TNT Radio host Patrick Henningsen speaks with independent French researcher and journalist Freddie Ponton, about NATO’s anticipated announcement at the Alliance Summit in Washington DC, next week when NATO will use Ukraine’s ramping corruption as a means to prevent the country from accessing NATO membership whilst working on Volodymyr Zelensky’s exit strategy.
More from Freddie: X/Twitter
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see you guys next week. Patrick Kennington talks on today's news talk radio T. N. T. Welcome back to the program. Welcome back everybody. I'm Patrick Kennington your host live and direct with T. N. T. Today's news talk. We're still in the first hour here. Lucky we're joined by independent researcher journalist Freddie Ponton based in France. Now Freddie on the issue of NATO on Russia he looks like it appears anyway. We'll bring this story up there. This appeared in the telegraph and it was serialized in a number of other media out that's we'll bring this up on screen. And what is the problem here with Ukraine. Apparently it looks like actually that's not the right slide. We want Vladimir Zelensky. There he is Ukraine to be Ukraine to hold. It's NATO membership. Okay it's going to be put on hold because they're just too corrupt. That's what U. S. officials are saying. Sources say talking here on this story so this is it looks like any way another potential snub. For Ukraine one of many want one a long line of snubs that keep kicking the can down the road. I really don't think there's anybody that seriously consider Ukraine will be in NATO despite how many times Tony Blinken is basically going to repeat this talking point Freddie. It looks like a non starter but this looks like also really putting Ukraine in a bad bad position. Politically. Who knows what's coming down the pipeline could be some kind of negotiation. Or some settlement with with Russia on this issue. What happens to Zelensky what what are you reading in this story Freddie. And if you look since 2014 the topic of anti corruption with the anti corruption bureau has been in a major topic in Ukraine. I think it's not. It's not a brainer and it's not a real kind of a you know surprise to to learn that a NATO is too corrupt. I think this is nothing new and we knows that anybody that's looking to Ukraine for a long period of time will know that the question is really with this report from the telegraph is. What is happening here what is it trying to tell you. You know what is the message behind using this kind of a rhetoric about Ukraine being too corrupt. You know to get into NATO literally a week or six days away from the major NATO summit in Washington D.C. You know. So I think that's something in there that really feels like some kind of a intelligence inputs as far as describing perhaps the beginning of the end for Vladimir Zelensky and preparing the masses to understand that we are moving to a new chapter in this war and that of course will be influenced by the various results for elections whether it's in the UK or whether it's in France and of course in the United States. So all that is going to influence a lot of the moves and NATO will undertake over the next six months. And I think that when we see pretty much the various reasons and there are many that explain why this government is not functioning properly and why perhaps you know there were so many people profiting from this war inside Ukraine because a lot of money was brought into Ukraine by Western taxpayers if you will with very very little trace ability. And that is offered basically the oligarch people in high level places in the government to take advantage of that. And we saw that at a very early stage with Zelensky but also we saw Zelensky basically forcing people to resign because of major corruption cases which basically kind of casted a poor light of very bad light on his government. So although we can see Zelensky trying to send a signal saying look I'm firing these guys and I'm getting rid of this one but even if it's a signal to his own government it cannot change something that is cultural rather than just symptomatic. It's really cultural and it's across the board and perhaps some say that that me as Zelensky is the most corrupt of them all. So it's difficult to get less listened from someone that many suspect have been extremely corrupted. And if you look in his government and the example of corruption you know from Curilo Timoshenko the president deputy at office which was fired but he was basically working with Zelensky on his election campaign and he promised to tackle corruption with the president and he was very central in his program and then you find that same person the same person sorry under investigation or you know having an extra luxurious lifestyle you know with cars that were so much money that you could not afford with a very modest salary and someone that is also involved with investments of 5.7 million linked with a region you know which involves Zelensky as well. So within the governments we have people that are corrupted that are behind Zelensky behind the election campaign of Zelensky and you find them you know further down the line involved in these cases and there are many examples like that those that have enriched themselves with the food program for the armies those that have enriched themselves with many procurement schemes within Ukraine that have allowed them to be extremely rich you know and send the daughters abroad by houses and there's countless examples of that and I think it's really hard to sell on the international stage that Ukraine is a democracy that is you know exemplary and that's something we can rely upon as an honest partner as I don't think that is possible maybe in the future but right now as a country as it is I'm sure many NATO members have a lot of a lot of kind of a you know a second vote about you know offering Ukraine or supporting a membership of Ukraine and NATO. Yeah I mean it's kind of if you think about it this is a kind of a fluency throwaway excuse because you know when you talk about Ukraine and corruption the two go hand in hand it's like you know peanut butter and jelly and it's like night and day of course Ukraine is corrupt and there's no question about it why would they bring such an excuse up now after all this it looks like they're just kind of loading on preconditions so things like well you know we need to clean up the corruption issue first it's already been like eight years since the U.S. has set up you know Naboo and Sapo and all these anti-corruption organizations that the U.S. itself is run out of the U.S. and probably more likely these are agencies to protect corrupt people that the United States likes in Ukraine and to basically do anybody else so I think they're just trying to basically put impossible preconditions on this situation in order to not make any real decisions but what's interesting here is you know if it's seen as a total shambles a total failure if they get rid of Zelensky then that's kind of an excuse to sort of clean the decks clean the slate and you see this with the western