Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Pipelines, Power, and Pressure: Putin, Armenia, Germany’s Energy Crisis, Ukraine War Funding, and the Collapse of Global Systems

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Pipelines, Power, and Pressure: Putin, Armenia, Germany’s Energy Crisis, Ukraine War Funding, and the Collapse of Global Systems · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning.
• 0:01
  Welcome.
• 0:02
  I am Samuel Trapp.
• 0:04
  This is International Flavor.
• 0:06
  You are listening to Dem Radio.
• 0:09
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• 0:11
  .com forward slash live.
• 0:13
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• 0:16
  all the content on this wonderful station.
• 0:20
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  slash podcast.
• 0:26
  Now, if you'd just like to get International
• 0:28
  Flavor, you can do that at internationalflavor.com.
• 0:32
  You can do Civic Outlaws at civicoutlaws.com
• 0:34
  forward slash podcast.
• 0:36
  And that is the name of that tune.
• 0:41
  So, you know, I got a list of
• 0:44
  things to talk about.
• 0:46
  I watched an interview, well, not an interview,
• 0:49
  press conference of Pashinyan, who's the leader of
• 0:53
  Azerbaijan and, or I'm sorry, Armenia.
• 0:57
  Sorry, they were talking about Azerbaijan.
• 0:59
  So he's from Armenia and Vladimir Putin.
• 1:01
  And it was kind of an interesting back
• 1:03
  and forth how they, this is a, you
• 1:05
  know, you don't see it all too often,
• 1:07
  but this one was two very gifted politicians.
• 1:13
  This is, this is, how do I want
• 1:16
  to put this?
• 1:17
  This is a professional fight.
• 1:19
  This is a professional boxing match, right?
• 1:21
  And it's not calling people names.
• 1:24
  It's not, you know, you're an idiot.
• 1:27
  You know, it's none of that.
• 1:28
  This was, this was smooth on both sides
• 1:31
  and pretty subtle and both of them telling
• 1:33
  Putin saying, well, you know, you're really screwing
• 1:36
  up.
• 1:36
  And the Armenian guy, I got it here,
• 1:43
  but I'm switch screens and I can't remember
• 1:45
  his name and I don't want to mispronounce
• 1:47
  it.
• 1:48
  And, and so he, he pushed right back
• 1:51
  and it was a good impact.
• 1:53
  And then I've got a couple other things
• 1:55
  that I've gone through over the, over the
• 1:57
  evening, but I was hit by something else
• 1:59
  this morning and getting prepared.
• 2:02
  And this kind of jumped right the hell
• 2:05
  out at me.
• 2:06
  And this was on the Hill.
• 2:09
  And I don't think I can get the
• 2:11
  entire story of it.
• 2:14
  I wonder if it'll let me, if it
• 2:16
  makes you log in to get the whole,
• 2:18
  yeah, you got to register to get the
• 2:20
  whole thing.
• 2:21
  You don't get the whole, you don't get
• 2:24
  the entire story until you become a member,
• 2:28
  you know, until several days later.
• 2:30
  But the basics of it are as this,
• 2:34
  there was a leak in the Supreme Court
• 2:37
  and that it comes up with some more
• 2:43
  ammunition and here there's a video on it
• 2:46
  from Fox news.
• 2:47
  I'm not going to play it, but there
• 2:50
  are leaked memos in the Supreme Court and
• 2:53
  the, the Hill is who put it out,
• 2:56
  but I don't have a membership and I'm
• 2:58
  not going to do it right now.
• 2:58
  I might do it eventually, but I'm not
• 3:00
  going to do it until it actually, yeah,
• 3:03
  you got to sign up to get it.
• 3:05
  A bunch of a-holes, but you can't
• 3:07
  even get the entire story.
• 3:08
  So I'm going to give you the summarized
• 3:13
  version, but basically what it's saying it, and
• 3:16
  it was on TV earlier.
• 3:18
  I saw it, didn't record it.
• 3:20
  Don't want to go look for one right
• 3:22
  now.
• 3:22
  Cause my, my stuff is all there.
