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Sept. 25, 2025 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
01:13:03
Ray McGovern: Trump, Putin, Zelensky, and the Fight for Peace in Ukraine
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Time Text
Trump got himself painted into a corner.
Okay.
Okay, Putin.
You resolve the Ukraine process in 50 days or else.
No, not 50 days, five days.
I remember that.
Or else.
Okay, so they go to Anchorage.
So what's Trump doing?
Well, he thinks maybe his incredible persuasive powers might change his mind.
So they spent three hours trying to change Putin's place.
Let's have some kind of immediate ceasefire.
That's what everybody was thinking, which wouldn't be wouldn't be good.
Yes.
Yes.
And did you hear me?
Yes.
Trump may have thought that he could convince Poochie to change his mind, but the opposite happened.
All right.
Welcome to today's interview here on Brighton.com.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighton, and I'm just thrilled to have on our show today a returning guest who is uh he he's a CIA, a former CIA person who briefed presidents, uh did the CIA briefings for different presidents, and it's Ray McGovern, and his website is ray mcgovern uh.com.
That's M C G O V E R N, Ray McGovern.com.
And I I really greatly appreciate his analysis, his courage, and the the wisdom and his the experience that he brings to these conversations about Trump, Ukraine, Russia, Zelensky, and so much more.
So uh Mr. McGovern, it's an honor to have you on the show today.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you, Mike.
It's it's just great to have you here.
And can I just call you Ray for the interview?
Sure.
Okay.
People who call me Mr. McGovern make me feel even older than I am.
Well, the benefit of age is wisdom and knowledge, and you bring so much to the table on that.
That's why we're honored to have you here.
Uh so can we just start out with your your brief take on the aftermath of the Alaska meeting between uh Trump and Putin?
And then we'll get to the more recent meeting, you know, in DC with Zelensky.
But what do you make of this?
Well, I make of it uh the the fact that uh what we experienced, if not all Kremlinologists made of it going in.
Uh we have been watching what Poutine and Lavrov, this foreign minister and Wushakov, uh Putin's right man on this, and and all manner of people.
Uh Yapkov, the deputy secretary of state equivalent or deputy foreign minister, and they've all been saying, Look, we want to have a more decent relationship with the United States of America.
Huh?
Well, they've been saying that for since Trump came into office.
Now, why do they say that?
Because they have their heads screwed on correctly.
Uh what I mean is that this is the overreaching, overreaching aim of any sensible statesman or stateswoman, uh, so that these two nuclear powers don't go at it throat to throat, like they almost did at the end of Biden's administration.
Let's face it, we were closer to nuclear war then than we had been since the Cuban missile crisis.
And I was there in the Army during Cuban Missile Crisis in the southern part of the United States.
I know how tense things were.
So uh they have been saying this, and everybody said, Well, who can who can believe Putin, you know?
Well, what happened was um Trump got himself painted into a corner, okay.
Now this goes back to last month.
Um he said, all right, that's it.
Okay, Putin, you resolve the Ukraine process in 50 days, or else.
No.
What was the or else?
Sanctions.
Now over the last several years, uh, the Russians have shown themselves impervious to sanctions.
Matter of fact, they've got a better economy than anyone in in Europe, okay, because they know how to comp uh how do they deal with some sanctions, and they have China and India helping them out by buying all the oil that the Russians can give them.
So sanctions are a no-winner.
Well, how about secondary sanctions?
Anyone trading with the United States, right?
Well, that would be China and India.
No more buying oil.
Well, how ridiculous.
Who told them to say that?
Anyhow, then he says, compounding the era.
Five days.
I remember that.
Or else.
Five days is up on, let's see, what was it?
I think the eighth, yeah, the 8th of August.
Oh my.
The Chinese say, in fact, well, I won't use a vernacular house.
They're just, we're not going to abide by any secondary sanctions.
Indians say the same thing.
And the Russians say, bring the sanctions on.
We're used to them, you know.
And Trump is finally advised by somebody sensible, Whitkoff, for example, uh, that uh, you know, this is this is really embarrassing.
There's got to be somewhere out of this.
And so Trump said, okay, well, you're a good, you're a good deal maker.
Go go see Trump.
Well, yeah, Trump talks to you.
He knows that he knows that you're twice twice as smart as Rubio or Kellogg, or I mean, that's damn me what faint praise, but okay, so go to Moscow.
So he goes on the 6th of August, right?
Two days before the expiration, and he says, Look, uh, we need some sort of a deal.
We don't want to put more sanctions on you.
And you know, we don't want to do these secondary sanctions, at least not in China.
So what can we do?
How can we get out of this?
And they get talking for three hours or more.
And Trump obviously says, well, you know, here's here's a way we can do away with all this stuff having to do with Ukraine.
Your president keeps saying he wants a summit.
Well, let's have a summit, and these are the terms, okay?
These are the terms.
We have these terms for any agreement, and we're not going to flinch from them.
But a summit would be good, as your president says, for a person of person thing.
And then we'll talk these things eyeball to eyeball, and then we can understand each other much better, okay?
And and uh and Whitkoff says, Thank you, Jesus, or thank you, Yahweh, or whoever, you know, he says, This is really great, okay.
It was actually Whitkoff's idea, I believe, to broach the summit.
So there's general agreement on the summit.
What happens two days later?
Oh, well, under circum under certain under these circumstances, it's not necessary to talk about tariffs or sanctions or anything.
Of course not, you know.
Uh, China, oh, we'll put them off the 90 days, uh, secondary sanctions.
And India, now, again, whoever the whoever is advising Trump on India doesn't have his or her screwing on, right?
Because they say, oh, we'll double the sanctions on India, that'll show them, you know.
So the Indians are now in a position of taking the brunt of these secondary sanctions, if that's what they call still call them.
And uh, well, one result of that is you have the Chinese foreign minister in New Delhi yesterday and today and tomorrow.
The Indians and the Chinese never got along real well, right?
But now they got to.
Now they do.
Strong economic ties.
Yeah.
And Modi, Modi may go to Beijing for the first time.
Well, first time at least in five years, in my view.
So, anyhow, they've driven not only the Russians and the Chinese together, but the Indians to boot, and that's most of the world, folks.
That's most of the world.
So, what am I saying here?
