The Duran Podcast
Russian Art Of War w/ Jacques Baud (Live)
I'm doing very well and very honored and delighted that we have Jacques Bull with us today on this program. There's absolutely critical moments in the wall and explaining to us many important things. Many thanks to both of you because I'm very honored to be with you today. I'm following you every day so very happy to be in the show with you today. Thank you. It is an honor and a pleasure to have with us Jacques Bull. You are a political analyst, a geopolitical analyst, as well as a very accomplished author. I have the links to your books in the description box down below. I will also add that link as a pinned comment. Is there anywhere else that, any other links that you would like to tell our viewers about? Or are the links to the books? I'm not really on social networks. I spend my time writing rather than playing with social networks and therefore there's no real links to contact me. Other than probably LinkedIn and the YouTube videos. Okay, fantastic. I will add the links to Amazon, I believe, is the best place for your work. As a pinned comment down below. One of the books, The Russian Arts of War. Let's get into it. Let me just say a quick hello to everyone that's watching us on Rockfin, Odyssey, Rumble, the Duran.locals.com and on YouTube and a quick hello to our amazing awesome moderators. Thank you for everything you do, Alexander Jacques. Let's get to it. Absolutely. We are coming to a topic, the Russian art of war, which could not be born topical and there's no one better to discuss it with us than Jacques Ball. Now I am currently about three quarters through his book. I have found it absolutely compelling reading. It is one of the most insightful discussions of what might have supposed would be a subject that given that we are seeing the Russian military in action. Lots and lots of people, commentators, military analysts would actually have been working on for years and intelligence officers in the West as well. I have to say it is eye opening to me and fascinating because it's been increasingly clear that the Russians do more differently from the way in which it is done in the West and Jacques Ball explains this and discusses this thoroughly and if I may say so with extraordinary methodical clarity. Now I don't understand why books like this aren't more common. That's the first thing to say. Even if they existed, I doubt remotely that they would be as good as this. And in some ways it's not surprising that this is so good because Jacques Ball has actually started and followed first to Soviet and the Russian military for a very long time. It used to be his job and I can remember right from the outset of the special military operation. Jacques Ball making commentary after commentary discussion, after discussion, explaining to people, explaining to people like myself who does not have or pretended to have deep knowledge of military matters. What would happen in the wall and things have turned out very, very much in the way that he said. Some people tell me, you know, that you know, I get things correct sometimes when I discuss military things. One of the reasons I do is because I read Jacques Ball. So let's just get onto that topic now. Let's start with the question of the Russian military. And one of the things that I had not appreciated previously is the depth of intellectual thinking in Russia that there is about war. The extent to which the Russians see war both as a science and an art, a topic if you like for academic study. And this is done at the very highest levels of the Russian military. So perhaps that's a point to start with, but you know, you can take this from there because I do not know. And I think you said this right at the start of your book. There is no analogous body of study of war that goes to the depth and approaches it with the same kind of rigor as the Russian stick. So can you just enlarge on that a little and that we can perhaps talk a bit about the theoretical underpinnings and then look at the war that we're seeing now? Yes, thank you. As you said before, my previous job as I was in strategic intelligence was precisely, especially in the Cold War, was precisely trying to understand how the Soviet would think. And you may remember that at that time we were planning or let's say how the words are missing. But we were fearing a war every three days basically. And so we tried to understand how the Soviets figure out war, how they wage war, how they would wage war, how they think war. And I was in charge at the time of the Warsaw Pact and all the Warsaw Pact countries had the same more or less thinking system. So I studied that. I was not the only one. By the way, I was in touch with other intelligence services who were concerned with the same kind of questions. And we developed also on the western side, quite a deep knowledge of how the Soviet think war. Today, I noticed because I continued to study a little bit the issue of war and how the Soviet would consider war. And I noticed that there were not real changes. If you remove the Marxist crust, basically you have the same way of thinking and approach to the question of war. And as you rightly said, an army comes a little bit also from a Marxist perspective that everything has to be scientifically studied. And war was a scientific study in the Soviet Union and not even scientific, but also academic in the sense. And that's very interesting, for example, very little people understand that. But during the Afghan war, and I was also responsible for following the war in Afghanistan at that time, I noticed there were a lot of exchanges within military reviews or papers, exchanged between people in the field and the people in Moscow about war, how war should be understood, how war in Afghanistan differs from the war that was anticipated in Europe and things like that. And you have very vivid exchanges in the military press, meaning that they considered the military not just as a matter of security, but it was also considered as a matter of intellectual challenge to understand the enemy, understand how the enemy works. And in fact, I noticed that the Soviets at the time knew better how the Mujahideen work than we tried to understand how the Mujahideen work as NATO was in Afghanistan. So the understanding of the enemy was much deeper in the Soviet Union than it was in NATO later. And that's a very much this whole approach of war that considered not just your own capacities, but also the capacities of the enemy or the adversary. And that is exactly when, as I said, I was in NATO from 2012 to 2017, which is quite strange for a Swiss guy, but that was the result of discussion between the Swiss government and NATO in the framework of the Partnership for Peace. And I was given a position in NATO, I was the only Swiss officer working in NATO, but that was a critical time of 2014. And then I realized that the NATO, the thinking in NATO was not deep enough to understand what was going on in the Donbas, and basically in a certain part of Ukraine. This was a very ethnic, ethnocentric approach to war, basically. They assumed that the Soviet or the Russians or the enemies basically would think like NATO. And that really struck me. And that's the reason why when the special operation started in February 2022, I decided to write a book, books, because this is the "The Auto of War" is the fourth book that I wrote about this conflict. And I wanted to make clear that the Russians understand us better than we understand them. And as you know, if you read the "Out of War" Sun Tzu, when you know the enemy less good than you know yourself, then you are almost certain to lose. And that's exactly the situation which we are. We didn't try to understand the Russians because everything they say is propaganda, everything they are incapable, and so on and so forth. And we rely only on what we understand from them. The result, in fact, we went into this conflict with a total incomplete view of the issue. And the purpose of this last book is very much to show what are the holes in our understanding. And I say understanding, not just knowledge. I remember or remind you that intelligence comes from the word "intelligery" in Latin, which means to understand. So intelligence is about understanding, not simply about knowing. That's very important, because we tend to know things, but we don't tend to understand things. We don't really want to understand things actually, because the probability that would lead us too far. So the idea was very much to come back to the very basic of the Russian thinking. And you have, I made several charts that show how the architecture of Soviet or Russian, I said Soviet or Russian, because in that case, very similar. There are not many changes in the way of thinking war. As I said, the political orientation is totally different, but the way of thinking is the same. And then from the strategic level down to the tactical level, trying to understand how this thinking develops into action, basically. And that's exactly what we are seeing today. That means what we see in the field is basically a tactical translation of what happens at higher level. And that's very uncommon for the Western mind, because we used to have a strategic thinking, probably in the 50s, as we started to consider nuclear war and big war in Europe and things like that. But especially in the last 30 years, when Western armies tried to confront other type of armies or even rebels in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on, we tend to forget the strategic and the operational level to concentrate on the tactical level. And as a matter of fact, I have been several times in North Africa. I worked a little bit in Mali. And I was surprised to see that the French operating in the Sahel region had no real strategy to fight the so-called terrorism or ISIS or whoever you can call it. They had only tactical approach, so you just kill people. That's it. And it's an aim in itself. And that's for that precise reason that at the end, the authorities in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, they decided the French were actually part of the problem. They were not solving the problem. They were part of the problem, because there was no strategy, no aim. You should ask people, but you don't know where to. Where are we going to? Nobody knew that. And even the French military, that's very surprising. But that's a symptom of what happened also in Afghanistan. I have been shortly in Afghanistan for my country. And I noticed that there were absolutely no understanding of what do we want to achieve there. And in fact, we achieved nothing. And I remember my driver in Kabul, he was a Pashtun. And I asked him, because Pashtun is the same origin, basically, as the Taliban. I asked him, what do you feel about the Taliban? I said, well, you know, we don't like the Taliban. But if we have to choose between the Taliban and the Westerners, we'll choose the Taliban. That shows exactly that we were fighting a war without understanding even how people think. We were just firing at people, period. And that's, in fact, when the West engaged the war in Ukraine, it came in Ukraine with exactly the same approach. So it's a tactical approach. You just fire at people. You just try to have a better weapon, better weaponry. But that's it. There is no real strategy. And we see that. I noticed that when I studied, as I said, I was in NATO at the time. But when I followed the combat operations in the Dombas in 2014, those combat that led eventually to the Minsk agreements. But I was studying the battles. We noticed that Ukraine was advised by Western officers, by the way. But there was no really operational thinking behind those. They were just firing at the rebels. Whereas the rebels in Dombas, many of them had a Russian military background. And they were fighting, even with very little resources, because at the very beginning, they had almost nothing. And with the time you had Ukrainian units defecting to the rebels, because the Ukrainian army was basically a territorial army. So you had both Russian and Ukrainian speaking people in the army. And those Russian speaking, they defected to the Russian speaking population, including with weapon, artillery, ammunition, and all that. That's why the rebels could develop quite rapidly a kind of an armored force. And then developed also some kind of operational art based on the military education that had that some of those guys had from the former Soviet Union. And I noticed here a total difference in the approach of war. And this was confirmed after the beginning of the Special Military Operation, that you had a Ukrainian army that, by the way, was in between two different, I would say, thinking systems. A lot of people were used to, I mean, probably were very young, but they were probably, they started the military career being trained in the Soviet system. But then came the end of the Cold War. And these guys tried to enter into a new thinking system or new concepts, mostly NATO oriented. And that's exactly what you see today in the Ukrainian army. They are between two systems. And that's deadly, because you don't have, let's say, a doctrinal reference point. You don't have a doctrinal baseline to make your operation. And that's a fundamental weakness that the Ukrainians have, while on the Russian side. As I said, there's a total continuity in the military thinking between the Soviet time and today. They adjust a few things, because obviously, technology developed and evolved. And you had to adjust some, for instance, command and control assets and command and control systems and all that. But basically, we are on the same doctrinal baseline as before. As a result, you don't have any discrepancy between generals and junior officers. And that's something you don't find in the Ukrainian army. It's really even stronger today with people like Siyoski and who are quite old generation people and young people who have only NATO training. So you find this discrepancy within the Ukrainian army. It's a fundamental weakness. Beyond everything that you have, you guys mentioned several times, like weapons, ammunition, and all these issues, which are absolutely a part of the problem. But there is also a fundamental problem at thinking level, at the way you approach war. And that affects also the way, for instance, the equipment that was delivered to the Ukrainians. Because, as I said, Western armies have developed armies for colonial wars, basically. That means you have to be very light. And you work at tactical level, so to say. You don't plan big operations, because when you are fighting against rebels, basically, the tactical level probably might be sufficient. I mean, it's considered as being sufficient. And you can see that, for instance, when you have the M-777 howitzer, for instance, all the Cesar gun that was provided to Ukrainians by the US and the French, these artillery