TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About the War in Ukraine ＊Special Live Recording＊

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00:01:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:03.620 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:04.880 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:01:06.140 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:11.920 And what a fascinating guest we have for you today.

00:01:14.160 It's me!

00:01:15.580 It is!

00:01:16.780 We are going to do a very, very...

00:01:19.260 We've just done it.

00:01:20.020 Well, we've just done it, haven't we?

00:01:21.060 We just did a live discussion about the Russia-Ukraine situation.

00:01:24.720 Francis was asking me, rather, some great questions about the situation from a layman position.

00:01:30.060 And I did my best, I think, to explain it to people.

00:01:32.520 And then we also asked a few questions from our audience, didn't we, Francis?

00:01:35.020 Yes, we did.

00:01:35.840 It was completely live and in person.

00:01:38.340 It was invigorating.

00:01:40.120 It had that little frisson of energy that you...

00:01:42.300 I'm glad you felt that way, Francis.

00:01:43.060 Yeah, it did, mate.

00:01:44.140 I did.

00:01:44.640 It had that little frisson of energy that you sometimes get when it's live, when you know

00:01:48.380 you can't retake.

00:01:49.620 And it was good.

00:01:50.660 It was really good.

00:01:51.360 And people loved it.

00:01:53.260 We had our biggest ever live audience.

00:01:56.240 Bigger than Jordan Peterson, I believe.

00:01:57.580 Yeah, indeed it is.

00:01:58.480 We had a thousand people watching live, so check it out.

00:02:00.900 Obviously, a very serious subject, one of which I know a little bit about.

00:02:04.700 So I was able to explain, I think, some basic concepts and some of the stuff that's going

00:02:08.180 on.

00:02:08.480 And most importantly, why what's happened happened and what's coming next.

00:02:12.480 Enjoy.

00:02:14.660 As you know, I have Russian-speaking family in Ukraine.

00:02:18.340 Some of them are pro-Russian, some of them are pro-Ukrainian.

00:02:21.120 But I really, I'm not really that interested in having this conversation from the point of

00:02:26.020 view of what's best for Constantine's family, because I don't think that's what people in

00:02:31.580 the West care about or should care about.

00:02:33.240 I think what we should talk about is what is the right thing for us to do here in the

00:02:36.760 West and why this has happened.

00:02:39.260 OK, well, before we get into all of that, so let's go back a couple of weeks, because

00:02:43.940 there's a lot of people probably watching, woken up, seeing this and thought, how the

00:02:48.160 hell has this happened?

00:02:49.300 So let's go through it right from the start two weeks ago, let's say.

00:02:53.180 Well, I think to start it two weeks ago would be to misunderstand the nature of what's happened.

00:02:57.180 I think we have to go back to 2014, which is when Russia first invaded Ukraine.

00:03:03.420 This has already happened.

00:03:04.800 So it annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which is in the south of Ukraine.

00:03:08.840 And it also started what was a sort of low-level civil war in the eastern parts of Ukraine,

00:03:16.320 in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which is the eastern part of Ukraine.

00:03:20.060 And at that moment in time, the reaction from the West was, well, how can I put it diplomatically

00:03:27.100 pathetic?

00:03:28.460 There were some very weak sanctions.

00:03:30.580 There were some words of condemnation.

00:03:32.700 Russia was kicked out of the G8, which it didn't really care about.

00:03:36.480 And that was it.

00:03:37.700 And so I think what the people who run that country learned was we can do this with impunity.

00:03:44.600 And so a few weeks ago, what happened is Russia started amassing troops on the border of Ukraine.

00:03:52.780 And a couple of days ago, Vladimir Putin made a speech, which I think we really need to talk

00:03:58.120 about in length to help people understand why no one's told them what's coming, even though

00:04:03.880 it was immediately obvious.

00:04:05.460 And we know exactly what's coming now as well, because it's obvious from what he said.

00:04:10.060 Right.

00:04:10.520 It's just it hasn't been covered in Western media.

00:04:12.300 I don't understand why.

00:04:13.680 So he amassed these troops on the border a couple of weeks ago.

00:04:16.920 People in the West started warning about it.

00:04:18.940 A lot of people started saying, well, this is just saber rattling.

00:04:21.520 It's a distraction.

00:04:22.920 What we need to do is just say to Putin, look, Ukraine's not going to join NATO and then

00:04:27.200 everything will be fine.

00:04:29.180 If you remember, we had this big argument with Nigel Farage about this on our channel.

00:04:33.520 But it was obvious to me from the beginning that that was never going to be the way it was

00:04:37.880 going to go for reasons that I'm sure we'll get into.

00:04:39.660 OK, so but why does Putin have this fascination with Ukraine?

00:04:43.700 Why does it go back to 2014?

00:04:45.740 Why did he want to annex the Crimea?

00:04:47.940 Because surely that's an antagonistic gesture.

00:04:51.120 That means that the sanctions will then be imposed on Russia.

00:04:55.120 That will weaken the Russian economy.

00:04:57.020 And by doing that, doesn't he weaken his position as leader?

00:04:59.520 Well, no, he strengthens his position as leader because he's not answerable to people

00:05:04.080 here in the West.

00:05:04.720 He's answerable to the Russian population and to Russian people expanding the borders

00:05:08.440 of Russia is seen as a great thing.

00:05:10.100 If you remember, and this was the case here in the UK and in America only 40 or 50 years

00:05:15.580 ago.

00:05:15.760 If you think about Margaret Thatcher, she was saved by the Falkland War, right?

00:05:19.960 This was a war about an island off the coast of Argentina.

00:05:22.700 Which we won.

00:05:23.340 Which exactly.

00:05:24.640 So this idea that the greatness of your country matters is something that's been lost in the

00:05:30.260 West, but everywhere else.

00:05:31.880 Expanding your borders are seen as a great thing.

00:05:34.300 Now, as to your question, why there's an invasion now and why Putin is expanding into

00:05:39.340 Ukraine.

00:05:41.060 He explained all of this in that speech.

00:05:43.040 And this is, I think, the right time that we should just break down what he said.

00:05:47.300 It was an extraordinary thing.

00:05:48.600 I don't think anyone in the West has ever seen anything like it.

00:05:51.220 This was a president of a country who spent an hour on national television talking about

00:05:56.580 history.

00:05:57.480 The first 40 minutes of his speech, he talks about the history of Russia and the history

00:06:02.140 of Ukraine.

00:06:03.360 And his argument, essentially, is that the existence of Ukraine is a historic mistake.

00:06:10.220 It should never have existed.

00:06:11.480 The existence of Ukraine is the result of a series of weak decisions made by various Soviet

00:06:17.800 leaders, starting with Vladimir Lenin and then Nikita Khrushchev and others.

00:06:22.400 And the mistake, as he sees it, is that the Russian people, the Russian nation, which was

00:06:30.360 embodied in the Soviet Union, it was artificially split up.

00:06:34.100 And a portion of the Russian nation was put together with what he called pieces of the form

00:06:41.180 of Poland and Hungary and put together into one country, which became Ukraine.

00:06:45.640 So in his view, Ukraine is a mistake.

00:06:48.660 It shouldn't exist.

00:06:50.860 He claims in that speech and also in the speech that he gave this morning, essentially justifying

00:06:58.880 the invasion, that Russian speakers and ethnic Russians in Ukraine are being genocided.

00:07:04.320 I'm not exaggerating.

00:07:05.220 This is the word he used.

00:07:06.140 He says there's a genocide happening.

00:07:08.380 Is there a genocide happening?

00:07:10.280 I mean, my family live in southern and eastern Ukraine and they're Russian speakers.

00:07:14.820 If there was a genocide happening, I think I'd probably find out about it.

00:07:18.680 But it doesn't really matter what the truth is.

00:07:22.620 What matters is what people believe.

00:07:25.320 And if this is what he believes, then that's one issue.

00:07:30.520 And if he's just saying this in order to justify an invasion, that's another issue.

00:07:33.920 Both are bad.

00:07:34.880 And we can get into that.

00:07:36.460 But so the first thing to say is he explained that essentially the Russian nation was split

00:07:41.820 up.

00:07:42.300 A piece of Poland and Hungary and other countries was glued onto a piece of Russia and made into

00:07:48.620 a country.

00:07:49.300 And these are historic mistakes that he says are sort of understandable in difficult time that

00:07:55.300 the country was in at the time.

00:07:56.580 But we cannot be held by decisions made at that time by weak leaders who made these weak

00:08:02.080 decisions.

00:08:02.740 So the first thing that you should know, this is why the invasion was always going to happen,

00:08:08.220 because he's essentially explained that Ukraine shouldn't exist.

00:08:13.340 He explained why it shouldn't exist.

00:08:15.200 He explained the historical reasons.

00:08:17.020 He also made some other points along these lines, which is essentially that Russia, after

00:08:27.500 the collapse of the Soviet Union, took on all of the entire Soviet debt and it paid it off

00:08:34.000 and left, as he sees it, to Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union, this great

00:08:38.880 Russian inheritance, the land that Russian people had conquered over centuries, the great technological

00:08:45.240 achievements, the manufacturing, the shipbuilding, all of that.

00:08:48.840 So one of the points he makes is he says, look, in Ukraine, in one of the southern ports,

00:08:53.560 they've just shut down a shipbuilding yard, which was the foundations of which were laid

00:08:59.420 by Catherine the Great, the Russian Tsar or Tsarine or whatever you call her in English.

00:09:06.040 So what he's saying is, we, the Russians, we gave you this stuff.

00:09:11.060 We gave you this great culture, this land, these technological advancements, and you've

00:09:16.520 squandered them.

00:09:17.560 He talks, he spends 10 minutes talking about how Russia is corrupt.

00:09:21.520 Not Russia, sorry.

00:09:22.740 That was a Freudian slip.

00:09:24.360 He talks about how Ukraine is corrupt, how it's run by oligarchs, how...

00:09:29.080 Is that true?

00:09:30.520 Of course it's true.

00:09:31.580 Of course it's true.

00:09:32.800 But the same is true of Russia.

00:09:33.820 Of course it is, right?

00:09:35.020 All of that world is run by oligarchs and is corrupt.

00:09:38.160 I mean, would you say that the Western world is not run by oligarchs and is not corrupt?

00:09:41.600 It is, right?

00:09:43.000 Every country, to some extent, is run by oligarchs.

00:09:45.720 Does that...

00:09:46.340 The question is, does that justify their neighbor invading that country and taking over?

00:09:51.020 That's really the conversation we're having.

00:09:52.960 So he talks a lot about how, you know, Ukrainian education is poor and people are not looked after

00:10:00.540 and the pensions are not great and gas prices have gone up and how terrible things are for

00:10:04.880 people in Ukraine.

00:10:06.080 So that's the second part of his speech, which is so...

00:10:10.260 The first part is explaining why Ukraine shouldn't exist.

00:10:12.440 The second part is explaining why people in Ukraine are suffering, particularly Russian

00:10:17.060 people and Russian speakers in Ukraine are suffering.

00:10:19.720 And the third part of the speech, and this is the final part of the speech, and I don't

00:10:23.780 understand why it hasn't been reported on.

00:10:25.900 I mean, the first two parts are important because they tell you everything that's going

00:10:28.560 to happen, right?

00:10:29.200 If you don't believe Ukraine exists and you believe it is your historic mission to save

00:10:33.320 the people in Ukraine who are of Russian ethnicity or Russian speakers from being abused

00:10:38.980 by Ukrainian oligarchs, you always knew there was going to be an invasion.

00:10:42.600 And you always knew it was never going to be limited to those two regions because when

00:10:47.660 he talks about, well, you've glued on parts of Poland and parts of Hungary onto Ukraine,

00:10:52.840 onto this Russian piece, that means that at least half of Ukraine, including the capital

00:10:58.380 Kiev, is within the strike zone of what he wants to achieve, right?

00:11:03.560 There's no question about that.

00:11:04.960 So the invasion will not stop in those two regions in the east unless it is stopped somehow

00:11:09.960 by the west, which at this point is looking unlikely.

00:11:12.920 But his intentions are not to stop with those two eastern regions.

00:11:16.280 There's no question about that.

00:11:17.500 Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't understand or wants it not to be true or whatever.

00:11:22.900 But those are the facts, right?

00:11:24.420 He is going to invade as much as he is allowed to, and he wants to invade at least up to Kiev

00:11:31.260 and probably beyond, just in terms of that part of it.

00:11:35.260 The third part of it, and the rationale for his invasion, is that he says that the west

00:11:44.240 is meddling in the affairs of Ukraine.

00:11:46.400 The west is meddling in the affairs of other eastern European countries.

00:11:49.900 The west is expanding NATO, which he says they say is a defensive alliance, but actually

00:11:55.420 this is a way of putting rockets and missiles, and he goes through all the different rockets

00:12:00.940 and missiles that the west already has and is developing to, they want to put them all

00:12:06.300 around Russia so that they could strike at the heart of Russia at any moment.

00:12:09.400 So he is literally saying that Ukraine is planning an offensive against these eastern regions,

00:12:15.500 which, you know, some people in Ukraine are joking and going, yeah, we waited until Putin

00:12:19.140 had 200,000 troops on the border.

00:12:20.880 And then we were like, hey, let's do an aggressive action here.

00:12:24.140 And the other thing that he says is essentially the west is about to attack.

00:12:30.100 I mean, he doesn't mince words about it.

00:12:33.420 He literally says that.