Out of the summit comes this agreement that they would meet, and sanctions just sort of waft away.
Please forget about those sanctions.
And the deadline, five years, five uh days or 50, 50 days, forget about it.
Okay, so they go to Anchorage.
And you see that the that Putin is given red corporate treatment.
I mean, now uh Trump uh did bow to the hardliners and the warmongers and the neocons, and it made sure that uh one of these fancy uh stealth bombers flew over when uh was coming down to Red Corporate.
But then it was just a SOP, and then there were plans arrayed along with that's a sub.
Putin knows what the deal is.
The big thing was this open-handed handshake, right?
And and then the the clear uh rapport that they have with each other.
Uh one other thing which was really telling to me.
Um Trump uh welcomes Putin very warmly and then says, okay, let's go.
And instead of they going to their respective limos, uh Putin goes into Trump's limousine, his big Cadillac, they call it the big beast or something like that.
Okay.
Wow.
And then Trump said, now how long did that trip take?
11 minutes.
Whoa, that's enough time, you know, to catch up without these secretaries of state or National Security Advisors having to listen in.
Now, the important thing is what happened there.
Now, on the way on the flight there, uh Trump uh told Brett Brett Bayer of uh Fox News, Brett, I have to tell you that you know, if there's not some kind of a ceasefire agreement in some form, I'm gonna be very, very disappointed.
Okay, so now in my day, uh journalists would write that down, put it on the wire, and a couple hours later people would see it, but Bert got the right up.
So Putin knew when he arrived that Trump had said this.
Okay.
Putin also knew that he had told Trump, no deal, we're not gonna do this.
Okay.
So what's Trump doing?
Well, he thinks maybe his incredible persuasive powers might change his mind.
So they spend three hours trying to change Putin's.
Please, let's have some kind of immediate ceasefire, because that's what the Europeans want.
That's what everybody wants.
Did you hear me?
Okay.
So that's why they that's why Trump looked all washed out and didn't even begin.
Yeah.
Yeah, NYT means Nyet.
Remember that?
But uh also Trump is the one whose mind was changed here because he abandoned the ceasefire demand.
That's exactly right.
It's a major victory for Putin.
And then also at the same time, and I'd like you to speak to this.
This is such a sea change from the approach of total isolation of Russia that the Biden administration was trying to achieve, and even to some degree under the first Trump administration.
This is Trump really saying to the world that we recognize that Russia has a right to exist and that Russia has its own self-interests that are unique to the nation of Russia, and we're going to acknowledge Russia's existence and work with Russia instead of trying to destroy the country.
I mean, that's that's huge.
That's exactly right.
That the choreography that went that attended all this, and it was a big plus for Putin because you know, everyone's demonizing him as the devil incarnate, or at least Hitler, right?
And the Russians the same.
So here he's been given a respectful uh welcome, and he's allowed to talk to the Trump for three hours.
And among what I'm trying to get at is the substantive part where Trump may have thought that he could convince Putin to change his mind, but the opposite happened, okay?
Yes.
Um Trump changed his mind.
How long did it take him to change his mind?
Oh, a couple hours.
He comes on the truth social and says that you know that's not a good idea to have an immediate ceasefire.
Uh we need the we need a whole whole deal here.
Uh, people negotiate uh when they're at war, so that's what we'll do.
And so he he stepped back on that.
So not only not only did he step back on the sanctions and the secondary sanction of a threat, or else, but now he stepped back on something really important.
Now, why did he say to Burton Baer, or that he would be very disappointed?
Well, uh Putin knew that he would be disappointed that Trump would be disappointed, but that doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
Okay, yeah, be disappointed, Trump, but change your mind back, okay?
So now Trump can go to the Europeans and say, you know, I gave it a try.
I give it the college try.
Right.
I said it'd really be this way.
And I was really disappointed.
But here's the real world, right?
So you know, it's pretty artful, actually.
It's something that I would have not seen uh Trump as being able to do, given the advisors that he has had.
But I think Whitkoff is the key here for Trump.
I think he's getting some good advice for Whitkoff.
Okay.
And uh the way the whole thing played out, not only after the summit on Saturday and Sunday, but yesterday.
My goodness, yesterday was quite a historic moment, and we could talk about that if you like.
I I I do, but first I want to wrap up I've got a comment about the Alaska summit.
Want to get your response to that.
So following that, and I think you and I both agree we're very happy with uh uh Trump's performance there and how he was able to attempt to de-escalate the situation through means that you've just described.
Uh but now the hard part is that it seems like it puts Trump in the position of attempting to sell Russia's demands to Western European leaders and Zelensky, uh, neither one of which have any interest whatsoever in honoring Russia's existence or its demands.
Uh although Trump cleverly does give himself an off-ramp to say, like you said, I tried, uh and Europe rejected it.
But isn't Zelensky now see this this is this is the catch-22 that I wanted to ask you about.
Zelensky, his term, his presidential term expired more than a year ago.
He has no constitutional authority according to Ukrainian law, and yet he's the one who can veto this deal, and he's already said that he would reject the territorial claims of Russia.
How does that ever change?
And maybe that leads us to what happened on Monday, but you tell me.
Well, Mike, uh at uh Anchorage.
Uh it's clear that uh Putin had a chance to explain one-on-one, or well, one three on three, and earlier for 11 minutes, one-on-one, uh, what Russia's core interests have been in Ukraine,
how Russia felt extremely provoked into doing what it had to do in its view, uh how the Secretary General of NATO at the time, Jens Stolenberg, said publicly to the European Parliament, the Russians told us that if we keep trying to get Ukraine into NATO, they would have to invade Ukraine.
And we said no.
Ha ha, we said no.
He said that two years ago.
Already several hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians, young Russians had perished.
That's the kind of leadership we have at the top of NATO, okay?
Right.
What I'm saying here is that that's the Secretary General of NATO, and he says that the reason the Russians invaded was because they were afraid that Ukraine would get in NATO.
Now it's very clear that uh Trump's advisors have not really filled them in on this.
But in addition to all this, I'm convinced that uh what Putin did was say, now Mr. President Lavrov here, my uh foreign secretary, uh Sergei, show show Mr. Trump the map.
Map?
Oh, yeah, the map of the front lines.
And and and uh Mushakov, would you bring that map about the uh the disposition of forces beyond behind the front lines?
