TRIGGERnometry - BONUS LIVE SPECIAL： Russia-Ukraine War Update

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to a very special live episode of Trigonometry, where we're going to be examining

00:00:07.560 and analyzing everything that is happening in Russia at the moment. We will also be taking

00:00:15.420 your questions as well. So if you've got questions, send us a super chat, send us a PayPal,

00:00:20.980 and in the second half of the interview, we'll be feeding your questions to Konstantin and we'll

00:00:26.840 be discussing them. So that is your chance to ask Konstantin questions all about what is happening.

00:00:32.840 But I'm Francis Foster. I'm Konstantin Kissin. That was smooth, mate. Your intro sounded like it

00:00:37.800 was a little bit of slow motion. But anyway, here we are. Yeah, indeed. We should probably announce

00:00:43.900 that actually, I mean, if people were tuning in to find out about the terrible emergency coup,

00:00:49.680 as we speak, the guy who's orchestrating the coups just said he's turning his troops around. So you

00:00:54.840 can switch off, basically. But seriously, though, if you want to understand what's happening,

00:00:59.260 that's what we were going to talk about. Absolutely. That is what we were going to

00:01:02.080 talk about, because I think a lot of people are kind of sitting at home. They woke up a few hours

00:01:08.140 ago. They have no clue what's happened. They don't know who the Wagner group is. They don't know who

00:01:12.660 Yevgeny Prakorshin is. So let's start with that. Who is Yevgeny Prakorshin? Well, he is. So we should

00:01:18.680 start with Wagner, whatever you pronounce it. So they are a private military company, basically,

00:01:24.420 a mercenary group that Putin has been funding for a long time in order to participate in

00:01:30.880 conflicts and train troops and so on around the world so that Russia could do things in places

00:01:36.300 like Syria and various countries in Africa without actually that being attributable to the Russian

00:01:42.080 military. And so they've been operating, as I say, in various different parts of the world,

00:01:47.060 but most prominently in Syria, where they actually, I did a whole tweet series about this

00:01:53.100 today. They actually, at one point, found themselves in direct confrontation with American forces

00:01:59.300 and took very heavy casualties in that battle. But basically, put very simply, they're a private

00:02:05.520 mercenary company that's been fighting in different places around the world. And when Russia invaded

00:02:11.480 Ukraine in March of last year, or February of last year, in February of last year, they were one of

00:02:19.540 the key units that did a lot of the fighting on the front lines. And they, because they're very well

00:02:26.280 funded, and they're very well trained, and very experienced, they were actually one of the units that

00:02:31.400 had some of the biggest successes, while most of the Russian military actually really, really struggled,

00:02:35.900 and was forced to cede territory that initially occupied back to the Ukrainians. The Wagner Group

00:02:42.440 is one of the units that's been very successful, for a number of reasons. One of them is, they're not

00:02:48.440 subject to various rules of war and regulations. And so they've been able to use very brutal tactics.

00:02:56.420 So the other, we'll get back to that in a second. But the other reason is, they had for a long time,

00:03:03.720 they were able to recruit convicts. And Yevgeny Prigozhin, who's the head of this group, he is actually

00:03:09.980 an ex-convict himself. So he would go to these penal colonies all over Russia, and to prisons all

00:03:15.860 over Russia. And he would say, well, you're here for murder, or you're here for assault, or whatever,

00:03:20.420 you've got another 10 years on your sentence. Why don't you come and do six months with me,

00:03:25.680 you'll be paid, you'll be well trained, much better trained than if you were in the regular army,

00:03:30.020 but much better equipped. And if you do six months with me, you can go home, and you get a pardon.

00:03:35.920 So your sentence is completely commuted as a result, which obviously, as you can imagine,

00:03:40.280 to some prisoners, that would have been quite appealing. And they did that for a long time.

00:03:45.000 And what they did with the units is basically, they use style and tactics. So if you retreat,

00:03:51.300 they just shoot you. And he told people when he was recruiting them at the prison, he would be like,

00:03:57.420 no retreat. If you retreat, we're going to shoot you. And they do this. One of the things they're

00:04:02.620 known for is they execute defectors or anyone who surrenders and then says anything bad about them by

00:04:09.880 smashing their head in with a sledgehammer live on camera. And they publish several of these episodes.

00:04:15.000 So very brutal, very professional. And they were fighting over this city in eastern Ukraine,

00:04:21.820 quite a small city actually, called Bakhmut, for about eight months, which was longer than the

00:04:25.900 Battle of Stalingrad. And a few weeks ago, they managed to force the Ukrainians out.

00:04:32.000 They took very heavy casualties in this process and inflicted very heavy casualties on the Ukrainian

00:04:36.400 army at the same time. And having finished this, they basically needed to go back away from the

00:04:45.100 front lines for rest and recovery and, you know, to replenish their losses, retrain their units and so

00:04:51.500 on. But in the background of all of this, one of the things that has been happening is obviously

00:04:57.020 Prigozhin and Wagner, they are a unit that is essentially, you could almost argue, independent of

00:05:03.500 the Russian military. And this is a problem from the perspective of the Russian Ministry of Defense,

00:05:08.820 because it's not a unit that's under their control. And increasingly, Prigozhin started

00:05:13.640 criticizing very publicly the Russian Minister of Defense, Shoigu, and the head of the general

00:05:19.120 staff, Gerasimov. And so they've been in this battle of words for many, many months. Prigozhin accused

00:05:24.500 them of not providing enough ammunition, of using poor tactics, of being incompetent, and all of this

00:05:31.160 stuff in public, in Russia. You know, this isn't like the UK, where you can criticize the head of

00:05:36.980 the army or the military. And that's kind of people, people give you a pat on the back for that. It's

00:05:41.160 really completely unheard of in Russia, particularly from someone from another branch of the fighting in

00:05:46.040 the same war. And this conflict was amplifying and amplifying and amplifying, to the point where

00:05:53.100 Prigozhin once did record this video in front of, like, the corpses of his soldiers saying,

00:05:59.280 these men have died because of the incompetence of the Ministry of Defense, screaming, give me

00:06:04.580 ammunition, give me blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so when they were pulling back, remember I said

00:06:09.660 after they took back, Matt? This is according to Prigozhin anyway. As they were moving back to

00:06:17.040 positions in the rear, the road that they were using was mined. There were mines on the road in

00:06:23.420 territory controlled by Russia. And when they sent in disposal engine, bone disposal engineers to deal

00:06:30.720 with it, they came under fire from the Russian side. And what they then did is they basically

00:06:36.940 responded to the fire, encircled the units that were firing on them. And what they found is it was a

00:06:42.600 unit of the Russian military. They arrested or detained, not arrested, they detained the colonel who was in

00:06:49.180 charge of it, beat him up, clearly tortured and whatever, and put him on camera. And he refused

00:06:54.320 to say why he gave the order to attack Wagner. He just said, oh, I have a deep personal antipathy

00:07:00.420 towards you. But he wouldn't explain who gave him the order, if anybody. So then they went back into

00:07:07.080 the rear after all of this. So a lot of people saw this as an escalation of the conflict between the

00:07:12.380 Ministry of Defense and Wagner. And yesterday, Prigozhin claimed that Russian military had dropped bombs

00:07:21.520 on his units in Russian territory, or Russian controlled territory. And he was like, okay, this is

00:07:29.480 enough. We are now going to deal with Shoigu, the defense minister, and Gerasimov, the head of,

00:07:36.780 basically a mutiny. It wasn't actually a coup. A coup would be him trying to take over the presidency.

00:07:41.780 Now, that may be what was happening. But it was actually more, he at least was claiming,

00:07:46.940 what this was about was throwing off the defense minister and the head of the army. Although if

00:07:54.440 you think about it, I mean, if you're President Putin, and I'm the head of the army, and someone

00:07:58.200 wants to overthrow me, you've appointed me. So at the very, very least, you're massively undermining

00:08:04.380 my authority. Anyway, so they got the columns together, and they started basically marching on

00:08:09.280 Moscow. They captured a major city called Rostov-on-Don. And then they started going

00:08:15.280 towards Moscow, avoiding major cities, avoiding firefights. There were whole units of Russian

00:08:20.140 military soldiers who laid down their arms and didn't want to interfere in that fight.

00:08:24.860 And a few minutes ago, we heard from Prigozhin himself, that he basically said, well, the reason

00:08:31.000 we did this, he's changed the explanation. The original explanation was they attacked us. Then he said,

00:08:36.040 they wanted to disband my unit. They wanted to disband Wagner. So we went on what he called

00:08:41.800 a march for justice towards Moscow. They got to about, probably within about 150 to 200 kilometers.

00:08:50.000 So they'd already reached the Moscow region, Moscow Obelisk is called. And they were basically

00:08:55.840 heading there. And in the last few minutes, they've said that they're pulling back and going

00:09:01.000 back to where they were stationed. Now, given that in the meantime, what had happened is the mayor of

00:09:07.480 Moscow suspended any movements in Moscow, called it a non-working day, basically everybody stay at

00:09:13.100 home. And Putin came, went on TV and said, this is treason. This is mutiny, that these people will be

00:09:19.800 punished, etc, etc, etc. This doesn't end here. Because if you've taken up arms, essentially against

00:09:28.000 your country, particularly in Russia, this is, this is gonna, it'll either end very quickly,

00:09:35.500 if you know what I mean, or this will run in terms of its repercussions. I mean, one of the things,

00:09:39.440 obviously, it shows is that Putin's authority is weakening. It doesn't mean he's not in charge.

00:09:46.100 You know, people will say I'm being biased against Putin. I mean, no, an armed mutiny in Russia is a sign

00:09:52.440 that the fact of the fact that the president's authority is in question. Another thing that we should say as

00:09:57.120 well is, Purgosyan is not the only one in essentially with a private army in Russia.

00:10:02.400 There's also Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya. Now, he is loyal to Putin at the moment,

00:10:08.180 but he has somewhere between 20,000 and 70,000 troops, including reservists, depending how you

00:10:14.540 count it, who are loyal entirely to him. And while the former Chechnya is obviously part of the Russian

00:10:20.440 Federation, you know, the people who live there are their own ethnicity, they're Muslim rather

00:10:27.700 than Orthodox Christian. They have a very strong local identity. So in the event that things kick

00:10:34.480 off, I mean, there's, my point is there's other players that could get involved in this situation.

00:10:39.900 And Putin has been building up the National Guard under one of his loyalists. So there's several

00:10:45.580 essentially private armies in addition to the Ministry of Defense that could potentially in a

00:10:50.640 situation like this been vying for leadership. And, you know, the Chechens, for example, they said,

00:10:56.560 well, we're going to go and stop Purgosyan because they hate him and Wagner for many reasons. They've

00:11:00.200 been in the pissing match for the last many months. Okay, well, let's say the Chechens get to Moscow.

