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reSee.it AI Summary
In my discussion with Mykola Azarov, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, I delve into his insights on the Ukraine conflict's root causes and potential resolutions. Azarov, who served under President Yanukovych until the 2014 Maidan coup, shares his perspective on the situation since relocating to Russia. We explore the complexities of the conflict and consider what a future for Ukraine might entail once the fighting concludes.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Mr. Prime Minister: Ukraine through the eyes of Mykola Azarov Mykola Yanovych Azarov served Ukraine in a number of high-level positions, including as Prime Minister of Ukraine under President Viktor Yanukovych from 2010 until the Maidan coup of January 2014. Azarov resigned from his position in January 2014 and moved to Russia, where he has been working on a political solution for Ukraine. In this interview I explore issues that touch on the root causes of the Ukraine conflict, as well as what a potential path forward could look like for Ukraine once the fighting ends.
Video Transcript AI Summary
Azarov cofounded the National Unity Club in Moscow to promote peace and prevent nuclear war; he says it is not a state organization and is open to like-minded people worldwide. The club seeks to mobilize public will to pressure governments toward peace rather than war. He contends Western involvement in Ukraine predates 2014, citing 'American Special Forces and the embassy actively were getting inside into the internal business of Ukraine' and that 'USAID' funded groups that led anti-Russia propaganda. He argues Maidan began earlier than 2014, and that Western policy created an anti-Russia regime that damaged Ukraine's economy and industry, leaving 'Over 9,000,000 of citizens, they're under poverty line'. For peace, he calls for changing power, demilitarization, denazification, and a neutral Ukraine with an equal partnership with the EU and Russia; he envisions Trump-Putin-led talks and urges Americans to engage to understand Ukraine's reality.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome to this special edition of the Russia House. I'm sitting here in Moscow in the headquarters of Itar Tas. I'm here because of the work of the National Unity Club. They are my hosts here in Russia, and they help facilitating these very valuable conversations. And today, I have an extremely valuable conversation.
I'm gonna be speaking with Mikola Yanovich Azarov. He's not just the former prime minister of Ukraine, and I hope that at some point in time, we will talk about Ukraine, but he's also the cofounder of the National Unity Club. And that's what I wanted to start with. Sir, could you tell an American audience what is the National Unity Club? Why why was it brought together?
What purpose does it serve?
Speaker 1: I'm glad to greet you here. Mister Ritter here in Moscow, I want to wish you best days here to find out more about this country. And get to know a lot of people. The club of the nation's unity is created because the world has a quite a situation. All different calls for military conflicts are being made.
The people forgot about the danger of nuclear war and the main of this nation's unity is to organize a fight for peace. We cannot allow the humanity to go to the nuclear war because it's a catastrophe. And I was born after new World War two. I know what it is war. I know the circumstances after the war for the nations of the Soviet Union.
I understand what happens, and I understand that next war for the whole world would be very dangerous. And this topic is very, very, very important for all the nations. And if today, in this conversation, we've taken this topic, this topic will have a have an answer or have a calling in the hearts of many Americans.
Speaker 0: Now when Americans hear National Unity Club, they think of an informal organization or an an an organization that works outside of the framework of government. But this National Unity Club actually has governmental involvement, meaning that when you meet and you discuss, it isn't just a discussion among academics. It's a discussion that actually resonates and has the potential to influence policy. This makes the National Unity Club extremely important. Am I correct in my assessment?
Speaker 1: Not not really. Not really. Because we're not a state organization. And we don't want people take us as a government state organization. We wanted to show a dream of all our nations to live in peace.
You know, we really didn't have much opportunities to do that, many opportunities to do that. If you look at our history, it's a total war all throughout. But we want just a few generations would be surviving and living without military, without war. And not as much we hope for some states or government officials, but as much as we hope for the will of people, regular people, that the will of people will make their governments to build peace, have partnership. I am working many years in Ukraine and I saw how our country was pushed for the huge conflict with Russia.
Over ten years, I live outside of Ukraine. And I am watching of what is taking place there in Ukraine. I cannot be silent. It's a western politics that are pushing Ukrainian people for war to war with Russia. And this problem is deeply is deeply in my heart.
It disturbs me. It's not a problem of two nations, Ukraine and Russia. It's a problem of the world. Because the conflict in Ukraine can possibly go to the world conflict. I can see that.
I can feel it as a state worker. I understand that. And this is why we're here together discussing this topic and carry to the hearts of people.
Speaker 0: Well, again, I wanna thank you for your work in creating the National Unity Club. Just real quick, is this a club that's only open to people from Russia, from the Russian circle? I'm an American. Can my fellow Americans join the club, work with the club? Can people from around the world come and work with this club?
Speaker 1: We certainly invite you to join the club, not just you. All the people that think just like you do, the same minded people. You know, I remember in the seventies of the previous century when the movement for peace was for all nations where top politicians, scientists were united, the representatives, the elite of the arts. I remember those movements and I remember how this movement brought the state of The US and USSR for such a political discernment. Then the tendency, that's what we spoke about for peace.
And the falling apart of the Soviet Union has changed the tendency and brought to the domination of one country, one state, and, war politics became dependent mainly onto the politics of one country. And if that politics would be of the military complex, then it would lead to the military conflict conflicts. This is why you fairly notice that we're open. We have no frames that are limiting us.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you for that. I have I have a question now that deals with your resume. You were the prime minister of Ukraine from 2012 to 2014 under president Viktor Yanukovych. We tend to view in the West, at least, the conflict in Ukraine as beginning in 2014 with the Maidan. And we forget that there was a long history before that, a history of the West seeking to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, use Ukraine, as a tool against Russia.
So my question to you is a hypothetical question. If there had been no Maidan and prime minister Azarov could have stayed in power past 02/2014, was this war inevitable? Would we have had this war no matter what, or could president Yanukovych, prime minister Azarov work to keep Ukraine out of a conflict from becoming a proxy of the West? I
Speaker 1: speak one way only. If our government would continue to work, there would be no conflict between Russia, Ukraine ever. And now let me speak in details. I want to say that American Special Forces and the embassy actively were getting inside into the internal business of Ukraine and not just in the times of Las Maidan, but practically from the moment, the day nineties when Ukraine got the independency. You named the short period when I was a prime minister.
You know, just two years or whatsoever but from nineties, I was a deputy. The taking a minister position. Vice premier, I took high positions in the government of Ukraine and in the state and I know exactly what I'm talking about. I am facing we were facing in such a harsh economical crisis of nineties. With that, our politics, all the western countries were influencing it.
Of course, definitely United States were the number one. In a country we had American agency with the name USAID, now mister Trump liquidated that. I will say direct. This agency did not do any works or activities with the economical development of Ukraine. It declared it, but these were only words.
What they did were creating funds, organizations that would lead anti Russia propaganda, that led to propaganda against socialism. They were creating such levels of society that were targeted for a conflict situation. And the first Maidan took place not in 2014. The first attempt for the revolution was taken in February. Fourteen years prior to that, there was a movement that Ukraine without Kuchma.
Kuchma was then a president and quite a loyal person for the politics policy of United States. He put a pro western person Yushin as a head of the government That was the end of 1999. And then they had an open attempts of nationalism, changing the history, historical memory And in 02/2004, Americans, absolutely, it was Americans that developed the first Maidan and this orange revolution, as we call it, of 02/2004. It took place exactly after Serbian conflict and Kyrgyzia conflict and Georgia conflict. It wasn't really the first one in the post Soviet territories, but it brought that the legally voted elected president was taken off the power with an illegal third tour.
This pro western mister Yushenka came. He to nexus Bandera. Stepan Bandera as a position of the hero of Ukraine and it was open, rough, propaganda of anti Russian views. Due to economical failures, we were able to win the election in 2010 and get back to power. We cancelled the order about giving a hero of Ukraine but to Bandera because really he really directly worked with Hitler, and the movement that he was ahead of was given by the Valensky Valensky fight.
It's a Ukrainian and Polish tragedy.
Speaker 0: And
Speaker 1: the politics that took place after that coup, coup, it was based only on animosity against Russia and Russian nation. We forbid Russian language. Just think about it. The country that has over half of its citizens that speak in Russian language and even more, I think more, They couldn't speak Russian. The Russian was forbidden, all political parties were forbidden that was supporting friendship with Russia.
And I want to notice for Americans, especially if somebody would listen to me, that Ukrainian has over 50% of relatives living in Russia. 50% of the population of Ukraine have relatives in Russia. And Russia has huge number of relatives, you know, Russian citizens that have relatives in Ukraine. We were so mixed. It's hard to separate two nations ever.
And during our government, a lot of people says, how come you were not fighting nationalism? Definitely, we were fighting against it. But we were looking at the task of how to raise the economy of Ukraine. We had certain results. We increased them economical and trading connections with Russian.
We had turnover in products of $50,000,000,000 We were the most the biggest partner in trading partner in Russia and a relationship of partnership. They were of a high importance for us. So that did not exclude our trading with America or European Union. But still our major market, major resources were in Russia. So we have seen that this work of preparation of such ready for extremist the divisions for extremist for terroristic events that were special forces created, they were they brought to revolution.
Let's just ask a simple question. What did Ukraine win from this coup? The nation of Ukraine cut down two and half times. We had over 45,000,000 people there, citizen. Now, 20,000,000.
Speaker 0: Industry.
Speaker 1: Industry. Many times went down. Electricity, the industry and electricity, it cut down five times. Over 9,000,000 of citizens, they're under poverty line. The demographics is very bad.
More times, three times people more die than they've been born. The Ukraine is at the stage of disappearance. So what I wanna say is that definitely the responsibility of what took place is also on the shoulders of Ukrainian politicians, but more more. I would put it on a West on a special forces, the Obama Biden politics policies that brought to creation of anti Russian regime. They created anti Russia, and they brought it to the military conflict.
So when when president Trump came to power, I took it with a certain hope, hope that Trump would understand the main reason is revolution. It's anti Russian policies that created create trying to create a defeat of Russia. If we will make changes in a political regime of Ukraine and brought to and brought to power that would be neutral to Russian Federation, but it's better of a regular work, of a regular partnership, then the roots of the conflict will be liquidated and the peace would be established. But
Speaker 0: is neutrality really where Ukraine needs to be? And I ask that because neutrality implies that Ukraine can choose to economically align with the European Union or with Russia or with both. But if I go back to the Maidan in 02/2014, it was that very decision. Which direction should Ukraine go? To the European Union, to Russia?
And in 02/2013, when Viktor Yanukovych said, we will go to Russia, it created the unrest that the West took took advantage of. Isn't the European Union part of the problem? Isn't this association with the West part of the problem? Shouldn't the solution to Ukraine be not a neutral Ukraine but a pro Russia Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Scott. No. No. No. No.
It's a wrong the wrong way how you phrased the question.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 1: Why wrong? Because partnership has to be equal. And if between us and the European Union there would be a treaty about partnership at association European and it would look into the opening markets of Ukraine for European products and closing the markets of Ukraine for European Union. That's not equal. And we could not agree to it.
For example, our major export product is agrarian, right? That's agriculture. European Union forbid to export our agricultural products, put quotas on. We were allowed only to deliver only 20,000 tons of grain, wheat to European, but we produced 30,000,000 tons. We were allowed to supply to European Union 2,000 tons of meat, and we were producing 500,000 tons of meat.
I keep go I can keep I can keep going. We produced a lot of industrial products,
Speaker 0: which
Speaker 1: on a technical standards, did not fill in with the standards with the European Union. So, therefore, we could not deliver there on the market of the European Union. So UAE was lying that we open up our borders, but you have to supply your products according our standards, according to our regulation. We I told them we have to redo whole economics, whole industry for that. We have to have credits for that.
We have to have time for that, and we got answers. No credits. Just sign and that's it. If you don't sign, others, another prime minister would minister then the Barroza Barroza told it directly to a hero as when he was in in in power. At the same time, Russian markets, post Soviet markets.
They're natural markets to us. We had the same economy. We produced our economy under one standard. You know, Soviet Union had all one standardized standard, unified. We didn't have any quarters, you know, whether Russia we had a free zone, free trading zone.
We could deliver whatever we wanted. All products without courts, without limitations, and ask a question. I am a prime minister. If we sign the contract with association with EU, with the free trade with EU. Then Russia closing their free zone.
Speaker 0: So
Speaker 1: we closed the big market of Russia for us. And not really open the EU market with the regulations to. You understand? I would be a thief. I would be a betrayal of of Ukraine and and we said no.
Till we are going over the contract and change it some, we're not going to sign it but that event was not a reason. It was a it's for the special forces to use that event to move and situation. And at the meetings they put together, they we refused from signing this agreement, which means that you will not receive European pensions. You will not get European salaries. And I was speaking, giving speeches that even if we sign this trading, we still not get those European pensions and salaries because we have to earn them.