My God, you know.
I mean, and Trump looks so well I think I think I don't no, I haven't seen no.
So Russia has a million troops behind front lines?
Oh my uh okay, and uh uh and and uh Sergei Lavarov, would you show uh Mr. Trump the uh the economic statistics about Russia's Progress for the last several years.
Okay, oh, they're positive.
I can't okay.
And how many do we estimate?
Well, how many do we know Russians were killed on the front?
Well, 220,000.
And and Trump would say, I thought it was two million.
Right.
And they say, well, well, who told you that?
Uh, well, you the Institute for the Study of War.
Of course.
So so what I'm saying here is that he got a real big dose of reality.
Yeah.
And after that, after that, I think it was not so hard for Putin to say, now look, can you can you understand now why we're not willing to allow a ceasefire where the the Europeans, if not you, resupply and re-arm it?
We're not gonna do that, okay?
So I you thought we had agreed you weren't gonna raise that.
I know maybe there were reasons why you had to raise it, but forget about it.
So what happens?
Well, as I say, uh Trump acknowledges that there was a Niet there and that he tried, but he failed, and we're gonna have a whole complete deal now, and that's what we'll work toward.
And Zelensky doesn't like it, and Trump has promised to call Zelensky, so he does, and then he summons them to the scene of the crime in February, when Zelensky was really treated abusively in my view.
You don't treat him.
I mean, I really almost felt sorry for him, Mike, you know, with uh Vance twice his size and the rest of them all beaten up on him, but not really figures like he he he deserved it.
But now he's coming back to the scene of the crime.
Oh, yeah, I'll come.
How soon can I come?
Well, how about Monday?
Okay, Monday.
That's a good sign, okay.
Trump's gonna give Zelensky the reality here.
And the reality here is, well, let me uh use this analogy.
Um Stalin when he was warned about the Pope, could oppose what what's going on, he said, Well, how many divisions does the Pope have?
Well, how many divisions do the Europeans have?
Two?
three.
In other words, it's not only the fact that the Russians are clearly overrunning what's left of the Ukrainian forces, but the Europeans have just rhetoric to oppose this.
So when they say, "Oh, we've got to build our armaments, factories, and all that stuff, and we think the Russians are going to wait until 2029 to cause us more trouble.
So this whole business about the military-industrial complex profiteering on all this stuff." So it was very transparent.
Now, so Now, when I heard all of a sudden that not only Zelensky's invited, but that these, well, I'm I'm doing a piece now for tomorrow's publication.
It's called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Is Vanderleen Snow White or Please don't misunderstand me.
Yeah, because I can think of the seven dwarves of the seven European leaders.
Right.
So who's Snow White?
Well, now don't misunderstand me.
I have no brief for President Trump, except when he does something sensible, like he has for the last couple of weeks, okay?
Yeah.
Um so please don't call me in Putin pocket.
He's no Snow White.
Nor uh do I uh do I fear being put into Putin's pocket by those who wish to because I'm already there, you know, because I I tell what I think to be the truth.
But there they were, you know.
And I said first, oh, Mr. Trump, that's really stupid.
Oh my god, you'll be eight against one.
Uh well, maybe you could bring uh Vance in there, he's pretty big guy, but and then I realized, no, no, no.
He's more clever than you are, McGovern.
He's gonna talk to Zelensky first at 115.
Right.
Read him the riot act, show him the map, right?
The map, the map of of Ukraine.
uh, with the not only with well, the map that he showed Zelensky was sanitized.
I'm sure he gave him some other maps that showed the reality that Zelensky might not be exposed to by those Ukrainians that work for him.
True.
Anyhow, what he did was stage the visit.
So he told Zelensky which end is up first, and then there was an hour for Zelensky to go back to his to the seven dwarfs.
Oh my God, they're not gonna have an immediate ceasefire.
And you know, they're gonna try to get a meeting from me with with Putin, but yeah, I say I can't do it.
Tutti says, Oh my god.
And then the seven dwarfs come and they all get their picture taken.
It's great.
And then they say stupid things like Moutz and Macron.
But we think we think maybe an immediate ceasefire is a good idea before more negotiations.
And Trump said, hmm, okay, that's nice what you think.
It's nice what you think.
Okay.
So now I'm gonna call Putin and gonna tell him what happened here and try to set up a meeting between, well, between the three of us, if that will happen, you know.
Well, we'll try to push that through.
Meanwhile, please go back to your countries and try to explain what happened.
Uh the deal is no immediate ceasefire.
Uh, and if you want to try to rescue this situation, if you want to try to encourage this guy Zelensky to think that you can do what the United States of America couldn't do after spending two billion 200 billion dollars, then you know, you give it a try.
That'll be nice.
We'll just hand the whole thing off to you.
Right.
So that's where it stands.
And I can't believe the naivete on the part of these Europeans, you know.
But they're some of them are real tall, but they're all dwarfs in terms of very no offense to dwarfs.
Yeah, no offense to dwarfs.
Um I don't think I I still don't see how this becomes a deal, because Zelensky has not indicated any willingness to budge on his terms.
And I think that the information that comes to Zelensky is very tightly controlled by MI-6 and possibly the CIA, and MI-6 is living, in my opinion, in a delusional world where they still think that the British government can represent a legitimate kinetic threat against Russia somehow.
Um Ray, the the idea that these Western European countries believe that they can manufacture some new array of military equipment, even when their energy supply from Russia was cut off with the Nord Stream pipeline destruction, and their energy costs are through the roof, and they're having uh industrial crises because of that.
That also seems delusional to me.
It's it's like I feel like Zelensky's not the only one snorting cocaine right now.
I think I think the seven dwarfs are doing lines.
What's going on?
Like, how are these people gonna be brought back to reality?
Well, the reality is that the war is won um by the Russians.
Now, in that context, Zelensky almost doesn't matter.
Um maybe MI-6 will get the word, okay, pull the plug on Zelensky.
The United States has already done so.
J. D. Vance, 10 days ago.
We're done.
We're done with supplying weapons and and and money to Ukraine.
We're done.
That's it.
It's over.
The vice president of the United States.
Okay, so who's gonna do it?
Well, uh, nobody can do it.
There are no weapons.
We don't even have enough weapons for our for our defense because the ones we didn't give to Ukraine when you give to Israel, okay?