00:11:05.280 Let's say they chase off Purgosyan. Well, if Putin needs them, why do they need Putin? Right? So this had the

00:11:13.200 potential to be a very dangerous situation and still does because we don't know if it's actually been

00:11:17.180 resolved. I mean, privately, I did say to you this morning that I didn't think this would end up in a,

00:11:23.600 you know, in an overthrow of the government or anything. It may do still, nobody really knows. But that's

00:11:29.500 kind of the background to where we are. And one of the questions I really want to ask is, I find it bizarre

00:11:36.160 that somebody who is as power hungry as Putin, who is an authoritarian, why does he have private

00:11:42.920 armies working for him? Well, why doesn't he have the Russian army? Because he can't fund the

00:11:48.700 Russian. Well, one of the reasons I explained to you, which is he needed them for operations that he

00:11:54.600 couldn't do with the full weight of the Russian state behind it. So if you need someone to go, I mean,

00:12:00.060 the Americans had, I don't know if you remember this scandal. There was a scandal in Iraq when

00:12:05.080 some people from a company called Blackwater, they killed civilians in Iraq, and there was a big

00:12:12.860 scandal. The guy had to sell this company. They changed the name, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But

00:12:17.520 basically, a lot of big companies, big countries around the world have been experimenting with this

00:12:24.040 model where you have armed mercenaries that are acting under your direct control, but they're not

00:12:29.760 directly attributable to you. So for example, I'm not saying this is exactly why Putin would have

00:12:36.400 wanted it, but remember at the beginning, I mentioned how, so to give you a very brief rundown,

00:12:42.440 in Syria, the Americans and the Russians actually coordinated their movement, even though they were

00:12:48.380 on the opposite sides of that war, because Russia backed Assad, and obviously the Americans didn't.

00:12:53.540 But the last thing they wanted was for Americans accidentally to be fighting Russians, and before

00:12:58.680 you know it, you're in World War III. So in this battle that I told you about, I wish I could

00:13:03.320 remember the name now, but I did a series of tweets in which I mentioned it today. The Americans said,

00:13:10.800 we're about to engage this Syrian unit. Are there any Russian soldiers attached to it? And the Russians

00:13:16.180 were like, no. And the Americans were like, cool, so we'll take care of it then. And they killed

00:13:20.160 somewhere, I think, between 200 and 400 Wagner mercenaries, because the Russians basically said,

00:13:25.780 well, these are not our guys, right? So that's obviously the downside of plausible deniability

00:13:30.300 of these people being attached to the Russian military. But essentially, what it allows you to do

00:13:34.420 is act in ways around the world that you couldn't act as a state, because it would be too much of a

00:13:39.420 transgression for you to do so, or there would be too much bad press or bad publicity. So that's one

00:13:44.480 reason. The other reason is, what I was saying to you is, if you have a bunch of various private

00:13:50.840 armies emerging in the country, you're not necessarily going to be able to rely on the

00:13:55.580 Russian military, all right? What if the Russian military becomes mutinous for some reason? You want

00:14:00.240 a force or a set of forces in Putin's case that you control, that you can use to defend yourself,

00:14:06.500 to assert your authority, and so on. And Prigozhin was known as Putin's chef. He was actually a guy who

00:14:12.040 owned restaurants. He was very closely connected with Putin, apparently, until recently. So I don't

00:14:17.560 know what's going on there. Nobody does. And the third thing is, I mean, this is an elite unit.

00:14:23.160 They're much better trained, much more disciplined, much better equipped than the regular Russian army.

00:14:27.860 Are they better paid as well?

00:14:28.980 And they're better paid.

00:14:29.820 Yeah. Because that was one of the criticisms with the Russian armies, that the pay was awful,

00:14:35.480 they weren't properly trained, they didn't have the right ammunition, they didn't have the...

00:14:40.280 terribly funded. So that being the case, he's obviously got many legitimate grievances against

00:14:48.760 the Russian army, against the Russian government. But this looks like an act of lunacy, doesn't it,

00:14:55.880 on his behalf?

00:14:56.840 Well, I mean, you say legitimate, nobody knows whether they're really legitimate grievances.

00:15:02.040 Because both... I mean, this is also true of the Ukrainian army, but the Russian army has had

00:15:06.800 problems with ammunition supplies all over the place. So it's not like necessarily they were being

00:15:13.300 targeted, although there may have been some of that going on as well. So we don't know whether

00:15:17.580 his grievances are legitimate or not. But I mean, obviously, you cannot have 25,000 men marching on

00:15:24.260 Moscow. And by the way, this is unconfirmed. But I've heard a lot of very credible reports that

00:15:31.160 the column that was heading towards Moscow was repeatedly attacked by helicopters, and several

00:15:37.800 of them were shot down.

00:15:38.820 Really?

00:15:39.500 So they shot, allegedly, we don't know for certain yet, but allegedly, they shot down several

00:15:45.300 Russian army helicopters, which are, you know, to say nothing of the fact that they killed Russian

00:15:49.900 airmen, they also shot down, you know, equipment worth tens of millions of dollars.

00:15:55.040 So, I mean, obviously, none of us knows how this is going to go. I would be very surprised

00:16:01.740 if he gets away with this.

00:16:02.700 And what has Putin's reaction been to this?

00:16:05.380 Well, the only thing we know, and this is the thing, for months as the slagging match was

00:16:09.540 going on between the M.O.D., the Russian M.O.D. and Wagner, he hadn't said anything.

00:16:14.540 And in fact, in one of Prigorsen's statements where he was talking about Gerasimov and Shoigu,

00:16:20.540 the defense minister and head of the general staff, he actually said something.

00:16:24.940 He was talking about how, well, maybe grandpa has lost the plot, right?

00:16:30.040 And he then took it back and said, I wasn't really talking about Putin and blah, blah,

00:16:33.780 blah.

00:16:34.780 But he was starting to sort of get ahead of himself, maybe, is the right phrase.

00:16:41.700 But doesn't that show that Putin's, that this war has destroyed Putin's credibility?

00:16:48.000 If you've got people being openly mutinous, people openly mocking Putin, people openly

00:16:54.900 criticizing the Ministry of Defense, I mean...

00:16:59.000 Well, you and I are both NATO shields, so we would say that.

00:17:02.580 But objectively speaking, I do think it's fair to say, I say this with British understatement

00:17:08.240 and sarcasm, I think it is fair to say that when you've got a large military unit rising

00:17:13.080 up and marching on your own capital, it's probably fair to say that you may have less control

00:17:19.360 over the armed forces in the country than you had before.

00:17:21.920 Yeah.

00:17:22.920 I think that's a fair statement.

00:17:24.300 And so has Putin not come out?

00:17:25.920 Has he made any kind of statement?

00:17:27.420 He made one statement.

00:17:28.420 The only time that he's commented on it was today when he basically did a short seven-minute

00:17:33.360 video in which he said, these people are traitors, they're going to be punished.

00:17:37.420 I call on the Russian forces to, you know, I call on everybody to avoid bloodshed, but

00:17:43.100 these people will be dealt with, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:17:46.100 But the fact that the mayor of Moscow, you know, basically put the city into lockdown shows

00:17:52.600 you that they weren't messing around.

00:17:54.040 This was serious.

00:17:55.040 They were very close, they were coming, and yeah, I mean, it's a big, this is a big problem

00:18:02.080 for Putin.

00:18:03.080 And one of the things that we're going to find out now is, you know, these 25,000 mercenaries,

00:18:07.760 they are loyal to Pregosian.

00:18:09.800 They are loyal to him.

00:18:11.280 He built this cult of, you know, looking after his soldiers and arguably, he certainly does

00:18:16.140 it a lot better than Russian generals in the army who are incompetent, many of them.

00:18:21.140 So they're loyal to him.

00:18:22.140 And, you know, if you take out Pregosian, what are they going to do?

00:18:26.500 They might just be like, well, okay, we don't have a leader anymore, we've got to quit.

00:18:31.460 Or they might really rebel.

00:18:34.820 You don't know.

00:18:36.400 But on the other hand, for Putin, I mean, he has to do something.

00:18:41.140 And I would have, I mean, I will tell you honestly, if I were him, I would have Pregosian

00:18:44.980 arrested and executed.

00:18:46.140 That's what you have to do if you want to stay in power.

00:18:48.860 That's what would happen.

00:18:50.540 So it just remains to be seen how this one plays out.

00:18:53.220 But can he actually arrest Pregosian?

00:18:54.900 If he has got this crack elite team of over 20,000 men who marched on Russia, marched on

00:19:04.780 Moscow, shot down helicopters.

00:19:07.340 Allegedly.

00:19:07.860 Allegedly.

00:19:08.500 Right.

00:19:08.680 Allegedly.

00:19:09.340 Yeah.

00:19:10.180 How's he going to arrest him?

00:19:12.300 Well, that remains to be seen.

00:19:13.740 I mean, one of the obvious ways you do it is you fly him in somewhere for negotiations

00:19:17.580 or, you know, whatever, whether that would work or not.

00:19:20.300 But you've got to understand this is not a sustainable situation.

00:19:23.060 No.

00:19:23.580 Right.

00:19:23.840 You can't have that.

00:19:25.440 I mean, we couldn't have that at trigonometry, two people being like, you know what, we're

00:19:29.360 going to sabotage everything you guys are doing.

00:19:32.100 They're like, we wouldn't tolerate that.

00:19:34.260 You can't tolerate this, particularly when it's armed mutiny.

00:19:38.880 And you can't give people, let people get away with it.

00:19:42.000 One of the reasons is it encourages other people to do it.

00:19:44.340 Yeah.

00:19:44.460 And so what effect has that had on the war with Ukraine?

00:19:48.880 Well, so if this had carried on, the effect would have been is obviously it probably would

00:19:55.400 have, first of all, it's a massive distraction.

00:19:57.560 So that means the Ukrainians would have the opportunity to do things.

00:20:00.340 But also if it really carried on, I mean, some of all of Russia's combat ready units

00:20:06.100 are essentially in Ukraine or on the border with Ukraine getting ready to get involved.

00:20:10.380 So they would have to pull some of them back and that obviously opens up gaps.

00:20:14.440 The Ukrainian counter-offensive hasn't really gone very well at all.

00:20:19.080 They haven't committed the majority of the troops yet to the counter-offensive that everyone's

00:20:23.840 been talking about.

00:20:24.980 But the efforts they have made, which has kind of been more reconnaissance and force than

00:20:29.040 actual full-scale attacks, haven't gone well at all.

00:20:33.620 So this may have been the opportunity the Ukrainians needed.

00:20:36.660 The fact that it's been shut down within the space of a day means that the Ukrainians haven't

00:20:42.500 had the opportunity to really take advantage of this so far as we know.

00:20:46.940 But the average Russian must look at Putin now and he must be diminished in their eyes

00:20:52.580 significantly.