• 3:24
  And we have internal memos from 2016 leaked
• 3:32
  to the New York times reveal that Supreme
• 3:35
  Court justices led by chief justice, John Roberts
• 3:41
  maneuvered to block president Obama's environmental regulations.
• 3:46
  Now this is court activism.
• 3:50
  Okay.
• 3:50
  Fueling the scrutiny of the so-called shadow
• 3:54
  docket.
• 3:55
  Okay.
• 3:56
  This is Supreme court guys saying, here's what
• 3:58
  I'm going to do.
• 3:59
  Here's if this ever gets to me, you're
• 4:01
  going to get screwed.
• 4:02
  Here's what it is now.
• 4:04
  Believe it.
• 4:04
  Don't believe it.
• 4:05
  I don't know.
• 4:05
  I haven't gone far enough into it to
• 4:07
  find out whether I believe it or not.
• 4:09
  And in order to do that, I want
• 4:10
  to pull the whole story, but the news
• 4:11
  is out there.
• 4:12
  So this isn't me saying this, this is
• 4:14
  a summary from somebody else's reading of the
• 4:17
  Hill, which on its own does, I'm sure
• 4:20
  didn't interview John Roberts.
• 4:23
  So there's 16 pages of documents that were
• 4:27
  leaked that highlight deep ideological divides and concerns
• 4:31
  about a deteriorating culture of regarding court confidentiality.
• 4:36
  Okay.
• 4:37
  The memos reveal allegedly that chief justice Roberts
• 4:42
  and other conservative judges pushed to halt the
• 4:45
  EPA's clean power plan, which the times described
• 4:50
  as Roberts acting like a bulldozer.
• 4:53
  The leak provides insight into the shadow docket,
• 4:58
  the unexplained or quick decisions made by the
• 5:00
  court and has intensified criticism from the left,
• 5:04
  highlighting how such decisions favor conservative policy goals.
• 5:09
  Well, they do the same thing in the
• 5:10
  other direction.
• 5:11
  And the Democrats had never, you know, fight
• 5:14
  about that.
• 5:14
  But these, these things that occur, of course
• 5:22
  they occur.
• 5:23
  It's frigging politics.
• 5:24
  It's a dirty freaking world.
• 5:26
  And don't act like they don't.
• 5:28
  If you think that federal judges don't understand
• 5:31
  their power, you better think again.
• 5:33
  They're basically untouchable.
• 5:36
  You can't do anything except bow down when
• 5:39
  you walk in their courtrooms.
• 5:41
  And I don't mean that horribly, you know,
• 5:43
  you got to respect the position as a
• 5:45
  lawyer anyway, but don't go acting like the
• 5:49
  authority of any kind and that they don't
• 5:52
  know what sort of authority that they do
• 5:54
  have.
• 5:55
  And they make their decisions.
• 5:57
  And it seems like the more blatant they
• 6:00
  are, the less anybody is going to screw
• 6:02
  with them.
• 6:03
  And don't, don't kid yourselves that they're not
• 6:06
  also looking for the next position in the
• 6:10
  chain of command.
• 6:11
  That is what they are doing.
• 6:13
  They all dream to be next in line
• 6:16
  to be on an appellate court and ultimately
• 6:19
  hope to be part of the Supreme Court.
• 6:22
  And so, trust me, it's political and they
• 6:25
  want to be recognized.
• 6:27
  They also want to be known.
• 6:28
  And you think that lawyers aren't political?
• 6:31
  Yeah, good luck with that theory.
• 6:35
  But anyway, the impact, they say that this
• 6:39
  shadow docket impact has legal experts saying that
• 6:44
  the leak seems to design to embarrass the
• 6:47
  court right now and undermine trust in its
• 6:50
  proceedings with some commentators urging an FBI investigation
• 6:54
  because of the leak.
• 6:56
  Now, I don't know who's right, who's wrong,
• 7:01
  don't really care.
• 7:02
  The issue for me is that the court
• 7:08
  is supposed to be, and this is what
• 7:11
  they hammer into your head all through law
• 7:13
  school.
• 7:13
  You can't say anything bad about the court.
• 7:15
  You can't say anything bad about a judge.
