All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 4, 2022 - Rudy Giuliani
43:29
Putin wants an Empire | Rudy Giuliani | February 4th 2022 | Ep 210
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello, this is Rudy Giuliani, and I'm back again with another episode of Rudy's Common Sense.
And today's episode, we're going to focus on Ukraine, for obvious reasons.
There's a dispute in Ukraine that could Turn in to be a war or it could turn in to be a minor, a more minor military activity, action.
There may be no military action at all.
And this could just be a test case being presented by Putin and to some extent by China to see the resolve of the Biden administration with regard to protecting Ukraine and to keeping the options for For NATO and for the European Union open.
So, a chess player has displayed a certain weakness in foreign policy and ability to think beyond what is obvious.
It's going to need that here.
And of course, this is an area where we do at least have a great deal of history in the sense that, you know, this was the focus.
This was the focus of the whole war for so long.
We did learn a lot about this area of Europe moving over into Asia.
And so let's get to what's involved.
It couldn't be more complicated, frankly.
What's involved requires a tremendous depth of knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian history and the history of Eastern Europe.
And it not only requires a great deal of knowledge of the history of Eastern Europe, it requires a great deal of knowledge of religion and how religion emerged because the divisions here that set up a separate Russia from Ukraine are divisions of
religion, they're divisions of ethnic background, they're divisions of where does Ukraine
want to look for its favored partners.
Ukraine seems to want to integrate itself a lot more into the West.
This is a test.
This has been a constant refrain in Ukrainian politics, slowed down by the dictatorship of Stalin and Khrushchev and whomever was, you know, in charge and therefore had to beat it back.
As the essay by Putin Demonstrated, oh, what was it, about a year ago, maybe less than that.
This is rooted in the question, where was Christianity first given to the people in the East?
Meaning in the lands that now would make up Eastern Europe, and I guess you would say Western Asia.
How did it start and to whom was the religion given?
Was it given to a separate nation known as Kievan Rus?
Was it given to them to be passed on to Russia, which later became a much bigger and more powerful country?
That becomes important as we look for moral authority, actual authority to run a government there.
And what the purposes of that government would be.
So, let's go back to the very beginning, or at least how they traced the beginning.
I mean, it's actually good in a way, because unlike a lot of countries, they trace a real definitive history.
And it goes back to when was Christianity introduced into the East?
And the best scholarship so far says that it was introduced somewhere in the 9th century by Greek monks.
So, the Christianity introduced would have been Orthodox Christianity, and it had a major impact on the people.
And they quickly became Christian.
They quickly became part of the church community that was at first called Kievan Rus.
That was the name that they gave to the church that they had formed.
And then communities started to develop of Christians, and by the early 10th century there was a community of Christians, Russians, who had converted mostly by the short form of conversion, baptism and acceptance into the Kievan Rus version of Christianity.
In 957, St.
Olga, who was the regent at the time of Kiev, was baptized.
And as the royal family, the nobility became baptized, large segments of their land and large segments of their wealth started to get amalgamated into the Christian, now the Christian community in what eventually becomes Kiev.
This became more established then with the baptism of Olga's grandson, Vladimir I, in 988.
And at that point, now, you know, Christianity had become the religion of, let's call them the Kievan Rus community, which existed in and around Kyiv.
So let's look at a little geography just for a moment.
You see a map there of Europe.
You see the beginnings of a map of Asia.
And the reality is that you can see Kyiv right there at the center of the map.
You can see Kyiv right here.
There's a lot of modern cities built into it.
So this is basically the outlines today, but roughly the same, of Ukraine.
Here's Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
And here we have other parts of Eastern Europe, clearly considered Eastern Europe.
Whether we're talking about Romania or Poland or... So it's very much over here on that eastern side of this vast country, Russia.
In these early days, the patriarch, which is the leader of the church, resided in Kiev, Rus'.
And...
And by 1448, it was clear that the church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev.
He was the head of the church.
And the issue becomes now the patriarch in Kiev Rus either moves on his own or is persuaded to move to Moscow.
And there begins the controversy.
Is the Church of Kiev, Kievan Rus, a subsidiary of the great Orthodox Church?
Already splitting somewhat into a Greek and a Russian Orthodox Church.
