The Duran Podcast
Russia And War As A Continuation Of Politics (Live) w/ Andrei Martyanov
All right. We are live with Alexander Mercuris. And we are very, very happy. Very excited to have with us the one and only André Mastiano Fandré. How are you doing today? I'm doing fine. Thank you gentlemen. Pleasure to be with you. Fantastic. And I have André's information where you can follow him, his publication, his blog, as well as his excellent YouTube channel. It is all in the description box down below. And I will add it as a pinned comment as well when the stream ends. Hello to everyone that is watching us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, on Rumble, on Vitoran.locals.com. Join us on our locals channel. And of course, everyone that is watching us on YouTube and our fantastic awesome moderators. Peter Zarell, long time no C Zarell. And who else is moderating? Tish M. Great to have you with us. Tish M. And I think that is everybody that is moderating at this moment. So Alexander André, let's discuss why after two years the collective West still can't figure out how Russia is going about. This conflict. It's pretty amazing that we're two years into it and they're still scratching their heads stuck on territorial gains and stuff like that while Russia is just playing on a different level. Anyway, Alexander André, get to it. Indeed, let's do so because of course, with André, André has been writing. But of course, he knows the Soviet and Russian military system very well. He was part of it. He was part of the Soviet armed forces. He's written with great erudition about the Russian military and about the Soviet armed forces and about the Soviet and Russian political philosophies and how they approach war and matters of conflict and leadership and economic organization and industrial organization or topics which suddenly people are beginning to recognize are important. And he also has shown us in his various books the things that people are suddenly beginning to understand about Russia actually have long roots. They have deep roots. I particularly remember reading in one of his books accounts about Russian Soviet, I should say missile developments, anti-ship missile developments in the 1960s far ahead of their time in the West at that time and the way in which the Russians approach military planning and military thinking the incredibly scientific and rigorous way they do that and the way in which in fact the whole leadership and planning structure works in Russia. But he talks about Russia but he also talks a lot about the West and he compares Russian leadership, Russian thinking, Russian strategic thinking with that of the West as well and he doesn't just look at Western political leaders which he does and which we all do but he also looks at the political system here how it works the educational system particularly the higher educational system and the results which it produces the various conceptions which inform it and how this also shapes the military culture if it can indeed even be called that Russians might find it difficult to understand Western military cultures if one you know from the perspective of their own. So he sees both sides in effect he's written about both sides and he's written about both sides very very intelligently. Now for me the single thing that I took from reading Andres books which by the way should be indispensable reading to anyone who wants to understand both the conflict in Ukraine that we are in at the moment and the conflict between Russia and the West but also how things are going to develop in the future is that the Russians have an extremely serious approach to decision-making and management in general political industrial management in general whereas in the West increasingly we don't we just make things up as we go along and we have a very very fast style understanding of war, of political struggle, of organizational issues that underpin them and all of those things. Now Andres am I summing things up correctly? I mean I'm talking about my work. You are spot on actually yeah absolutely perfect but you cannot get any better summary than this. Yes absolutely but yeah my fourth book actually because obviously it touches largely on special military operation and we already have people of serious inclinations so to speak as already Jacques Bo, Colonel Jacques Bo for example, already wrote a book on that issue and he addressed really what has to be addressed not all this tactical minutiae you know that you know some drone flies in blow some tank and whatever it is of course important and tactical level obviously forms the operational and even strategic reality but it's just the tactical level those things work in combination it's a vertical thing you know tactical being you know the lowest operational art in the middle and strategy on the top and of course many people still cannot wrap their brains around sometimes about simple really simple concept. There is a military strategy as the tool of the state strategy because the state the nation itself through its institutions political institutions are operating on the level of the which would be called today geopolitics you know and so the military strategy and the military is just a tool it is most important tool in the arsenal but there are other tools there which are of course diplomacy and things of this nature you know which you choose your tools what becomes the state of art state art the art of the controlling and managing the state and that's where we have problem because I'm I live in the west I in many respects is the western man and the western man and we have the situation with the elites I mean dramatic I mean catastrophic really so and we have their precipitous intellectual decline in the last 30 years in people who come to power including military power people who run militaries and evidently they are in the right and they cannot be extricated from this right because they continue to live in this delusion and in my book I call it the effect of the echo chamber and the problem is it's not just the people within the echo chamber which are in in trouble it is the echo chamber itself and that's why it's historic and nature because it's absolutely there it's completely detached from the reality and as a result as Alexander correctly stated we can talk now about the strategic miscalculation miscalculation on the historical level well looking at the at once a millennium or at least once half millennium event which brought the west already to its knees and how it will develop from there is of course the matter of speculations and you know just trying to make for gas I would say what is it what I wonder sometimes is this because of course I was I was born in the 1960s and for the first half of my life political leaders who led the west at that time were people who had lived and been shaped through the second world war they had been very heavily I mean they were imbued with the experiences of the second world where many of them had actually fought in it and some of them had had leadership positions in it and then what started to happen in the 1980s and even more than the 1990s is that that cohort of leaders began to lead the scene they you know they died out they're retired they disappeared and the people who replaced them had never known serious war at all and had never been challenged to make serious political decisions either and it's like you know a very rich family built up under enormous amount of hard work and it's taken over by rather feckless ill brought up children and they're sort of squandering away the inheritance it has for me something about quality and the kind of adolescent way in which some of our leaders talk and appear to think and the writing that you read in you know the media which is of course part of the political system it has that quality also like the adults left but the children who take took over never properly grew up. Infantilism is not a buck but a feature of the modern Western lives apart from them being very uneducated and well in some of them are illiterate people down right I mean it's just that and in terms of Russia it was other as you I also was born in 60s in Soviet Union no less but we definitely remember they are combined with different in even in the Soviet Union apart from the art and culture which was for example like Polish culture and Hungarian rock music you know you grew up with the French Italian cinematography for example British comedies you know so it was kind of like very interesting kaleidoscopic bright world of people who threw the art and culture and other means you could see that these were people of some quality let's put it this way today what you have is like yesterday Maria Zafarola was responding to this so-called the rear admiral is one mr. Kirby I don't know how the guy became rear admiral I mean and the point is that some of the commenters in my video to my video left a wonderful comment beautiful you know just he said there is a lot more rear than admiral in this guy you know and he was talking about the fact that about comparing Russians with their manure sales people who put a lot of manure in their you know mouth and you know because Russia obviously pointed out to the connection between the United States and London to the situation and to the terrorist act across the city I understand mr. Kirby could have been really upset about this but the problem is those people they don't have class like this congressman Volberg the guy is a pastor for crying out loud and he wants to nuke the Gaza what kind of first this is already reached their absolutely grotesque scale with these people this is the pastor all right he calls himself Christian there's nothing Christian about those people and he wants to nuke Gaza kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and you know what can I say we have the whole implosion of the political system which is utterly corrupt and as Alexander pointed out we have the issue of people who never experienced any difficulty in their lives they have been pushed through all those you know elite universities like Oxford like Ivy League they studied for soft degrees in political science whatever that is which is not real science yeah they studied I don't know sociology literature nothing wrong with studying literature but very Johnson better should have learned you know some things about the how to manage the state you know but we have these people and they have no responsibility whatsoever and then you have yeah I'm not in a bear walk who is doing her 360 degrees constantly so it's like I don't know as some people my friends they have been to Moscow I'm coming Moscow very soon too again you know last year I've been there and the question which Russian elites have is who do we talk to in the west there's literally nobody you can talk to Jake Salomon or Anthony Blinken these are kids who have no clue what they're dealing with and one is national security advisor the only his only marriage so to speak was the fact the guy who invented the rocket gate that's the level of his professional competence he doesn't understand war he doesn't understand what decision trees are and these are political operatives who are only skilled the only skill they don't have any other skills is to get either reelected in legislative branch or get promoted in the executive branch that's the only thing they know in a Soviet Union it was a wonderful term for this apparatic that means these are the swamp creatures who only know how to exploit the apparatus of the state management to their to their benefit period they don't know what policies they don't know how to create some kind of the contacts between them and you know appropriate vis-a-vis on in other countries they don't understand anything literally it's it's horrifying I know but it's just the reality it's a sad reality the other thing that I find actually because this is something that I you know had not expected or realized the other thing I find most astonishing and very difficult to understand is that the same kind of atrophy seems to have expanded and involved militaries in the West as well and I've had you know watched generals like General Ben Hodges General Petraeus all kinds of senior military officers in Britain military people in France and I mean they are saying things which are completely I mean I could not a military