pieces are designed for sniping artillery, meaning that each shot should have a decisive effect, so to say. You have withdrawn and extensive reconnaissance, you can pinpoint your target, and so on. And that might be, that might work if you have, for instance, an isolated rebel strong point or things like that, or just a smaller machine gun position, then you can, with a very little amount of ammunition, you can destroy these guys. And a little amount of ammunition was required, because when you wage wars far away from your country, you don't want to come with billions of tons of ammunition. You try to keep your logistics at the minimum. That's a reason why sniping artillery was a good answer for a specific situation that you may find probably in Afghanistan or in Iraq. But when you are in Ukraine and the Russians, they never had this concept, they're still in the, I would almost say old-fashioned, although it's not very polite, because it's probably, it's not so old-fashioned, it's probably more conventional war against a massive, massive attack, and therefore you need massive firepower. And you, since you operate on your own territory, because that's basically what the Russians had always in mind, fighting on their own territory, they don't have to care about logistics, basically. I mean, I'm not saying that this is not important, it is important. But you have less concern when you operate on your own territory than if you operate thousands of miles away from your country, obviously. And that's the reason why the Russians could stick to a very conventional type of artillery with a mass fire that can really crush the enemy instead of pinpointing individuals. And that's exactly the kind of confrontation the Ukrainians face in Ukraine. So they have a weapon system, a doctrinal elements, if you want, that are incompatible with the type of war they are waging against the Russians. And that, I think, is important to understand, I feel sometimes that the Western military staffs have not got that. At least the politicians have certainly not understood that. Probably in a military a little bit, they start to understand that there's a total inequation between the war they had in mind and the war, which is waged in Ukraine. By the way, even Ukrainian soldiers, after having attended training in the UK or in Germany, they said, "Those guys, NATO trains us for the wrong war." These people don't know the type of war in which we are, because obviously those young trainers, officers, they may have battle experience, but the battle experience that you may have in Iraq or in Afghanistan has nothing to do with the battle experience people have in Ukraine. And that's exactly the problem they have. So we, in fact, the support we provided to Ukraine beyond the fact that it was insufficient quantitatively, inadequate qualitatively. It's also inadequate in the terms of thinking, in the approach. So we led Ukraine on the totally wrong way. And everything that we hear in the last couple of weeks that the West finally start to understand that the way was totally wrong, instead of, as you very often said, Alexander, when you are in the whole stop digging, but instead of doing so, they continue digging. And that's the very strange way. But there is some explanation of that, because the fact that the military is not really a subject of discussion in the West, much less that it was in the Russian, then Soviet and Russian army. The discussion within the military system is much more active in Russia than it is in the West. In the West, probably because most military or professional military, so there are some kind of a bubble within the society. So they are naturally integrated in it. Nobody really cares about who dies, who fights, and all that, in fact. And you see that very much in France, for instance. Nobody cares about what happens with the French army. They were fighting in the Sahel. Nobody really cared about whether it was effective or not, because the army, again, is a small society within the society. And that's very interesting, because I used to be trained in the British army, in the British intelligence, military intelligence in the 80s. And the British military were very conscious of that. They told me well, because in Switzerland, as I said before, we are citizen soldiers. So the Machiavelli used to say Switzerland has no army. It is an army. And that means that in Switzerland, we have this idea that the army is very much embedded into the society. And I was surprised in UK that it was not exactly the same. And even the military officer told me, no, in fact, we are a society within the society. And sometimes even the society is not so positive about the military very often. So, meaning that the discussion within the society about the military is not as vivid as it may be, for instance, in Russia. And that probably has consequences in the way the West approached war, like it's a small country of individuals that think war, that wage war. And the rest of the society is not really involved and doesn't really care about what's going on, which is very different in Russia. And as a result, you have probably more concern in Russia about what happens in Ukraine than you may have in the West, basically. And therefore, that explains probably why we are so keen to provide weapons to Ukraine. Nobody really cares about what happens in Ukraine. You know better than me that this is a fundamental issue of the casualties in Ukraine. But if you read the papers in France or so, nobody really cares about the casualties in Ukraine. This is an inexistent problem. And therefore, we don't really question the way we help Ukraine, the way we support Ukraine. We don't even question the purpose of helping Ukraine. And this is something that has to do at the end of the way the political leadership understand our approach to this conflict. And as I said before, I was in strategic intelligence, my job was to advise the government. So when you make an assessment, it is with the idea that this will be the base of a political decision. And therefore, I felt almost compelled to write books, try to understand what we misunderstand in this conflict and how we should understand it to have the right approach to it. And in fact, if we had some understanding of the situation, we would not even have entered the conflict. We wouldn't really have supported the Minsk encryptments and done everything that was possible then to avoid war. But surprisingly, we don't have this wisdom at political level in Europe and the West at large. So, in our channel, that's the reason why I wanted to write this book. So, I don't know if you have... I have lots of these to say. No, it's firstly, can I say thank you? Because that was extremely enlightening. It also explained an awful lot of things, by the way. I mean, I have been to Russia a couple of times. I have visited factories in Russia. I've discussed this in various programs. I've often said that Russian factories are on an enormous scale. They have enormous surge capacity. They are prepared to keep machine tools and workshops idle and keep workers available, who are also underworked. And I've said that this isn't what we do in the West. Now, when I saw that, when I saw those factories, I didn't really understand why that was happening. If you go to your book, you see that the Russians think of the war in a completely holistic way. They absolutely take into account the importance of manufacturing, the manufacturing base, the ability of the manufacturing system to expand, the science base, the technology base as well. Again, if we talk about weapons, a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to an Iranian engineer who fought with Iran during the Iran Iraq war. And he was maintaining tanks. He was both maintaining the Iranian tanks and examining the Iraqi ones. And he was put in a position of having to examine a Iraqi T-72. And he was very impressed by it. Despite the fact this was an early version of the T-72, there were many things that he found very difficult to grasp conceptually about it, because he was Western trained, he was actually American trained engineer. And he was surprised at how uncomfortable it was. But he also said this is a completely practical machine for war. It is very conceptually thought through in order to do the job that it does. And he was comparing it to the British Chief Dentang, which he thought otherwise. And just mentioning now how you went to North Africa, Afghanistan, following the wars there, and you saw the French doing things that didn't seem to have any real purpose behind them, I can remember if I've written about it, watching a British Channel 4 dispatches television program about a British Army unit in Afghanistan. And I remember watching that program feeling deeply depressed. The British would just go from one village to another village to another village. And I couldn't understand what they were doing. And I got the sense that the soldiers themselves didn't really understand what they were doing, because they weren't advancing forward to any particular objective. So all these things, just to illustrate some of the points that you just made, the weapons are designed for war. The industrial system is prepared for war to an extent that we just don't think of in the West. We're completely severe in societies. In Russia, they take war much more seriously than we do. And when you meet Russians, when you spend time in Russia, you discover that this is a society where the depths of understanding of war at us, every day level is much deeper than it is with us. And of course, if you know anything about Russian history, it's not difficult to understand why. So these are just points to illustrate some of the points that you've made. I mean, there were other things, I understood finally why Russian industry structured in the way that it is after reading your book. I was absolutely astonished at the fact that at every single level of the Russian military, intellectual and academic discussion takes place, so that a major can discuss things with the general, which I absolutely know for a fact does not happen in the British army. I mean, that is inconceivable. And that there is this constant intellectual activity and discussion going on, which we certainly don't do. But let's turn to Ukraine, because again, I think a lot of things reading your book began to become clear to me, because you make at an early point of the book, again, the fact that Western war is both very territorial oriented and also, as you said, very tactical oriented. And that starts to explain many of the things about the war that I just have not understood from the Ukrainian side, why they attack all the time, why they spend so much time trying to win minor battles at extravagant cost to themselves, why there was this offensive launched last summer, which overall made very, very little sense. But it's the product of disjointed thinking, whereas with the Russians, they have an overall strategy. It's more than just a plan. It's a sort of concept of what they want to do, which is to get to that endpoint, which is victory. And that's why they have to retreat. They will retreat. They have to advance. They will advance, but everything is focused on that role. And you said right at the beginning, again, of the book, very interesting, a metaphor that the Russians think of things as a film, like a film, which progresses to a conclusion, whereas we segment everything into still photo shots. Can you just discuss that a little more? Because again, this is something that I've found incredibly enlightening. Absolutely. And I think you pointed out the real essence of this book, basically, because the problem, what I see, and not just in the military way of conducting this war, but also in the political activities at large, basically, what we've seen in Europe right now, is the absence of strategies, and the absence of objectives. We do things, but we don't really know why. Important is that we do them, so more or less. And doing things has become sometimes an objective in itself. That's very clear with the, for instance, deliveries that we make to Ukraine, for instance. Nobody really questioned the opportunity or the adequate quality of the equipment we sent you. We just sent equipment, period. So this is typical, I think, of or currently the ship to drive things without an objective, without strategic objectives. And that's the first aspect of things. The second aspect is that, as you said, the Russians have a holistic aspect, a sense of war. That means that everything plays a role in the way you wage a war. Economy, the military, everything, the society, everything. And when you just explain the issue of military the equipment, for instance, or the arms production, the Soviet Union had, I mean, obviously, state-owned enterprise. As Soviet Union changed to Russia, they kept that system. I mean, the military production capabilities remained at state level, meaning that they are not profit-oriented, they are objective-oriented, which is a fundamental difference with the Western way of understanding the armament's production. Because everything is privatized, meaning that, basically, producing weapons is the same as producing shoes. You try to make a profit of them. And that's the reason why it's so hard now to have this acceleration or to speed up production of ammunition for Ukraine, for instance, because you don't create a company just for a few months' production. So you kind of double your production just for a few months, simply because it's not profitable. And on the other side, the Russians don't have this problem because they have the capacities. Even if the capacity is, let's say, sleeping for a couple of years, today they can weaken these capacities and produce things. So because it's not profit-oriented. And that's what we had during the Cold War, basically. I mean, you had factories that were basically state-owned. And so there was no question of profit in that sense, in the commercial sense of the world. As a result, we could develop armies that were substantial, that were big armies, big capacities, and so on. So this is one aspect. Now, coming back to the objectives, I think it's important to understand. We didn't listen to what Vladimir Putin said at the very beginning of the Special Operation, because it's always the same thing. What Putin says is just propaganda, so we don't listen, which is stupid. But Putin said he stated two fundamental objectives on the 24th of February 2022. Namely, that was denazification of the threat against the population of Dombas and the demilitarization of the threat against the population of Dombas. Period. These were the two objectives. And that's what the Russians do very consistently. That's what they do. We decided that they were trying to gain territories, that they were trying to occupy Ukraine, that they were trying to go to Kiev and all that. That was not the idea. Basically, what