It's really a mockery.
If we expected to be in a in a confrontation with Russia or China, uh you know, a military uh really delected duty, you have to let all these weapons go to other places.
So that's the reality.
Now, these maps are significant in that respect.
These maps show uh that This inexorable march here, very gradual, very deliberate, but hacking away at the Ukrainian offenses, defenses are just about over.
I mean, they've encircled Pakrov's really the last stronghold there in the in the the area of Donetsk.
And uh so the Day is cast.
Now, um the Europeans are, you say, delusional, I say naive.
Delusual's probably a better word, but they don't have to put up with Zelensky for the rest of their lives.
Well, let's he's going to be replaced by somebody.
Uh what will happen then?
I don't know, but the war has been won.
And what Putin and Trump seem to have as an understanding is look, okay, the war can be ended with an agreement, an ostensible negotiated peace, where you Trump are accorded enough lipstick to put on this pig of of Western Ukrainian and US defeat.
And we can say, yeah, well, here's what Putin gave.
Let's say Putin is flexible enough to say, well, we want Ukraine to survive, our brother Ukraine nation as a as a separate entity, and to do that, they can't do without access to the Black Sea, and they do that through a diessa.
So yeah, we'll we'll do a deal on a death.
So maybe we make make it kind of a multi-nation national place or something.
We won't prevent Ukrainians from having uh something more than just uh a bunch of farmland from which to sell a produce to uh the rest of Europe, okay.
I think, and I I could point to a couple of little things that show me that Putin would be agreeable to that if he could get uh Kardon sanitaire, uh, a buffer zone large enough to make sure that this stuff doesn't happen again.
Okay, it could be along the Ypa River, it could be farther west, but there's no reason to believe that Putin wants to take over all of Ukraine.
That would be stupid.
He's not stupid, okay?
That would give him a Vietnam right on his doorstep, and he doesn't want that.
So he wants some sort of a negotiated deal where he will be acknowledged to have won in terms of the Donbass and and actually you know some other gains, but he doesn't need the whole the whole enchilada, as we would say.
And you know, let me just elaborate on this for a second, Mike, because this is really important for your audience to understand.
Um people say, well, people, uh President Biden said, warning, you think Putin's gonna stop in Ukraine?
No, Poland's next.
And besides the Baltic states, come on, he's not gonna stop, you know.
Well, who's he listening to?
He's listening to people like Fiona Hill, uh, who pretends to be a uh Soviet expert.
She famously said in January of 2022, big New York Times picture with with Putin closing a door, and you have five U.S. presidents, the most recent ones cowering because the the headline says uh Putin wants to kick the U.S. out of Europe.
And that was the whole thing, you know.
Putin's gonna kick.
Well, now the fallacy there is this.
And you can tell us, dear friends, okay, the reason we don't think that Putin wants to take uh the Baltics or Poland or the rest of Ukraine is because he already stopped.
Oh, wait a second, McGovern, what do you mean he already stopped?
Four days after the Russians invaded, Zelensky appointed his best friend to lead a delegation to try to figure out how to stop them, okay?
They negotiated starting four days after the 24th of February, that'd be 28th of February up in Bielarus.
Then they brought the negotiations down to Turkey and then Istanbul, okay, and they concluded a deal.
How long?
About six weeks after the invasion.
Now, when you hear that the Russians tried a full scale, that's always one of the adjectives hydrated.
Full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Well, come on.
90,000 troops, that's a loud troop, but a raid against the capital up there in Kiev.
That's a full-scale.
Come on.
What Putin was trying to do is scare the hell out of Zelensky.
And he succeeded.
And Zelensky personally supervised his best friend negotiating this thing with the with the Russian representative, directly getting Putin involved.
They had a deal.
It was called the Istanbul deal.
And it was concretized that Russia would stop as long as Ukraine would stop trying to get into NATO.
Okay.
There would be certain limitations on the forces of each side of this line.
There would be a ceasefire, and they put off Crimea and other things, real thorny issues, but later.
That was all initial.
And the negotiators, his name is Arachamia, is the is the Ukrainian negotiator, best friend of Putin, head of his faction in the Ukrainian parliament.
He said he said all this publicly to the Ukrainian newspapers, the government-controlled newspapers.
So all I'm saying is if people say, oh, Putin's not going to stop, well, he did stop.
He stopped for good reason.
He got what he wanted.
They were not going to be shelling the hell out of his Russian speaking people in the Donbass.
There was going to be a ceasefire.
Now, that was the last betrayal.
Before that came at least three more betrayals.
Going back to 1990, when H.W. Bush decided or told his Secretary of State, do a deal and promise Garbachev and Shevardnadze, promised them that you will not, that we will not move NATO one inch to the east of the East German border as it is now.
That promise was made.
It wasn't written down, but it's very clear in many records, foreign ministry records and so forth.
That was the promise.
That was the first betrayal.
Next one came in Minsk when there was a ceasefire agreed in 2014, violated by the Ukrainians because they wanted more time to train up and weaponize with the U.S. weapons.
And next one, uh 2015, Minsk II, where Orlong, the French president at the time, and uh Angela Merkel, the uh German chancellor,
promised to guarantee that Minsk II would be in force, and that not only would there be a ceasefire, but there would be a provision written into the Ukrainian constitution giving a measure of autonomy to the uh to to the the Donbas uh, you know, the the two provinces there, uh Donetsk and Logansk.
Okay, so all those were broken.
Yeah, not only broken, uh Mike, but but this is really the you know, rubbing rubbing it in.
Uh four years later, let's see whether that deal about four years five.
Well, while the about five or six years later, Merkel says, Oh, you know, I I guess we tricked the Russians on that one.
Yeah, we just wanted to buy a little time because in 2014, you know, look at what the Ukrainian army was a joke.
Now they're the best trade, best equipped uh army in Europe, we really did it to them.
And then Oldon, the head of France said the same thing.
They said at the same time, with a big chuckle, ha ha ha ha, we outbreaked them.
Now, that that was rubbing rubbing it in, right?
And that's that's the history from which uh Putin comes from all this.
And so uh when the one in Istanbul was uh was done.
Well, he put priority on giving a measure Of trust to Zelensky and his best friend Arachamia.