00:20:53.880 So the one thing you should know about Russia is actually I met somebody when I was in America

00:21:00.620 who helped Boris Yelton design his campaign slogans.

00:21:04.200 And he said, we did all the polling and the campaign slogan we came up with was strong

00:21:08.280 leader for a strong Russia.

00:21:09.840 That's the mentality.

00:21:11.480 The moment you're not a strong leader, you know, people, I'm not saying it's over.

00:21:16.560 I'm not saying people are going to rise up and overthrow you.

00:21:19.400 But yeah, you lose a lot of credibility.

00:21:21.720 This has not done Putin any good at all, which is why I suspect he may end up doing something

00:21:27.620 very harsh in response.

00:21:28.640 Do you think that what we're seeing and the predictions are always terrible and in many

00:21:33.280 ways, probably not the fairest of questions.

00:21:35.060 Do you think we're seeing the beginning of the end of Vladimir Putin here?

00:21:39.440 No, I certainly wouldn't want to say that.

00:21:41.920 And I actually don't think necessarily.

00:21:44.840 No, I wouldn't want to say either way because I just don't think we know.

00:21:48.600 Really?

00:21:48.880 I don't, I think there is no evidence right now to suggest it's the beginning of the end.

00:21:53.740 It could be, but it may well, look, if he comes out tomorrow, you know, arrests Pregorzian,

00:22:00.180 has him executed or whatever, you know, maybe makes changes in terms of the way the army's

00:22:06.720 managed and all of this other stuff.

00:22:08.840 He may well be able to recover his situation and actually come back from this stronger.

00:22:13.560 That's also a possibility.

00:22:15.420 Or it may go the other way.

00:22:16.800 We genuinely don't know.

00:22:17.760 And how is Pregorzian seen in Russia?

00:22:19.780 Is he seen as a hero, somebody who embodies him?

00:22:22.460 It depends by whom.

00:22:23.240 It's like saying, you know, how is Donald Trump seen in America?

00:22:25.980 Well, half the country thinks he's a legend and half the country hates him.

00:22:28.960 Yeah.

00:22:29.220 You know, with Pregorzian, it's very difficult to say what on balance people think about him.

00:22:34.960 One of the things that he has achieved is because his unit has been one of the very few

00:22:40.860 that has actually done well in the fighting, that has made forward progress where other units

00:22:46.000 have failed and stalled, et cetera.

00:22:47.360 And he's been very good at building up and cultivating this image of this successful

00:22:51.300 military leader, even though he's not actually a commander at all.

00:22:54.340 He's kind of more like the PR head of the unit.

00:22:58.200 He has cultivated this sense of like being a strong leader and being successful and being

00:23:02.960 one of the few people we Russians can rely on to go and win in Ukraine.

00:23:08.200 So from that perspective, there will certainly be people who like him.

00:23:13.440 There will obviously be people who are not happy because, you know, he is organizing an

00:23:17.540 armed mutiny in the middle of a war that Russia, while not overwhelmingly, you know, the Russian

00:23:22.960 perspective of what's happening in Ukraine is it's, you know, we're not losing, but we're

00:23:27.580 not winning either, which is not what we were told would happen.

00:23:30.460 We were told, you know, our tanks will roll into Kiev very quickly.

00:23:33.740 This is an easy thing.

00:23:35.320 It was more of a military operation.

00:23:37.720 It's now a full blown war in which Russia has had to give seed territory that it's taken

00:23:43.340 over significant chunks of territory, including there in your heart, given the north, there

00:23:49.300 in your Kiev in the center, there in your her son and her son itself in the south, which

00:23:53.340 Russia had to abandon.

00:23:54.700 So in Russia, you know, the war is seen as not going great.

00:23:58.040 And the very sort of TV propagandists who were very bullish at the beginning, they're

00:24:03.800 now all talking about, you know, why isn't it going as well as it could?

00:24:07.000 Well, it's the evil NATO giving them weapons and blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:09.900 So that's the tone of the conversation.

00:24:11.600 So against that backdrop, Purgosian is one of the few successful military commanders, as

00:24:16.560 people would see him in the conflict.

00:24:19.080 He gets a lot of credibility.

00:24:20.600 Yeah.

00:24:20.700 And do you think because Russia is one of those countries that is very large and there's

00:24:26.820 a very credible argument that could be made that you need a strong man like Putin in order

00:24:31.340 to hold this enormous country together, otherwise it simply won't work.

00:24:36.060 Do you think there are people like the Chechens looking at this and going, this may be our

00:24:40.280 moment to have a go?

00:24:41.420 I think the Chechens at this moment, based on what I've seen, are loyal to Putin.

00:24:45.420 It doesn't mean that they are permanently loyal to Putin, but they clearly haven't seen

00:24:49.680 this as their moment to jump at the moment, which just remains to be seen.

00:24:57.000 You've got to remember, a lot of people have actually been predicting this would happen.

00:25:01.900 Oh, really?

00:25:02.320 Yeah.

00:25:02.680 Well, one of them is a guy called Igor Strelkov, who is actually one of the paramilitaries

00:25:08.440 who fought for the rebels in 2014.

00:25:11.200 He's very anti-Ukrainian.

00:25:13.060 He says Ukraine shouldn't exist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:25:15.920 But there's a growing, actually, movement in Russia of people who are anti-Putin because

00:25:21.700 they see him as weak, who are anti-the military because they see them as weak.

00:25:26.640 They don't see them as hard enough.

00:25:28.000 They don't see them as, you know, they say we need a full mobilization.

00:25:31.140 They say we need to call it a war.

00:25:33.140 We need to put Russia on a wartime footing.

00:25:34.880 And what they've been talking about, and this is, you know, one of the reasons that people

00:25:40.340 in Russia crave a strong leader is Russian history.

00:25:43.740 I've talked about this to a few people privately.

00:25:46.000 So, there's a time in Russian history called Times of Trouble.

00:25:50.880 In Russian, we call it Sumuta.

00:25:52.580 And what happened was, this is the period of Ivan the Terrible, who, if you remember,

00:25:58.800 he's known, really, for two things.

00:26:01.120 He, well, he was, he expanded Russia, or what it was at the time.

00:26:06.600 But what he also did is he killed his elder son in a fit of rage.

00:26:11.600 And his next son, who was very weak and probably, you know, mentally disabled, and essentially

00:26:18.740 he ended up with no heir.

00:26:21.540 And the Times of Trouble is the period after that, during which there is, like, half the

00:26:26.540 population dies in famine, the Poles invade, the Lithuanians invade.

00:26:30.940 There's a series of false pretenders to the throne that get overthrown.

00:26:34.580 And the whole land, basically, is ravished by one ill after another for decades on decades

00:26:42.720 on decades.

00:26:43.240 It's a terrible time in Russian history.

00:26:45.400 And what Russians learn, and this is something that we learn in school from a young age, what

00:26:50.400 Russians learned in that time is when you don't have a strong leader, bad things happen.

00:26:55.240 Terrible, terrible, terrible things happen.

00:26:57.040 And the reason that people have been predicting that this sort of thing would start to happen

00:27:01.780 is it's actually what happened in 1917 in the Russian Revolution, because Russia was

00:27:06.920 fighting in World War I.

00:27:08.700 All of the combat-ready units were on the front lines, whereas in the rear, there was a lot

00:27:14.380 of social discord and social instability, which was then used to destabilize the army.

00:27:20.900 And you ended up with the government being overthrown and the regime change that happened.

00:27:26.760 So people have been saying, like, we're heading towards Smuta.

00:27:30.340 And that's always the big fear in Russia.

00:27:32.740 So the difference is that a lot of people thought that what it would take is for a big setback

00:27:39.760 in Ukraine to happen before people started having a go, if you like.

00:27:44.460 So Pregosian may have jumped the gun here.

00:27:46.620 Yeah, indeed, he might.

00:27:48.440 I find it very interesting because, obviously, I read British publications and my Russian isn't

00:27:52.960 that good.

00:27:54.080 How good is it?

00:27:56.260 Not the best, mate.

00:27:58.100 But one of the things that I find actually deeply unhelpful is when people look at Russia

00:28:03.280 through a British or a European lens.

00:28:06.020 And it's not helpful because I don't think people understand this.

00:28:10.480 They perceive the world in a very different way.

00:28:12.820 So take the example of democracy with Boris Yeltsin.

00:28:16.560 Explain to us, what does democracy, for example, mean to a Russian?

00:28:20.620 Well, so I've said this many times.

00:28:22.520 Russia has never had democracy.

00:28:24.080 And the only experience Russia had with democracy was the period between 1991, when Boris Yeltsin

00:28:29.880 comes to power, the Soviet Union collapses, and 1999, when Vladimir Putin comes to power,

00:28:36.880 from which point, you know, you have elections, but you don't have democracy.

00:28:39.800 Because, you know, elections aren't democracy.

00:28:41.560 Democracy is the ability to change who leads your country by the people.

00:28:46.620 If you clean out all your potential opponents, rig elections to some extent, etc., it's not

00:28:52.740 a democracy.

00:28:54.580 And Russian people don't want it.

00:28:56.700 You know, when I say that, people think I'm sort of slagging off.

00:28:59.100 No, Russian people don't want democracy.

00:29:00.620 Because the only experience of democracy is eight years, in which you had inflation at

00:29:05.860 points of 84%.

00:29:07.180 84%.

00:29:08.780 It's probably the same we've got here at the moment, mate.

00:29:11.480 Yeah.

00:29:12.120 You know, a financial crisis.

00:29:14.600 You had a situation where Chechen terrorists drove into Russia.

00:29:19.280 I mean, this is going to sound quite familiar to what's happening now, but they drove into

00:29:23.040 Russia in two buses, captured a hospital in one of the bordering towns, herded about a

00:29:32.960 thousand people in there, held them hostage, killed some of them, and they essentially got

00:29:38.840 the Russian state to negotiate with them and give them concessions.

00:29:42.700 That's how embarrassing that was.

00:29:45.740 Imagine you were the Soviet Union, one of the two superpowers in the world, and now you're

00:29:50.480 negotiating with some Chechen warlord.

00:29:52.820 Wow.

00:29:53.060 Right?

00:29:53.380 So that was humiliating.

00:29:54.820 You had terrorist attacks.

00:29:56.300 You had incredible instability in terms of employment and jobs.

00:30:01.280 And we've talked about this before, but people who, you know, you could have been a

00:30:04.900 respectable scientist yesterday, and today you're selling your belongings in the street.

00:30:09.280 And the people who actually are in charge of your country now are criminals who've seized

00:30:14.740 control of the public assets, and they're selling them off, and they're driving around

00:30:19.180 in Mercedes and limos while you are starving.

00:30:22.680 There were two wars in Chechnya, et cetera, et cetera.

00:30:25.400 So it was a terrible period of chaos for Russians.