person I can see that they are absurd and I am again I struggle to understand how a military person can do that I always assumed that military people the one thing because war was so serious that they were obliged to do in a military situation was to tell the truth and if you're a senior military leader the most important thing to do is to tell the truth to power and I've been reading a book books by a man called David Gantz I'm sure you've heard of him American historian writing about the Second World War and it turns out that for example Zhukov absolutely thought like that and he told the truth to Stalin and Stalin listen and you know that was Stalin I mean you know you're not going to face the kind of you know dangers by talking to Joe Biden at least one perceived not and yet apparently the military tell the leaders the political leaders what they want to hear and again I don't understand how that has happened it's um first you don't mention a number of the names like Ben Hodges or like Patrebs like this so-called Institute for the Study of War which they don't study war there really they just write narratives as I already stated their political and military political system especially military political system the way the military is interact with the political elites seized its absolute assist to operate properly and you can see yourself not only the issue of the auto military incompetence there's incomparable Alistair Kirk yesterday stated what we know is the only expeditionary warfare you know the colonial warfare colonial conquest there would have been no allies in the western europe in 1944 if not for the Soviet Union which actually by that time slaughtered the bulk of the Axis forces and the g-day was dependent on it and you can read about the strategic debate on this in the in incorn probably wonderful book by David doesn't power the grand sound and it's called Eisenhower at war 1943 1945 people forget about this and so now you have these people who are not on effect they lived all their professional lives after this Turkish shooting beating there which is the south of this third rate Iraqi military after the half year of unimpeded preparation and pre-deployment of forces and they live with this yardstick and this is not yardstick it's absolutely anomaly you know so and then suddenly they recognize they have the opponent who is for whom they are near peer not the other way around you know and the question is now that they are in the process of unbecoming an officers not only they parade themselves as sore losers which they are United States military didn't win a war I mean in like I don't know in decades since Korea and Korea was a tie so to speak and they have only this thing to which they grasp you know as the sinking men grasp grasp for the for the last straw when this golf war it just is becoming if you really didn't have any kind of report professional report on that thing is becoming nauseating you know what they literally beat the kids in the sandbox you know there 25 year old old MMA fighter for the six year old kid in the sandbox of course you're not going to learn anything but yet they applied this experience so to speak and they thought that they know what they do and they don't and now they indeed in the process of unbecoming they lose any type of the military integrity which is universal you cannot imagine a russian senior or any kind of officer who would go out on the record as mr. Myley former chairman she joined she's of staff went on the record like he said stated that no russian should ever go to bed without the fear of having their throat slit if that would have been stated by russian officer let alone officer of the level of the chair chair chief of the general staff he would be sucked and then pressing persecute the prosecutor for the article 282 of the criminal code for the inspiration of the you know ethnic violence and conflict and here we are we have all those you know big star generals who know how to come out the freaking regiment in russian armed forces in the real war and they have these issues they have the personal issues these are the issues of the i mean a cute professional and then it's jealousy plain and simple and because united states never fought anything like this in its history and what they observe now and uh you know i'm not even talking about ben haunters ben haunters create a compiled in may of 2022 when actually the for the first time with the s and special military operation started in earnest it didn't start in earnest before that but before but it's jones and phloem on behalf of itself the united states and sabotage the russian Ukrainian negotiations and instant war so there it was there end of play april when the special military operations started to uh basically develop into what we have observed today because everybody understood in the russian side that the west will be participating by much more than just merely political support and so we have now mr ben haunters who came up uh that time with their report allegedly military professionals uh about bachonkin or russian army apart from the fact that bachonkin myth is a myth you know it was created in the west to uh basically uh uh ridicule rations what they ascribe to mr bachonkin never happened actually with him creating some kind of illusions to impress his uh vlogger and the second so and when you read read this you have to ask a question how professional those people are those people i mean those people come across as really uh people who are very close to amateurs honestly they get into the issue of we get there you know some uh tactical uh trick or you know minutiae and we apply it to the you know whatever there is a military thinking they have there is an issue with uh western militaries this is t or e table of our organization and equipment which is from 1980s and 1990s the whole nature militarily and military industrial complex wise is stuck in 1990s today is 2024 and then they suddenly have this paradigm shift and they see what is happening and the only thing which is left for them they lie that's the only thing they lied to their bosses and they lied to themselves well i come to the view the top military commanders in much of the west are simply members of the political class who wear uniforms i mean that's that's really all that basically are i mean you mentioned the iraq war of 1991 because you know we we're discussing here war serving the strategy of the state being an extension of politics the famous thing that the clouds of it said well i think in some ways that is a good example because the united states and i you know i remember i lived through the 1991 iraq war very well it never really set out a clear strategy it was going to liberate Kuwait it's a tactical thing but there was never any clear idea or explanation of what it would do beyond that would it stop in which case some kind of a reconciliation some kind of an understanding with the government of iraq would have made a kind of sense and perhaps that you know from position of you know tough-minded real politic whatever you think of sadam who's saying would have made a kind of sense or alternatively did they go further into iraq trying to change the government there declare war have some conception of how they would change the political geography of the middle east and what their own objectives would be if they did that and how that would serve their own interests but they never did this they never set out a clear political strategy instead what we eventually got was a series of very badly thought out adventures hatched by a very small group of people within the us government who decided everything in secret with discussing it with any body without talking to the expert community such as it is and about the middle east there are a lot of experts allister crook you mentioned i would you know classify as one and the result is a series of catastrophic adventures each of which has turned out hideously wrong and i suggest the same is exactly the same about russia now because of what has happened over the last two years i've been in contact with all sorts of people who i would consider to be experts and i about russia russian affairs industry economics finance that kind of thing and they all tell me one of the same thing none of them has been contacted and had their advice sought at any time again if there is a realistic political strategy i don't know what it is there again fantasies and plans break up russia um played chess games with china i'm not sure that really is what you could call a grand strategy or any kind of strategy and it is the utopian quality the amateur quality of what passes for strategic thought which in my opinion is so much of the problem i get the sense in russia it's completely different do you want to comment it's absolutely different and there is a this systemic issue in the west when you look at how indeed military and political class interact there is no real interaction there pentagon are the yes guys you know those people who do understand operational and even strategic issues and this is the middle level of the planners you know those kernels brigadier generals you know people who deal with some kind of operational planning they've done not very well but still uh in the end even if they get the right idea which for example for anybody or for any person whoever started russian military and russian economy for the last 10 years or which i wrote three books basically they would understand they better not get into the fight with that because it's gonna end really badly and for now don't forget it's what him or Putin stated we didn't even start it we didn't even start yet you know so we haven't even started yet so and the problem is that you look at this juncture so to speak the joint it doesn't work it doesn't work indeed political uh as you mentioned correctly Stalin it wasn't just Zhukov rakazovsky rakazovsky was the guy who actually developed the operation by grating on which tore the guts you know called in mr. Churchill of the uh access military machine when they destroyed the whole army group center in 1944 and he argued with Stalin i mean tooth and nail Stalin sent him out of their uh his uh office a couple of times because of communist rakazovsky go out think you know outside the doors and come back and tell me what you think twice he was out twice he came in back and he came on Stalin and said okay we'll do it as you say and you know what it's a military triumph it was so it's there's nothing like this in uh in the west anymore there are no people who are competent militarily economically and politically who can come in and say uh no you cannot do that it's going to end up really badly so you have these people plus it's exacerbated in the united states with the fact that those are neocons who are really fed through the so-called dissident primarily jewish but not only dissident uh immigrant community of rations russian jews and simply other people who have scores to settle and they are driven by this with sterile hatred for rations do not forget mr clapper talking about you know russian being genetically inferior don't forget those people they hate they don't just dislike russia for the reasons or geopolitics or political reasons they dislike rations on the cultural racial and other reasons it's metaphysical almost for them and this is what drives them uh and the same applies for example to the this comedic really clown uh it uh french elites which are the countries that pipsquik economically and militarily except for its uh nuclear deterrent and which is even still small and yet look at them you know and the same goes pretty much for united kingdom when you look at their elites and what they do is just what the hell man is just this is so ridiculous and this inevitably brought about what we observe today it's a collapse over the west this is not one day affair it was happening prior to this but it was the last soldier speak straw the last uh boulder which initiated the landslide which became the special military operation and uh almighty i believe the two days ago this is them majorly baneese uh uh media outlet they pointed out about if the Putin is the hero for the global south and they say yes he is and they speak about the history shifting to the right direction finally so we are talking the historical scale shift and it's not only