This podcast appreciates you joining us, especially everybody in our TNT chat community fantastic group of people, we've got the numbers up and there. Also, the numbers generally on the show have gone up consistently over the last two months. Appreciate all of our listeners, all of our viewers on all the platforms, both the video and the audio platforms. Fantastic. Of course, our new listeners and viewers coming from X Twitter, we've got a huge engagement going on with TNT content via @21wire and some of our other affiliate accounts. So again, welcome everybody. Hope you can stay with us going forward. In this busy time, this troubling time will do our best to help you navigate through the news and the analysis. Now, very important events have transpired over the weekend. And so often on Monday, we come to this program. I'm praying for a quiet weekend, not because I don't want to do the work, but because I just don't want to see any more crazy things happening at least for a few days. We all want a little bit of respite, but that didn't happen over this weekend. In fact, quite the opposite. Now, I'm going to roll some footage right now of the attack on Sevesta poll. These are people out on the beach in the summer holiday, families and so forth. This really shook a lot of people this footage. And you can listen closely. You can hear the pop pop pop of cluster munitions. Let's roll this and I'm going to introduce our next guest. Go ahead. Wow. Larry Johnson, former CIA operative military analyst joining us right now. Larry, I was speechless when I saw that footage. I knew exactly what I was hearing there and it wasn't good. Your reactions to the events here over the weekend? Well, I think the United States has crossed a red line that Russia, both Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov, made it very clear over the last three weeks, I guess from starting like June 3rd that any weapon that the United States was going to put in the hands of Ukraine that was going to be used to kill Russian citizens on Russian territory would necessitate a firm response and implied a military response by Russia. That's exactly what happened yesterday as far as the Ukrainians crossing that line. There was no legitimate military target. Some have speculated that there was an air base nearby that maybe that attack them was attended for that. But to me, it really doesn't matter. If you're going to use this kind of weapon, cluster munitions number one are illegal, but it's one thing to say, oh, they're illegal, but hey, they're out there and they're being used. So if you're going to use them against military targets, that's one thing. But to use them against strictly a civilian target, absolutely no excuse for that. And so the Russians are genuinely outraged. Now, this isn't the first time that Ukrainians have launched attacks on civilians inside Russia. I mean, the people of Belgorod can tell you about that. That's been ongoing for more than a year. But this was really the first major attack on civilians in the aftermath of Putin and Lavrov's warnings. So I think the combination of domestic political pressure is going to compel a Russian response. I heard my friend, Alexander McCura, earlier today, suggest that, you know, Russia taking an action like imposing no fly zone over the Black Sea is unlikely to happen because it would quote escalate things. Well, just what things have escalated. There's no way you can that Putin and Lavrov can make good on what they said out an escalation that's going to hit the United States, US interests, militarily, and cause some casualties. So they're really in a position right now that either they make good on what they said, or they're going to feed into the Western meme that, you know, there's just a bunch of tough talkers, blow hearts that mean nothing. And then the West will continue to push the line. I don't think that Putin and Lavrov are blow hearts. So I think this is headed towards a level of escalation. We have not seen yet. And what do you think the motivation is behind this? Now, there's another splinter on this debate, Larry, and maybe you can clarify this because I know you have good knowledge on the military and strategic side of something like this, being able to interpret what's going on. But the talking point in the West, Larry, is that Ukraine did this on their own volition. You know, those who will admit that Ukraine did it. Some people in the mainstream leaders still saying Russian claims that US weapons have been used on the beach. They're still saying that tonight. But Ukraine did it, but without US knowledge, without US assistance, is that first of all, is that even possible? And if so, what is the motivation for this type of attack? So two different questions there. It is absurd to think that Ukraine did this on its own without any help from the United States. First of all, the United States provided the missiles, the attack of missiles is specifically provided cluster munition, attack of missiles. That's number one. Number two, the United States provided the intelligence needed to program those missiles so that they would have some accuracy in their flight path and land in a particular location. So that would be the equivalent that if you gave me a firearm loaded with ammunition and you gave me the key to get into my