Putin said, he wanted to destroy capabilities, not take territory. By the way, in March, 2022, Zelensky made his proposal to the Russians in the Istanbul process. It was this idea of having all the Russian troops withdrawing from Ukraine. And Russia was apparently ready to go into that. So the territory is not an issue for the Russians. But they think in a close eviction system, that means that you use tactical objectives to achieve operational goals. You achieve operational objectives to achieve strategic goals. So it's everything you do at a level should be useful at the upper level. And that's why demilitarizing Ukraine had probably in the mind of Putin, the aim of achieving the demilitarization or neutralization, let's say, of Ukraine. And in fact, that's exactly what Zelensky understood. Because again, in March 2022, in his proposal to Russia, it was not the withdrawal of all troops from Ukraine. But in exchange of that, it was the neutralization of Ukraine, meaning that Zelensky has probably intuitively understood the way the Russian think. The problem is that we tend to ignore that. And we make as if Russia was just interested in expanding its territory or making the remaking the Soviet Union or the terrorist empire and all that. It's easy to say that the enemy has not achieved the objective when you define the objective. So that's exactly what the West has done. So we have to listen to the enemy. And that's part exactly. This is basically an application of Sun Tzu, by the way. Just listen, understand what the enemy wants, and then you fight consequently. And that's explained exactly why the Russians, since they want to destroy an enemy, they don't care about withdrawal, withdrawing troops. For instance, in Kharkov or in Harsan in September and October 2022, they withdrew the troops because they saw there was no point fighting at this point. So it's better to withdraw behind a safe line and to counterattack when necessary. By the way, this is exactly what Zaluzhny was suggesting about Bachmut, for instance, that instead of destroying your resources or letting your resource being destroyed in Bachmut, would be better to withdraw, regroup, develop an operational concept and counterattack. But that's not what they did. And in fact, they were driven by this idea that the West has always decided that the Russian wants to gain territory. But Zelensky tries to take advantage of this thinking because the issue is that I published that in my first book, by the way, in about Ukraine. In December 2021, the Kiev International Institute for Sociology made a poll about the willingness of defending the territory, the defending Ukraine. And at this poll, it's very interesting to see that only 17% of the Ukrainian population was ready to resist with arms against the Russians. 50% were ready to resist without arms. I mean, kind of civil resistance or something like that without unarmed resistance. And 50% didn't want to resist. So there is this Ukraine is not exactly the country that is so willing to resist. The perception we have in the West is, in fact, the perception that we may have in the western part of Ukraine, which is extremely anti-Russian. And in fact, if you see the results of this poll of December 2021, you could see that, of course, there was huge differences between the West of Ukraine and the East of Ukraine, obviously. But in the average, there were the figures that that were, and you can see it's probably still online. It's a very interesting poll, by the way. So, meaning that Zelensky knows that his population is not 100% willing to resist the Russians. And there is a huge risk of switching aside for a lot of people. By the way, for instance, if I go back to 2014, if you take the example of Crimea, for instance, in Crimea, you had 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea. And as the problem of the language emerged after the change of the law on 23 February 2015, 2014, you started to have unrest in all the South of Ukraine, not just on bus in Crimea. But in Crimea, you had these troops, these 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Out of these 22,000, 20,000, 20,000 changed side. And they just removed their insignas. And they became the little green man, because they had no insignas. This was not an invasion from Russian soldiers. I mean, there were also Russian soldiers stationed there, according to the status of force agreement between Russia and Ukraine. So, you had troops also stationed there. But those little green men that emerged suddenly on the scene were, in fact, Ukrainian soldiers, because Ukrainians, basically, were not so keen to fight against the Russians. And Zelensky knows that perfectly. That's why he has to, still today, to demonstrate that the Ukrainian army has a defense every square centimeter of the country, because otherwise, the West would not support the war anymore. So, it's the way Ukrainian, which reads, in fact, a political way of waging war, in the sense that the idea is to convince the Western countries that they are ready to fight, although the population is not ready to fight. By the way, you can also make interesting thinking, because you can now see the discrepancy between the reality and the facts, because when you have Macron saying that they want to defend Ukraine, so it's kind of absurd, because you would send French soldiers to defend a country that even Ukrainians don't want to defend. So, it's a very interesting, it's a little bit exaggerated, I agree, but because it's not as simple as that. But when you see how many Ukrainians try to evade a conscription and recruitment and all that, and try to make every effort to avoid going on the front to fight, and I live here in Brussels. I've met, by the way, recently, a young Ukrainian, and he was congratulating me for my books, by the way, which is quite interesting, because he said we need to have people who tell the tools about the situation in Ukraine. But this guy, this guy was probably in the early 30 years old. So, these guys, instead of going in Ukraine fighting, they prefer to stay here. So, meaning that your Koreans are now ready to send soldiers to fight for a country that doesn't want to defend itself, because they're very safe. So, we need to understand these countries, and we don't want to make this effort. And the Russians have perfectly understood that. I think they perfectly understand where their limits are. And I don't know, I'm not in the Russian general staff, and I don't know what's in the mind of Gerezimov, Mr. Putin, and the Mr. Defense. But my feeling is that as long as we continue to do war, the Russians will continue this war to deplete completely all the Ukrainian resources, so that Ukraine will no longer be Ukraine, will no longer be a threat for anybody. But that means that probably even the economy will suffer of that. So, that basically, the whatever the Europeans make, this will not, the Ukraine will not recover and be considered as a threat anymore. So, that's what the Russian thinking will, that's so far that the Russian thinking will go. And in fact, it's still consistent with this objective to demilitarize Ukraine. But again, in the Russian mind, delimiturizing means a lot of things. It's not just the soldiers, but it's also the military production, probably economic production. So, it can be extremely a very vast area that may affect the Ukraine capabilities. And since we didn't understand that in Europe, we are leading Ukraine into a disaster. I should say that one of the most enlightening facts that came to me from the book is one that you only touch with indirectly. But I think it is indispensable reading for anybody who wants to understand Vladimir Putin, because what is absolutely clear to me is that Putin himself is fully anchored in the system that you describe. If you want to understand why he makes the decisions that he does, and how he arrives at those decisions, you need to read that board's book, because it is fully consistent with the whole pattern of Russian thinking and of Russian decision-making. Clearly, it is not just Putin by himself. He clearly works and functions within an overall system. Of decision-making, which is extremely structured, and also which is very broad-based, and in its own way, very, very rigorous in arriving at particular decisions and conclusions. So, I just wanted to make that point, because no biography, I read pretty much every biography that's been written about Putin, or at least dipped into the biography of Putin that I have seen, even the so-called academic ones, really seem to understand that. They spend an enormous amount of time talking about his childhood, his time as a KGB agent, whatever, but they don't actually look at the structure within which he functions and of which he is absolutely, absolutely a part. Now, coming back to many, many again interesting and important things that you've been saying here, I'd like to focus on that last part, which is the decision, the question of what the West now does, because it's absolutely clear to me that Macron, which has met Putin many times, doesn't understand at all what he is going to be taking on. If we start sending troops, Western troops to Ukraine, French troops, German troops, British troops, God help us even American troops, we don't have, it's clear to me, we don't have a plan. I mean, you know, helping the Ukrainians avoid collapse is not actually a plan, but not a real military plan, not any kind of conceptual plan. We don't have a plan, and we are taking on an enemy, not only with enormous resources, but an enemy who is thinking all the time. And that is the fundamental difference. I mean, the Russians are thinking all the time. We are not. And again, that is something that came out very obviously from your book. The worst way to make decisions is the way in which we made those decisions with respect to the Russians before the war began. And if we're going to make the same mistakes all over again in the way that we make decisions now, then frankly, God help us. That is my own sense, especially again, from coming back and reading your book. I think that Macron clearly doesn't understand your point about Western militaries being structured for colonial wars and not remotely competent to fight. But again, he clearly doesn't understand the intellectual underpinnings, that the way in which the adversary not only thinks, but as I say, is thinking constantly, all the structures and institutions through which he does that. Now, I spoke about Putin working within a structured system. Can you discuss that a little? We did a program with Andrei Marciano, I think you know, in which previously we asked him about the Russian general staff. Can you say a bit about this? Because it's clear to me that the general staff in Russia is completely different from what we have in the West. We have nothing analogous to it. And can you also explain this? Absolutely fascinating difference between tactics, operations, and strategy. Very Russian, very structured, again, not something we do at all. I mean, we don't even do strategy very much anymore. Tactics, we are all about, operations, the concept even exists in military thinking in the West. Yes, thank you. Absolutely right. And it's very important to underline the fact that in Russia, people tend to think in a much more structured way as in the West. And this has probably also to do with, I would, I dare to say, with the intellectual capabilities of our leaders in Europe. I mean, we have seen in the recent years, I mean, Macron, Analina, Berbok, Liz Truss, I mean, you named them. It's just incredible to see the level of these guys. I mean, these are tweeters. They are not thinkers. They are not strategists. They are just reacting to tweets. That's something that really strikes me as you had this hijacking in Belarus two or three years ago, you may remember that you had this Ryanair flight that was derived and went to Minsk instead of going to Vilnius, I remember, I think. Anyway, the thing is that within minutes after the announcement of that, you had already leaders in Europe that were tweeting that it has been hijacked by Lukachenko. Although nobody knew what was going on, but they knew already within seconds that it was a hijacking led by the regime in Minsk, meaning that we are people who really act without thinking. It's almost brainless thinking in Europe, basically. But that raised another point, and that we are going to the structures in a moment, because basically, we can assume that in a democracy, you can elect as president or whoever an idiot as president. But you will also assume that the structures, the institution, we then help this idiot to lead and to make decisions. That's where also we have a system that fails, because you see that the reports or this decision that we see, because that's the output, basically, is the decision. We see that those decisions seem not to be enlightened by some understanding of the situation. That means that the system doesn't compensate with the insufficient capabilities of the leaders. That's what makes me that concerns me, because you can assume, I mean, you had an example in the history, like people who like Ronald Reagan was not a reputation of a brilliant, intelligent man, but he had probably the intelligence of having good advisors around him. And so the system continued to work because the institutions were helping this guy to lead. And at the end, that was quite a successful, basically, a successful presidency. But we don't see that currently in the West. This is missing. The work of the intelligence services seem to be missing. And in fact, in the last 30 years, are intelligence capabilities. So those capabilities that should help us to understand the situation in the world, basically. Those capabilities have melted, completely melted, because we tried to, basically, we adapted, adjusted the situation of fighting terrorism. And to fight terrorism, you don't need to have big, let's say, big academic thinking and that, probably. And we focused on getting information, collecting information, rather than understanding things. And since the terrorist specialists have a different logic in approaching things, we didn't make that effort. We just tried to collect information, collect data. And we focused on data collection, rather than data interpretation. And therefore, our analytical system, and I see that in all countries, that was already pointed out by George Tenet, the former DCI, so the director of CIA, already in the late '90s, he said, already that at this moment, he said, well, we are losing our analytical capabilities. And in fact, I see that in Switzerland, exactly the same thing, in France, exactly the same thing. And everywhere, we have the same problem. We focused on data collection, and we forget about analyzing things. And that has an impact, of course, in the quality of the decision-making. And we see that the decision-making, basically, is more