The Russian Orthodox Church, of course, is much larger than the Ukraine church.
And by and large, it was just assumed, and in a fairly short period of time, The church fell under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch.
So there wasn't a separate, in reality, a separate Ukrainian church within the Orthodox community.
This now marches through history, Catherine the Great and Peter the Great, and the tension within Russia that has existed from the beginning.
Is it Asian?
Is it European?
Those who live in the East, by and large, would describe it as a European nation.
And those who live in the West, or maybe for other political reasons, prefer to see it as an I prefer to see it as an independent country under some form of jurisdiction by Russia.
Think your homeowner's insurance covers home title fraud?
Think again.
And neither does your common identity theft program.
The FBI calls home title fraud one of the fastest growing crimes, which is why you need to go to HomeTitleLock.com, America's leader in home title protection.
Here's the problem.
The deed to your home is the only document that proves you own it.
And the deeds to all of our homes now are online.
In minutes, a criminal can find and forge your name off the deed to your home and refile as the new owner.
Like Jeff, who spent a fortune in legal fees after a thief forged himself onto the deed to Jeff's home and took out loans.
Jeff didn't have home title lock then, He does now.
Or Deborah, who thought her common identity theft service would protect her.
Then a criminal got onto the deed to her home and had her evicted.
Deborah has Home Title Lock now.
HomeTitleLock.com is your peace of mind.
And the deed to your home is protected.
Visit HomeTitleLock.com.
HomeTitleLock.com.
Of course, the whole relationship with Ukraine changed dramatically when the Soviet Union was established and Ukraine became a Soviet state.
Called a nation, but really a Soviet state.
They were one of the most important, but still a state and therefore a complete part of the Russian government and the Russian religion and the Russian ethnic group.
And It remained that way during much of the communist control of this vast, vast continent, with the exception maybe of England and France and the United States.
So, as communism takes over, communism under Lenin, communism just subsumes the church.
Makes the church an organ of the communist party, makes the patriarch almost a communist official, and runs the church for the benefit of communism.
And that includes the The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which virtually really disappears, and it is practiced on a Sunday, but carefully and not in the face of the actual mass that's being practiced in the Orthodox churches, which now fall under the sway of Russia.
So now Russia controls everything.
Russia controls the church.
Russia controls Ukraine.
Ukraine exists for the benefit of Russia.
Russia is clearly the occupier, but views Ukrainians as other Russians.
It's not as if they see them as a different ethnic group.
So the tension here Fascinating.
The tension is a combination of an ethnic tension, which isn't as great as in other of these historical disputes, but also a religious dimension, because was Christianity brought to the East, let's call it, the Slavic lands, To be established in Kievan Rus', which would be the center of it, or was it brought there as a stopping place as it moved on to Moscow?
All of this, of course, gets very much obliterated in terms of thinking when, by far, the Russian government and the Russian military become so much stronger and so much bigger.
When the Ukrainians in the Green Revolution break away from I guess it could be called Russian domination.
The Russians fight back.
When Russia asserts its control over Ukraine as a, really, just as a state of the Soviet Union, it subsumes it into Russia.
Russia is the official language.
Books and periodicals and everything is done in the Russian language.
All the children are taught Russian to make it a full integration so that this key stuff eventually passes away, at least so they hope.
But the reality is the Russian elderly and some of the young people continue to study Russian, continue to But also now develop an interest in the original Ukrainian language, which is somewhat different and had been developed to a very, very large extent during the period of time when this was all first being established.
So that, I mean, this is remarkable because it goes on for centuries.
For centuries you essentially have The Russian Orthodox Church, run by the Patriarchate in Moscow.
You have what is called the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church.
That's the church that is in close communion with the actual Orthodox religions.
And then you have the Ukrainian Orthodox, I believe, Christians who essentially have the same religion as the people in Poland and the people in the West and are fiercely anti-communist and regard communism really as a betrayal of their religion.
of their religion.
So during the communist era, the church is not really much of a factor except when it's
trotted out and needed to deal with some form of a religious dispute or brought out for
special celebrations or special masses or special remembrances.
And that remains that way until, of course, now communism begins to split apart.
Starting in the 80s, with the pressure, unrelenting pressure, which was done, I think, rather brilliantly by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, with the help of the Pope, John Paul.
