evidence that the Russians are losing patience.
And I talked to members of three different political parties, including the Communist Party of Russia, a guy named Zhuganov, Zhuganov.
So I talked to members of the military.
I talked to economists.
And five members of the Duma, the legislature.
Not a single one said, oh, boy, this Putin man, he's dragging his feet.
We got to get him going.
No, they accept, they recognize that they're fighting a war against NATO.
That Ukraine is just incidental.
It's in the middle.
This is a war with NATO.
They are particularly not well disposed towards Europe, but they still hold out hopes to have a decent relationship with the United States.
But if that doesn't come to pass, they're willing to move on.
You know, they'd like to have the relationship, you know, consider a divorced couple that gets back together and wants to be friends.
Did they or did you perceive that they recognize that they're fighting a war against the United States?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Well, they incorporated the United States and NATO.
Absolutely.
They recognize that this would not be going on as long as it has were not for the support of the West and particularly the United States.
The corruption issues cropping up quite a bit now with respect to Ukraine.
The Russians discussed that.
I had a chance to do a 50-minute chat with one of the former Ukrainian prosecutors.
And, you know, he maintained that he said, look, were it not for the oligarchs who are running Zelensky, this war would be over.
It's interesting he used the phrase oligarchs.
I mean, we all know that there are oligarchs behind Zelensky.
What about the Benderists?
What about those with that harsh nationalistic, almost Nazi-like mentality whom we in the West have come to recognize might actually kill Zelensky if he entered into a peace agreement with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?
Yeah, no, think about this.
These guys espouse Nazi ideology, and that's who we're embracing.
Well, from the Russian standpoint, that's what they saw at the end of World War II.
At the end of World War II, instead of us locking up all of the Nazis, we brought a bunch of them over.
We used them in our space program and we used them in our intelligence community.
The head of intelligence for the Nazis, a guy named Galen, he was a big buddy with my former outfit, the agency.
So, you know, they recognize that the Bandarites have got to go.
And they're either going to be pushed out through a peaceful political process or they're going to be killed.
There is no compromise in that.
It sounds as though, listening to Foreign Minister Lavrov, that the Kremlin recognizes exactly what you just said, and that it's probably going to be the latter, meaning they're probably going to be killed, that this slow, methodical war is intentionally slow and methodical, so that they don't have to go through the same thing again in two or 20 years.
Exactly.
And like right now, they've got around Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk, they've got two large units of Ukrainian soldiers surrounded.
And their chances surrender or be killed.
So, you know, the Russians are giving a third way out.
And Russia is also, they're accelerating.
This is one thing I verified with the different military guys they talked to.
They are accelerating their offensive, not just in Donetsk, but also in Zaporizhia and in Dnipropetrovsk, which is not one of their territories that they've voted into the Russian Federation, but it very well could become that.
Yesterday, President Putin made a rather dramatic statement about his willingness to embrace with open arms surrendering.
I don't know if you saw this, Larry, but we're going to play it for you now.
Surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.
Chris, cut number eight.
First of all, to minimize unnecessary human casualties, I'm asking to take all necessary measures to enable the surrender of Ukrainian troops, those who want to surrender.
We have to treat prisoners of war in accordance with international law as well as Russian law.
Russia's army has historically always been merciful towards a defeated enemy.
First of all, he was lauding the successes of the Russian army in Pokrovsk and Kukatsk.
He was saying, as you've heard just now, that basically there's a situation where Ukrainian troops are near surrender and Russia should enable that.
So he's been saying that Russian forces have encircled those two cities.
You will see that both Pokrovsk and Kukansk are around 50, 60% controlled by Russian forces.
This is rather dramatic, is it not, Larry?
Well, it's consistent with Russian history.
If you recall, in 1999, with the backing of Western intelligence agencies, there was the Second Chechen Civil War.
These were Islamic extremists, some of whom that we had trained in Afghanistan, were then brought into Chechen, to Chechnya to stir it up.
And it was a bloody, bloody battle for 10 years.
The last two years were carried out under President Medvedev because Putin's first term expired in like 2008.
But what did the Russians do?
They reconciled.
Abraham Lincoln could have learned something from the Russians in terms of how they treated the Muslim population.
Because today, of the generals I met with, Apti Alodilov, General Apti, Lieutenant General, devout Muslim, comes out of that whole area, Grozny, where that second civil war took place.
And he is considered a hero of Russia.
So Russia also looks at the Ukrainians.
They're not some foreign species.
They're Slavs, just like the Russians.
And they recognize that they have been used and abused by the West.
for the West's own purposes.
You know, you're always teaching me something.