• 7:18
  You can't, it's, and the way they define
• 7:20
  it in your, in your civil procedure courses
• 7:23
  and in your constitutional law courses, well, it's
• 7:25
  a dirty, messy system, but it's the best
• 7:28
  in the world.
• 7:29
  That's it.
• 7:30
  That's your logic.
• 7:31
  It's a dirty, messy system, but it's the
• 7:33
  best in the world.
• 7:34
  And you have to change it from within.
• 7:37
  And they pound that into your head.
• 7:39
  They pound it into your head for a
• 7:41
  reason.
• 7:42
  So you don't ever come out and say
• 7:44
  anything negative.
• 7:46
  And if you go after the government, if
• 7:49
  you go after the system itself, you become
• 7:52
  the target.
• 7:53
  You know, I'm a prime example of that.
• 7:56
  And you become the target for a-holes
• 7:58
  who believe in nothing but the system.
• 8:01
  And they don't even believe in that.
• 8:03
  They're just all powerful in the system.
• 8:05
  And so they just destroy people who threaten
• 8:08
  that system.
• 8:10
  And trust me, it happens.
• 8:12
  And it happens every day.
• 8:13
  It happens in Missouri pretty, pretty frequently, and
• 8:17
  it does occur.
• 8:19
  So these legal experts are saying that this
• 8:21
  information put out right now is designed to
• 8:24
  embarrass the court and undermine trust in the
• 8:26
  proceedings.
• 8:27
  And again, commentators are saying, hey, the FBI
• 8:29
  ought to jump in the court.
• 8:31
  Yeah, that's going to work.
• 8:33
  If they do that, the court will figure
• 8:36
  out how to get them.
• 8:38
  Trust me on that one.
• 8:39
  So this 2022 Dobbs opinion leak and a
• 8:43
  smaller leak in 2024 to the exact same
• 8:46
  publication point to ongoing serious breaches of confidentiality.
• 8:51
  And the only way you can get the
• 8:52
  entire story is read it in The Hill,
• 8:54
  and I haven't been able to do that
• 8:55
  yet.
• 8:56
  But the leak has occurred, and I'm going
• 9:00
  to have to dig in and get some
• 9:02
  of that.
• 9:03
  There's another blog from Slate, if you've ever
• 9:10
  heard of Slate.
• 9:11
  And here there's something I'm going to share
• 9:14
  this article.
• 9:16
  I don't know if I would share the
• 9:19
  whole thing.
• 9:19
  It's far too long.
• 9:20
  But apparently Slate has done a rewrite as
• 9:25
  well, and they have a related couple of
• 9:29
  stories in there.
• 9:29
  So I'm going to share these later, but
• 9:32
  that's on the news part that we do
• 9:35
  plan to.
• 9:40
  And it has the documents in there, which
• 9:43
  show John Roberts taking authority.
• 9:47
  We shall see what happens in those.
• 9:49
  And I'm truly interested in how that all
• 9:52
  pans the hell out.
• 9:56
  OK.
• 9:56
  But I want to get back to where
• 9:59
  I was talking about Nikol Pashinyan, who is
• 10:06
  Armenian leader, and Vladimir Putin in a formal
• 10:11
  15-minute, 20-minute statement between the two
• 10:15
  of them.
• 10:16
  And I could give the whole translation to
• 10:19
  you.
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  It's not that long and put it out
• 10:20
  there.
• 10:21
  But Putin especially, I may tell you a
• 10:23
  little bit about what he was talking about.
• 10:27
  He said that the most important thing in
• 10:29
  political processes, especially between two countries, they're sharpened
• 10:33
  during election campaigns, is to not harm relations
• 10:37
  between Russia and Armenia.
• 10:39
  And we have discussed many times that Russia
• 10:42
  and Armenia have special relations formed not over
• 10:45
  decades, but over centuries.
• 10:47
  And we're united by shared history, joint problems,
• 10:51
  problem-solving.
• 10:52
  Now, Armenia is right next to Georgia, Georgia
• 10:54
  and Azerbaijan.
• 10:55
  And Georgia is so damn beautiful.
• 10:57
  I spent some time over there, not last
• 11:00
  fall, but was that in Georgia?
• 11:03
  Two years ago, fall, August, September.