00:12:34.780 He says the west is getting ready.

00:12:36.780 It's putting nuclear and other sort of missiles in position to strike against us.

00:12:41.340 And we must defend ourselves.

00:12:43.580 Now, how you defend yourself by moving your borders closer to NATO, I don't really understand.

00:12:49.480 But that is the argument.

00:12:52.320 And there's an argument there that that Nigel put forward is that the west, in particular

00:12:58.980 America, has been antagonistic with putting these missiles, these missile placements around

00:13:06.260 the Russian border.

00:13:07.100 And actually, if they'd been a little bit more conciliatory, this wouldn't have happened.

00:13:12.840 Do you agree with that?

00:13:14.760 I think it's impossible to know.

00:13:16.640 I don't personally agree with that.

00:13:18.080 I think you, when I say you, I mean, I think people in the west forget the personal dimensions

00:13:25.980 of this.

00:13:26.940 You've got to understand that this paranoia about the west has always been a feature of

00:13:33.940 the Russian mindset.

00:13:36.800 It's not something that is going away.

00:13:41.120 And if you could say, well, look, if the west had just stayed out of it, everything will

00:13:48.120 be fine.

00:13:48.660 That isn't true.

00:13:49.720 I mean, the same way that Ukraine is being invaded now.

00:13:54.340 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

00:13:57.380 These are countries that have Russian speaking minorities that can be weaponized in exactly

00:14:01.860 the same way as the one in Ukraine is.

00:14:03.960 These are countries that used to be part of the Soviet empire after they were conquered

00:14:09.460 and annexed by Stalin.

00:14:10.760 While Europe was busy with Hitler, Stalin took all of Eastern Europe basically for himself,

00:14:16.140 including those countries.

00:14:18.100 So, no, Russia was always going to try and expand.

00:14:21.040 And this is what people in the west really don't understand is this isn't about NATO being

00:14:25.680 aggressive, causing it.

00:14:27.000 It's the west being weak that's causing it.

00:14:30.060 The reason Vladimir Putin is doing this is he knows that the west is divided.

00:14:34.180 The west is distracted.

00:14:35.260 The west spends more time talking about pronouns than it does about things that matter.

00:14:39.560 And he's taken advantage of it, just like the Chinese are.

00:14:43.020 See, people want to make this all about Vladimir Putin is this evil guy and he's going crazy.

00:14:47.780 He's not.

00:14:48.780 He's not crazy.

00:14:49.780 He's doing exactly what any sane leader in his position would do, just like Xi Jinping is

00:14:55.060 doing that in China.

00:14:55.760 You see the west as weak.

00:14:57.380 You do the things you've been planning to do for a long time.

00:15:00.940 That being the case, so we've got that expansion into Ukraine.

00:15:06.240 He's actually come out and been quite aggressive to the west and saying, you know, if the west

00:15:10.580 gets involved, I can't remember his exact words.

00:15:14.420 Put it this way.

00:15:15.120 He wasn't being friendly.

00:15:17.140 What, in your opinion, do you think the west should do now?

00:15:20.800 It depends on, you know, it's like people keep asking me this question.

00:15:23.580 And if you remember, I said this to Nigel Farage, it depends what people in the west want.

00:15:27.260 It's like that scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice meets the Cheshire cat.

00:15:30.860 And she says, well, would you tell me, please, where I ought to go from here?

00:15:35.300 And the cat says, well, that depends on where you want to get to.

00:15:37.800 And Alice says, well, I don't mind where I get to.

00:15:40.580 And the cat says, well, then it doesn't matter where you go.

00:15:42.940 What do you want?

00:15:44.400 What do people in the west want?

00:15:46.840 I think, well, I think if they're being honest, they want this problem to go away.

00:15:51.640 They want peace?

00:15:52.560 Yeah.

00:15:52.940 Oh, that's very easy.

00:15:54.300 It's very easy.

00:15:55.100 You just surrender.

00:15:56.580 That's the way you get peace.

00:15:57.700 So if we surrender, then he takes over Ukraine.

00:16:04.340 And then he takes over Latvia and Estonia and Lithuania and Czech Republic and Hungary.

00:16:08.380 But no one dies.

00:16:10.880 And but you can't keep doing that.

00:16:12.500 You can't just let NATO countries because Lithuania is.

00:16:17.000 How does that impact on NATO?

00:16:19.160 Well, because surely the NATO agreement means that once a country gets invaded,

00:16:23.320 then their fellow allies come in to protect them.

00:16:25.480 But NATO is over.

00:16:26.220 I mean, this shows you that NATO is over.

00:16:28.860 People are, you know, when we talk about this, people go, well, you know,

00:16:33.960 I don't want to go and die in Ukraine.

00:16:36.080 I was talking to my wife.

00:16:37.020 My wife's Ukrainian, you know, this morning.

00:16:39.820 And she was saying, well, I really hope the West does something.

00:16:42.820 You know, they need to be strong.

00:16:44.280 And I'm like, yeah, I agree with you.

00:16:45.660 But, you know, you're seven months pregnant.

00:16:47.380 Do you want me to go and fight in Ukraine?

00:16:49.440 She's like, no.

00:16:51.660 Well, if you don't want your husband to go and die in Ukraine,

00:16:54.500 whose husband should go and die in Ukraine?

00:16:56.580 Whose son should go and die in Ukraine?

00:16:59.100 No one.

00:16:59.680 No one wants to.

00:17:00.580 No one in the West wants to go and die in Ukraine.

00:17:03.440 Right.

00:17:05.040 So that's.

00:17:06.020 But Ukraine is not part of NATO.

00:17:07.340 Right.

00:17:07.480 But this is why I'm saying NATO is over.

00:17:09.720 OK.

00:17:10.340 Let's say he invades Ukraine.

00:17:12.000 We protest.

00:17:12.620 We put sanctions in place.

00:17:13.620 Whatever.

00:17:14.300 He invades Lithuania.

00:17:16.060 Well, is that different?

00:17:17.040 You want to go and die and fight in Lithuania?

00:17:19.420 But surely the agreement with NATO changes something, doesn't it?

00:17:24.820 Changes what?

00:17:25.620 Do you want to go and die in Lithuania?

00:17:28.380 No.

00:17:28.580 Do you want British troops to be in Lithuania fighting against Russians?

00:17:33.520 No.

00:17:33.980 Does anyone in America want American troops on the ground in Lithuania?

00:17:37.440 No.

00:17:37.880 No.

00:17:38.220 NATO's over.

00:17:38.800 And looking at the American, the presidential situation in America with Biden, you and I

00:17:47.900 have been quite open about the fact that we both think Biden has been a disaster.

00:17:51.140 If you look at what happened with Afghanistan.

00:17:53.980 Well, this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Afghanistan.

00:17:56.600 Yeah.

00:17:56.800 You understand this, right?

00:17:57.640 Right.

00:17:58.040 Let's go into that.

00:17:58.820 Why do you say that?

00:18:00.820 Well, look, Francis, you and I have spent our career so far in terms of trigonometry.

00:18:09.620 Focusing essentially on one thing.

00:18:11.420 We talk about different things with different people, but we've been trying to explain to

00:18:15.100 people, me as a first generation Russian immigrant and you, someone who comes from

00:18:20.140 partly from Venezuela, who's seen that world.

00:18:23.600 We've been trying to explain to people in the West one very simple thing, which is if

00:18:29.820 you destroy your own civilization from the inside, the punishment is coming.

00:18:35.840 That's what we've been trying to do, right?

00:18:37.420 We've been trying to tell people that if you spend your life worrying about this comedian

00:18:42.220 who made the wrong joke or this, you know, our men, women or our men, men, or which bathrooms

00:18:47.980 do we use?

00:18:48.700 If you spend your whole life worrying about things that happened 400 years ago that were

00:18:53.340 done by people who may look something like you against people who look like those people

00:18:56.760 over there.

00:18:57.200 You're going to be distracted from the business of, of reality.

00:19:03.220 You know, this is one of the reasons I'm actually somewhat optimistic today.

00:19:07.260 If there's one note for optimism, it's this.

00:19:09.380 We've been living in the dream world, all of us in the West.

00:19:12.300 And I hope that the wool has been lifted from people's eyes somewhat.

00:19:17.340 We don't live in this magical world of diversity, equality, and fucking gender non-binary shit.

00:19:23.060 You don't think Putin has pronouns in his bio?

00:19:24.940 It probably doesn't, mate.

00:19:26.540 We don't live in that world.

00:19:28.440 We live in a world that operates on a very simple basis, which is power, strength, land,

00:19:34.660 military.

00:19:35.360 Right?

00:19:36.040 That's the world.

00:19:36.900 Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin aren't worried about how to maintain peace in the international

00:19:41.220 community.

00:19:42.060 They're worried about doing what they think is the best thing for their country.

00:19:45.700 And until people in America and people in the UK understand that it's our job to think

00:19:51.480 in the same way, to defend our values, to remember what they fucking are.

00:19:57.020 We've been talking about this for four years, man.

00:19:59.780 If you approach a random person on the British or American street and say to them, what are British

00:20:03.940 to show American values, they'd run away from you like you're trying to recruit them into

00:20:07.280 the fucking EDL.

00:20:08.940 No one knows what they are.

00:20:10.140 And people are terrified of defending them, defining them, let alone defending them.

00:20:15.180 So we are where we are in terms of that.

00:20:18.880 Where are you with the argument?

00:20:20.900 And we'll come back to that in a second.

00:20:22.240 But where are you with the argument?

00:20:23.300 Trump made an announcement, quite like him, saying, under my watch, this never would have

00:20:29.420 happened.

00:20:29.940 Do you agree with that?

00:20:30.600 Of course.

00:20:31.560 Why?

00:20:31.780 Well, you know, Donald, you would have had a teacher like this at your school, somebody

00:20:37.300 that you didn't quite know what to expect from them, so you didn't fuck with them just

00:20:40.820 in case.

00:20:41.400 Yeah.

00:20:44.700 That's Donald Trump.

00:20:45.700 Yeah.

00:20:46.720 That's Donald Trump.

00:20:48.220 And he understood the way the world actually works.

00:20:50.700 He was not a nice guy.

00:20:52.700 He didn't write nice things on Twitter.

00:20:55.820 He didn't take losing very well.

00:20:58.640 You know, he said some things that I don't agree with.

00:21:01.780 But the job of your president or of your prime minister is to go out there and get the best

00:21:07.860 possible deal for your country.

00:21:10.400 Not to write nice things on Twitter.

00:21:12.340 Not to be friendly and polite.

00:21:13.980 To achieve the best possible outcome for America.

00:21:17.920 The job of our prime minister in this country is to go out there and achieve the best possible

00:21:22.920 outcome for British people.

00:21:24.480 Donald Trump, for all his flaws, did try to do that.

00:21:30.440 And it's funny because in the Western world, he was despised and he was not respected.

00:21:36.040 In the rest of the world, he was respected.

00:21:39.440 People feared him.

00:21:40.660 People respected him.

00:21:41.740 And they'd known they knew not to fuck with him.

00:21:43.660 So do you think as well, Trump would have approached this very much like a businessman and he would

00:21:52.320 have said to Putin, look, let's reframe this.

00:21:55.740 How can we work with you in order that we can make ourselves richer instead of doing the more

00:22:01.620 kind of the Democrat approach, which has been effectively to make themselves absence from

00:22:07.100 the world stage, do nothing and watch the whole world go nuts as a result?

00:22:11.500 Because there's a vacuum of power.

00:22:12.680 Look, we're getting into very big hypotheticals.

00:22:15.100 Now, I don't know what Trump would have done.

00:22:16.520 I just don't think that this would have happened if he'd been in power.

00:22:19.880 I think things would have gone very differently.

00:22:22.100 I don't think there would be an invasion of Ukraine.

00:22:24.800 I don't think China would be expanding in the way that it's expanding or dealing with

00:22:28.400 some of the issues they're dealing with in the way that they were.

00:22:32.420 We have an absence of leadership.

00:22:34.380 It's interesting, I was talking to my uncle in Ukraine yesterday and I was saying to him,

00:22:39.260 well, look, you know, I'm thinking of you and I wish you all the best and all of that.

00:22:44.460 And he was saying, look, you know, we have hope here because, you know, Boris Johnson has

00:22:50.080 been really good.

00:22:50.940 And I was like, you're fucked then, aren't you?

00:22:53.920 There's an absence of leadership, man.

00:22:55.500 And look, you and I have spent, again, years talking about this, the caliber of Western

00:23:00.620 politicians.

00:23:02.440 I mean, it's pathetic.

00:23:04.380 You know, Nigel Farage, when he was on the show, he made this joke about Liz Truss, some

00:23:08.120 woman who's become foreign secretary.

00:23:09.880 And he's right.

00:23:10.980 She went over to Russia.

00:23:12.100 She didn't even know Russian geography.

00:23:15.740 And these are the people that are negotiating on our behalf with, you know, you can make your

00:23:20.680 criticisms of Vladimir Putin.

00:23:22.260 The one thing I would not ever say about him is he's not a stupid man.

00:23:25.600 No.

00:23:26.280 He's not a stupid man.

00:23:27.360 And the people that he chooses to work with him are not stupid people.

00:23:30.980 Xi Jinping is not a stupid man.

00:23:32.740 And the people that work for him are not stupid people.

00:23:36.040 You know, the people who are there, and I'm not saying Liz Truss is foreign secretary because

00:23:40.020 of diversity.