General Apti is the George Patton of the Russian army today.
Now, I didn't know this.
You're telling me he is not Russian Orthodox.
He's Muslim.
And he is still lauded as the best and the brightest.
Exactly.
Yeah.
No, he is.
And he went through that civil war.
And he had members of his family that were killed.
So, but what you see today is a passionate Russian patriot, but he's also true to his Islamic values.
You know, a terrific gentleman, tough as nails.
Yeah, yes, yes.
Ritter, the dinner that I missed, as if to make up for it, Ritter was recounting to me some of the tales that he articulated.
Talk to me about any feeling that you perceived about the American sudden cancellation of the Budapest meeting.
You and I thought that that Budapest meeting would occur either while we were both there or while you were still there.
And it appears Donald Trump, like that, canceled it because he thought it would be a waste of time.
How did the Russians that you interviewed react to that, Larry?
A shrug of the shoulders.
They're not really that bothered by it.
I think several of them opine that this was just some political theater, that they understand that Trump may not be able to reveal his true feelings.
But if you watched Putin's reaction, he was like, okay, they need some more time.
There's no rush.
We're continuing the offensive.
And it's important to note that he's not calling the shots militarily.
General Gorasimov is.
But he is the titular head of the military, but he is not the one directing the strategy and directing the attacks.
That's what Gorasimov's job is.
Larry, we're going to play a clip of Dmitry Peskov only because of who he is.
It's a little long.
It's 90 seconds long, but it's very, very thoughtful and very instructive about whether Presidents Putin and Trump should meet or not meet.
Chris, cut number 10.
First of all, not everyone wants this summit to take place.
That's the first point.
Second, there was no clear agreement on dates for the summit.
There is an understanding, however, that it would be good to meet without delay.
For example, in Budapest.
Therefore, strictly speaking, it would be inaccurate to say that this particular summit has been canceled.
Trump first raised the idea that there is no point in holding the summit now, and President Putin agreed with him.
Presidents cannot meet just for the sake of meeting.
They cannot waste their time.
They are open about this.
Therefore, they tasked Sergei Lavrov and Marko Rubio were preparing for this process.
The process is complex and requires a significant amount of groundwork before the foundation for a new summit can be established.
Currently, there are no prerequisites for this summit.
Ukrainians do not want to negotiate.
The European Union is encouraging this reluctance in every way possible.
It's clear that the European Union is caught up in this military hysteria.
This is the reason for the pause.
During this pause, Trump understands that there is currently no reason to believe that progress towards a peaceful settlement will be made in the near future.
President Trump's sincere desire to resolve all acute crises, including those surrounding Ukraine, naturally evokes only positive feelings.
Putin has repeatedly spoken about this.
But sometimes such excessive haste contrasts sharply with reality.
Because a conflict such as the one in Ukraine, with all its ramifications and root causes, is too complex to be resolved overnight.
Here's my takeaway here, Larry.
Ukrainians do not want to negotiate.
The European Union is caught up in military hysteria.
There is no reason to believe that progress toward a peaceful settlement will be made in the near future.
Sounds pessimistic to me.
And we know that Mr. Peskov speaks to President Putin throughout the day.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
You know, again, Putin approaches this like a lawyer.
I mean, he sits down, evaluates what the risks are, what the opportunities are, and he's realistic about wanting to get a peace agreement, but he's not going to do it in sacrificing Russia's interests.
And Russia has made it very clear.
The root cause of all of this is the expansion of NATO to the east.
And Russia is not going to put up with it.
And that was, you know, one of the things that Putin announced yesterday was that Bereshnik missile, a cruise missile, which is nuclear powered, it can go aloft and stay aloft for a long time.
It doesn't have to be refueled.
That is pretty remarkable.
And they could put up a bunch of those.
And the West really has no defense.
But, you know, Russia's showing its muscles on the one hand, but keeping its sword sheathed, so to speak, with respect to the West.
They're going to take, they're fighting the West in Ukraine, and they're destroying a lot of NATO forces that are there as proxies.
But they're not going to surrender.
Does the U.S. have any missile comparable to this nuclear-powered Russian one that does not have to be refueled, Larry?
No, no.
So we don't have anything comparable to the Arushnik.
This latest one is the Brevishnik, I guess, Breveshnik.
And then you've got three different variants of hypersonic missiles that travel in excess of Mach 5, Mach 6, and can be steered or maneuverable.
U.S. doesn't have any of that.
I want to play a clip for you from James Cardin, who was in the Obama State Department on the Russia policy desk.
I think you'll find this very interesting.
Chris Cut number 19.