• 11:07
  And I went to Vladikavkaz, and I went
• 11:11
  to Russia, and I spent some time in
• 11:13
  Georgia during that three-week trip, four-week
• 11:16
  trip, two weeks in each place.
• 11:18
  And it was really pretty cool.
• 11:20
  And Georgia is a great place.
• 11:21
  Armenia is right next door.
• 11:22
  Now, you watch a lot of movies in,
• 11:26
  at least I do anyway, that are in
• 11:30
  Russian.
• 11:31
  But a lot of them, when they travel
• 11:33
  south, when they travel, they go down to
• 11:35
  Sochi, and they travel down to the beaches
• 11:38
  in Sochi, or they go across to Armenia,
• 11:42
  and those are far more Muslim, and they
• 11:46
  can even go down as far as Azerbaijan
• 11:48
  and those things when it was the Soviet
• 11:50
  Union.
• 11:51
  So, traveling, they would all go down.
• 11:52
  There's plenty of travel between the two.
• 11:55
  And the same thing with Georgia.
• 11:56
  There's a large Russian population in Georgia, Armenia
• 12:00
  and Azerbaijan.
• 12:01
  And Armenia has some pretty good stuff.
• 12:04
  And I'm going to share a song from
• 12:06
  one of the movies that I just love
• 12:08
  from that time period.
• 12:09
  And I'll share a song from that just
• 12:12
  later.
• 12:13
  But he talked a little bit about the
• 12:15
  economy between the two countries, did our Vladimir
• 12:18
  Vladimirovich.
• 12:19
  And he said, trade reached about 11 billion
• 12:23
  previously, and about 6.4 to 6.5
• 12:27
  billion.
• 12:28
  And in comparison with Azerbaijan, they're under 5
• 12:31
  billion.
• 12:32
  And that says something, because in order, they
• 12:36
  have to have a rail through Azerbaijan to
• 12:38
  get to Armenia.
• 12:39
  And 1.2 billion is Armenian agriculture exports
• 12:43
  that Russia purchased.
• 12:45
  They have ongoing discussions about developing ties with
• 12:47
  the European Union, does Armenia.
• 12:51
  And Putin is saying, you know, membership in
• 12:54
  both a customs union with the EU and
• 12:58
  the Eurasian Economic Union are pretty much impossible
• 13:03
  by definition.
• 13:04
  It's not political.
• 13:05
  It's economic, he said.
• 13:07
  Standards differ.
• 13:08
  Tariffs market across rules of engagement.
• 13:12
  These differences require years of harmonization.
• 13:15
  Even before the Ukraine crisis, we attempted cooperation
• 13:19
  with the EU, said Putin, and nothing came
• 13:22
  of it.
• 13:23
  Their position is always extremely rigid.
• 13:25
  On energy, gas prices in Europe are about
• 13:29
  $600 per 1,000 cubic meters.
• 13:33
  And from Russia, we supply the same thing
• 13:36
  to Armenia at $177.5 per 1,000
• 13:41
  cubic meters.
• 13:43
  And that is a substantial difference.
• 13:46
  And it really is.
• 13:47
  They pay four times as much if they're
• 13:49
  going to get it from Europe than if
• 13:52
  they get it from Russia.
• 13:54
  Because in Europe, it all comes to the
• 13:55
  US anyway.
• 13:56
  Or different pipelines come in different places.
• 13:59
  But they pay four times as much if
• 14:02
  you're in Armenia.
• 14:04
  Armenia's exports to the EU have grown tenfold
• 14:07
  in years.
• 14:07
  Ultimately, it's a sovereign decision on how to
• 14:10
  build your economy.
• 14:11
  He said the most sensitive issue remains Nagorno
• 14:14
  -Karabakh.
• 14:15
  After Armenia recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan
• 14:19
  and Prague in 2022, it's inappropriate for the
• 14:23
  security conference to intervene since it is now
• 14:26
  an internal Azerbaijani matter.
• 14:28
  Now, thanks to efforts by the Azerbaijani president
• 14:31
  and Armenia, and US involvement relations are stabilizing.
• 14:38
  He threw a little hat tip to Trumpster
• 14:41
  for helping resolve that.