00:30:29.300 And if that's what you thought democracy meant, why would you want it?

00:30:33.560 Absolutely.

00:30:34.260 And looking at what happened at the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people didn't predict

00:30:38.400 that it was going to end so quickly.

00:30:39.960 And a lot of people say it's because we didn't really understand what was going on in the

00:30:45.840 Soviet Union and obviously the policy of secrecy, et cetera.

00:30:49.460 Do you think that's the case now that actually that it could be nearer the end than we think

00:30:54.500 because we simply don't know enough about what's going on in Russia?

00:30:57.900 Well, I don't think it's that we don't know enough about what's going on in Russia,

00:31:00.400 although I think that's certainly true.

00:31:02.100 I think it's more that we can't predict the future, even if we know a lot about what's

00:31:05.540 going on in Russia, right?

00:31:07.100 I mean, look at the last few years in this country or the West.

00:31:10.520 Have we been able to predict much of what's going on there?

00:31:13.800 Anton, by the way, I'm just worried that if we've got loads of super chats building up,

00:31:18.100 and questions on locals as well, which if you are a local supporter, make sure you head

00:31:22.500 over there because we'll do those questions first.

00:31:24.520 I'm just wary of are we going to have enough time to handle all of them?

00:31:28.000 So just give us a shout when you think.

00:31:29.540 We've got a manageable amount.

00:31:32.900 We've got a manageable amount.

00:31:33.880 So if you've got questions, guys, send them in either on locals or in the super chat here.

00:31:38.040 OK, so there have been also a lot of people in the British press, some very educated people,

00:31:43.660 may I say, who are celebrating this fact and going, this is the end of Putin.

00:31:48.280 This is brilliant.

00:31:50.360 Excellent stuff.

00:31:52.240 Yeah, I mean, I think that's unwise.

00:31:54.800 Why?

00:31:54.900 Well, Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons.

00:31:59.260 OK.

00:31:59.900 And chaos in a nuclear state is not necessarily a good thing, again, to say with some British

00:32:06.560 understatement.

00:32:07.420 I mean, I don't think we will.

00:32:09.120 I mean, Ramzan Kadyrov doesn't strike me as a particularly responsible leader.

00:32:13.240 So if he was to get involved and end up in control of one of the largest nuclear...

00:32:17.860 Can you just clarify who is that?

00:32:19.060 He's the leader of Chechnya.

00:32:19.920 We talked about him earlier, right?

00:32:21.100 Yeah.

00:32:21.620 Purgosin, I mean, who knows how sensible he is.

00:32:25.200 I don't think he's as crazy and he seems quite a smart operator.

00:32:31.400 But my point is you don't want people in nuclear country fighting over the nuclear suitcase,

00:32:38.840 the nuclear launch code.

00:32:39.900 Do you know what I mean?

00:32:40.500 Absolutely.

00:32:40.640 You don't want armed struggle over that, not least because you don't know exactly who's

00:32:45.760 going to control which silo at what time, who's going to use it against who, right?

00:32:49.820 Because if you are some kind of warlord and your life's on the line, well, maybe this

00:32:56.080 is a card that you're going to use in one way or another.

00:32:59.780 So I think that I very much understand and to a large extent share people's animosity towards

00:33:06.640 Putin, particularly after the invasion of Ukraine in which the Russian forces have done

00:33:12.300 some awful, awful things.

00:33:13.840 And the invasion itself is obviously awful.

00:33:15.520 But I don't necessarily think that encouraging chaos on Russia is a great thing.

00:33:22.620 You mentioned earlier about, you know, Russia disintegrating.

00:33:25.320 I'm not convinced that that I mean, look, Russia disintegrating would not be a good thing.

00:33:30.440 I'm also not necessarily convinced that there's that many parts of Russia that would want to

00:33:35.000 split off.

00:33:35.460 I mean, you're looking at Chechnya, Dagestan.

00:33:39.460 That's probably about it, to be honest.

00:33:42.020 I mean, Belarus would fall away and be kind of less under Russia's control.

00:33:45.500 But I don't see like individual Russian regions being like, yeah, we've got a national identity.

00:33:50.760 We want to split off.

00:33:52.080 But nonetheless, chaos in a country like that and a power struggle in a country like that

00:33:56.140 is probably not what anybody wants.

00:33:57.900 So what do you think, how are the US and the UK and the West going to be looking at this?

00:34:03.880 Would they see it as a positive move?

00:34:06.040 No, no, I don't think they would.

00:34:08.080 I think we just talked about it.

00:34:09.920 I think the instability in a nuclear country is their number one issue.

00:34:13.240 Yeah.

00:34:13.460 Because that's, you know, if that goes in a bad way, that's a potentially terrible situation,

00:34:20.220 potentially ending all life on earth situation.

00:34:22.440 Yeah.

00:34:24.660 So I think that would be their first concern is how do you make sure there's security and

00:34:28.560 stability for that?

00:34:29.720 And then beyond that, I mean, who knows exactly what they're thinking.

00:34:32.580 I do think they'd like to get rid of Putin.

00:34:34.720 And I've talked about this before.

00:34:37.740 You know, I keep making this point to people, you know, when the conflict first erupted or

00:34:42.760 when Russia first invaded Ukraine, people are like, well, why don't we just take out Putin?

00:34:46.440 And I'm like, well, who do you think is going to come to power when you do that?

00:34:49.880 You think Nick Clegg is waiting in the wings?

00:34:51.760 You know what I mean?

00:34:52.880 Yeah.

00:34:53.060 It's not really like that.

00:34:54.320 So I think the forces that are currently vying for power on Russia are actually not necessarily

00:35:02.480 all that much better than Putin.

00:35:04.260 So I think from a Western perspective, you just have to be careful and wait and see.

00:35:09.160 So the forces that are vying for power, is there somebody who is seen as a legitimate

00:35:13.880 alternative to Putin?

00:35:15.900 No.

00:35:16.380 And the reason for that is, is he spent the last, so he came to power in 1999.

00:35:20.040 You know, he spent the last 24 years making sure there was no one.

00:35:23.880 So if you were somebody of a different mindset to him who wanted to challenge what he was

00:35:28.700 doing, you were either exiled, poisoned or put in prison.

00:35:33.560 That happened to literally everybody who at any point attempted to organize a resistance

00:35:38.800 of any kind to his, even politically.

00:35:41.580 So whether that's Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Mikhail Korokovsky, Navalny, of course,

00:35:49.940 Alexei Navalny.

00:35:50.700 All of them have very quickly found themselves in one of those categories, exiled, poisoned

00:35:57.920 or imprisoned.

00:35:59.760 So there isn't anybody other than these warlords, essentially, who are now vying for power on

00:36:07.060 Russia.

00:36:07.980 Well, so at the moment, we really don't know what is going to be happening.

00:36:13.360 And I was going to suggest, do you want to maybe read a few of the locals' comments?

00:36:19.180 Okay.

00:36:19.800 Because we've got them.

00:36:21.060 And in the meantime, does it give me a chance to just catch up and see what else is going

00:36:24.140 on?

00:36:24.420 So I can update people as well.

00:36:26.500 Okay.

00:36:26.520 So Francis, I'll send them to you on your phone now.

00:36:28.660 Okay.

00:36:29.080 So please remember to send in your super chat, send in your questions, send in your PayPal's.

00:36:34.760 And if you join locals, that means that we will look at your questions first.

00:36:39.060 By the way, Francis, would you like to know how many people are watching?

00:36:41.100 How many?

00:36:41.460 10,000 people.

00:36:44.140 Okay.

00:36:44.860 Watching live.

00:36:45.500 Wow.

00:36:46.260 So thank you for tuning in, all 10,000 of you.

00:36:49.440 Right.

00:36:50.100 Anton, please send them through to me and then we can have a look at them.

00:36:52.680 I think you already have, man.

00:36:53.580 Yep.

00:36:54.080 So first one is from Sheila Power.

00:36:56.200 What I want to know is, who are these people?

00:36:58.720 Who is funding them?

00:37:00.140 How does this affect Ukraine?

00:37:01.820 Well, I think we've covered most of that.

00:37:03.500 We've covered most of that.

00:37:04.240 The interesting question in there, Sheila, is who is funding them?

00:37:08.020 Because up until this point, it was very clear that Prigozhin and Wagner were funded by Putin.

00:37:13.500 Yeah.

00:37:13.700 One way or another.

00:37:15.040 But in this instance, it would seem like he's got support.

00:37:21.120 And there may be some kind of shadow player behind the scenes who is orchestrating all of this.

00:37:26.180 And that really is the interesting thing to explore.

00:37:28.600 I know that a lot of conspiracy people are going to say, it's the CIA.

00:37:31.940 It's not the CIA, I don't think.

00:37:33.920 So Jim White, very good question.

00:37:36.000 Does Prigozhin have proper allies in Moscow?

00:37:38.840 He will do.

00:37:39.520 Yeah.

00:37:39.960 Yeah.

00:37:40.200 Well, and until recently, Putin was one of them.

00:37:42.040 So this doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:37:44.080 Darius says, what were the different military organizations in Russia do?

00:37:49.080 I.e. the FSB, the National Guard, et cetera.

00:37:51.960 And how many organizations are there?

00:37:54.680 Well, there's loads.

00:37:55.360 The FSB is the successor to the KGB.

00:37:57.460 So they're the secret police, basically.

00:38:00.440 The National Guard, their job is riot and protest suppression.

00:38:05.180 And then you've got all kinds of other special units for rapid response to this, policing, et cetera.

00:38:11.260 Crash Car Star says, what do you make of the latest reports that Belarusian President Lukashenko

00:38:16.380 has just held talks with Prigozhin and the advance towards Moscow is now halted?

00:38:22.420 Well, we talked about this right at the beginning.

00:38:24.220 So the advance towards Moscow is halted because Prigozhin has come out and said it's halted.

00:38:30.640 Whether Lukashenko had anything to do with that, I don't know.

00:38:34.180 Earlier, I read that Prigozhin said that they held talks, but nothing came of it.

00:38:38.600 Yeah.

00:38:38.860 So we don't know why exactly they decided to pull back.

00:38:41.880 The Lourdes asks, hasn't Putin just successfully flushed out all the disloyal elements in his military?

00:38:47.620 No.

00:38:48.460 No, he hasn't at all.

00:38:51.240 Prigozhin has been the head of it and Wagner has been open about it.

00:38:54.120 But no, he hasn't.

00:38:56.560 And I think actually what you'll probably find is unless he is very, very harsh with this mutiny,

00:39:04.440 he will have created more potential mutinies in the future.

00:39:08.540 Eliza Bucket.

00:39:09.580 Hello, Eliza.

00:39:10.840 Is Prigozhin mad or does he have support in high places, which we've already covered?

00:39:15.940 But let's talk about him as a character.

