Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Austria’s Neutrality and My Ukraine Peace Agreement: Handshakes vs. Treaties

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Austria’s Neutrality and My Ukraine Peace Agreement: Handshakes vs. Treaties · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:01
  Alrighty then, very sorry about that.
• 0:05
  Hello, good evening and welcome.
• 0:07
  This is Samuel Trapp.
• 0:09
  This is International Flavor you are listening to.
• 0:13
  We are on DAM Radio.
• 0:14
  You can listen to me every night on DAM Radio from 9pm to 10.30pm Central Time,
• 0:22
  Chicago Time that is.
• 0:25
  And we have listeners from around the world, so I want to point that out.
• 0:29
  I'm still coming to you live from Moscow.
• 0:33
  I still sound like I'm in a little bit of a tube because this is not a studio,
• 0:37
  it is an apartment that I am in.
• 0:41
  And using the apartment for my little mini studio.
• 0:47
  Had an eventful day today, went downtown Moscow again.
• 0:50
  It's my last day in Moscow.
• 0:52
  Tomorrow night take a train back to Belarus and then leave from there back to
• 1:00
  Miami in a day or two and be back in the States in a little bit.
• 1:06
  I like to hit the ground running when I get there, got plenty of things I need
• 1:10
  to take care of when I do get there.
• 1:13
  So, kind of looking forward to that.
• 1:15
  Had quite an eventful day today.
• 1:18
  Did get to go to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, which was really pretty damn
• 1:26
  cool.
• 1:27
  And I never schedule enough time for those things.
• 1:30
  And that building is huge, they have tons of huge sarcophagi, they had huge
• 1:39
  statues from 500-600 BC from Greek Roman times.
• 1:44
  I mean, it was an incredible thing to see and nowhere near enough time.
• 1:51
  But that isn't what the show is about tonight, just a kind of a tourist
• 1:55
  attraction.
• 1:56
  But like I said on yesterday's show, it would be really nice to be able to
• 2:03
  share cultures, share experiences, and use that as a method to get rid
• 2:12
  of the conflicts that we have.
• 2:15
  I'm not one of those touchy-feely, limp-wristed, hey let's all get together and
• 2:21
  sing Kumbaya.
• 2:22
  I also believe that sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and that war is
• 2:28
  an unfortunate reality.
• 2:30
  But it has dragged on for quite a while and it really needs to end but we also
• 2:38
  have to understand that just because people disagree on one thing doesn't mean
• 2:42
  they're the Antichrist on the other.
• 2:44
  I encourage you to go back and listen to my show about Woody Allen being placed
• 2:49
  on the kill list for Ukraine, which I think is nonsense.
• 2:54
  I had a Ukrainian guy tell me that's not a kill list, that's just enemies of
• 2:58
  Ukraine.
• 3:00
  We've talked to about that.
• 3:02
  I don't know what to call it.
• 3:04
  I wanted to look it up online and see if I could actually find it
• 3:13
  and see what it says.
• 3:17
  Here's the Mira Tvorits center.
• 3:22
  Mira Tvorits dot center.
• 3:26
  It's pulling up, maybe it is.
• 3:28
  I was going to go look at it because I never did go look.
• 3:32
  You know what?
• 3:33
  I feel bad about that because I always say don't take people's word for stuff
• 3:37
  and guess what I just did?
• 3:39
  I didn't finish the research on going on the Mira Tvorits list and make sure
• 3:45
  that Woody Allen is put on there with a picture with something on his face.
• 3:52
  Yeah, it's written in Ukrainian.
• 3:54
  It's a center of Poslidivania Poslidivania.
• 4:01
  I don't read Ukrainian, unfortunately.
• 4:03
  Non-government center for research of elements of crimes against the national
• 4:08
  security of Ukraine, peace, humanity, and international law.
• 4:12
  Information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro
• 4:17
  -Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.
• 4:25
  Langley, Virginia, USA, Warsaw, Polska, email protected.
• 4:31
  And then it has all these things in Ukrainian.
• 4:37
  I'm going to have to look into this.
• 4:38
  I might have to do another whole thing just on this stupid website.
• 4:49
  I don't see anything recent on here.
• 4:51
  This could be a different website.
• 4:53
  I'm going to have to look into it a little bit more.
• 4:55
  Maybe somebody that listens might know.
• 4:57
  And I got kind of sidetracked with that anyway.
• 4:59
  I wasn't really going to go there.
• 5:01
  I just remembered that when I had said something about it I wanted to make sure
• 5:05
  that I wasn't talking out of my rear end and find that they had the internet
• 5:11
  site that listed properly that shows the actual
• 5:21
  site.
• 5:21
  Yeah, no, the URL in Wikipedia says it's miratorys.center and it's written in
• 5:28
  Ukrainian.
• 5:29
  And according to Wikipedia anyway, which is in Russian, it says the site
• 5:37
  publishes the personal information of those who have fought on the center of
• 5:43
  the separatists or support the control of Russian Federation of DNR and
• 5:53
  LNR, Donetsk and Lugansk.
• 5:56
  And I might have to get into that a little bit more when we go a little bit
• 6:00
  further into it.
• 6:01
  I think I will.
• 6:02
  But that is not tonight's topic.
• 6:07
  Tonight's topic I wanted to get to and I'm going to share this article with you
• 6:12
  first.
• 6:16
  There's been a lot of news today and there's, for example, US telling Denmark
• 6:23
  to calm down over the Greenland thing.
• 6:27
  Ukrainians, young ones, running to leave the country to get out.
• 6:32
  A huge rush on the border right now.
• 6:36
  The EU is mulling neutral status for Ukraine's ceasefire or states.
• 6:43
  Brussels is calling for pipeline security after Ukraine strikes key routes.
• 6:48
  The Moldovan politicians that face extradition ahead of key elections.
• 6:54
  Ukraine conflict is Modi's war, says Trump now.
• 6:59
  Well, a Trump aide.
• 7:02
  Let's see.
• 7:03
  The one I wanted to get to a series of huge bombing.
• 7:09
  A ship was sunk on the Ukrainian side.
• 7:11
  Russians sank a Ukrainian Navy ship with a drone ship, actually.
• 7:19
  Let's see.
• 7:21
  But most importantly, there's a story by a guy named Dmitry Medvedev.
• 7:29
  Now, I've always said that if you don't like Vladimir Putin, wait around a bit.
• 7:40
  When he's gone, you may get something quite a bit worse.
• 7:45
  You may pray for the days that a calm and reasonable man like Vladimir was
• 7:51
  running the show and that you didn't get a big talking guy that isn't afraid
• 8:00
  to swing his wiener talking about war.
• 8:11
  I'm not saying anything bad about Medvedev.
• 8:14
  I think he's extremely intelligent.
• 8:16
  I've watched a lot of his stuff.
• 8:18
  His speech at the St. Petersburg legal conference that took place several
• 8:24
  months ago, I think I may have reported that to you as well.
• 8:27
  It was a well-written, a very nice speech.
• 8:29
  I listened to the whole thing.
• 8:31
  The guy's very smart.
• 8:33
  He goes in-depth on a lot of things.
• 8:36
  Well, he wrote an article today.
• 8:39
  Or it was published today.
• 8:40
  God knows when he wrote it, but who really cares?
• 8:43
  The article's by Dmitry Medvedev, and I'm going to share it with you because
• 8:47
  we're going to talk about a bunch of this stuff tonight.
• 8:50
  I've done a good amount of research on this, and I want to go through all of
• 8:57
  this with you because there's some important points the guy makes.
• 9:03
  There's some important things that we all disagree with or we can disagree
• 9:10
  with.
• 9:10
  Everybody has their own opinion on this stuff on the other end of the planet.
• 9:14
  That's us.
• 9:16
  But Dmitry Medvedev is a powerful man in Russia, and Dmitry Medvedev is a very
• 9:20
  smart man, and Dmitry Medvedev is an influential man, and Dmitry Medvedev is
• 9:25
  also a guy who doesn't give a rip.
• 9:29
  He's like Donald Trump on steroids.
• 9:35
  Imagine that.
• 9:37
  Or think about Dmitry Medvedev.
• 9:40
  He's not afraid to say things the way he thinks they are.
• 9:43
  And if you can, go back and listen to his speech at the legal conference, the
• 9:47
  legal forum in St. Petersburg.
• 9:49
  I think I want to go to that next year.
• 9:51
  I think I'd love to go to that, and I might try to, both as an attorney.
• 9:57
  I've got some things in the work on that.
• 9:59
  I might get my license back.
• 10:01
  And the other thing is, I'm not really in the mood to practice law, but it'd be
• 10:05
  nice to have it back.
• 10:07
  And the other part would be to go as a journalist and listen to the stories.
• 10:14
  I'm going to give you an analysis of some of the things he brings up in this
• 10:17
  article, because when I read the article this morning, it really got me
• 10:21
  thinking.
• 10:22
  And that's a scary thing, when you can get me thinking, because then it has me
• 10:27
  going and taking some arguments.
• 10:30
  And I did some arguments today.
• 10:31
  Frankly, I was arguing part of the time with my AI monster.
• 10:36
  And so I have this cool AI program that does some legal research for me and
• 10:41
  does some stuff like that.
• 10:42
  And I was arguing with it.
• 10:47
  And I've trained it to talk to me.
• 10:49
  Anyway, call me about that if you're interested.
• 10:53
  I might be able to sell you a platform.
• 10:54
  At any rate, I'm going to read this article to you by Dmitry Medvedev, because
• 11:00
  it's a very interesting article.