And again, he was betrayed because next thing you know, they were shelling the hell out of the Donbass.
So where's that Lee Putin?
It means he's going to be really, really careful this time.
He's not going to agree to any kind of ceasefire unless he gets the rest of his demands met.
And his demands are pretty simple, you know.
He says that we have to recognize the realities on the ground, and that is that four uh Ukrainian oblasts have been incorporated under the Russian Constitution as part of Russia.
Now, the Russians occupy all almost 97% of Lugansk.
You know, about 30 two thirds, oh, three-fourths of Donetsk and the other two, uh, Zaporizha and uh uh with the other one, Kherson, uh about about 70, 75%.
So there's room for some sort of, you know, some sort of accommodation on that, but it would take a lot because they are part of intrical Russia now.
And all I'm saying here is that the trust level has gone way down, except after Anchorage.
It's come up, come up a bit.
And who has the who has the high cards?
Of course, Putin does.
Why?
Because they've won the war, and these European clowns, the seven dwarfs, either don't get it or they think that they can well, they can measure, they can they can survive until Trump goes out of office, and then maybe some I was gonna say uh that maybe some person like Biden that would come in and they could do business again uh and really stay sound Putin.
Give me a break.
Well okay, thank you for all for that explanation.
If I were Putin in this case, I would be saying to Trump, look, I'm gonna take all this territory anyway, sooner or later, probably this year.
You know, look at the crumbling Ukrainian defensive lines.
So if we do a deal that gives us those territories, we're gonna get them anyway.
So that's not much of a concession from Russia's point of view, probably.
And if if I were Putin, and I'm glad you mentioned Odessa, and thank you for that pronunciation correction.
Um Russian forces don't currently occupy uh ODSA, so that would be a a concession on the Ukraine side.
And but the other thing I want to ask you is that if I'm Putin, I'm also gonna ask for the $300 billion in frozen assets that the Western banking system in in Europe has frozen and stolen from Russia and use the interest on that $300 billion to fund the Ukrainian war effort.
I would be asking for that back plus all the interest on the $300 billion back.
I mean, because that's just straight up theft in the international monetary plumbing system.
Do you think that that I mean, do you have any idea if what Putin's demands might expand to include here?
Well, Putin has the upper hand here.
He doesn't need a deal.
He can do without the 300 billion.
Uh I I'm sure that by and by they will they will go to court to get it back.
But uh what matters to him is that the West, and the West really means uh Trump, recognizes that they're not gonna stop, that they have the ability and have shown the ability to take over everything east of the Dniepa River, for God's sake.
And if they want that to stop, then they have to do a deal.
Now Trump has very, very, he's got a pair of deuces, okay.
Uh Putin has a straight flush if you play poker.
Uh those are the realities.
And when, as I say, in my mind's eye, uh Putin showed Trump the real maps, the maps that show where they've where they've come from, how they've uh attrited a trident attrition the Ukrainians, how they've surrounded Pakrovsk, how there's no hope at all for the Ukrainians.
Well, you know, Trump gets that, okay, and he says, okay, I want out of here.
Um, I'll have J.D. Vance say, hey, this is over, this is this is done, no more support from us, and then let the Europeans uh fend for themselves and trying to make this good.
He said that.
He said, this is now up to Zelensky and the Europeans.
The trouble is the Europeans are so feckless.
Uh I mean, the the politicians that have bubble up to the top of the government in these these countries, uh, you know, through their political process, they're so inept uh that uh they don't seem to get it yet, but I think they will now, because I think in the private discussions, Trump has probably said, look, forget about an immediate ceasefire.
You're in no position to do it.
How many, how many divisions do you have?
You know, how many do you really have?
How many how many naval vessels do you have?
We'll take care of this.
Just uh just realize that we've lost.
And besides, it wasn't my war, it was Biden's war, and what I'm trying to do is stop the killing.
Now that sounds pretty good, right?
Stop because I'm all for stopping the killing.
If it was Biden's war, well, yeah, it was pretty much Biden's war.
Well, okay.
It really was Biden's war, but it was also, I think, Biden's money laundering platform, too, because right, a lot of the money went to Ukraine, and then a lot of kickbacks came to the Democrats, probably ended up in campaign contributions and paying off, you know, judges and uh whoever else needed to be paid off.
Don't forget Hunter.
Uh Hunter would have been using it for his charitable donations, no doubt.
Yeah, right.
And so I would think that one of the incentives for Trump to end this is also to cut off the money laundering uh pipeline, which probably remnants of that still exist.
Uh but the pressures that Trump will be facing domestically would be from the military industrial complex that wants to keep this going.
Obviously, all the Democrats, and obviously all the neocons and all the European leaders.
So it's it's as if Trump and Putin, it appears to me, are the only two people that want peace right now, and everybody else wants the war to continue.
Zelensky for his own political survival.
The Europeans, so they can assert wartime control over their own populations and continue their censorship regimes and have an excuse for why their societies are falling apart.
I mean, does this sound about right?
Or would you correct me on any of that?
Am I leaping to a false conclusion there?
What do you say?
No, Mike, you're uh playing a really effective devil's advocate here, because it's a very real, uh very real question as to whether Trump and Putin can prevail.
Now Putin can prevail, but he doesn't want to prevail in such a way that he's got an insurrection in part of Ukraine, and that he has to come across as extremely brutal with the rest of Ukraine, including Adiesa.
Um so there have been signs all along that Putin would really like to have a deal if he had somebody to deal with.
Uh-huh.
Now he does.
Okay.
Biden, no, no deal.
Now, here's a little vignette here.
You probably know that uh Putin holds these marathon QAs after giving an end of the year report, usually in December, uh, for 20 minutes, and then the Q ⁇ A goes out to almost four hours.
Okay.
So toward the end of one of these things, it was in October of 2023, okay.
Uh he's asked uh what I think was a planted question.
Uh a uh Serbian, I think it was uh uh newspaper person says now, Mr. President, uh Mr. President Pucci, I am uh trying to plan a visit to Adiesa.
And I like to go there, and uh I'm just wondering, do you do you recommend that I apply for a Ukrainian or for uh a Russian visa?
Right.
Okay?
Pretty clever.
Yes.
So Putin goes on talking about Adidas such a I've been there.
It is.
It's a beautiful, beautiful city.