hip-shooting as anything else. And while in Russia, they have kept this institution, they were not spoiled by the war on terror, so to say. They kept decision-making instruments, which was tailored for a strategic confrontation on the European continent somehow. And you see that perfectly. You see, the general staff, and that's probably the reason, for instance, why the Russians were so quick in answering to the provocation in February 2022. I just want to remind to remind the people who see us that in March 2021, the 24th of March 2021, actually, Zelensky issued a decree to reconquer Crimea and the south of the country. And from that point, he started to build up the Ukrainian army to attack the Dombas. And that's the reason why also the Russians on the side started also to build up their forces at the Ukrainian border. And early February 2022, you had the Ukrainians starting to shell the Dombas massively. And then you had things happening extremely quickly within the Russian leadership that was recognition of the two republics of the Dombas. And the purpose of that recognition was to ability the Republic of Dombas to ask for help to another country, namely Russia. So Russia could intervene by invoking the article 51 of the UN Charter, and so have a legitimate approach to the conflict. It's a logistic approach, but okay, that's the way they did it. But everything happened between the 16th of February 2022 and the 24th of February. So within eight days, this happened. And why did that happen so quickly? Because the Russian general staff works daily on contingency planning, daily, establish contingency plans for possible scenarios of war, and they adjust constantly those plans so that if things start to heat up a little bit, they're ready to launch the process. And that's exactly what happened in the Dombas or in Ukraine. The idea, so some interpreted that in the West that Vladimir Putin plans to attack Russia or Ukraine for a long time and so on. So it's not exactly that. But since March 2021, the Russians were in fact making contingency plans. So just in case things happen, we just press one button and the machinery starts. This is exactly what they started to do. That's the reason why they were ready. And in fact, the Americans knew that because you had, that was in early February, you may remember that Joe Biden said that he knew that the Russians would attack on the 16th of February. And why did he know that? Because he knew that the Ukrainians will start their offensive on that day by shelling the Dombas. And if you see the reports of OSCE, you can see the increase, the drastic increase of shelling the Dombas start precisely on the 16th of February. And apparently, the Americans had an idea of that. And that's why they advised Biden that the Russians from that point could attack at any moment, because they know that the Russian general staff has this contingency plans. And they are ready by pressing a button to start something, meaning that if there is, let's say today, if France decides to send a contingent in or they saw or wherever, then I'm convinced that the Russians have already planned a possible answer to that. So that's absolutely no doubt about this. And therefore, if such a contingent would intervene, it's probably doomed to fail in any case, because the Russians, if they start to do something, they will put everything all the necessary resources to crush a possible intervention. And that leads to another question. That's the, what would the French do in that case? Because assuming you send a regiment there, and assuming that this regiment is destroyed by a couple of King John missiles or whatever, what can the French do? Send another contingent, which would be destroyed the same way. Send a third one. I mean, you know, I think this is what you said is exactly right. I feel that the Europeans and the West at large, basically has no plan at all. They think that sending troops in Ukraine would just discourage the Russians to move ahead. And I think the Russians are not impressed. And by the way, they have said already, if you send troops, they're considered an enemy. And that's logic, because in the Russian thinking, Ukraine is a theater of military operation. That's why it's not a war, by the way, because the other war would be Europe, basically, in the Russian intellectual construct. So Ukraine is a theater of military operations, a TVD, the other way, and this. So meaning that when you enter this area, you become a party of the war. So that's absolutely clear. I think Macron has not, but Macron has not understood anything from the very beginning of this conflict. Even when he started, I mean, there was a conversation that was leaked in the Figaro, the French paper, the Figaro, about the conversation he had with Vladimir Putin. And in that conversation, you could see that Macron had not understood what was in the MacMensk agreement, basically. He had absolutely no idea of what the Russians were aiming at at this stage. And it was the early February 2022, so before the war. And we see that the French had absolutely no understanding, which again, showed a point of Macron being misinformed or misguided by his own intelligence services. But in any way, Macron didn't understand what happened. He doesn't understand better now. Now, the thinking for the French president is a domestic politics problem, basically. He wants to regain some kind of national unity before the olympic games. And that's why, by the way, he declared military law more or less on the influence the other day because of possible terrorist attack. But that we don't know to avoid any protest in his country. But back to Ukraine, we see that the idea of fighting in Ukraine has only a purpose to put the French people together in a situation which is economically very unfavorable in France. And that's it. But he has no plan for Ukraine. He has just a plan for trying to salvage his own situation domestically, but no plan for Ukraine, by sending a regiment or two regiment or whatever in Ukraine has no aim, basically. He can probably help a little bit superficially to the Ukrainians, but there will not be decisive. And that has no value in terms of NATO involvement, because the bilateral agreement under which the French troops would be sent to Ukraine are a bilateral agreement, which has been signed outside NATO. By the way, these kind of bilateral agreements that were signed by some countries, I think Czechia, Italy, France have signed an agreement or Germany send an agreement with Ukraine. But that shows that NATO will not be involved. That shows the failure of NATO, basically, because you have obliged to go bilateral to address this issue, because collectively nobody would do that. So, meaning that we are in a situation where you have, in Russia, a system that is better suited for strategic decision-making, that works constantly in elaborating plans, contingency planning for whatever situation, including a situation that would probably unexpectedly close the Baltics, for instance, think like that. I'm convinced the Russians are thinking about this, about this kind of contingencies regularly. So, meaning that the West would have a hard time to create a surprise against the Russians. Now, probably you also address this question of tactical operational strategic. It's important, as we have said before, that the West tend to think statically. Tactically means that you think about the movement of troops on the ground, basically. Basically, it's about destroying people, destroying things on the ground, period. So, it's the nitty gritty of military warfare. It's the art of moving soldiers around. The operational art is something different. Then you start to be on a chess game somehow, because then you play with moving large units around in order to influence the decision-making of the others. So, operational art is, and by the way, in the Russian terminology, they talk about tactics, tactica, and when they talk to operational art, it's an art, is Gustavo. That's the art in Russian, meaning that it's not a technical think. It's something that involves more creativity. In effect, this is something where fantasy is required to imagine how you can shape the battlefield, how you can address the enemy by tackling its weakest point, by losing the less possible assets. I think the first phase of the Russian military operation in Ukraine is a very good example of what operational art is. If we analyze the troops involved in these first days of the military operation, we see that the bulk of the Russian army was directed towards Donbas. Why? For a simple reason. Again, we have to go back to the objectives stated by Vladimir Putin, the objectives were to demilitarize and denazify the threat against the population of Donbas. That's the main objective. This is the main direction of action, of operation, basically. That means that everything that happens around that is just a way to support this main operation. That's exactly the purpose of having this huge movement in the direction of Kiev. We know and we knew perfectly, even if some people still claim the opposite, we knew that the forces involved in the northern part of Ukraine would never be sufficient to take Kiev or to provoke a regime change in Kiev. By the way, the Russians never suggested an alternative to Zelensky, by the way. When we say regime change, that means that you have an alternative. The US, when they talk about regime change in Russia, they had in mind Navalny. It's very childish, by the way, but when you talk about regime change, what is the alternative that you suggest? What are you coming with? The Russian had never had any alternative, because they didn't want a regime change. They were happy with Zelensky, basically. Remember that Zelensky was elected with the mandate of making peace with the Russians. Basically, the problem is that the power in Ukraine has been hijacked by other forces than the party of Zelensky. That's probably the problem, but it was not an idea of regime change. For that reason, today, the things might be slightly different. I admit that. At that time, it was certainly not an objective of the Russian, but why did they go in the area of Kiev? Because if Kiev would be attacked, there's no way that the Ukrainian army would let that happen. As a result, all the strategic reserves of the Ukrainian army, which were stationed in the center and the western part of the country, would be pinned down around Kiev by this threat. For that reason, the main direction of operation, the Donbas, could not expect to have a reinforcement on Ukraine inside. That's operational art, basically. Basically, it's like playing chess, but you think five or eight around in advance. That's exactly the thing. That's very much your personal art. By the way, this is the same kind of thing that we had in the general staff, the Russian generals, that they study very much the late phases of the Second World War, because these are the phases in which the operational art of the then Soviet army was at its best. The whole operation was really developed and really implemented. It has been theorized since the mid-30s, roughly, but then in the mid-50s, in 1944-1945, it was really implemented. These operations, I remember when I visited the General Staff Academy in Moscow, the Voroshirof Academy. I was surprised to see that the students were studying these operations, because these are still in the... That shows also this intellectual continuity between the Second World War up to today. They understand that war is something that goes beyond politics as such, and that the principle that you establish, that you can develop, implement, improve, this goes together with thinking. That's why all these lessons of Second World War are still taught in the military academies in Russia. That's operational. And then strategy. This strategy is basically where military art and politics meet somehow. So what do you want to achieve? And that's where when Vladimir Putin said demilitarization and denatification. In fact, somehow he stated an operational objective, probably, because it had a flavor of strategy, but the strategic objective was probably to come after the militarization and denatification, and that was the neutralization of Ukraine. And that's probably what the Russians are still pursuing now, is this aspect. And the idea that the war in Ukraine could end without reaching that point, I think, is a little bit an illusion, because the Russians see that neutralization as existential, existential for many reasons. First of all, because the neutralization of Ukraine is not a self-sufficient objective, if you want. Even the proximity of NATO, very often I mentioned this example of a Turkey entering NATO in 1952. But the Soviets at that time were bothered, but they could live with that. The problem came 10 years later, as the Americans started to station the nuclear weapon, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey. And that triggered then the reaction of the Soviets to deploy missiles in Cuba. And that started the Cuban crisis. But the starting point was, in fact, the stationing of nuclear weapons at the border of Soviet Union. And why that? Because the Soviets know that the Americans have nuclear weapons, so that's no doubt about that. But if a nuclear missile, let's say, to put it very simply, starts from somewhere in the Atlantic and go make its way or try to make its way to Moscow or wherever in Russia. You still have the time to react to this. You still have the time to activate your own defenses. You may probably even the time to talk, to, let's say, the US president, for instance, just to make sure if it's not an accident, or if it's the coercion of war, whatever, you have this or whatever. That's exactly the problem that happened during the Cuban missile crisis that you had at the end of the day. You had the two presidents, I mean, the security of the Soviet Communist Party in the Soviet Union. But you had to have this communication to make sure that, okay, we can settle the thing. Now we everything must calm down and we solve the issue. And you can do that if you have enough distance between the two. If the missiles are right and you're at your border, that means they can strike your own territory within seconds, there's no time to react. There's absolutely no time to react. And for that reason, the risk of going into a world nuclear war is bigger if those weapons are very close to the border. And that's the very concern of the Russian. More than NATO itself, the problem, the very problem that Russia has, in fact, with NATO or with the US to be more precise is, in fact, the key date is 2002, when the Americans started to withdraw from all the arms control agreements, meaning that they opened the door for stashing nuclear weapons at the Russian border, as they started to do in Poland and Romania and all that. That's the real concern. And if you had the same scenario happening in