• 11:03
  Now take this from the point of view.
• 11:04
  These are not my words.
• 11:06
  These are the words of Dmitry Medvedev.
• 11:08
  And he's talking about Austria.
• 11:10
  Now, my last name is Trapp.
• 11:12
  My last name used to be von Trapp years and years ago.
• 11:15
  My brother Matthew, who also has a show on damradio.com on Sunday nights, is my
• 11:22
  brother.
• 11:23
  And he changed his name back to von Trapp because we were von Trapp years and
• 11:27
  years ago.
• 11:28
  When our family came to America, we were von Trapp.
• 11:31
  And that was before the 1900s, if I follow my mother's genealogy history well,
• 11:42
  which sometimes I don't.
• 11:43
  Sorry about that, Mom.
• 11:44
  But the fact is that my roots are Austrian German, right?
• 11:51
  And when I was in high school, I learned a little bit of German.
• 11:55
  And I always liked the family von Trapp.
• 11:59
  We met.
• 12:01
  She would never in a billion years have remembered anything about me.
• 12:06
  She might have remembered my mother, you know, because we went and saw her at a
• 12:10
  college or a university where she gave a speech.
• 12:13
  And my mom went up to her afterward, told her we were all there.
• 12:16
  And I happened to be there and met her and saw who she was.
• 12:20
  At any rate, she'd never in a billion years remember that.
• 12:23
  But it's a my history is Austrian.
• 12:29
  And so I'm here, Dmitry Medvedev gave an article about Austria and about
• 12:33
  neutrality.
• 12:34
  And this is where we're going.
• 12:36
  And he was giving warnings to people because the title of my show tonight is
• 12:43
  about broken promises and what you do diplomatically and what America has done
• 12:50
  historically diplomatically just sucks.
• 12:53
  At least in the last 30 to 50 years, we suck.
• 12:57
  And we suck because we say one thing and do another.
• 13:02
  We encourage people to make deals and then do something else.
• 13:07
  Then when things don't go our way or we decide to change our mind, we throw a
• 13:11
  million lawyers at it.
• 13:12
  And those lawyers go, we never said that.
• 13:15
  Or is it in writing?
• 13:16
  And I'm going to go into some of that tonight, which is why if you're Russia or
• 13:21
  if you're China or if you're India or if you're Brazil, if you're anybody that
• 13:26
  thinks that the U.S. hegemony should be something different than what it is,
• 13:31
  Americans, I want you to take a strong look in the mirror because we're
• 13:34
  diplomats, but we screw people.
• 13:38
  We screw them and we do it on purpose.
• 13:41
  And diplomacy doesn't mean a whole lot to us.
• 13:44
  We make treaties that we break.
• 13:47
  We make gentleman's arrangements to trick people.
• 13:52
  We've been doing that forever.
• 13:53
  Now, it's a big and a nasty game.
• 13:56
  People go, oh, gee, Sam, you were a lawyer.
• 13:58
  Why in the world are you talking about that?
• 14:00
  Well, I'm talking about it because you're not supposed to have to have a lawyer
• 14:07
  to manage the relationship between you and your wife.
• 14:12
  But you do half the time, don't you?
• 14:15
  You're not supposed to have to have a lawyer to manage the relationship between
• 14:19
  you and your business partner.
• 14:22
  But you do, don't you?
• 14:24
  Wouldn't it be nice if you could just go and shake hands with somebody or marry
• 14:29
  them till death do you part and be true and honest and up front with them
• 14:36
  instead of playing games, political backroom deal games.
• 14:44
  Well, I suppose it is the big boy world of diplomacy, if that's what we're
• 14:50
  going to call it, that makes it just okay to, I don't know, behave this way in
• 14:59
  the political sphere.
• 15:00
  And with that as the backdrop and my discussions, this could be a deep dive
• 15:08
  that I could do a show and a half on this.
• 15:12
  And I got kind of on a roll on it earlier today after reading this article.
• 15:16
  So first, let me share his article because it's an intriguing article.
• 15:20
  Here it starts.
• 15:22
  The countries of the old world are intoxicated by militaristic frenzy.
• 15:27
  Like spellbound moths, they flock to the destructive flame of the North
• 15:32
  Atlantic Alliance.
• 15:34
  Until recently, Europe still had states that understood security could be
• 15:39
  ensured without joining a military bloc.
• 15:42
  Now, reason is giving way to herd instinct.
• 15:47
  Following Finland and Sweden, Austria's establishment, egged on by bloodthirsty
• 15:54
  Brussels, the EU, is fueling public debate about abandoning its
• 15:59
  constitutionally enshrined neutrality in favor of NATO membership.
• 16:06
  Austrian society is far from enthusiastic about this idea.
• 16:10
  The new Austria Liberal Party, led by Foreign Minister Bate Minnelreisinger and
• 16:16
  eager to embrace the bloc, has won less than 10% of the vote in the last
• 16:23
  election.
• 16:24
  By contrast, the opposition Freedom Party of Austria, which opposes firmly,
• 16:31
  blindly copying Brussels' militaristic agenda, received support from 37% of the
• 16:39
  citizens.
• 16:40
  But in today's Europe, when has the will of the people truly stood in the way?
• 16:46
  Efforts to erode Austria's neutrality have been underway for quite some time.
• 16:53
  As far back as the 90s, local revisionists began building military ties under
• 16:59
  the guise of participation in the EU's common security and defense policy.
• 17:07
  Until 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon came into force.
• 17:15
  It was mostly empty talk, coordinating military development among EU states,
• 17:21
  but with no binding obligation.
• 17:24
  Afterward, the argument shifted.
• 17:27
  The treaty didn't specify the scope or timing of the assistance that united
• 17:35
  Europe was obligated to provide in the event of an attack.
• 17:38
  And in any case, the EU was officially regarded as an economic union.
• 17:45
  The fact that most of its members already belonged to NATO was conveniently
• 17:50
  left unfed.
• 17:52
  At the same time, Austria is expanding its military presence beyond Europe,
• 17:58
  taking part in EU training missions and raising its profile in Brussels.
• 18:06
  And it was generally rewarded for doing so.
• 18:10
  From 2022 to 2025, the chair of the EU's military committee was held by
• 18:19
  Austrian General Robert Brieger.
• 18:23
  How's that neutrality for you?
• 18:26
  The Austrians hadn't shown so brightly on a European military stage since World
• 18:31
  War II, when Wehrmacht Colonel General Lothar Rendulic and Erhard Raus and
• 18:38
  Luftwaffe Commander Alexander Lohr distinguished themselves.
• 18:43
  I would add here, and when Colonel Captain von Trapp abandoned the Austrian
• 18:51
  slash Fuhrer's Navy and ran to the United States.
• 18:59
  So, he continues, as the EU was expanding its defense capability, Austria is
• 19:07
  quietly undergoing militarization and natalization.
• 19:12
  Vienna participated in the alliance's partnership for peace, while the country
• 19:17
  is already de facto a component of the bloc's logic.
• 19:21
  Austria, despite not being a NATO member, has become a key transit territory
• 19:28
  for the bloc.
• 19:29
  In 2024, it was traversed by more than 3,000 NATO military vehicles, and its
• 19:39
  airspace accommodated 5,000 plus NATO flights.
• 19:45
  Against this, opinions were voiced in Vienna that faltering pacifist consensus
• 19:51
  and the new Russian threat offer a historic opportunity to break free from
• 19:58
  shackles of the past, namely to scrap neutrality, yet neutrality is woven into
• 20:07
  the fabric of Austria's statehood, re-engineered by allied powers after World
• 20:14
  War II.
• 20:15
  Now, he gets a little, he gets into three agreements right here, and this is
• 20:19
  what got me interested in what I researched on this today, because I knew about
• 20:25
  this, but remember, Austria got its statehood back.
• 20:30
  It didn't get taken from them and overrun and placed by somebody else.
• 20:34
  They got to do it themselves by signing or putting these documents in place, or
• 20:40
  saying what they were going to do, because Russia didn't want Austria to be a
• 20:47
  free nation after that.
• 20:49
  Russia had no desire for that after World War II.
• 20:53
  So, they say, and so does Medvedev, citing history here, that neutrality is
• 20:58
  woven into the very fabric of Austria's statehood.
• 21:01
  It is enshrined in three binding, he says, 1955 documents.
• 21:08
  The Moscow Memorandum, a memorandum is generally not binding, but I get the
• 21:16
  point, you know, of what they're saying.
• 21:18
  The State Treaty for the Reestablishment of an Independent and Democratic
• 21:23
  Austria, document number two.
• 21:27
  And document number three, Austria's own Federal Constitutional Act on
• 21:33
  Permanent Neutrality.
• 21:35
  That one's a big one, okay?
• 21:37
  These documents are the country's legal foundation.
• 21:41
  I agree with Amir, because they are the legal foundation after World War II.
• 21:46
  Should these be removed, the entire edifice of the Austrian statehood is bound
• 21:51
  to collapse.
• 21:54
  What is there to do for Moscow, which was one of the architects of modern
• 22:00
  Austria?
• 22:00
  They had to agree to it to allow this to happen.
• 22:03
  The answer is to give enthusiasts of war hysteria a slap on the wrist within
• 22:09
  the framework of international law.
• 22:11
  The answer is to two key questions.
• 22:14
  Whether Austria has the right to unilaterally renounce its legislatively
• 22:18
  enshrined neutrality, and whether it can independently decide to join NATO, are
• 22:24
  both unequivocally negative.
