Black Sea Face Off: Is Ukraine Provoking War With Russia?
The Russian seizure of two Ukrainian warships sailing through the Kerch Strait has flared up tensions almost to the point of war. Are special interests pushing Ukraine to provoke Russia? Is Kiev operating all on its own? Are Washington neocon fingerprints on this little operation? Will it spin out of control?
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The Russian seizure of two Ukrainian warships sailing through the Kerch Strait has flared up tensions almost to the point of war. Are special interests pushing Ukraine to provoke Russia? Is Kiev operating all on its own? Are Washington neocon fingerprints on this little operation? Will it spin out of control?
Please consider a tax-deductible donation to the Ron Paul Institute this #GivingTuesday to keep the Liberty Report alive! Donate securely here: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/support/
The Russian seizure of two Ukrainian warships sailing through the Kerch Strait has flared up tensions almost to the point of war. Are special interests pushing Ukraine to provoke Russia? Is Kiev operating all on its own? Are Washington neocon fingerprints on this little operation? Will it spin out of control?
Please consider a tax-deductible donation to the Ron Paul Institute this #GivingTuesday to keep the Liberty Report alive! Donate securely here: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/support/
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to our program.
How are you this morning, Dr. Paul?
Very well, and you are calling in from way out west someplace, but I'm glad we found you and that you're on the show today because there are important things going on here, and you're the expert on all this foreign policy.
But what I'd like to talk about and follow up on, actually, is happening over a conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
And that has to do with the straits between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Very, very crucial political and strategic area.
And there's been a naval conflict there, and there's a lot of blame going on.
But this whole area has been of interest to us because we've talked about it, especially since there was a coup that occurred in 2014.
And that is a coup that we learned a lot about and who actually planned it.
And believe it or not, Daniel, there were some people planning and interfering in that election, got involved in a coup and threw out the elected leader.
And it turns out that the evidence is very loud and clear that our U.S. State Department representative, along with our ambassador, Victoria Newland and Jeffrey Pyatt, were very much involved.
And they were caught in a conversation admitting that they were picking the next leader.
And of course, that turned out to be Poroshenko.
And he's very much in the news dealing with this naval problem going on right now because it's understood now that the coup and the political arrangement in Ukraine is not exactly the smoothest things in the world.
And some people are saying, well, you know, this is a provocation by Ukraine, looking for trouble.
And they're getting a lot of support around the world because Russia's the bad guy.
And therefore, that is happening.
But right now, it's sort of in limbo because the event occurred here just a couple days ago, but it's ongoing because there's been some ships taken by the Russians and people, naval people arrested, and of course the piling on going on.
So it's a big political event.
Could be a military event that gets out of control.
But right now, there's a lot of argument going on who's to blame and what's happening and what's going to happen to the gas supplies and these pipelines that leave Russia and go into Europe.
Yeah, and this was a real dust-up that happened a couple of days ago, as you point out.
There were a couple of Ukrainian military gunships, and they were accompanied by a tugboat, and they were attempting to go through the straits, the Kerch Strait, which, as you know, Dr. Paul, the Russians have recently built a bridge connecting Crimea, which voted to rejoin Russia after the U.S. coup, to go through that strait and under that bridge without notifying Russia, which it's required to do under a treaty signed about 10 years ago or so.
And so the Russians intercepted the vessels.
They refused to stop.
They refused to be boarded, so the Russians actually fired on them, and they seized the vessels.
And this has been seized by the Ukrainian side as a real chance to ramp things up.
And as you point out, this has a lot to do with domestic Ukrainian politics.
It has to do with the continuing Western propaganda war against Russia with pipelines, a lot of other things.
But, Dr. Paul, this could really heat up, and it looks like it really is heating up.
Yeah, and just recently, again, it's a pipeline where they, you know, the Russians had pipelines going through Ukraine, and NATO and United States and Ukrainians wanted the monopoly of this gas that they can control all the gas leaving Russia.
But just recently now, there's been clearing of the plan for a South Stream pipeline because the Turks and the Russians are talking about this.
And this would still be gas for the Europeans.
So the Europeans, once again, you know, are in a position where how are they going to satisfy the United States and NATO and everybody else at the same time take care of the natural advantages that Russia can provide?
And there are some who believe that this is partially designed, you know, to try to break this up.
And if there's more sanctions and more antagonism toward Russia, this might dampen the efforts to move South Stream along.
So money's involved, oil's involved, and there's a lot of other things.
And then there, and then there's the politics of it all, because believe me, they have chimed in.
I was fascinated with, and not surprised, but I was sort of fascinated with the British, of course.
They came and they said, well, you know, we had 17 Austin Russia jets buzzing one of our ships.
And they brought out the video just yesterday, or yeah, the day before, they brought out this video showing how bad the Russians were.
But at the very end, like a footnote of an article that was reporting this, oh, this dramatic video is from May of this year.
So it's months and months old.
And it was portrayed that they were doing this in the Black Sea, right near the Straits.
And therefore, it was more popular.
The IMF, of course, they're not going to hesitate.
They're going to keep giving Ukraine the money.
But the UN had to chime in.
And you're probably very much aware, Daniel, of our friend, our ambassador, but she's leaving.
So I'm hoping something has improved.
But Haley had to chime in and tell us what her opinion was.
Yeah, she, as usual, made her big stink on the floor of the UN Security Council.
But the big question is, why now?
Why all of a sudden would Ukraine, with this festering wound in eastern Ukraine after the coup, why would it choose now to escalate?
Why would this thing escalate now?
And I think you're right.
The pipeline is long simmering, and the U.S. and the West, especially the U.S., is very upset about the Nord Stream too.