And little by little, the republics, the nations that had been built on, like the Bulgarias and They're beginning to want their independence.
Well, for some of them, it's not that great a problem.
They had an individual nation.
They maintained that individual nation.
They were able to go back to it.
In Ukraine, it became very difficult because the original nation had been obliterated and it had to be recreated from the religious people to the people who were scholars or however they would describe themselves.
So that's where it stands.
When it all splits, and now we have, we now have an attempt at some form of a liberal government, some form of a government with respectful rights, and that doesn't last long.
It doesn't last long, and by the time Russia goes through the transition from Gorbachev Through the terrible, terrible financial issues that made Russia really a second-hand, third-hand power.
Finally, When a very young Vladimir Putin takes the role of the chief executive, the president, the prime minister, whatever you want to call him, he has a burning within his soul, a very deep desire to finally accomplish that, to finally accomplish a Russian
Government that has integrity in terms of it's the full number of Russian people.
It's his view that the religion of those people is the Greek, what they call the Greek Catholic Orthodox Church.
And that's revived again And has taken some very strong steps to be recognized, you know, within the Orthodox community.
And it's gotten so far that in 2019, the leader of global Orthodoxy in Istanbul, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, granted Ukraine its own church.
So now we're back where we started.
Ukraine has its own church.
Patriarch Bartholomew is in charge of that church, put there by—well, put there by, ultimately, the will of the Ukrainian people, which could not be recognized until then.
But this carries out the The essential formula that religion is not going to be a major factor and that people would be able to practice the religion that they believed in if they did believe in it.
And the reality is that that issue is not resolved.
It has a sort of surface resolution in that Patriarch Bartholomew has recognized the independent Ukrainian Catholic Church.
But that has not been accepted in Russia, not been accepted by Putin.
And with the breakdown of the pro-Russian government in the earlier Earlier part of the 2010s, 2013, 2014, now starts to develop some kind of structure.
And the structure is that those countries are going to remain very close to Titan and the Western countries and the Ukrainians and Russians who look West rather than East.
generally favor this kind of division, although it is quite complex.
Whereas those who look east and look toward Asia would prefer to see one united nation with one religion, and that religion would be the Russian Marx form of socialism.
But that, again, has not been resolved.
At the core of this, because these issues are the issues that fire up the soul and give you the enthusiasm for a war, but the real, real issue is Ukraine's strategic importance to Russia.
It always has been strategically important.
It's hard to capture Russia because of Ukraine.
Napoleon found that out.
Hitler found that out.
It's the winters.
It's the long journey for the food.
It's the incredible ability of people who live off the land and learn the land to be able to use that against an established army.
And at the same time, even though it was not a word, capturable, Moscow was going through Ukraine.
Still, nobody's done it.
And there have been two tremendous failures attempting to do it.
One by Hitler.
And then, in a different way, what Putin has been trying to do in re-establishing, in re-establishing the old Soviet Union, hopefully with Some of the human rights that have been recognized are retained.
There's no plan expand that we know of for a Ukrainian plan for independence or a form of breaking away from Russia.
There are any number of Ukrainian patriots who want that.
There are any number of Europeans who want that.
There are any number of Americans who want that, but we can't say that that is the overwhelming majority opinion of the Russian people.
Before the fall of the government in 2013-2014, at that period of time, the Ukrainian people were pretty much split down the middle as to whether or not they would like to see a separate Ukraine, Russia, both independent states, hopefully friends, but not required, or a more encompassing larger Russian government in which Ukraine relates as a state within a larger structure to bring about
Humanitarian relief, food, product, keep the economy going, and then ultimately, should there be war, to act as the emergency management center that is going to take care of as many people as possible.
During the course of this most recent revolution, which is Which has resulted in many, many changes.
It also has changed the opinion of the people of Ukraine.
So what we do have now is a very, very fast developing situation in which Russia is trying
to do the best that it can to begin the process of reestablishing something akin to what Putin
would describe as the Russian spheres of influence.
Now, it may be spheres of influence.
It may be empire.
It may be a combination of both.
But with regard to Ukraine, it seems to me he's willing to take a compromise right now.