• 22:28
  Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states explicitly
• 22:34
  that no provisions of a country's internal law may serve as justification for
• 22:42
  violation of an international treaty.
• 22:46
  Now, do you get that to make sure that you do?
• 22:50
  So, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties says that if you have a treaty
• 22:57
  basically with another country, you can't cite your internal law to say, well,
• 23:05
  we don't have to follow that treaty because the people didn't vote on it.
• 23:10
  So, you take America as an example.
• 23:13
  The president signs a treaty, and it gets ratified.
• 23:19
  Then, you can't come along and say, well, we no longer agree with that treaty,
• 23:24
  so there you go.
• 23:26
  There has to be ways in the treaty for how to get out of it like any other
• 23:29
  contract, right?
• 23:31
  So, that's number one.
• 23:33
  Also, NATO cannot be considered a regional organization of collective defense,
• 23:39
  and therefore joining the alliance won't grant a permanently neutral state the
• 23:47
  same benefits as its guaranteed neutrality.
• 23:52
  Now, that makes sense, too.
• 23:53
  So, if you're guaranteed neutral, nobody can mess with you, and nobody would.
• 23:57
  But if you join the alliance, you won't have that same neutrality.
• 24:02
  So, that makes sense.
• 24:04
  These provisions are recognized by respected figures versed in the issue.
• 24:08
  For example, former Austrian foreign minister, Karin Niesel, I hope I said that
• 24:15
  right, now head of the Gorky Center at St. Petersburg State University,
• 24:24
  stresses that altering the status quo of neutrality requires the consent of all
• 24:30
  the allied powers that signed the 1955 treaty, including Russia as the legal
• 24:38
  successor of the USSR. So, there's a 1955 treaty.
• 24:44
  Moscow retains the right to veto Vienna's move down the NATO path.
• 24:50
  Right?
• 24:52
  The hawkish faction of Austria's elite must grasp the full scale of foreign
• 24:58
  policy losses that would follow from abandoning neutrality and to join NATO.
• 25:04
  Today, Vienna is a hub.
• 25:05
  Now, this is important.
• 25:07
  Pay attention to this.
• 25:09
  For multilateral diplomacy hosting around 20 intergovernmental organizations.
• 25:18
  This ensures its engagement in global processes and the development of legal
• 25:23
  frameworks to address emerging challenges and threats.
• 25:27
  So, the decision to establish these offices of the United Nations,
• 25:33
  International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, OPEC, and OSCE
• 25:43
  in Vienna is predicated on the non-aligned status of Austria, which provides an
• 25:53
  effective platform for dialogue and regional cooperation.
• 25:56
  Think about this.
• 25:57
  If you wanted a neutral place to have a negotiation
• 26:07
  with Ukraine and Russia and Austria is neutral, Russia can go there.
• 26:14
  And Russia, you know, or OPEC can go there.
• 26:18
  Its neutrality has been what has attracted these big time international
• 26:24
  organizations to being there because you can get everyone to agree on Austria
• 26:29
  because Austria is neutral.
• 26:33
  Take away that neutrality, join NATO, and suddenly you don't have that.
• 26:38
  And they're going to want to move all these organizations.
• 26:42
  Replacing neutrality with a block mentality undermines the spirit of Vienna and
• 26:48
  makes it impossible for Austria to maintain balanced relations with diverse
• 26:53
  international partners.
• 26:55
  As a result, Austria is losing its unique role as a mediator and a hub for
• 27:02
  international institution.
• 27:04
  This leads to an obvious conclusion.
• 27:07
  It is time to consider relocating international organizations headquarters to
• 27:13
  countries in the global south and east.
• 27:18
  How about that?
• 27:19
  That can provide the necessary conditions for their work.
• 27:24
  Adding to all of this, Austria's militaristic turn is shattering its peacemaker
• 27:30
  image, curtailing its sovereign room for maneuver.
• 27:35
  Instead, it significantly increases the risk that Austria's Bundesheer unit may
• 27:42
  find themselves included in Russian armed forces' long-range mission plans.
• 27:49
  A package of countermeasures was adopted against Sweden and Finland after they
• 27:56
  joined NATO and Austria should not expect any exceptions here.
• 28:03
  Now that is the article written by Dmitry Medvedev that I read this morning.
• 28:10
  And that article got me churning a little bit and thinking about a few things.
• 28:18
  And so, I began to look into those three legal foundations
• 28:30
  given by Dmitry Medvedev as oh,
• 28:40
  I just watched, I just saw the video pop up again on the naval drone that took
• 28:45
  out the Ukraine, sunk a Ukrainian ship today.
• 28:50
  That's unfortunate.
• 28:51
  Sorry, those people are past, I know they lost at least one or two soldiers and
• 28:57
  quite a few they were still searching for.
• 28:59
  So, who can tell what happened in there?
• 29:02
  But let's talk about these treaties that we were discussing.
• 29:08
  And remember, the foreign minister of Austria, just what he's responding to,
• 29:13
  what this article that Dmitry Medvedev wrote is really about is because in late
• 29:20
  July and a little bit since then, Austria said it might abandon neutrality for
• 29:29
  NATO membership according to its own foreign minister.
• 29:35
  So, Austria should be ready to discuss its potential membership in NATO, said
• 29:42
  foreign minister Biddy Meinl-Reisinger.
• 29:46
  She said that joining is unlikely to gain major public parliamentary support.
• 29:54
  But he is talking about that.
• 29:56
  In an interview with DeWalt, Dmitry Medvedev is anyway, published on Saturday,
• 30:02
  the foreign minister she said, spoke about what she described as an
• 30:07
  increasingly aggressive Russia.
• 30:10
  Really.
• 30:10
  When she claims is reluctant to conclude a peace deal with Ukraine.
• 30:15
  That's BS too.
• 30:17
  They're reluctant to have a ceasefire.
• 30:20
  That's for sure.
• 30:22
  According to her, neutrality alone does not protect us.
• 30:27
  And that Austria should invest in its own defense capabilities and in military
• 30:33
  partnership.
• 30:35
  She is fundamentally open to public debate about Austria's future in this
• 30:40
  field, saying that while there's currently no majority in parliament or among
• 30:45
  the population for NATO membership, such debate can nevertheless be fruitful.
• 30:51
  It's not that I want to join NATO with flying colors, but said that the country
• 30:57
  could not just sit on its hands and watch the changing geopolitical landscape.
• 31:02
  Why not?
• 31:03
  If you're neutral, and anybody knows you're neutral, why can't you?
• 31:08
  Nonsense.
• 31:09
  Earlier this week, foreign ministry spokeswoman Russian Maria Zakharova accused
• 31:16
  Austria of abandoning its neutrality and the role as an international
• 31:22
  intermediary in conflicts.
• 31:26
  After these discussions.
• 31:29
  So anyway, I got to thinking about those three looks, knowing because I
• 31:35
  understand the point.
• 31:38
  I understand what Dmitry Medvedev is talking about.
• 31:43
  I get why he's bothered about this.
• 31:47
  And I don't want to say it should alarm you, you know, because it shouldn't,
• 31:54
  but it should it should certainly get you thinking about whether or
• 32:04
  not diplomacy even exists in the United States
• 32:13
  any longer.
• 32:16
  I have some, I think perhaps not.
• 32:23
  It's just as likely that it doesn't exist that it does.
• 32:27
  You know what I mean?
• 32:29
  And I think it would be a fool who thinks that we are not to blame for a lot of
• 32:38
  the nonsense going on in the world.
• 32:44
  So I got to thinking about this, and I went and I did some research on this.
• 32:52
  And remember, I think that we have been, we have made some
• 33:01
  mistakes, a lot of mistakes with Ukraine, with the former Soviet republics in
• 33:07
  the last 30, 40 years.
• 33:17
  So I began to research a few questions, right?
• 33:24
  And I came up with some models trying to figure out how to how I would end the
• 33:32
  war in Ukraine what my suggestions would be.
• 33:36
  And so the part that got me pissy about this in the very beginning is when you,
• 33:46
  and there are several different parts to this.
• 33:49
  The first one are these three documents that we were talking about.
• 33:53
  Okay?
• 33:54
  And so we want to look at his claim.
• 34:02
  Medvedev's claim is that Austria its federal constitutional law on its
• 34:07
  permanent neutrality was signed on the 26th of October of 1955.
• 34:13
  What it is, is Austria's own domestic constitutional act.
• 34:19
  Article 1 of that statute, or that constitutional act says for the purpose of
• 34:26
  maintaining and securing its independence, this is, remember, they're trying to
• 34:30
  get their country back after World War II, because Russia, you know, had taken
• 34:36
  it over.
• 34:37
  Russia didn't stay there.
• 34:39
  Well, the Allies too.
• 34:41
  Everybody was defeated.
• 34:43
  So for the purpose of maintaining it, Austria declares of its own free will her
• 34:51
  permanent neutrality.
• 34:54
  Austria will not join any military alliances and will not permit the
• 35:01
  establishment of military bases of foreign states on her territory.
• 35:06
  But I suppose it's okay to let them cross the territory.
• 35:10
  I don't know about that.
• 35:12
  Constitutional law passed by two-thirds majority of Parliament under Austrian
• 35:17
  constitutional rules, it could be repealed or amended with the same two-thirds
• 35:22
  vote.
• 35:23
  And possibly a referendum, if it's a fundamental change.
• 35:28
  International recognition.