We have to have a production labor just like in Europe. Then we can cover up in race to European level standard salaries. We have to work on economy. It will take time. So all this was just a reason.
But, you know, we had information about the revolution. We were getting that information. And our biggest mistake that we did not choke it when it was yet in a preform. We had to do it and not pay attention to all the American visitors. We had then preparation for Maidan.
We had a lot of people from America coming, from Western countries. They didn't feel ashamed doing that coming, giving instructions, giving make sure and and mainly give money. Victoria Nun said that for my dad, we gave $5,000,000,000.
Speaker 0: Fast forward to today. We have our leaders meeting in Alaska speaking about the possibility of peace. That includes Ukraine. What does peace in Ukraine look like? President Putin has described certain prerequisites that need to be met in order for there to be peace.
He says there can't be peace unless the root causes of the conflict have been resolved. Among these are demilitarization to reduce the size of the Ukraine military, to remove the NATO presence. Another one is denazification, to eliminate the ideology of radical Ukrainian nationalism, Stepan Bodera. But there's other problems as well. The war has destroyed Ukrainian industry, and what remains of Ukrainian industry has totally been redirected towards the West.
If this peace comes with compromises that leave Ukraine the way it is, does that solve the problem? What needs to happen in Ukraine today so that it can exist in the state of peace with Russia?
Speaker 1: First of all, the power has to change at all levels. The level of the president, parliament, government, the level of judicial system, military, the country has to go to the constitution and those democratic norms that they had before the revolution. There will be no peace until the country is led by bandits, corrupted bandits that are by created by Zelensky in his power. In the nearest time, I think the world will see that it's a totally fully corrupted regime that they don't feel anything for their nation, for anything for their country. This regime was created on purpose artificially by Western Special Forces, administration of Obama and Biden in their time to not definitely to develop Ukraine, but to fight Russia.
Till we change the power, till we change the political regime, till we take away all the people from Nazism. That's number one. And from there, we have dematerialization and economy, economical reforms. You're 100% right. Economy of Ukraine is totally destroyed.
You're right. And it's surviving because of the financial help from the West. I don't know if the foreign taxpayers, American taxpayers, do they know or European taxpayers that what are the money that have been taken from their pockets that are given to the sold out Kyiv regime? Over 350,000,000,000. For this money, you could have built new Ukraine.
Modernize the industry, invest into the new technologies, and to do a lot of things. What was done? First of all, definitely most of the money has been stolen. And this money was used to destroy Ukraine. They killed a lot of citizens of Ukraine.
And you asked me what to do next. If the regular normal government would come in, they'll find a possibility to restore Ukraine. Ukraine has something that Ethiopia doesn't have. That's the soil. Fantastic soil.
Wealthy soil. It's a great climate. Agriculture can be a source of development of Ukraine. Even not looking at the nation of Ukraine cutting down the two and a half times. Still there's a lot of talented people, educated people.
They're able to restore Ukraine. We still have a lot of foundations from the Soviet Union, technical schools, scientific schools. It's a base for development, completely different technological level and stage. So Ukrainian people, they need peace, and they need good policy, good power. It it should be neutral as it comes out from the declaration about the state sovereignty because Ukraine was created based on a declaration of the sovereignty.
And one of the major points that was that Ukraine is not blocked, not a block, but democratic social state. We need to get back to it. And peaceful Ukraine will develop.
Speaker 0: When we speak of political change, though, where is it gonna come from? Zelensky is a product of the West. He is corrupt as the day is long. I don't mean to be insulting, but the truth is the truth. The West speaks of replacing Zelensky, but they named Zeluzhny, a former general who is as corrupt as Zelensky is.
Who in Ukraine today can lead? They're all the same people. You were not just a former prime minister, but you know the Ukrainian system better than anybody else. You know the complexities of Ukraine. You know the reality of Ukraine.
And most importantly, you know what Ukraine needs to be and where it needs to go. Am I speaking to a future president of Ukraine? Scott,
Speaker 1: let's drop this topic. We're not just discussing. Let's get back to the topic how to provide the peace in Ukraine. And to provide the peace in Ukraine, only two leaders can, president of United States president Trump and president Putin president of Russia. Both mister Putin and mister Trump are interested in a peaceful I feel it.
I am sure about that. And they have to find that language, that discussion. I do believe that this first meeting, it would be it wouldn't be a breakthrough meeting, but definitely would be a first step towards the right direction. And a direction must be one. Together together in agreement, change the power in Ukraine, establish normal political regime that would be loyal to Russia and to America.
And it would be to Russia and to America. Ukrainian nation will say thank you because they have freed them from this Nazis Nazis regime. I think that president Trump needs to comprehend it, that he's got a great responsibility on his shoulders. He definitely will have a lot of circumstances on his way, Mertz, Stars, Macron's, they will be against because the anti Trump team. These people I called you, these are the product of the epoch from Obama and Biden policies.
These liberalism movement of those principles that America's state was pulling even before Obama. So when Trump comes to power, it gave great hope that there could be peace not only Ukraine, but in the whole world. I really do want to desire to believe that I I will help at a maximum level. Whatever depends on me, I will help. And you don't need to break your head who would be the president.
What's important is that president should not be a Nazi. That's the point. That's what's important. That this position will be taken by the patriot of Ukraine. And Ukrainian patriot would think what how not to kill the country, but but instead how to bring it back, how to give it a development, and how to give that peace, and that's not the territory.
Now we are asking just a simple question, what does Ukrainian soldiers fighting for? What are they fighting for? For Zelensky regime, the country is in debt, the country is destroyed, There's no perspectives of development. What are you fighting for?
Speaker 0: That's a question only the Ukrainian soldier can answer. Hopefully, someday, he'll be given a chance to answer that question. Hopefully, the war will end. Hopefully, the peace will break out. But let's say, hypothetically, that president Trump and president Putin reach an agreement, and we have peace.
For your side, you're ready. You're prepared. You have the National Unity Club. You have discussed this issue. You have people ready to help.
In America, we're not ready for peace. First of all, our allies in Europe don't want peace. They continue to want to support the nationalists in Ukraine. That's a big problem for president Trump. But the biggest problem is the ignorance of the American people about this situation in Ukraine.
For some reason, we don't care about the Ukrainian soldier who we give weapons to and we pay and and such. We're willing to let Ukraine fight to the last Ukrainian, to let every Ukrainian soldier die because we don't understand the truth about this. So now we come full circle back to the National Unity Club. You have a very important job ahead of you. It's not just about working within Russia.
When I asked about bringing in outside people, it's not a request. It's a demand. You have to bring in Americans. You have to work to bring Americans in so that we understand the realities of these problems, the complexities of these problems so that we can work together in concert with you, you helping your president, we helping our president to make this dream of peace a reality. So that's my request to you.
No. My demand of you, please open up the work of the National Unity Club so that Americans can be informed. Knowledge is power, and America today is ignorant. Help empower with knowledge about the reality of Ukraine and the necessity of peace. That's I plead to you.
Speaker 1: I 100% agree with you. We are weekly promoting. We don't have many opportunities to move the truth, to push the truth that's taken place in Ukraine. Tens of thousands of political prisoners there killed. Christian confession of Ukrainian Orthodox Church is just being destroyed totally.
They take priests to the army. Other priests are taken to jail. There is no freedom of speech at all. All opposition, journals, magazines, political parties, they're closed. Nobody knows about that.
All my attempts to public publish something in a western mass media, they just total forbidden. It's totally blocked. Everything the same happens in America. I always thought that America is a great country. It's a huge country with great possibilities.
And, you know, I'm not naive that I'm speaking about that Trump and Putin can establish peace in Ukraine. I know the possibilities of all of America. They're they're they're big. And president Trump, I can I can not choose another word, but make all the European servants of America will follow Trump's policies If he puts together all his strength and have that policy, he really needs help and not put obstacles on his way? And the unity of two leaders like mister Putin and mister Trump would allow even actually wake Europe up.
Know? Europe is not so good as we think or as we're told it is. And demilitarization of Europe, it would not bring anything good. Look. Answering I answering your question, I 100% agree.
We have to have a wide scope of explanations to give to Americans also in Russia, but not just in Russia, but step by step, I'm sure that the mood of the Ukrainian people would also change and swing too for sure because always Ukrainian people and Russian people, they were friends, brothers. They were always living together. Let me emphasize that hundreds of years. But let's surpass this stage of being enemies that was planted on purpose. This is not a true Ukrainian quality.
This is what was sown into their mentality and hearts and let's get back to normal development. We're really hoping for positive results between Russia and US in this direction. You can ask me a fair question. Well, come Ukrainians on their own cannot bring the order in their country? And I answer you that.
In the regime that they have now, it reminds of a Hitler's regime. Think about it. During the Hitler's times, any political power would fight against Hitler. There was none. Not.
Probably not. The same thing is taking place in Ukraine right now. When everybody totally all opposition politicians either killed, murdered, or outside of the country or in jail.
Speaker 0: This is a very difficult question, a very difficult problem, but it's important work, and this work must be done. We've done here today is begin this work. This conversation we have is being seen by Americans. Hopefully, it'll prompt Americans to think, but we can't stop here. We must continue our work.
I wanna thank you for coming on today, having this conversation, and beginning this important work. We're on a journey, a journey to peace. Today, we're taking the first step. Let's continue this journey together. Former prime minister, Rizawa, thank you very much.
I'd like to offer as just a token of my appreciation, a book. It's a book about the danger of nuclear war. You spoke about this at the beginning of our conversation, but it's also a book about the absolute importance of our countries working together to prevent nuclear war. It's about peace. So it's my gift to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I want to give you my book also, how Ukraine was developed and how revolution took place.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. I will encourage every American to read this book so they better understand the reality of Ukraine. Thank you very much. I see you, ma'am. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
reSee.it AI Summary
I explored the often-overlooked Russian perspective on veteran treatment through an interview with Franz Klintsevich, a special forces officer from the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan. He shared insights about his unit, "the Chameleons," and the broader societal issues veterans face.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
The Chameleon: Military insights from an Afghanistan veteran The Russian perspective is often missing from any broader conversation about issues that normally unite a diverse audience. In this interview, I delve into issues pertaining to how Russian society treats its veterans from a veteran of the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, Franz Klintsevich, a special forces officer who commanded a unit known as “the Chameleons”.
Video Transcript AI Summary
Franz Adamovich Klintsevich, Belarusian-Russian veteran, reserve colonel, and head of the Russian Union of Afghanistan and Special Military Operations Veterans, discusses veterans’ care in Russia. He states, "Over 10,000 people veterans of Afghan war." "They participate in a special military operation." He describes veteran-support networks, including "a warehouse where old women, retired women, they bring in some stuff for the soldiers, the socks." He warns that "the main objective that we have collective no. That the collective West has against Russia to defeat Russia." He notes that in 2022, "the most prepared military forces from Europe" fought in Ukraine, and cites that "the president of The United States made the decision that they would have a face to face meeting with the president of Russia." He references WWII suffering: "27,000,000 people who died." Talk ends with a pledge to friendship between veterans and that "we speak the language of soldiers."
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hello. Welcome to a special edition of the Russia house with Scott Ritter here in downtown Moscow in the headquarters of Itar Tas. I wanna thank the National Unity Club for helping put this together, and I wanna thank my guest today, Franz Adomovic Klintsevich. Thank you for being here. You know, when I look at you and I read your resume, it's like when I look in the mirror and read my resume.
We're two men of a certain age, but I read your resume and I imagine you as that young officer, a paratrooper in Afghanistan. You won not just one, but two orders of the Red Star. You're a hero, a man who has seen combat, and you're a man who has taken that experience out of the military into civilian life. You've represented Russian citizens as a member of the u United Russia party in the state Duma, where you are an advocate for veterans affairs. You defend those who have defended Russia.
There's nothing more honorable than that. You're a reserve colonel in the in the Russian army. The reason why I bring this up is that sometimes people when they watch interviews like this, they just see two old men. But we're not two old men. You're not an old man.
You're a veteran of the Russian military. You're a veteran of Russian life. And that's what I wanna talk to you about today. Just a question right now. We're coming to the, hopefully, the end of a long war in the Ukraine where the Russian military has been asked to make many, many sacrifices.
You fought in Afghanistan, and you were part of a organization to look after Afghanistan veterans. What's gonna be done for the Russian veterans of the special military operation? Are they gonna be looked after, or are they gonna be forgotten?
Speaker 1: Very long question. A good question. And it's pleasing to me to hear that question. You know, I see you for the second time at the interview first time. I have given the interview to you in Moscow.
I had my friends from the battlefield. We were at the hotel here in Moscow. Autumn, it was beautiful weather then. And I thought it would be quick. I just stepped out in the park.