neighbor's house and I go over there and open the door and kill everybody, you think you're off the hook? Hell no. You're guilty. You're an accessory. You facilitated a crime. That's exactly what the United States did. Now, the purpose, I think, what we're looking at here is the desperation of the West. They have not been able to defeat Russia militarily on the battlefield. So what they're counting on is if we inflict enough, if we do enough damage, cause enough chaos through a terrorist attacks, that that will cause the people of Russia to rise up against Vladimir Putin and overthrow Putin, which it's childish, really, because the notion that if you get rid of Putin, you all of a sudden solve the issues between Russia and Ukraine, that's not going to happen. Get rid of Putin, you're actually going to put in place people who are more radical, more prone to direct confrontation with the West than is Vladimir Putin. So what we're seeing, Putin has shown restraint and he's been prudent. The West has interpreted that as weakness. Putin has, I think, wisely chosen not to take certain actions that could really rush us towards the possibility of a nuclear war. So is there something in the timing of this over the weekend, Larry? Because it comes exactly at the time, last week, tailing into the week that we see Donald Trump saying that NATO is responsible, really, ultimately, enlargement for this conflict in Ukraine. Nigel Farage said the same thing in the UK. We start to see high level people like Mark Milley saying we need to negotiate with Russia. So there's clearly something going on in certain quarters of the West, changing pivoting on this, saying, we've got to wind this thing down, time to hit the brakes. And then this happens. But my question is this, Larry, it's not just Kiev that is, even people in Kiev are saying, Yermok, Koleb and others are saying, we're ready to talk to Russia. But there's, what I'm saying, are there elements here in the US intelligence, the British intelligence, NATO, in Kiev that want the war to keep going and wanted to escalate? Because clearly, there are people emerging saying just the opposite. Your thoughts on this, Larry? Well, there's a part of me that I can't discount it as unreasonable that some of the advisors surrounding Joe Biden are wanting him to get reelected. They're looking at his prospects as being quite dim to be charitable. And their calculation is, hey, if we can have, if Biden can be seen as this wartime president taking on the Russians, it'll make him look stronger. And so they're thinking about it entirely in terms of domestic politics without actually thinking through what international ramifications do this have, so to basically step up and encourage Ukraine to step up its attacks on Russia in ways that they're militarily not changing the picture on the battlefield at all. In fact, the picture that's emerging from the battlefield is very grim. If you're Ukrainian, they're suffering massive losses that probably double to triple the number of monthly casualties that they were suffering, say, during 2023. They are losing territory and being steadily pushed back. And there's no sign that this is going to turn around. The Russians are using have now deployed a fab 3000, which is, you know, that's about 6,000 pounds of explosives. And it is devastating when it's dropped near a troop concentration, which is exactly what Ukraine is trying to do up around Kharkov, or Kharkov, depending on how you like to pronounce it, that as they're bringing troops in, they're going to get hit with these fabs and it's going to kill and wound most of them before they even go on the battlefield. So the West, very cynically, could be definitely inciting the Ukrainians to do this for purely domestic political gain, or what they think would be domestic political gain. Could you see a situation, Larry, where the narrative changes a little bit, because if there is a slight pivot, you have to blame somebody for things just going completely horribly wrong. It seems to me like the easiest scapegoat would be the president in Kiev, Zielensky. And a lot of people are talking about how his time is coming up. Wouldn't that be the easiest person to implicate to kind of throw under the bus? But in doing so, Biden could reinvent himself to say he's restraining Zielensky. The Zielensky's gone out of control and this absolves the U.S. of any of their culpability in all that. I'm talking about the public perception of this. Do you think there's any potential for any of these games that might happen? Well, definitely. Not only is Zielensky, but Cersky, there's lots of talk now that's circulating in the, let's call it, on social media about Zielenszny, that general coming back. Cersky, for example, has a lot against him. He's got a son in Russia. He's got relatives. I think his parents live in Russia. So he seemed sort of as a turncoat, a traitor, and he's got a bad reputation militarily anyway for getting a bunch of enforcers killed. He's living up to his nickname as the butcher. Because you've had, I think yesterday, they counted almost over 2,000 casualties on the Ukrainian side. But you can't keep losing that amount. They don't have a reservoir full of young men in the pipeline ready to be launched to the front line. It's just the opposite. You can pick up