00:23:40.660 I'm just talking about the broader context here.

00:23:43.320 You know, if you choose the best people, you're going to end up with the best people.

00:23:46.960 And if you choose people based on what looks right and what sounds right and who's never

00:23:50.820 said the wrong thing and who's never made an offensive joke and all of that, you're going

00:23:54.920 to end up with small people, people who never say or have an original thought, people who

00:24:00.200 are afraid to express themselves openly, people who are afraid to call a spade a spade.

00:24:04.500 I mean, this is why people hated Trump because in many things he just said it like it is, like

00:24:10.460 ordinary people think it is.

00:24:11.960 You know, for example, people got upset about his comments about Mexicans and something

00:24:17.780 about how some of them are rapists and blah, blah, blah.

00:24:20.340 Well, to a lot of ordinary people, when they see a mass wave of illegal immigration coming

00:24:24.120 off the border, they know for a fact that some of those people are criminals, right?

00:24:28.380 So when everyone had this massive, you know, falling out over that, I was like, well, that's

00:24:34.920 true, you know?

00:24:37.020 This is not to say that all Mexicans are bad people, which is what people made it mean,

00:24:40.300 but that's not what he was saying at all.

00:24:41.960 He was talking in a way that people process the world.

00:24:45.740 And let's go back to the war in Iraq.

00:24:49.660 A complete disaster.

00:24:52.000 Awful, awful, awful.

00:24:53.480 Never should have got involved.

00:24:55.720 How much does that affect US policy and UK policy to this day?

00:25:00.620 Massively.

00:25:01.120 This is why you and I opposed it so vehemently at the time.

00:25:04.280 What the West has done is undermined its own moral authority, and it has none anymore.

00:25:09.440 And that's why you see a lot of the people, like I say, that you and I would normally agree

00:25:14.280 with, essentially refusing to understand what's happening and refusing to understand that speech

00:25:24.620 that Vladimir Putin gave.

00:25:25.800 He was talking, it was a Cold War speech.

00:25:30.900 That's how people used to talk during the Cold War.

00:25:34.400 They are about to launch nuclear missiles on us, so we must get ready.

00:25:38.580 That's how people used to talk.

00:25:39.860 And that's what he said.

00:25:41.260 We are in a Cold War.

00:25:42.340 And a lot of people fail to understand that because our moral authority to say, we are

00:25:47.460 the West.

00:25:48.300 We believe that our culture is the best culture for us, at least, and we're going to defend

00:25:52.140 it.

00:25:52.760 We're not going to let other people challenge us.

00:25:54.960 We want to be the dominant superpower in the world because we understand that that is how

00:25:59.440 we protect our way of life.

00:26:00.840 No one wants to say that anymore.

00:26:02.140 Why?

00:26:02.740 Because Iraq, because Syria, because Libya, because all of these, Afghanistan, all of these

00:26:07.140 places that we've gone in completely unnecessarily, often based on completely made-up reasons,

00:26:14.800 killed thousands and thousands of people, created ISIS, empowered the Taliban now.

00:26:20.460 They have more Black Hawk helicopters than the UK military.

00:26:24.340 People are rightly looking at that and going, well, now they're telling me about this place

00:26:28.240 called Ukraine that I've never seen on a map.

00:26:31.060 Isn't it just one of them?

00:26:33.100 Unfortunately, it isn't.

00:26:34.580 It isn't one of them.

00:26:35.680 This is existential for the West.

00:26:39.160 This is, you know, today is the Sudetenland situation.

00:26:44.360 We're letting Putin do what Hitler did in 1938, which is take a chunk of land that he

00:26:49.260 claims is populated by ethnic Russians.

00:26:51.860 And he's not going to stop that.

00:26:53.520 And you can see him continually moving in.

00:26:56.300 Well, as I explained, he explained why Ukraine should not exist and why he's justified to

00:27:02.580 go in there and sort it out because it's so wrong and bad.

00:27:05.120 There's quite a lot of Ukrainians who support Putin, aren't there, as well?

00:27:09.500 No, I don't think there's a lot of Ukrainians who support Putin.

00:27:12.160 There are some, for sure.

00:27:13.260 There's no question about that.

00:27:14.200 Like for my own family, for example, there are members of my family who are celebrating.

00:27:18.480 Really?

00:27:18.920 Yeah.

00:27:19.780 This is what they always wanted.

00:27:21.340 And there are members of my family who are crying.

00:27:23.300 It's a very complicated situation.

00:27:26.080 There are people who support that.

00:27:29.120 I think they're in the minority.

00:27:30.300 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

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00:27:50.680 The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:27:53.280 And when we talked with Mikhail Svetov, he said that the West has turned Russia, but particularly

00:28:09.180 Putin, into a bogeyman, he said.

00:28:12.440 We almost see him as sort of this cartoon-esque character.

00:28:17.840 We don't know a lot about him.

00:28:19.660 Who actually is he?

00:28:20.980 What is his background?

00:28:22.040 And how did he actually get to power?

00:28:24.640 Because I think that's also very important in this conversation.

00:28:26.780 Okay.

00:28:26.980 Well, this ties into another part of the conversation, which is about what Russia is today.

00:28:33.400 A lot of people in the West, I think, think Russia is some kind of sort of quasi-democracy.

00:28:38.680 Maybe just a democracy, right?

00:28:40.020 Because they keep having elections, right?

00:28:42.220 He smashes them as well.

00:28:43.360 Yeah, he does very well, surprisingly.

00:28:45.860 So Russia has never had a single democratic transition of power in its entire history, ever.

00:28:52.040 There's never been a time when power has passed from one president to another in a normal, transparent, democratic way, where the Democrats have handed power over to the Republicans.

00:29:04.020 The Tories have handed power over to Labour.

00:29:06.020 That has never happened in the entire history of Russia, democratically.

00:29:09.600 So when the Soviet Union collapsed, Boris Yeltsin became president after what was effectively an overthrow of the government, right?

00:29:17.960 But he was president for about eight years.

00:29:22.440 And then what he needed to do was he needed to find somebody who was not already part of the power structures, somebody who was not already a politician.

00:29:33.600 Because anyone who already had any measure of power, the moment Boris Yeltsin left, they would take away all the money that he'd stolen, they would deprive him of all his possessions, they'd probably put him in prison for the crimes that he'd committed, etc.

00:29:45.920 And so they needed, Boris Yeltsin needed, to find someone who was an outsider, to whom he could give the power and say, look, here is all the power that you've ever dreamed of and all the money that you've ever dreamed of.

00:29:58.860 And in exchange, you let me live out my life in peace.

00:30:03.360 And that's what happened.

00:30:04.360 What he did is he appointed this guy that nobody had ever heard of, called Vladimir Putin, who we'll get into his background in a second.

00:30:12.740 He appointed him prime minister, not president, but prime minister, acting prime minister for a period of time, during which he basically bigged them up.

00:30:23.000 And then at some point he said, look, my health's not very good.

00:30:26.500 I'm going to take a step back and let this young man take over and look after the country until the next election.

00:30:32.620 And then at the next election, the people can choose whoever they want.

00:30:35.740 Right. And of course, once Putin became acting president in this way, you know, he was always going to win the election because he'd been set up to do it.

00:30:44.420 Then he became president. He was president for several terms.

00:30:47.440 When his constitutional right to remain president ended, they did a switcheroo.

00:30:54.260 He did exactly the same thing that Boris Yeltsin did with him, with Dmitry Medvedev.

00:30:58.220 You remember him? Barely, probably.

00:31:00.860 And so Medvedev became president and Putin became prime minister as they swapped around.

00:31:07.500 And during the Medvedev presidency, the constitution was amended to allow Vladimir Putin to serve more terms and longer terms.

00:31:15.740 And then they swapped back around immediately afterwards.

00:31:19.700 So Putin then became president again.

00:31:21.700 So Vladimir Putin, we are sitting here in February 2022.

00:31:25.620 He has been in power in Russia since 1999.

00:31:29.060 Wow.

00:31:30.140 If you think about what the greatest music hits were at that time, what would they be?

00:31:35.600 Anton?

00:31:37.780 Greatest music hits from 1999.

00:31:40.680 Probably something like, probably Oasis.

00:31:42.180 Right. So think about this.

00:31:44.140 We were all worried about the millennium bug when Putin came to power.

00:31:47.620 Wow.

00:31:48.760 And he's been in power since.

00:31:50.540 Now, as to his background, he is the former head of the KGB.

00:31:53.840 If you don't know what the FSB, the KGB, they are the successor to the secret police of the Soviet Union,

00:31:59.620 which was the Chekat, the emergency committee.

00:32:02.340 If you say to any Russian that someone is a Chekist, someone comes from the special services,

00:32:09.320 it immediately makes it clear who these people are.

00:32:13.740 Essentially, the KGB were the equivalent of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

00:32:20.500 So they are the people who, the secret police, who would torture people, who would put them in prison,

00:32:25.640 who would put them in concentration camps, who organized mass murders.

00:32:29.820 And unlike in Nazi Germany, where the Gestapo and all elements of the Nazi machine were eradicated,

00:32:36.840 that's not happened in the Soviet Union or in Russia in particular at all.

00:32:40.800 The prisons are still there.

00:32:42.280 They still use the same prisons that they used to use in the 30s and 40s to murder and torture people.

00:32:46.860 So the people who run Russia are the ideological successors to the Russian Gestapo.

00:32:53.100 Wow. So that's who you've got.

00:32:54.860 And you can actually, that makes a lot of sense.

00:32:57.080 Then when you look at his modus operandi for dealing with people who he feels have betrayed him or enemies or his enemies,

00:33:04.800 in that the poisoning, that's completely out of the spy playbook.

00:33:08.220 Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:09.040 So looking at that type of man in charge,

00:33:17.020 what shouldn't have been always obvious to the West that they were dealing with a malevolent force,

00:33:21.840 that this was someone who didn't have good intentions,

00:33:24.380 this was someone who they needed to have a strong hand with,

00:33:27.280 this is somebody they shouldn't have let just behave how he wanted.

00:33:33.260 Yeah, but look at us now.

00:33:38.960 We're doing the same thing.

00:33:40.520 Yeah.

00:33:41.040 Like I said, like you can say, oh, Vladimir Putin is a really bad guy and we really can.

00:33:46.480 But what are you going to do?

00:33:48.440 What are you going to do?

00:33:49.920 Yeah.

00:33:50.080 And it's also as well, how much influence is Russian money, which is being invested in the city of London,

00:33:57.440 which, you know, you look at all these wealthy Russian people, you know,

00:34:01.380 you've got our politicians' wives playing tennis with their wives.

00:34:05.440 How much of that of an effect does that have on our decision making against Russia?

00:34:10.120 Well, nobody knows exactly, but it's obviously no secret that there's a lot of Russian money swimming around London,

00:34:16.420 the city of London in particular, a lot of lawyers and bankers and estate agents.

00:34:21.860 All the good people.

00:34:22.660 All the great people.

00:34:24.060 All the moral people.

00:34:25.400 They've all, you know, got fat and rich off of that, of those criminal proceeds.

00:34:32.460 That's absolutely the case.

00:34:33.680 But I think, I don't think it's about that.

00:34:35.740 I think that's part of it.

00:34:36.620 I think the reason Germany is so pathetic on this issue is that they've made themselves hostage to Russia's gas supplies

00:34:43.840 when they shut down all their nuclear reactors purely on an ideological basis,

00:34:49.400 as we are trying to do in the rest of the West and with this green shit that is going on.

00:34:54.360 We're making ourselves energy dependent on our strategic adversary.

00:34:58.920 You're literally giving, you're going, hey, we've got a weak spot here.

00:35:02.780 You can stick your knife right there.

00:35:04.440 And so, yeah, but the bigger thing is the one that we've already talked about,

00:35:11.100 which is this is about the West being unwilling to assert itself more than anything else.

00:35:16.520 And what impact do you think is that going to have on China?

00:35:19.280 Because China are obviously going to be watching this.

00:35:21.700 What do you think they're going to be doing?

00:35:23.360 Well, Xi Jinping is wanking himself dry, isn't he?

00:35:25.780 What an image.

00:35:26.720 I think he's a bit old for that, mate.

00:35:28.600 I don't know, mate.

00:35:29.300 I don't know.

00:35:29.740 I think he's going to be that excited this morning that he might be.

00:35:32.840 Look, if you're in China and you're watching this, you're going, great.

00:35:37.500 Like, I'm surprised they haven't invaded Taiwan yet.

00:35:41.360 When would be a better time to invade Taiwan than today?

00:35:46.860 Is there a better day to do it?

00:35:48.560 No.

00:35:48.820 So it's probably coming as well.

00:35:51.340 Do you think that this will fundamentally change the way the U.S. does international relations?

00:35:57.240 I think this is this today is fundamentally going to change the world.

00:36:01.680 This is a 9-11 moment, probably bigger than 9-11 in some ways,

00:36:06.460 in terms of the impact it will have on the world.

00:36:08.540 Well, because that's a big statement to make, because look what 9-11, what happened with 9-11.

00:36:13.300 So the war in Afghanistan, which lasted forever, how long?

00:36:17.680 20-odd years.

00:36:19.140 OK.

00:36:19.760 We then had air travel, which changed forever.

00:36:22.380 Yeah.

00:36:24.160 I'm glad you're going for the big things.

00:36:25.780 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:26.440 Well, it was a big thing.