But of course, he's not going to negotiate from a position of weakness.
And he wants to negotiate now because I do think in watching Biden handle some of the other situations, he's convinced that he can take advantage of Biden.
And also, we don't know the impact that all of the money that Biden's got from Ukraine A lot of it when it was still controlled by Russia and Russia itself.
What kind of influence that has over Biden's ability to be independent?
And what do the Russians and the Chinese understand of that?
How does that play out?
This would be a good time to take a short break.
And when we return, we will give you our prediction as to how this is all going to work out in the short term, because this is a Definite long-term issue that needs to be resolved and the elements that we have outlined for you have to be understood.
This is a difficult problem for an administration that's an anti-intellectual administration.
An administration that is not very smart might be another way to put it.
But there are deep things that the Ukrainians want to achieve, which if they are put in the mix of trying to get this resolved, might be able to come up with a peaceful solution, although we appear to be on the verge of war.
So, you come back and we'll finish it up.
Not long ago, Mike Lindell, the inventor of MyPillow, and his team fit me for my very own MyPillow.
They also introduced me to their wide assortment of other incredible products, like their mattress topper, their sheets, towels, slippers, and more.
Sleep is incredibly important to me, and I can assume for all of you.
It's time you give MyPillow a try and see for yourself.
Listeners have helped build MyPillow into the incredible company it is today, and Mike Lindell wants to give back to all of you.
You can get great discounts on MyPillow products by going to mypillow.com right now and seeing each of the specially priced items, including those in the Radio Listener Special Square.
You're going to see rotational offers up to 66% off on products like their pillows, mattress topper, geezer sheets, but also new products like their slippers, weighted blankets, robes, and waffle blankets.
All MyPillow products come with a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Enter promo code Rudy for these great specials.
That's MyPillow.com and use the promo code Rudy.
Welcome back.
So as we now face the situation of Russia having, several years ago, invaded Ukraine, taking Crimea, asserting control over a good deal of the Donbass, which is the area of Ukraine that they invaded.
And then now it seems as if, much like they did in Georgia, Much like they did in the eastern portions of Ukraine, slowly but surely, it looks like they want to take over even more territory in both Ukraine and maybe similar ambitions in China and even in North America.
But we're focused on Ukraine.
So 2014, Mr. Yanukovych, who was the pro-Russian oligarch and leader of the government, fled to Russia, where he's being taken care of and being allowed to live out whatever remains of his life.
When he left, it led to a carnage, really, Major proportions, and it really flipped opinion.
All of a sudden, even in the former pro-Russian areas of Ukraine, people were cheering, glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes.
And now when you take a poll, which is not the best way to resolve it, but it'll give you an idea of the sentiment of the people, If you do a poll, it's, you know, vast majority wants an independent Russian, separate from Russia, both government and church.
Because they see it as that was the original Originally was Kievan Rus, established Christianity there, was established there for quite some time before it was established in Russia, and their knowledge and history with that church is much, much greater.
So it's going to be very hard to eliminate that church.
Plus, there's nothing that forces any of the parties to come together or to recognize any of these things.
So the United States has not recognized, in a legal sense, the situation that exists in Ukraine.
It's still something being evaluated.
So the situation in Ukraine right now is Russia surely controls Crimea.
Russia has fairly strong control of Donbass, which is the area of eastern Ukraine.
It's basically over here that borders on Russia, and it's pro-Russian, as you might imagine.
Here is the city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv is one of the One of the far, or maybe a better way to put it, Karkev is on the point of the sphere, because it's right next to Russia, and if you're going to invade, as they did, Karkev is one of the first targets.
Now, all of this area that we're looking at, where we see Donetsk and Dnipro, Poltava, These areas were pro-Russian.
They've turned.
Those areas are now pro-independent country.
Now, it's going to be very, very hard to get Russia to accept that.
Russia wants to reestablish its hegemony.
It wants to reestablish its influence over what used to be Russian republics.
Now, their history going back before that, they were not Russian republics.
That's why we spent so much time on Ukraine, to show you that Ukraine had a very independent development.
But that doesn't matter because it's their view that all this area of Russia,
particularly that gets you to the sea here, should belong to, should belong to,
the legit, they would regard as the legitimate Ukraine, which is part of Russia.