• 35:30
  Other countries recognize Austria as neutral, but that recognition doesn't
• 35:34
  transform neutrality into multilateral treaty aggregation, right?
• 35:39
  Remember, no state's internal law can be used to violate some sort of a treaty.
• 35:45
  But this isn't a treaty, this is an internal law.
• 35:48
  The practical effect of this is that Austria has treated neutrality as
• 35:54
  flexible.
• 35:55
  It joined the EU in 1995, participates in peacekeeping, and is part of NATO's
• 36:02
  Partnership for Peace.
• 36:04
  Now, I don't know that I agree with that, but that's what they're doing, and
• 36:09
  that's their constitutional part.
• 36:11
  The state treaty, the Austrian state treaty, was signed on May 15 of 1955.
• 36:18
  It's a multilateral treaty signed in Vienna by Austria, the USSR, the United
• 36:26
  States, the UK, and France.
• 36:29
  It ended the occupation of Austria, restored its own sovereignty, banned
• 36:36
  Anschluss with Germany, outlawed Nazi groups, and restricted certain armaments.
• 36:44
  But this treaty does not require Austria to remain permanently neutral, and
• 36:51
  neutrality is not mentioned in the text.
• 36:55
  But Medvedev is claiming that it matters, and it does, because he's saying that
• 37:00
  it's a treaty, and it is.
• 37:03
  So historically, neutrality is a political side deal, and not a treaty clause.
• 37:11
  Now, this side deal is where it becomes important, because nobody does what
• 37:16
  they say they're going to do, right?
• 37:17
  You're going to be neutral.
• 37:20
  I just want you to make sure you understand the point of why Medvedev is
• 37:24
  putting this out.
• 37:25
  So, the Western and the Austrian view, from the West side, from the people who
• 37:32
  say it's okay.
• 37:33
  This treaty, all it did was restore neutrality was Austria's sovereign choice,
• 37:40
  enacted later by parliament.
• 37:42
  Nothing in the treaty forbids Austria from revising that law.
• 37:47
  But in the legal world, there's something called enticement, or inducement,
• 37:54
  enticing or inducing someone to sign a contract by offering something outside
• 38:02
  of the contract for that right.
• 38:05
  That's called inducement.
• 38:06
  And there's an act in a lot of states called fraud in the inducement.
• 38:11
  Now, it doesn't relate really to treaty law, but you can see where I'm going
• 38:16
  with it, right?
• 38:17
  In a treaty, this is where we get to the big boy pants and whether or not we
• 38:22
  should all have to hire lawyers all the time, or whether we talk diplomatically
• 38:29
  about things that our countries are going to talk about, or whether we are
• 38:37
  bound by any of the things that our diplomats speak about and say.
• 38:43
  Or if it's all just political BS and political rhetoric until you sign a
• 38:48
  treaty.
• 38:49
  And now, if you wish to look at this Austrian state treaty as a lawyer and go,
• 38:56
  yeah, I'm inventive, but there ain't anything in there about neutrality.
• 39:00
  If you want a neutrality, you should ask for it.
• 39:03
  And that's where the West is going in hiring all the lawyers.
• 39:07
  And that's where even the foreign minister of Austria is going and saying,
• 39:12
  well, that says we can't change it, so maybe we'll change and Russia's the big
• 39:17
  bad wolf, and so we want to make sure the big bad wolf is dealt with
• 39:21
  appropriately, and so we need arms.
• 39:25
  The Russian point of view is that because the neutrality pledge was part of a
• 39:31
  diplomatic package, altering it undermines the spirit of the treaty.
• 39:39
  So, remember, those two focuses are how they are.
• 39:44
  There's another memorandum.
• 39:45
  Now this is just a memorandum, as I told you before.
• 39:49
  But a memorandum usually comes along when people are getting into a deal.
• 39:54
  So, I sit down with you and I start making a deal to buy your restaurant.
• 40:00
  And as part of it, you sit down and say to me, yeah, you know, I'll consider
• 40:05
  selling my restaurant if we come up with the right deals.
• 40:09
  And in general, I'll keep talking to you if you're going to offer me more than
• 40:14
  a million bucks.
• 40:16
  I want two, but if you offer me more than one, it's worth still talking about
• 40:20
  until the rest all depends on the terms.
• 40:23
  Are you going to need this?
• 40:24
  What are you going to do?
• 40:26
  Am I going to be tied into a non-compete?
• 40:31
  Is there going to be anything like this?
• 40:32
  Can I open another restaurant right next door?
• 40:36
  What can I do, basically, to make sure that this memorandum of understanding is
• 40:45
  basically your agreement to make an agreement.
• 40:51
  And once the agreement is in force, the memorandum of understanding doesn't
• 40:55
  matter anymore anyway, in most cases.
• 40:58
  But sometimes they become part of the agreement.
• 41:02
  So this memorandum, they do the same thing in the treaty world.
• 41:06
  People will get together and go, you know, we want to make a defense treaty.
• 41:10
  Why don't we make a defense treaty and we'll get together and talk about this
• 41:13
  like President Trump is trying to do with Ukraine and with Russia and go, we
• 41:18
  want to make a peace treaty.
• 41:19
  Let's do it.
• 41:19
  Let's get together and start talking.
• 41:21
  And here are the outlines.
• 41:23
  Here are the parameters.
• 41:24
  We want the war stopped, period.
• 41:26
  Are we all on the same page?
• 41:28
  Yep, we all want the war stopped.
• 41:29
  Well, if that's your memorandum of understanding, we're going to get together
• 41:33
  and we're going to talk to stop the war.
• 41:37
  But if you have all these other terms and conditions that have to be met before
• 41:40
  you can stop the war, then that makes it a little more difficult, right?
• 41:47
  So that's a memorandum of understanding, just so you know.
• 41:51
  But what it is, it's a political declaration in the treaty side that is signed
• 41:55
  in Moscow, the one in 15 April 1955, right in the same time when they were
• 42:00
  getting their own country back, Austria.
• 42:04
  It was signed between Moscow and the Austrian leaders and the USSR. Austria
• 42:11
  promised it would declare permanent neutrality after regaining sovereignty.
• 42:20
  But the legal force of it, it is not a binding multilateral treaty.
• 42:27
  It was a condition Moscow demanded before agreeing to the state treaty, but the
• 42:34
  neutrality itself was implemented later through the Austrian domestic law.
• 42:39
  So here we are.
• 42:40
  Russia always accuses us of saying one thing and doing another, or using lawyer
• 42:46
  tricks to get out of stuff because they don't agree with it.
• 42:51
  Now, hard to fault them on that, except you go, well, sorry, we're the big bad
• 42:58
  bullies on the block and we've always had the better lawyers.
• 43:01
  I don't know if that's true or not.
• 43:03
  I'm just saying that.
• 43:03
  And it looks like your lawyers screwed up and you should have added this into
• 43:09
  the treaty itself.
• 43:10
  It's like, wait a minute.
• 43:11
  You said it even came inside this memorandum of understanding.
• 43:15
  It says what you're going to do.
• 43:17
  But you want to know why Moscow doesn't believe anybody.
• 43:21
  You can go all the way back to this.
• 43:23
  Because that's the way it works.
• 43:25
  Nobody ever does what they say they're going to do.
• 43:27
  It's politics, right?
• 43:28
  They don't have to.
• 43:30
  And they never do.
• 43:31
  At any rate, that is where that memorandum of understanding came in, but it's
• 43:38
  not a binding legal document.
• 43:43
  In the Austrian view, especially today, because remember, this is 70 years ago,
• 43:47
  the Austrian view is that Parliament characterizes the memorandum as a
• 43:55
  political agreement, not a source of enforceable international law.
• 44:02
  Right?
• 44:03
  It does not give Russia or any other state a formal veto over future Austrian
• 44:11
  constitutional changes.
• 44:14
  And remember, George Bush, too, told Russia, it's like, yeah, well, none of
• 44:20
  those treaties count anyway, because USSR isn't around anymore.
• 44:26
  And so there's people that would make that argument also.
• 44:29
  But the Russian view is that Russia is the successor to the USSR. And that
• 44:34
  Moscow treats it as part of the overall 1955 settlement.
• 44:40
  It implies that any change would violate international commitments to Russia.
• 44:46
  So those are the three agreements that we are talking about.
• 44:50
  And so there was the Moscow Memorandum in April 1955, the Austrian State
• 44:57
  Treaty, and also in May of 1955, and this Federal Constitutional Law of Austria
• 45:03
  on the 26th of October in 1955.
• 45:06
  Right?
• 45:06
  So here's the Medvedev's article that I shared with you.
• 45:13
  His position is that neutrality is locked in by these three overlapping
• 45:17
  documents.
• 45:18
  It's a Soviet-Austria memorandum, a multilateral treaty, and a constitutional
• 45:23
  law.
• 45:24
  He says they create an international obligation that cannot be revoked
• 45:31
  unilaterally.
• 45:32
  But the legal reality is that only a third of the Federal Constitutional Law
• 45:37
  actually binds Austria today.
• 45:41
  The Vienna Convention of Article 27, Medvedev cites it as saying the internal
• 45:46
  law can't justify breaking an international law.
• 45:49
  But that's not really what it says.
• 45:51
  But since neutrality wasn't written into the state treaty anyway, there's no
• 45:55
  treaty being broken if Austria amends its internal domestic constitutional law.
• 46:02
  So Russia has what they would call strong political arguments saying that
• 46:08
  nobody ever does what they say they're going to do and you guys are doing.