00:36:27.020 What, they make me give up my war?

00:36:28.500 Yeah.

00:36:28.880 And my shoes.

00:36:29.520 Take off my shoes.

00:36:30.920 You know, war in Iraq, all of these different things.

00:36:34.260 International terrorism.

00:36:35.520 Yeah.

00:36:35.800 The rise of Islamism.

00:36:36.920 Yeah.

00:36:37.480 Yeah.

00:36:38.840 You think that this moment is going to be bigger than that?

00:36:42.600 I do, yeah.

00:36:43.300 I mean, I don't see how it couldn't be.

00:36:45.240 How could it not be?

00:36:46.380 We're in Cold War.

00:36:47.980 We are in a Cold War, too, with Russia.

00:36:50.340 OK.

00:36:50.640 So what does Cold War mean to you?

00:36:52.300 Cold War means that we stop pretending, as Vladimir Putin has already done,

00:36:56.700 stop pretending that we live in a world of international trade and peace,

00:37:01.320 and all we want is to all grow and, you know, sink.

00:37:04.300 So the end of globalization.

00:37:05.440 Complete end of globalization.

00:37:07.100 A lot of countries are going to recognize now that energy security is vital.

00:37:10.500 Mm-hmm.

00:37:12.180 There's going to be an understanding that, you know,

00:37:14.860 an international supply chain that relies on Russian oil and gas

00:37:18.880 and Chinese manufacturing isn't going to work.

00:37:21.180 Mm-hmm.

00:37:21.480 So you're going to see probably more internal focus in terms of strengthening in the West

00:37:29.640 and the things that we're doing.

00:37:31.800 You're probably going to see proxy wars all over the place,

00:37:34.720 as you did during the days of the Cold War, you know, Vietnam, South Korea, all of that.

00:37:39.160 Those were all basically struggles between the Soviet Union and America,

00:37:42.760 funded and, you know, often supported and often, you know, manned by Soviet and American soldiers.

00:37:50.060 Mm-hmm.

00:37:51.300 You're going to see the world change completely.

00:37:53.560 Mm-hmm.

00:37:54.220 The global order that we have had since 1945, the idea of which was,

00:38:00.040 look, there's some fucking weirdos over there who are uncivilized and primitive

00:38:03.640 and living in the 18th century, and the rest of us here in the civilized world,

00:38:07.600 we're going to make peace and trade and be happy.

00:38:10.700 That's over now.

00:38:11.660 Mm-hmm.

00:38:12.040 It's over.

00:38:12.800 But what would you say to those people who think, you know,

00:38:16.360 the conspiracy theorists who say this is all rather convenient,

00:38:19.360 our economies are not doing very well after COVID, we've got a huge deficit,

00:38:25.800 inflation is going through the roof, what we need is a good war

00:38:29.020 to get us back on an even keel financially.

00:38:32.580 Well, wars don't get you on an even keel financially, they bankrupt you.

00:38:36.940 So that argument doesn't make much sense to me.

00:38:39.180 So that argument doesn't make much sense.

00:38:40.860 Fair enough.

00:38:41.860 I think the conspiracy stuff that maybe you are thinking about is people are saying

00:38:46.560 this is Biden has orchestrated this in order to look good by defusing it.

00:38:52.160 Well, first of all, I never bought that.

00:38:54.160 I thought that was a moronic thing to say.

00:38:55.600 But even if it was, well, he's not done very well, is he?

00:38:58.980 No, yes.

00:38:59.680 Defusing it.

00:39:00.260 But that's really not what this is about.

00:39:02.280 I think this is one of the reasons, you know, I find the last few days very humbling,

00:39:10.860 actually, because I've watched a lot of people that I normally agree with about things

00:39:17.720 to do with the culture and the culture war and so on, really embarrass themselves very

00:39:22.300 badly.

00:39:22.660 And it's made me realize that I really ought to refrain from commenting on things I don't

00:39:27.420 understand.

00:39:28.040 And the list of those things is very large.

00:39:29.920 This is one of the reasons you and I both stopped doing panel shows on GB News, because

00:39:35.620 we felt that we were being asked to have opinions about stuff that we weren't qualified to have

00:39:41.600 an opinion about.

00:39:42.260 And a lot of people are really embarrassing themselves at the moment because they are reacting instinctively

00:39:48.980 to their pre-existing conceptions of how the world is.

00:39:53.600 But they don't really know anything about Russia or Ukraine.

00:39:55.780 They don't speak the language.

00:39:56.780 They've never been there.

00:39:57.940 They don't understand the history.

00:39:59.240 They haven't watched Vladimir Putin's speeches.

00:40:01.160 They haven't looked at any of the documents to do with everything that's going on.

00:40:05.020 But it's just their perception.

00:40:07.680 And you know that I am the number one critic of the mainstream media in this country and

00:40:12.000 in the West.

00:40:12.660 But it's their perception that the media keeps lying to them, which it does.

00:40:17.080 And therefore, anything the media says is then automatically not true.

00:40:20.400 Well, that isn't the case.

00:40:22.900 The fact that the media reported something doesn't mean it's not true.

00:40:26.240 It means you have to be skeptical about the way it's being presented and you have to look

00:40:30.200 deeper.

00:40:31.000 And I've made my own criticisms right at the beginning of this discussion about what the

00:40:34.780 media failed to explain to people in this country.

00:40:37.340 But just because the media lied to you about this or that doesn't mean that this particular

00:40:42.600 issue isn't what they're telling you.

00:40:45.020 They're not telling you the full picture because they don't understand the full picture

00:40:47.740 themselves.

00:40:48.140 This is what people don't get about television and the media.

00:40:50.900 It's run by kids.

00:40:52.000 Yeah.

00:40:52.820 If you go into a TV studio, the people running it in their 20s, they couldn't find Ukraine

00:40:59.280 on a map.

00:41:00.660 They don't know what's going on.

00:41:01.980 They're just reacting to things that they're being told by people who they think are experts,

00:41:06.300 but they're not even qualified to decide who's an expert or not.

00:41:09.380 That's the media isn't some massive manipulative machine.

00:41:13.440 It's it's a bunch of people who don't know what the fuck they're doing with a few people

00:41:17.420 turning the knobs at different ends to make sure that it kind of presents the right message

00:41:21.320 for them.

00:41:22.880 But it's not there's no grand conspiracy in the media to misrepresent stuff.

00:41:27.080 They just have a certain worldview and it bleeds into everything.

00:41:31.660 It's not the same as some kind of evil conspiracy.

00:41:34.740 They couldn't organize a conspiracy if they tried.

00:41:37.220 We've said it's it's a death of globalization and we've been making predictions about that

00:41:44.260 have proven to be correct.

00:41:46.220 What is going to happen?

00:41:47.640 Do you think so you've said that this is the end of NATO?

00:41:50.660 How do you think this is going to affect the EU?

00:41:52.760 When I say the end of NATO, I'm not saying NATO is like going to dissolve tomorrow.

00:41:57.120 Yeah.

00:41:57.340 But I'm saying is NATO is not going to be willing to defend its easternmost members.

00:42:02.120 Yeah.

00:42:02.240 That's what I'm saying.

00:42:02.900 Yeah.

00:42:03.060 Which means as a defensive organization, NATO is over.

00:42:06.380 It's finished, which was its primary purpose.

00:42:09.160 Yeah.

00:42:09.520 That's what it's created.

00:42:10.420 Yeah.

00:42:10.960 So what about these other globalist structures like the EU, for instance?

00:42:15.060 Do you think that the EU is going to be fundamentally affected by what's happening when you look

00:42:21.880 at the fact that Germany gets gets the majority of its power from Russia?

00:42:27.100 What are the Germans going to do?

00:42:28.800 How is the EU going to?

00:42:30.280 Because they're compromised, aren't they?

00:42:32.480 They are.

00:42:33.060 They are compromised.

00:42:34.000 I mean, they're also terrified because Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, these are

00:42:38.800 all countries that are members of the EU.

00:42:40.300 Yeah.

00:42:41.240 So I think people in the EU are starting to wake up.

00:42:43.740 This is why I'm saying the world is going to change very rapidly now because they're

00:42:48.040 going to realize they can't pretend anymore.

00:42:51.380 You know, just like all of us, I think, realizing you can't pretend anymore.

00:42:55.560 We, like I said earlier, we've been living in a dream world.

00:42:59.340 Men are men or women are women or what?

00:43:01.280 Or like when when there are men on your borders with guns, that sort of like idea of, oh, maybe,

00:43:08.020 you know, toxic masculinity, like that's going to fall by the wayside somewhat, I think.

00:43:14.060 So with with with with the EU, no one knows exactly what's going to happen.

00:43:17.400 And they've actually been surprisingly vocal about what's happening.

00:43:22.020 I think, you know, there's a lot of people in Europe who understand the historical parallels here.

00:43:26.760 And you feel that this could be because what this is at the moment for me, it's it's a fork

00:43:34.940 in the road for our civilization, for the West, where we want to where we want to go.

00:43:39.820 You said you were you were quite positive about it.

00:43:42.680 Do you think that this is a moment where we could it could be a reinvigoration for the West

00:43:47.620 and that we need an enemy? We need somebody to push back against.

00:43:51.900 We need something to focus the mind.

00:43:55.880 Look, that is obviously a very cynical and pragmatic way of looking at it.

00:44:02.020 And for someone who has family who are, you know, crying on the phone and there's bombshells,

00:44:07.360 you know, landing in their cities now, obviously, that sounds an incredibly cynical way of looking at it

00:44:14.620 because people are going to die. Many people are going to die.

00:44:18.880 It's going to be awful. We are going to come closer to nuclear war than we have been for 60 years.

00:44:26.560 Do you think that there's going to be before we get back into it?

00:44:29.060 Do you think there's going to be a sustained fight back from the Ukrainians?

00:44:31.680 We don't know. It remains to be seen.

00:44:33.880 I mean, I was, you know, the problem in 2014 for Ukrainians was it's interesting.

00:44:40.280 I was talking to my uncle about this and he was saying, well, look, the problem in 2014,

00:44:44.620 was how do we shoot at the Russians? And I was like, oh, so you didn't have enough weapons.

00:44:50.280 And he was like, no, no. The question for us was, how do we, these are our brothers.

00:44:55.240 We used to be in the same country. We are the same people.

00:44:58.780 Look, we want our own country. We want to be independent.

00:45:01.320 But we are the same people. How can we shoot our own brothers and sisters?

00:45:07.720 He said that problem isn't a problem anymore.

00:45:10.360 Really?

00:45:11.100 That problem isn't a problem anymore.

00:45:12.780 But that doesn't mean that Ukraine and its military won't immediately collapse either

00:45:18.320 because there's a, you know, in almost every war,

00:45:25.600 the human factor is the deciding factor.

00:45:29.940 And if you consider yourself from the position of a Ukrainian kid who's 20 years old,

00:45:35.720 he's been conscripted to fight.

00:45:37.040 You know, is this a war you're going to win?

00:45:41.960 Probably not.

00:45:42.900 So why would you risk your life?

00:45:45.280 Why would you try your hardest?

00:45:46.940 Why would you, you know, it's, it could go that way as well.

00:45:52.520 Um, so it could be that Ukraine puts up a really strong fight and, and develops a sense of national

00:45:58.140 resilience with Western support, with Western weaponry, et cetera.

00:46:02.220 Uh, or, you know, it, there could be a lot of units that just don't want to fight.

00:46:07.340 That could also happen.

00:46:10.480 It's very interesting that you say that because there have been notable examples right the way

00:46:14.920 through history where a smaller country has triumphed over a bigger country, particularly

00:46:19.100 when they're being invaded.

00:46:20.080 Yeah.

00:46:20.520 And when they're being supported.

00:46:21.760 Yeah.

00:46:22.060 Yeah.

00:46:22.520 Yeah.

00:46:22.720 It could happen.

00:46:24.100 Uh, like I say, I don't, that, that is not something that anyone can, can tell you what's

00:46:28.760 going to happen.

00:46:29.320 And do you think the West are going to start, I mean, they've already put sanctions in place.

00:46:32.860 Yeah.

00:46:33.200 Do you think that they're actually going to start to bring in troops?

00:46:36.100 No, no, the West, the West is never going to put troops in Ukraine.

00:46:41.020 Why not?

00:46:42.320 Because then you're starting World War three.

00:46:45.940 But surely if you bring in troops, that's a sign that no more.

00:46:50.080 So when you say bring in troops, what do you mean?

00:46:53.180 So for instance, put them where and what do you do with them?

00:46:56.280 Right.

00:46:56.560 So essentially, I mean, this is where I expose my lack of military knowledge.

00:47:00.800 Yeah.

00:47:00.940 But wherever the Russian line is, you bring troops to face them and say, no, you will

00:47:06.560 not.

00:47:06.840 So what you're saying is basically Putin is going to invade the part of Ukraine that he's

00:47:10.300 going to invade.

00:47:10.860 Yeah.

00:47:11.260 And then will the West then put its peacekeeping force on that border?

00:47:14.740 Yeah.

00:47:15.580 No, I don't think it will.

00:47:17.940 No, I don't think it will.

00:47:19.640 Do you think it will?

00:47:21.180 No.

00:47:22.000 There you go.

00:47:22.900 No, I don't.

00:47:23.760 I don't.

00:47:24.940 Do you think they'll be supplying arms to the Ukraine?