And actually we had a very long talk and I was kind of cold. But I have remembered this time for the rest of my life. Because in the process of conversation I was just so cut of how much you know about our reality, the way you see it. And when we speak about such global process, veterans, war, This is life. Separated people that we took thousands.
And United States, in Russia, that destiny went through their life and tendency that not a not a good one. I went over seven and a half years in a battle, different battles from Afghanistan but I remember very well when I was a young officer when I came to the seventh airborne division with a as a lieutenant then, Afghanistan was already in a full swing, and our division was directed to those events that were taking place in Poland. And being a man of with a lot of information and data, we had a then everything was perfect. I had an idea how serious people are working against us. The country was already pulled in a serious conflict, and we knew that somebody pushed us.
And all my life starting from 1979 till today, As a current officer and also as a deputy of a state Duma, as a senator, as a head of the society, biggest Russian organization that we call Russian Union Veterans of Afghanistan and special military operations. You know, we added that special military position even before it took place. Thinking about the veterans of Caucasus conflict, Syria, and others that needed a certain support. They had to have a they could come to us and get help, get assistance. And when this war started, I always said, I always mentioned to bring military to Afghanistan.
We we couldn't do it, but we could not avoid it. They pushed us to do that. And unfortunately, Scott, they pushed us in 2022 on the February 24 to launch this military operation. You know, yesterday, in a program, Russia news. There was an interview with fighter He's an American.
He went through Syrian war through Iraq war. And now he's fighting in Ukraine. You know, he opened. He he is a man of war. And I understand the psychology of these people, you know, what they think about, what they feel.
You know, he's young. He's till 40, I think. You know, maybe the romance of what he's speaking about. And behind his every word, I see a lot of lies, a lot of broken information. It's like a broken mirror shows a warped image.
You know, he says, you know why I'm fighting for that guy who was speaking Russia starting from 1917. I can't figure out why he mentioned 1917 that Russia started 51 conflicts. You know, Russia never started any conflict. Russia all her life was protecting herself. And if you remember a recent speech of the prime minister, beautiful woman, she was like, I think forty three days she was a prime minister.
She said, you know, the great dream of Great Britain has come true. First time in four hundred years, Russians are fighting with Russians. You know, and when you listen to this tendency, when you start to even analyze our history, I know our history very well, we always, we were, people always, other countries try to push us and give us a spot. Alexander the Great, as what historians says, you know, scriptures and the history books. No.
Sorry. No. No. Alexander Nevsky. He was from Russia.
He said strong words. He says, do not be afraid the enemies from the East. They take our property and that would be it. Be afraid of the enemies from the West. They will take our kids.
They'll take our faith, our religion, and they will reformat us. And it's what we see all the time. Somebody always try to give us a spot and put us in that spot. You know, I'm born in Belarusian. I am ethnical Belarusian.
And the history of my country, think about it, how my my grandfather, before revolution, he went to Russian school. My mom, the father was studying already in a Polish school because Poland was there, and mother went to the Belarusian school. So cold, they started putting the difference. Different times, different languages, different origins. And in all these events, of course, it's the human being is involved.
Politicians are making decisions. But people like us, the ones that are dedicated to the motherland, we carry the weight. We carry the yoke. You know, what we did for the country, the country forgets. I will speak some things that probably many things that we're going to speak about that I'm not going to speak in forms.
When we left Afghanistan, people forgot about us. Why? Why I am the head of this organization for over thirty years? Because we were fighting for our own life, for our own people. Okay, we had legs, hands, myself being a person who was a captain and I was prepared for Afghanistan in a military military foreign languages institute.
I wanted to go to academy. Listen, you too young, you're strong. I was very strong, physically very strong, developed. You you need to go to war. You need to go to the military academy, and then you go to to the university first and then to academy.
I knew that I would be in the three hundred forty fifth three hundred forty fifth division, airborne division. By the time I come back, I will form the group. I was the first and the last of the commander of the special special forces of Kameleon. I was officers under me all spoke languages. They had beards like that.
Soldiers, officers. And I am a Belarusian, you know, young. As I was saying, tall, handsome. I didn't have any beard. 28 years old, I never had a beard.
I was like, you know, a hero. But the mustache was white. I had to color my mustache and some and, you know, most of them were looking like of ethnical Afghanistan people for different nationalities. I was wearing the Pakistani special forces officer. That's how we were identifying ourselves.
Why I'm telling you the story because each of my fighters and officers, from my point of view, they were they are all heroes. They are the people of fighting and serving the motherland. We've met with the same veterans from The United States. Yes, we had meetings like that. People don't talk about this, but I'm proud that from the half of my group, 19 people, nine were soldiers.
And these boys till 20 years old, of course, they were selected, they were prepared, and they they were not any way worse. They showed what is a Russian soldier, Russian strength, and then nobody understood. We did not have a clear picture. We were at the front line and and in life. Anything could happen that You're probably a bit younger than myself.
Maybe we could have seen each other somewhere there out of the service that we had. And today, we're talking about how to help people, how to establish peace situation, what hope we have looking towards the meaning of two presidents, how much we want that stability. But unfortunately, Scott, I don't really believe that because I I know. In eighties, was getting through the special preparation to Polish I was studying Polish language, and I knew the military and political events in Poland. In '85, '86, I was getting through to preparation of Afghanistan and having behind my shoulders three diplomas with three different languages.
I really didn't need them on the future life. English, you know, can we spoke in English and and, you know, German and daddy language were not spoke spoken. And we have to speak through interpreter, but I really hope that such communication with the Russian are of interest of the world, the stability and friendship of our states. You will learn Russian language maybe and we can speak face to face like friends. Like real soldiers would.
What's I'm wondering is that we have peace. Nobody can't want peace as much as a real soldier. And right now, in this situation, two colonels, the special forces, right here at this conversation, they can say it with an open heart, we can look at each other in the eye and speak for peace. And the main thing from what you do, you show us in a very different way to Americans. We are different.
We're kind. We're honest. We're open. We're very honest. We gave the word.
We keep the word. But you can put us on our knees. You know, it's impossible to put us on the knees. And the prime minister that was really so happy about the war, you know, she understands it very well. Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Russian.
These are all Russian people. In Chinese, they have 500 types of languages in China. But in Russian language, there's Ukrainian and Belarusian divisions of the languages. So today, what happened today is real, we really could not imagine and it's all artificial deal when artificially they broke USSR. How today they have an attempt to do the same to Russia using a known for us special data operations in understanding that today all the information is in the hands of, let's put it this way, the collective West.
Because the truth, the truth, the revelation of the truth, It rarely goes to the wide public, but somebody can pay with a lie for the truth. And I must add that admiring you, You can also have some problems. I don't know if you were told or not if you have problems. I have a big house. I will always find a place for you that we can sit down and remember our past from the army.
Honestly, it was in a way beautiful. Very, very honest and fair fair service to the country, the motherland we're from. I think that's the major thing. But the veterans problems that you have mentioned in your question, they were with Afghanistan fighters, but today, the situation totally changed towards the veterans from the special operations, how the government looks at it, how the state treats us, definitely be that is because of the position of our president. He has completely different attitude.
You know, my brother's from Afghanistan. In a way, they get upset or maybe not jealous, but they, you know, they say, well, we didn't have that much attention. We didn't have social support like what we they have now. I say, come on, guys, don't worry. Other people, other times, other attitudes, other possibilities.
And today, are our kids and grandkids. That's who we need to care for. And you have no idea how for me, me personally, a lot of people, I know five from the ones I had been friends with, that either he himself, being a veteran, or his son died protecting the motherland. We have to speak about their lives. And if we're being honest to the core, that's all kind of pushed down to our throat when they broke the USSR due to the betrayal, we have to give we have to give The special forces from United States had the art of doing that, and they it's in a way, they put a hand to it.
And anything that would took place in Iraq and other countries, it was all connected with the special forces when the special special events were planned by the betrayal of internal elite elites. We understand that clearly, and what is connected with the first faces of the state, they made that betrayal. They betrayed us. At the moment when USSR was falling, I was a colonel, almost a colonel. '91.
And if if the vice commander of the if they would tell me you're colonel you are colonel and tomorrow, you would be the head of the division, I would be one by myself. I would solve all the questions that were connected with those that betrayed us. There was tens of thousands of those colonels that they they didn't give us. We didn't have the opportunity, and I could never get in there, take the idea that we're divided. And I can assure you, I know our president very well, He never had he cut down any conversations about restoring getting back to Yesisar.
It took place, but we have to continue on, be friends, be neighbors, and that was his major point. And when they pushed us in 2022, they pushed us to the line. If we would be late for those sixteen hours and we were absolutely not ready for all the things we face, then the front line would be in Voronezh region. And we would never know how it would develop because not many people knew how the military of Ukraine was prepared. On the moment of 2022, as a colonel, I can tell you clearly to the point and as a military expert, these were the most prepared military forces from Europe.
Again, forced from Ukraine. They were prepared. They were educated. NATO was doing that. They gave the weapon.
They trained them. They were prepared themselves in today's special operation. As we speak for many, we have a special operation now in military. But there's unannounced war against us with all the methods. And today, I just want to add about that.
I'm just kind of repeating myself maybe here, but not enough full volume, we're doing what we're supposed to do as we were taught in the academy and a general academy. We have the possibilities for that and methods and tools and instrument analysis. A completely different topic like you said, but nevertheless, in today's conditions with this approach, the main objective that we have collective no. That the collective West has against Russia to defeat Russia. You have to realize that that objective never left.
And the point is not on the people that represent these or those countries. They're just puppets. They can't change the truth. We both of us and other people looking into our life experience, we understand that. That's the objective.
It still is there. We just have to understand what will be after that. And if today, the conversation will be connected to just stop the military action and give the Ukrainian forces to regain the power and then provoke, start, launch, begin again. I don't agree with that. And I think that our president, with the volume of the data and knowledge of what takes place that he has, he really understands that.
So the first reason and that we need to understand it, the first reason, the root of the cause, this is why the president of The United States made the decision that they would have a face to face meeting with the president of Russia without speculations, with attempts in this informational psychology operations to just, you know, put in the data that Zelensky will be there waiting if there's a need or maybe there will be an exchange of certain territories. This is all forms that are injected into this operations. It's just the data data that been thrown into the world and and the mass media speaks about it and even from Russia that even in the future material is a what? So say that the official faces made such a decision, so it concerns me. And there's a lot of conversations about that.
And these conversations they can bring to certain results. And going back to the question to the veterans, I have to tell you this. Over 10,000 people veterans of Afghan war. They participate in a special military operation. A lot of them have awards, medals.
Two of them are heroes of Russia. And as one commander shared with me, young guy, a commander of division, he's only 42. This is Franz Adamovich. Your veterans, you know, whether they have a low position or commander of some kind of department. This is a it's a cornerstone.
He is the serious guy. He says, guys, we need to do this way. As a as a father shares his wisdom in a family and it's important that that's how they treat the veterans. And they play a great organizational role. And of course, you said it right that we have great events connected with the support to our soldiers, help, support, assistance as great force.
It's points of the it's a point of view of the people when people make decisions working in a business. They have some that you know even retired women. We have all offices in in Russian Veterans Union. There as a warehouse where old women, retired women, they bring in some stuff for the soldiers, the socks. They make some kind of things that a soldier needs.
It's a support from a side, signed by an old grandmother, a lady or a child, as a support for a soldier. This is important. And then, we understand that the norms of the soldiers, you know, food for six months or a year and active combat, all these boots and socks, some body wear, hats get worn in in in months and very quick, and the support that they receive is definitely not anything extra. And a soldier does not need just a warm shirt or warm socks. Know, we're not talking about material things.
A soldier must have attention, support, love, care, and that's what I see that the Russian people do because during my service in Afghanistan, we did not have these possibilities. We really suffered without them only. Letters from kids, from our families, they were the support.
Speaker 0: Your president has spoken about the veterans of the special military operation being the future of Russia, the future leaders of Russia, the future teachers, instructors of of Russia. In order to do that, though, there has to be a connectivity between the veterans and society. You you say you're from Belarus. When I visited Patriot Park and walked the museum, 1,414 steps, each step represented the day of the war. Do you know how many days of the war Belarus was involved in?
So many. The war was fought on the soil of Belarus. The people of Belarus suffered. In The United States, we're not aware of this history. We we should be, but we're not.
My wife, one of her favorite songs growing up was from a Belarusian group. I think the song was called Belarusia. And they they not only spoke of the song of the partisans, but they talked about Katyn being in the soul. And as an American listening to that, I don't know what Katyn in the soul is. You do.
I don't. Until I saw a movie, Come and See, I think was the name of the movie. A horrible movie about a little boy who experienced the deprivations of the Nazis who destroyed the village just like the Nazis destroyed the village of Khattin. That's what it means to have Khattin in your soul, to have experienced something like this, to have resisted something like this. You're an Afghan veteran.