paradigm shift on the battlefield it's paradigm shift in the uh global politics such as for example i was calling for it for a while now uh it's not just uh ignoring the uh institutions which political institutions which have been run by the west for example for russia international money they're fund or world bank they don't care rations don't care about what they think and whatever they say same goes which i said you need to quit and boycott international olympic committee it is completely politically corrupt organization and the olympic movement is that period it's that it's became totally politicized and there is nothing left there and so you see those things and russia is kind of leading the way of uh cutting all those institutions and same goes for uh obviously economic uh uh issues and i i think that's uh you know we'll see how the olympics will go in paris how many russians who will decide to uh compete under the neutral flag you know so and the game in the end if you look at the integrity of the crock with ct there's uh the connection with ukraine have been established we know that ukraine is run by the special services uh from mi6 to cia you know and uh so it's becoming clear that um those people will be you know held responsible for what happened and terrorism is there or actually weapon of the week it's a tourism but it's that's why it is tourism and guess what they are resorting now to terrorism because they have nothing to answer it militarily politically or economically so there you go uh you know about the olympics all i'm going to say is this it is a particularly painful subject for me my my great grandfather was there at the absolute founding of the first olympic games in Athens in the 1890s uh he knew baron kuberter the founder i don't want to say more i mean he uh my my great grandfather well i didn't know i mean he died before my time but he would be deeply distressed by what he's seen and i'm sure bounder kuberter would have been equally horrified but yeah i wanted to turn to something else which is that one of the things that i had not realized is how very thoroughly and carefully rush of trains its offices now um there are multiple levels of schools also it seems to me there's there's um the sort of first tier of schools like you know combined arm schools for infantry people then there's a sort of higher level is sort of higher level of school where you take a kind of MA type i don't know i'm not i'm not going to use these academic titles because i think that might be misleading but anyway higher level schools that can go back further up and then further up still there is the academy of the general staff which seems to be an extremely elite institution it is a level of um academic training which if you compare it i think it's about when it's certainly much more the double the length of the kind of academic training the western officers tend to get and i get the sense that it is highly rigorous as well now presumably you went through at least some parts of the system and you will have known people who did also come through the system i mean is it as rigorous this demanding as it looks to me to be and i should say i've looked at some of the um maths part of the syllabus and i've actually shown it to a friend of mine who teaches maths at Cambridge University and he said this is incredibly difficult and i said to him you do realize this is for standard officers it is not for the artillery for example am i right i mean is it really as rigorous as that yes it is extremely difficult academically don't forget that when you're entering i graduated what naval academy it is five-year-long study which amounts to six academic years in the west you graduate with the undergraduate degree in military science and graduate degree in engineering russians had this um wonderful which they returned now back to it it's called specialist no bachelor's know nothing specialist and then the higher level so yeah that's what you study there it's extremely rigorous engineering military engineering training and of course you study their overall military sciences like for example the theory of operations you study all other things on the level of tactics and some basic introduction into operation planning and things of this nature you are graduated in the challenge and of course you are very inexperienced you go out and you begin to work work your way up once you get to the level of the let's say step of the brigade size formation all you become there let's say battalion commander you have the path now apart from other things which you attend still while you are serving at your initial officer uh billets you have that ability to get into what is also uh becoming back now it is very very remote analog of the u.s war college any kind of war college here war college will enable more college because there are two-year uh educational uh uh organizations one number of my actually classmates graduated that and one actually taught that he has phd in military science and uh this is two-year old course and this is that prepares you to the command of the brigade level and higher until you get to the division level and higher and then suddenly you have to go to the academy of the general staff which also is about two years so by the time you are done with which still you're not done but you actually completed as the operation and strategic level officer you have at least nine years of education academic education it is extremely rigorous in terms of mathematics and physics because you need to understand the mathematical apparatus behind the operations and of course you need to know the physical uh principles on which weapon systems and command and control systems operate and this is a lot of math physics all those like system integration you know so my specialty the same as specialty of anybody who graduated with our faculty in uh in my case 1985 or the specialist in general and international navigational uh uh uh complexes of the strategic missile systems never strategic missile systems we were fundamentally prepared to serve on the delta one delta two types of the strategic missile submarines then of course you branch off you know you branch some people go to the border guards others go to serve on the surface ships others went to serve on the nuclear power submarines and some of them became this uh uh uh uh actually the commanders of those submarines and others went and became the chief of staff and just to give you example right now the vice-admiral Golobevv who graduated year later than me he's the becoming the commander of the northern fleet of russia so and he graduated the academy of the general staff so it's uh just to give you example it's non-stop education and uh how to put it politely it's difficult yeah it's hard it's hard and does russia have this system that we have in Britain and i believe the united states where it's up or out because i've heard a lot of people say that this system is actually very bad and i i've seen the product of this that what it does within british and american militaries is that it creates conformity it means that people are um are afraid to make mistakes um don't take risks are overly uh obedient to their superiors don't engage in um you know unconventional thinking i i asked this question because one of the other things that i gradually come to realize is that within this very academic world and people might find it surprising that russian street military affairs military trading of officers an absolutely rigorous academic discipline um if there is extraordinary amount of debate uh people can argue and debate with each other um you know um a a colonel can argue with a general about theoretical matters and they can argue things like that in papers that that doesn't suggest to me any system where people are afraid to speak out i'm so i'm just wondering what the situation is there yeah that's exactly what it is they do argue and sometimes they argue and sometimes they're getting nasty actually but the point is there are a number of the very high level military publications top of them being of course legendary uh vienna missile military thought magazine which for example CIA and gia in the united states read vigorously if you look at potentially of those magazines and you have a range of people from russian and kennels you know who are professors and phd's in uh military sciences to generals writing things about it and march with this extremely mathematical office nobody who would argue about mark of chain uh you know process you know for the some strategic planning you know and things of this nature it's like it's very mathematical it's wearing mathematically oriented and uh lester growe uh who wrote uh before kennelschach board did it he what he called it russian art of war uh uh a kennel um lester growe who is the scholar in russian military in 2016 he wrote the russian way of war you can easily uh download it from just you know type in yahoo or google it and it will be there and one of the points he makes about the russian officers are not afraid of math the fact is they think constantly mathematically you have to your operations operations are mathematics and some of it obviously calculus and most of it are differential equations so you have to understand you have to know you are trained to be what is called to help uh develop the ability to recreate all the time space picture of the battlefield you cannot create it by just merely reading some historical documents however important you know or just learning some uh for example uh field manuals which are extremely important or operational directives and operational manuals it's long just enough you need to understand what is behind that that's what you studied in military academies you studied the physical essence and if you shoot something you have to understand why you shoot it so you shoot it and where you have to hit you know and this is math and physics non-stop you're constantly subjected to this technological stuff and you know what it's end up like in our case and many other cases in military academies in russia in what will be called officer colleges which are still way more advanced than any uh service academy in the united states you are studying the physical mathematical essence of the warfare and you basically comes down very much to their systems integration very much so so you understand how to how how your weapons work and every aspect of them now exactly now can i again again just just to discuss to actually demolish one particular myth that i constantly see trotted out that russia has no warrant officers that it has no peder of professional warrant officers um i i find it's very difficult to understand why people say this because i hear it's all the time but that clearly isn't the case had you elaborate a little bit about this i mean explain what a cupboards chicken all that is exactly it's a cold war myth when which was created probably as the same response as we have today with the sour grapes and professional envy russia always keep warrant officers and for example when i served i had to what they called shift petty officers or meat shipments sometimes which were ncos you know and which were running there come with departments for me i mean in the sense of the everyday activities although in russia you still that is why you see uh higher than in the united states death of officers you know why officers are leading they're not sitting back and that's why you know and um but everyday lives uh everyday including some very crucial issues of their combat training you're merely planning and they execute and it was always like that i in this this is complete mythic garbage you know so and those people go through the waters called ncos schools and considering the fact that even from this get gold there and even today the average uh physics mathematics and a scientific uh stem what would be called stem realm in russian public schools is incredibly higher with the than the western schools you already enter into something which is much more advanced and they always have been there ncos always have been there and all this is just complete fantasy which and mythology which have been perpetrated by people during the cold war and they continue to run with this uh total idiocy you need to have ncos and so it uh army and uh russian army they have ncos absolutely i mean i