00:47:27.080 Yes, they already are.

00:47:29.160 They already are.

00:47:31.540 But the problem that I have with this is the problem that you've identified.

00:47:37.520 The weaker that we are, the weaker, the more that we show that we are weak, the greater

00:47:42.960 the advantages that Putin is going to take.

00:47:46.900 Yeah.

00:47:48.820 There's going to be a time where you've got to say enough.

00:47:51.880 Surely there's got to be a time.

00:47:53.740 Yeah.

00:47:54.920 Yeah.

00:47:56.180 And I'm worried when will that time be?

00:47:58.980 Yeah.

00:47:59.380 Yeah.

00:48:00.940 You're not making me feel good, mate.

00:48:04.020 I'm sorry.

00:48:05.380 I have nothing but truth to offer you.

00:48:07.440 You're right.

00:48:08.780 You're right.

00:48:09.920 The, the, the, as long as the West continues to be weak, these problems are going to multiply.

00:48:16.060 Uh, and even if, you know, what, what is likely to happen, I'm not saying this is exactly what

00:48:21.980 will happen because at this moment in time, we don't know exactly what's going to happen.

00:48:25.420 Um, but what is likely to happen is Putin is going to invade the part of Ukraine that he wants.

00:48:32.980 The West will introduce strong sanctions and offer strong military support to Ukraine.

00:48:37.560 Uh, Putin will say, look, we've got what we wanted.

00:48:40.560 That's it.

00:48:41.100 We're not expanding anymore.

00:48:42.440 We've whatever.

00:48:43.660 And this situation will die down.

00:48:45.440 Uh, and then in 2024, when Trump runs again, uh, and everyone starts to have another meltdown,

00:48:52.680 he will then encroach again because this is what you do.

00:48:57.140 You wait until your enemy is distracted and then you act.

00:49:02.540 So, uh, this is the beginning.

00:49:04.740 This isn't the end.

00:49:06.080 This is the very beginning.

00:49:07.240 And this is what people in the West really need to understand.

00:49:10.000 This isn't about Ukraine.

00:49:12.640 This is not about Ukraine.

00:49:14.820 This is about you.

00:49:16.540 It's about your children.

00:49:17.840 It's about their future.

00:49:19.060 It's about the world you're going to live in because the fundamental thing, and you know,

00:49:23.600 you and your girlfriend have a lot of arguments about this because she's a massive anti-imperial

00:49:27.140 imperialist lefty.

00:49:29.520 This is what these people don't understand is, yes, the West is evil.

00:49:33.760 It absolutely is evil.

00:49:35.520 And the things that America and Britain do in foreign policy are wrong and bad and evil.

00:49:40.420 They are.

00:49:41.200 Who, who could dispute that?

00:49:42.600 Who could argue that the war in Iraq was just and fair and decent?

00:49:46.720 Who could argue that what we've done in Afghanistan was the right thing?

00:49:51.260 Who can argue that destabilizing Syria and destroying Libya as a country?

00:49:57.140 Who could argue that creating ISIS?

00:49:58.380 Who could argue that any of that is good or moral or just or right?

00:50:02.940 Nobody.

00:50:03.560 I certainly wouldn't.

00:50:04.580 I opposed all of those things.

00:50:06.520 But the question you always have to ask yourself is, who would you rather the world was run by?

00:50:12.580 The evil imperialist Americans or the wonderful Russians or the wonderful Chinese?

00:50:20.360 That's the choice.

00:50:21.280 There is no unicorns and rainbows option.

00:50:25.220 You can be run by cunts of different colors.

00:50:28.020 Which ones do you want to be run by?

00:50:29.800 That's it.

00:50:31.020 And that's what we have to choose.

00:50:32.760 If you want to be run by Russia, great.

00:50:35.440 Well, just remember, if you're a woman, for example, we care really about women's rights here in the West.

00:50:39.900 In Russia, it's not illegal to beat your wife.

00:50:44.340 It's not illegal.

00:50:45.180 It's been decriminalized.

00:50:47.060 You can beat your wife.

00:50:47.980 In China, if you're a Muslim Uyghur, they're going to put you in a concentration camp.

00:50:51.620 They're going to cut your kidneys out and sell them to the West as donors, for donors.

00:50:56.600 That's what they're going to do.

00:50:57.720 You want to be run by those people?

00:50:59.780 The people who have concentration camps today?

00:51:02.000 You want to be run by Russia?

00:51:06.220 Who do you want the world to be run by?

00:51:08.220 It's going to be run by someone.

00:51:10.800 You need to pick a team.

00:51:13.680 Yeah.

00:51:14.640 We've got a few more minutes, and then we will be taking your questions.

00:51:19.300 So if you've got questions to ask, put in a super chat, and then we will probably do about another half an hour.

00:51:25.780 So make sure to put your super chats in now, if you haven't done so already, and ask Constantine questions.

00:51:29.920 And then I will be fielding your questions to Constantine.

00:51:33.220 Now, what do you think of the argument that Putin has become increasingly more paranoid as he's gotten older?

00:51:43.440 Because there have been several attempts on his life.

00:51:45.740 He's become ever more isolated.

00:51:47.240 And these are just the actions of a man who is no longer, I'm trying because I don't want to get poisoned either, of a man who's slowly losing his grip, shall we just say.

00:52:01.760 I don't know the answer to that question.

00:52:03.680 I don't know him personally.

00:52:04.600 And one of the things I've learned from our experiences of being in the public eye in somewhat is you don't, you know, what people write about me online isn't who I am.

00:52:14.240 And the same way with Vladimir Putin to the nth degree.

00:52:17.300 So there are two possibilities, I would say, about his mental state.

00:52:22.580 Both are bad, but one is worse than the other.

00:52:25.760 One of them is that he is simply operating on the Hitler playbook, which is to say that he wants to rebuild the nation and attach parts of what used to be Germany, what used to be Russia, back together.

00:52:42.240 That's what the Sudetenland was all about.

00:52:44.220 This was land taken from Germany, populated to some extent by Germans, right?

00:52:50.560 The same here.

00:52:51.380 And he's using all of these excuses and making things up about genocide of Russians and all of that in exactly the same way that Hitler did to take land.

00:53:01.660 That is the better option.

00:53:04.740 If he's just an expansionist authoritarian who wants to take land from neighbors while the West is looking the other way.

00:53:12.340 In order to enrich himself and his country.

00:53:15.120 And to maintain his leadership of Russia, etc.

00:53:17.740 That is a sort of fairly normal, pragmatic thing to do, right?

00:53:22.000 He doesn't have a racial animus in the way that Hitler did.

00:53:25.480 So he's probably going to conquer a few more countries.

00:53:27.920 Do we know where he stands on the trans debate?

00:53:30.240 I think we do, mate.

00:53:31.340 He's pretty hardcore on our side on that one.

00:53:33.940 We agree with Vladimir Putin on the trans debate.

00:53:37.800 That would be the title of the episode.

00:53:39.260 Exactly.

00:53:39.540 But so that's one option.

00:53:42.380 The other option is the one that you described, which is he actually believes that the West is about to drop nukes on Moscow.

00:53:47.780 And he actually believes that Ukraine was about to invade.

00:53:50.640 And he actually believes all the paranoia that he expressed in that speech.

00:53:54.640 In which case, yeah, I mean, we are in a very serious Cold War period that may not even end with him going whenever that happens.

00:54:07.080 And he looks like he's in good shape.

00:54:09.120 So it could be a while.

00:54:12.240 Because what that then means is we're locked in this Cold War standoff.

00:54:17.540 Because it doesn't really matter what, you know, if you said to someone here in the West, you know, the West is about to launch a missile attack on Russia, they'd look at you like you were mental.

00:54:26.120 But if people in Russia believe that, then it doesn't matter what the truth is about Western intentions.

00:54:31.800 All that matters is they believe that.

00:54:33.760 And then we have to deal with that.

00:54:36.140 So, I mean, do you say that?

00:54:37.620 Was it the Daily Mirror who had, I think it was on their front page, what would happen to London if there was a nuclear strike?

00:54:44.100 Yeah.

00:54:44.700 And they said, this is the area that will be ruined.

00:54:47.100 Yeah.

00:54:47.520 I mean, it's a bit of a weak word.

00:54:49.180 It is.

00:54:49.640 Yeah.

00:54:50.120 Yeah.

00:54:50.380 You know, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they were ruined.

00:54:52.480 And you're just looking at it going, it seems that we've been talking about things that don't matter for a very long time.

00:55:03.020 Yes.

00:55:04.060 It's 0 to 60 in the space of a couple of seconds, it feels.

00:55:07.760 I know it feels that way.

00:55:09.180 But you've got to remember, I've been predicting this for years.

00:55:12.020 I've been saying, this is what I've been saying for years.

00:55:16.500 The weaker the West is, the more other people are going to come into that vacuum and take over.

00:55:21.400 But this isn't new.

00:55:23.240 This has been happening for decades.

00:55:25.480 The Western elites that we talk on the show about, about wokeness and all of that, there's a mind virus that has spread into their brains that means that they're not capable of focusing on the things that matter.

00:55:35.800 And this has been going on for decades.

00:55:37.760 They're teaching people to hate the West.

00:55:39.680 They're teaching people to hate this country.

00:55:41.540 They're teaching people to hate our values.

00:55:43.320 And how can you possibly defend values that you despise?

00:55:46.640 Why would you fight for democracy if you think democracy is evil?

00:55:50.840 Why would you defend our liberal capitalist system if you think it's evil?

00:55:54.880 Do you, where would you be?

00:55:59.500 Because there's a lot of people who, and particularly academics, I remember we went to an economics and conference a few years back.

00:56:08.420 And every debate that I saw, the position that every academic took was like, this is the end of the empire.

00:56:15.340 And we should just accept managed decline.

00:56:17.800 Yeah.

00:56:17.940 And this is where we are.

00:56:19.980 And there's nothing you can do.

00:56:21.840 Yeah.

00:56:22.920 Where do you stand on that?

00:56:24.700 Well, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:56:28.260 This is one of the reasons that Trump was so hated.

00:56:32.520 He refused to buy into this paradigm.

00:56:35.440 If you think about his election slogan, what was it?

00:56:38.280 Make America great again.

00:56:39.420 What does he mean by that?

00:56:40.840 He means no fucking decline.

00:56:43.180 We're not going to give up our top dog status.

00:56:46.040 We are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain our supremacy in the world.

00:56:50.580 That's what you're saying.

00:56:51.900 And people in the West are deeply uncomfortable with that message.

00:56:55.480 Do you think that if President Putin walked out onto the steps of the Kremlin and gave a speech to the Red Square saying,

00:57:02.720 we want Russia to be the richest, most powerful, most dominant country in the world,

00:57:07.360 to maintain its status as it currently is, the biggest country in the world.

00:57:11.440 We want the Russian people and the Russian language to be spoken around the world.

00:57:15.560 Do you think people would be like, oh, my God, I can't believe you said that.

00:57:18.960 Why so nationalistic?

00:57:21.320 People would be cheering.

00:57:22.980 Imagine if Donald Trump or Boris Johnson came out and went,

00:57:26.660 our job as Americans is to make sure that America is the most powerful country in the world

00:57:30.940 and that no one fucks with us.

00:57:32.380 What would happen on Twitter?

00:57:37.300 What would happen?

00:57:38.440 Oh, they're going to meltdown.

00:57:40.000 So there you go.

00:57:41.480 That's it.

00:57:42.520 If America and Britain and Western Europe refused to defend their right to be the most powerful people in the world,

00:57:52.140 that's it.

00:57:53.320 Isn't part of the problem as well?

00:57:55.340 And this is a final question.

00:57:56.780 There's a helicopter overhead, man.

00:57:58.120 It's hard to get worried, mate.

00:57:59.520 Yeah, don't worry.

00:58:00.180 Just wait for the sound of missiles.

00:58:02.320 Isn't part of the problem as well is the fact that we are a democracy?

00:58:05.860 We don't have a continuous...

00:58:06.660 Yes, that is a big problem.

00:58:07.900 We must change it immediately.

00:58:09.720 That we don't have a continuance of leadership.

00:58:12.840 Yeah.

00:58:12.980 All of the decisions we make are short-termists.

00:58:16.480 Yeah.

00:58:16.680 Because we think in four-year or five-year cycles.

00:58:18.800 No, we don't.

00:58:19.680 No, we don't.

00:58:20.880 We think in 24-hour cycles.

00:58:22.100 The prime minister of this country and the president of the United States are not thinking about a year from now or four years from now or the next election.

00:58:31.680 They're thinking about the headlines tomorrow.

00:58:34.920 That's what they're thinking about.

00:58:36.160 So, yeah, of course it's a problem.

00:58:37.720 We don't have any strategic thinking.

00:58:40.720 And the people who make these terrible mistakes are never going to be held accountable for them.

00:58:46.040 Ever.

00:58:46.480 I mean, look at Iraq.

00:58:48.160 Yeah.

00:58:48.420 If Tony Blair was the leader of an African country, he'd be at The Hague.

00:58:51.780 Yeah.

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00:59:21.420 If Zimbabwe had invaded Egypt, let's say, or bombed Egypt, or destabilized Egypt, the country on the other side of the African continent, that person would be at The Hague.

00:59:36.380 Is Tony Blair, is Tony Blair, is George Bush?

00:59:39.860 No.

00:59:40.380 No.