00:39:17.820 What do we know about his character?

00:39:19.060 Well, he's very outspoken.

00:39:20.740 He's very controversial.

00:39:21.860 He's basically like me if I had an army man.

00:39:24.700 No, I mean, he does his business in public.

00:39:31.320 And is he mad?

00:39:32.500 I mean, look, if you look at history, history is always made by people making crazy moves.

00:39:36.760 99% of them end up dead.

00:39:38.740 Yeah.

00:39:39.140 The 1% actually end up succeeding.

00:39:41.220 So there is a very long and storied history of people attempting to overthrow governments and failing,

00:39:47.380 which is what he's what he's done here.

00:39:50.220 OK, so Norfolk boy says the 1991 coup against Gorbachev came from inside the government and it led to the end of the Communist Party.

00:39:57.420 But then they had Boris Yeltsin.

00:39:59.200 Is the situation now similar?

00:40:00.740 And if not, why not?

00:40:01.880 Well, one of the things that Gorbachev failed to do is really crack down.

00:40:05.420 He didn't want to spill blood.

00:40:07.020 And that's why they essentially broke up the Soviet Union.

00:40:10.380 Whether Putin is of the same mindset, I don't think so.

00:40:13.400 And so I look, nobody knows he's getting old.

00:40:18.820 Nobody, you know, there's rumors about his health, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:40:21.600 Nobody knows the truth.

00:40:22.880 I would be I mean, it's possible, but I would be surprised if if if the pushback on this is not very harsh.

00:40:29.840 Well, it has to be, doesn't it?

00:40:31.200 Because otherwise he doesn't.

00:40:33.020 I mean, it's hard to see how he survives this.

00:40:34.860 Right.

00:40:35.120 Yeah.

00:40:36.060 So Gab the Chef says this move from Wagner looks very ad hoc.

00:40:40.240 And regardless of the personal losses, is there a possibility that money is also playing a role here?

00:40:45.660 After all, they're soldiers for hire.

00:40:48.660 You know, it's interesting because they are soldiers for hire.

00:40:52.020 But one of the things that's very clear is they have very high internal unit morale.

00:40:55.700 Like they're all backing him and they have done throughout the conflict.

00:40:58.960 So I think one way or another, he somehow created some kind of ideological unity within his organization where he has he enjoys a lot of personal loyalty from from his troops.

00:41:12.420 Well, I mean, that makes it definitely not about money.

00:41:14.860 Yes, definitely.

00:41:15.540 Like, I mean, if he stops paying them, I think some some loyalty might be lost.

00:41:20.020 But but they're not doing this for money.

00:41:22.120 Right.

00:41:22.580 I mean, it makes sense because if you think about it to a lot of these guys, Pregorsian gave them a second chance.

00:41:27.400 If you've got if you've been sentenced to 20 years in a Russian jail, I mean, there's no guarantees you're going to make it out of that.

00:41:34.200 And if you do, you're not going to come out better.

00:41:36.760 And also they are well fed, well trained, well equipped, well armed.

00:41:40.880 They get you know, he goes out and advocates for them, whereas a lot of Russian conscripts get thrown into the meat grinder with very little.

00:41:48.460 They get treated very badly.

00:41:50.360 They have leaders that don't give a shit about them.

00:41:52.320 This is what they say when you read the report.

00:41:54.860 So from that perspective, I mean, someone who actually looks after you and wants you to survive a war, you'd sort of feel like they're on your team.

00:42:04.040 You know what I mean?

00:42:04.740 Absolutely.

00:42:05.100 And I think that would probably engender a lot of personal loyalty.

00:42:08.140 Yeah.

00:42:08.320 And obviously a unit that has a lot of personal loyalty, that has a shared value, shared ideals, shared ideals and respects and loves their leader, which they appear to do.

00:42:19.600 Yeah.

00:42:19.900 I mean, and they're going up against a military who are divided, who don't believe probably and have a lost a lot of faith in what they're doing.

00:42:28.920 I mean, you're looking at it and going, there's only going to be one winner, surely.

00:42:31.880 I mean, that is worrying for Putin.

00:42:35.200 So, Anton, if you can send us some super chats through, please, and we can start looking at those.

00:42:41.140 But these are the questions that you have.

00:42:43.540 That's all the locals' questions.

00:42:44.660 That's all the locals' questions.

00:42:45.800 Well, guys, head on over to locals if you're a local supporter and ask your questions there if you want them to be asked as a priority.

00:42:51.620 But in the meantime, we can do some super chats as well.

00:42:53.560 Yeah.

00:42:53.780 Anton, are you going to put them up on the screen?

00:42:55.060 Are we going to put them on the screen for everyone?

00:42:57.380 Yeah, put them on the screen for everybody.

00:42:59.060 Well, let's try.

00:42:59.720 I don't know if I'll be able to see from here.

00:43:01.420 So, maybe I will log into.

00:43:03.400 Yeah, Francis can log into the stream.

00:43:05.280 So, this is from Nathan Woodard.

00:43:06.820 That much I can see.

00:43:07.880 Yeah.

00:43:08.520 So, Nathan Woodard, hello, brother.

00:43:10.580 Hope you're good.

00:43:11.600 He said, here's $369.69 for The Greatest Show on Earth.

00:43:16.500 I've just got two rack of ribs for $2.99, and I'm passing the savings on to you.

00:43:23.700 I tried to buy some Russian dressing for my side salad, but they don't sell it here anymore.

00:43:28.560 So, I made it from scratch.

00:43:29.860 Keep it up and stay hard.

00:43:31.220 Well, Nathan, can I just say, I'm so terribly sorry the war has really, really affected you this badly.

00:43:35.420 It's terrible, obviously.

00:43:36.460 We can all agree on that.

00:43:37.280 Okay.

00:43:37.880 So, let's go to, we have got AI who has asked a question.

00:43:45.460 Why did Putin, oh, sorry, I think it's out.

00:43:48.000 Why did Putin not see this coming and act faster?

00:43:51.440 I don't know.

00:43:52.720 I genuinely don't know.

00:43:54.180 One of the things, if you remember, we talked about it is, like, he has, at least publicly, said nothing about it and clearly not cracked down on it privately either.

00:44:04.380 Yeah.

00:44:04.540 So, we've got to a situation where he's basically allowed this to happen by, it's like you've got, you're a teacher, so you watch two kids fighting and you don't get involved.

00:44:13.320 Eventually, it's going to escalate.

00:44:14.760 Yeah.

00:44:14.840 Yeah.

00:44:14.900 And now, like, one of them has turned around and started running at the teacher, basically, because he didn't get involved at the time.

00:44:21.420 So, who knows why, but the question Russians will be asking is, has he lost his power?

00:44:27.460 Yeah.

00:44:27.560 Has he lost the authority?

00:44:28.840 Has he lost the ability to get people to calm down and focus on the objective, which, for Russia, is winning the war?

00:44:34.140 So, you could argue that, in a sense, this entire problem stems from Putin's weakness in order to not deal with Prigorsen like he should have done.

00:44:43.280 Well, you could argue that, but we obviously don't know what's going on behind the scenes, right?

00:44:47.420 Like, we have no idea why he's chosen to make the decisions that he made.

00:44:51.760 So, is it weakness or is there some other thing going on?

00:44:54.840 That remains to be seen.

00:44:55.920 And I guess we'll see that when the response to this happens.

00:45:00.400 And this is the real interesting thing here is, how does Putin deal with this?

00:45:05.620 Because, on the one hand, he has to assert his authority.

00:45:08.940 On the other hand, you made the point, you know, how do you deal with someone who's got an army of 25,000 very well-armed men?

00:45:15.340 I suppose the way you deal with it is, you know, what happened yesterday and today is they started marching around Moscow and the Russian military was underprepared.

00:45:25.580 But the Russian military is much bigger than Wagner.

00:45:27.900 So, if they concentrated all their efforts on dealing with that, they probably could put them in a position where they could either get slaughtered or surrender.

00:45:38.600 And at that point, I suppose a lot of them would surrender.

00:45:40.960 But it's also, as well, can they really do that when they're fighting a war on the other front?

00:45:45.860 Which makes us very interesting about Ukraine, because one of the potential plays for Putin here is, look, we've conquered some territory in Ukraine, actually more than we said we were trying to.

00:45:58.560 We've inflicted heavy casualties on the Ukrainians.

00:46:01.560 I mean, forget about Russian casualties for a moment, but we've done that.

00:46:04.680 We've made it clear to NATO and the West that we're not messing about here.

00:46:08.300 We need to be taken seriously.

00:46:09.680 Let's negotiate some kind of settlement where we get some land.

00:46:14.040 I can walk, if I'm Putin, I can walk away with that egg on my face and I can deal with this stuff internally and make sure that I'm fully in control of the country.

00:46:21.540 That is a potential outcome of this.

00:46:23.240 And in my opinion, that would be the best outcome here for everybody.

00:46:26.220 So, this is from Buka.

00:46:28.620 And they say, do you guys think that flip of $6 billion from Pentagon for war in Ukraine may be laid down on Wagner account?

00:46:36.880 Wink, wink.

00:46:37.460 The CIA question, I mean, it's ridiculous.

00:46:43.220 So, there we go.

00:46:44.440 Loads of people were saying this online before even any information had come out because some people like to think that the Americans are behind everything and the CIA is behind everything.

00:46:54.620 But, yeah, I'm really not convinced.

00:46:58.100 Okay, so Estral Cab UK asks, if another bout of anti-Lukashenko protests broke out in Belarus, would Putin have spare capacity to crush them?

00:47:08.460 I think he probably would.

00:47:10.280 I also think Belarus probably has the capacity to crush them.

00:47:13.660 And not least because in a war situation, I think there would be a lot less restrained in the way that they crush them.

00:47:19.220 I think a protest now would get put down very, very brutally.

00:47:25.040 Okay.

00:47:25.480 Harry Palms says, if our species is to move forward, we need to put war and armed conflict behind us.

00:47:31.480 Love the show.

00:47:32.100 It's always nice to have people who smoke weed watching the show, Harry.

00:47:35.940 I mean, who can disagree with that?

00:47:37.880 Yeah, that is true.

00:47:38.860 But then, you know, we've talked about this before in the context of war.

00:47:41.740 I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, but it is true.

00:47:46.340 We are bands of chimps.

00:47:47.640 Yeah.

00:47:47.840 And chimps go to war.

00:47:49.240 Yeah.

00:47:49.580 And that's what we are.

00:47:52.320 And, you know, if you look at human history, I mean, you travel to any country.

00:47:58.900 You look at the monuments.

00:48:00.000 You look at the museums.

00:48:01.380 What are they all about?

00:48:04.040 Trans.

00:48:04.440 Who can take Putin's place?

00:48:12.920 Well, we've talked about this already.

00:48:14.680 Yeah.

00:48:15.900 We really don't know.