i get i don't understand that i mean even alex fashinan who is one of the one thing people around about one of the best people around in the west seems to have this idea that russia doesn't have um a cadre of ncos as the west does and i mean it it it obviously does if you spend any time actually looking at both russian and soviet armies you immediately discover that if you look at the right forces which most people never do that you quickly discover that of course they have ncos now coming back to this other you know what you know the main point that we're discussing because we talk about how um soldiers are the army in russia integrates tactics operations operation and art strategy is there something that is understood by the officers say at this sort of you know level of lieutenant major lieutenant colonel i mean it do they understand that they're working within a particular system because one of the things that i actually find very remarkable looking at the special military operation is the way in which units are a russian units are able to advance and pull back and then advance and there is retained coherence that doesn't seem to be the kind of issues with morale that you would probably find if a western army fought in that kind of way because one gets the sense that officers and soldiers understand that they're part of a bigger thing i mean but how far does this understanding work down um just uh your will raise the very important question just to give you an example when you graduate academy your which will be sort of a academy but it's much more advanced scientifically and engineering wise you get out as a young lieutenant you understand very little i mean in terms of uh you go in you get your initial billits but the more you serve but then suddenly you begin to understand that at some point of time once you get your senior lieutenant uh uh which will be uh what full lieutenant some like i i mean it's a bizarre lieutenant world in between russians and western militaries you begin to understand for example how your formation operates you understand how the brigade operates independent brigade you understand how the decisions are made on the brigade level staff you obviously cause them constantly you know and tell them to go screw themselves but you understand what they are after you know because you are directly involved in the combat training or routines and of course you execute your combat tasks and then of course the more you go by the time you reach somewhat the level of like i was xo of the third ranked ship you begin to understand how the district for example works on in general so and you understand why and how and what they are pursuing there what are the what is called operational coefficients for example like the coefficient of the operations train there is such thing is called there you understand how the combat patrols are planned you understand how the weapons you know are designed for whatever the reasons and by the time you become the staff officer which i had the chance to serve for about half a year as the staff officer on the brigade level then suddenly a lot of things become tough oh yeah wow i see that and you begin to look at the judicial part of the issue especially when it comes to consider uh in relation to them what was called uh naval units of their border guards of KGB USSR you know which today they called cause guard but uh uh Soviet cause guard was extremely militarized and was using all maybe ships so it's pretty much was maybe onto itself but operation in case of what would would have become the part of the Soviet Navy anyway so that is why you have pretty much very little difference except for the everyday operations and when you begin to look at this you're ready by the time you are uh mature young officer you can see basically where it all goes and you begin to recall what have been taught to you in academy while you were studying you know but one thing when they teach you on their those departments how it all works and then totally in order when you suddenly live within the system and you understand it well guess what i want to have academy doing all the second name is i know many thousand people who graduated it will now say oh yeah man it was called systema a system that's how we call it we never call that you know the you know never academy or anything it's just like oh are you going to system oh you know when you go you want to go from system and things like that it's systema it's already have been embedded into your psyche and your operators there well i uh dare i say as a cock because that's what military is it is a lot of wheels and a lot of cogs in those wells and and and did this facilitate if i i would get again this because the system as it's often described in the west is very top-down at least the west imagines that the russian military system is entirely top-down but um if everybody has works if everybody's hardwired if you like to think in this kind of way especially given mathematical training which must be equalizing at some level because if everybody's got it I mean it it it it equalizes what's going on because the man you know the division the person who's leading the division has the same kind of mathematical training as the officer because if you're a division level your commander of division you better be after their uh what is called well again yeah do your war college which is academies and believe me they are you know you think very different but but but does this because you get i mean the the constant thing that you hear in the west is that they don't russians don't have initiative that they're they're they're closed in into the system but that in fact they on the contrary it seems that they do but that it is done within the framework of working out the overall design is this correct yeah it is absolutely and again you know this initiative thing is for some reason uh it's a third world that understanding of the world war two uh because obviously uh the only thing they study World War Two is from the movie Patton you know and that's about the level they understand it it used to be much better they were studying real history of the world war two not anymore it is complete stolen valor they think that you know what oh yeah lies landed and look defeated Hitler while the Hitler was defeated already after uh 1943 but the point is that they are enamored and i actually wrote about it and this is um and spoke about it i actually made the video about it from the joint quarter uh i believe uh uh joint force quarter i believe well one of the wonderful american military thinkers and historians write about it this stupid in admiration for this german augafstra actic whatever the hell this name you know the name of this thing which they think this blitzkrieg and for some reason they think that americans understood it and he writes about it nothing in common what they think about it and what it really was uh with german's verma still operated within a very strict operational planning and on the tactical level all these things like oh yeah here's your initiative sure you have an initiative within your either tactical or operational level of thinking but in the end there is a plan and that's what actually uh general staffs do they plan 24 7 365 non-stop and you have to follow the orders but somehow this garbage which is primarily of the hollywood making made it to obviously to the general public and to american military they think that oh yeah we can maneuver whatever we want and you know no you can't because if you do do what you want and you justify it by this some abstract initiative which allegedly was delegated to you guess what you're going to be defeated you know and that's uh the whole thing but it's hollywood and uh let me quote again let me quote again general latif rather latif the author's number of the books including the future wars 20 years at DARPA PhD in physics no less and here i quote him from this wonderful book pretty much what a general public and political class in the west know about war is primarily from the entertainment yeah absolutely um which is again very different from the way the russian military approaches the second world because again that the thing that i found very interesting is the way as as much as anything else the russian military seems to use the experience of the second world war as you know to think through events to learn to learn about tactics to do work out what actually works on the battlefield it seems to provide an enormous amount of data which the system seems to have accumulated and preserved and which is disseminated right through as far as i can see throughout the officers and and which is therefore available to be drawn upon in order to educate people going forward There is a book by Greg. Sorry? Carry out, carry out, Andre. It's his vote, I think is ringing. There is an issue which my apologies, Andre. No, no problem. So there is a book by great Red Army Strategist, Alexander Switching, called Strategy. Where he on there almost 500, I believe his pages tells you that there are ideas of their, you know, crushing defeats which are promoted by people like Tuchatsky and Israel, are not really applicable for the real war because you need to exhaust the enemy first and foremost. Well guess what? Mr. Gerasimo, the chief of the general staff of Russia, loves to call Mr. Switching. And when you look at the special miniature operation, you have those people, you have those American and British generals who still live in this Hollywood world. Oh yeah, we're going to move, you know, like, you know, those pincer movements. But you know what guys, the real world doesn't work like this. And what you do, and especially after it became known that there are any kind of negotiations will be sabotaged by the West and the West will get involved directly in supplying Ukraine and everything. What do you do? You exhaust not just Ukraine, which Ukraine is already, doesn't exist really as an operational sense as the Armed Forces or state for that matter. You exhaust NATO. How do you exhaust it? You already saw yourself for the last year and a half. And this is not the type of warfare Western military alike, because they never fought one like this. And they don't understand how it works. But that, there you go. It's a mid grinder. After we shoot just, you know, the same as it was Kursk, then take it a battle of Kursk. You know what, in other matter that it was compressed. So because of the gigantic scale of it, there was altogether on both sides, about two and a half million people involved some shocking number of tanks and aircraft. And everybody knows about, you know, a battle of Kursk. Remember how it all started? They knew that they will be trying to pincer movement, traditional blitzkrieg thing, the crushing ideas of Tohachowski also, you know. And guess what, you needed to stop it first. And they did it both on the northern and southern faces of the front. And then the counter offensive started. And there you go. After that, their blitzkrieg is basically after that Germany, I mean, the Axis never was able to recover. And that's how what is happening. But on the different scale, in a different time, train in a special military operation. But again, Russians still are attacking. They still, you know, capturing each day. It's like, okay, this cannot let us take him, this will let us take him, this town, they already now fighting within inside the chassis PR, for example. So yeah, it's the metals and other, I don't know, a week, maybe. Russians are acting in a very economy or force manner. They also are really trying to minimize their losses, while inflicting an incredible pain on the enemy. And this is what you saw yourself in. Absolutely. This is what you see every day. And it is the West completely bewildered, because they don't understand, will conduct it in that way. And of course, they don't understand how economic and military and political decision-making are integrated in Russia. One of the things that I find most interesting is the fact that Mr. Schoygo, for example, is regularly involved in the production side. So he goes to factories, he meets technicians, he meets engineers. He discusses the kind of things that are happening, the production of weapons. He talks about factories, he's having planning sessions at people in factories. No, Western depends. Minister