But I think there are a couple of other factors, Dr. Paul, that kind of help us answer the question, why now?
Why all of a sudden?
And one of them, as you know, is a planned meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 summit soon.
And I think there have been a lot of efforts.
You remember last time he had a summit with Putin.
There were a lot of efforts just before that to sour relations, to sour things, so that that didn't take place.
And I think that has something to do with it.
I think Poroshenko may have been put up by the neocons to do something like this.
But the other thing is domestic Ukrainian politics.
There's a presidential election coming up in March.
Poor old Poroshenko, his approval rating is 8%.
So he's down there with the U.S. Congress.
And so in response to a couple of their boats getting bumped by the Russians, he's declared martial law and he's canceled the election.
So that's pretty convenient.
Right.
You know, there's been articles recording the different comments made.
And the president came up.
Now, the liberal media, the conventional media, they would mention that it came up, and if they had been talking to Trump on any other issue, the big point was, and he didn't even mention anything.
He did not pile on at this particular time, you know, on Russia for doing this.
So he's torn because sometimes when he puts the sanctions on, we don't think that's such a good idea.
But I think he also has a desire to get along a lot more with Russia than a lot of other people, you know, our so-called allies, you know, and NATO and this group of people.
So it's just a shame that we have this internationalism.
We have to have the United Nations and the IMF dealing with all this and building all this animosity instead of, you know, several nations who live close together just working things out.
I mean, it's a fantastic deal.
The communist system ended.
The Soviets are gone.
The Russians were moving along and becoming entrepreneurs.
And they had raw materials and they had customers.
It would benefit the Russians in peaceful relations with the European countries.
But even the European countries, those who want to have NATO and these other groups, they are the ones that lose on the long end.
So it's just to me so sad that they go in this direction because quite frankly, as long as you have the UN and NATO and all this grandstanding going on, and IMF and the Europeans now talking about armies, it's not going to work if it were just more commercial and more voluntarism and more respect for each other rather than beating the drums.
And the people who are most guilty of this are the people who belong in the category of neoconservative.
It seems like they're obsessed with it.
They go out of their way to do this, and they do want to provoke.
So it may be the Ukrainian government now provoking, but believe me, I imagine the neocons are cheering them on.
No, absolutely.
And you can bet that John Bolton is over there whispering or yelling in President Trump's ear.
But it's also groups like the Atlantic Council, which we talk about a lot, Dr. Paul, who are paid by NATO.
They pose as kind of an objective think tank, but they put out the most absurd paper the other day.
I think it was yesterday.
They said that we should send warships into the Sea of Azov in response, which, of course, for a number of reasons is absurd.
First of all, because the Sea of Azov is too shallow.
We couldn't even get in there with our warships if we wanted to.
Second of all, do they really want us to have a nuclear war over the fact that Russia bumped a couple of Ukrainian gunboats?
You know, it's just absurd.
Yeah, and I think that the military stuff gets the news, and it's very, very important.
I'm always worried about it getting out of control.
But right now, I don't think the Ukrainians, even with all their threats, I was sort of chuckling a little bit, the Ukrainians threatening Russia, you know, that they better watch out.
You know, we're not going to put up with this.
But they also have their angle, but I think it was all established, you know, especially since the coup and putting in Poroshenko.
And now it just may be a good idea if they could have an election there.
Maybe he could be de-elected, you know, get rid of him by election.
But who knows how responsible these elections would be.
Because if we were involved before and picked and choose, it could happen again someplace.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you could say maybe did the Russians overreact?
But I think, you know, it's interesting.
You wonder if the Ukrainians felt like they were doing Washington's bidding because there have been a couple of things.
And in fact, there have been a couple of editorials in Western newspapers, and there was one just in May in the Washington Examiner.
The headline is: Ukraine should blow up Putin's Crimea Bridge.
So these U.S. mainstream papers openly calling for terrorism and blowing up the bridge.
I don't think it should be any surprise that the Russians are concerned when Ukrainian gunboats approach that bridge.
You know, I think it's, you know, we probably, I'm certain we would do the exact same thing.
Yeah, and this is a major undertaking.
Just looking at what they did in that bridge is fantastic, but I can also see why somebody might want to blow it up.
Although I say that it doesn't look like there are going to be troops marching against other over there.
You know, something like sabotage or something or doing something like that, I guess, is a real problem.
But anyway, this to me is a reflection of bad policy on our part, bad policy by all the neocons and the IMF and the United Nations and all.
So I hope it simmers down.
Maybe by the time they have the elections, it'll simmer down and maybe somebody will wake up and say that, you know, economic interests are best served by allowing people to do what's best for each person, each country voluntarily.
And there's enough to go around, except when people become authoritarians and think they have to be boss.
Grateful Support on Giving Tuesday00:01:02
So I just think that this could amount to something rather serious.
But Daniel, why don't you go ahead and close out?
I would just close by thanking our listeners and viewers of the Ron Paul Liberty Report and supporters of the Ron Paul Institute.
I would just remind our viewers and listeners that this is Giving Tuesday.
This is a day that's been designated for those who want to help out nonprofit organizations that they think are making a difference.
And I would like to humbly appeal, Dr. Paul, and I would like to humbly appeal: if you think this program that we do, if you value the conferences and other things that the Ron Paul Institute does, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Ron Paul Institute today.
You can very easily do it by going to ronpaulinstitute.org/slash support on this Giving Tuesday.
And we are so grateful for your support.
Very good, Daniel.
And I want to thank our listeners for tuning in today.
And we will be watching this area carefully as we have been.