images. You've got an image on social media of an old guy who looks to be in his 70s with a cane. He got picked up and forced into the Ukrainian army. So they're struggling. So yeah, I think Zielensky, he's not long for his position as president, acting president. It's term ended, but he sees power. So he's the acting dictator, I guess, the Ukraine. But again, this is all symptomatic of a regime that's in trouble. They're not winning on the battlefield. And so when you're faced with these losses, you've got to find somebody to blame it on. Now back to the way the media has been covering this event over the weekend, this massacre in Sevastopol on the beach with US and cluster munitions as well, particularly brutal. And from an international law point of view, from a Geneva conventions point of view, this would be considered a war crime, not just by Ukraine, but probably by the United States as well. So they're kind of implicated here, Larry, in this. I want to play this clip here. This is Kim.com, who is a pretty lucid commentator on some of these issues. Let's go ahead and hear what he has say. This is a clip from RT International, and we'll come back and we'll get your reactions. Go ahead and roll this. Imagine the outrage if a Russian missile with cluster munitions guided by a Russian satellite would kill Americans on Miami Beach. That's what Biden just did to Russia. Every American must understand that Joe Biden is gambling with American lives. Russia is a nuclear power. So he's quoting me. I wrote that. That's you. So that's you via Kim.com, Larry James. Yeah. I'm everywhere. I'm ubiquitous. So Ditto, if those were beachgoers in Tel Aviv on holiday, and that were Hamas rockets or Hezbollah rockets, what would the global reaction be to that as opposed to what we're seeing here, Larry? That really says, to me, that frightens me. The fact that these things can be treated so differently, the political dimension of all this scares me more than the military weaponry, your thoughts. The media is hardly covered in the West, in the United States. Last I checked it was not a front page story in the New York Times or Washington Post, or the treaty, like a traffic accident. And then on top of it, you had the simultaneous terrorist attacks in Dagestan and two different locations. One, the attack on a synagogue setting it on fire, the other, the attack on a priest, an ultra-orthodox priest, the Dagestani, these Muslim terrorists slit his throat and killed him. And then they ambushed a bunch of police. So the convergence of these two incidents on the same day, I don't think it's a coincidence at all. I think this is part of the broader strategy of trying to create, use terrorism as a device to try to destabilize Russia. And what the people who are saying that, again, they haven't studied it historically, because there's really, I can't cite just single instance, where terrorism provoked the destabilization of a country. It usually has the opposite effect, like we saw in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States back in 2001. The United States was more united than it ever was, therefore a brief period until George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq. So we've seen the similar things throughout history. I mean, the Nazi attacks on the Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War and the slaughter of millions of Soviet soldiers did not lead the Soviets to become all the fall apart and to split, they united them around the government. So that's what I think you're seeing is the outcome of this. This was a stupid move on the part of the Ukrainians and their Western handlers. And I firmly believe that the CIA and British MI6 were involved with this. You know, we'll bring this again, BBC report, bring this up on screen here in Dagestand just over the weekend. Funny how this story covered up the Crimea story and the Crimea story looks like the real story that everybody should really be concerned about. But so in the Caucasus, Dagestand Chechnya, Larry, you know, our Western intelligence services aren't strangers to these areas over the years. This is a hotbed of recruitment for various al Qaeda and ISIS factions, fighters that were being shipped, you know, to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Syria, through Turkey, back again into Syria, et cetera. So it's, you know, it just doesn't seem like ISIS K hopped out of nowhere in the caucuses organically. That's just me being the eternal cynic here, Larry, your thoughts. Yeah, no, but you're absolutely right. This, the emergence of ISIS originally in Iraq in 2003 in the aftermath of the US invasion. Yeah, that was organic, because that came in response to what the United States was doing. But then as a transition, get into 2012, when the United States turns its attention to going after the government of Bashar al-Assad, on the one hand, we were saying we were fighting ISIS, but on the other hand, we were funding, training, arming people with connections to ISIS. So that was, you know, that was both CIA. And you also had British intelligence involved with that effort. So yeah, this is that ISIS K has been used as a Western tool. I think there is some evidence for that. Yes, indeed. And I think this is probably not, unfortunately, not going to be the last of this, because I do