does anything like that. I mean, the idea of grand shafts going to a factory and actually sitting down for the engineers and talking there with how production should be organized and what his needs and how to set up supply chains and things like well, it just isn't what they do. They have no idea how to do it, even if they wanted it, they wouldn't know how to do it. But in Russia, that actually does happen. Can I just ask lastly, because we want to go back to the political thing, because one of the things that Mr Putin does every week, it's astonishing to me how little this gets discussed is in the West, is he has a meeting with a body called the Security Council, which so far as I can see brings together a lot of these people who are making these military political decisions. Schoygo is a member. I'd see that he's not often mentioned as attending the meetings, but I noticed that Gerasimov also apparently has a right to attend these meetings, and I'm sure he often does, even though, as I said, it's not often publicized. But again, you have a level of integration of political economy, because the economic side of the government are also there. The industry ministry, the finance ministry, they're all present in this place. The military are also there. They all meet every week, and they discuss, and they talk about things. And am I right in thinking that this is where the major decisions, the big strategic decisions, the grand strategy, if you like, the political strategy, which the army executes, that that's really where it's planned and worked out? Absolutely, you are absolutely correct. It's a security council. Mr. Schoygo is being defense minister. He is the permanent member of the security council. Mr. Gerasimov being chief of staff is temporary, as they call it, but what has to be understood, and I actually wrote about this in my latest book. When it comes out, you can see what I specifically elaborated on this issue. If you take, for example, American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also is the part of national security council, temporary, and obviously in advisory role, but there is a critical difference between, for example, Russian chief of the general staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not a planning figure. They are Joint Chiefs of Staff primarily coordinator, so to speak, between the operation planning of the services. They have Navy, you have Air Force, you have ground forces, all of them, they have their own operation planning, which obviously should go through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they will try to somehow integrate it. They've been dreaming about the so-called Joint Force for decades now. They still are not able to do it, but in Russia, chief of the general staff and the whole central apparatus of the Minister of Defense, and that's what is different. In Russia, general staff is the organ of the combat control of the armed forces of Russia. They are the guys who run that. Not only they run forces, which Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn't do, services and commands do, but in Russia, it is the general staff, and of course, main operational directorates, so-called GOU. That means also, that mister, and they run not just the armed forces. They run every single facet-related note that what is called "Vayanne Stragesla," which literally means military building, building of the military, including obviously the industry, and that is why in the Russian military-industrial complex is designed strictly for the defense of the Magdalene, so to speak, and chief of the general staff to get up the Minister of Defense, guess what? They are talking as the main strategist, whose advice better be listened to when they talk about how to defend the country. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they don't control anything, really, so this is the profound difference, and that is why Mr. Gerasimov talks, everybody listens, because of course, he comes also from their position, not only the main chief strategist of Russia, military strategist. He also comes through, as second half of the Russia's massive intelligence complex, part of it being SVR, which is the foreign intelligence service, then part of it with the FSB, of course, which is the, basically, Russian version of the FBI, and then, of course, you have what used to be Grül, now they call it Grül, but Grül, which is main intelligence directorate, which is providing incredible volume of information and analysis, and as a result, and especially when you add to this mix, the fact that Russian state owns critical strategic enterprises, they are not private, they are controlled by the state, that is why you have the surge capability, and you have the ability to maneuver economically, industrially, so to speak, because you don't need to go to the, you know, work of directors, or you say, oh, you provide, you know, you give thanks, you build summaries, do that, you know, that's what General Staff says, that's what we approved at the Security Council, do that, if you don't, you will face the consequences, and there you go, and this is how it's, you know, that's how the special needs reparations is being provided everywhere, whatever they need it. Andrew Martiana, thank you, I just wanted to say, when we spoke with Jacques Boul, I said if the Europeans are foolish enough to go to war with Russia, they must understand that they're taking on an enemy who is thinking all the time, and I think this is just what you, this is, you've explained exactly how that happens, thank you very much. Now, I get a hand over to Alex, he's probably got some questions, and we've gone a bit over time, but frankly, I don't regret it, I hope it, I hope it's not in convenience to you, but yeah, I have done. Great, great, you have 15, 15, 20 minutes to answer some questions, because we have quite a lot of questions here for you. Let's begin with, let's go to rumble from Ben Redward. Andre, do you see Russia providing Syria anytime soon with the means to protect its airspace from Israeli attacks? Was the bombing of the Iranian consulate a turning point? Difficult to say, because obviously people sometimes misconstrue actually what Russia is doing in Syria. Russia provided Syria with a significant number of the weapons, including very effective S1 Panzer air defense systems, plus Syrians modified number of their older versions like book M1 air defense systems, which are pretty effective, but don't not forget, it doesn't matter if Russia will provide Syria with S500 even, you know why? Because Israel launches from its own airspace or from the immediately Iranian sea, approaching it from the side of Lebanon. You cannot just go out, you can shoot them, for example, Russian S100 and S300 V4, which are there, they can shoot them down, but they are Russian, they are there not to protect Syria, they are there to protect Russian assets in the Tarkos naval base and freemium air force base. But yeah, you can shoot them even in the Israeli airspace, do you know what it means? You don't want to start another gigantic war there, for which Syria is not prepared yet. So that's why it is not technological, it is the political limitations which dictate these models around it, and Russians are certainly not there to defense obviously they by the Russia presence, they do defend Syria in many important respects, but in the end it is up to the Syrian government, I'm pretty sure Bashar al-Assad obviously has talks with Mr Putin, and they have their own political plan for that, but yes, that's what it is. Israel will continue to do what it does, I mean, you know, hiding behind commercial airliners, launching from its airspace, not expecting any retaliation, so there you go. Who knows the way things go now, I don't know what Arabs in general will do, you know, but Syria definitely, how to put it politely, is on the front lines with the atrocity Israel commits in Gaza right now, so and after the bombing of the Iranian embassy, it's like really, you deliberately attack the diplomatic, you know, outposts which is covered by the international, you know, bridges, I mean, how can I even explain this, it's just from tsunami bomb, aren't those NATO sea drones in the Black Sea simply surface torpedoes, much worse than real sub surface torpedoes a hundred years ago, why aren't they all destroyed by Air Force UAVs, deck guns, far beyond approaching a ship in port? First, they are not torpedoes, they are essentially their boats with their communication set, their and with their number of other navigational means and obviously with the explosives, it's not true they be being defeated all the time, and another matter that obviously they arrive pre-assembled, not pre-assembled, disassembled and then assembled in their facilities which are easy to hide, so the question here that they get lucky once in a while, you know, so out of let's say hundred drones, two, three can hit the target, you know, and it could be a very sensitive and primarily for PR purposes, however unpleasant this could be, but you cannot defeat all of them, although there are some measures are taken, for example, like establishing additional machine guns, 12.7 millimeter machine guns such as a cord, for example on the ships because this is, you need to increase the fire down sitting, but in the end the solution of the problem is not that, people do not understand the issue here, the issue here is plain and simple, the fact that NATO, especially United States, provide a real time targeting to the Ukrainian side and nothing you can do about it unless you want to start World War III, Russians can easily shoot down our C135 or AVX or PA Poseidon, which operate over in the Black Sea, but you cannot do this because they operate from international airspace, it's, Russians once sent the message one day kind of, you know, pour some fuel on the MQ whatever the repair drone which crashed and there was a hysterical reaction on the part of Washington, but this is what it is, it's not the real war for the west, if it would have been real war for the west then those assets would have been shot down including the fighter planes which often escort them and after that they would lose a very most important tool which is involved in this type of operations of those drones it is targeting because once you don't have targeting, once you don't know where your target is, it doesn't matter what you have, you know, and that's the issue, but in the end I think so once the updates is liberated that there will be simply the closure of the shore for the for Ukraine and they cannot operate those from Romania and Bulgaria because it will be there or attack immediately on the NATO countries, not that really Washington cares about Romania or Bulgaria, you know, so and but they know they better not do that, for them Ukraine is a great, you know, how to put it politely, the great pass to bite Russia, you know, from here and there, well this happens, you know, but a liberation of Odessa and cutting Ukraine from the Black Sea, that that's the solution. From Ben Redward, Andre, how close is Russia to being able to shoot down any and all nuclear weapons fired by NATO, thus allowing it to avoid the need of using such weapons in self-defense? Oh gosh, it's a very serious issue and actually Larry Johnson also elaborated on that and I elaborated on that on some other people. The issue here is Russia already deploying the first line S-500 which is fully capable to defeat their intercontinental ballistic missiles or other mirrors, multiple independent reentry vehicles, S-500-50 also is online now and then you have their full-blown what is called ABM, anti-ballistic missile and anti-hypersonic weapons system which is called A235 new doll, it's all in place and I believe what next thing which is coming up will be the ability to defeat a massive attack, you know, serious attack, multiple independent reentry vehicles and I'm not talking about even 10 or 20 probably way more than that and that represents the strategic shift for the United States whose first United States doesn't have really operational anti-ballistic missile system, they have those GBI and all what have you but these are, you know, in terms of their air defense and anti-ballistic missile defense and anti-personic weapons United States not even in the same league with Russia, it's a