00:59:40.540 Because we don't hold ourselves to account for those things, and that's how we've devalued, that's how we've taken away our own moral authority to act in situations where action is needed.

00:59:51.120 I mean, it's been an uplifting chat.

00:59:56.140 No, I'm just telling you how I see it, man.

00:59:57.920 There's nothing else I can do.

00:59:59.300 I mean, look, I am more positive today than I have been for a very long time, because to me, the decline and collapse of the West has been inevitable since I've started really paying attention.

01:00:14.340 And there is a small chance that what has happened today will lift the wall from people's eyes.

01:00:22.540 And we stop living in the dream world, and we recognize that we've got to stop wasting our time on things that don't matter, and start to go back to some very sensible ideas about right and wrong, about who we are as people, about what we believe.

01:00:38.160 And remember, look, geopolitics is just a competition.

01:00:42.320 That's all that it is.

01:00:43.320 And if you don't want to fight, and you don't want to play in that game, someone else is going to play and fight in that game instead of you.

01:00:50.700 That's it.

01:00:52.200 So if this is the shot in the arm that Western civilization needed, then I'm hopeful.

01:00:57.940 If it's not, the West is over.

01:01:01.360 We're going to see what happens.

01:01:03.560 But you are hopeful.

01:01:05.960 More hopeful than I've been for a long time, yeah.

01:01:09.460 So not that hopeful.

01:01:10.280 No.

01:01:10.480 Well, we are now going to start answering your questions.

01:01:17.700 So if you've got questions for Konstantin, like I said before, hit us up with some super chats, and we will pick out the best ones.

01:01:24.780 We're going to do it about half an hour, and we'll be putting your questions to Konstantin.

01:01:29.300 So Anton, can you make sure that you've sent me all of the questions, please?

01:01:34.540 Have you sent them on the Telegram?

01:01:36.020 I'm going to send you on the Telegram.

01:01:37.220 Yeah, you're going to send me on the Telegram?

01:01:38.540 Guys, give us a second.

01:01:39.440 We are going to go through stuff.

01:01:41.120 This is the first time we're doing a live broadcast of any kind like this.

01:01:45.540 So just bear with us while Francis and Anton get stuff ready.

01:01:49.480 If you've got questions, send them in.

01:01:50.980 If you've got any comments, if there's anything that sparked any sort of discussion, put that in the chat, and we'll see how much we can get through in the next half an hour.

01:01:59.720 So, there is a first question is absolutely cracking.

01:02:04.980 It's from Icky Ick, and he says, how do nuclear weapons weigh into this strategically?

01:02:11.480 We still have the threat of mutual annihilation.

01:02:14.740 Do you think Russia will use nukes in Ukraine?

01:02:17.700 No, I don't.

01:02:20.740 No.

01:02:22.660 No, I don't.

01:02:24.260 I don't think he will use nuclear weapons.

01:02:27.160 No.

01:02:27.460 This isn't about that.

01:02:28.580 He's not Kim Jong-un.

01:02:30.160 He's not a madman.

01:02:31.120 Like I say, he actually is pretty sane and rational, and most other people who would be in power in Russia today would be doing the same thing.

01:02:40.000 I don't think he will use nukes in Ukraine, no.

01:02:41.860 Okay.

01:02:42.520 So, Icky Icky, you got the answer to your question.

01:02:44.980 It's not as depressing as you were hoping, Icky Icky Icky.

01:02:46.740 Yeah.

01:02:47.200 He's, I want the end of the world now.

01:02:48.900 Yeah.

01:02:49.400 This is from Dean Cosgrave, and he says, how telling is it that many people who emigrated to the West from countries like China and Russia have been warning and overall against the nonsense the West has been arguing with the culture war?

01:03:04.860 Of course.

01:03:06.200 I mean, all of us see it.

01:03:07.160 We are not able to pretend like you guys that nothing's happening, because we know, we understand how these people work.

01:03:15.200 We understand, see, people in the West live under a number of delusions, and one of them is that everyone in the world wants what we want and thinks the way we think.

01:03:26.720 They fucking don't.

01:03:28.460 They don't.

01:03:29.840 What, the Tanaban don't want what we want?

01:03:32.020 But this is what people think.

01:03:33.460 People in the West can't understand someone who is extremely religiously motivated, for example, who is so religiously motivated that they're willing to blow themselves up in the name of a cause.

01:03:45.120 There are very few people in the West who would do anything in the name of religion like that, right?

01:03:50.380 And in the same way, people in the West don't understand why a country might want to expand its borders.

01:03:56.600 They don't.

01:03:59.720 They don't get it.

01:04:01.800 But people in the rest of the world do understand that, because let me put it very simply and crudely for you.

01:04:07.500 People in the rest of the world want what you have.

01:04:10.660 They want what you have.

01:04:12.400 The prosperity, the freedom, the stability, the democracy.

01:04:15.760 They want all of that.

01:04:16.620 But mainly the prosperity.

01:04:19.840 They want to be the top dog in the world.

01:04:23.580 They want to have the most money per head of population in the world.

01:04:27.220 They want the comforts.

01:04:28.620 They want to be able to throw away the food that we throw away.

01:04:32.140 That's what they want.

01:04:34.380 And until they have it, they're always going to want it.

01:04:38.900 That's it.

01:04:39.600 There's no there's no other there's no other there's no other great secret to it.

01:04:44.740 People in the rest of the world want to be as rich and as successful as people in the West.

01:04:50.400 That's why immigrants like me come here.

01:04:52.960 And that's why countries like China and Russia are doing everything they can to expand their land, to expand their power, to expand their influence and to expand their economy.

01:05:01.400 That's what they want.

01:05:04.460 Not about diversity, Francis.

01:05:06.160 I'm sorry.

01:05:07.040 Is it not?

01:05:07.680 No, it's not.

01:05:08.560 It really isn't.

01:05:09.600 It's about some pretty hardcore, fairly sort of old school things that human beings have always known.

01:05:19.360 Great question.

01:05:20.620 Right.

01:05:20.940 Let's move on and let's see what else we have got.

01:05:24.940 So we have got a.

01:05:27.420 Icky Ike has sent another one.

01:05:28.920 He says, why did you wake me up at 4 a.m.?

01:05:31.240 To tell you the truth, Icky Ike, to tell you the fucking truth.

01:05:36.080 Uh, so this is from Ayush Pandey.

01:05:40.340 He goes, I have only one question.

01:05:42.360 Why didn't the West let Russia into the EU Union and be part of NATO when he offered the hand of friendship?

01:05:48.960 Uh, Russia doesn't make sense as part of NATO and it wasn't a hand of friendship.

01:05:58.080 Russia, Russia doesn't belong in NATO.

01:06:00.580 It's a country with a different cultural mindset and it wants different things.

01:06:04.720 Russia doesn't want to be part of the EU.

01:06:06.080 Not really.

01:06:09.180 And it wouldn't work.

01:06:10.540 Russia can be integrated into the EU in the way that a cancer tumor can be integrated into the human body.

01:06:17.020 It's, it's not the same thing.

01:06:19.900 People in Poland and in Latvia and Lithuania, they want to get the hell away from that sort of old school authoritarian way of doing things.

01:06:28.380 People in Russia don't want that and the Russian leadership don't want that.

01:06:31.200 They want to maintain essentially a dictatorship.

01:06:34.520 That's what they want more than anything else.

01:06:36.460 I'm not saying every single person in Russia does, but they're very comfortable with that way of governance.

01:06:40.400 They're not trying to get away from the Soviet past.

01:06:42.520 They're embracing it.

01:06:43.380 Whereas what the rest of Eastern Europe has done is try to move away from that.

01:06:47.240 So Russia doesn't belong in NATO and doesn't belong in the EU.

01:06:49.560 It's a different culture.

01:06:50.340 Yeah.

01:06:51.380 With different ideas about politics, about the world, about how things should be.

01:06:55.520 Alex Alexander asks, do you support immediate Western military intervention?

01:07:02.480 No, I don't.

01:07:03.240 Because as I said, I think that would start World War III.

01:07:05.580 Do you really think it's that extreme?

01:07:06.980 Well, if you start fighting Russia with British soldiers, what do you think is going to happen?

01:07:11.500 That is World War III.

01:07:14.540 That's what happened in, that's how World War II started.

01:07:17.120 Hitler invaded Poland and Britain and France said, well, we have an obligation to support our ally.

01:07:24.340 We're going to come to their defense.

01:07:25.820 We're going to fight.

01:07:26.940 And that started World War II.

01:07:28.540 So if the West sends military troops now, that is starting World War III.

01:07:33.900 So I don't support that now.

01:07:36.880 Okay.

01:07:37.620 Thank you very much.

01:07:40.540 Let's see.

01:07:41.520 This is from Colby Hamilton, who says,

01:07:44.880 the only necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

01:07:49.760 Correct.

01:07:50.700 Now, I don't like framing it in terms of good and bad, because it suggests that we are somehow impure, pure and perfect.

01:07:58.920 Vladimir Putin and people around him are evil.

01:08:01.400 I don't believe that for a moment.

01:08:02.940 And Colby, as a Christian, I'm sure would agree with me that every human being is complicated.

01:08:07.580 I don't think the West or we should look at this as a matter of good versus evil.

01:08:12.960 I think we should look at it in a much more sort of Darwinian pragmatic term.

01:08:17.160 It's a matter of us versus them.

01:08:19.880 It doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong.

01:08:23.000 That's not how they are going to be thinking about this.

01:08:25.420 And that's not how we should be thinking about this.

01:08:27.620 Someone's coming.

01:08:30.180 They're coming for our top dog position in the world.

01:08:33.900 China and Russia.

01:08:35.200 And this is what it looks like.

01:08:36.460 See, when people talked about, oh, well, you know, the Thucydides trap and China is going to slowly become them.

01:08:43.180 No, no, it's not going to be.

01:08:45.620 Chinese people are more rich than us 50 years from.

01:08:48.820 That's not what it's going to look like.

01:08:50.380 It's going to look like this.

01:08:51.840 It's going to look like Taiwan.

01:08:53.780 It's going to look like Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.

01:08:57.620 So if the power of the West wanes, the West is going to shrink and the East is going to grow.

01:09:03.880 That's what's going to happen.

01:09:05.140 And before you know it, you're going to be living under, you know, a very different regime to the one that you used to.

01:09:13.720 Gemma asked a question which did cross my mind in the initial interview.

01:09:20.020 What is the likelihood do you think that Putin will be overthrown by the oligarchs?

01:09:24.240 Or do you think?

01:09:25.440 Zero.

01:09:26.000 Zero.

01:09:26.360 Zero.

01:09:26.560 Why?

01:09:26.740 At this point, look, it could happen at some point that he has complete control.

01:09:31.260 He spent 20 years cleaning out anyone who's against him.

01:09:34.480 The people who are below him all owe their status and power to him.

01:09:41.580 He could have any of them removed or killed at any moment.

01:09:44.040 The only way that he might be removed in the long run, and this will take time, is if very strong sanctions are applied of the kind that Britain, I don't think, would ever apply.

01:10:02.400 And they hurt the oligarchs very badly and also then hurt the people of Russia very badly who become restless.

01:10:12.680 Now, I'll push back on that, but surely if he starts encroaching more and more, those sanctions are going to become ever more strict.

01:10:19.140 Okay, well, let me give you an example.

01:10:20.440 So, one of the sanctions would be to seize the assets of all Russian oligarchs in the West with immediate effect to bar the children of Russian oligarchs from going to British boarding schools.

01:10:35.260 Would you do that?

01:10:41.000 It depends how extreme the situation is.

01:10:42.860 Does it?

01:10:44.620 You want to punish Russian children for the actions of Vladimir Putin?

01:10:49.480 I mean, but that's what sanctions are, effectively.

01:10:51.880 That's what you do.

01:10:52.700 You do punish Russia.

01:10:54.260 As coming from a country where my mum does, which has had sanctions, that is what happens.

01:10:58.600 What would the Guardian say about that, Francis?

01:11:01.040 Well, that is true.

01:11:02.360 But sanctions always punish the most vulnerable.

01:11:04.920 They're not going to punish.

01:11:05.720 Yeah, but when it's being done over there and you're not seeing the children starving to death, that's one thing.

01:11:10.440 What about these kids right here, right here in the UK?

01:11:14.960 Who's going to sign up for that?

01:11:18.700 That's the only way, is if the people of Russia see that this strategy is really not paying off.

01:11:24.260 And if the oligarchs around Putin really feel the bite, they lose all their money, which, by the way, most of their money is in the West.

01:11:32.900 You understand this?

01:11:33.580 So why don't they just freeze bank accounts?

01:11:35.240 Well, not freeze, seize.

01:11:36.620 Yeah, seize bank accounts.

01:11:37.960 They have frozen some bank accounts.

01:11:39.600 Yeah.

01:11:40.120 But if you want to have an impact, you would seize those bank accounts and give that money to Ukraine to fight the war.

01:11:46.920 Yeah.

01:11:47.620 But you don't think that's going to happen?

01:11:49.080 No, I don't.

01:11:49.500 I don't think people in the West have the stomach for it.

01:11:56.520 Even if he starts marching eastwards towards or westwards towards Lithuania?

01:12:01.340 Again, we're getting into hypotheticals.

01:12:03.640 Right.

01:12:03.920 I take your point.

01:12:06.700 So we have got Zathra says, thank you, Constantine, for speaking sense about different mentalities in Russia, rest of Eastern Europe, Poland and the West keep on speaking sense.