Catherine the Great establishes.
Trump says, you know, uh yes, uh, it could be, it could be in Russian uh uh Yabloka Razora, an apple of discord.
Or it could be a way of getting together seemingly irreconcilable differences into a a new kind of pact.
So uh Apple of Discord, of course, that goes back to the Trojan war and all that kind of stuff.
But you know what it is, Apple of Discord.
So he's saying, look, we can maybe deal with Azure.
And uh and it doesn't have to be an apple of discord, it can be sort of a negotiated thing which nobody really expects.
Now, why do you say that?
Well in my day, we analysts probably take us three days to get the speech or the the problem which it is, but my God, this looks like uh an offer here, uh tell the president.
But this is not my day.
This is today.
Now I'll bet you a hundred dollars that there was no Western journalist or even member of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that stood around that stayed around for three and a half or four hours.
And there was nothing in the press to make note of this.
So it's quite possible that unless uh Putin told Trump this in Anchorage uh on Friday, uh, that uh he's never even become aware of the fact that there'd be these sort of semi-olve branches that look I don't have to keep at Yessa, you know, it could be something other than a Yabloka, other than a uh uh object of discord, okay?
So that's the problem.
In other words, there are ways out.
Uh it's just that uh until Whitkov came on the scene, uh we don't have anybody really able to advise Trump and keep him completely posted.
And instead he says stupid things like the Russians have lost two million troops and that the Russian economy is falling apart.
My God, uh we veteran intelligence professionals for sanity have published lots of things that should educate these folks, but of course, we never get the time of day in the media, never get any ink or air, and uh whether what we send to the White House situation room ever gets anywhere is something we're not quite sure of.
Well, I'm I'm a fan of of your work and your interviews, Ray, and that's why that's why I invited you on the show today.
And I follow you on Judge Knapp's uh show and others as well.
So I know you're doing your part to get the word out.
So let me ask you for your final assessment.
Uh your best guess, if I dare ask you for this.
Um you think that a an actual peace deal involving Putin, Zelensky, and Trump will be achieved this month, let's say, August.
Uh is it is it going to happen, or is it going to fall apart and we're just going to end up, you know, Russia's going to end up resolving it on the battlefield anyway over the next six months or whatever it takes.
Where does this go?
Well, the answer is no.
Uh, not in the next month.
Um Zelensky is the fly in the ointment.
Okay.
Unless Putin gets some sort of assurance that Zelensky is either on his way out, or that he is finally, you know, come to come to the moment and the realization that he's lost, uh, Putin will never meet with him.
I can assure you of that.
Really?
Okay.
Now I think Putin will probably say, look, we have this negotiation process already going.
We're meeting with the Ukrainians.
And that's the level at which we should be negotiating.
I mean, when presidents meet, that's when they come to conclude agreements already having been negotiated, for God's sake.
So let's go back to East Ambola, wherever these negotiations take place and continue the uh with a real purpose here uh till until the day when I can see that uh there is reasonable prospect that the Ukrainians are worth negotiating with.
So this business is you can't.
Well, I'm sorry, Ray, but in the meantime, until there is a peace deal, do you anticipate that Trump will continue to approve the USA providing weapons and money to Ukraine?
Man, Mike, you asked the right questions.
Not my first rodeo, right?
And I listened to you.
I I listened to you, so you're educating me.
Well, you want an honest answer?
Yeah.
Peace the hell out of me.
Now my impression is that Trump is giving is giving Ukraine the weapons that are left in the pipeline, uh very lucrative pipeline that the Biden approved before it went out the door, and there were billions of dollars in that pipeline.
Now, what did Putin ask Trump in return for some of the things that uh Putin was willing to say about Trump like uh like he's not Biden.
That's a that's a big thing.
Yeah, or this war never would have started.
Yeah, Trump were president, yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm sure he'd say, now, if you guys are serious, uh that is Putin, if you all are serious about ending this damn war, why the hell are you still sending arms to Ukraine?
Now let's assume he is.
I mean, everybody says he is, but I don't know what kind of warm.
He's certainly not allowing uh US uh technology to power long-range missiles from France or you know.
So it seems to me that uh he's already told uh the Germans as well, the Germans and the French and and the British, look, uh we don't want any of these longer range missiles uh fired into Russia.
Uh I imagine that Trump is open to saying, look, uh we need to make sure that everybody takes these negotiations seriously.
If you ever think you would like to even hope to have a ceasefire, you gotta knock off uh sending weapons to to uh uh to Ukraine.
The other thing, Mike, is that Putin has been very careful and his Ministry of Defense has been very careful to show what happens on the ground if they try, for example, the Germans that they have this uh what's it called Talhus, Tower Horse missile, okay?
Pretty dangerous, you know, long range, okay.
Now they were gonna uh not want to give the the Ukrainians the missiles because everyone knows from intercepted conversations between the very top Air Force Air Force Generals.
I remember that, yeah.
You remember that?
Okay.
Yeah, with the Crimean bridge and yeah.
Yeah, it would require German technicians, German people in place in Ukraine to run these things.
Okay, so what do they do?
Well, they're building a joint factory, a joint factory in this location, Deputy Petrovsk, I believe, in Ukraine, and uh they're gonna so not only will the Germans actually have the Ukrainians pretty much own this, but they'll be trained in their farm.
So what happened to that last week?
Obliterated, and this time that word is used advisedly.
The thing was creamed by several missiles.
And so, you know, it's just idiocy to think that Ukraine uh could ever face into uh much more powerful Russia on his doorstep.
And let me just close with with this observation.
This is a no-brainer, okay.
As a matter of fact, Obama in 2015 warned.
He said, Look, I am against sending offensive missiles to to Ukraine.
And the reason I'm against it is because the worst thing we could possibly do to the Ukrainians is to give them the the benighted idea that they could prevail over a much stronger Russia on their doorstep.
So no offensive uh stuff.
So was he right about that?
He also said, also in 2015, you know, we have to have to be careful about what we pick as the issues we might want to go to war for, okay, or our basic core interests, and folks, Ukraine it ain't one of them.
Okay.
Now, if you look at our opponents here, the Russians, uh-oh, Ukraine is one of them.
So no offensive arms to Ukraine.
Now, he had a deputy secretary of state in those days, 2015, who seconded the motion.