I don't believe the Russians have Afghanistan in their soul, and I think they abandoned the Russian veterans of that war. Now we have the special military operation. It's an operation similar to the defense of the Soviet Union from Nazi Germany. You see the same ideology. You see outside powers trying to bring down Russia.
Can we speak of in the same way that Hattin is in the soul of the Belarusian people, Is the Donbas in the soul of the Russian people? Is this why the Russian people won't abandon their soldiers? Does this war resonate with the Russian people in the same way that the great patriotic war resonated with the with the Soviets of that time?
Speaker 1: A very good question. Deep question. Gosh. It's a it's a good question. Is the mother of Russian cities.
Odessa. Odessa. It's a Russian city. Everything that is connected with Donbas. And other cities of Ukraine.
This is the territory of Russia beginning from the Russian empire. Belarus? Belarusia. In this plan, it's like a western part of Ukraine always being in a four post, like a defense territory of Russian Empire. Wars always started there, launched there.
You know, we have the Tatars, all that. Know, they paid them the fee, whatever, in the history and they took the property and then we took But over these were coming, burning, they changed the faith, changing ideology, they were planting the seeds of animosity and whatever is connected with Belorussia, this all was like You know, Belorussia is a special place to love a soldier because they are at the genetic level that a soldier has taking the soil. Sometime ago, the Russian position took and then brought at the state level, you know, the flag with a red ribbon and a red ribbon, white and red farts. It's an important ideology. In a Russian army, Belarusian divisions that were formed then, even then, in old times.
These knights, they had swords to handle sword. They would walk in, you know, those fighters, big tough guys, they would fight. And women, they took the towels that were keeping. They brought to them because when he would put the sword in a in a in a ground, he would wipe the hands with a towel on a sword and there was one that, you know the women were running after the soldiers with the towers. This is how you know ideology was formed.
How women with the hands help to wipe off the hands of their fighters, their husbands who were fighting. These were the people that were protecting the motherlands, the territories, bellow Russia, white Russia so to say, is connected with a lot of circumstances including even you know the Tartars that didn't hit that territory and Ukrainians the Russian people that are living at Ukraine in Russian in in Russian if you translate it says at the edge of Russia this is how Ukraine is more or less you can translate. I I I give you an example on that moment. I was in the eighth grade. I was village.
On a tractor. We used to take a tractor to go to the town. You know, we didn't really have the roads, it was the swamps. But I was always studied very well, was a good student and I was sent from the region to Khattin for the like an excursion. I was telling my grandpa what bastards were those Nazis.
And there was a guy, Kaminsky, and he was giving us a small speech. There was a monument to this Kaminskin, and a grandfather looked at me and he says, You talk about Germans? He says these were not Germans. These were which means Ukrainians and Russians. So what I wanna say is that they were bitter.
People that were betraying their countries, those Banderas that were killing the people in Baltic countries, these actions, these were these are fascists that were in a different countries. They carried their ideology to different places and territories for them to fight now. They what they did is they they they did the reanimation to that. They made it state level. The official representatives of the military defend defenses and and divisions on their helmets, on their shoulders.
They carry the science of the Nazis division. Just think about that. The Western doesn't see those German crosses. They don't see those wolves. They how come they don't understand and don't see this ideology that in in that time, the Banderas they were raping people, killing people.
We know a lot of samples examples even today you know. They will be more. We have to bring them to the responsibility in a legal way. Not the people but the ideology itself to the end. Need to kill it.
We need to stop it. That's what our kids are fighting with and grandkids but an example of Belarusia, the Brest Four Post. You know, it's not actually Belarusians. The nations of all Soviet Union, they were fighting when Minsk was taken by fascists. But Brest was still fighting.
We have a lot of movies about that and books written. These examples of a huge human bravery and standing brave hearts. You reminded me again one moment that always with a pain in my heart, I speak about it. When I was in school at class, they told us about their relatives who was an artillery, who was in a tank, who was infantry, who was intelligence, relatives that died, that were wounded. My dad was small when the war started, but not one grandfather died.
But then, as I grew up, I was told the stories that my father, with a grandfather, they were partisans, but not inside. They had objectives and a division to bring. Would go to the woods to bring the wood, you know, to the forest, And they had a double bucket in a carriage. They put in the flour, and grandfather grandmother would bake the bread for partisans. They would put it in that carriage and take it back.
So I was thinking then somebody had an artillery in the family, some tankers, and I had these relatives. They were just baking bread, giving to partisans, and grandpa would always often say say that from this portion they could make 16 pieces of bread and half of that piece of bread he left for himself for that half of the loaf of bread he fed his whole family. I didn't realize until the end how risky it was. Michael, his name was Mikhail Petrovich. As as risky he was towards his son.
Mikhailovich. The Adam Mikhailovich. At 15 years old, he was helping me. Something would happen. They would be killed right there, shot on the spot.
It would be a daily routine for a soldier to kill, and it was a daily risk for my grandfather. And it's connected with the people that were all my territory. They brought this, they carried this tragedy. And today, if you look at the history, every third Belarusian during World War two, every third one died. And that's a memory for the rest of the life Forever.
And the attitude towards fascism there was a big example for the whole Russia that you need to fight Nazis, for all the USSR people because they were hurt most. If you look at all these events including other wars, also you can mention that. Napoleon war and the major battle that not many people speak about was at the Berezina, which is a Belarussian territory where Russia gave that big fight against Napoleon. You know, nobody speaks about that, but in a twelfth year, the collective West even then Against Russia 1941, same thing. And in 2022.
At the Ukrainian territory. Same countries. Same last names, same forces, same thing they hope for to hurt Russia, have a strategic defense of Russia, to to destroy Russia. And when we remember France, when Russia walked into France and when mister Romanovskoye was ahead of the expedition corps when the forces were going back. Does anybody in the West know that to That what the Russians did.
Uh-huh. The Russians and the Cossacks were eating at the parish restaurants. They took hay for their horses and so on. And they were writing a credit notes. He collected all those notes.
He sold all that he had and paid for those credit notes of those Russian notes. Well, the country that hurt Russia then the most, and that's the point of a Russian soldier. The officer, the officer, the Russian person. Does anybody in the West know that? You know, think about it.
And even when we get into 2022, nobody knows it in the West how this in the labs, this chemical weapon was prepared, bacterial weapon that were prepared to use in the Russian territory, how their Chernobyl bomb was prepared. Special forces opened up from Russia. And we found the ants. We and we found those quadcopters that were created in the West, not in Ukraine, with those things that would carry out this bacteriological weapon in Russia. And, unfortunately, among the Russian people that carry the Russian last names, including Zelensky, the father.
His father was an officer and a soldier who was fighting together with many Belarusian fighters than when his department, he forgot all those things. He betrayed. The person who was a famous artist who made big money then, and as they their specialists say that he made over, what, $20,000,000? Today, his special forces that his income is $20,000,000,000. Now you think he made that trade and made the money on a on on a business?
He made that money on the health. Well, you know, in a way, it's praise God that we found out about it because this is a stolen money that didn't go to war, but he bought something with it. But we speak about the work about the collective from the collective West, what people they select, how they prepare all those concepts, and what would be the results that we have to face. And those results, what's going to come after, sooner or later, any war will finish. The people wounded will come, the injured people will come, and today the war is different comparing to Afghanistan war.
We had a lot of fire contact even the hand fight but here not much not much wounds from the bullets, aviation bombs,
Speaker 0: drones,
Speaker 1: artillery tanks, when serious wounds that people carry, the pieces of the weapons. Today, in Ukraine, there's a lot of people like this. You know, they're injured physically. Their hearts are injured. A lot of people already understand.
They have the clear picture. They're fighting not for their own interest. They're fighting for somebody else's interest. And these people, they need to keep on living. They have to raise their kids, and we will have to take care of those that's gonna come back from the war, the same wounded physically people.
And post traumatic appearances that would take place with a soldier after the war. I found out when I in '96, when I was off duty, the colonel of the airborne division, as a retired, when I read one article and it was clear to me that why sometimes in certain terms, when I am relaxed, especially when there's alcohol, I don't recognize my friends. You know, are the results of the war that brought with other changes that took place in families and a profession and a health condition. All this we have to take care of and assist them. Happily today, Russia, fortunately, of what we have is taking care of the people.
As the head of the biggest veterans organization, as a member of the President's Union on the veterans, questions, I want to say that we dedicate a great attention to this question. Their medical support, social support, all the things that their rehabilitation instruments for just even the simple arms the but the people that came from war they have a change mentality with a total feeling of honesty. The people, they don't they don't they cannot stand their unfair things, you know. Mister Putin said it's a new elite. Unfortunately, a lot of people that speak about the art elite that ran away from Russia, that economical elite thinking only about the money and the income.
There's a lot of right people we have among them. They are helping us. But there are some that were shaken, and they could not change. But these people unfortunately could come to the legislature, to the judicial parts in in in in a law in ten years or so. These people will become mayors, governors, and deputies and senators.
They will be the ones that will be building the future of our country based on the experience and patriotic feelings that they have. But the patriotic person who speaks about the history of the World War two, nineteen forty one, forty five, were all 27,000,000 people who died. 27,000,000 died, Russian people, in World War two. And today, they try to rewrite the story, the history. They break our monuments to the great generals we had that they were establishing because they brought freedom to Europe on the money of those people.
We didn't put those monuments. They collected the money in Poland, in Romania, Germany, Czech Czechs, Slovakia, everywhere else where those wars took place, where Russian soldier that brought the freedom and give a great opportunity to develop today. You know, they break those monuments. They don't understand that monumental art is it's a point that you can destroy that people will not remember that children will be raised. Won't understand as in August 9 with them.
When Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, the head of the they remembered about the results, but quietly, they did not say one word about the country that did the strike. Well, other events, but you can say about that. You can mention that they had a study, 50%, there's a study they say that Russians did it. And American people, 70% of them, young American people, they think that Russians hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon. Well, we live in such a world on such time that we we shouldn't worry about that.
That's kinda your problems, but of the people that live on this collective West. But we value the help and support like you. They that want to establish the truth. Even then, in the interview, the first one, you're a true patriot of your country. You want us to live in friendship and peace.
And that's the period of 1944. We had that '43, '44, a real friendship. Remember the meetings of order, the true like brotherhood of soldiers, Russians, Russians and American soldiers. You know, we that took place. And we had a tragedy that we were facing both armies.
And literally in a year, everything has changed. And again, we had the main objective of the collective West hit Russia, strategically destroy Russia. I do hope for August 15, but I have my doubts that the main objective would be changed. But these meetings must be. The dialogue should take place till the leaders discuss.
While they discuss, there's a great help and support for those who are the front line who are solving other objectives, other tasks. And with the veterans, we still have a lot of work, a long term work, serious work. And besides, a lot of the things being implemented, a lot of things we need to implement and support and that's not going to be easy. You know, nothing is so immovable as a human brain and post traumatic situation as when a human brain with a long term being under the threat of death is like a trauma, like a bullet is there and it's in the brains. And aftermath is very complicated.
Those who planned those conflicts, those that formed it, they understood what a number of Russian people from one side and another side and countries would be in this uncomfortable sick state. And it's also a part of a huge strategy to strategically destroy Russia because not all the problems will be solved. It's easy to blow up and blow up opinion of societies from the inside, discredit the powers, authorities, destabilize the situation that in the end would be mirrored on economics. We understand that. It's good that we know that there is such a possibility to speak about it, but all the challenges that we are facing ahead, and we clearly see that.
We're ready. We're truly, honestly, ready for all the challenges.
Speaker 0: Well, I wanna thank you very much for for joining me today and talking about these these very important topics, especially look. Your president and my president are gonna meet, and they're going to have a conversation, and what will happen will happen. But for me, as a veteran myself, in The United States today, twenty six veterans commit suicide every day because our society has abandoned them. We have homeless veterans. We have veterans who are seriously wounded, staying in the VA hospital and nobody visits them.
We have veterans who lost legs and arms and can't get a job. We have veterans who have post traumatic stress disorder. So for me to see someone like you who cares about Russian veterans and to see that Russian society won't forget the Russian veterans, that means very much to me, and America can learn from you. And I think that's one of the benefits of having these kinds of interactions is we let the big boys worry about peace. We worry about how to live life together in peace.
And for that reason, I wanna thank you for joining me here today. And in recognition of that, I'd I'd just like to give you as a gift, the book I wrote. It's about the dangers of nuclear war, but also about the importance of entering to relationships to prevent nuclear war, especially between The United States and Russia. So with deep appreciation.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I also have a gift for you. Symbolical. This is a If I you allow me, I tell you. This is a you know, this is a bullet.