Ukraine, meaning stashing of nuclear weapons or nuclear missiles within kilometers from Moscow, I mean, you opened the door for the World War War III and probably all over all nuclear war. And that's exactly, by the way, what Vladimir Putin said, as Macron visited him in, they had a meeting with, I think it was Macron, I think, in Moscow early February 2022. And in the press conference, Putin explained exactly what I'm explaining now. The problem is nobody wanted to listen to that, because everybody will tell you that it's the right of Ukraine to join NATO. And that, I think, the Russians basically, although no, I think the question will be excluded. But in essence, the Russians are less concerned by NATO as such than that the way the US could use that membership to station troops, that's the real problem for, because once the country belongs to NATO, so to say, then there is no limit in stashing nuclear weapons and all that. And for the Russians, the issue of tactical strategy, cooperation weapons, they don't make that distinction at a doctoral level. They just say a nuclear weapon, because they perfectly know that if you start using a nuclear weapon, regardless of the yield of that weapon, it is a nuclear weapon, and basically could be used, could trigger retaliation and things like that. And that's also why, by the way, coming back to France at Macron in Ukraine, Macron thinks that he's protected because he's a nuclear power. But if it's in Ukraine, will he really use nuclear weapons? Certainly not. Basically, the French doctrine to use nuclear weapons is to protect the national territory. That means the territory of France itself, which the goal and the French strategy used to say, to define as sanctuaries, sanctuaries, is a sanctuarized territory. And any threat against this very territory could be answered by nuclear threat. But the unit deployed in Ukraine is not France, is not the French territory. So, meaning that Macron, regardless of how many nuclear missiles he has, he will not be able to use them. And the Russians could even, they will certainly not do that, because the Russians have also, as doctrine, that the nuclear weapons will be used only if there is an existential threat against the institutions or the territory. But I think they insist on institutions, basically, leadership and all the what makes the Russia functioning. So, meaning that even if the French or the even NATO units would be deployed in Ukraine, this would probably not consist as such as a threat to an existential threat. But anyway, assuming the Russians would consider that as existential threat, and they would launch a tactical nuclear weapon or a small nuclear weapon on these French troops. What can French or French do? retaliates with a nuclear strike in Moscow. Probably not, because that would be the end of Paris. The Elisé would probably look like Gaza today. So, this is exactly the point here that the Russians are really making more as we play chess. I mean, a professional play chess. And that's something the French have not understood. I mean, Macron has not understood, probably. But again, when I say Macron, I also involve to some extent his staff and his advisors and all that, because it seems that nobody wants to understand the realities of war and what means being involved in the war against Russia. Well, I think we just learned a huge amount. Just wanted to tell off with two points that you've just made. Firstly, about the advance on Kiev and this is in an appealing operation, in effect, keeping the force in the Ukrainians to deploy their troops there. It's a very little known fact, but the chief of operations of the Russian general staff, General Rudskoy, who is still, by the way, the chief of operations of the Russian general staff, he explained that exactly at the end of March 2022. He actually provided a whole commentary, which you can still find on the Russian defense ministry website, in which he explained that that had been all along the exact point of this. And for some reason, well, maybe unsurprisingly, of course, nobody ever talks about that, what the actual Russians said about that operation, it's just disappeared into a memory hole. So that is one thing that I wanted to say. The second about Russian concern about nuclear weapons and specifically nuclear missiles in NATO countries and close to their territory and in Ukraine specifically. Again, a very little known fact is that in the run up to the start of the conflict, in January or February 2022, Putin and Biden had a virtual summit meeting. And over the course of that summit meeting, Biden told Putin that he was prepared to promise that the United States would not deploy nuclear weapons to Ukraine, nuclear missiles to Ukraine. And the Russians came away, as I well remember, very optimistic about that. But of course, by this point, trust was already starting to evaporate. They then contacted the Americans to see whether that would be confirmed in the various agreements. And of course, the Russians at that point had proposed draft treaties. And of course, what happened was immediately the US walked it back. So Biden said something in this virtual meeting with Putin, but in fact, subsequently the Americans within days, the Americans have walked it back. Ray McGovern, by the way, who has also made exactly the same points as Jack Baughis made about the collapse of analytical thinking within the Western intelligence agencies. Anyway, he's discussed this point about what Biden said to Putin about nuclear weapons in Ukraine and the walk back by the United States shortly after. He's discussed that in several programs and pieces that he has written. Well, Jack Baugh, we have now been talking for an hour and 35 minutes. I knew that it would be a fascinating and prolonged discussion. I think that we're going to be returning to these topics many times. If you are willing in future to give us more of your very valuable time, we are very grateful to you for coming on this program. I think at this point, I'm going to stop and hand over to Alex. He's probably lots of questions coming to us at some undoubtedly addressed, specifically to yourself. I think this is where I will finish with my thanks and hand over to Alex, who will now discuss these with you. Can you stay with us for maybe just 10, 15 minutes to answer a couple of questions? No problem. No problem. Great. Great. Great. Sanjeva wants to know, Jack, do you think Russia underestimated Ukraine at the start? Even now they appear not prepared at times. Or is it just incompetence at junior level officers? Well, I'm not sure that Russia underestimated Ukraine. In fact, if we look at the facts, we can see that the Ukraine potential was de facto destroyed in May, June 2022. And at that point, Zelensky himself said that Ukraine was depending on the West for continuing the war, because the potential was destroyed. Meaning that, again, if we look the war just at the territory gained by Russia also, we may have a wrong impression of the conflict. Because, as we said before, the conflict was not about territory, but about destroying a potential. And this potential was destroyed for the very first time in May, June 2022. From that point on, you started to have equipment flowing from Europe, especially from the eastern part of Europe. They started to provide all Soviet type equipment to the Ukrainians. You had refitted or remodernized T-72s and all equipment delivered by Poland, Czechoslovak and so on to Ukraine. And that's almost, I would say, the second Ukrainian army. And the second Ukrainian army, so to say, was destroyed by the end of 2022. And at this point, then, the western countries came and that was then the issue of providing challengers, Brahms tank, Leopards 2, and so on, bradlays and so on. And what we have now, or up to mid 2022, is this third type Ukrainian army, with a mix of former Ukrainian equipment, a part of East European equipment, and a part of obsolete western equipment. And this kind of patchwork type of army started this so-called counter-offensive, could not make it. And today, we are in a situation where the West has to acknowledge that it's not able to provide any, let's say, substantive or substantial, best of said, best substantial support to Ukraine. That's exactly the meeting in Ramstein in January February, just confirmed that the West is not able to do it. It's not the willingness that is missing. It's a capability, the capacity that are missing. So, in fact, Russia, if you just consider the objective, demilitarization, denazification, in fact, they achieved those objectives. So, in that sense, I cannot say that they underestimated the Ukrainian army. What they probably underestimated is the willingness of the West to prolong that war. That's probably what they underestimated, because, in fact, we have to remember that the special operations started on the 24th of February. But on the 25th of February, that means one day later, Zelensky called the Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs to organize a peace conference. That means that one day after the beginning of the operation, the Ukrainians, I mean, the leadership Zelensky, obviously, understood that the situation was getting complicated for Ukraine. And the European Union stepped in and said, no, there is no discussion. Here is a first package of 450 million euros for weapons, and you continue fighting. And this first round of discussion or negotiation that happened in Gomel at the Belarus border collapsed, and then we continue war. And soon after that, the third round started in Istanbul, where Zelensky made his second attempt to negotiate with the Russians. And this was then canceled by Boris Johnson, but apparently also by the Germans and the French, who actually were also in the background. Boris Johnson appeared almost officially there to ask Zelensky to withdraw his proposal, his peace proposal. And we mentioned that the Russians were ready to go into the discussion, but Boris Johnson came and that this proposal was withdrawn. And it's interesting, because at that time, and we are talking about beginning April 2022, the Ukrainian press reported that the major obstacles to the peace were the West. That that appeared in Ukraine in Krenska, so meaning that there was the Ukrainians were conscious that things were going bad, and they had to negotiate. And they had to talk to the Ukrainian. In fact, it's a pressure of the West that altered our understanding of the conflict. Again, we tend to assess the conflict based on what we see on the map. But one more time, the problem is not territory. It's a qualitative objective. It's a distraction of a potential, not to gain territories. And for that, the Russians, in fact, achieved their objectives. Now, the problem is that they will achieve this objective on the worst way, in the sense that instead of destroying just the military potential as anybody would understand, they will destroy this potential in depth. That means that you will have a vast part of the population that will probably be lost in that process. A vast part of the economy will be lost by Ukraine in this process, and probably most, if not all, the armament's production capabilities will be destroyed in that process. So, in fact, by not acknowledging the fact that Russia has achieved this objective, we are pushing Ukraine into the disaster. By the way, it's interesting to see the rhetoric. One year ago, even more, the West had as I did that Russia has lost the war, and Russia will lose the war. And today, what Macron says is that we cannot allow Russia to win the war. So, the change of rhetoric says exactly what the nature of the problem. So, Russia is winning this war because we tried to push, in fact, what we did, was to fight up to the last Ukrainian. And that's exactly what we are doing. This is exactly what Lindsay Graham was saying. We are doing exactly that. And again, it's always easier to make war with the blood of others. And that's exactly what the West is doing. From Claude, hi from Quebec City. You have a good one, excellent. Messy. And another comment thanking you, Mr. Jacques Spade. Bonjour Jacques. And the rest is in French. My French is not very good. Let's see here. A question from Serbia. War with West is existential to Russia, but is war with Russia existential to the West. Why have France and Germany been conquered? Many times over, yet always remain on the map. Is Russia's fate abnormal? Well, the problem here with Russia is that we talked about this balance of forces in terms of nuclear weapons. But there is something a little bit more perverse behind the whole thing. And namely, that the US State Department has a project to disband Russia, to dismantle Russia, to break Russia down in something between, there are different models between 18 and 32 countries based on the nationalities that are within Russia. So meaning that, in the mind of certain people in the West, this is not just the problem of having a weak or a very deeply weakened Russia. It's also about dismantling Russia as we know on the map and having something which becomes strategically meaningless. The problem is here, that the US still contemplates the idea of confronting in some way China. And there are two models to approach in this perspective. One is that Russia could be weakened enough not to be allied to China, or that means that it could not reinforce or not be a support to China. And the other one is that we could make Russia to integrate Russia into the Western Hemisphere, I mean, politically, integrate it to the West, so that it is not willing to reinforce China. These two models, it's a little bit roughly described here, a little more refined way to understand these two concepts. But these models were discussed on several times in foreign affairs, foreign policy, and other such magazines in the between 2017 to 2020. And probably what we are seeing here is the worst case for Russia, that means that instead of making a friend of Russia, we try to destroy it. And that's when Vladimir Putin said that this conflict is existential. It's a reality because this idea of dismantling Russia has been the subject of, I may be wrong, but I think it's about seven different international conferences in the last two years within Europe, including one that was held in the building of the European Parliament, meaning that we are not just talking about the view of some fancy intellectual somewhere, but it's a real policy that the West has to dismantle, to balkanize, or to, in fact, to have Russia having the same fate as exugoslavia, basically. And for that reason, the Russians consider this fight as existential. Now, on the other side, Russia is a country that probably even during the Cold War, by the way, has never really had the intention to attack the West. In fact, I mentioned in one of my book a report of the CIA that was published on classified in the early '90s about the policy of the Soviet Union and the risk of war