He saluted smartly and said, Mr. President, you're absolutely right.
For every weapon we could give to Ukraine, the Russians would match it, and then double it, and then triple it, and then what?
Rupple it.
End quote.
But do you know who that deputy secretary of state was?
No, but I don't.
I don't know who that was.
His name is name is Anthony Blinken.
Oh, you're kidding me.
No, not in yet.
Look at the record.
So, you know, Biden comes in, and all of a sudden we're exceptional and we're indispensable, and we're unbeatable, and uh so we can do whatever the hell we want abroad.
These guys were neophyses, they didn't know what the you know, anyhow.
They went to the best schools, they were the best and brightest, right?
Just like Vietnam.
Got hypnotized by Victoria Newland some somewhere in there.
Something happened.
She used like this the sorceress spells on him.
Um anyway, the situation is far from resolved.
I think that's one of the big takeaways right now.
That's right.
Trump has promised the media, I think today that there would be no U.S. boots on the ground.
But of course, you know, we know lots of ways they get around that with contractors, uh, etc.
And there's all this talk about security guarantees and Article 5 like defensive agreement for Ukraine, which can actually can you comment on that?
Because I'm very concerned that that's like a it's like a hair trigger agreement to bring Europe into war with Russia.
Do you share that concern?
Uh actually uh my interpretation of all that is this is Whitkoff uh talking to uh one of those Sunday talk shows.
Uh we have uh we're working on, we think we need, and so does Poutine, uh guarantees for uh Ukraine security, and there would not be NATO, not be NATO, no, it wouldn't be NATO.
Uh uh, but it would be Article V like.
Article five is the thing in NATO is NATO, yeah.
So what's he saying?
Nothing, not saying anything.
Um as a matter of fact, and this is probably important, it is important.
The the you the Istanbul agreement, which was concluded at the end of March, early April, uh 202, six weeks after the war started, which I mentioned before, uh Putin and Zelensky both having approved it and it having been initial, okay.
It had provisions for security arrangements for Ukraine, okay.
There were specific uh countries named that would assume this responsibility, among them not only NATO countries, but Russia and China.
Really?
So yeah, so this is a real deal.
Now, why you know why everyone's forgetting that?
You know, why everyone's all security guarantees?
That's what they're gonna be saying.
Well, they're already in Istanbul.
And and as you probably know, uh the way the Russians have presented this series of negotiations isanbull.
Oh two or whatever they say these days.
So, you know, the agreement was there.
Uh the either the US and NATO were incredibly stupid or really ill-intentioned.
Uh I'll I'll leave the choice to you by by saying no, you can't do that.
We will support you for as long as it takes, right?
And don't you face down, you kill all those Russians with every last Ukrainian soldier?
Because we want to weaken Russia, okay.
That's what it was all about, and none other than the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
No, no, it was uh the depth secretary of defense who has disappeared into the woodwork going back to worth for one of those uh arms, what's it, Austin, yeah.
Uh Secretary Austin.
He says, you know, this is the whole thing is still weakened Russia.
So don't, you know, so why Zelensky let him well, he had illusions of grandeur.
When the U.S. says, look, we'll support you for as long as it takes, well, I guess he didn't know history because it's only for as long as it it's convenient for the United States, and sorrowfully for Ukraine now, right?
Right now is as long as it takes it's over, as Vice President Vance has said.
So in other words, the Nobel Peace Prize remains elusive to Donald Trump because of Zelensky.
And because Zelensky has been influenced by uh in 2022, Boris Johnson, right out of really MI6 influence.
And I think that influence continues with Starmer.
And well, obviously it does um because of his history.
And so Zelensky remains the puppet in all of this, and I I would not uh like if there's a polymarket bet on how long Zelensky lives, I I would not bet for longevity for Zelensky, is all I'm saying.
I'm not a better, I don't play those games, but I wouldn't bet on Zelensky being around much longer.
Yeah, the other thing, Mike, is that uh, you know, there are poles that come out of Ukraine, and there's last one I saw was 69% of the people in Ukraine, the ones that are still left, okay, yeah, want an end to this damn war.
Yes.
And there are people waiting in the wings, uh, that guy's luzny.
Um they have a lot of delusional folks, but there are probably others they could put in and say, now, Vladimir, thanks for all your good service.
Uh, we'll give you a nice award, and why don't you go back to your little villa there or down to your little villa on the Mediterranean?
Uh so uh I I'm not bearish on this.
I think a deal is close, but not this month.
I think over the next couple of months uh the Europeans will realize they can't deal with this.
They have, as you already pointed out, so many domestic, economic, and other uh problems in their own countries that they'll be facing an insurrection, some of them, uh, unless they deal with them, and that will take a lot of pizzazz away from this thing, which is uh, you know, a kind of a stillborn effort on Ukraine, because you know, I hate to say it, because I don't like Obama either.
And Obama was right.
I mean, how can a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say to the president, oh, you want to encourage the Ukrainians to make war with Russia?
Yeah, yeah.
What why?
Oh, to weaken Russia.
Yeah.
Uh President of Obama.
Think about the supply lines.
I think I mean, hello.
Oh, I know it's on, it's yeah, it's really unthinkable.
And and uh, you know, Napoleon learned the lesson, Adolf Hitler learned the lesson.
You know, you try to conquer and destroy Russia.
Uh you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna pay with the collapse of your own empire.
I mean, that's history.
But why would you want to do that in the first place?
You know, is Russia a threat?
People forget that Russia fell apart in 1990, 1991.
I that's what I retired.
I was a Soviet specialist.
I clapped myself in the back.
I said, Way to go, Ray.
You did it.
It wasn't just just what I it was a whole bunch of.
Of course.
But that was the whole, that was our mission, okay?
And I knew President George H.W. Bush well enough, having briefed him every other morning for four years and having worked for him at CIA headquarters when he was director.
I knew him well enough to think that he was serious when he when he proposed months before the Berlin Wall fell that we should have a Europe whole and secure from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Now, I think that was his vision.
That was a good vision.
It was possible then, and we have seen uh from the Russian side that it was possible then, okay.
What happened?
Well, Bill Clinton came in.
I hold no brief for Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton came in and said, Well, let's expand NATO, let's get these people in there, let's and the the expansion of NATO double the size of NATO within the next ten years or so.