politicians everybody who owns this like Joe Biden he's on the way out clearly Macron he's a owner of this from the beginning he's on the way out Olaf Schultz he's on the way out so everybody that's really deeply has been attached themselves to Ukraine is basically on the way out and I think this is a way one of our guests said this Freddie last week he says America is really good at losing when they decide it's time to get out they're very very good and calculate in how they get out so that they look good and preserve their interests while the whole thing collapses basically they're really good at this the United States. There is an exit strategy as far as Zelensky is concerned now the timing is what gives you the clue now you're coming very close as I said to this NATO summit where big decisions are going to be made as far as the you know the next stage in this war because it's quite clear that NATO cannot afford any longer you know I don't think financially I don't think even militarily speaking NATO is very difficult to entertain an open war an open conflict directly with Russia so that's a cue to sack if you will so they're going to have to talk about how do we how do we walk out of this without too much damage so it's about damage control risk mitigations and perhaps also about liability because let's not forget that Zelensky has been very much aware of all the countries whether it's CIA or MI6 it's been very much aware of what's going on in the countries and doesn't matter if it's irregular warfare or if it's conventional warfare it doesn't matter he knows a lot and he could easily become a liability because he's not a very stable person he's stable until the money keeps on flowing but the data the money stopped flowing is where that might be someone if you want to talk about negotiations for peace with the Russians you drag me into this war i've lost hundreds of thousands of people in this war i cannot go and stand in front of my people and tell them okay now let's negotiate after half a million people have died could have done that when we could have done that literally a few weeks after the start of this conflict so i'm looking at the liability which needs to be taking care of that needs to be a company towards the exit making sure that it's not going to create any problem or it's not going to be some kind of obstacle for what NATO will decide as a next step so that's the way i look at it but it's definitely a move towards expressing the departure of Zelensky as the leader of Ukraine yes indeed indeed and i think you know just throwing doubt on NATO membership with Ukraine that's obviously kind of a soft bone to throw Moscow in advance of any kind of potential you know multilateral negotiations which a lot of people are agreeing even some Ukrainians, your mark, your Mac and others chief of staff as Zelensky have said we need to talk to Russia at this point but the army, the military is collapsing, they're literally having to like hit nap men off the street to throw them on to the front line i mean any time you get to this point this is literally the final days of whatever the sort of you know effort whatever they're stuck in there i think people are starting to admit they tried Washington everybody else NATO member they tried they thought they could make this work they thought they could finally after two and a half years they realized it's a no-goer and they're looking for a way to back out of this gracefully but still maintain this incredible remilitarization of Europe because let's face it they've made huge strides in remilitarizing Europe look at Finland and Sweden how many two dozen bases going in there they've got a new basically iron curtain that's been dropped along the Polish border right right down to Romania so that's not going away Freddie you've got the re-notarization of Europe kind of a reboot of where the Cold War was but a little more intense in fact when you think about it they do they have that locked in they've got that locked in it's not getting a lot of traction if you look at a report from the European Council on foreign relations they really have a good good survey of you know the of old pulse on on the on European big topics and one of them being basically spending 2.5% of your your budget on defense you know and they've asked the European people you know if this is something to support and it's not getting any attractions so it doesn't matter what the states wants you know as as as you know as far as part of their political or their foreign policies that's one thing but if you really ask the European people because you can have all the foreign policies in the world if it's not maintained supported by the people it's going to have a a shelf time if you will that's going to expire and it's going to expire sooner than later if you will so the European people are not interesting in conflict more conflict more war more spending towards more that anyone that sells you that is still in your nonsense because in France it's not in Germany it's not in the Holland it's not in major countries nobody wants to spend more money on defense people want to go back to their domestic issues and try to address their problem because they've remained on the drains on address since COVID-19 and we've been from one crisis to the next addressing other things than our own problem and I think this is the time to return to address this problem and anything that has to be done in the next part of the European Union they're not the NATO members we have no business in going and spending more money so we don't trust you should have on the line I think a popularity in Europe is that the lowest it's ever been and literally in trust in there with billions every month to send to Ukraine seems more like a racket or in business than anything else especially in a country that is so corrupt like Ukraine so we have to do that and as I say if France moved towards the National Rally with a majority then I think we're certainly going to see some of these movements of money towards Ukraine stopping and then certainly some arms movements as well stopping because I don't think the National Rally is going to support this kind of activity for much longer because it just doesn't get any traction with people in France so yes I think Zelensky has become irrelevant is no doubt I think he's pretty much considered by many states of illegitimate and this is time for him to go false flag in Europe hot medium or cold quick Freddie hot medium or cold false flag alert what do you think hot medium or cold? well yeah you're going to get some of that for sure you know it's important so the Olympic games are coming all these big events are coming perfect platform to scare people away we've got to keep an eye on that we've got to keep a close eye on that one Freddie Ponton thank you very much for joining us on TNT this week Guys, my pleasure there he goes ladies and gentlemen that is Freddie Ponton following him on X Twitter @LFC news media listen we're going to take a break since coming up when we get back over back to the United States I'm Patrick Kennedy senior host