during the Cold War. And the CIA assessed that probably the West exaggerated the idea that Soviet Union would attack the Western Europe. And, okay, we were not making remaking history, but I mean, today is probably the same thing. This idea of Russian expansionism and so on, I think it's more than a little bit like a myth. Russia has always been very keen to have a buffer zone around itself, to avoid all these intervention that Russia has suffered in the last couple of centuries. But a buffer zone doesn't mean that they would own that territory. The buffer zone could be meant by having good alliance with other countries, that it is in good relationship with other countries. That's the reason why after the fall of the or the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Russia started to have treaties with all these countries. It was not to reconstruct the Soviet Union, but to have this kind of buffer zone of friendly countries around him. And that's something we don't really try to understand in the West. We always see that in a confrontational way. The Russians, after the Cold War, were in fact, not demanding, but they were open and in fact they adopted the Western type of society, in fact. It has been adjusted to the Russian context. But they adopted, for instance, the open society with open trade and things like that, these kind of things. And they sincerely wanted, I remember, having visited Russia just after the fall of the war when that was the early '90s. And incidentally, I was part of the delegation were discussing different methods, including NATO, by the way, with the Russian high command. We were noting that these guys had absolutely no intent to retrieve the big Soviet Union and all that. They realized that the Soviet Union was probably something, probably too big. That was something that in the long road could not function. I think they realized that. And they were happy with having Russia, which is Russia and other countries. But they were very keen to keep very good relations with these countries. The problem is that these countries, typically the Baltic states or Ukraine, as an example, Belarus is an exception. But the other countries considered that in order to have the support of the West, they had to be totally pro-American. And they were even more royalists than the king in some way. And that's exactly what happened with the Baltic states that became, probably, and I've been five years in NATO. And when I was talking to my fellow colleagues from the so-called old Europe, meaning France, Italy, Germany, they always surprised by the disproportionate influence that those small countries, like the Baltic state, had in NATO. Because they were the most fervent supporter to the US. And in fact, the US is using these guys in order to support its own. And you have several NATO structures that have been built into these countries, by the way, like the Strategic Communication Excellence Center, things like that, which are based in the Baltic. So the Baltics have gained a huge importance in NATO, this proportionate importance. And the US is very happy with that, because they have, and that's exactly what Rumsfeld used to say. There's the old Europe and the new Europe, the old Europe that was that opposed the intervention in Iraq and the new Europe that was supportive to the intervention in Iraq. And in fact, you still have this division within NATO with an increasing importance of the eastern part of Europe, of the new Europe, the Eastern Europe. And of course, since those countries are at the border with Russia, these are the countries where you can deploy weapons, that you can deploy your troops, that you can have base and including deploy like anti so-called anti-ballistic missile, but that have a ballistic missile capability, like in Poland and Romania. So these countries will accept anything from the US. In that sense, they are the most servile allies of the of the US in NATO and therefore they have a lot of importance. So but in reality, Russia was probably underestimated that aspect. But the idea that Russia contemplates having a conquest of Europe and and all the the ideas that are circulating today, that Russia could be a threat to Europe, just because Putin wants to expand his territory has absolutely no sense in the military doctrine, has no sense also on the political landscape. I mean, the Russians have never said that. This is something that came in the brains of all elites, but you don't see that in in Russia. And so therefore Russia is no existential threat to Europe. I think Russia is well has only good intention, I think, towards Europe. And basically, it has never shown that it had bad intentions toward Europe. And again, we are now witnessing the problem having, in fact, Russia as an enemy so far, because I mean, I'm talking about the sanctions and all that. We see that it doesn't make sense. And we don't even see ourselves the benefit of having Russia as an enemy. Or probably it's just a purpose of having an enemy. Because one of the concern in the NATO is, of course, that NATO is a defensive alliance. Okay, fair with fair enough. But when you are defensive alliance, you need an enemy. And that's a real concern in the in the in NATO. I was surprised because we have this similar discussion in Switzerland, for instance, not part of NATO. Therefore, we have the concern of why do we have an army? Because we don't expect an attack from Germany, from France, or from Liechtenstein, or from Austria. So the question was asked within Switzerland, why do we need an enemy? And when I was in the NATO, I noticed that the NATO has in fact exactly the same type of question. Why do we exist? Because if we have, if we have, we are in good terms with Russia, then what is our enemy? That, by the way, that's a reason why the intervention in Afghanistan came at the right point in the early 2000s. Because then you had the German minister saying that the security of Europe starts at the Indo-Kush. So, which is quite odd if you think about it. But that was the justification to send troops to Afghanistan. Today, we see that the security of Europe starts with having good relationships with our neighbors, in fact. But interestingly, enough, this is also the way the Russians understood the new security architecture of Europe after the Cold War. Because they had in mind, and by the way, the OSCE, which was before the CSE, Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the CSE was an idea coming from the Soviet Union, at the origin. It was then hijacked by the West and became the OSCE. But the idea of OSCE was to have a platform for cooperating on the European continent. And after the Cold War, the Russians had exactly the same idea. I mean, they were not against NATO, because they realized that it's probably necessary to have a structure in which you organize and coordinate your defense systems. I think there is nothing wrong with that. But that this could be extended in a way of developing security, not based on confrontation, but based on cooperation. And I think this idea, that basically the idea of Gorbachev, when he was talking with the common house or something like that. And he was taking an idea of the goal that the goal developed even during the Cold War, to have a European security based on cooperation rather than confrontation. And the Russians were very interested by this kind of proposal. And when I went to Moscow to discuss with very, very high level of the highest level of the command of the Soviet military, and we talked also with the Minister of Defense, and also with member of the parliament at that time, we could see that this idea was very much present at that time. This idea that now that the Warsaw Pact had been disbanded, there was an empty room, and this empty room could be filled with a system that linked everybody together instead of recreate confrontation. In the NATO, it's interesting because one of my friends in NATO is a guy that I knew when I was working, I worked for six months or so as a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. And one of the guys who is in charge of the development of NATO today used to work with me in the ISS in London at that time. And he told me that, in fact, this is a problem in NATO to what's next, what's how NATO should develop. And the current NATO that does exist is in fact just an updated version of the NATO that existed in 1949, basically. It's not really intellectually evolved. But there were a lot of thinking within NATO to develop a NATO, which is based more on cooperation and try to solve the issue of having, let's say, security based on other aspects. And that takes on reports or studies that have been made in the '60s. My mayor reminds you the Rapport Armel. It's a report that was published in 1967 that anticipated the end of NATO and a new NATO based on cooperation and other security issues, interestingly, like terrorism, like environment. It's fascinating to read this report that was written more than 50 years ago and that anticipated the end of the current NATO. And thus, people thinking about this report in NATO now, but so far, we are still in the old-fashioned type of NATO. And NATO has not understood, in fact, the reality. And NATO, by its own existence, creates the problem, in fact. And from Elaine, eye-opening comparisons, does Jacques feel that our ignorant politicians and military will ever learn from their present terrible delusions? This is a philosophical question. And my experience is that we don't learn, we don't learn things. We are not unable to learn. And we have a very short memory. And that relates very much to the type of leaders we have. I mean, you may remember that we had this pretty prime minister in Finland that was caught into some kind of scandal with Santa Maria. Exactly. And I don't remember what she was smoking, but in any case, that was a problem. But interestingly enough, recently, now she's no longer in this capacity. And a paper made an interview of her and asked her what motivated her to be prime minister. And interestingly enough, she said, "Well, I just wanted to have an experience." And that shows exactly, I think, the mentality of our leaders today. They are not deeply concerned by the reality of the people on the ground of the people that are in the countries. They are just interested by their own agenda, by their own network, probably, and probably to open new opportunities and things like that. But they are not really committed to the task they were elected for. And in that sense, these guys, they are not dedicated to improve things. They just want to solve their own, even not even solve their own concerns. But they are just, I don't know, they are just concerned by what concerned themselves individually, personally, but not collectively. So I'm afraid that we are not going in the right direction on that way. We don't have people like we had in the '60s. I mentioned the goal, Conrad, Idenauer, Villebrand, all these guys who had not only a personality, but also a vision for the future that had a sense of the state, of the importance of international relations, and not just the perspective of reacting to a tweet. So decision-making was thoroughly thought through, and then we tried to make effective decisions. They were probably not always good. I'm not able to judge that, but at least we tried to take time to make decisions. Today, we decide instantly. So I'm afraid that, unfortunately, we are not going in the direction of learning from the past, unfortunately. >> Yeah, time for one more question. Let's do one more. From Mille, "What are the chances Russia will focus on Poltava, Chernikov, the Nipro Petrovskiev, and the Nipro shoreline by simply going around Sumi and Hakov?" >> Well, that's a good question. And probably Alexander is better placed to answer that question than me, because he makes a careful daily assessment of the situation, and he knows much better than me. But since I want to give an answer, I would say that, in fact, what we are doing now is to push the questions to go further, and probably to go much further as they initially wanted to go. Because they realize that since the West wants to prolong the war, that means they will have to destroy even more Ukrainian potential. That means they have to advance more. I mean, two years ago, when it was the question of providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, I mean, missiles with 300 kilometers range, Rasege Lavrov say, "Well, if you give missiles that are 300 kilometers, you're just forcing us to move forward 300 kilometers." And that's exactly how the Russians will think. So that means if we press them to push, they will push. And that's why, in fact, what we are doing now is just pressing the Russians to crush even more the Russian army. That means, basically, that ideally, what they would do is to wait for the Ukrainians to come and crush them on the spot. That's what they have done in Mahmoud, for instance. But the problem is that you can do that up to a certain point, but if you are in a city, for instance, you can crush people in one building. But then you may want to go to the next building to crush them and so on. And that's exactly what we are seeing now. That's why probably the Russians will be forced to move ahead, to proceed, to destroy the forces that we arm permanently. So I cannot anticipate exactly how they will act and in which direction they will go. If they will go into Harkov or just bypass Harkov, I have no idea. And as I said, probably others are better places than me to answer that question. But the thing is that if they have the resources and the will to move ahead, if we force them to go ahead, and they will probably go to Odysseil, they will probably go to Neapropotrovsk, if we force them to do so. That's the thing. And probably, eventually to Kiev, I don't know. But I'm sure that it was not the primary intent. I think the situation that the Russians had in mind from the very beginning was the situation that emerged at mid-March 2022, as Zelensky made the proposal. That's, in fact, the situation the Russians were expecting. In fact, that we find a solution that forced a settlement, and that resettled the situation on both sides, and that the Ukrainians acknowledge that there is a need for the Russians in Ukraine to have a proper life in this country. And that was it. The Russians never claimed that Dombas republics should be part of Russia. They never claimed that. It was, I remember that at the beginning, even in the Minsk agreement, these republics were supposed to remain within Ukraine. And that's absolutely what the Russians want. So they never aimed at gaining territory. They wanted to settle a situation. And since we are forcing them to advance and destroy the Ukrainian potential, they will continue to do so. So it's a little bit up to us, but as we said, probably we have a leadership that is not able to understand these kind of things. Yes. Well