cold hard fact. So at some point of time, yes, there will be development which is coming I think which makes how to put it, reduces their credibility of their U.S. strategic deterrent to a very low level, in other words, they will be able to penetrate most important facilities including decision-making centers by attacking Russia with ballistic missiles and that will represent a new reality. That is why, for example, the United States wanted to, haven't been against signing the start 3D but they also want to have the access to Russian industries for inspection, quote unquote or whatever the means will be coming up online soon. NATO country has anything comparable to S 400, let alone S 500, let alone S 550, nothing, not even close and they know what is coming, that is why they're desperate. From a coup, Russia is focused on action while the West is focused on words but it seems Russia underestimates the importance of shaping the narrative, how can Russia do better to get its message across? Russians don't care what is being told, that's what people do not understand. I understand it's going to sound really rough and again, don't forget, I myself live in the United States but here's the issue, Russians don't care what the West thinks, they do, so that's what people do not understand. For the first time in history, and believe me, I'm old cold warrior, the Russian people look at the Western westernness with contempt, that's what people do not understand, they don't care about our westernness thing, they don't care what kind of feelings they have for Russia because Russia is done with the West. Yes, what you're putting stated a few days ago that we don't have nations which are unfriendly, we have unfriendly elites, but the point is, whatever you do is Peter Tolstoy, Peter Tolstoy, the great grandson of Leo Tolstoy and who is a member of parliament, speaking to French TV, a few days ago, when they, being French, this is a very French thing, well why do Russians don't like us? He said, why should we like you? You supply weapons and you want to kill us and you want us to like you, just go screw yourself, so there you go, and you know what, in this case, are as once Mr. Lavrov stated, when responding to CNN, guys, couple of years ago on the press and they say, what do you think about this and say, where are you from? CNN, oh, just make up whatever you want, because you know, you cannot talk to West, period, there's nobody to talk to. From Paul Walker, Russian Admiral Alexander Mosdiev has been appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy. Britain is arguing over beards for soldiers. Okay, while beards are important, teachers believe me, I know, we argued with that too, you know, and they were allowed by regulations, but there were some requirements for beards, you know, so you could have the beard, you know, but it's a very specific type of the beard. So, and as for Alexander Mosdiev, he was a Commander of Russian-sumbering forces, an extraordinary experienced man. So, yeah, and you may not prove, he's already tired, I mean, he's, it's the age, you know, he has to go, you have the, have new blood, so, and new beards, so to speak, are opening for the commanders and vice commanders for the fleets and things of this nation. So, yeah, it is a good move. My safe is very respected. Excellent. Dear Durant, thank you for inviting Andre to your stream. I like his podcast about military topics very much from Latimeroo. Thank you, Latimeroo, for that. And from Zik Nasr Andre, how useful is American stealth F-22 on modern battlefield in terms of RCS today, given that electronic warfare and jamming has evolved a lot, citing the case of Italian F-35 being successful, suppressed by SU-30 in June 23. Absolutely useless. The modern air warfare is a combination. It's an integrated, that's why Russians have their new WECIS. Obviously, air forces are part of WECIS, which is the air space forces, which, by the way, was copied by the United States by creating this Star Wars forces, you know, which is, did you see their uniforms? My god, it's just ridiculous. But the point is, the whole American view on the air war is absolutely obsolete. It doesn't matter what there is, there's no stealth anymore. What you have, you have the low observability for the some range of the frequencies, but the modern battlefield, especially modern air defense battlefield, and especially early warning system, they operate on what is called net centric principles. They fuse their data, which also happens to be, and they conduct what is called probabilistic analysis of their targeting. So modern radar sees all those F-22s, F-35s, just fine. That's why, for example, Russians didn't go full stupid stealth on SU-57. It's a low observability aircraft. And then again, when you have R-37 missile, air-to-air missile, with the range of up to 400 kilometers, and you can actually, they're what is called, operated within combat cooperative engagement capability, which means what some other people can guide it, not just, you know, but it's actually a shoot and forget thing. But so yeah, it's not the air war which United States think it can fight. It cannot. Right. For Te Adams, is it likely Russia will now massively disable Ukraine's critical infrastructure in order to collapse the Kiev regime asymmetrically, and avoid the need for big military moves westwards? Yeah, possible Russia is already doing this. The Russians already can't enough with whatever is left of this regime. So the destruction of the critical electric infrastructure is number one, obviously, because it obviously paralyzes all kinds of issues with the lines of communication, moving troops, moving transports and things of this nature. And again, Ukraine have been doing this terrorism against Russia for a while. So it's about time for payback, because many people do not understand that. Not many Russians view Ukraine today as brotherly nation. So, you know, and Sayyir wants to, wants to know the same thing. Does Andre think Russia has started now in light of the recent targeting of the power production plans rather than distribution? So I think you answered that. Marika wants to know what are your thoughts about the hyping by the west of Yolanda, Yulia Navalny, as the potential Russian president in waiting? You know what, nobody cares what the rats do in the damster. I mean, you know, she's nobody. She is stupid, and she probably was already kind of, you know, cheating on him while he was, you know, still there, you know, in the west. So it's, it's for the bloids, you know, let daily mirror deal with this issue. Okay, that's the level. Okay, serious people not going to talk about this. I mean, it's just complete trash. I mean, it's Audrey from Zariel, why did you choose the name smoothie X12? Okay, gosh, yeah, it has nothing to do with only fans, because if I would have the fans only, whatever only fans account, I would break the industry and it will go bankrupt. But the point is that at some point of time, it was a long time ago. I believe it was, I would say, 17 years, at least, on some military forum, I needed to do the login and registration. And so I go Andre Machianov. Andre Machianov taken. Andre M taken. A M taken. And so it was whatever I was putting in. It was taken. And at some point of time, after 20 minutes, I it's like, really, I mean, so I go and smoothie taken. Like, okay, smoothie was like, you know, what the hell, you know, just let me do it. Smoothie X taken, smoothie X1 taken and the frustration smoothie X12 being there you go, smoothie as well. So I wish I could be, and now, you know, what these things talk to me now and, you know, what can I say? I always explain to people to whom I give my email that I don't do porn. Okay, please, it's just the way it is. Let's keep it like this. And yeah, it's became kind of monica now and even trademark some people saying. All right, you have time for a couple of more, Andre. Fantastic, fantastic. Tisha, I must know, Mr. Martiana of Ken, we be certain that all that has been revealed during this SMO that Mr. Putin and Russia will never trust the collective West. Yeah, it's over. It's over. I mean, Russia is done with the West, the collective West. Russia will gladly open, which she does, open arms for Westerners, who many of who moved to Russia. For example, Maria Zahara, a year ago, she went on the record that there are tens of thousands of applications from Germans. And not from Eastern Germany or Western Germans. We're talking like German Germans from Munich, you know, from Hamburg and all that. People just, you know, migrate into Russia. And I've been on the record for many years when I talk about that Russia is an arc and she is the West today. But with what we have today with this West, it's over. It's done. And many people say just erect a wall between us and them. There's a good follow-up question to that. One second, let me find it. From Sancho Alakso, considering the bleak economic horizon, any advice for Soviet expats in the U.S. feeling the tug of going back to Russia, even after decades? Oh, it's it all depends. People ask me all the time, do you want to go to Russia? I'm going, I visit there periodically, so it's not like I'm detached from it. But the point is, in our case, for example, in my personal case, in my family, we've been living in the United States for 30 years. It's became our home. It's our home country essentially, you know. Now, plus, you know, we are specific Russians. Our, we have, I was born in Baku, which is now independent of the Serbia chain, which is, you know, a completely different country and a little bit different culture to put it mildly. So it all depends. It all depends on the personal circumstances. And we love Pacific Northwest. We are actually married in love with the American West, the most beautiful place in the world, actually. So it's kind of has its pros and cons. So it's, it all depends. I don't feel detached from Russia whatsoever. We have a bunch of friends, classmates, and we visit them this year, we should be going there. So it's kind of, you know, it's a personal choice, I would say. But for us, you know, what it's, there is also kind of, it's a personal issue. I've been through the collapse of the Soviet Union, you know, maybe I will have some impact in saving whatever boot is left in the United States, you know, by the virtue of me being here. And many people say you should stay here. You should be the voice of reason among other voices. So yeah, we'll stay here, you know, so I'm doing my part. Here's an interesting question from Serbia, MSM boasts moral wars fought through immoral means. Is there a war that actually brought ethics to the front lines, amidst to label the SMO, the STD? SMO is the moral war. And even the World War II, the Nazism in its face was so horrifying that, you know, what it was the moral war in many respects, especially considering what Nazism was trying to accomplish, basically committing genocide on many levels. So that was a moral war, absolutely. That's charcoal. Great starts, charcoal, wrote in 1980, what is called the verbal history of the World War II. And he called it the book called the good war. He called it the good war, not only because it was good for United States, while the call of the world was laid in the room, United States actually was prospering, you know. But it also, because there was indeed a very good understanding that, you know, fighting against Nazi Germany was absolutely good war in terms of morals, because the evil on the other side was so explicit, so into your face that, yes, it was a moral war. Political trauma, do you think that one of the issues, one of the reasons Macron is behaving, like this has to do with the situation happening in Africa, but on pushes for the European army to finance his fights? Yeah, that's a part of it, absolutely. Apart from this guy being nothing modern bank teller and having no any skills in life, except for marrying, who knows what. So, and other than that, yeah, that's his ideas. I mean, the guy still pretends that he's some kind of Napoleon, but my gosh, the guy is, I won't allow him, won't rush him to mow the lawn in the front of my house. I mean, the guy is just, it's pathetic. France is down, it's over French. Socier says, Andre, I remember when the Russian Academy of Science was heavily populated by ex-military staff, is it still