• 14:43
  Remember, the Armenian president and the Azerbaijani president
• 14:46
  both visited the White House different times.
• 14:49
  Was it last year, year before?
• 14:51
  No, it had to be last year because
• 14:52
  it was after Trumpster came into office.
• 14:54
  So the issue shouldn't be politicized too much.
• 14:57
  Well, then Pashinyan gets on and he says,
• 14:59
  well, our relationships with Russia are deep and
• 15:01
  very important.
• 15:02
  They're developing under new regional realities, particularly now
• 15:05
  that we have peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
• 15:08
  And it was only when I was over
• 15:09
  there in Georgia, which is right next door
• 15:11
  to both of these countries, that we were
• 15:13
  told we couldn't get into Azerbaijan because I
• 15:16
  wanted to go, but I couldn't go there.
• 15:18
  And I couldn't really, I mean, it wasn't
• 15:20
  necessarily a good time to go to Armenia
• 15:22
  either because both of those two countries were
• 15:24
  at each other's throats.
• 15:26
  And I do kind of pay attention when
• 15:28
  I go over there.
• 15:29
  And so we elected not to go to
• 15:32
  those.
• 15:33
  But my goal was to go into there
• 15:34
  and go into Russia through a roundabout way,
• 15:37
  through Azerbaijan and through Armenia and get to
• 15:41
  Russia and go to Vladikavkaz that way.
• 15:44
  But I only ended up doing Georgia and
• 15:45
  Vladikavkaz, so two countries.
• 15:47
  And I still have to knock those other
• 15:48
  two off my list at another time.
• 15:51
  I'm thinking about going to Sochi because Sochi
• 15:54
  is right next door to them too.
• 15:55
  And you could take a boat over to
• 15:58
  one of them and then go to the
• 16:00
  other.
• 16:00
  It'd be kind of cool.
• 16:01
  So anyway, the Armenian, he talked about the
• 16:07
  concerns did Pashinyan about the CSTO.
• 16:10
  And in 2022, there was a situation where
• 16:12
  the mechanism should have worked, but they didn't.
• 16:15
  That's why they approached Trump to help them
• 16:17
  get rid of the war because it didn't
• 16:19
  really work with the CSTO, which is a
• 16:21
  security organization between Southeast Asian states, including Russia.
• 16:26
  And on domestic politics, Armenia is a democratic
• 16:29
  country.
• 16:29
  Elections happen frequently.
• 16:31
  We have a decent amount of political activism
• 16:37
  here in our country.
• 16:38
  Relationship with Russia has endured many tests.
• 16:42
  We're open with dialogue, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:44
  And I'm confident that in the election, Armenia
• 16:47
  will strengthen further its ties with Russia.
• 16:50
  There are still many untapped.
• 16:51
  So the strategic summary of all this between
• 16:53
  the two, this was not small talk.
• 16:55
  This was two guys fighting it out diplomatically,
• 17:00
  like a decent lawyer would do, where they
• 17:03
  point out the pros and the cons, and
• 17:07
  then they get to it.
• 17:08
  So Putin's position is that Russia is offering
• 17:10
  some tangible benefits, cheap gas trade access, labor
• 17:14
  migration.
• 17:15
  EU alignment comes with regulatory incompatibility and long
• 17:19
  -term friction.
• 17:20
  And the security reality is once Armenia recognized
• 17:25
  Karabakh as Azerbaijani, Russia's hands basically were tied
• 17:29
  militarily.
• 17:30
  They couldn't come in and support.
• 17:32
  So this is subtle pressure about pro-Russian
• 17:34
  political actors.
• 17:35
  Now, they talked about the pipelines going through
• 17:40
  Azerbaijan in a lot of places and into
• 17:43
  Armenia, and that that's no longer an issue
• 17:45
  for getting cheap Russian gas.
• 17:47
  And they can still get cheap Russian gas.
• 17:49
  And they acknowledge the incompatibility.
• 17:52
  So Pashinyan acknowledged the long-term incompatibility with
• 17:57
  the EU.
• 17:58
  But he said, well, the CSTO failed in
• 18:01
  2022.
• 18:03
  But he's open to non-Russian energy and
• 18:07
  nuclear partners.