said. Jacques, thank you very much for joining us on this live stream. I have your information for your books in the description box down below. We appreciate your insight and your time. It was a fantastic show. That was my pleasure very much. I mean, as I said, I follow you every day. I think your shows are brilliant, really, and absolutely necessary and very happy to having been part of one of them today. Well, we are immensely grateful for the time that you have given us. And we look forward, hopefully, that we'll be able to do this again soon, because I'm sure that we are, well, I'm sure that we're going to have a lot more happening in Ukraine and in the confrontation between the West and Russia and who better to discuss these matters with than your... My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Wow, great show. Amazing show, actually. I really would, I really would, I mean, I strongly recommend this book on the Russian art of war. It is different from most other books that you read about war. It actually looks inside the mind of the other side. It explains to you how decision-making is taken, how they think about war, and what war is for the Russians, which is different from what it is in the West. And by the way, going back to that last question, I mean, I think that it's important always to remember that the Russians, and this is a point that Jack Wall makes very forcefully in his book, war is a holistic thing. It is political. It is military. It is economic. It is all of those things at the same time. So talking about particular cities in Ukraine, the Russians will attack them or not, in terms of whether or not they sit, they think it will work towards achieving their objective. And that's the way to look at this, if it helps them to capture chairman golf, if it achieves the objective to capture a place like chairman golf, maybe they will do it. But if they think they can achieve their objective more economically in some other way, they will take that other way, which makes it very difficult for us who are looking outside as to second guess what they're going to do at any particular point on the battle trunks. Well said, let's get through the rest of the questions, Alexander. Fleet Lord Atovar says good good from rumble. Thank you for that. From another Alex, so appreciate Jack's being on with a and a phenomenal discussion. Thanks, gentlemen. Absolutely. And hey, man, 0123 says the survival of the Russian economy has effectively maneuvered us into a military conflict with Russia and an economic conflict with China. The empire's European successors will render any pivot unsuccessful. Oh, yeah, brilliantly put, by the way, I think that's exactly correct. Okay, can I just say that, of course, we didn't discuss economics in this program, but this was also, I absolutely am convinced that there are no doubt about this at all, that this was what the West thought was going to be their key to victory. The sanctions war was what was going to defeat the Russians, stop them in their tracks, and bring them, bring them down and force regime change in Moscow and do all of those things. And the moment that fails, we see how all of the things that we start to, you know, we've been talking about within this live stream, have been playing through, and the West really doesn't know what, how to respond to them. Yeah, we always said in our shows that once the economic war was won by Russia, once they got through that period of the hundreds and thousands of sanctions that they were throwing on Russia, I mean, I remember it was a couple of weeks, it was never ending every day. There were new sanctions on businesses, on individuals, on everything, but once Russia got through that, the war was over. It was a done deal, Russia had won it. All right, all Danielson, welcome to the drag community. Sanjeva says, "My heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies to all Russian viewers in regards to the recent tragedy and may God bless all victims of the attack." Bless you, Sanjeva, thank you for that. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people here, and who would add to what you've just said. OMG Métis says, "Off topic, what is going on with the UK sanctioning China?" It's an extraordinary story. And in fact, lots of anger today from me and Duncan Smith, former head of the Conservative Party, that we haven't sanctioned China enough. The United States is a quarrel with China, so Britain must also have a quarrel with China. Britain getting into a battle with China, really, it can't. I mean, it's absurd. It is ridiculous. And reading what the British is saying about this, reading what people like Ian Duncan Smith say about this again, one gets a sense of such disconnection from reality. You know, the British do a few sanctions here, a few sanctions there. All it's going to do is annoy the Chinese. And in every other respect, it will achieve nothing. Nothing. Stephen Wilder says, "Good day, everyone." Sparky says, "Make Russia, make Ukraine Russia again. Don't even leave a patch called Ukraine. List it remains a NATO playground, carpet bagger, money laundering, and becomes a black rock property." Well, you may very well achieve that, which we see what you mentioned there actually happened, because Medvedev has been talking like that for a long time. And I think that more and more Russians, including Putin himself, are slowly edging to that, that this is the only illogical outcome whereby their objectives can now be achieved. We want that. We made that happen, by the way. And in Colorosian 1345, I think that's a sticker. Elena says, "The Germans never defeated the Ukrainian front. Now Russia have done it. Tornado is a win in Ukraine, a Pyrrhic victory." I'm not quite sure that I understand that. If you're talking about the Ukrainian front, the first Ukrainian front, or whatever it was, this was a Soviet army. It was not Ukrainian as such. It was a part of the Red Army made up of many, many different nationalities, but predominantly, as the entire Red Army was, principally Russian, that fought you in the Second World War. I seem to remember it was the first Belorussian front and the second Ukrainian front that captured Berlin. Now, the point is that they were strategic directions, that they were created in 1944, in order, initially, for the Red Army to regain control of Belarus and Ukraine. That was where the designations came from. The Red Army was successful, obviously, in capturing Belarus and Ukraine, and then they moved west and they got all the way to Berlin. But it's a constant misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what these Red Army designations were. They were purely labels intended to define the geographical scope of the areas of operations of specific armies during the Second World War. Soviet, principally, Russian armies during the Second World War. Euler Durden says, "Thanks, gentlemen. Anon Kaurisian says, "My real question is, why wasn't Gorbachev charged with high treason after the collapse of the Soviet Union?" That's a question for the Russians. I think that you must always remember something about the end of the Soviet Union, an awful lot of people in Russia wanted the Soviet Union to end. The governments that succeeded Gorbachev, they welcomed, Jossim welcomed the end of the Soviet Union. In some ways, he played, oh, not in some ways, in fact, he played a bigger role in thinking about the end of the Soviet Union than Gorbachev himself did. This is a much more complicated story. Gorbachev wanted to reform the Soviet Union. Others in Russia at that time wanted to end it. So putting Gorbachev on trial for treason would not have been, I think, made much sense at that time because what happened under his rule was just desires, and to a great extent, engineered by so many others. OMG Puppy says, "You've discussed Victoria Newland and the Cagans. Cagans, are you familiar with Norm Eisen at Brookings? I believe he wrote the playbook for color revolution and a strategic leader of anti-Trump operations." I don't know very much about this person. Victoria Newland was, of course, right at the heart of the State Department. Brookings is very influential. I mean, no question about this, but it is ultimately Newland, who went to Maidan Square, spoke for the American U.S. government, telephone, Jeffrey Payett, the ministers in Ukraine's government, and has played similar roles in all kinds of other things around the world. Sparky says, "I've seen reports directly observe actions or things who don't know what they're looking at oversimplified. They see drones, but report them as a flock of birds. Same happens with intelligence." Absolutely correct. That's entirely wrong. I mean, again, this is a point going back to what Jack brought, which was just be saying of these programs about the fact that the data collection has become the absolute end of intelligence. Assessment and analysis has just basically been lost. And a number of people, including a number of people in the intelligence world or former intelligence world have just told me there is just too much data. I mean, there is so much data now that the analysts' people get swamped, it's impossible to actually assess and weigh it up properly anymore. And then Congressman says it's a long time to take the gloves off through the horrible tragedy in Moscow. Well, I think that, again, we go back to what Jack brought was saying, but for the Russians, it's a film for us. It's a sequence of photographs. So, you know, if you're talking about the event in Moscow, we are focused overwhelmingly on it. And I don't want to downplay its significance. But for the Russians, it's a massive, enormously important event, but it's not going to interfere with their pursuit of victory in the achievement of the objectives that they have in Ukraine and in geopolitical terms. And that will shape their responses. Robin R, thank you for that, super chat. La Gevas says all the best. Anna and Colerian, thank you for that, super sticker. Bahati, thank you for that, super chat, John. And welcome to the direct community. Kleska News says very interesting guests. Explains a lot. Sparky says this brings to mind an American saying, do something even if it's wrong. Zissi Carlianis, thank you for that, super sticker. Anna and Colerian says Russia must win, period. Jamila Aspou says, thank you guys. We need to say no to war, no to NATO. Sanjeva, thank you for that, super sticker. Tim Gibson, thank you for that, super sticker. Igor, thank you for that, super sticker. Elza, thank you for that, super sticker. Thomas, welcome to the drag community. Anon, welcome to the drag community. Niko says, you should make a video with Levan about Russia. I saw him and he was almost in tears, also called McGregor Adima instead of Davies, his hypocrite. Harry C. Smith says, maybe Kremlin will now have to upgrade SMO to counter terrorism up, if Kiev involved, instead of all the way to legally declared war. I think CTO is in between them, but permits way more than an SMO. Well, we'll have to wait and see, we'll see where all this goes. I mean, there's been a lot of statements coming from Russian officials even as we've been making this program. Patruzhev put its national security adviser, he's made comments, which appear to link Ukraine to this event. Bautnik of the FSB adviser is making even more strong comments, by the way. So we'll see. I think over time, the Russians will assess this, they'll come to a conclusion, they'll decide what to do. But, going back to that previous point about the Russians taking their time, the Russians think before they act, doesn't mean that they don't act. This is what we've just been hearing. They may not always get it right, but they are very calculated in their responses. And they will think through what they do before they do it. And it says to me, it seems the more reasonable a government in the EU is, the more the bureaucrats in the MSM attacks them, or a bond. Are they afraid of reason? Well, indeed, and apparently feeds it, they're not coming off to him. It's really obvious about this, just the other day, that apparently he's now absolutely more than an old bond that he's invested in. Nikko says, "Also happy Independence Day for Greece. I am 24. Greece doesn't want its children. I am not proud of Greece, but I'm always be proud of being Greek." If that twin sister, thank you for that super chat. Z12 IT, thank you for that super chat. Brian Levin says fantastic information. Thanks guys. Elza says, "Is there any reasonable explanation for NATO officials giving advice to the Ukrainians based on Germany fighting in 1943-44?" Well, I'm not even sure that they're doing that, because had they been giving advice based on all the Germans actually encountered in 1943-44, they would have told the Ukrainians for heaven's sake, make peace. I didn't know what exactly is the advice that they've been giving to Ukraine. My overall impression of American and European military leaders at the very top level, I could have said frankly, I have been very disillusioned for the course of the last two years. The counter-offensive was a piece of complete idiocy that the Germans would not have done something as catastrophically crazy as that. I mean, the Germans had some understanding of war. I mean, I didn't know what advice they're giving them, and I don't know that they're giving advice that's a tool thought through or intelligent or whatever. The British are now helping the Ukrainians, so they think to launch these attacks on ships in the Black Sea. It just looks disorganized, fragmented, chaotic to me without any real plan behind it. Lorna Dodd, welcome to the Duran community. Peg Durb says, "Great discussion, please have Bob back again to talk about the conflict in Palestine." Thanks. Zeshan, thank you for that super sticker. Lorna says, "Great work, thanks. 437 THX1138 says Duran, Duran, hungry like the wolf. He do a great service for society. Thank you." Ian Perkins, welcome to the Duran community. 