so? And why is it so important? I mean, if you're talking about Russian Academy of Science in general, I mean, yeah, there are some military people absolutely, and around the number of the very serious military scientists who obviously developed the not only weaponry, but also the overall move their science ahead, including the developing all the new physical principles of the weapons. And as such, they are academicians, but I mean, I would say that there are so many, there are some from what I know, but primarily it's that there are many people who are civilians, but who are tied to the military industrial complex. That's different matter. Some of them are academicians outstanding physicists, you know, mathematicians and things of this nature. All right, one more question, and we'll let Andre go. Thank you so much, Andre, for your time for moon dragon. It seems that Russia is not worried at all at the Napoleon's threat to endoradesa. Is this the reason why Russia has an extra 600,000 troops outside of the SMO? Yeah, Russia creates another additional two, I believe you correct me, please. I'm not always up to the up to, you know, the latest news. Two additional combined arms armies and 14 out of formations of the divisional and core size, and it's more than 600,000 now because actually daily Russia receives up to 1500 of volunteers. So Russia is geared for war. First, a French joke, militarily day, I joke, okay, the only thing they have, which is for them is their own not large, but fairly effective and modern nuclear deterrent primary through the term found class submarines, where the most of it is located. But combined answers, please, I mean, just not even serious, you know, what can they possibly deploy there, even if they deployed it, as already Mr Putin stated, and everybody else stated that they will be hunted down and killed period, nothing they can do about it, you know, so that's just the way what one quick question from Odyssey, how is the pay in Russia for enlisted versus the USA? I don't know about a foreign list that obviously the guys who, who, you know, burn challenger tanks or Avram stinks, they are what it has, some name, up to a hundred thousand dollars, which is 10 million approximately robots. There are even talks about it because they started to blow those Panthers and, well, all, you know, their parents and what have you in the industrial quantities. But I know about the officers, I can tell you that thing, the commanding officer usually kept on second or first train of the nuclear power submarine, for example, like, yes, in class, they receive equivalent, equivalent of five thousand dollars a month. But remember, these are five thousand dollars in Russia, which is practically probably converts to equivalent of 15 grand a month for the commanding officer of the submarine, nuclear submarine, and you would say that people on the level of the division commander, you know, so yeah, they get, so in robots, it's five hundred thousand plus robots. So I would say their army commander makes about a million at least. So apart from bonuses and all that stuff and pay for combat zone. And so it's, if you come to work with, which is still stupid, you shouldn't do this, you know, like, oh, yeah, this is so many robots. Let's convert them. It doesn't work like this. And even in terms of their parity, you know, precious parity power still doesn't work because you have to consider so many things. But I would say that it's 10 grand in dollars. So but if you convert how far it goes in Russia, in terms of, oh my God, yeah, they make at least if not more than American equivalents in terms of bait. Andre, thank you very much. Thanks a lot, gentlemen, for this great guest. Sparky says great work fellas and lover of Russian team says love Andre. What a great guest. Andre Martiano, thank you very much for joining us on this live stream. Have all your information in the description box down below. And I will have it as a pinned comment as well, your website, your publication, and your YouTube channel, which is fantastic. Absolutely. Can I just say that? And please keep keep an eye out for Andre's books. If you really want us to understand so many things, both about the Russians and about the West today, please do go to his books. Read them. You will learn an awful lot. What is the book out? One more plug for the for the new book, Andre? I cannot even say its title yet, but I think so once I was done with editing now, actually, it's in the editing process of by my wonderful editor at Clarity Press, Diana Coelier. Once she brings her edits from my English into proper English, you know, so and I will accept them, obviously, I will. And not only that, there will be obviously some discussion of the political and military points. And once that is done, it's a technical work pretty much. You need to do what is called the bibliography and index. That's about it, you know, and then it goes into print. And that's when basically, you know, comes up on Amazon and other platforms. So, and you will know, I will tell you guys. Fantastic. How about the idea of foreign supporters of Russia being allowed or called upon to join the army war effort? Any thoughts on that, Andre? Many are. There are a bunch of, actually, there are wonderful British guys fighting for Russians. There are Americans fighting for Russians. There are a bunch of many goodwill people all over again. Those are Western and so Russia will, you know, meet in his meeting with the open arms, you know, like this another very popular there, Australian families, Canadian families moving in, you know, so it's a how to say it. If you friend, you friend, you know, and then you become the Russian citizens, you just become Russian and, you know, learn the language and there you go. Just do whatever you need to do for your own, you know, sake pursuit of happiness. Who would ever thought that Russia will be a free country? It's unfreaking believable. I live through it. It's just sometimes I have to pinch myself that at my 60 plus years, never saw anything like this. And I thought the collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't being dealt. What we are observing right now, global realignment of unprecedented level. Yeah, agreed. Andre, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you guys for having me. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye. All right. Well, a lot of questions for Andre. Great to know. Alexander, you've got the energy to to answer the remaining questions? Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Jerry, welcome to the drag community. OG wall says, good evening. Joseph Kush says, very strange how ISIS always tends to strike US adversaries. They did not even come out with anything against Israel. So often said by so many people and so true. Marcelo says, hi, Andre, Alex and Alexander. Great information. Thank you, Marcelo, for that. Tisham says busy working now, but a small contribution to my fab guys at the Iran and Andre. Thank you, Tish, for that. I'll thank you for that. Super sticker, acrobat. Thank you for a super sticker. It is not. Thank you for a super sticker. Beverly, thank you for that super chat. Darin says, good evening. All so great to catch a live stream. Good evening. Darin, Commander Crossfire says, all I am saying is give peace a chance. Max D says, for the third time in my life, we are stumbling towards World War 3. While practice makes perfect, I sure wish the US would calm the F down. Absolutely, completely agree. Oscar N says, can the UN deny all the terror cases Russia now has on the table and can the pipeline fit in that case too? Can you just Nord Stream? Yeah, let me put it up on the screen. Can the UN deny all the terror cases Russia now has on the table and can the pipeline, the Nord Stream pipeline, imagine fit in that case too? This is a good question, actually. What the Russians are doing is they're bringing up these cases now regularly to the Security Council and of course, they're also hinting at legal proceedings against Ukraine at the International Court of Justice. Now, I think that in terms of the International Court of Justice, they might be able to get a case started there, but it will take a very, very long time to be decided a decade at least. So just bear that in mind. For quicker action, you need to go to the Security Council. The Security Council has a western majority. It's designed to have a western majority, three states on the Security Council, Britain, the United States and France, our western states, they have powers of veto, they can block investigations. But a couple about a week ago, Glendeeson and I on the Iran interview to Dmitry Poliansky, Russia's UN ambassador, he said that specifically on the topic of Nord Stream, he noticed that the Americans, the American representatives on the Security Council were nervous and unsure. And he thinks that the Russians are making headway there, and there is always the possibility, if there is a stop at the Security Council, that it can be taken to the General Assembly, and was the General Assembly can set up tribunals, it can order investigations, it can do all kinds of things. So don't lose hope. From Ben Redward, this is for Andre, just so I now Ben, but I think we can answer that. Andre, how can Russia impose on the West a cost high enough to deter further terrorist attacks, yet not so high as to bring about World War Three? That's a very good question, actually. That is a very good question. Well, I think what the Russians are going to do is they're going to press on with the wall, they're going to be very methodical, they're going to embarrass the West by releases of information, and they will use their extremely skillful diplomatic call, their foreign ministry, to rally international support. And that does have an effect, may not be obvious and immediate, but it does work over time, and it creates, it puts pressure on the West, it means that Western officials become embarrassed, it means that when Western diplomats go abroad, they have doors shot in their faces, or they have difficult confrontations for their hosts, things like that start to happen, and that is not to be underestimated. And I don't just make people speaking to each other, it means that contracts, for example, for big infrastructure deals or arms deals, things like that start to go differently, they start to go to Chinese companies or Russian ones or whatever. So it does have an effect over time. Zariel says, thanks to Andre for being here with us. Thank you Zariel for that. From Rockford, from Gio, Gioha says, "Not a mention of the Iranian embassy hit in Syria in the New York Times, does that actually work a censorship?" I made exactly the same point in my latest program, which is now a bearing on my channel, that there was clearly some kind of a direction not to talk about this, because it was the same with the British media. I think one newspaper, I think was the Guardian, briefly had it as a headline, and then it came down almost at once. And it was extraordinary, this astonishing event, an attack on a diplomatic building protected by the Vienna Convention, the killing of two generals, and it's bearing use. It tells you so much about the state of the world today. Thank you for that question. From Commando Crossfire, pie in the sky, but the state of Israel should be reformatted into the union of the Levant with a joint Palestinian Jewish government under UN supervision with security guarantees by Arab and US win-win. We might end up there, if there's ever a negotiation, how do we get there? That's the challenge today. Let's see from Adam Platt's duplomacy, the only game in the village. The way the West conducts it, yes. Now, there was a French diplomat, a man called Kayar, who was the chief negotiator of Louis XIV, and he wrote the first, and some still think, the best handbook in diplomacy. And he said duplicity, lying is something a diplomat should never do, because it leaves poison behind. So there you go. Postrian, thank you for that super sticker. Ricardo, thank you for that super sticker. Adam Platt says, "I switched off the 2012 Special Olympic Opening Ceremony when I learned Russia was banned, not watched since." Let me save you. Trivalin, welcome to the Duran community. Peter says, "You all should have Robert Amsterdam on. He's the lawyer defending