The real goal, ultimately, of course, would be to take all of Ukraine, particularly Kyiv, where,
at least a geographical claim for the introduction of Christianity can be made.
That, um, Thank you.
That would be a very, very big step if they were to give up their ambitions for broader than Crimea and the Donbass.
So where are we and how do we resolve it?
The demands that were made by Putin were made for the purpose of testing how far you could push Biden.
And the The demands are that he wants those areas under Russian control.
He wants Donbass and he wants Crimea and the oil and the capacity there for wealth.
He wants that integrated under Russia.
Eliminate Ukrainian nationality and Ukrainian religion in that part of Ukraine and have them speak Russian and be trained as Russians.
Ten years ago that probably would have commanded a majority of people in Donbass and places like that.
Today it does not because of the brutality of the Russian soldiers when they moved in to accomplish Taking Odessa, taking Donbass, and it's been continuous war since then.
I've been there on several occasions.
I've never been there at a period of time in which some form of warfare wasn't going on.
It's different than in Israel because it's a little bit more sporadic, but it's just as dramatic and it's just as Just as difficult to find an easy solution to it, because it is mired so much in this history that goes back to, well, I mean, some would say goes back right to God, and how God wanted these countries organized.
The best way to separate out the religious part from the rest of it is to really become knowledgeable about the history of Ukraine, so we can see how far we can take it in terms of a further explanation and what will eventually resolve this.
The resolution that would resolve it for now is to give Russia what it wants, which may include something less Broad than Crimea, Donbass, the whole thing.
It might involve giving them kind of a sphere of influence in which the decisions about Ukraine and some of these other countries, in the first instance, I think that could be done.
That would become a separate issue.
by what really would be the Soviet Politburo.
That I think would be an acceptable—I think that could be done.
That would become a separate issue.
So as the discussions go on, there's no real structure to them in the sense that Russia
has said they want it crystal clear that these what they call separatist states not be allowed
to join a prefixed, already put together alliance, that it should develop—it should be developed
Thank you.
By democratic principles, over a period of time, as people get to know people and realize who do they want to negotiate for, where people are going to live, what it's going to be called, who it's going to be subjected to, and most importantly, in a place where the children can be safe, people can be safe.
So this has been going on for quite some time and of course it hasn't worked and there have been casualties and in steps Zelensky and says he wants this resolved and he wants it resolved now so he can go to the U.N.
and this weekend this weekend We will get a chance to talk to him and see, hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to him and see what their goal is now.
But we've gotten up to the point of, we've come perilously close to war.
When you have Russian troops, at least 100,000, all ready to go over the border, And you have Russian military flights sent over their territory.
I don't know.
It doesn't sound like there's much of a change that's taken place.
It looks like really what Russia wants to do is push it back and then gain as much as it can and take advantage of the confusion within the Biden administration.
Here's my suggestion temporarily for an answer to this, and that is not to resolve it.
Not to come to a resolution right now.
Try to leave it that this is the structure that we want, and at the same time, you know, they have a structure they want, and we'll continue to talk about it.
Because I think to try to resolve it under a Biden administration would be a disaster for the United States.
I mean, I don't want to get terribly picky about how terrible he's been in the negotiation of this, but right on day one, he gave up the possibility of military forces being used.
Now, he may or may not use military forces.
It may or may not be a good idea to do that.
You sure want that on the table.
You sure want that something that has to be considered.
You sure want That to be in the minds of the Russians as they become more and more aggressive.
And that was, again, another critical error by a president who seems to have no ability to deal with foreign policy.
So between now and the next meeting, we're going to have to get a lot tougher on that.
And we have to decide how important is this to us?
There's a lot to think about here and we will stay on top of it.
And please, if you have questions about this or observations, many of you know as much or more about Ukraine as I do and I'm sure have excellent observations about it.
So please contact me and let me know so that we can discuss it.
This is extraordinarily important and it does have a bearing on China and where China comes out on all of this.
So this is something we're going to have to continue to discuss.
We have to continue to look at and we may get some surprises along the way.
So thank you very, very much for tuning in and thank you very much for going through this because I think, you know, we have to go through this once to really put it in particular, particularly in context because it is an important part of the decision making.
▲
Export Selection