• 46:11
  But the legal arguments are probably lacking.
• 46:15
  Okay?
• 46:16
  Austria can repeal its neutrality by constitutional amendment.
• 46:20
  Russia can retaliate politically and militarily, but it could not invoke a
• 46:24
  binding international veto.
• 46:27
  Okay?
• 46:28
  So that's the scoop of where that comes from.
• 46:34
  Where are we going to go here?
• 46:40
  Neutrality isn't in the treaty and so therefore it's not being broken.
• 46:46
  In American sources, well, let's start with Russia's argument first.
• 46:51
  Theirs is all political.
• 46:53
  We helped engineer or re-engineer Austrian independence so we should have a say
• 46:59
  in what happens if they choose to join NATO just like we thought we had a say
• 47:07
  when Ukraine was getting especially if this fight is continuing to this
• 47:12
  hegemonic fight against the world is going on by NATO still and they want to
• 47:18
  expand NATO to Indonesia for God's sake and to Korea and to places like that.
• 47:25
  So the State Department, what do they say?
• 47:30
  State Department historians and archives say they see neutrality as Austria's
• 47:36
  free choice.
• 47:38
  A legal view would be not a Soviet imposed condition of any kind.
• 47:43
  So basically, Russia has political leverage, but that's all.
• 47:49
  And no legal veto apartment.
• 47:52
  Now the next part of his article is these countermeasures.
• 47:57
  And let's talk about what happened from Sweden and Finland.
• 48:02
  So Sweden and Finland they joined NATO quickly and were accepted
• 48:11
  quickly after Russia moved into Ukraine.
• 48:15
  That was political BS.
• 48:17
  Finland never needed it anyway.
• 48:19
  Sweden didn't need it either to be truthful and nobody was in any fear of any
• 48:26
  kind that Russia was going to join in and say something or do something against
• 48:35
  either Finland or Sweden.
• 48:39
  So in retaliation, after Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia cut
• 48:48
  electricity and gas supplies to Finland in 2022.
• 48:54
  And the Finns reactivated borders along military bases along their
• 49:04
  borders.
• 49:05
  But so did the Russians.
• 49:08
  They reactivated the Leningrad military district and started stationing things.
• 49:14
  They declared the Baltic Sea is no longer a nuclear free zone for them as it
• 49:19
  was before.
• 49:20
  And you've heard plenty of stories about the Baltic Sea being the scene of
• 49:26
  conflict these days.
• 49:29
  Rattling of sabres all the time by the Pribaltiki, which is Latvia, Lithuania,
• 49:36
  Estonia, also EU, NATO BS.
• 49:39
  And they don't want to see Russian tankers.
• 49:42
  They don't want to see Kaliningrad.
• 49:44
  They don't want to see nuclear base, nuclear submarines, no Russian fighters,
• 49:50
  freighters, nothing.
• 49:52
  But that's the Baltic Sea.
• 49:55
  And so Russia is reactivating that portion of its fleet.
• 49:59
  Not that it was ever not there, but they didn't go there very much.
• 50:03
  Now there's also been cyber attacks, alleged disinformation of the Russian
• 50:09
  kind, sabotage in Sweden and migration pressure in Finland.
• 50:15
  They've also on both sides expelled each other's diplomats and closed some
• 50:22
  consulates.
• 50:23
  So when you say countermeasures or when Medev says that, think less about
• 50:29
  lawyers in Vienna and more about hackers in St. Petersburg and gas valve and
• 50:36
  economic pressure from Russia because Finland and Sweden no longer get cheap
• 50:42
  Russian gas.
• 50:45
  So the Austria dilemma I've already outlined for you.
• 50:50
  They're constitutionally neutral, but practically entangled on all kinds of
• 50:56
  other levels.
• 50:57
  The EU common security and defense policy, NATO's partnership for peace, and
• 51:05
  these thousands of NATO movements across their airspace and territory each
• 51:11
  year.
• 51:13
  And neutrality is a legal fiction that Austria I don't say they're really
• 51:19
  neutral.
• 51:20
  Obviously they're doing things for NATO right now, which is probably why Medev
• 51:25
  is bitching about it in the first place.
• 51:28
  So it's a legal fiction.
• 51:31
  But they have to if they repeal it, Russia will treat it like Finland and
• 51:37
  Sweden.
• 51:38
  They'll be more hostile rhetorically, diplomatically, and they may engage in
• 51:45
  energy and diplomatic and border sorts pressure, but they're not on the border.
• 51:51
  So neutrality for reality though has given Vienna its role as the world's
• 51:58
  diplomatic capital, and if you get rid of that all Austria is just another
• 52:05
  front line NATO seat.
• 52:07
  And remember Austria was part of Austria-Hungary.
• 52:10
  Austria was a large part of the German war machine also, whether voluntarily or
• 52:17
  not, but they were very closely related.
• 52:22
  To sum it up, the article in this sort of analysis from the beginning, and then
• 52:28
  I want to get into some other parts, is that Medvedev is wrapping together
• 52:34
  politics and law, but in reality the legal analysis isn't really
• 52:44
  on his side.
• 52:47
  Because it wasn't planned at the time that way, or the Soviets missed it
• 52:57
  when they signed the treaty or negotiated the treaty.
• 53:01
  They had handshake deals that they thought they understood, but it was hidden
• 53:08
  in the fine print of the treaties, and the western lawyers hid, you know,
• 53:15
  played hide the salami with the terms of the treaty.
• 53:20
  So Austria's neutrality does rest on its own constitutional law, not on any
• 53:28
  veto power by Russia or anyone else that was a party to that.
• 53:34
  You know, France, England, America.
• 53:37
  But, you know, law wouldn't necessarily stop war, or energy cutoff, or any sort
• 53:44
  of political power to do something against them.
• 53:48
  So the question isn't whether Austria can repeal its neutrality, it's whether
• 53:53
  it wants to pay the price of Russia's promised countermeasures, not Russia's
• 53:59
  medivatives.
• 54:02
  A medivative can still speak for Russia, right?
• 54:09
  So, but here's my problem with it all.
• 54:13
  If you look at the fact that this is all, and that we, or that somebody coerced
• 54:23
  Russia into signing a treaty that didn't give them what they thought they were
• 54:30
  getting, and Russians are very history and remember things and
• 54:40
  study things, the sore point for Russia is always the same.
• 54:47
  You guys, you say one thing and you do another.
• 54:51
  You make these handshake deals, but we can't shake your hands.
• 54:56
  You know, we've got to immediately run to the bathroom and wash our hands after
• 55:00
  shaking hands with you, because you never do what you say you're going to do.
• 55:05
  And then we go, what?
• 55:07
  What?
• 55:08
  We did what we said we were going to do.
• 55:09
  You should have put it in the treaty and you never did.
• 55:11
  We didn't want that to be part of it.
• 55:13
  Standard lawyer BS.
• 55:17
  But your best business partner is the guy you can have a handshake deal with.
• 55:22
  The best wife is the one that doesn't need a lawyer.
• 55:28
  So remember that.
• 55:29
  These are important safety tips.
• 55:31
  These are things that should mean a lot to you.
• 55:38
  If your spouse needs a lawyer and is hiding shit from you, well, maybe that's
• 55:43
  not a spouse you need.
• 55:46
  And I understand the sore nerve from the Russian side.
• 55:50
  So let's talk about the handshake problem for a little bit.
• 55:54
  In Austrian history, neutrality was codified by domestic law.
• 55:59
  But the Soviet Union views it as part of a package that restored Austria's
• 56:05
  sovereignty.
• 56:06
  Like you wouldn't be sovereign if you didn't claim neutrality.
• 56:12
  That's why you changed it, because you had to, to get your country back.
• 56:18
  And it's part of the treaty that we signed.
• 56:21
  I get that point of view.
• 56:24
  In the strict revision or looking at the contract of the treaty, a little bit
• 56:31
  different.
• 56:31
  But from a political angle, I definitely get it.
• 56:36
  So from the Russian perspective, once again, it's a political declaration.
• 56:42
  If they say it's a political declaration, that sounds like the West downgrading
• 56:46
  its own commitments, just like always, when they become inconvenient.
• 56:54
  And that's why they frame neutrality as an international guarantee and not a
• 57:02
  domestic choice.
• 57:04
  And the reason I say this is because this is what Russia wants from Ukraine.
• 57:12
  This is what Russia has said they've wanted.
• 57:16
  This is why Austria is a big deal.
• 57:20
  Because part of the topics that they're allegedly discussing with Ukraine are
• 57:27
  neutrality.
• 57:28
  And then you have Zelensky, no, we've got to be part of NATO.
• 57:31
  Well, NATO don't want you.
• 57:34
  Well, they do, but they don't want to say they want you.
• 57:37
  But think about this.
• 57:39
  These are some easy remembrances from the Russian point of view.
• 57:46
  Let's go back to 1990-91.
• 57:50
  U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously floated to Gorbachev that NATO
• 57:58
  would move, this is under Bush 1, not one inch eastward if Germany unified
• 58:08
  inside the NATO umbrella.
• 58:10
  So Germany was part of NATO, West Germany.
• 58:14
  East Germany was part of the Warsaw Pact.
• 58:16
  After the wall came down, those two wanted to get back together.
• 58:20
  And Russia said, hell no, that's not going to happen.
• 58:25
  And then they said, oh no, no, no, NATO expansion, you get rid of the Warsaw
• 58:30
  Pact.
• 58:31
  So they did.