437 THX1138 says, "Would trade Biden for Putin, articulate intelligence and maybe a touch of brutality? He is Russia versus a guy that can barely walk or talk. West is done." Rafik Adams says, "What is the calculation of Russia in deciding whether to annex the rest of Western Ukraine rather than risking coming into NATO's corporate occupation?" I simply don't know what the Russians are thinking and working out there. I think that the gradual calculation that the Russians are coming to is that the survival of the Ukrainian state is currently constituted is now becoming impossible for them. There was the statement that was made a few days ago by Pescov, who was Putin's spokesman, in which he said that Russia cannot coexist with a state on its border that plans constantly military attacks on places like Crimea and Donbass. This is Putin's spokesman. I actually think that was a more important statement in some way than the one he made about Russia being at war. You are seeing this evolution in Russian thinking. They need to protect themselves. I think this is motivated by defense and security issues. They're starting increasingly to come round to the view that people like Sparky have been expressing for a long time, that the very existence of a Ukrainian state, as it exists now, is incompatible with Russian security, that the West will always try to use that state against them, and that within Ukraine itself there will always be political factions that will be prepared to work with the West against Russia. I don't know whether the Russians have formulated some longer-term plan about what to do with this territory. We'll have to wait and see, but this is, I think, the view that they're just ever so gradually and steadily coming round to. Vladimir Rose says, "Bookinization of Russia became EU's policy due to greed for Russia-rich natural resources," which the EU doesn't have. Remember, Nazi Germany moved towards the USSR with similar goals to get their hands on resources. Well, can I just say, in support of a bit of what you've said, that one of the things that I discovered, this is a long time ago, was the enormous importance for the Europeans of the Third Energy Initiative, which they passed in the early 2000s, and which was supposed to force the Russians to open up their energy industry to European acquisitions. The idea was that European companies would be able to establish themselves in Russia itself. Like Shell works in Nigeria, Shell would be able to work directly in Russia, not working with a Russian partner company, but just directly going there and exploiting Russian oil and gas fuels right from the start. So they got Yeltsin to sign the Third Energy package, and Putin came along, and he said, "Absolutely not. We're not doing this. We're not ratifying this agreement. We've put Yeltsin signed it, but we're not ratifying it. It's not going to work for us." And that, in my opinion, was the start, the real start of the whole massive deterioration in relations between Europe, the EU, and the West, and the Russians, rather, because they realized that the Russians were reasserting control over their natural resources. Rafael says, "U.S. panicked after the shooting, and Putin knows it." Well, I've said this before. Another very important person has been writing to us, somebody we'll be interviewing very shortly about, "Me thinks they do protest too much about all of these furious and ISIS, only ISIS, no one else but ISIS. How can they possibly be so sure about that?" But they are protesting too much, and it does show nervousness. JP Joplian, thank you for that super chat. GAB says, "Hi gentlemen, great show. Thanks for your time. Thank you, GAB." Formerly G-E-C-812. Eric Hatchet, thank you for that super chat. So here, thank you for that super chat. Sparky says, "Build a better world with bricks." Morton, welcome to the drag community. GAB, formerly G-E-C-812 says, "Since we're at the end of the show, have you seen the video of that tanker destroyed the Baltimore Bridge a few hours ago using Alexander's engineering knowledge, how hitting a pile collapsed the whole?" I'm not in any kind of any sort of engineer. I mean, they're very clear. I have no understanding on the knowledge of engineering, but one shouldn't smile. This is a horrible tragedy at the Baltimore Bridge. Friends of God. Ships of cars rather have fallen into the water. Let's not take a flip and view. This is a terrible business, and I hope that people are saved, and we'll know more a lot more about it very soon. And of course, a tragedy for all those involved. Elena Diaz says, "The Russians are slow to harness, but ride fast." "It's been said since the 19th century, it's true." Zariel says, "Happy Independence Day, Greece, and now leave the EU," agreed. Rafael says, "The USA, Britain and Ukraine are behind the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hill, FSB Director, Alexander Buttonkoff." Yes. Yeah, that was said a few minutes ago. It was at least it's been reported a few minutes ago. We need to sit back and analyze what he's saying, but, well, it's all getting very, very interested to have said the same thing. He said, "Exactly." Ukraine, yes. I think we understand where everything is moving towards. Sparky says, "Make Israel Syria again in those Ottoman Empire days. Levant Jews got along fine with their neighbors, whether Muslim, Christian, or otherwise." We've got a long way to go before anything like that happens, and maybe it never will. And Sparky says, "Fun fact, in 1492, the Ottoman Empire sent ships to rescue Jews from the Spanish Inquisition." True, actually. It's absolutely true. That's, wait, it's not everything. "Leat Lord Atavar says, 'Francis Scott Keybridge collapsed after cargo ship crashed and took out support cargo.'" Yeah. As I said, it's a horrible tragedy, and what wants to fund it a bit more. And Fleet Lord Atavar says, "FYI guys, Francis Scott Keybridge in Baltimore, Maryland carries I-695 over the Patapsco River south of Baltimore Harbor." Yeah. I mean, as I said, it's a terrible thing. I'm not going to say more than that, other than it is a terrible thing. And I do hope that the number of people who died is not enormous. There's some claims that it is, but of course, even if it's not enormous, it is a tragedy for anyone caught up with that. And one thinks about those people and their families at a moment like that. A few more, Alexander. Sparky says, "That said, happy Greek independence in the US. We love Greeks, Greek culture, and Greek philosophy." Thank you, Sparky. Take a pick. 1313 says, "Vittoria Newland is selling her used car cheap over $60 billion with no reverse gear, navigation only points east, but loaded with maps of what the world should look like." Great show, guys. Great comment. And Tabbardacks says, "Will the Chinese sanctions escalate, escalator be enforceable?" No. Not in the end. I actually have seen some data about the trade between China, the United States. And what is so surprising is that up at this moment in time, it hasn't affected the overall balance of trade very much. It's not going to before the election. Biden, or rather his team, do not want to escalate trade against China to the level that it will affect the US economy and damage his prospects of re-election. Now, what happens after the election is another matter. Yeah. Elena Diaz says, "Did you see the trade in Greece that was stopped with NATO equipment?" Yes. Yes. Yes. Yep. Mitzvich says, "Is it possible that the Russians say it was the IES to make the propaganda shouting it was the IES to go away in regards to the terror attack?" No, I don't know. I think this is getting more and more complicated. I do want to see what Petrushchev and Vortnikov said. I mean, bear in mind, these are both intelligence people. I mean, Petrushchev... Petrush was just asked by a reporter. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think there was any other comment other than that. No, he didn't. He just said, "Of course, Ukraine." Yeah. But as I said, there's... But Vortnikov has said a lot more. And of course, he's the person who, along with Bostrihin, who has the investigative committee, is in overall charge of the investigation. So, we are going to find out an awful lot more in the next couple of hours. I mean, these are general statements up to this time. They're not actual confirmed allegations based, founded on disclosed facts. But this is clearly still an investigation going on. And I don't know what the basis of what Vortnikov says, or what is his basis for saying it. It's been simply that these people were going to Ukraine and that Ukraine is involved, then perhaps Vortnikov's meaning is that the Americans of the British have responsibility for this because they support Ukraine. But it may be that he meant more until I actually see his comments properly. I'm not good to say. Yeah. Those are all the questions. Things are moving very fast, Alexander. For an investigation, things are moving very, very fast. This is not what... I can't keep up. No. This is not what any body, the people who planned this, expected. Yeah. Let me say this. I mean, we have lots of comments, including some very informed people. But I've never known a situation where an entire group of terrorists, because that's what they were, have been rounded up so fast. I mean, there is some explanation here as to how that happened. But the fact that the Russians caught all of these people and are able to assess and put all the information together is astonishing. And there were apparently arrests in Turkey also last night. I mean, everything is coming together, exactly as you said, incredibly fast. Within the next few days, we will have an awful lot more. We will know an awful lot more. Arrests in Turkey, 40 ISIS arrested in Turkey, and also Alexander, yes, you don't know if you heard this, or if this is connected, I'm sure it is. The arrest warrant in absentia issued from a Moscow court to one of these SVU chiefs. Yes. Martin, you can't believe it, isn't it? I forgot his name, but yeah, that has to have some connection to all of this. Absolutely. Absolutely. It is maybe very interesting. It was the interesting if it is all connected, but I'm sure you're right. It is the SBU, rather than the then Badanov's organization, which is military intelligence. Maybe there's some kind of a rivalry between those two, and these people overreach in some way. Who knows? But anyway, one way or the other, a lot's going on, and I've never known an investigation of one of these incidents move so fast. And this is something that, as I said, has everybody blindsided in the West? They didn't expect this, and I suspect this is partly what is making them so nervous. What is arrest in absentia? What does that give Russia the right to do? Yeah. Well, if he's traveling around the world, the Russian SWAT team might come after him. Okay. Sparky says, "Go Yemen, fight the power. Thank you to Jacques Spod for an amazing show. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Rockfin, Odyssey, Rumble, YouTube. Did a rare.locals.com. Thank you to everyone that sent us questions, and to your comments, and thank you to our moderators. Let's see, Peter. Thank you, Peter Zarell. Gab, formerly known as GEC 812, and the reckless abandon as well. And did I miss anybody in the chat? I don't think so. Any of our moderators. Alex, do you have any final thoughts as I do one final check? Brilliant program all together. And as I said, it has an intellectual approach, an intellectual commentary about what the Russians do, which, as I said, I think is unique. If you want to find a complimentary book to Jacques Wolls, I would suggest David Glantz's book on the Red Army during the Second World War when Titans clash. It's usually that the two books have, they complement each other in some ways, but Jacques Woll is the person who has really looked at the academic subject in Russia, which is Woll. And I want to repeat again, what the West doesn't understand is that when they take on the Russians, they are taking on an adversary who is thinking all the time, all the time, whereas the West doesn't. And that is a fundamental difference in the way that the two sides approach matters of Woll as we see. I'm sure Anna Lena is thinking all the time. Elsa says once again, Russia was miscalculated. And Sparky, one more, says attack was likely prompted by Newland. Whoops, I just lost it. By Newland and her Nazi minions after security was too tight to disrupt Russian elections, she told them to wait until things cooled off and then go for it. Yeah, absolutely. There's an overload to say about this affair, which, as I said, is coming out. By the way, just on a quick topic, I finally unearthed the American warning of the 7th of March. And I was a couple of the viewers, so it is a complete red herring. In fact, it's a piece of misdirection because it refers to an attack happening over the next 48 hours. So the attack didn't happen within the 48 hours, and the Americans didn't then come back and issue a further warning that the situation in Moscow remained dangerous. So even American and British citizens, for example, had no reason beyond that 48 hours, or so they might have been led to think, to avoid public gatherings. Just saying. Well, there are some reports, not a confirm, speculation that the shaman concert, the Russian singer, shaman, was actually set to perform at Crocus City on the 9th, I believe. And so this was on the 7th, and he was supposed to perform on the 9th or 10th. And it was going to be a big show, but the security was just locked down. Yes. And then everything got delayed till picnic. Actually, absolutely. But again, to come back to this, I mean, if the Americans had come out and said there's another more reason for concern, they didn't. So that was a warning, which is apparently all they did was they conveyed the same warning to the Russians, the same very general warning to the Russians, which they published. I mean, there was no difference between what they said in private and what they said in public. You mean back channel? Yeah, there was the back channel because, yeah, Karijan Pierre said in a statement yesterday that we, that our guys informed the Russians as well outside of this post. Yeah, I know, but the same apparently giving no more than the same information, which but the point is even that information was only relevant according to the statement itself, the warning that the self that was given for 48 hours. So you're not 48 hours past, you've no reason to think anything's different and the Americans are not telling you there is. Yeah, just one final thought, they're really focusing on this warning a lot in the mainstream media in the US. But the one thing that they're not focusing on at all is they're not focusing on why they were making a run to the border with Ukraine. Absolutely, it's complete. The Russians are very much focusing on. You're absolutely correct, that is the single most, I mean, they said that there's no evidence connecting Ukraine to this incident at all. These people were heading to Ukraine as evidence. I mean, it is, it begs many, many questions. No, you're absolutely correct. In fact, many most commentaries that I've seen about this, at least in Britain, haven't even mentioned that. They don't even mention it. They keep their readers in the dark about what I consider to be perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important point in this entire narrative. And it's something that people understand as well. When you read something like that, and you say, well, why did they get into a car and drive to the borders of Ukraine? That's when you start to say, okay, something's going on here anyway. All right. That's it. We'll leave it there. We'll leave it there. Yeah, take care, everybody. Take care, everybody. We see you again very soon. And thanks again to Jack Ball for joining us on this amazing program today.