01:12:20.880 He says, let's have we've got former guest of the show, Francis Ball, who says, I must be one of few right wing immigrants.

01:12:33.000 But what West doesn't understand is that not all brown people are left leaning, cut the white, save your complex.

01:12:39.640 So I don't think it is the Francis Ball was on.

01:12:41.440 It was another Francis Ball.

01:12:43.480 But going back to that point of about how we're spoiled in the West, really, we don't understand how good we've got it.

01:12:52.180 We're soft.

01:12:53.140 We're not used to fighting.

01:12:54.580 We're not used to confrontation.

01:12:56.320 And all of a sudden now we have a confrontation.

01:12:59.600 We don't really know what to do.

01:13:01.400 And also our lives are infinitely more valuable than they've ever been.

01:13:06.180 We live longer.

01:13:07.580 Yeah.

01:13:07.780 We live more fulfilled, not fulfilled, but sort of materially satisfied lives.

01:13:13.000 Yeah.

01:13:13.320 You know, so, you know, if your life expectancy is 40 and your life's pretty shit and you go off and there's a rigid class system which prevents you ever from advancing,

01:13:26.020 then maybe going off to war, coming back as a hero and achieving something and being able to get out of your class limitations.

01:13:35.820 That does explain why the Scots are so violent.

01:13:38.080 Yeah, exactly.

01:13:39.080 That may be a route out for you.

01:13:42.220 But if you're going to live to 85 and die of COVID or with COVID and your life's pretty great, why would you go and risk that?

01:13:50.740 You're risking way more than you would have done in the past.

01:13:53.320 Yeah.

01:13:54.820 Richie, 77, has got some sort of mental illness.

01:13:58.340 He says, constant in for prime minister.

01:14:00.420 Yeah.

01:14:00.980 Yeah.

01:14:01.280 Let's not do that.

01:14:02.120 If there's one thing the West really doesn't need is me as prime minister.

01:14:06.100 Yeah.

01:14:06.640 So we've got Amy Vowse.

01:14:08.500 She says, came in late again, so not sure if you covered this, but how worried should we be in the West about cyber attacks from Russia?

01:14:15.940 Very worried.

01:14:17.080 Well, we haven't talked about that because I don't know enough about it.

01:14:20.000 So let's talk about it.

01:14:20.820 It is perfectly possible that in response to strong sanctions, Russia will retaliate.

01:14:28.140 And one of the most obvious ways is to attack, you know, internet infrastructure and all of that.

01:14:33.280 So as somebody who is a complete Luddite, explain to me, what does that actually mean?

01:14:37.780 Your internet stops working.

01:14:40.200 That's what that means.

01:14:41.160 And your phone reception stops working.

01:14:43.560 Really?

01:14:43.900 And your electricity grid goes down.

01:14:47.760 That's what that means.

01:14:49.980 And do you think that that is in his playbook?

01:14:52.760 It's a possibility for sure.

01:14:54.220 Yeah.

01:14:55.300 Yeah, absolutely.

01:14:56.180 If the sanctions against Russia are perceived as being by him as punitive and whatever, he could try to do that.

01:15:03.680 But our job is not to shy away from that.

01:15:05.900 Our job is to make sure our defenses are secure.

01:15:10.540 That's interesting.

01:15:11.480 And I don't know enough.

01:15:13.040 Do you know enough about that?

01:15:13.900 Well, I was talking to one of our former guests who does know enough about it, who's Dr. Pippa Malgram, who advised two years presence.

01:15:19.820 I was on the phone with her yesterday.

01:15:20.920 And this is what she was saying.

01:15:21.900 Like a lot of the shenanigans are going to be of that nature.

01:15:25.220 Really?

01:15:25.520 Yeah.

01:15:26.240 So it's not actually going to be direct conflict.

01:15:28.680 No, there's going to be direct conflict in Ukraine.

01:15:30.520 Yeah.

01:15:30.840 But in terms of the West, that is a possibility.

01:15:33.800 Yeah.

01:15:35.380 So we're going to be seeing more and more of that type of action.

01:15:38.780 Yeah.

01:15:39.680 So very interesting.

01:15:45.380 Let's have...

01:15:46.860 Anton, by the way, are you checking the PayPal's as well?

01:15:49.500 No.

01:15:50.460 Okay.

01:15:50.920 We might have those.

01:15:51.720 Let me have a look at those.

01:15:52.600 Right.

01:15:52.900 Let's see.

01:15:55.240 So we've got a very interesting question here.

01:16:01.840 It's a person we normally refer to on Raw as Barry.

01:16:05.760 He says, how much does the Bidens, Joe and Hunter, dirty dealings in Ukraine complicate the West dealing with this now, i.e. motives of the White House not to be trusted or untrustworthy?

01:16:17.800 I don't know enough about it.

01:16:21.280 I think that instinctively, I'm tempted to say it's irrelevant, but I don't know enough about it.

01:16:26.160 Okay.

01:16:26.520 Sorry, Barry.

01:16:27.360 Sorry, Barry.

01:16:28.120 Apologies, mate.

01:16:29.100 The reason I'm instinctively sort of hesitant to say that that matters is because I think there's a bigger geopolitical thing going on.

01:16:37.540 And it's not really about President Biden or Hunter Biden, who, as you know, I've been very vocal about that story being suppressed.

01:16:47.560 So, yeah, I'm not persuaded that it's a big deal, but I don't know enough about it.

01:16:51.020 Yeah.

01:16:51.960 Okay.

01:16:52.760 Susie says, do you believe this move is likely to put Donald Trump back in power?

01:16:58.800 Well, how could it not?

01:17:01.260 How could it not?

01:17:06.640 People like me and you who did not like Donald Trump, who did not like his style, who did not like the way he talked, who did not like the way, the reaction he elicited from the media, much of which, by the way, in my opinion, was completely inappropriate and unfair.

01:17:20.660 But nonetheless, that constant chaos and warring and sense of that he caused or that they caused in response to him was so awful and it was really not good.

01:17:36.140 But the choice between that and someone who's actually going to prevent World War Three, I think, is obvious now, isn't it?

01:17:45.180 And you don't think that the way that he was so tarnished because of January 6th, you know, everything that happened, I mean, the events were dreadful.

01:17:57.180 You don't think that that has put people...

01:18:00.100 No, no, I didn't say that I think he's going to get elected.

01:18:03.900 Yeah.

01:18:04.160 But I think in a lot of people's minds, they're going to be looking for a strong man figure.

01:18:09.320 Yeah.

01:18:09.540 Now, who is a strong man figure in the U.S.?

01:18:13.380 Kamala Harris.

01:18:14.240 Exactly.

01:18:15.820 You know what I mean?

01:18:16.760 Yeah.

01:18:17.180 So he's an off-the-shelf solution right there.

01:18:21.580 That seems obvious to me.

01:18:23.500 So...

01:18:24.100 Yeah, I mean, I don't see how this doesn't help him.

01:18:26.800 Yeah, absolutely.

01:18:28.280 And it completely weakens the Democrat...

01:18:32.200 Yeah, the Democrat...

01:18:32.920 I mean, Biden's had two disasters in the space of six months.

01:18:35.420 Yeah.

01:18:35.620 So, we have got a question here who said,

01:18:47.440 Uncle Vlad's shenanigans is causing a bull energy market.

01:18:51.760 Here with...

01:18:52.620 Energy prices are rising.

01:18:54.880 Energy prices are rising.

01:18:56.780 How is this going to affect society and the world as a whole?

01:19:00.040 Well, we talked about this earlier.

01:19:01.300 The first thing that people are going to realize is you need energy security.

01:19:05.080 And it's not just energy security.

01:19:07.460 You need to secure key infrastructure.

01:19:09.400 Things like electricity networks.

01:19:11.380 Things like phone networks.

01:19:13.060 Which we fucking sold off to the Chinese and whoever was willing to buy them.

01:19:17.380 I imagine...

01:19:19.080 And if this is not happening, then our government is deeply irresponsible.

01:19:22.720 And just, you know, completely incompetent.

01:19:26.520 Which they are on both.

01:19:27.600 We've got to make sure that the Chinese, the Russians, and other strategic adversaries of the US and the UK

01:19:35.420 are unable to hurt us when it comes to energy supplies,

01:19:39.580 are unable to hurt us when it comes to supplies of manufactured goods that we need to survive,

01:19:44.980 are unable to hurt us when it comes to running our electricity,

01:19:48.100 our nuclear power stations, our phone networks, our communications, etc.

01:19:51.760 We're going to have to make sure that we're secure.

01:19:54.500 Because if you're not secure, there's nothing you can do.

01:19:57.460 Yeah.

01:19:57.960 Because someone's got a gun to your head.

01:19:59.980 So that's going to change things a lot.

01:20:02.480 Do you think this is going to focus on mine and increase greater cooperation amongst the West?

01:20:09.100 Now, obviously, with Brexit, with the UK leaving the European Union,

01:20:13.960 that created animosity.

01:20:15.660 Let's call it what it is.

01:20:16.640 And a sense of disconnect between us and the rest of Europe.

01:20:20.060 Now that this has happened, is this, do you think, going to focus on mine far more?

01:20:24.940 And we're actually going to start thinking to ourselves,

01:20:27.320 you know what?

01:20:28.200 What is the point in having petty little squabbles about fish with France

01:20:31.960 when you've got Putin invading Ukraine and encroaching further, further westwards?

01:20:39.840 It's a very good question, Francis, but it's way too soon to tell.

01:20:43.700 Yeah.

01:20:43.960 We don't know the answer to that question at the moment.

01:20:45.900 In the spirit of being humble and not trying to predict things that I don't know,

01:20:50.220 I don't have any insight on that.

01:20:52.560 Okay.

01:20:53.140 But it is a good question and an important one.

01:20:55.080 We just don't have an answer.

01:20:56.580 Yeah, because you hope so.

01:20:58.920 We really do.

01:21:01.340 This is from Alba, ELF84.

01:21:04.160 And he says, do you think the West's acceptance of Kosovo might be a triggering factor?

01:21:09.380 No, it's an excuse.

01:21:12.720 Just like Iraq, it was not a good decision and it gave Putin a reason to sort of like explain

01:21:19.180 why he's entitled to do what he's doing.

01:21:21.720 But it's an excuse.

01:21:23.620 It's an excuse.

01:21:24.760 You think, yeah.

01:21:25.560 You can't compare Kosovo to Russia invading its neighbor and annexing a piece of its territory.

01:21:32.100 It's not the same as Kosovo.

01:21:35.240 Galenka Watkins asked a very good question, which is, if Ukraine isn't the line in the

01:21:42.340 sand for the West, where do you think?

01:21:45.340 And I know it's an impossible question to ask, but where do you think might be?

01:21:49.880 Well, let's do this experiment.

01:21:51.500 Yeah.

01:21:52.200 Okay.

01:21:52.740 Okay.

01:21:53.100 Are you willing to go and fight and die to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty

01:21:58.140 of Lithuania?

01:22:00.280 Are you willing to go and fight and die to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty

01:22:05.160 of Estonia, of Latvia, of Poland, of the Czech Republic, of Hungary, of Slovakia,

01:22:10.580 of Slovenia, of Romania?

01:22:13.820 Are you?

01:22:15.300 Should we go further?

01:22:18.460 Germany?

01:22:20.260 France?

01:22:23.000 So, you know, I don't know where the line in the sand is for the West.

01:22:28.480 Right now, the way things look right now, I'd be surprised if British people would defend

01:22:33.300 Britain.

01:22:38.360 I mean, have you seen millennials?

01:22:40.820 What, you want to put them up against the Russian army?

01:22:43.000 Yes, I do, actually.

01:22:43.920 Yeah, so do I.

01:22:45.560 But it wouldn't turn out well.

01:22:46.780 Yeah.

01:22:47.220 Do you know what I mean?

01:22:47.920 Yeah.

01:22:49.300 And what is the Russian army like?

01:22:51.060 Is it well-funded?

01:22:52.800 Is it...

01:22:53.320 By Russian standards, it's well-funded.

01:22:55.780 It's by no means the greatest military in the world at all.

01:22:59.140 The greatest asset the Russian military has is the one thing that we lack in the West, which

01:23:05.100 is...

01:23:05.600 Well, it's not men.

01:23:06.980 It's the willingness to have men killed.

01:23:08.540 Yeah.

01:23:09.480 Russian lives don't matter to the people who run Russia.

01:23:13.900 British lives matter to the people who run Britain.

01:23:16.200 That's the difference.

01:23:17.000 Yeah.

01:23:17.200 So the Russian government can send in 200,000 troops and be quite comfortable to lose 10,

01:23:23.260 20, 30, 40, 50,000.

01:23:25.220 The biggest weakness of America is not its military.

01:23:28.200 Its military is huge.

01:23:29.340 By far the biggest and most powerful in the history of the world.

01:23:32.340 Probably bigger and more powerful than the next 20 nations combined.

01:23:36.240 The question is, how strong is your military if you're unable to use it?

01:23:41.440 Yeah.

01:23:41.700 If you lose 10,000 people and that causes massive social unrest and disruption, how strong are

01:23:50.560 you?

01:23:51.160 Right?

01:23:52.480 How are you going to sell that to your domestic audience?

01:23:55.580 And Vladimir Putin doesn't have that problem.

01:23:58.100 Yeah.

01:23:58.840 That's the difference.