the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Alensky regime, and schismatics." That is a very interesting idea, actually. I remember Robert Amsterdam's previous times. That's a thought. We should contact him, and we should also contact like Jay Dyer to talk about the Orthodox. Just the news, I think that's a good topic that we should work towards. Commander Crossfire says, "Russia needs immigration to help prop growth, but reaction to Moscow Hall attack is to tide in immigration controls even against fraternal CA states. Was planned to sow discord among family of nations like in Ukraine?" I think there might have been that purpose, but I don't think it will work over the long term. I think that, in fact, reading the latest assessment from the Russian Central Bank, it seems that Russian companies are succeeding in increasing their employment levels, and that suggests that more guest workers are coming. Now, it's important to understand these are guest workers. They are not immigrants. They might be able to apply for immigrant status at the moment, but they're going there to work. They're not going there to gain citizenship, and it is a much more regulated situation than just people turning up and taking jobs in Russia at the moment. This is not immigration, but it is movement to fill empty slots in factories in such places. Crusader General says, "A warrant officer and NCO are not the same." No, but in Russia, it's different. This is not so confusing, because Russian ranks don't necessarily correspond exactly to Western ones. Communism Incorporated says, "The problems with Western elites are systemic and enduring. Peace is the only sensible path forward for our increasingly interwoven global community. Nothing else is sufficient. Our leaders hate peace." I completely agree. Game of Chair says, "Will Zelensky number five be available in the Duran Shop?" Possibly. Game of Chair, possibly. Death Dealer says, "Is the West still going to send F-16s to Ukraine, or did they finally realize that it was a terrible idea on their part?" Well, they're saying they will send them. I think they will send them. I think it will be so embarrassing if they don't send them, but I'm sure they will send them. I don't think anybody any longer has any doubt that this was a terrible idea. All those people who were saying a year ago when this idea was first brought up in the United States and the Pentagon, this is a terrible idea, have improved right, and they're going to be proved even more right when they turn up and can't operate from airfields and start getting shot down. Yeah, thank you for that. Super chat. Jeff says, "Yeah, to move the..." Thank you, Jeff. Ralph says, "What is Andre's opinion on the effect of Zelensky number five?" Very strong effect. Ralph, very strong. Zariel. Okay, we answered that. Sihoj says, "Very interesting analysis. Thanks, Chaps. At large 47, thank you for that. Super chat. Sparky says, "Sorry, I'm late. I'll catch what I missed on the replay." Moon Dragon, we answered that question. Cash, we answered that. Sparky, Nino, and P.C. says, "Andre, if Trump gets into office, did you think Putin will work with him in mending relations?" I think that he actually answered this question. He actually answered that. What are your thoughts? I think that the Russians have no trust. I think that they will be extremely wary about any off-person proposals that come from the Americans. I think Donald Trump would have to work extremely hard to persuade the Russians to come round. I actually think, or balance, that the only person who might be able to do that they waste on them, Trump. Yeah, I agree. DS-1993 says, "If by any case, NATO and Russia go to war, who do you think is going to come to Russia's side?" Well, depends on the wall. At the moment, Russia has many more friends in the world than the West does. Something that this crisis has exposed, and which the West is finding very difficult to accept. Mm-hmm. Quantum Zen says, "Really nice program has always Duran. One of the mysteries, for me, was the existence of top-notch military scientists, first-class physicists in Russia, such as Yaakov Zeldevich, the co-inventor of the M.R.L.S., and the discoverer of the Black Hole Radiation." Mr. Matiano's story on the thorough math science education of Russian cadets gave me a hint. I can now see the central role played by the Military Academy and Military Science Labs in Russian physics science. Yes, well, can I also say something? Because it was my wife, who is, by the way, British, but has had interactions with Russian universities. And of course, she's from a humanities background, an English literature background. But she has been very, very impressed by the heavy, heavy stress in mathematics and science in Russian schools. I mean, you know, the Russians teach maths very seriously. And the other thing that she has found really surprised at is that in the engineering schools, like the Bauman Technical University, where she has also taught, even though they do teach the heavy sciences in engineering, there are also literature courses. So, you know, the Russians seem to believe that you need to have some understanding of both, that you can't be a really educated person. It can't be a really good engineer if you don't also have some knowledge of the humanities as well. There's a very balanced and very, very rigorous way in which education takes place in Russia. And some years ago, the Russians, in order to integrate their universities with those at the west, adopted the Bologna system. And they didn't like it at all. They thought he was much, much because a major falling off of standards. And now that the sanctions came with a huge relief, they dumped it. And they've gone back to what they had previously, which they think is much more rigorous and far better. Trevor Else, thank you for that super sticker. Envy Storman says, thank you, Doran. Thank you for that. And Rad Fundra says, thank you so much for your work. You are the reason I didn't go mad in the beginning of the CBO. My mother was in Kiev in the airport. She is safe now. Thank you. Thank you for that. Raphael says, when Putin said America, you are not ready for a new war. I knew well what he said. Do you think everyone else heard and understood what he said? Well, hardly because if you're talking about most of the West, they don't listen to what Putin says. They don't understand anything about how Russia works. We were talking about things like the Security Council. You would never hear about the Security Council. When did you ever read about this top policy making decision-building in Russia in any Western newspaper? As far as they're concerned, it might not even exist. Everything is Putin, Putin, Putin. And nothing that he ever says is convinced or reported properly. Basil Beschka says, should the West hire actors, with their spokespeople seeing insincere? Excellent comment. Yeah, excellent comment there. D'Love, thank you for that super chat. Tepato Matato says, Alexander recently mentioned a Chinese diplomat in Ukrainian. What are they doing and what can they accomplish? Also, Macron is Lepetit Napoleon. He certainly is. The diplomat I was referring to was Lee Hui. He was appointed by Xi Jinping as the Chinese representative to try to promote the ideas that the Chinese set out last year in what was misdescribed by the West as a Chinese peace plan. It was not. It was a set of underlying principles with the Chinese presented saying that these could form the basis for future negotiations. So, Lee Hui's job was to travel around trying to persuade all the various countries involved in this conflict to sit down and talk. And he goes to Russia regularly. He goes to all the European countries. He went to Ukraine. He's always received very politely in Russia. He arrived in Ukraine. He suggested to the Ukrainians that they needed to sit down to the Russians and talk to them without preconditions. And he got a torrent of abuse directed at himself with really awful things said about him publicly by the then secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Alexei Danilov, who has since departed the scene. But Lee Hui is there. He's a very hardworking diplomat. He's a constant presence. And perhaps who knows in time, people will listen to what he says. Mind tab, thank you for that awesome super chat. Thank you very much. Mind tab for that. Elza says, "Even if the thought is flattering, is it realistic that Ursula will have to answer for ordering the jabs for the EU?" But let it goes reporting on it, which is interesting. Random name, think of that super sticker. 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 discussed this in another livestream, I think. You made the same point that. Thank you, Sparky, for that. Yeah. Elza says, "Is the White House still collecting information about the attack on the Iranian embassy? What a different take compared to the attack in Moscow." Well true. Well, Sparky says, "Dinesify Israel." Basil Bichkov says, "Is it time to say the Empire has no close?" Yes. I mean, that has been the most brutal effect in some ways in terms of geo-strategic consequence of the whole Ukraine conflict, because it has stripped the west bear of so many of its pretensions. Its military looks inadequate, its political decision-making looks hopeless, its foreign policy has failed, and its economic and sanctions policy has failed. The Emperor really does, it turns out, have no close. Joe Public says, "Is the new Israel in rampant Ukraine a likely scenario? Is new Israel in rampant Ukraine a likely scenario?" No, I don't see it. I really don't. As Ariel says, "Trump walked North Korea, so maybe, but I don't trust him." Well, he might do. I mean, he's talked about this before. Of course, he wasn't able to do it in his first sort out issues with the Russians, not for want of trying, and I don't think he's to be blamed in any way for the fact that it failed. I mean, the odds against him were, I mean, incredibly huge, ludicrously huge. Whether in the new conditions of a second term, after the west has suffered a big, yet strategic defeat in Ukraine, he'd be more successful. I really don't know, but it's difficult to understate the level of dismay with the west that exists in Russia now. I mean, it's and distaste for the west or at least for the leadership of the west that exists in Russia now, including amongst ordinary Russians. Ballyess, thank you for that. Super chat and Alexander. That's a wrap. Well, that was an amazing live stream. That was a wonderful live stream. And by the way, wonderful questions of a wonderful guest, but wonderful questions that we answered too. Thank you, everybody, for tuning into this live stream. Once again, all of Andre's information in the description box, and I will add it as a pinned comment as well. Thank you to our moderators, Ariel, Ballyess, Peter, Tish, M, who else? I think, are those all the moderators? Did I forget somebody? I have a feeling like I forgot some moderators. I don't know. It's late here. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Rockford Odyssey, rumblethederan.locals.com. And of course, on YouTube. Any final thoughts, Alex? I think that we've just had a wonderful explanation of things from Andrei Martiana, and it complements so well what Jacques Ball has been writing, was telling us the other day. I mean, as those two know each other, I should say they've done program together, but Jacques Ball studies the Russian military. Of course, Martiana actually comes from Russian military, the Soviet military, and he studies the West. So it works perfectly if you like. There's the ideal symmetry. And note how they complement each other, how the two have come to essentially the same understanding from the different positions that they've got. They converge to the same point. Yeah. Amanda Crossfire says 400,000 subscribers, good work. Did we get to 400,000? Well, I was going to say I thought we were almost there. I think we're like 390 died. Yes, I think we are. Maybe we are. Maybe we are. Maybe we are. That's the case. Thank you to everybody. Yes, thank you to everybody. It's all of these tremendous when it comes. But as I said, it's the community that's brought us that. Yeah. And Delza says the emperor has no clothes and paid a lot for it. Sure enough. Billions. Billions. All right. Take care, everybody. - Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]