• 18:09
  And nuclear, Russia can build them a nuclear
• 18:14
  power plant far cheaper than anybody in the
• 18:16
  EU.
• 18:17
  But who knows what they're going to do.
• 18:20
  The underlying reality is Armenia is doing the
• 18:23
  same as a lot of countries are trying
• 18:24
  to do.
• 18:25
  And trust me, there's been a lot of
• 18:28
  NATO and US and NGO activism in all
• 18:32
  those areas, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan.
• 18:37
  Any of the stands over there.
• 18:38
  And then Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan.
• 18:41
  And those places, huge amounts of impact from
• 18:47
  and non-government organizations attacking over there and
• 18:52
  trying to get these guys to tow the
• 18:55
  anti-Russia line, just like in Ukraine.
• 18:58
  So it's a classic geopolitical maneuvering.
• 19:01
  And the smaller state wants to keep both
• 19:03
  doors open.
• 19:04
  And a major power is politely explaining that
• 19:07
  eventually one door or the other you're going
• 19:09
  to have to close.
• 19:10
  And we hope it's the EU door because
• 19:12
  it makes a lot more sense for you
• 19:14
  to be with us.
• 19:15
  And it really does, truthfully.
• 19:18
  But who knows what will happen.
• 19:22
  I was talking to you about the, you
• 19:28
  know, I want to put this song in.
• 19:31
  The song I'm going to play for you
• 19:33
  is called Chito Gvrito.
• 19:36
  And it's a Soviet-era film from Mimino.
• 19:39
  And it's sung by a guy named Vakhtang
• 19:40
  Kikibidze, a Georgian performer who was just loved
• 19:45
  across the Soviet Union.
• 19:46
  And leaders who couldn't stand each other paused
• 19:49
  to honor him when he died.
• 19:51
  And Mimino itself is just a wonderful little
• 19:54
  story.
• 19:55
  It's a Caucasus parable, a Georgian pilot.
• 19:59
  He pilots a helicopter.
• 20:01
  He can fly planes too, but he's a
• 20:03
  helicopter pilot.
• 20:04
  An Armenian companion.
• 20:07
  He's got a woman there.
• 20:08
  He's got Moscow in the middle.
• 20:10
  He just wants, he's got a pilot's license
• 20:12
  and he wants to do more.
• 20:13
  The opening scene is him coming in in
• 20:15
  his big helicopter and somebody has a goat
• 20:18
  in the back seat.
• 20:20
  And by the way, that's the way it
• 20:21
  used to be.
• 20:22
  I flew on an Aeroflot flight and a
• 20:24
  guy came in, this is in the 90s,
• 20:27
  and a guy gets on.
• 20:28
  He's like from Azerbaijan or something like that.
• 20:30
  And he had these big billowy pants on
• 20:32
  and it was pretty cool.
• 20:33
  And he sits down right next to me
• 20:35
  in the front of the airplane.
• 20:38
  And I was sitting there and I was
• 20:40
  going, I was going from Moscow to Moldova,
• 20:43
  to Kishinev.
• 20:45
  And he was going to Kishinev too.
• 20:47
  And I don't know if the plane was
• 20:48
  going somewhere else later.
• 20:50
  There were no stops on the way.
• 20:52
  It was just straight over.
• 20:54
  And he sits down next to me and
• 20:59
  he's got a pair of these boots that
• 21:01
  go up to his knees and they're pretty
• 21:03
  cool.
• 21:04
  He's got the billowing, silkish style pants, and
• 21:08
  he's got a big shirt and a big
• 21:09
  broad belt on.
• 21:11
  It's like, geez, I'm sitting next to some
• 21:12
  guy who, I don't know what, came out
• 21:16
  of an Azerbaijani, Arabic, Muslim something story, you
• 21:22
  know, Arabian Nights or something.
• 21:24
  And he's sitting down next to me and
• 21:27
  I'm trying to ignore it.
• 21:30
  Somebody else comes by carrying a crate full
• 21:32
  of chickens.
• 21:34
  They got a crate, like six chickens in
• 21:36
  there.
• 21:37
  This crate, another guy comes in carrying a
• 21:40
  bale of cotton, a bale.