01:24:00.120 Right.

01:24:00.500 Because there was that saying in World War II, you know, I can't remember, you know,

01:24:04.800 I think the Americans provided the money, England provided the time, and Russia provided

01:24:11.080 the blood.

01:24:11.720 Yeah.

01:24:12.740 Yeah.

01:24:13.540 And that attitude is unchanged.

01:24:15.260 I mean, the Russian World War II tactics was essentially just to send soldiers running

01:24:19.960 at fucking machine guns and just overwhelm the Germans with bodies.

01:24:27.520 Yeah.

01:24:28.060 That's what, particularly in the first phases of the war, that's how it was.

01:24:32.260 Later, they developed more powerful tactics.

01:24:35.680 But yeah, the West's biggest problem is an inability to absorb damage.

01:24:41.180 Yeah.

01:24:41.400 And the willingness to sacrifice young lives.

01:24:43.300 Yeah.

01:24:43.480 It's like a boxer with a glass jaw.

01:24:45.000 Like, you can punch, but if you're, can you take a hit?

01:24:47.640 Body God of Lies says, Lies 1, Francis using the opportunity to shield for rejoin.

01:24:54.000 To rejoin the European Union.

01:24:57.480 Yeah, that's what this is all about, mate.

01:25:00.000 Yeah, this is what it's all about.

01:25:02.000 Juncker and me, mate.

01:25:02.980 Best buds.

01:25:06.000 Don Jones asks, why do you think the West is waking up when Canada is becoming like Russia?

01:25:11.140 The US has lost all wars since Vietnam.

01:25:14.380 Why would it fight another one?

01:25:16.800 What was the first part of the question?

01:25:20.260 So it was like, why do you think the West is waking up?

01:25:23.280 I didn't say the West is waking up.

01:25:24.920 I said, this is our one chance.

01:25:28.180 Yeah.

01:25:28.540 This is our one chance to realize we've been living in a dream world and wake up.

01:25:33.900 If that happens, great.

01:25:38.300 If it doesn't, well, like I said, like I've been saying for years, the West is over.

01:25:41.740 Yeah.

01:25:42.460 The West is over.

01:25:43.260 Anton, if we've got any emails or PayPals, could you just send them over, please?

01:25:51.460 Fantastic.

01:25:52.120 So we've got time for a couple more questions.

01:25:57.640 Philip Oz is saying, and it's a good question, it seems the media isn't talking much about the nuclear consequences.

01:26:06.640 Why is this?

01:26:07.760 And do you think it's because there are none?

01:26:09.240 Well, I mean, there's obviously, like I said, we are closer to nuclear war than we have been since 1962.

01:26:15.540 I don't think that means we're close to nuclear war.

01:26:17.800 I don't think we're close to nuclear war at all.

01:26:20.360 So I think the media are still trying to work out what the hell happened.

01:26:24.240 This is blindsided all of them.

01:26:25.960 I don't think they realize what's going on.

01:26:27.400 So, yeah, I don't think I don't think people are going to understand the full repercussions of what's happened, probably for years to come.

01:26:35.400 And a lot of them are just trying to work out what's going on.

01:26:38.620 And do you think part of that, if we talk about the media for the bit, is what's happened to the media?

01:26:43.400 They've essentially been defunded, you know, discredited.

01:26:47.760 So you don't have those big beast journalists anymore who actually take the time to understand the situation, read, explore, spend time in another country.

01:26:59.960 Well, you've got, I know it's out of date, but a BuzzFeed article, you know, 10 things about why you should dress like a hedgehog in bed.

01:27:07.880 Well, you and I have been warning about the decline of the media environment for a long time.

01:27:12.480 And you're starting to see the consequences of that, just like we talked about earlier with the caliber of our politicians.

01:27:19.380 It's the same. These are not people who are qualified to be solving these problems.

01:27:22.580 When our foreign secretary doesn't know the geography of Russia, how are you expecting that person to negotiate with Vladimir Putin?

01:27:33.480 That's not going to happen. And the same with the media and the same with alternative media.

01:27:37.520 Look at all these influencers running around now, having an opinion about this issue that they don't understand.

01:27:43.660 You know, go back a few days and look at all the articles where they told you there would be no invasion.

01:27:48.200 There are people, I wrote a long thread on my Twitter, which is my pinned post, which was posted on Locals.

01:27:53.540 There were people like replying, going, there will be no invasion.

01:27:57.240 Well, how do you know? You don't speak the language. You've never been to this place.

01:28:01.320 You don't understand the geopolitics or the history. You think that because Matt Taibbi or some other idiot told you, right?

01:28:08.840 But these people don't know what they're talking about.

01:28:11.640 Just like, this is why I stopped commenting so much on COVID.

01:28:14.940 And I've distanced myself from people who made the whole persona about COVID because I sort of went, well, you know, like, yeah, sure, I can have an opinion about it.

01:28:27.100 But I don't really know what's going on. I'm not an expert in this.

01:28:29.920 I better sort of just pull back. There's a lot of stuff I don't understand.

01:28:35.660 And we don't live in that world.

01:28:37.780 We live in a world where people are incentivized to comment on things they don't know, to make statements that never get verified.

01:28:44.760 And that's both mainstream and alternative media.

01:28:47.420 And all the same people that told you there would be no invasion, they're now either going to double...

01:28:52.040 It's interesting watching the way that this is breaking now because they're doing one of two things.

01:28:55.980 Either they're saying there's no invasion, like the Iraqi minister of information.

01:29:01.740 Do you remember him? What was his name?

01:29:05.220 Something Ali?

01:29:05.940 Something Ali, yeah.

01:29:07.860 Yeah, Chemical Ali.

01:29:09.200 I think Chemical Ali was a different blog.

01:29:11.040 It was a different blog, but whatever.

01:29:12.640 Or they're going to explain to you that it's justified.

01:29:16.200 Well, these are, you know, historical Russian territories.

01:29:18.820 If you're just joining us, by the way, you can go back and watch the beginning of the interview.

01:29:22.580 We go through all of this.

01:29:25.340 So that's, I think, that's the other part of it.

01:29:29.960 We live in exciting times.

01:29:31.780 We have got time for one more, either a Super Chat or a PayPal.

01:29:39.220 Let's have...

01:29:40.400 Francis, we could do an extra 10 minutes if we've got the questions.

01:29:43.800 Okay.

01:29:44.200 So let's have Arvid von Braschen.

01:29:46.660 Arvid von Braschen.

01:29:47.660 Arvid von Braschen.

01:29:48.760 He says, I'm not going to do the accent because that's...

01:29:51.000 We'll save that for more, Arvid.

01:29:52.560 Yeah.

01:29:52.880 He goes, do you think there's anything to the suggestion that the people running the U.S.

01:29:57.120 State Department wanted to bring the Ukraine into NATO under Clinton and saw that as unfinished

01:30:04.040 business that they could finally get done?

01:30:08.020 So, well, I'm confused.

01:30:10.180 The suggestion that the U.S. Department wanted to bring the Ukraine into NATO.

01:30:15.860 Now?

01:30:16.340 Yeah.

01:30:18.540 It doesn't surprise me if the West does want to bring Ukraine into NATO.

01:30:23.500 Yeah.

01:30:23.680 No, it doesn't surprise me, but the question that you...

01:30:27.780 So let's go back to what we were talking about just now, which is, who do you want to run

01:30:32.220 the world?

01:30:33.080 This is what this conversation is all about.

01:30:35.180 I don't have a problem with Western liberal democracies, flawed and messed up as they are,

01:30:44.560 asserting their dominance on the world stage.

01:30:46.860 Not only do I not have a problem with that, I want them to do that.

01:30:50.560 And this is not some evil imperialist Constantine Kissin saying this.

01:30:55.600 It's just a pragmatic reality that either we are expanding or they're expanding.

01:31:00.880 That's the choice.

01:31:02.280 So, yes, you could argue that America and the EU wants to expand eastwards.

01:31:09.420 I personally don't have any problem with that.

01:31:11.900 I don't have any problem with that.

01:31:13.420 But the main reason that it's happening, as I explained before, is Estonia, Lava, Lithuania,

01:31:18.260 Ukraine and others, they want to be part of NATO because they know what's coming.

01:31:22.880 They know what happens to people who are not part of NATO.

01:31:25.900 That's why they're desperate.

01:31:27.820 They're begging.

01:31:28.820 The 2014 revolution in Ukraine started because people thought they were finally going to

01:31:34.820 move to the West.

01:31:35.940 They were going to join the EU eventually.

01:31:37.700 They were going to join NATO.

01:31:39.260 And finally, they would be safe from the very thing that's happening today.

01:31:42.680 From the very tanks that are on their borders and in their country right now.

01:31:47.680 That's what they wanted.

01:31:49.040 They just wanted their country to be safe from that.

01:31:51.700 That's why NATO is expanding.

01:31:53.480 That's why the EU is expanding.

01:31:55.760 They want to take more people in under this umbrella of Western liberal democracy, which

01:32:01.380 is flawed, which is not perfect, which has committed many great evils.

01:32:04.880 I agree with you.

01:32:05.640 But it's still better than the alternative.

01:32:09.400 Very interesting and very good question from Arvid.

01:32:12.080 We'll look forward to seeing you on Raw soon, Arvid.

01:32:15.860 This is quite good, actually, one from Desire Brendel, who says,

01:32:20.620 Can KK please recommend unbiased sources on the Russia-Ukraine conflict for people who

01:32:26.100 don't speak Russian?

01:32:27.600 Thank you and keep up the good work.

01:32:29.720 I know it's difficult and you can argue that no one is unbiased in Barbara, but some good

01:32:35.420 caliber resources.

01:32:36.420 I don't know is the answer.

01:32:38.940 I think you...

01:32:42.880 I think...

01:32:44.880 The one thing I would invite everyone to do is find a good translation of President Putin's

01:32:49.260 speech from a couple of days ago and read that.

01:32:53.340 That gives you a pretty good chunk of information that we've covered here.

01:32:57.260 I don't think there are unbiased Western resources.

01:33:01.860 The one thing I would say is Dominic Sandbrook, Dominic Sandbrook, who's the co-host of The

01:33:06.360 Rest is History podcast with our former guest, Tom Holland.

01:33:08.940 He wrote an article in the Daily Mail, which in my opinion is exactly spot on.

01:33:14.260 And someone posted it on Locals recently.

01:33:16.300 So I would go and find that.

01:33:18.240 That is a good start.

01:33:19.460 And they also did an episode of their podcast, which talks about the history of Russia and

01:33:23.080 Ukraine, which details some of this, which if you want an objective look at the sort

01:33:26.420 of background to this, that will help.

01:33:28.640 Perfect.

01:33:29.660 This is from SteenClickGerida.

01:33:33.200 Rolls off the tongue.

01:33:35.120 Will Putin demand a corridor to Kaliningrad be next on his list?

01:33:39.500 To Kaliningrad.

01:33:40.320 Kaliningrad.

01:33:41.920 Absolutely.

01:33:43.480 And look, I have no idea what those words are, what they mean, where Kaliningrad is.

01:33:48.860 Well, Kaliningrad is a piece of Russia that is not connected to Russia.

01:33:54.040 In the same way, Alaska is not connected to America.

01:33:56.760 Yes, with a big difference that America is not going to invade Canada to have access to

01:34:01.480 Alaska.

01:34:02.320 The better example would be Danzig, if you remember.

01:34:05.340 That was one of the demands that Hitler made in the run up to World War II.

01:34:09.380 This was a supposedly independent, poor city on the northern coast.

01:34:15.280 And he was saying, we must be connected to our people in Danzig.

01:34:20.520 And that's why he wanted the Polish corridor.

01:34:22.240 This is what the question is about.

01:34:23.840 Of course, he's going to demand that.

01:34:25.520 That will be part of the process of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.

01:34:29.420 And do you think he's going to get that?

01:34:32.260 No one knows at the moment.

01:34:33.620 No.

01:34:34.020 No one knows.

01:34:34.760 But you think he's going to demand it?

01:34:36.420 I think that will be one of the things that he wants to happen.

01:34:40.800 Now, how the West responds and how Ukraine responds and how this war goes and all of

01:34:45.560 that will determine the future steps.

01:34:47.500 That's beyond our predictability horizon.

01:34:50.300 Do you think one of the solutions should be unleashing Kamala Harris on him?

01:34:53.880 Yeah, I'm sure she'll talk him out of it.

01:34:57.260 Fantastic.

01:34:58.040 I thought she can be very persuasive.

01:34:59.300 Absolutely.

01:35:00.460 I think that is pretty much it.

01:35:03.200 Let me see if we – no, I think that's pretty much it.

01:35:10.940 All right.

01:35:11.620 Okay.

01:35:13.020 We've answered pretty much all the questions.

01:35:16.020 Thank you so much for joining in.

01:35:17.880 We're hoping to be doing more of these and with different guests.

01:35:21.100 We've done them with Jordan Peterson and Heather Hying.

01:35:23.160 We've also done it with Brett Weinstein.

01:35:26.300 And we've also done it with Douglas Murray.

01:35:28.000 Thank you so much for joining in, guys.

01:35:30.160 And we will see you very soon with a Raw show or an episode.

01:35:36.240 And they always go out at 7 p.m. UK time.

01:35:38.680 Take care and see you soon, guys.

TRIGGERnometry - February 24, 2022

The Truth About the War in Ukraine ＊Special Live Recording＊

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