think there are folks that work in the trade craft industry that basically see that they could potentially stoke ethnic tensions within the Russian Federation. This is where all the think tanks are constantly harping on the problems with Tajikistan. They're totally accentuating and flaming these talking points. So wouldn't that be really a strategy in order to try to, you know, destroy the cohesion that exists in the Russian Federation? I think this has always been actually a strategy. And maybe they see this is a possibility now to basically poke those fishers, Larry. Well, those, the differences between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, yeah, they exist in Russia. But one of the things that, and as you know, through your own travels, that one of the things that makes Russia sort of special is they figured out a way to coexist, to live with, where they're a predominantly Christian country. But at the same time, they tolerate the Muslims and that and venerate them to the point that even though there was that war in Chechnya, and they, you know, it was largely that was a radical Muslim uprising. Now today, you've got the Muslims out of Chechnya who are a powerful force in the Russian military and respected and celebrated. You know, the same with Judaism, you know, one of the, one of the first acts of Vladimir Putin, when he took over, was to allow the kosher butchering to take place because under the Soviets, they didn't allow Jews to do kosher butchering. And so it turns out that I guess in the early days when Putin's life, his neighbors were ultra orthodox Jewish couple, and they actually took care of him on some occasions. So, you know, he had good feelings. And what I'm saying is these, the Russia has figured out a way to navigate the religious differences, to respect each of those religious traditions without devolving into kind of sectarian conflict that affects so many other countries. And I just, I had personal experience when in St. Petersburg, which is way up north, long ways over 3000 kilometers from Dagestan, which is way down south, I was riding with a taxi driver from Dagestan. And this talk to these drivers there in St. Petersburg, he's got, he owns several taxis, got a taxi business, and he owns a couple of restaurants. He's an entrepreneur. And he wasn't, you know, he wasn't talking about those damn Russians. You know, he was talking about himself as a Russian, as a patriot. And so that's what I think the people and the western intelligence that are coming up with these hairbrained schemes are people who are ignorant of the culture, of the language, of the people in these areas. So they really don't, they don't understand what they're up against. Yeah, no, that's that's an understatement, actually. Now, Larry, I want to talk, we've got to go to a break here. If you're able to stick with us, I want to talk about what you think are a potential peace negotiations or negotiate settlement, because Vladimir Putin's put out his peace plan. Of course, they've done this thing in Switzerland a few weeks ago with Russia not invited. So but where do you think the real negotiations will take place? What was possibly on offer for all parties? I want to get your opinion on that. And Larry, I don't know if you had a chance to see what Vladimir Putin put out for his market stall for a potential groundwork for a negotiated settlement to the situation. He's laid it out. He's offered it to the West. Didn't seem to be any takers, Larry initially, but it's out there. And that's contrasting with what's being said at the so-called peace formula summit in Switzerland with Ukraine and the Western powers here. So this is very similar in principle, anyway, to what Russia had initially wanted. Only there's some new realities on the ground, Larry, that have to be taken into consideration. What are your thoughts going forward? What could be the basis of any real negotiated settlement in this situation? Yeah, Ukraine's in the position like that home buyer that goes in and the guy across the street from you saying, "Hey, we'll sell it to you for a million dollars." You go, "No, no, that's too steep. I'm not paying that." A year later, you go back, "Okay, I'm ready to pay you the million." No, no, it's a million for now. And if you don't take that, it's going to be two million the next time. That's what Putin is doing. The offer that the Russians made in February 2022, March 2022, was, "Okay, we'll return. You'll get the Donbas back." Lohansk, Lohansk, will withdraw our troops. But there's got to be the guarantees that their rights are going to be respected. You're not going to go after them. You're going to stop these attacks. Well, that was rejected. So now Putin comes back and says, "Okay, here's the deal. Here's what I'm with. Here's my starting position." You pull all of your troops out of Zaparosia, out of Donetsk, out of Lohansk, out of Karosan. Pull them all out. We'll take control of those. And then we'll talk. Now, what was interesting, and you could view this a couple of different ways. Some said, "Oh, well, why didn't he say anything about Odessa?" Well, or Kiev. Well, he didn't say anything about those because that's open for negotiation right now. He's not going to go out and stake out, "Here's what I demand for Odessa. Let's see if they'll talk." They