85 millimeter gun. You have the emblem of my organization that I lead Russian Veteran Union of Afghanistan, a special military operations. What does it mean? Black tulip, A sign of memory about the dead ones, about the ones that are gone. In a framework of a Soviet Union at the point of three republics in July, we have opened up a new moment for those that died at Afghanistan.
This is the bullet that was not shot. That is ready. And the events that are taking place right now, the special military operation, this is a bullet is ready, ready to fight. And this big one, it's made out of wood. It will never it'll never it'll never be shot.
It's a sign of our friendship. You see it's a green by hand. By the artist, this is our old historical art here inside. The bullet is It's like a glass. It's covered with a special lac.
On the bottom, you can charge it. You can put a bottle in it. But I didn't put the bottle in, and you can take a look for yourself. I have it separate. And it says one of the best Russia with three shot glasses.
Whenever you meet, you know, I didn't put it in. It has to be in that bullet wound balloon. So since you gave me the book, in the beginning of February, the Belarusian TV made a movie about me, and the editor and they did after the materials that he put together the data, he put together the the book and I'm not the author. The title of the book is Captain France of how the studies, how I lived, what the events influenced my life, and etcetera. And so here, you can see the inscription.
A sister in English wrote you that inscription. The words from my heart. I don't speak fluent English, but from bottom of my heart. And I wanted to give you this present for you to remember that the veterans of Russia and The United States will be always together united. They will always understand each other and definitely we have a lot of events that are connected with all those relationships.
During a long time of working on them as being as a head of the veteran organization, we want to wish you success, health for all those guys that were protecting their motherland from the veterans of Russia. I wanna say hello. I wanna send my greetings from all the USSR, all Belarusia. Great respect to you because we were all fulfilling the orders of our state, by the modeling, we were protecting, and we never we were never Nazis, murderers, and sadists. We were soldiers.
Thank you.
Speaker 0: You you may not speak English, and I might not speak Russian, but we speak the language of soldiers, and that's the language of a hunter. Thank you very much.
reSee.it AI Summary
In this special edition of the Russia House, I interviewed Yana Lantratova from the Russian State Duma. Recently, Ursula von der Leyen urged President Trump to ensure the return of Ukrainian children to their families, which he acknowledged, but these claims are false. The real story is about individuals like Yana, who bravely rescue children from war-torn areas where their families have suffered. Yana's efforts highlight the truth of Russia's actions in saving lives, and this interview is crucial for conveying that message to the American audience.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE DONBAS In this special edition of the Russia House, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Yana Lantratova, a member of the Russian State Duma. Earlier this week the President of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen, asked President Trump to help “make sure the children of Ukraine” are returned to their families. President Trump responded in a way that gave credence to the allegations put forward by Ursula von der Leyen. But these allegations are lies. The truth rests in the heroic actions of people like Yana Lantratova, who risked their lives to rescue children trapped in homes and villages shelled by the Ukrainian army, their families killed, their tiny bodies broken and bleeding. Yana saved their lives. Russia saved their lives. This is the truth. And this interview is essential for telling this truth to the American public.
Video Transcript AI Summary
Lana Lantrovna, member of the state Duma, described 02/2014 in Donbas: “you were rescuing children under fire.” As head of the Union of Volunteers of Russia, she organized basements evacuations and wrote a letter to “the one of the presidents” arguing that Ukraine joined a “special convention” in 1994 to provide a humanitarian corridor: “I will lead the take the keys to Kyiv anywhere else.” The letter was “ignored,” but was “supported by 19 countries of the world” with “deputies of the EU parliament” and “Sorbonne University” professors signing. Kyiv called her a “terrorist” and she faced “four” criminal cases and a “life sentence” in Ukraine. She claims evacuation of “2,700 mothers and kids and 127 heavy wounded and sick kids” and notes “Officially, twenty four thousand three hundred forty kids” were killed or wounded, while “Sixty five thousand kids were taken out from Ukraine” for care. She cites “two labs” and organ-experiments on kids and says Russia opened “temporary housing for refugees” and “took in everybody.”
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hello, welcome to this special edition of the Russia House. We call this people's diplomacy. I'm here because of the work of the National Unity Club who has helped organize this. And, also, I need to acknowledge the role TASS has played in providing us with access to their headquarters here in Downtown Moscow. But, you know, I didn't come here to talk about TAS or the National Union Club.
I came to talk about people's diplomacy, and I'm absolutely honored and privileged to have today as my guest, a member of the state DOMA, Lana Lantrov I apologize. I I messed up the last name. Lantrovna?
Speaker 1: Lantrovna.
Speaker 0: I may have messed up your last name, but I haven't messed up your story. And I've read your story with great fascination. You know, when I when I read about what you've done in the work, I I imagined a hero of Russia, a giant person. And I look at you and I say, wait a minute. How did you do this?
I mean, in 02/2014, you were in the Donbas. You were rescuing children under fire. Not theoretically, people were dying. Could you tell us about that experience? So, you know, what happened in 02/2014, and why would you put yourself at risk to rescue children in a combat zone?
Speaker 1: The point is that I was the social worker. I made the old Russian organization, the Union of Volunteers of Russia. It was presented in the 77 regions of our country. That's young kids, boys and girls that were helping kids, orphans, invalids, elderly people to participate in certain ecological projects. And during definitely hard situations, had bad floods, Far East and Krymsk, and they I was uniting the youth that was helping the other people.
So from that organization, I went to to the union with the president of Russia Federation in developing the rights of people, And I was, you know, social worker. And I had a small son that was born. And I was putting him to sleep, and the woman came, called me from Kramatorsk. She was crying. She said that the city was blocked.
We don't have any electricity, and we have kids in the basement sitting. She sent me the list written by hand. Who? What? What building?
And she said one thing. She says, I beg you. Please do what is is possible. Just take these kids out of the zone. Of course, the kids couldn't walk, go to school.
They couldn't study. You know, their rights were they didn't have any rights. But no matter the fire, the people were dying. The people were losing lives. And then I made a decision for myself.
I went to Rostov, which is at the borderline with the Southeast of Ukraine. And when they stopped bullets, they stopped firing, I took humanitarian help from this volunteering department in Rastov. I went there, and I went to those basements. And then the first thing what I did as a just a social worker and as a mother, I understood that I had to do one thing. I want these kids to be alive, and I wrote a letter for a previous for the one of the presidents of president Sparashanka that in 1994 that Ukraine joined a special convention where in the case of the military attack or war, they had to give humanitarian corridor to take the kids out.
I went I sent a letter to him, and I said, how many kids are there? And I said, I need this humanitarian corridor. I will lead the take the keys to Kyiv anywhere else. I just want them to stay alive. Then my letter was ignored.
Nobody answered. But I was the head of the old Russian organization, so I sent the letters to different countries of the world. I sent the pictures to them of the killed, the murdered kids. And I said, please help me to save the kids. I wasn't speaking about politics.
I was just speaking about the lives of people. And to my surprise, my letter was supported by 19 countries of the world. My letters were signed by deputies of the EU parliament. They were signed by professors Union of Sorbonne University, other colleges in different countries. And the letter was signed by the big social organizations, you know, 19 countries as I said, that was sent towards the mister Parashenko, give us the humanitarian court, and we'll take the kids out from under the fire.
Kyiv or wherever you name it. Okay. He could not ignore that that letter, and they call me a terrorist and a territory of Ukraine. They start criminal cases against me, four of them. You know, I have a life long sentence now in Ukraine, and I have no choice.
I understand that I am going to take the kids only on the territory of Russia. So when they stopped firing bullets, I organized buses. We collected money as a volunteer organization for gas, for gasoline just to pay for it because nobody went there because it was stuff that was under fire. And when they would cease fire a little bit, we would get into the basements, give a a humanitarian help, the kids were running out. They were getting on the floor of the buses and holding them with their heads, changing the trajectory of our way and driving.
We were taking them out of the war. We changed the trajectory because they sent bullets after those buses. The buses were turned over. They were hitting the children on the back. During that period of time, the local team was able to take out 2,700 mothers and kids and 127 heavy wounded and sick kids because bullets were flying directly to the houses.
They were they were flying into hospitals. They had targeted schools, kindergarten. Bullets were coming into the houses, and the little pieces of the bullets, they get to the eyes of the kids. Here, take a look. Take a look at these pictures that I sent.
If you see killed kids, murdered kids, wounded kids on the territory of those cities, and they were playing in a sandbox. This is the kids that in the nighttime, the bullets were striking at nighttime. And a piece of the bullet, they lost their eyes. They lost their vision. I picked up those kids, I take took them through the board to be able to get put them in the hospital.
I started from a Donbas territory, and when I started having a special operation, I took the kids out of Mariupol, Khersonq's region, the ones that were in a very dangerous position. This is a boy. His name is Sasha. When they freed Mariupolu, they shot the house. Mother died right away, and Sasha with his father.
Three days were laying under the broken house. Sasha had broken everything. When they took him out and we brought him first to Donetsk Hospital, the pipe was into into the his throat, and he had broken everything. We took him out from the to the territory of Russia. 13 surgeries he had, this boy.
He's healthy. He lives with his father, at his relatives. They shot bullets school to schools, kindergartens. They destroyed houses of the civilians. And I wanna tell you that when I went there at one of the times, I think it was 09/2022, and somehow Ukraine found out that I was going there.
They in a period of four to five years four to five hours, they were just continued to bomb the school. We were in a basement, hiding in the basement, and all kids were afraid. Small kids that I had to carry, you know, they lost their hands and legs. They lost their eyes. I would never forget the stories.
I remember a small girl. Her name is Diana. She was trying to leave Ukraine, the Donbas territory, and they shot the car. Mama. Her mother died.
Her father died. Her little brother died and a and a grandma. And she was sitting for four hours between the dead bodies of her parents. And when I took her on my arms in a bus, it took us thirty eight hours because we had to spread them out in the different areas of Russia. And she woke up.
You know, she when she woke up, she started speaking with her dead parents. You know, it's it's it's it was I was shocked. I sent letters. I begged one thing. Please help to save the kids, but the bullets were flying on purpose.
They were targeted to the houses of civilians to spread fear. And people people just they couldn't. They just asked. They grabbed us by hands. They asked for help, asked for to save their lives.
And what these criminals did is that they came, they would go into the house of the civilian, they would kill mother and father, They would steal a baby to cut the border to get into into the border and and pretend their parents and to get into our territory. They would kill priests or monarchs and would take their religious dresses and run away. And they just would throw small kids on the on the streets and few times, many times, I found small babies that were just either laying somewhere just on a street or they were standing in some kind of stroller. We officially just official data, think about that, we have three hundred kids dead. Danbas has an alley with a angel monument.
Thousands of kids were wounded. Thousands were left as invalids for the rest of their lives. Officially, twenty four thousand three hundred forty kids. Kids were blown on the bombs, on mines. And what I've seen from 2014, I have seen a lot of histories, a lot of stories, And they spoke about it a little bit overseas.
It's like how kids were disappeared. Sixty five thousand kids were taken out from Ukraine, and then we started finding the data and facts that there's a black transplantology where they steal the body organs. There's two labs, fixed two labs where they did where they experimented on kids. I'm not speaking about the pedophile cases where kids were given to the same sex marriages and taken away these kids from parents. You know, I was just a volunteer.
For me, it was one important thing for these kids to leave, but to take them there, I was not given a chance, and it's a catastrophe. And after that, I took part in what we prepared a big report about the crimes of Kyiv regime towards kids. We're a long time in details. We have prepared state Duma and the Soviet Federation. They have create a special group with a special people and they found the facts.
How many were wounded? How many were murdered? And what experiments were done on kids? They found the data on the by biological labs. Over the kids, they were inventing some kind of viruses using humans.
And what I'm telling you is not words. This is proven, confirmed facts. We have over 4,500 criminal cases for the crimes that were committed against the kids, and it's a fact. And then myself as a volunteer, I went into the union by the president of Russia, social activities, and Russia opened up the doors. We took in everybody.
We had temporary housing for refugees. We had hospitals filled with kids. We took kids wounded without papers, without documents just to make sure we save their lives. We worked twenty four seven. And then I was just a participant of the group of a Saint Petersburg conversation or dialogue between Russia and Germany.
Even then I had an opportunity to go to Germany. I went to Germany for different forms. I politicians were there from different countries and I gave speeches. I I was a I was not a state duo deputy. I was a volunteer worker, social activities worker.
I showed the pictures and I said kids are dying. This is not politics. This is peaceful citizens. I am not getting into the aspects of military, but I they called me a terrorist. For what?
That I took the kids out of the dangerous territory, that I took them to the hospitals, to Russian with the Russian doctors, and they went back alive and healthy. And they said that they that I do the sponsored terrorists. You know, those are the diapers that I brought or the kids food, dry food because the kids were in the basements. You know, in Mariupol, there was four four year old boy named Nikita. I I brought him bottles of water.