• 58:34
  Russia feels tricked all the time because they did, and this is what they did.
• 58:40
  So the problem was, from the Russian point of view, right, let's do some
• 58:45
  American justification here because that's what we knew.
• 58:49
  It was said in, the problem is that this was only said in talks to Gorbachev.
• 58:57
  It was never written into the treaty on the final settlement with respect to
• 59:02
  Germany.
• 59:03
  This is called the 2 plus 4 agreement.
• 59:06
  The treaty contains no legal prohibition on NATO expansion.
• 59:12
  Just like the treaty in the Austrian thing says nothing about neutrality, but
• 59:19
  they signed a memorandum saying that's the way they would do.
• 59:22
  And in the negotiations they said, James Baker said that not one inch to the
• 59:28
  eastward, and also so did Bush 1.
• 59:32
  Right?
• 59:33
  So the Western view says it was one negotiating line, not a binding promise.
• 59:40
  And the Russian view, it was a handshake, and then it was broken when Poland,
• 59:45
  the Baltics, and many others joined NATO.
• 59:49
  Okay?
• 59:50
  So that's number one, not an inch to the east.
• 59:54
  This is just in Soviet times, right?
• 59:57
  This has nothing to do with Austria and the point that I just said, but this is
• 1:00:01
  why Russia has the point of view that it does.
• 1:00:04
  Fast forward to the Minsk agreements.
• 1:00:08
  The Minsk agreements were meant to end the Donbass war.
• 1:00:13
  Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France all signed up.
• 1:00:19
  They signed up.
• 1:00:20
  They're trying to end the war in the Donbass.
• 1:00:23
  Russia is saying, look you're killing all their ethnic Russians over there and
• 1:00:27
  you're putting in laws that tear them apart, tear their families apart, kill
• 1:00:32
  them take their property, force them to speak Ukrainian and they don't speak
• 1:00:37
  Ukrainian.
• 1:00:38
  Why in the world are you doing this?
• 1:00:41
  So they signed an agreement.
• 1:00:44
  Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, right?
• 1:00:47
  In Minsk Belarus.
• 1:00:50
  Ukraine dragged its feet on implementing autonomy because that was part of
• 1:00:56
  Minsk 1 and 2.
• 1:00:57
  They were supposed to be autonomous regions that didn't have governors
• 1:01:03
  appointed by Kiev.
• 1:01:06
  But no, that's the feet was dragging and they didn't have any intention of
• 1:01:12
  honoring this Minsk agreements 1 and 2.
• 1:01:18
  So Ukraine dragged its feet on implementing autonomy and Russia was allegedly
• 1:01:23
  weaponizing separatist parties and claimed Ukraine wasn't compliant.
• 1:01:30
  But it's neither one of them.
• 1:01:32
  Ukraine was worse about it because they were killing people but the Russians
• 1:01:38
  did give weapons to people that were wanting to stay on the Russian side.
• 1:01:45
  But later, Merkel and who was the other guy?
• 1:01:51
  Holland later admitted that Minsk was a stalling tactic used to buy Ukraine
• 1:01:58
  time to rearm.
• 1:02:02
  So from Russia's angle, once again, the West signed something and then treated
• 1:02:09
  it as disposable when strategic realities changed.
• 1:02:14
  When it was no longer convenient, that's what they did.
• 1:02:18
  So here's Russia's pattern that they get to see all the time.
• 1:02:22
  Austrian neutrality is a handshake turned into just politics.
• 1:02:27
  NATO expansion are verbal assurances turned into, well that's not legally
• 1:02:31
  binding.
• 1:02:32
  And Minsk was a lie where you sign a deal to provide yourself with some
• 1:02:38
  temporary cover.
• 1:02:40
  So when Medvedev talks about Austria's neutrality, he's not just arguing about
• 1:02:47
  legal things, he's pointing to this pattern that the West never keeps a
• 1:02:52
  commitment unless it nails down in a treaty in iron terms.
• 1:02:59
  And even then, the fine print of the treaties get gamed, get played from the
• 1:03:08
  Western side.
• 1:03:09
  Let's take about the counter argument.
• 1:03:13
  Western lawyers they say, law isn't about feelings.
• 1:03:19
  I get that point of view from my own legal analysis of this myself tonight.
• 1:03:26
  If it's not in the treaty, it's not binding.
• 1:03:29
  Memorandum of understanding isn't binding.
• 1:03:33
  That's it.
• 1:03:35
  International politics is a world of written obligations not nostalgia for what
• 1:03:41
  somebody said in a smoke filled room.
• 1:03:45
  Meaning, the West, you can't accept a handshake.
• 1:03:50
  You can't do it.
• 1:03:51
  The deeper truth is, Russia wants the spirit of bargains respected, while the
• 1:03:57
  West insists on the letter of the law.
• 1:04:01
  There's a joke for you.
• 1:04:03
  But the difference has become a geopolitical huge wound.
• 1:04:08
  So when I talk about big boy pants, or is this a real argument, does Russia
• 1:04:14
  have to put on its big boy pants?
• 1:04:18
  Or do they have a legitimate beef?
• 1:04:21
  That's basically the question.
• 1:04:24
  Russia can credibly say, and they do so frequently, every time we trust you
• 1:04:30
  guys with handshakes, soft agreements, you keep pushing.
• 1:04:35
  That is not an invented grievance.
• 1:04:40
  It has all kinds of history to it.
• 1:04:42
  And I've given you only a few.
• 1:04:45
  The Western rebuttal of this says, if you wanted permanent veto power over its
• 1:04:50
  neighbor joined in NATO, you should have negotiated that in a treaty.
• 1:04:55
  Other than that, shut up.
• 1:04:58
  And there's certainly some truth to that too.
• 1:05:03
  And it's just as valid.
• 1:05:08
  So the handshake metaphor reinforces Moscow's line, never trust the West unless
• 1:05:16
  the ink is dry and the clauses are airtight.
• 1:05:19
  That's why Medvedev is dragging Austria into the spotlight anyway, because he's
• 1:05:24
  really pointing at Ukraine.
• 1:05:26
  Neutrality to Russia is one of the last bargains that still stand with USSR
• 1:05:31
  times from 1995.
• 1:05:34
  Right?
• 1:05:35
  So why would Russia ever, ever agree to anything ever in the world with the
• 1:05:42
  West about Ukraine?
• 1:05:44
  Why wouldn't they just keep on trucking and blowing crap up like they did with
• 1:05:49
  that ship this morning?
• 1:05:52
  So the Ukrainian ship is sunk, is gone.
• 1:05:56
  Well, and from their point of view, the West will always posture and give non
• 1:06:01
  -binding assurances which are all part of diplomacy.
• 1:06:05
  And when it's inconvenient, they call in the lawyers and they point to the fine
• 1:06:10
  print.
• 1:06:11
  They just go, well, sorry.
• 1:06:13
  That's how it goes.
• 1:06:15
  If you strip away the spin of it all, the question is what makes Austria's
• 1:06:20
  neutrality legally flexible, I suppose, while Russia's insistence that Ukraine
• 1:06:29
  stay neutrality or NATO freeze has to be terminal.
• 1:06:34
  Right?
• 1:06:35
  So now we have to get to what's the difference between Austria versus Ukraine.
• 1:06:39
  Excuse me.
• 1:06:40
  Why the situations are different.
• 1:06:42
  Right?
• 1:06:44
  Austrian neutrality was Austria's own domestic constitutional act passed after
• 1:06:50
  the state treaty, that they had to have a state treaty that said they were
• 1:06:55
  neutral.
• 1:06:55
  So then they did it, but it wasn't written into the state treaty, so it's not
• 1:06:59
  binding, that they keep it forever.
• 1:07:02
  The allies, including the USSR at the time, recognized it, but didn't gain a
• 1:07:08
  written veto power, so they could never veto Austria being non-neutral.
• 1:07:16
  Right?
• 1:07:17
  Russia couldn't do that.
• 1:07:19
  So legally, Austria can walk away from neutrality by changing its constitution,
• 1:07:25
  but politically and probably economically, it didn't pay a price.
• 1:07:30
  Okay?
• 1:07:31
  So the Budapest Memorandum for Ukraine.
• 1:07:34
  Let's talk about Ukraine and why this is important.
• 1:07:37
  So in 1994, Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances
• 1:07:46
  from Russia, the US, and the UK.
• 1:07:49
  That was assurances, not a defense treaty.
• 1:07:54
  Russia, according to Ukraine, tore it up.
• 1:08:00
  The West argued it wasn't a binding security agreement anyway, which is why
• 1:08:05
  Russia said they tore it up, because the West said, well, that doesn't make any
• 1:08:09
  sense at all and started moving all kinds of Western US military into Ukraine,
• 1:08:16
  and they said they couldn't do that.
• 1:08:18
  Right?
• 1:08:19
  So NATO also made an open door policy for Ukraine.
• 1:08:23
  They were told that they could one day join but not guarantee membership or any
• 1:08:29
  neutrality.
• 1:08:31
  Then Minsk, which I already went through and told you about, but those are
• 1:08:35
  tactical, not strategic commitments, according to the Ukraine side.
• 1:08:39
  They never intended to honor them anyway, nor did the Germans or the French.
• 1:08:43
  So it was only the Russians that got tricked into signing those, according to
• 1:08:47
  the Russians.
• 1:08:49
  So the result is there are no hard, enforceable guarantees of neutrality in
• 1:08:56
  Ukraine, only political promises.