• 21:42
  You got this big old plane.
• 21:44
  I'm like, where am I?
• 21:46
  And it was an Aeroflot flight from Moscow
• 21:49
  to Kishinev in Moldova.
• 21:53
  And anyway, I'm sitting next to a guy,
• 21:55
  it's not that long a flight, three, four
• 21:57
  hours maybe.
• 21:58
  And so I'm dozed off.
• 22:00
  I'm there in a suit for God's sake,
• 22:02
  you know, I got a suit coat on
• 22:03
  and I'm sitting next to this Arab dude.
• 22:08
  All of a sudden he taps me and
• 22:10
  I look over and he reaches in his
• 22:11
  boot.
• 22:12
  And I swear to God, the guy pulled
• 22:13
  out like an eight inch curved knife.
• 22:17
  Like it looked like a mini scimitar, right?
• 22:19
  He's got this huge knife that he just
• 22:21
  pulls out of his boot.
• 22:22
  And then he reaches into a pouch in
• 22:24
  the front of his outfit.
• 22:28
  He's got like a little fanny pack of
• 22:30
  some sort.
• 22:31
  It wasn't, but you know, he's got this
• 22:33
  thing and he pulled it out and he
• 22:34
  starts, I pulled out a tomato.
• 22:36
  He started slicing tomatoes and he handed me
• 22:39
  a couple of chunks of tomato.
• 22:41
  And, you know, we spoke a little bit
• 22:43
  in Russian.
• 22:43
  We had a little bit of fun.
• 22:44
  His Russian was terrible.
• 22:46
  And, but, you know, he tried to talk
• 22:48
  to me and anyway, it was an interesting
• 22:50
  flight, but it was pretty, the only reason
• 22:54
  I share that story is because I liked
• 22:57
  this.
• 22:58
  This film was called Mimino and Mimino is,
• 23:03
  uh, everybody loved it in the Soviet union.
• 23:05
  And how do you not?
• 23:06
  It's a story of a guy who's a
• 23:08
  pilot in Georgia flying and doing, you know,
• 23:13
  doing carrying frigging goats and chickens and stuff
• 23:17
  in the back of his helicopter, which seats
• 23:19
  about eight, eight people back there.
• 23:21
  And people would fly and then he'd fly
• 23:23
  into his little village in Georgia, but then
• 23:26
  he would go to bigger places every once
• 23:28
  in a while.
• 23:29
  And one of them in the first part
• 23:31
  of the show, he runs into, um, um,
• 23:36
  runs into, uh, some form, some pilots that
• 23:40
  he went to school with and they got
• 23:42
  all these stewardesses hanging about with them.
• 23:44
  And they're talking about the plane that they're
• 23:46
  flying and they're off to Western Europe somewhere.
• 23:49
  And they're talking about stories and, and he,
• 23:52
  uh, has, you know, one of the girls
• 23:55
  that he is speaking with and he says,
• 23:56
  Oh, he's a pilot too.
• 23:57
  And then he, he, he gets embarrassed anyway,
• 24:00
  long and the short of the story is
• 24:01
  he goes to Moscow, has adventures, becomes a
• 24:07
  pilot for a year or two.
• 24:08
  And in the end he ends up going
• 24:09
  back home.
• 24:10
  It's a cool story.
• 24:11
  It's a, it's a, he goes back home
• 24:13
  and the girl of his dreams and stuff.
• 24:15
  She doesn't want to leave Georgia or anything
• 24:17
  like that.
• 24:18
  And so, uh, that's what they do.
• 24:20
  And it's, and it's actually pretty cool.
• 24:22
  So, um, a decent story.
• 24:24
  And from it in the beginning of the
• 24:25
  show is something called, uh, uh, Chito Gavrito.
• 24:29
  And I always liked this song.
• 24:31
  And so I'm gonna, uh, share it with
• 24:33
  you just because, and then, uh, but I
• 24:36
  want to do that before we do it.
• 24:37
  We're going to put the map on the
• 24:39
  table.
• 24:39
  The South caucuses are between the black sea
• 24:42
  and the Caspian sea, Georgia borders, Russia to
• 24:45
  the North and the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the
• 24:48
  East and the Southeast and Armenia and Turkey
• 24:50
  to the South.