wouldn't even talk about the four keeping the four existing provinces. I think Putin fully expected that to be rejected. And the next offer that will be on the table is to negotiate for Ukrainian troops, to pull out of Odessa and Kiev. And then there'll be negotiations surrounding that, that Russia will end this militarily. It'll be ended much the same way that the Battle of Stalingrad was ended with the surrender of von Paulus, or that the Battle for Berlin was ended with the surrender of the Nazi and Rodonitz surrendering to the Soviets and the Allies. Putin's not playing. And what's amazing is the offer that they made back in February, March of 2022. This so that they really were not keen on it. But in a way, I would argue that what's happened since then has been a blessing for Russia. Even though they've suffered probably 50,000 KIA in the course of these battles, it has set Russia on a road of independence. That before it didn't realize it was independent. It's sort of like that story about the circus trainer with the baby elephant. And you've got some guests who come up and they see this massive elephant that's sitting there passively because its leg is tied to a rope. And they realized that elephant could break the rope at a heartbeat. But what had happened was from the time the elephant was a baby, it was chained and became conditioned to thinking it was chained. It could never break free of that, you know, now rope when in fact it could. And so Russia found it could break free. It could work together or establish a collaborative relationship with China and now with North Korea and with Vietnam and with India and South Africa and Brazil. So with the BRICS nations now expanding and over 50 countries signed up for it. While many in the West still continue to say, Oh, that's that bricks are crazy. They don't have the dollar. And you know, these these Western, you know, entrepreneurs just they're missing the boat. They don't realize what's happening. The world is transforming before our eyes. The world that we knew for that I knew, you know, I was born in 1955 and grew up with this. That world's disappearing. And it's going to be replaced with something that we don't really have a full definition of. But it means that the countries of Western Europe and the United States are no longer going to dominate the world as they have for the past 600 years. Yeah, what happens when Brazil and South Africa and other countries start adopting the mere payment system or the union pay system. Then you have a total bypass of the US dollar for, you know, trade commerce, everything you can imagine. And they'll open up that system to other countries too for people to participate in that. So that's that's just going to be, I think, a reality going forward. But back to the negotiations, Larry, it looks like just my reading of this Larry, I don't know if you agree or not, I get the feeling this this was a position statement by Putin, like, and sort of like this is our final offer for negotiations. And what's coming after this, you're not going to like, like it's going to be unconditional surrender. Sort of did you get do you get that kind of reading? Absolutely. This is, you know, this let's make a deal Russian style. They're given, they're given the West an option and out, okay, hey, you know, call a halt now, stop your troops, get them out, we'll stop the killing, and then we'll negotiate from there. You didn't necessarily say that they would never relinquish Qersan's apparisha, potentially that could have been on the table, but I doubt it, simply because the people in those areas have voted. So I do think what was on the table and spoken was the status of what are you going to do about a deaths in Kiev? Because Kiev is, it's a Russian city. It's a place where Christianity and Russia was born more than a thousand years ago. So, you know, the Russians aren't going to walk away from that pretend, oh, that doesn't matter. That's just some modern Ukrainian city. Ukraine is really more of a concept than a reality. It's not a ethnic minority. They're all because these are all Slavs. There's Slavic people. And in terms of, you know, there's some serious national security considerations here, Larry, Zaparisha, largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the potential for enriched uranium coming from that facility, that becomes a nuclear safety issue for Russia. I can't see them allowing that to leave their control at this point. And Ditto for, you know, any of the other major facilities that are close to their borders, you've got that plus the Crimea issue. Because the US and in Kiev have already demonstrated they're willing to cut off the water supply. They're willing to attack them militarily, to hit civilians, to starve them, to siege that peninsula. So that anything around that area, just from a pure national security consideration, is off the table. So it looks like the options are running out, Larry, you know, in terms of negotiating, there's no chance that any of these are going to be repatriated because of the things that have happened in the last two years. Go ahead. Well, you know, the trajectory of the war right now is, is not going in Ukraine's way. Russia has cut off most of the electrical supplies of energy in the country, thermal power plants. There are a