• 1:08:59
  So from Russia, when it comes to Ukraine, Moscow doesn't want another Austria
• 1:09:04
  problem, where neutrality is just a domestic law that Kiev repeals with a
• 1:09:10
  parliament vote in five years.
• 1:09:12
  Russia wants neutrality locked in by treaty text.
• 1:09:16
  That's why Medvedev is bringing it up.
• 1:09:19
  This is why we're talking about it.
• 1:09:21
  He wants it ratified, text enforceable with Moscow as a party, something it
• 1:09:29
  could invoke in international law.
• 1:09:32
  That's why they keep talking about legally binding guarantees and not
• 1:09:37
  assurances, because they don't trust us, nor should they, because we play games
• 1:09:42
  all the time.
• 1:09:44
  And Ukraine has no intention of doing this.
• 1:09:48
  That's why Russia's just going to keep on bombing the crap out of them.
• 1:09:53
  And the West isn't going to do anything.
• 1:09:55
  Why the West plays the lawyer card?
• 1:09:58
  The West's default is only when written down in treaty does text count.
• 1:10:05
  Even then, that's bullshit, by the way.
• 1:10:06
  Even then, they point to the fine print and weasel out of it.
• 1:10:12
  Political promises, communiques, even memoranda, useful at the time, disposable
• 1:10:18
  later.
• 1:10:19
  Russia points out that even treaties are interpreted very, very flexibly,
• 1:10:23
  especially by NATO.
• 1:10:25
  NATO bombed Yugoslavia without UN mandate, Libya in 2011, UN resolution 1973 to
• 1:10:33
  protect civilians turned into a regime change, and then Minsk left completely
• 1:10:39
  in limbo.
• 1:10:41
  From Moscow's point of view, ink on paper is not safe with the West either.
• 1:10:48
  Right?
• 1:10:50
  So, why would Russia ever agree to anything on Ukraine?
• 1:10:56
  Why?
• 1:10:58
  Well, they would if neutrality is written into a treaty signed by Russia,
• 1:11:03
  Ukraine, and probably the US.
• 1:11:07
  There are enforcement mechanisms, sanctions, snapback, military limits, maybe
• 1:11:13
  some sort of monitoring.
• 1:11:15
  I think if Trump put sanctions against Ukraine because there was some talk
• 1:11:21
  about that last week, said he was thinking of that too, and saying something
• 1:11:26
  like that.
• 1:11:28
  Maybe Trump can pull it off with sanctions against both.
• 1:11:34
  But, it also has to survive domestic law changes, you know, because according
• 1:11:41
  to Russia, the old Z-Monster is not even a legitimate president anymore, and
• 1:11:47
  there's a decent amount of legal weight to that.
• 1:11:51
  If he signs it, what does that mean?
• 1:11:54
  If he's illegitimate, what does that mean?
• 1:11:57
  Who signs it?
• 1:11:57
  Who has to ratify it?
• 1:11:59
  That's why they want a treaty enforceable by the people.
• 1:12:02
  The West's problem, including the US, friends and neighbors, locking Ukraine's
• 1:12:09
  neutrality into a treaty text looks like, from our point of view, we forced
• 1:12:16
  Russia to be aggressive because we were being aggressive with Ukraine.
• 1:12:24
  We created a proxy war state.
• 1:12:28
  That's what we did.
• 1:12:30
  NATO did.
• 1:12:31
  Everybody is complicit in this.
• 1:12:35
  And then, we turn around and blame Russia for standing up for themselves,
• 1:12:39
  right?
• 1:12:40
  But we're the bad guys here.
• 1:12:42
  We are definitely the bad guys.
• 1:12:44
  But the problem is, locking Ukraine into a treaty of neutrality looks like
• 1:12:50
  they're rewarding aggression by Russia, if you want to call it aggression.
• 1:12:56
  And now, they're denying Ukraine its own sovereign choice.
• 1:13:02
  That is very politically toxic on the streets of Warsaw, Washington, Brussels,
• 1:13:11
  and Kiev.
• 1:13:13
  Right?
• 1:13:14
  So, the reason that Austria chose to do what it did and be neutral is because
• 1:13:21
  in 1955, it was a defeated, occupied country with no leverage.
• 1:13:29
  It accepted neutrality as the price of its freedom.
• 1:13:35
  Okay?
• 1:13:35
  Now, you see the point.
• 1:13:37
  Ukraine is still fighting and losing, but they're not surrendering.
• 1:13:44
  Right?
• 1:13:47
  There's arguments that they still overwhelmingly reject neutrality.
• 1:13:55
  I disagree with them.
• 1:13:57
  I have seen a number of different polls on this topic.
• 1:14:03
  And, you know, the hardliners that are holding Zelensky in the presidency by
• 1:14:10
  threatening to whatever they're threatening to do.
• 1:14:14
  They might even be threatening to kill him.
• 1:14:16
  Who knows?
• 1:14:18
  For Russia, neutrality is the minimum.
• 1:14:21
  For Ukraine, that's unacceptable.
• 1:14:25
  And maybe that means that Russia has to defeat Ukraine.
• 1:14:31
  And that means, bottom line, Russia can sign a deal on Ukraine only if it is
• 1:14:37
  treaty-bound, explicit, enforceable, recognized by Moscow as permanent.
• 1:14:44
  Western diplomacy is built on lies, flexibility, nothing is permanent.
• 1:14:49
  That's why Austria can walk away from neutrality while Ukraine and Russia is
• 1:14:54
  going to be allowed to.
• 1:14:57
  Right?
• 1:14:59
  It's, I mean, here, so my thought process is that hypothetical Ukrainian
• 1:15:08
  treaties.
• 1:15:09
  What if somebody modeled a treaty to have a domestic neutrality law?
• 1:15:18
  Similar to Austria in 1955.
• 1:15:22
  Russia defeats Kiev, takes over Odessa, and says you can have most of your
• 1:15:26
  country back if you can do this.
• 1:15:32
  You know, these things that we listed, you know, we want enforceable treaty,
• 1:15:41
  explicit permanency, no flexibility, you're there.
• 1:15:48
  Right?
• 1:15:49
  If you beat them, sure.
• 1:15:53
  So what would that result in?
• 1:15:56
  Would model one, this Austria thing, if Russia learned from its lesson and
• 1:16:02
  said, Jesus, here we are, granted it's 70 years later, but we can't have a
• 1:16:07
  neutrality like Austria, we need a neutrality something else, in treaty
• 1:16:13
  language, we'll learn from that.
• 1:16:15
  And say, well, sorry, treaty says you're neutral.
• 1:16:18
  Period.
• 1:16:19
  No military, no this, no that.
• 1:16:22
  Well, you think that'll work?
• 1:16:24
  You think Ukraine will ever sign up for that?
• 1:16:27
  So far they don't want to.
• 1:16:28
  They think that Russia's going to keep on coming.
• 1:16:32
  And Russia is going to keep on coming if it isn't in Russia's interest to allow
• 1:16:38
  them not to.
• 1:16:40
  Now, they could have fixed this, you know, Boris Johnson really cocked this up,
• 1:16:46
  and he should be, have his feet put right in the fire.
• 1:16:51
  Let's look at the number two.
• 1:16:53
  Like a modified 1994 Budapest Memorandum that they spice up a little bit,
• 1:17:01
  right?
• 1:17:03
  Where Ukraine gave up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal.
• 1:17:08
  Because remember, they were the third largest.
• 1:17:12
  And Russia took them back.
• 1:17:14
  And you know what?
• 1:17:15
  Frankly, in my opinion, it's a good thing that they did.
• 1:17:18
  Because, hell, what's America trying to do right now?
• 1:17:22
  They're trying to figure out how to put nuclear weapons back in Ukraine with
• 1:17:26
  American warheads on and pulling into Russia.
• 1:17:31
  So the mechanics of that was, Russia and the UK sign a memorandum promising to
• 1:17:37
  respect Ukraine's borders, refrain from threats, and seek UN action if any
• 1:17:45
  aggression occurred.
• 1:17:46
  But it was not a defense treaty.
• 1:17:49
  There's no enforcement, no binding collective defense, no sanctions.
• 1:17:55
  It was a political assurance.
• 1:17:59
  Cheap to give, easy to ignore, just like all the other ones that we are talking
• 1:18:08
  about.
• 1:18:09
  It was an assurance given to the other side that nobody put it in the treaty.
• 1:18:15
  Well, if you wanted to put it in the treaty, Ukraine, maybe you should have put
• 1:18:21
  it in the treaty.
• 1:18:22
  You didn't, so screw you.
• 1:18:25
  The US says it's not enforceable and Russia happens to agree.
• 1:18:30
  So that sort of agreement is not going to work.
• 1:18:36
  They claim, the West, as everybody's up in arms and say that Russia violated
• 1:18:41
  the Budapest Accords in 2014 and in 2022 by not honoring the territorial
• 1:18:50
  integrity.
• 1:18:51
  But you don't have to honor territorial integrity if somebody has a referendum
• 1:18:57
  and leaves.
• 1:18:58
  The US has proved that repeatedly, over and over and over and over.
• 1:19:02
  Kosovo, all those other places.
• 1:19:05
  Assurances are disposable once the wind of change comes along.
• 1:19:10
  Assurances don't mean crap.
• 1:19:12
  Russia now uses Budapest as exhibit A in its Never Trust the West file.
• 1:19:18
  Model 3.
• 1:19:20
  Sam's hypothetical Ukraine neutrality treaty.
• 1:19:24
  The mechanics of this.