00:48:17.040 Actually, what's interesting is the defense minister, Shoigu, he was mooted as being a potential replacement.

00:48:23.780 But he's been very badly discredited by this war.

00:48:27.160 So right now, it's very, very difficult to see any clear and obvious candidate.

00:48:30.820 Putin has been grooming a lot of younger potential future leaders.

00:48:35.620 They have some kind of leadership institute and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:48:38.460 But right now, I don't see it.

00:48:41.040 But then again, in fairness to Putin, when he was promoted to be prime minister and then was essentially given the presidency, nobody had heard of him either.

00:48:49.460 So who knows?

00:48:50.540 So, yeah.

00:48:50.940 So there is that tradition, isn't there, in Russia of people coming from nowhere?

00:48:54.380 Tradition is probably overstating it.

00:48:56.120 But, yeah, it has happened.

00:48:57.760 It has happened indeed.

00:48:58.780 Joseph Yassin has asked a question that is absolutely ridiculous, referencing not only Prince Harry and Meghan, but also Dylan Mulvaney.

00:49:07.980 So we're not going to – it's not raw, Joseph.

00:49:11.240 It's good to know people are paying attention and really appreciating the sense of the moment.

00:49:16.600 Yeah, absolutely.

00:49:17.480 And taking it seriously.

00:49:19.300 Okay.

00:49:19.900 So Laura Smart has also sent me through some super chats.

00:49:22.900 So in case that we have –

00:49:23.780 Some local questions or super chats?

00:49:25.440 Super – so they are super chats at the moment.

00:49:29.580 So let's just get these – I need to log in.

00:49:33.560 Tim Bucks, in the meantime, says Dylan Mulvaney should be next Russian president.

00:49:37.300 Dylan Mulvaney should be next Russian president.

00:49:39.180 I'm not your buddy guy with the five Canadian dollars.

00:49:41.600 Says, can you imagine the egg on Xi's face when trying to convince people to switch off the petrodollar to their brick stability?

00:49:47.440 Well, this is – you know, a lot of people who hate the West, including people in the West, they like to talk about how, you know, the West is over and everybody's switching to this and that and the de-dollarization.

00:49:59.080 I mean, it is a potential threat.

00:50:01.560 But you've got to – I think people always massively overestimated the ability of the Russian state to really effectively challenge the American dominance.

00:50:12.980 Yeah.

00:50:13.200 In my opinion.

00:50:14.860 So, okay.

00:50:17.360 So it says, I'm not your – so have we read the I'm not your buddy guy one?

00:50:22.840 Yeah, I've read that one.

00:50:23.360 Yeah, I've just read that one.

00:50:24.520 Yeah.

00:50:24.820 That one.

00:50:25.540 Okay.

00:50:25.900 Holby Camelton says, Putin just interviewed, and when he asked about Pogorsian, he said, get the belt.

00:50:32.020 Thanks, Colby.

00:50:33.060 The Master of Trek says, could Medvedev take over or is he very much out?

00:50:38.180 So Medvedev has been out of the team for a long time.

00:50:43.680 He's not really taken seriously.

00:50:45.540 He had a shot at the presidency for one term.

00:50:48.640 He wasn't viewed as a strong leader.

00:50:50.740 And he still has a role.

00:50:52.780 And he's been given various prominent roles.

00:50:54.860 But he hasn't been taken seriously for a long time.

00:50:57.840 Everybody jokes about him being an alcoholic.

00:51:01.180 Some of the stuff that he's been saying seem quite deranged lately.

00:51:04.360 So, yeah, I don't think he's a credible alternative at all.

00:51:07.220 Okay.

00:51:08.280 So, David Cott asked a question, essentially asking about what is the outcome for all of us to be.

00:51:18.280 And, again, what do you think of Pogorsian stopping before Moscow?

00:51:23.120 I mean, it looks rash, to put it mildly.

00:51:28.420 To stop or to go?

00:51:29.640 Well, to go and then to stop.

00:51:31.000 Well, actually, you make a very good point.

00:51:33.160 And I've been thinking about this, right?

00:51:34.640 If you make that play and then you stop, what's the best scenario?

00:51:44.480 I mean, you're at the very, very, very least going to prison, surely.

00:51:48.060 Yeah.

00:51:48.220 He can't believe that he's just going to get away with this, can he?

00:51:53.860 Well, I mean, you wonder what it was.

00:51:57.040 It must be an emotional reaction.

00:51:59.760 It can't have been that he thought about this logically.

00:52:03.440 Well, look, his play was, you know, I'm going to go on Moscow and I'm going to get what I want, right?

00:52:08.000 Yeah.

00:52:09.300 Now, if you make that play, there are only, I mean, as far as I can see, there are only two outcomes there, right?

00:52:15.600 Yeah.

00:52:15.760 But either you win or you lose.

00:52:18.800 What he's done now is he's aborted the play and he's still going to lose.

00:52:23.560 I mean, Putin has said on national television, the people who have done this are going to be punished.

00:52:28.380 Prigozhin is the face of this thing.

00:52:31.460 What, Putin is not going to punish him now?

00:52:33.880 I mean, I don't see that.

00:52:36.000 I could be wrong.

00:52:37.660 No one can predict the future.

00:52:39.480 I don't see that.

00:52:40.660 And if Putin does that, then his presidency is really on the way.

00:52:43.740 You know, that might well be the beginning or the end then.

00:52:46.860 Yeah.

00:52:47.160 So, I mean, that is an existential crisis for him.

00:52:49.820 Well, that is the end.

00:52:51.180 Like you said, James O'Keefe asked actually a very good question.

00:52:54.520 He says, Konstantin, when you say Russians don't want democracy, does that include their millennials and Gen Z who are becoming increasingly liberal?

00:53:01.380 They are becoming increasingly liberal.

00:53:03.480 It's a good question, James.

00:53:04.440 But more than half of even young people in Russia support Putin or did at least until recently.

00:53:10.700 So, I mean, look, young people in any country are always going to be, you know, anti the establishment to some extent and whatever.

00:53:17.120 It doesn't mean that by the time they grow up to be 40 that they don't change their opinion.

00:53:20.180 So, it really depends.

00:53:23.360 People in Russia don't really understand what democracy is.

00:53:25.860 And so, how can they want something they've never really experienced properly?

00:53:29.840 I think if, let's say, Russia was to win the war in Ukraine, Putin was to stabilize the country, the economy was booming as it was, you know, during the period over which Putin really gained a lot of his popularity and support.

00:53:43.500 I think young Russians would be very happy and comfortable with him.

00:53:47.420 The issue now is he's not doing as well.

00:53:50.760 There's a mutiny against him.

00:53:52.820 The war in Ukraine is going badly.

00:53:54.700 The economy is not going well.

00:53:55.960 He's invited all these sanctions upon Russia, which are affecting young people in particular, up to silly things like they can't buy video games on Steam, you know, all the way through to bigger issues that they're having.

00:54:08.640 So, of course, this would have affected his popularity with the people who already didn't like him.

00:54:14.100 But you've got to remember, a lot of the people fighting and dying for Russia in Ukraine are young Russians.

00:54:19.920 Some of whom really believe in all of this stuff.

00:54:22.140 So, I think the majority of Russians still don't want democracy.

00:54:27.640 They may want a change of leader, though, or they may want a change of the regime at some point, depending on how this plays out over time.

00:54:33.740 Finzy says, is there ever a world where the Western Russia can get along?

00:54:37.940 In other words, is there ever a world where the ideals of the West can coexist with Russian ideals?

00:54:47.420 Well, it's a long, I mean, it depends what time period you're looking at.

00:54:51.420 I mean, if you're looking over a thousand years, if we're all still here, who knows?

00:54:55.760 In the immediate term, I don't think so.

00:54:57.820 I mean, Russia has moved since the 90s in a much more anti-Western direction.

00:55:05.700 Well, part of it is definitely anti-Western, but part of it is, you know, Putin always talks about this.

00:55:11.720 Russia, he argues, and many people in Russia would argue, is its own civilization.

00:55:16.360 And so, you know, are the Indians and the Chinese ever going to get along?

00:55:20.280 Well, their neighbors are probably not.

00:55:21.920 You know what I mean?

00:55:22.660 They're two neighboring civilizations.

00:55:24.120 And the, you know, the West, why do we call it the West?

00:55:29.740 It's because it's the successor to the Western Roman Empire.

00:55:35.780 The East, Russia, sees itself as the successor to the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire.

00:55:42.700 And they, you know, that split happened over history for a reason.

00:55:46.640 And these societies have very different values.

00:55:49.460 They look at the world in a very different way.

00:55:51.260 They look at religion.

00:55:52.740 They have different ways of looking at religion.

00:55:54.960 They have different ways of looking at the role of the individual, the value of human life, you know, all sorts of different things.

00:56:02.140 Now, whether there's going to be a convergence, I mean, right now, it's kind of hard to see.

00:56:07.200 Yeah.

00:56:07.840 Amy Vow says, do you have any idea of who Putin would want to replace him when he dies or gets taken out?

00:56:13.260 So does he have a successor or do you think he doesn't care about what happens when he's gone?

00:56:19.860 No, Putin 100% cares about what happens when he's gone.

00:56:24.000 He sees himself as a steward of Russia and a huge historical figure, which, by the way, even as a critic of his, you have to say he undeniably is.

00:56:33.960 He's been in power for 24 years.

00:56:36.540 He's changed Russia in dramatic and profound ways.

00:56:39.440 He certainly made it stronger, at least until recently.

00:56:42.140 And so he wants to hand that on and for someone else to steward the nation into the future.

00:56:50.320 He has been, as I said, building up younger leaders in different institutions and organizations and whatever, trying to bring different people through.

00:56:58.420 He is looking for a successor.

00:57:00.840 Right now, it's hard to see who that is.

00:57:02.760 OK, so Nathan asks, Nathan Woodard asks, can you imagine and describe a plausible and bright future for Russia moving forward from this moment in history?

00:57:10.400 Well, bright is a subjective word, right?

00:57:18.180 I mean, there are a lot of people in Russia whose subjective brightness would be that they take over all of Ukraine, find some way to get NATO to give up the Baltics and Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic and Russia integrates them into its sphere influence.

00:57:36.080 To a lot of people in Russia, that would be a very, very bright future.

00:57:38.760 So it really, really depends on what you mean by a bright future.

00:57:42.540 From my perspective, I think the big misunderstanding between Russia and the West is Russia believes that everything the West does is designed to punish and impede Russia's expansion and development.

00:57:58.800 And that is true to the extent that the West doesn't want Russia expanding militarily into areas that are not currently within its sphere of influence.

00:58:08.380 But, you know, the ordinary Russians' understanding of what people in the West want, like this idea that people in London are walking around desperate to pin Russia in its...

00:58:19.220 Most people in the West, as you well know, don't care about Russia.