I gave him the water. He couldn't drink enough of that water. And then when the bullets were blown and bombs above our heads, you know, he wasn't even shaking. He said, is this rocket. This is that rocket.
They all knew the rockets, the names, and the sounds of the rockets. He was twenty seven days with his mother without water, without food, and underground. People didn't wash themselves. Dead bodies were laying right beside them. You know, in the yards, in apartments.
I came there and and I took the kids from the basements and the kids were would hold me by the hand and said, you see this sandbox? This is where my daddy died. That's where my mama died. You know, they just put them on the sandbox, their parents, because they didn't have another opportunity. People were just raped and used and abused.
In 2014, when a lot of villages and territories I visited, that for people who spoke Russian language, they would put them in a bag and put them in a basement and beat them up and abuse and torture kids. They were raping kids, raping women, and that was all normal. It was all open. When the special military operation started, when I was speaking with the kids, they told me the stories that when Ukrainian Nazis were taken their fathers kept in captivity, they called on the videos to their kids, turn on the video, they said, this is your father. He's captured.
And they were cutting that person so the kids would see it. So the kids would see it. It's, you know, what do you call it? What do you call it? You know, it's horrible.
And this is what I saw with my own eyes. I was constantly there. And, you know, nobody talks about that overseas. They keep quiet. But then, in 2014, 2015, 2016, I started writing different letters to different countries.
And I and I told to journalists, bloggers, please come. We will show you the reality. We're not gonna tell you anything. We'll bring you here. 19 countries of the world came over.
We had 25 bloggers and journalists who were not afraid. They went through the border, came to Donbas. They visited the airport that was blown up. They visited the houses where Nazis Nazis were coming in, Ukrainian criminals. They stole a bunch of things, killed a lot of people.
You know, they just talked to people, then they left, and they wrote different articles. We put those articles together. We have a book, and we will name that book Honest Dumbass. We have a white book where it says concrete last names, the names, and the murderers, and criminal acts they committed. We have different we have a report that we put together.
We sent it to different parliaments, different countries of the world, to Germany, including Germany, to United States, all over. So the people would see the truth. We have seen the truth, but unfortunately all was useful. It was all showed against us. They started organizing different informational wars.
Speaker 0: At this time, Sefson, Thank you for sharing that. First thing I have to say is thank you very much for for what you've done. You say you're a volunteer. I'm just a volunteer. You're a hero of Russia.
You're a hero of humanity. What you've done is mind boggling, the courage that it takes, the dedication. In January, I had the opportunity to visit Crimea and then go through Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Lugansk. And I remember the drive from Donetsk. At that time you could still hear the artillery, though the war was still closed, Bachmuth was nearby.
But driving up towards Lugansk, you go through the beautiful countryside of the Donbas and you go through one village and it's normal. Everything's good. But right across the valley, come to another village and the buildings are destroyed like this. You see the buildings destroyed. No people, bullet holes.
And for me, you know, I I I just see an empty building. And and this happened all the way. You see the destruction, but you don't understand the back story. What you've done is told the story of that building. It's not a story of the building.
It's a story of the family that lived in that building. And how you know, I'm a marine and I've been to war. And normally, stories like this don't touch. But I'm also father. I love my wife.
I love my kids. How do you do it? How do you, a mother, do this and not be broken? I mean, I went to the the in Louganse, they have a statue for the angels, for the children. And there's photographs.
There's a book. I just saw the pictures. You saw the bodies. How do you get the strength? Where do you get your strength to do this?
Because this is not just admirable. This is courageous. This is heroic. Not for Russia. Of course, it's for Russia.
You're Russian. You're very proud of being Russian. But what you've done is admirable for humanity. I mean, you've set an example about how people should be behaving towards people. You've done this amazing thing, and yet they call you a terrorist.
You are a terrorist. The lady who puts her life at risk to save children, to to help these broken families, to give them hope, to give them and the photographs are terrible. I thank you for sharing them, but they it's just terrible to see. And you saw the reality of it. I'm seeing a photograph because photographs, I don't need to tell you.
They're pictures, but blood has a stench. Wounded people have a smell. War has a smell. It has a taste. It gets in your mouth.
It it it consumes you. So when that I see that picture, and I know what you were experiencing because I've experienced myself. It's it's just stunning. What gives you this strength? What gives you this?
Especially when the world, my country, Europe, the bastion of civilization, the the the the birthplace of law, of humanity, human rights, we call ourselves the defenders of human rights, we call you a terrorist for doing what we should be doing. Take it, where do you get your strength?
Speaker 1: You know, it's that's in our cultural core. We have people often, they're ready to come to help when somebody has a tragedy because the worst thing that you can have in life, that's when you are you don't care, where you can pass human strategy by and it doesn't touch you. This society is is doomed. And at the root of our national root, cultural root of Russia, the code that we have, we were always about fair, helping. We went through a huge bad war, World War II.
The price, 27,000,000 people. My grandmother went through blockade. She lived in Leningrad. She told me how they, as kids, would run away up on the roof, and they were and those bombs that they were throwing, they were putting down with the special instruments, tools, a small babies. The first story when she went to get the water at Fantanka from Saint Petersburg, she had to bring the water.
She had a small pot. She was staying, no food at Leningrad. A little piece of bread that they shared for all, she would take the water from Fantanka till she would come back home. It would be slipping out, the water. And when there's a little bit left, there was a man right there on the on the ground.
And he would grab her and he would he wants to drink. And with her tears, she gave that water to him. You know, she was crying because she came home. She could not bring water, but she gave it to him. And a second story she shared with me, my grandmother, at the blockade Leningrad, There was a ring bell.
Her mother opened. You have to understand, my grandmother had two brothers and they all both died and there was a German there. He was shaking and he was showing a golden ring probably, maybe he stole it or something like that. He was asking for food. She looked at his eyes.
She take a small piece of bread and gave it to him. Grandmother started crying and said, how can you do that? He's the betrayer. He's the enemy. How can you do that?
And where she answered, he's also somebody else's son. I hope that if my son will be there, somebody would feed him too. For me, there are no somebody else's kids that it's a tragedy that took place, the people of Ukraine, the people of Belarusia. These are all brotherhood. These are all brothers.
We have one story, a very serious story. We're all Slavic people. We're brothers. And we understand very well how and what took place now. It's the fall not of Ukraine.
It's the fall from outside. It was pumped. This conflict was necessary to make our country weak. But when I see how the kids were dying and when I see all those bombs going off, you know, you see that smoke goes away and we weren't far away. We get into that house and we A 13 year old girl, she was torn into pieces by the bomb.
One guy died, small boy, two year old boy, and the bullet got into his eye. One girl was thrown by the mother behind the bed, and her hand and her hand was torn. You know, when you see a one handed mother bleeding, trying to put her that girl together because she was in shock. We took those kids to hospital and I look at Zahra and I says, I'm gonna take him. Let me do that because if I don't take him, he's gonna lose the eyesight.
She looks me and I says, I don't want to leave. And she said, you have to leave because you have two more kids left. We made the movie recently about the crimes towards children. I came to the premiere of that movie, and that woman, she came up on the stage and she showed that little boy and how his sister lived, the other one dead. But you know, it was important for me that I could save the lives of those people.
These are human lives. When I go to Donetsk, we have a very serious job. We have all regions of Russia. They're all together in such an agreement. They are so united that we have special chiefs that are connected to the certain territories.
They constantly restore restore a school, this one and that one. You know, we restore the school, we build it, they send another bullet, so we put a lot of money in this because we're these these are our people. We don't get separated from them. What united us, these nations together, we had one one language, Russian language. We had we have one more thing.
That's our faith. Our faith. And today, during the military special operation, people of different religions think about that nationalities, they're all fighting together, Muslims and Orthodox Christians. When a Muslim, you know, when a Muslim prays, the Orthodox is covering his back. When an Orthodox prays, the Muslim is covering his back.
So when I was coming out from here, so bring out the kids, the bridge was already more or less destroyed, they were striking the bridge. And I remember the moment when the bridge was in in the holes. At at any moment, any rocket can hit it and right before us, one rocket and then another rocket. And I'm with two kids in my hands. I jumped out of the car.
You know, I lay on my back when I fell down, and we laid down just until everything quiet so we are get back in the car because kids are sick and we continue to drive through the bridge on fire. You remember any prayer, he says, begin to pray and open the doors. He says, why? If you hear the rocket, you're gonna have to jump off the bridge. He says, come on.
I've got kids. He says, well, then we all die anyways. And I understood that it was the longest ever bridge crossing in my life because I couldn't understand where that bridge would fall down, but I knew I had to save those kids. And then, you know, people never think about it. I just came from Donbas now.
I was there, and it's horrible to see how, during my stay there, I was three days there, we had rockets coming in, directed, targeted. A mother died in the eyes in the eyes of her son. And people are going, and they're still buying products because they're tired of the war. They're tired of bombing. And, you know, I just if one time you see that, you see that tragedy, you know?
We have mister Simon, a great poet in our country. He wrote a lot of poems about war where the major brought the little boy. That's a special poem talks about the death of the father in the eyes of the son. And poem where it says that you speak, there are others. And I have to get back home.
And you have seen. And the poet says that you have seen that. You have heard about it, but but I have seen that with my own eyes. So I I just can't I just see what takes place and to leave our people, our nation just want to help. When we just wanna speak Russian language, know, believe in God that they wanna believe, and they're not for and they're forbidden.
When we understand that it any president, first thing, there's a security of his country, the safety of borders to protect the people, to protect the culture, traditions. You know, Russia is very strong about traditions. We don't want to be given the tragedies and and cultures from overseas. We don't understand the same sex marriage. Yeah.
We have caucuses. I'm small. My dad is an officer, and I lived at Caucasus for six years. I know the traditions of that region. I know those people.
For them, it's a it's a slap on the face if they look at the same sex marriage. It's not in our culture. It's all given to us. But at the same time, look at the lie they talk about that we are after this heaven as this LGBTs and so on, but that's not true. We have people like that.
They freely walk in the cities. They hold hands. As a mother and a of a child, I don't want my son to see that, but that's how they walk, and nobody touches them. Nobody touch that's their right. Our president said that they have a right do what they want to do behind their doors of their house.
We took only one law about forbidding propaganda among the children of until 18 years of age. When I was at one of the territories, I went into the school where the kids studied in Ukraine, and I took out of their books that were taught, study books, right, Southeast Of Ukraine. We took out 300 different books and methodical special for the for the teachers how to teach the this is when I opened those book, this is what I they had comics stories there where a Russian soldier Russian soldier was with a bottle of vodka. There was a flag of Russia, and these Russian soldiers were killing little puppies, little dogs, would tear kids, and were always with a bottle of vodka. And and there were holy warriors from Ukraine that were saving this little puppy and untying the kids.
That they did in the comics. It's in the books for children. They had books with pictures about Russia. This is how they told the kids. They were laughing at the president of our countries.
What else did we see? These are the pictures. What is on those pictures? The heroes of great World War two were changed for Nazis, criminals, Bandera, Shuhevej, and so on. Soviet tanks with a German cross, fascist cross, and every word was filled with hate to all Russian.
There was not not such a thing as World War two war. It was a German and Soviet war. Now more than that, this book about the protectors of the it's just like a methodical book. We have a special subject is how to to protect the motherland, right? And they teach you how to kill Russian soldiers through the gun machine.
And they the kids were prepared to kill Russians. And when I look at the literature list, it's actually was everything from NATO, from UN, under the leadership of actually, more than that in Ukraine from eighth grade for the money of Great Britain. They had course like to learn and stop against the crumbling narratives. For the money from the West, I analyzed the books, study books in the different countries of the CIS where they call Russia occupying country where they have hate against Russia and what's important for the western money in the framework of the official work, they rewrite the history. What look at these books.
They say the resolution 02/2006. The total totalitarian communism regime Prager prog declaration to they equal Nazis and communists. Other solutions. So they had the same day to celebrate Nazis crimes and Stalin's crime together, made a holiday out of that. So that's in Poland, in Baltics.
They have a double occupation where that refuses that Soviet Union and Soviet Army brought the freedom to Baltic countries. And we see the attempts to falsify the to change the world history to put in the responsibility on the Russian empire and USSR. Twenty seven million people killed. You know, World War two. They're trying to take it out of the books but they don't understand one thing.
We will fight till the end for our history because whence the country loses the history, the country loses sovereignty. We're not gonna let it happen. Every family, every family has grandparents and grandmothers that were dying for the war. I told you that my mother was in a blockade. My grandfather was the head of the airborne army and the other grandfather, he was an airborne army.
He was a soldier. The other grandfather, was a driver. He was bringing bread to blockade Lingrad so people could eat. We all have our own heroes. We will not forget that.