So, you know, if you think the Russians have no grievances, if you think that they weren't deathly afraid of what happened, what might happen in Ukraine if it was part of NATO, well, think again, because reality is reality, and the fact that you don't get good news or you don't get accurate news about Russia.
Well, dig a little deeper, folks, and watch Mike Adams, for God's sake.
Well, I would say to watch watch you, let me give out your website, uh Ray McGovern dot com.
And Ray is a frequent guest with Judge Knapp and uh many other podcasters and shows.
And uh just one last comment, Ray, is that so every week in which there is no peace is another week when Russia takes more territory and holds more cards.
So the negotiating position of Zelensky is rapidly diminishing.
And if he doesn't realize that, he's a fool.
Well, that's where those Europeans come in.
They're insidious influence on Zelensky.
They have up till now persuaded him that they can pull his chestnuts out of the fire.
Uh that just shows how stupid or how desperate he is, okay.
Yeah.
If the US couldn't do it, how are they gonna do it without any troops, without any money?
With I mean, give me a break.
So now I think it's different.
Now I think Zelensky who yesterday thanked uh President Trump ten or more times for all all his support.
Oh, yeah, and oh, thanks for that map that you go.
Can you can I get a copy of that map?
We'll find a way to send that to you.
Well maybe, just maybe.
Zelensky uh hasn't seen that accurate map where the horses are.
So I have a bunch of clowns.
Now, there's a reality striking in the big the big news and the good news is that Putin and Trump have seen a way to come to terms with doing the whole deal, the whole enchilada, not just uh uh ceasefire, even just an interim ceasefire.
That's off the table now.
And whether Trump can use his persuasive powers to say, okay, now my my friend Vlad, uh, okay, let's go, let's go meet with with uh Volodymyr Zelensky in Rome or something like that.
And Blah was, well, no, I'm gonna be busy.
Busy, yeah, I'm gonna be busy till Christmas because I have to do a lot of Christmas shopping and stuff like that.
Busy taking territory.
Yeah.
All right, Ray.
Well, uh thank you for your analysis and wisdom, and we we really appreciate uh your courage in in just being very honest about the way you're assessing this.
And I I think your uh your analysis is very valuable, and I hope that Trump and others in his orbit listen to you, and I hope we get to peace, because I don't want bombs going back and forth to Europe.
I want trade.
I want trade with Russia and trade with Ukraine, both.
And I know people in Ukraine, and they've suffered for far too long.
And it's it's time to end the suffering, end the bloodshed, get to peace, get to trade.
Everybody wins when we're not killing each other.
It's bottom line.
That's right.
Mike, may I just add one note here?
Please.
Um I want to thank your audience and all the other American taxpayers for paying my salary for twenty-seven years and and allowing me to focus in on the real deal,
what makes Russia and the Soviet Union tick, giving me the opportunity to do this all day, every day, not making me like a newspaper person has to be a specialist on everything like Israel and South Africa and Russia, not making me uh function like a history teacher, a professor who has to uh counsel students and mark papers and give lectures.
I tell you, it was a really big deal.
It was really freeing, and best of all, until Bill Casey came in with Reagan, uh, we were able to tell it like it is on the Soviet Union, and we did do things to protect our country, which is the reason I came down after John Kennedy said, uh, don't ask what your country could do for you.
I want you to think about what you could do for your country.
So again, I'm sincere here.
He gave me the opportunity to roam around unfettered to learn things, and I had a lot to learn, and then to to tell it like it is uh to President Skalor, including Reagan, because by a stroke of luck.
Uh since I would not bow to the prevailing wins in the CIA that said the Russians were evil and garnet, that the Russian Communist Party would never give up power without a terrible violent upheaval, and then Gorbachev and Shiban, they're just they're just more clever commies, okay.
Uh the advantage I had was that I was not under that particular regime.
I was briefing these people, Vice President Bush, okay, Secretary Schultz, Secretary Weinberger, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, uh an array of national security advisors.
That was my beat every other morning.
We worked in the team.
So I could tell them what I really knew from honest analysts of what the Russians were doing.
I could tell them, look, Gorbachev, there's the real deal.
Watch them deal with them.
And Schultz and the vice president eventually prevailed on President Reagan to do just that.
And we got not only a more decent relationship, but we got a treaty unique in the history of mankind, where both sides destroyed weaponry already in existence.
I'm talking about intermediate range uh nuclear capable missiles in Europe to take them in place and destroy them over a period of a couple of years under tight supervision.
Um, my friend Scott Ritter was the first one on the scene to see that these things were chopped up.
Yes, literally.
So what happened to that?
Well, John Bolton and the likes of the of him persuaded Trump to get out of that treaty.
So there's a lot of repair damage to be done here.
And I just hope that the uh Russian analysts now in the CIA uh can have the chance to breathe, have a chance to tell the truth, and uh that the president uh Trump is himself educated enough to entertain the views that uh Russia may not all have horns and that Putin doesn't deal with because on that, on that hinges, uh the security of the world, really.
The whole world because as I said before, with Biden, we were very close to a nuclear exchange, and you had the head commanders in the Navy saying, Oh, well, you know, these many nukes, uh, we think we can prevail in a nuclear war, which of course Reagan and Gadbachev said was never the case.
It's not the case.
Let's just hope that this proceeds in a salutary direction.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Let's let's pray for peace and let's continue to share this information that brings us to uh de-escalation moment where we can get out of the business of war and get back to the business of trade, which is helps Foment peace, and that's what we want.
So thank you so much, Ray.
It's been an honor to speak with you today.
Uh have a great rest of your afternoon, and we'll talk again soon.
Thanks, Mike.
All right.
Thank you.
Take care.
And thank all of you for watching.
Again, it's Ray McGovern.
His website is raymcovern.com.
I've got it up on my screen here.
You can check it out.
You can see uh some of his appearances and videos and so on.
And uh just so check out his site, share his videos, share this interview, post it on other platforms, and help bring us to a moment of peace.
You know, it's not it's it doesn't mean you're a puppet of Putin to not want us to all die in a giant global thermonuclear war.
Right?
Well, I mean, we all win when we have peace, especially with nuclear powers.
So thank you all for watching today.
I'm Mike Adams of Brighton.com.
Take care, everybody.
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