• 1:19:26
  Ukraine agrees to neutrality in exchange for peace.
• 1:19:30
  Neutrality is written into an international treaty signed by Russia, Ukraine
• 1:19:34
  and Western powers.
• 1:19:36
  You only really need the US.
• 1:19:39
  But throw in some other guarantors if you want to.
• 1:19:41
  China, Turkey, UK US, France, any of these idiots that want to get involved.
• 1:19:47
  You can do that.
• 1:19:48
  It could include limits on foreign bases on the US coming in, putting
• 1:19:52
  biological weapons all over the place.
• 1:19:54
  You could limit all that stuff.
• 1:19:56
  You could limit flyovers.
• 1:19:57
  You couldn't have any air bases.
• 1:19:58
  No stopping on no US warships in the Black Sea at the Odessa.
• 1:20:05
  You could eliminate all these things.
• 1:20:07
  You can make it flexible, much less than Austria's law or Budapest's
• 1:20:12
  assurances.
• 1:20:13
  It could be a treaty, like a Vienna Convention, meaning unilateral appeal
• 1:20:18
  wouldn't be allowed.
• 1:20:20
  Violating parties would face sanctions, countermeasures or military guarantee.
• 1:20:26
  The results if it is agreed upon.
• 1:20:28
  It would only work if the US and Russia both commit to enforcing it.
• 1:20:34
  I don't think this part matters, but arguably you could say that Ukraine's
• 1:20:40
  people have to accept their own sovereign limits, right?
• 1:20:44
  But they're losing anyway.
• 1:20:48
  At some point, I believe this is what's going to happen, unless the US and NATO
• 1:20:54
  and everybody else ups the ante and makes full-scale war.
• 1:20:57
  It might be happening anyway, blowing up ships.
• 1:21:00
  But remember, Ukraine blew up a Russian ship early in the conflict.
• 1:21:10
  This is the only type of guarantee that Moscow's going to trust, but it's also
• 1:21:14
  the hardest one for Ukraine and the West to swallow, because it's like
• 1:21:18
  codifying Russia's veto over Ukraine's future and acknowledging that Russia won
• 1:21:26
  and is winning this war.
• 1:21:29
  And that, people cannot accept.
• 1:21:32
  But unfortunately, that's mainly the reality of it all.
• 1:21:39
  So, you have three models.
• 1:21:43
  You have Sam's model to get rid of it.
• 1:21:46
  Moscow, Ukraine neutrality, treaty iron, not parliamentary paper, handshake
• 1:21:52
  deals, polite promises, or Minsk-type agreements that Ukraine has no intention
• 1:22:01
  of following.
• 1:22:02
  So, long and the short of it is, is that Austria has shown how neutrality can
• 1:22:11
  last if both sides respect it.
• 1:22:14
  Budapest shows how assurances collapse when the balance of power shifts, and a
• 1:22:19
  Ukrainian treaty would be the hardest of all, that to be legally binding and
• 1:22:24
  enforceable.
• 1:22:25
  The uncomfortable truth is that Austria can ignore Moscow's interpretation
• 1:22:30
  because the law is on its side.
• 1:22:34
  Russia cannot afford and will not allow such ambiguity with Ukraine.
• 1:22:39
  And if Ukraine ignores it, the war will continue.
• 1:22:44
  And that's probably where this is going to be, right?
• 1:22:51
  I, for one, believe that diplomacy matters.
• 1:22:55
  And I, for one, believe that these handshakes and assurances should have been
• 1:23:02
  recognized all along.
• 1:23:04
  I side pretty heavily with people who are induced into making deals.
• 1:23:11
  Remember, you should be protected if you're fraudulently induced to make a
• 1:23:15
  deal.
• 1:23:15
  Let's say you're getting married to a man because he's rich, and you've made a
• 1:23:22
  deal that he, you get half of his money in the event that you get divorced, he
• 1:23:27
  makes you sign a prenup, makes it all good, won't disclose anything to you, you
• 1:23:32
  get married, and then you discover he's a pauper, he didn't have any money
• 1:23:35
  anyway.
• 1:23:37
  Have you been fraudulently induced?
• 1:23:40
  How about you're a man, and you just want to have children, you want to have a
• 1:23:44
  lot of children, and you meet a girl that just wants to get married and likes
• 1:23:48
  you because of your money, and you want to be together, and then you get
• 1:23:52
  married and you find out that she knew all along she couldn't have children,
• 1:23:57
  she had had her tubes tied years ago.
• 1:24:01
  Have you been fraudulently induced?
• 1:24:04
  You got a partner who says he's got a new piece of equipment that's going to
• 1:24:08
  make you millions, and you get it all together and you turn out it's made of
• 1:24:11
  pipe cleaners and nothing else, it's not going to work.
• 1:24:16
  So it's have you been fraudulently induced?
• 1:24:22
  Should you have a cause of action?
• 1:24:24
  Should you honor these sorts of things?
• 1:24:27
  So it's a dangerous and real effect in global politics when trust is defeated
• 1:24:37
  and it collapses.
• 1:24:39
  Force is all that's left.
• 1:24:42
  Russia has already taken that step.
• 1:24:47
  Where's the currency?
• 1:24:48
  The currency is in the force.
• 1:24:51
  And if Ukraine doesn't do something quickly, I believe, and the US, which
• 1:24:57
  doesn't have any desire to get involved in this, Trumpster doesn't want that
• 1:25:00
  there, nobody wants it there.
• 1:25:02
  They want the war over.
• 1:25:06
  Russia wants the war over too, but they're not just going to, how many times
• 1:25:11
  have I lectured on this topic, that force is the only way that they can let it
• 1:25:17
  go and we're not going to have a ceasefire so that you can just rebuild and
• 1:25:20
  we're going to start all over.
• 1:25:22
  It's not happening.
• 1:25:24
  And so these legal analyses are everything.
• 1:25:30
  And if Russia takes to heart this sort of thing and keeps on going, which I
• 1:25:38
  believe they're, they've been pretty clear, they're going to keep on going.
• 1:25:44
  Russia, from the hard line perspective, only partial control is weakness.
• 1:25:52
  If they don't get what they want, losing the Donbass or Crimea for them would
• 1:25:58
  be catastrophic.
• 1:26:01
  Pushing all the way to Odessa or Kiev, cutting Ukraine from the Black Sea or
• 1:26:07
  crippling their own statehood would secure leverage permanently, but that's not
• 1:26:14
  something I believe that they really wanted to happen and I believe diplomacy
• 1:26:18
  still matters.
• 1:26:20
  Even in total war, states end up at the table.
• 1:26:23
  Every major conflict since 1945 has ended with signatures on paper and not just
• 1:26:28
  rubble.
• 1:26:29
  If Odessa, Russia took Odessa and Kiev, it would have possibly some of the same
• 1:26:36
  problems that Ukraine has in Donbass and Donetsk, in the Donbass region,
• 1:26:42
  Lugansk and Donetsk.
• 1:26:45
  Russia, you know, the sanctions, let's talk about that.
• 1:26:50
  Who really cares?
• 1:26:52
  Russia has shown resilience.
• 1:26:53
  The longer they grind on, that doesn't matter.
• 1:26:58
  What about the trap of absolute victory?
• 1:27:00
  If Russia defines victory as nothing less than Kiev capitulation, does it help?
• 1:27:09
  I don't know.
• 1:27:11
  I hope that you've enjoyed talking about and listening to how Austria can walk
• 1:27:17
  away from neutrality and how the West can finesse its own promises only force
• 1:27:25
  can guarantee security according to Russia or paper that Western lawyers aren't
• 1:27:32
  going to twist and spit upon or aren't going to go, wait a minute, that's just
• 1:27:37
  a rhetoric that we've given to you.
• 1:27:48
  Interesting stuff, people.
• 1:27:50
  Interesting and good news, friends and neighbors.
• 1:27:54
  I hope you enjoyed the article from Mr. Medvedev.
• 1:27:59
  It was really got me thinking today and I'm very glad I did some research into
• 1:28:05
  it from my Austrian heritage.
• 1:28:10
  I, of course, am on damn radio every night from 9pm until 10.30pm Sunday
• 1:28:17
  through Thursday.
• 1:28:19
  You can join me there at damn radio.com forward slash live.
• 1:28:24
  You can also listen to many of our other great talk show hosts and you can
• 1:28:31
  listen and find the schedule for those at damn radio.com forward slash
• 1:28:36
  schedule.
• 1:28:37
  You can even go back and listen to all of the old programs at damn radio.com
• 1:28:42
  forward slash podcasts, mine and everyone else's.
• 1:28:46
  I also have my own podcast website which is internationalflavor.com and
• 1:28:56
  another one in Russian that I don't do as often.
• 1:29:00
  I only do about once a week and it's internationalflavorrussian.podbean.com and
• 1:29:06
  those links are out on my Facebook page which is Facebook International Flavor
• 1:29:13
  or Facebook at SamuelTrap2 and you can find me there and like me, like my pages
• 1:29:20
  and join the chats.
• 1:29:22
  I'm available on many of the Apple podcasts, Spotify, any of those other
• 1:29:32
  ones and on YouTube I am at SamuelTrap in Russian and you can click the link
• 1:29:39
  and find it there.
• 1:29:41
  I very much appreciate each and every one of you for joining the program and
• 1:29:45
  encourage you to join me each and every night on Damn Radio and I wish you all
• 1:29:54
  a very good night, my last night in Moscow.
• 1:29:57
  Have a good night.