And what they do is really they know what they do and they plan to do it. So professionally I do now with the topic of of kids. You know, my education as a journalist. Second education, I am a lawyer. I finished at the magistrate degree, and I went to the as a team psychologist, and I am professionally study the children's mentality and psychology at the scientific level of different countries and including US.
They study the power of Internet and video games. Here is the study of The United States. It's how the video games influence, how through video games you can influence the mind of the child. What does it mean the video game is when a person gets into the character they start thinking for the character, do something for the character. They think it's okay.
It's normal. So when kids playing the game, porn game, then they need to go to school kill, school shooting, you know, like Columbine. Then kids think it's normal. So in China, they they put blood into blue and green color so the kids won't understand it. This is Call of Duty.
Look, there's a whole mission where they kill and are very horrible towards Russia. Okay? In the video game, that old Russian soldiers and they're loyal to Moscow. These are criminals, military criminals, and their target is to kill civilians. The weapons of Russia is the weapon of terrorists.
There's missions where you have to where the member of the game have to become an ultra nationalist Russian group, come to the Moscow Airport, take over the people and kill policemen. Or after the terror act in Crocus on a foreign sting counterstrike game, they had a map where they offered to come and finish the killing of the leftover humans that the terrorists didn't kill. So I've spoken a lot more about other games. So the the toys, in nineties we had these toys. Look.
Good and bad heroes with time. All this culture gets in. This was the picture of the good hero was faded out. We start having other heroes, but now we have these toys, monsters, dolls and caskets. Look at these toys.
These are the values that we're trying to be given to our kids. So these kids is made by the Mattel company. What is it famous with that? In 2022, they sent $1,000,000 to the United Arms of Ukraine in '22. Whatever money they got from selling toys, they they sell the bad values that destroy the mentality of our kids.
And with this money, they are fighting in Ukraine against us, killing the same kids. And, definitely, we have informational war against Russia. Russia, they try to show it as an aggressor to, you know, hide your own minuses. Because in Europe, long time, people understand very well the circumstances. They have 30,000 sanctions against us, 12 packages.
You know, I am under all possible sanctions. Of course, I cannot I cannot go to any other country, so I could not go there and tell the truth. We have 30,000 sanctions. And at the same time and our economy has not broken down. Economy is growing.
The sanctions are not getting to the point that actually, Russian economy went up 4.1%. And what happens in Europe? There's no job. The level of the life is going down. I'm not talking about the criminal migrants that and and the fight that they have over that issue.
And people understand in United States and in Europe that the level is grow going down. And the taxes that they're paying for this low standard of living. This money is going to Ukraine to pump Ukraine with guns. Everybody sees that, and, of course, people get upset. I have different politicians that contacted me from Europe, Some just regular businesses, regular civilians in the same speaking Germany, in France.
They say, look what happens. You know, of course, face to face politicians say, we understand everything. We really see the picture, but publicly, they cannot announce about that. And people suffer. Politicians suffer.
Economist suffers for the interest of some group of people. Because the conflict that took place, it wasn't the fault of Russia and Ukraine. We you have to understand. So we have informational war against us. So the coordination is also done by the Department of the Foreign Affairs on the development of Great Britain and partnership that they have a special department there, HMG Russian Union.
It controls 72% of all the information operations against Russia and support Azov operations that we call extremists here in Russia. And there's a connectivity between the Azov departments and others and giving the scholarships and the to the people that were foreign agents as as in Russia. So that's what we have.
Speaker 0: You know, listened to your to your story. It's compelling. I mean, I'm enthralled. I'm I'm I'm fascinated by everything you're saying. When I look on the battlefield, Russia's winning.
Every day, I see Russia advancing, and the Russian military is doing well. You're losing the information war. This is a story that needs to be told, needs to be understood by the West. And I know they've sanctioned you, and it's made it difficult, but you're losing the information more. Why is Russia losing the information more?
What does Russia need to do to win? This is this is a compelling story. This is the truth. Why can't Russia take the truth and get the world to see the truth? Why are the British instead winning this?
Why is Azov winning the information war against Russia?
Speaker 1: You know when we had a whole network of different non commercial organizations when they were sponsored by the way from the West and other funds. We had non commercial organization under the cover of helping invalids and elderly and kids, and I made a report, and I was curious. I analyzed the leaders of this noncommercial organizations, NCOs, NCOs. Look at the biography. One of the leaders, for example, was doing the taking out social Soviet Union scientists to United States, fighting for democracy against communism.
Who's the what is the organization? Gets foreign grants, they show the grants. Then, of course, they were trying to take it out from the website, but we still have the screenshots of the foreign grants. And I wanted to analyze what do they do if they their leader she has in one year that I analyzed him 973 publications in the mass media and 370 in the foreign media. But the real works only political activities, support of different opposition channels, meetings, riots, and a trial to destroy the country from the inside.
This is why understanding all that, our leadership, we took the law about noncommercial organizations and agents. There's same law in The United States. And moreover, starting from the very beginning of the special operation, military operation for us, everything got to be on a better side. On top of that, we learned. We started to develop our own technologies, our own technologies that we could not do earlier.
We learned how to do that. We came out for our own production, and we started fighting inside of the country that informational war. Now, yes, we won it inside our country. We what we've done, we've cleaned the backyard. We've cleaned the sewage.
We we learned how to do the fake information. We have now different instruments for AI systems of recognizing these deepfakes and what takes place. We have great number of patriotic platforms that are working inside our country. We do that. We learn that how to do that.
And we work in different formats. We have to recognize that. And a society is so united, but at the same time, we understand that we have to come out. And here, I have to thank you because as a Russian house, what you do overseas, they're highly important for the world to be able to know the objective truth, not these pictures that they take, re photoshopped, the horrors that Nazis did, that they killed the kids, and then they say that Russians did that. You know, this is what we need to do, but I am sure that step by step, the people in Europe and on the West, they will see that.
They learn how to analyze. Of course, we need to do it. Of course. And we see a great opportunity in that, and I am ready to answer all the questions. I was ready to give a speech to show the truth to the people.
I have to you just a little the tip of the iceberg of what I have, but in fact, what's important to show the reality, and then people will make their conclusion. That's important. And again, I repeat that that informational war, one more example. We have inside our country, what they try to do is that on top of the books that they published, where they redo the history, write the history. They were publishing books through our Russian noncommercial organizations, where they see kids who had drink alcohol and they say, what do you like to talk about?
About peace in the vodka where they were telling about vodka and wine and like in a proffer orientation department, the teacher of the high school that before they like to read the lectures. Now they don't wanna do that. But when they take drugs, the students say that his lectures are a lot better. And so our country, in these books, it shows like all alcoholics, drug addicts, corrupted, and etcetera. And when we took out the books and we see that these people get grants from Great Britain to create and write those books.
It's all clear to us. We understand that how do you change the enemy who raised his kids in the wrong way? And we started stopping that. We put a we put a special law about united educational field, and we watch the books that get into our schools. We, made a law about the protection of the traditional, rights.
We see the truth. You know, we look at the corruptions, how much money has been stolen in Ukraine or what is given to by United States and other countries. What is given for weapons, for gun everything is stolen from people. People suffer. Economy of Ukraine is is destroyed, and it's important to see that.
Speaker 0: As I said earlier, I view you as a hero for going in and rescuing the children, saving the children from the horrors of war. But what you've described too is what's taking place in Ukraine is a different kind of war. It's a psychological warfare against the children of Ukraine who have been exposed to this. Yes. Russia's passed laws.
Yes. Russia's cleaned the sewage out of its backyard, and I congratulate Russia for doing that. That's the proper thing to do. But when this war is over, there's going to be Ukraine. You saved the lives of children who were impacted by the physical ity of war.
Do you have a plan what to do to the children whose brains have been corrupted by the psychology of war and by the efforts of the Ukrainians to teach them to hate Russians, teach them the, you know, the Russian soldiers are bad, that the Russian language is bad. When this war is over, how are you going to help these children of Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Our president gives a lot of attention to the help of the kids. Big attention. And on our side what we do we are ready to work in this direction. And by the way I didn't mention the phrase starting from the military operation. $1,150,000,000 were given to the media to fight Russia on the information field.
So a lot of money was spent towards that. So there's great work ahead of us that we need to there's also a lot of work against us. But, you know, people in Ukraine, they suffer, and they see that on top of corruption corruption and low life living standards, I saw that with my own eyes, how Ukrainian guys, they didn't want to they didn't wanna go fight. They didn't wanna go to war because they understood that here in Russia, they have relatives, uncles, brothers, sisters. They just came there.
They gave the guns. And, you know, they just gave the guns and they come came to the Russian territory and they said, we don't wanna kill. We don't wanna destroy, but they still had a lot of informational campaigns. Yes. We have our own program.
We have a plan. We're already implementing it and for people to understand the truth. And I am sure that after the victory, we will have victory. We have no doubt about that. It will be done.
Yes. It will take years to build this relationship. And I'm here that I believe in the most thing in the civil conversation. The civil society need to talk. That would help.
But I know this the club of you know, you people's unity, the club is created due to that club. They help a lot to make this have this interviews important interviews because you have voiced that. People will hear you. People respect you here in Russia, but also people greatly respect you overseas in The United States. And when people like you will speak after hearing the truth, that would help to the victory, including informational war.
Speaker 0: Well, I'm here to help tell the truth, and you've been very powerful in in facilitating that. In The United States, we have a senator, Lindsey Graham. You may be familiar with his name. Lindsey Graham wants to fight this war to the last Ukrainian. Lindsey Graham believes that it's the best thing for The United States to continue to supply Ukraine with the weapons, the weapons that have killed and maimed the children that you have rescued.
Let's just do something. I want I'm I'm speaking to Lindsey Graham right now. What's this child's name?
Speaker 1: Sasha.
Speaker 0: Sasha. This is what American weapons do. This is what Lindsey Graham wants to continue. This is what anybody who seeks to continue this war is trying to do. Sasha, in the names of others what's this young girl's name?
Speaker 1: Vika.
Speaker 0: Vika. My daughter's name is Vika. Vika. Remember her name. Know her name.
Know the names of them all because this is what American weapons do. If you could send a message right now to Lindsey Graham, what would you tell him? What would you tell the American people about these weapons that we want to send to Ukraine?
Speaker 1: What I wanna say is this, they will never those that support the war, senators and others, they have never seen ever. What does it mean when you have a child, innocent child, when his hand is blown or leg is blown, they have not done anything in life against United States or against Europe. He just wanted to leave. The pain, the heart in the eyes of kids, the blood, all the bad things, those broken lives and destinies. They have no, you have never seen those.
Genetically, they don't understand that because have they never went through such a war as we did when all of us together were united to protect the nation. They don't understand how many tragedies in human lives were lost. Kids are number one. These tragedies will come back to you. They don't understand that.
They can't understand that what it is if, lord permit, their kids would go through it. They cannot comprehend that message. And life is like that, that sooner or later, it's gonna come get back to you. And I'm not talking about politics or anything else. I'm speaking about these kids that were just murdered there that I have seen with my own eyes, and I want.
Look. This is the way you carry a dead child. I want them to go there or at least come here and take a look in the eyes of these parents or these kids that still stay alive. Just look in their eyes. If they if they able to look them straight in the eye, looking in this kid's eyes, if they can, God is their judge.
But they you know what they will turn their eyes away because they don't want to see that because it's horrible.
Speaker 0: What a conversation. Thank you very much for for coming on. You know, the the National Unity Club brought me here to engage in conversations of this nature. This is the strongest one yet because this is the reality of war. This is what war does.
And, again, I call you a hero. It's up to your government to decide how they label you. I label you a hero of humanity. And on behalf of all the children of the world, on behalf of the parents of the world, I thank you so much for what you've done. I've written a book, it's about the danger of nuclear war.
My background is as a weapons inspector, do my best to prevent nuclear war from occurring. And I talk about the dangers of nuclear war, but I also talk about the importance of arms control. And arms control is about people sitting down and talking, having frank conversations, as we did here today about difficult subjects. And it's through that conversation that maybe the hope for peace can occur. So I I just like to offer you this book as a token of my appreciation.
Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. It's very important for me. Thank you for the signature. It'll take a very good place in my office. I will show it to all my colleagues at work and allow me to give you also, I give you a gift.
It's a book in Russia, in English.
Speaker 0: Thank
Speaker 1: you. It's a book in English will show how great a country that we have, how we can do technological breakthrough no matter the 30,000 sanctions that brought that to us to a situation where we have 220 volunteer 220,000 volunteer organizations in the countries and over. People are united after special military operations, such a unity among people in our nation. And our country wants that peace, and I sure hope that due to these conversations like we had today, we will be able to get to peace closer, sooner, and we'll have great relationship between biggest countries of the world, Russia and The United States, and we will build this communication. And the kids will stop dying.