00:58:22.480 Most of them, even though it's very big, couldn't find it on the map, right?

00:58:25.540 It's not the ambition of the Western powers to really attack Russia or take really aggressive actions against it.

00:58:36.200 And because of that misunderstanding, I think we're both mutually suspicious of each other.

00:58:40.020 So if there is a way to bring us back from that brink and to get people on both countries to understand that despite the current tensions,

00:58:49.080 actually, Russia feels like its security is better ensured by being bigger, but Russia isn't a country that's trying to take over the world.

00:59:02.820 I mean, under Putin, it sometimes feels like that, or Russian people certainly don't want that.

00:59:07.440 And likewise, in the West, we don't really want that either.

00:59:09.880 So can you get to a point where we got to, actually, towards the end of the Soviet Union, where there was a lot more mutual trust than there was?

00:59:16.340 That, to me, would be the brightest outcome for the whole world, for people in both countries to be represented by leaders who are actually trying to strike the right balance between healthy competition and collaboration.

00:59:29.620 And, by the way, I mean, if you look at it in terms of resources, you know, Russia has a lot of the stuff that we need, and we have all the stuff that Russia needs.

00:59:39.820 You know, they have the grain, the wheat, the fertilizer, the oil, the gas, the timber, and we have technology and all of that other stuff.

00:59:47.340 And if that trade could be done in a way that these conflicts didn't happen, I think that would be a really bright outcome.

00:59:55.700 But what that requires is a little bit of flex on both sides.

00:59:58.420 Yeah. So Solvay Mike, on Local, says the BBC reported Putin, inverted commas, fled to St. Petersburg.

01:00:06.260 This seems very un-Putin-like a thought.

01:00:08.360 No, this seems very Putin-like. He's got bunkers all over the country.

01:00:11.660 St. Petersburg is where he's from, where his power base is.

01:00:15.260 And if troops are marching on Moscow, you don't necessarily want to be there.

01:00:19.460 Now, we don't know if it's true. I haven't read any confirmed reports that that's happened.

01:00:23.280 I read some unconfirmed reports that that's happened, but we don't know if that's true.

01:00:26.720 But it's totally not out of the realms of the possible.

01:00:30.640 Yeah. Okay. So, Steve, this was on Local.

01:00:36.720 Steve Boccioni says,

01:00:38.400 Did Wagner theoretically have the forces and hardware to realistically take on Moscow today,

01:00:44.040 or was this always some kind of attention-seeking gesture with return to base part of the plan all along?

01:00:49.600 I don't think so. And the reason I think they were a genuine threat is this.

01:00:53.060 Wagner is one of the best-trained, best-equipped, best-funded, most-experienced units in the entire Russian armed forces.

01:01:02.500 Moscow doesn't have 25,000 soldiers of equivalent strength defending it, right?

01:01:10.660 They've got some National Guardsmen, you know, but they don't have proper combat-ready troops.

01:01:17.340 And by the way, people go, you know, Pregosian, these columns will just get attacked.

01:01:21.800 Wagner has its own air force.

01:01:24.580 They have helicopters. They have planes. They have tanks.

01:01:26.820 They have anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft systems.

01:01:29.940 They have—it's an army.

01:01:32.020 It's not just like some guys with rifles.

01:01:36.240 So, yeah, I mean, they—I personally, my sense was that they were a genuine threat.

01:01:40.400 And I didn't—I don't think this was part of the plan, not least because, as I say,

01:01:44.660 I would be extraordinarily surprised if Pregosian doesn't end up being punished for this very severely.

01:01:53.040 I mean, well, he has to be.

01:01:54.400 So this is from Jonathan King, Superchat10pound.

01:01:57.080 If Putin is ousted and it creates a power vacuum, do you think Western nations could be drawn into a civil conflict by proxy or otherwise to ensure a stable nuclear power?

01:02:08.480 We talked about this earlier.

01:02:09.840 I mean, in that situation, someone is going to have to get control of the nuclear launch codes, right?

01:02:15.680 And, yeah, that would not be a good scenario.

01:02:20.640 Yep, indeed.

01:02:21.320 I mean, it's kind of like, you know, they parachute in Garry Kasparov, back him militarily, and let him take control.

01:02:32.880 Not a good outcome.

01:02:34.520 So this is from the charmingly named Dogface Pepe soldier.

01:02:38.380 And he says, if I recall correctly, and I admit I might not be, Khrushchev wasn't taken very seriously until he was.

01:02:45.420 Yeah, I mean, look, in Russia, the way it works is once you become a leader, people take you seriously, right?

01:02:53.180 They have to.

01:02:54.160 You know, it's a tsarist system, really.

01:02:57.460 In Russia, people, this is perhaps a kind of putting too fine a point on it, but if you're a leader, you're sort of seen as anointed by God to be a leader.

01:03:05.920 And if you're a bad leader, well, we just have to endure you.

01:03:08.100 And if you're a good leader, that's great.

01:03:09.500 We got lucky.

01:03:10.160 It's kind of like that.

01:03:10.900 So once you become a leader, people will tolerate you one way or another.

01:03:16.300 You know, Russians have a lot of patience with their leaders, even if they don't like them and don't agree with them.

01:03:21.780 Trost Noon says, can Russia ever stop seizing other people's territory by force?

01:03:26.440 Can they never be content with what they already have?

01:03:29.940 Well, I'd say it's a somewhat loaded question.

01:03:32.620 But look, from what Joseph Stalin wanted to do in World War II and prior to World War II, you know, the Soviet Union was very clear.

01:03:40.640 It's sort of hegemony of the European continent.

01:03:43.860 From a Russian perspective, they would like to have what the Americans have in the United States, which is complete control of their continent.

01:03:52.960 Right.

01:03:53.320 So the United States controls the United States.

01:03:56.140 Canada is obviously a friendly neighbor.

01:03:57.600 America and Mexico is, you know, going to do what the Americans want them to do, you know, in terms of geopolitics.

01:04:04.620 Right.

01:04:04.740 So they have complete control of their continent.

01:04:07.120 The problem for Russia, as Russia would see it geopolitically, is they they have to they have a bunch of countries on their border that are not only hostile to them, but are backed by the world superpower.

01:04:21.120 So from a Russian perspective, Russian security looks like Russia having strong alliances or neutrality from from Vladivostok to to Paris, basically, or to the English Channel at the very least.

01:04:36.340 And I have a couple of pieces on my sub stack about Alexander Dugan, who is a Russian philosopher, talking about this very thing that for Russia to be secure, Russia needs hegemony of Eurasia.

01:04:49.840 There's a movement in Russia called Neo-Eurasianists.

01:04:52.360 And this is really what they're talking about.

01:04:54.420 Right.

01:04:54.940 So I suppose the answer to the question is probably not.

01:04:58.600 Yeah.

01:04:59.040 Baby Blue Sky says, Western media focusing on Russian.

01:05:02.340 What is Ukraine's next move?

01:05:03.920 Or possibly what could their next move be?

01:05:06.700 Well, as we talked about earlier, right, if if if this if this is over now, it doesn't really change the situation on the ground in Ukraine, other than maybe if Putin punishes Prigozhin, then he's lost one of his most effective units.

01:05:20.420 But it doesn't change the entire conflict too much.

01:05:25.520 If this goes on and on and there's a real power struggle and they're having to pull troops from them, you know, if troops are demoralized and like, well, why are we fighting when they're fighting behind us?

01:05:34.880 There's no united rear behind us.

01:05:37.920 Then it gives Ukraine an opportunity to mount the counteroffensive that they've been trying to mount.

01:05:43.560 Doink.

01:05:44.200 What a name.

01:05:44.720 Says, is it possible that Prigozhin and by extension Wagner defects? Is there any way to escape punishment now that they've stopped the mutiny?

01:05:52.720 Defects to whom?

01:05:53.460 To Ukraine.

01:05:54.200 Well, defects.

01:05:54.940 I imagine the West is what they're implying.

01:05:58.680 No, I don't think so.

01:06:02.720 Whether he can avoid punishment, you know, you and I have been talking about it for the last hour and a bit.

01:06:07.020 Yeah.

01:06:07.200 But no, there's no one he can defect to.

01:06:09.940 I mean, I can't see, you know, Russian soldiers who've been talking about defending Russia this entire time going and fighting for Ukraine.

01:06:16.180 No, I don't see that happening.

01:06:17.260 Right.

01:06:17.700 So this is from SEK50.

01:06:21.160 Oh, sorry.

01:06:21.620 Free Trade.

01:06:22.500 My apology.

01:06:23.100 Says, I can hear the pro-Russian factions of the Western right wing backpedaling already.

01:06:28.500 We never supported Putin.

01:06:30.420 Epic gaslighting.

01:06:31.660 Well, I actually think what will happen is both sides in the debate are going to say the same thing, which is, I told you so.

01:06:38.500 Because everybody's going to interpret this.

01:06:40.760 You know, the pro-Russian people in the West, they're going to say, well, the West caused this and now, look, we've got potential instability, blah, blah, blah, because that's their narrative.

01:06:49.140 And people who think this is Russia's fault are going to think, well, Vladimir Putin made a bad mistake, which, in my opinion, he did.

01:06:55.260 And Harry Palm says, hypothetically, Russia withdraws or loses Ukraine.

01:07:00.680 NATO enters Ukraine.

01:07:01.940 USA installs missiles in Ukraine.

01:07:04.360 Thoughts?

01:07:04.980 And he says, oh, by the way, I don't smoke weed.

01:07:06.640 Thank you very much.

01:07:07.680 Go, Trump.

01:07:09.120 Oh, there's a whole mixed bag of messages in there.

01:07:12.440 Yeah.

01:07:12.860 Go, Trump.

01:07:13.740 I don't smoke weed.

01:07:14.880 And what was the original question?

01:07:16.120 So the original question is, do you think he put the case that Russia will withdraw from Ukraine, Ukraine will then become part of NATO, Russia, US will then put their missiles in Ukraine?

01:07:29.800 Well, as you well know, I have said from literally day one that the best solution here is not the, look, it's not the best solution, because if you're Ukrainian, it's not the best solution for you.

01:07:40.380 And if you're Russian, it's not the best solution for you.

01:07:42.340 But from a neutral perspective, the best way to end this war is for Ukraine to make some small territorial concessions, for Ukraine to accept that Crimea isn't coming back into the fold of Ukraine, and in exchange for Ukraine to get long-term security.

01:07:57.800 And there's only one way to give them that, which is NATO.

01:08:00.160 Now, would, if I were advising people, would I want them to then put US missiles in Ukraine?

01:08:07.200 No.

01:08:08.160 No.

01:08:08.400 Well, I think that, you know, NATO membership would be about protecting Ukraine.

01:08:12.940 It's not about, you know, putting its missiles, US missiles or US defensive missiles, because they're actually, in effect, the same thing from a geopolitical, from a game theory perspective.