Basically, Zelensky came to Washington looking for Tomahawk missiles.
He seems to, apparently, he's offered a trade.
He said that Ukraine is going to provide the United States with drones in exchange for the Tomahawks.
That's utterly ridiculous.
The other reason why it's ridiculous is because Ukraine can't use the Tomahawk missiles.
They have nothing with which to launch the Tomahawk missiles.
Tomahawks can be fired in one of three ways by a guided missile destroyer, from a submarine, or from a typhoon land-based system.
They don't have any of the three.
So it's puzzling to me what the discussion is really all about.
In the United States, you have all sorts of media outlets saying, you know, Trump is denying Zelensky a potentially game-changing weapon and, you know, utterly false and utterly ridiculous.
It's not a game-changing weapon any more than all the other weapons that were said to be game-changing weapons have not changed the game.
We've heard the same thing when the Ukrainians asked for high Mars, when they asked for Patriot systems, when they asked for ATACOMs and F-16s.
They haven't changed the game.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, no, he's exactly right.
He is wrong on the Tomahawk can also be launched from an aircraft.
But the point is, Ukraine doesn't have an aircraft from which to launch the Tomahawk.
But that was the Tomahawk from its symbolism as something that could carry a nuclear warhead, that does have the Russians' attention.
And Putin's made it very clear.
That would actually be a red line, if crossed, would result in, you know, like if Moscow was hit with the Tomahawk, can't rule out that Washington, D.C. would be hit by a Russian missile.
They're going to respond in kind.
Are the Russians with whom you spoke concerned about what appears to be the remilitarization of Western Europe, particularly Germany?
No, they're actually sort of laughing at it because they talk, big talkers in Europe.
Oh, man, we're going to do this, that, and the other thing.
With what?
They've basically de-industrialized themselves.
They are now paying higher and higher prices for gas, natural gas, and gasoline.
So they're not able to run their factories.
They're closing factories.
You look at Torsch as an example.
They just lost a billion dollars over the course of this last year.
So, you know, they talk the big game, but they don't have the actual tools and personnel and money to do it.
So, I mean, the Russians, but they listen to it and they say, you know, Europe never learns.
Did you see any gas lines that Trump said people were lined up?
Because I'm laughing, because yeah, we talked about this so much and we were there together.
Gas is cheaper in Moscow than Manhattan.
Did you see any people lined up for gas because there was short supply?
Nope.
In fact, I posted at Sonar 21 yesterday four videos I took.
I was riding in the car with Stanislav Kropivnik, a former U.S. Army major.
And as we're going to his home for dinner, and we passed six gas stations, but I passed the first two and I said, hey, I should film this because I think at the four gas stations and where they've got like three bays, four bays per piece, so you can accommodate up to, say, 20 cars.
I think I saw a grand total of 10 cars between all four gas stations.
So, no, it's just, it's just, it's another, it's another piece of Western propaganda.
When Trump says those things, he must be listening to Sebastian Gorka or General Kellogg.
Yeah, well, no, listen, there are people still writing articles claiming, oh, man, the Russian economy is collapsing.
These people, they don't understand that actually Russia experienced an economic collapse.
It was called the 1990s from 92 to 99.
Since then, it's rebuilt.
Do they have ups and downs in the economy?
Sure, we all do.
But what they've proven is they can outproduce us in weapons.
They're ahead of us in weapon technology.
They can produce more artillery shells in two months than we can in a year.
It's just, you know, we got to stop these Western analysts who keep downplaying and insulting Russia, they need to wake up out of their delusional dream.
And if they would simply deal with Russia as it is from a realistic standpoint, they'd find actually Russia would be a very generous partner with the West.
One of the hallmarks of the Russians.
If they come to your house, they're bringing a gift.
You know, I had people, when I did an interview with them, they brought me gifts, like a box of candy.
It was crazy.
Well, we both know what happens when you go to one of their restaurants.
Oh, boy.
Oh, my God.
Larry, I appreciate you're in the airport.
I appreciate you taking time to do this, my dear friend.
I thought we were going to miss you this morning, but you always come through.
Safe travels.
We'll look forward to seeing you with that youngster McGovern on Friday.
Yes, and thank you for accommodating my schedule.
You're welcome, lad.
All the best.
You look younger than you did when I was in Russia with you.
I'm well pickled from some bought.
All the best, Larry.
Thank you.
Safe travels.
Bye-bye.
Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, at 8 in the morning, Ambassador Charles Freeman.
At 11 in the morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
At 1 in the afternoon, Colonel Bill Astori.
At 2 in the afternoon, Matthew Ho.
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