Speaker 0: From your lips to God's ears, may it happen. Thank you very much. Wanna thank you for coming on today and talking. I wanna thank Tass for giving us access to this building. I wanna thank thank the National Unity Club for organizing this, and I wanna thank you, the audience, for listening.
This is the Russia House. It's about capturing the reality of Russia and bringing it home to the American people. And the conversation we had here today is so powerful, so important. I hope everybody listens to these words and takes actions so that children like this will never again suffer at the hands of American policy. And and I and I I normally don't finish with an editorial, but this is America that did this.
This is America that did this. We did it for geopolitics. We did it because people in the back room are drawing lines on a map and pretending to talk about global power. But the consequences of these ideas are dead children, broken families. We need to do better.
And because of a conversation like this, hopefully we will do better. Again, thank you very much.
reSee.it AI Summary
The recent exchange between President Trump and former President Medvedev highlights the escalating tensions between the US and Russia. Trump's fascination with a decapitation strategy, similar to the failed approach in Iran, raises serious concerns. His threats, including a hypothetical bombing of Moscow, reflect a dangerous mindset. Medvedev's reference to the "Dead Hand" system serves as a stark warning about the consequences of such aggressive tactics. This mechanism ensures a retaliatory response, emphasizing the peril of underestimating Russia's capabilities. The stakes are incredibly high.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
TRUMP AND MEDVEDEV’S DANGEROUS EXCHANGE OF WORDS As the rhetoric heats up, we must remain cognizant of the consequences. The sharp exchange of words between President Trump and former President Medvedev underscores just how dangerous the deteriorating relations between the US and Russia have become. The threats being promulgated are not idle ones. President Trump has become enthralled with the Israeli “Nasrallah” solution—leadership decapitation and middle management disruption designed to bring about the rapid collapse of a government/system. It was tried—and failed—in Iran. But Trump is being advised by Russophobes who believe that the US can successfully implement such a plan against Russia. This plan begins with sanctions, as all such plans do. It ends with a decapitation strike on Moscow. Trump’s imagined conversation with Putin, where he threatened to “bomb the sh*t out of Moscow”, is indicative of the President’s thinking in this regard. The preferred decapitation strike is done using B-52 bombers launching cruise missiles, accompanied by Trident missiles launched from Ohio-class submarines operating off the coast of Russia, allowing for a flatter trajectory flight and shorter flight time. Medvedev’s comment about the “Dead Hand” indicates that Russia is well aware of Trump’s plans. The “Dead Hand”, or Perimeter system, is a long-standing fail-safe mechanism/plan which guarantees a full-scale nuclear retaliation in case any nation is foolish enough to try a decapitation strike. It dates back to Soviet times, when a special regiment of SS-20 missiles was equipped with radio transmission devices instead of warheads. These missiles would be launched, broadcasting launch codes that would send all strategic nuclear force weapons to their targets, even if Moscow was taken out. This wasn’t theoretical—in my book Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, I write about how the Soviets transitioned this capability to the SS-25 system once the SS-20 was eliminated under the INF treaty. Today this mission is being handled by special regiment of SS-27 missiles. There are other components of the “Dead Hand”. Medvedev’s mentioning of it is a not-to-gentle reminder to Trump and his planners that it is suicide to think of a preemptive decapitation strike against Russia. Hopefully this message gets through. Otherwise, the “Walking Dead” allusion made by Medvedev will be the future of the United States and the world.
reSee.it AI Summary
I recently discussed President Trump's claim that Russia stole U.S. hypersonic missile plans during Obama's presidency, which he reiterated from his campaign. Contrary to this assertion, evidence suggests that the U.S. has actually benefited from Russian hypersonic research. Russia's Avangard weapon, rooted in Soviet-era programs, saw renewed development under Putin after the U.S. withdrew from the ABM treaty. Additionally, Russian scientists involved in hypersonic research have faced legal issues for allegedly sharing state secrets, raising questions about the flow of information between the U.S. and Russia.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
President Donald Trump recently asserted that Russia had stolen plans for an American hypersonic missile Trump called the “super-duper” during the administration of President Barack Obama, and that these stolen plans served as the basis of Russia’s current arsenal of advanced hypersonic weapons. Trump’s allegation repeats a claim he first made on the campaign trail in October 2023. It is likely that Trump is referring to information derived from a counterintelligence briefing he received during his first term in office.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
The notion that Russian hypersonic weapons are derived from American research and development is facially absurd. In fact, it appears that the opposite is the case—that the United States has acquired research from Russian hypersonic weapons programs and incorporated it into American weapons systems.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Russia’s most advanced hypersonic weapon is the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle. It is derived from research and development programs dating back to Soviet times, but which were halted after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War due to a lack of funding and changing geopolitical realities.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia resumed development of hypersonic capabilities in the aftermath of the withdrawal by the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. Initial work is believed to have begun around 2005. https://t.co/F5GlNCmUmQ
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
However, Russia held off from fully funding this effort in hopes that it might be able to re-inject ABM issues into the US-Russian strategic dialogue that was taking place in the aftermath of the US-Russian “reset” that took place early on during the first term of the Obama administration. When, in the aftermath of the signing and ratification of the New START treaty in 2010, it became clear that the Obama administration had no intention of meaningfully engaging on issues pertaining to missile defense, Russia made the decision to move forward with the development of hypersonic capabilities in order to deploy weapons capable of defeating all known and projected US ABM capabilities.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
One of the problems Russia faced regarding this research is that scientists who were engaged in the Soviet-era hypersonic programs which had been mothballed after the collapse of the Soviet Union were being sought out by foreign intelligence services who were seeking to gain access to the results of this research to further their own respective hypersonic missile weapons.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
One such example was a program ostensibly managed by the von Karman Institute for Thermodynamics (VKI) known as FPV-7 Space, which collaborated with six Russian research institutes, including several involved in both past Soviet hypersonic research and ongoing research and development into contemporary hypersonic glide vehicles such as the Avangard, which at that time was known as Project 4202. VKI is registered in Belgium as a non-governmental organization, and is closely associated with NATO’s Advisory Group for Aerospace and Development (AGARD) and the Defense Research Group (DRG).
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
The US intelligence community’s science and technology component maintains connectivity with VKI through its NATO affiliation. It is highly likely that the US intelligence community used the FPV-7 Space program to gain access to Russian scientists involved in past and current hypersonic research, and guided the interaction between VKI and these scientists to gain access to data relevant to Russia’s ongoing research and development work regarding Avangard and other hypersonic weapons.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Several Russian scientists involved in the FPV-7 Space program have been arrested by Russian law enforcement and charged with providing state secrets to foreign intelligence organizations. In their defense, lawyers for these scientists state that all information provided by these scientists, in the form of lectures and professional papers, had been cleared by Russian authorities for release to foreigners.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
However, it appears that the Russian security services may have gained access to US hypersonic plans not for the purpose of stealing and using information contained within to develop Russian weapons, but rather to ascertain the extent to which data unique to Russian hypersonic weapons research programs the detained Russian scientists had access to had found its way into US hypersonic weapons development programs. Given the successful prosecution of the Russian scientists involved in the FPV-7 Space project run by VKI, it appears that the scientists, witting or unwitting, provided information above and beyond that which had been cleared to be released.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Moreover, the arrest and prosecution of these scientists indicates that rather than the “theft” of US hypersonic plans being a case of Russian reliance upon US research to further its hypersonic weapons capabilities, the opposite is true—it is the US which used its intelligence services to gain access to secret Russian information to further its own weapons research and development.
reSee.it AI Summary
I want to remind everyone that Ukraine has labeled me as part of their "Network of Pro-Russian Disinformation in the West." The Center for Countering Disinformation, funded by the US, has been used by the Biden administration to target Americans for exercising their First Amendment rights. I am hopeful that this attack on our principles will cease with Donald Trump as President. For America to be great again, we must ensure full First Amendment protections for those who challenge government narratives.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Just a reminder: Ukraine puts me at the top of their “Network of Pro-Russian Disinformation in the West” grouping. The Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) is a US-funded and supported office of the Ukrainian presidency. The Biden administration used the CCD to attack Americans for exercising their First Amendment right of free speech. I’m hopeful that this disgraceful assault on American principles will end now that @realDonaldTrump is the President of the United States. America cannot be great again without full First Amendment protections for those who expose the lies of the government.
reSee.it AI Summary
Scott Ritter believes rescuing hostages in Gaza is impossible without negotiation, as Israel's military operation will fail and result in casualties. Geomc63 questions Israel's intelligence failure explanation, while DonName73501 suggests a deeper conspiracy involving Hamas and media manipulation.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Let me be crystal clear: trying to rescue 120 hostages from the circumstances that exist in Gaza is a mission impossible. Israel will fail. The hostages will die. Israeli soldiers will be killed. Their only chance at survival is to negotiate a prisoner swap. If you’re not willing to negotiate, then don’t tell me you care about the hostages. You simply care about revenge.
@geomc63 - George Cameron
@RealScottRitter Cannot believe that you and Larry Johnson each accept Israel’s ‘intelligence failure’ rationale. When attackers breach barriers, alarms go off, don’t they?
@DonName73501 - DonNeedNoStinkinUserName
@geomc63 @RealScottRitter 3/3 From what 'party goers' have since described, #HAMAS, wearing IDF Uniforms & implementing sophisticated tactics didn't put this operation together with 48 hrs notice or training. This is Sept 11th, 2001 level planning, media manipulation, #BigPictureShit & we're being set up
reSee.it AI Summary
Scott Ritter argues that rescuing hostages in Gaza is impossible without negotiation, as Israel's military operation would fail and result in casualties. Geomc63 questions Israel's intelligence failure explanation, while DonName73501 supports Egypt's claim that they warned Israel about a Hamas operation.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Let me be crystal clear: trying to rescue 120 hostages from the circumstances that exist in Gaza is a mission impossible. Israel will fail. The hostages will die. Israeli soldiers will be killed. Their only chance at survival is to negotiate a prisoner swap. If you’re not willing to negotiate, then don’t tell me you care about the hostages. You simply care about revenge.
@geomc63 - George Cameron
@RealScottRitter Cannot believe that you and Larry Johnson each accept Israel’s ‘intelligence failure’ rationale. When attackers breach barriers, alarms go off, don’t they?
@DonName73501 - DonNeedNoStinkinUserName
@geomc63 @RealScottRitter 1/3 💯!! Egypt is ADAMANT they REPEATEDLY warned the Israelis about a #HAMAS operation - a BIG one - coming soon. Nuttyawho's denying it. A retired Commander who oversaw a large section of #Gazas fence says it's incomprehensible there was ZERO response from the IDF as soon as
reSee.it AI Summary
Rescuing 120 hostages in Gaza seems impossible. Israel's success is doubtful, hostages may die, and soldiers could be killed. Negotiating a prisoner swap is their only chance for survival. If revenge matters more than hostages, don't claim to care.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
Let me be crystal clear: trying to rescue 120 hostages from the circumstances that exist in Gaza is a mission impossible. Israel will fail. The hostages will die. Israeli soldiers will be killed. Their only chance at survival is to negotiate a prisoner swap. If you’re not willing to negotiate, then don’t tell me you care about the hostages. You simply care about revenge.
reSee.it AI Summary
In 2003, Senator Feinstein sought a briefing on Iraqi WMD allegations. She acknowledged the solid analysis but lacked unequivocal proof. She later admitted being misled by the Bush administration. Her failure to act on the truth stains her soul, with the blood of Americans and Iraqis. Justice awaits her.
@RealScottRitter - Scott Ritter
I met Senator Diane Feinstein once, in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She had just recently been assigned to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (in 2001), and it was in that capacity that she had a senior staffer from the committee ask me to come to Washington DC to brief her on Iraqi WMD and the allegations being made by the Bush administration that Iraq continued to possess them. We met in a secure conference room in the Capital building—me, the Senator, and a half dozen staffers and aides. It was a polite, professional affair, with the Senator asking questions and taking notes. Eventually she confronted me—“Your position is causing us some difficulty. You are making the US look bad in the eyes of the world.” I replied that my analysis and the underlying facts were rock solid, something she agreed with. I said that while I knew she couldn’t reveal sensitive intelligence, if she could look me in the eye and say she has seen unequivocal proof that Iraq retained WMD, I’d shut up and go away. She looked at her retinue, and then me. “I have seen no such intelligence,” she replied. She thanked me for the briefing, and said it provided her with “food for thought.” On October 11, 2002, Senator Feinstein voted in favor of the resolution authorizing war with Iraq. Later, she said she had been misled by the Bush administration and bad intelligence. I will forever know Senator Feinstein as someone who had been empowered by the truth, and lacked the moral courage to act on it. The blood of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis stains her soul. I hope when she stands in judgment before her maker, she is punished accordingly.