01:08:22.520 Because if you and I have a gun pointed at each other each, you know, an offensive missile is like a gun, but a defensive missile system is like the ability to switch your gun off.

01:08:33.260 It's the same thing, right?

01:08:34.720 Effectively, I can shoot you without being shot back.

01:08:37.200 So, yeah, I hope that isn't what the US does, because that would just be aggravating the situation necessarily.

01:08:45.460 But I personally think that the solution long-term is for Ukraine to be part of NATO, because otherwise, this is what I keep saying to people, I will be back here again in a few years, because that's what happened in 2014.

01:08:55.920 Russia bit off chunks of Ukraine, nobody did anything, so they came back for more.

01:09:01.500 The only way this ends in the long run is for Ukraine to secure its future, and that is membership of an alliance that's going to give it safety.

01:09:09.920 Andrew Broughton says, do you think this situation could bring an end to the war in Ukraine?

01:09:14.660 Well, because it ended as quickly as it did, I don't know the impact that it's going to make on the war in Ukraine.

01:09:26.000 So far, it doesn't seem like it's made any sort of decisive impact.

01:09:30.500 And then how do we rebuild relations?

01:09:32.420 Well, that really depends on how the Ukraine conflict is actually resolved.

01:09:35.400 Yeah. Okay. Juan Felipe, Ola, says, how would this attempted coup affect Russia's internal order?

01:09:46.980 Well, so far, it doesn't seem to have had too much of an impact.

01:09:50.220 So we just don't know, because it ended as quickly as it did.

01:09:54.180 Cool. Maria says, there's a lot of talk about the possibility that this apparent coup might have been a smokescreen to redirect attention away from something.

01:10:03.520 I'm not sure I believe this, but any idea what this something could be?

01:10:07.260 Well, I don't believe it, so I therefore don't have any idea what that thing could be.

01:10:11.880 Yeah. Please remember to keep on sending the super checks.

01:10:14.580 Well, Francis, why don't we – I think we're almost there, to be honest, in terms of we've done over an hour.

01:10:19.840 So why don't we do another 10 minutes?

01:10:21.340 Yep.

01:10:21.820 If you want to ask any questions, send in locals messages.

01:10:25.500 Post on locals, there's a post for that there if you're a supporter.

01:10:28.400 And if you're not, you probably should be if you enjoy this show.

01:10:31.340 There's 10,000 of you watching, at least 10% of you, like 1,000, should be on locals.

01:10:35.720 I would say, in fact, 100% of you should be.

01:10:38.240 Yeah, 10,000 people, head on over to locals right now.

01:10:40.840 Or send a super chat here, and we'll do about 10 more minutes of your questions.

01:10:44.100 Yeah, absolutely.

01:10:45.500 So, Gif Broad says, and this is his super chat, or their super chat,

01:10:48.880 rumours are spreading amongst Russian law enforcement organs that Shoigu has allegedly been detained.

01:10:54.420 How weak would Putin look if this is true?

01:10:57.540 Very, very weak.

01:10:58.380 I mean, you should have seen my face when you read that out.

01:11:00.780 I don't believe that for a second.

01:11:02.880 I mean, if that turns out to be true, then Pregosian has got his way.

01:11:07.280 And that means he did a deal with Putin to pull back in order to get Shoigu arrested.

01:11:14.020 I haven't, I'm not, I'm just checking all the different channels and information that I usually check.

01:11:19.760 I haven't heard anything about that whatsoever.

01:11:21.740 But again, think about this.

01:11:23.080 That would be a massive undermining of Putin's authority.

01:11:25.380 I don't think that's true, though, personally.

01:11:27.840 Marco Akabic, who is a real fan of the show and a great supporter, love to you, Marco, says,

01:11:34.420 been a while, wouldn't be surprised if Putin tries to make himself emperor after this, Palpatine style.

01:11:39.760 He did run, though.

01:11:40.640 People will not forget that.

01:11:43.860 Emperor after this.

01:11:44.860 I think he's a lot more worried about just staying where he is, to be honest with you, Marco.

01:11:49.000 But thank you for the super chat.

01:11:50.240 And thank you for being a loyal supporter of ours.

01:11:52.040 I appreciate it.

01:11:53.320 Theofrasis 3.0 says,

01:11:54.900 The hall outside Moscow is the Planbury group.

01:11:57.280 And see who inside Moscow will either step aside or join the rebels.

01:12:01.000 It is not over.

01:12:03.140 Well, there you go.

01:12:03.980 I guess we'll be back here tomorrow talking about it.

01:12:06.140 Yeah, exactly.

01:12:07.020 Someone's a fan of the Wagner group.

01:12:08.400 So, locals, this is from our locals, and this is Dibbinism, or Dibbin, says,

01:12:14.960 Does KK think the collapse of the Karkova Dam was incompetence or malice?

01:12:19.720 Well, he was blown up, so he wasn't incompetent.

01:12:21.900 Yeah.

01:12:22.660 A friend of mine who dabbles in stocks bought a lot of agricultural stocks,

01:12:26.400 expecting wheat prices to jump up in a few years.

01:12:29.580 Okay.

01:12:30.220 Yeah.

01:12:30.400 Well, you know, like they say, when there's blood on the streets, buy diamonds.

01:12:34.460 Yeah.

01:12:35.060 Okay, so...

01:12:36.200 Charlie missed my job.

01:12:36.840 You're reading.

01:12:39.320 Ambience World says,

01:12:40.300 My question is for Konstantin.

01:12:41.500 Have you lost any friends or family or friends in the war?

01:12:46.980 I haven't lost any family or friends,

01:12:48.840 but many of my friends have lost family and friends, yeah.

01:12:52.980 Gordon Lizzie says,

01:12:54.020 How much should Putin now worry about Russian nationalists becoming the biggest threat

01:12:58.040 to his continued control over the Russian state?

01:13:02.300 Well, I don't know who he means by Russian nationalists exactly.

01:13:05.240 I mean...

01:13:06.020 I mean, Putin's a Russian nationalist, isn't he?

01:13:09.340 Russia is very complicated.

01:13:10.980 Russia is not a nation.

01:13:11.880 Russia is an empire.

01:13:13.040 And so Russia has some nationalists in it,

01:13:16.620 but they're not really a prominent force in Russia,

01:13:19.020 not least because so many units that have been fighting in the war are not ethnic Russians.

01:13:25.600 So I don't see Russian nationalists as very strong.

01:13:30.080 It doesn't mean that they couldn't emerge a strong nationalist movement,

01:13:32.720 but there isn't one at the moment.

01:13:34.020 Yeah.

01:13:34.620 Okay.

01:13:35.800 So...

01:13:36.760 It's funny, mate.

01:13:37.500 I love the comments just from randomers.

01:13:40.100 It's literally like one person saying,

01:13:42.000 Russia is over.

01:13:42.760 Cry about it, KK.

01:13:44.160 And then someone else says,

01:13:45.480 I'm massively biased against Russia.

01:13:47.560 I suppose we're striking the right balance.

01:13:49.240 We are striking the right balance.

01:13:52.840 Andy Vogel asked a very good question.

01:13:56.720 Who benefits the most from Putin's unseating?

01:13:59.400 What are the chances the wealthy oligarchs who have had assets frozen are involved?

01:14:04.240 Well, the people who are least happy about this conflict are the oligarchs.

01:14:07.180 They had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

01:14:09.540 So I have no doubt that Prigozhin will be in contact with some of them, for sure.

01:14:14.300 And a lot of them will want this war to end one way or another as quickly as possible.

01:14:20.840 So that will definitely be a part of it.

01:14:22.680 Yeah.

01:14:22.900 It's going to be very interesting because Yevgeny Krogosyan is going to have to do some kind of public announcement

01:14:28.720 as to what's happened and his reasoning and his thinking behind it, behind this, well, mutiny.

01:14:36.000 Surely he's going to have to make a public statement.

01:14:39.000 Putin?

01:14:39.560 No.

01:14:41.360 Yevgeny Krogosyan.

01:14:42.320 Krogosyan.

01:14:42.680 Well, he has said he's pulling back his troops.

01:14:45.280 He doesn't want to spill blood, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:14:47.540 That's what he said so far.

01:14:49.060 And I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that develops.

01:14:51.660 But you do think that it's going to be, he's got to give some explanation as to his actions.

01:14:57.740 He can't just do this and not explain why, surely.

01:15:00.760 Well, he explained why.

01:15:01.840 He said our unit was about to be disbanded.

01:15:04.640 So we had a march for justice towards Moscow.

01:15:08.360 And then we realized blood would be spilled.

01:15:10.760 We decided not to spill blood.

01:15:12.060 Well, march for justice.

01:15:13.520 I mean, that's the way of putting it.

01:15:15.040 Okay.

01:15:15.480 Cannon said, hi, Constantine.

01:15:16.660 I read some tweets earlier which seem to suggest that China may be tempted to claim some territory in eastern Russia.

01:15:22.440 In the event that this rebellion turned out to be successful, I can't see how that would happen given that both countries have nuclear weapons.

01:15:30.360 Well, the way it would happen is if Russia started to disintegrate and there was nobody fully in charge of those nuclear weapons, that would be the time for China to strike.

01:15:38.060 I don't think China would necessarily want to do that.

01:15:40.680 But China has territorial claims in Russia's Far East, for sure.

01:15:43.900 And that's one of the fears in Russia.

01:15:46.160 If Russia gets too weak, Chinese will take advantage, which they may or may not do.

01:15:50.140 Right.

01:15:50.420 So what do you mean by that?

01:15:52.120 They have claims in the Far East?

01:15:53.500 Well, there are territories of Russia that China would like to have under its control.

01:15:58.320 They have, as a result of actually a lot of migration, high Chinese populations.

01:16:02.780 There's some historical stuff that I'm not an expert on.

01:16:06.800 They also have claims against certain territories in the Russia's Far East.

01:16:11.760 So they may well – in fact, I'm revealing my historical ignorance, but I think during World War II, Russia, the Soviet Union, may have occupied parts of what was then China.

01:16:21.400 I don't remember very well.

01:16:22.860 I could be wrong about that.

01:16:23.980 So just pass on that one.

01:16:26.560 Okay.

01:16:26.960 I think that is pretty much it.

01:16:30.040 All right.

01:16:30.400 Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us.

01:16:32.800 Make sure you subscribe and smash the like button on this before you leave.

01:16:36.460 Well done for hosting this, Francis.

01:16:38.160 And thank you for being with us.

01:16:39.700 We will see you very soon with more brilliant interviews, as always, and our Raw shows as well.

01:16:45.380 Take care, and we'll see you on Locals.

TRIGGERnometry - June 26, 2023

BONUS LIVE SPECIAL： Russia-Ukraine War Update ｜ Moscow Coup Explained

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