few nuclear power plants still operating, but the ability to distribute that electricity has become less and less. So coal fired power plants, hydroelectric power plants, they're shut down. And so the Ukraine's going to enter the winter without the ability to provide heat for most of the residents of Ukraine that are left, not to mention being able to power factories. They claim that they're going to build new factories to provide more material for the front. Well, that's not going to happen. So they're going to enter the winter at a real economic disadvantage. And all the meanwhile, Russia's growing. Russia's got one of the largest economies in the world now. In terms of GDP, it's number four, measured by purchasing power parity. It's replaced Germany. It's replaced Japan. You know, and yet the many in the West, they'll persist and claim that Russia's some gas station masquerading as a country. And it says nothing can be further from the truth. So this creation of this new world order, it's taking place at a time when the existing political authorities are in real trouble. Macron is going to lose control of the legislature in France. Olaf Scholz. Nobody gives him any prospects for long term survival. Rishi Sunak, he's I mean, the the Tory party is just going to get crushed if the current polls hold up. And then Joe Biden, you know, Biden's, you know, he's even having trouble remembering what kind of ice cream he wants today. So, you know, you're looking at a West that politically is really in disarray. Who's the leader? Who's got the strategic and political vision that can pull them together? Whereas by contrast, you got Putin and Xi Jinping, both powerful personalities. And despite, you know, I know several Chinese, Chinese analysts on this side of the Atlantic want to convince themselves that Xi's losing and all it's going bad for Xi. But the combination of Putin and Xi have created a dynamic relationship that's spilling over into economic and military affairs. And people on this side of the Atlantic in our country, man, don't get it. They keep saying, oh, we're the best, you know, America's the strongest. We're the exceptional country, blah, blah, blah. And without stepping back and taking an objective, look at it, that, you know, the only thing that we offer that Russia doesn't have are poop maps, poop maps of major cities, you know, how to walk around a city without stepping into human feces. Yes, that was a giant San Francisco and Los Angeles, two once great cities in the Republic of California, no longer the case. Larry, I'll add to that list of unpopular leaders, Ursula Vanderline, the EU Commissioner, and also Justin Trudeau, whose mandate is crumbling, in fact, probably crumbled years ago. And Mark Huerta from the Netherlands, who looks like he's going to be the heir apparent to an unpopular leader who's going to be the heir apparent to Jan Stoltenberg to run the show at NATO, or at least the public relations show at NATO. So there's, I can't think of anybody that's allowed into power that has any real popularity along the West. But maybe that's by design, Larry, maybe the establishment doesn't want popular political leaders. They want the opposite. I'd call it a collection of midgets, but that'd be an insult to midgets. You know, that these, these people are small, not, you know, they're physical statues normal, but they're mental and intellectual ideological stature is so low that it's, it's out, it provides no leadership, no guidance, and they're just going to stumble from one crisis to another. And that the, and this, this is one of the problems, Larry, with Europe right now, they're an absolute peril because, because of NATO, because of the EU, you don't see any independent foreign policy decision making going on in Europe. They finally got them locked in. It's taken decades, Larry. They've gotten rid of all the dissenters, everybody's on exactly the same page. At the worst possible time, you could have that happen. It's happened. So the question is, is there a route out? Is there an escape route for Europe? Because it seems like they're being absolutely steered around by Washington and London at the moment. And I don't think there's going to be a great result. Conscription, talk, and so forth, Larry, very perilous time, very perilous time for Europe. And we got to, we got to be focused in a U.S. election year, hopefully some positive news breaks. We've got our fingers crossed, Larry. I never give up hope. I know you don't either. And that's why you do what you do. We really appreciate your work, and you are really a tireless warrior for the truth on this and so many other issues. Larry Johnson, thank you for joining us on TNT this week. Hey, Patrick. Oh, is there good to be with you, my friend? Likewise, and also a big thank you to our guest, Arno Develay, in the first hour human rights lawyer, based in Moscow as well. Listen, folks. Thank you for joining us today. Tomorrow, we're going to do it all again, same time, same place. We've got a couple of fantastic segments for tomorrow. It's going to be a powerful broadcast. I hope you guys can join us, and everybody in the TNT chat community as well. Stay on the line, state of the nation coming up with Hesher and Tim Bo here at TNT. I'm Patrick Henning, so your host signing out. Take care, you guys.