• 24:51
  And the black sea is to the West.
• 24:53
  So Armenia is kind of landlocked at borders,
• 24:56
  Georgia and Azerbaijan and Iran to the Southeast,
• 24:59
  Turkey to the West and Azerbaijan on claim
• 25:01
  of Nakhchivan to the Southwest.
• 25:03
  The Georgia is not trivia.
• 25:05
  It's destiny.
• 25:06
  Georgia has a black sea opening and direct
• 25:08
  border with Russia.
• 25:09
  Armenia does not border Russia at all, but
• 25:11
  they reach Russia through Georgia.
• 25:13
  And for decades, the Western route has been
• 25:15
  struck structurally choked by the closed Turkish frontier.
• 25:19
  And the closed Turkish border is one of
• 25:21
  the great stubborn facts of the modern caucuses.
• 25:24
  Reuters said last year that Turkey has closed
• 25:26
  its border to Armenia in 1993 in support
• 25:30
  of Azerbaijan during Nagorno-Karabakh.
• 25:33
  And although there have been attempts at normalization,
• 25:35
  Armenia and Turkey still have no formal diplomatic
• 25:38
  relations.
• 25:39
  So whenever people in Washington or Brussels talk
• 25:41
  breezily about Armenia pivoting West, they're skipping over
• 25:46
  the plain mechanical problem.
• 25:47
  Armenia is not Estonia.
• 25:49
  It is a small mountainous landlocked state with
• 25:52
  a shut Western frontier and a bad news
• 25:55
  on the Eastern frontier and no direct EU
• 25:58
  border.
• 25:59
  So if you want to sell Europe to
• 26:00
  these guys, which, you know, they're still trying
• 26:03
  to explore, you have to do it through
• 26:04
  Turkey and you have to do it through
• 26:06
  some sort of quarter permissions, rail gauge, custom
• 26:10
  rules with neighbors that you don't like.
• 26:13
  So that's why the railway question matters so
• 26:15
  much in the Putin Pashinyan exchange.
• 26:18
  It isn't about symbolism.
• 26:19
  It's about steel tracks and leverage because they
• 26:22
  can work with Russia through Georgia and Georgia
• 26:26
  has a reasonably good relationship with Russia right
• 26:29
  now.
• 26:29
  Although Trump's trying to kick both of those
• 26:31
  out.
• 26:31
  So just so you know where you are
• 26:33
  on the world.
• 26:34
  So and that that is kind of always
• 26:36
  been that way.
• 26:37
  When you talk about Nagorno-Karabakh, you have
• 26:39
  to go back there.
• 26:40
  This is a bit predominantly ethnic Armenian region,
• 26:43
  internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
• 26:46
  Now, the dispute goes back to the Soviet
• 26:48
  collapse.
• 26:49
  And then it was decades of war, ceasefire,
• 26:51
  frozen conflict, renewed war.
• 26:53
  And finally, Azerbaijan restored military control in 2023.
• 26:59
  And that was the exodus of the region's
• 27:01
  Armenian population.
• 27:03
  2025, Trump brokered a deal that was presented
• 27:06
  as a turning point toward normalization after four
• 27:08
  decades of conflict.
• 27:10
  So this is Putin's comments.
• 27:11
  He isn't just talking about abstract diplomacy.
• 27:14
  He's talking about an Armenia that's already accepted
• 27:16
  in practical terms that Karabakh is no longer
• 27:19
  a military reversal project.
• 27:20
  They can't change it.
• 27:22
  It's Azerbaijan, period, end of sentence.
• 27:25
  So that's a war.
• 27:26
  You know, who is the UN all talked
• 27:28
  about?
• 27:30
  Geez, territorial integrity.
• 27:32
  Yeah, right.
• 27:33
  That's what happened in Serbia.
• 27:36
  That's what happened in Kosovo.
• 27:38
  And that's what happened in Azerbaijan and Armenia.
• 27:42
  So the deal with the abbreviation, you know,
• 27:45
  that the Collective Security Treaty Organization was a
• 27:48
  Russian-led Soviet military bloc, including Armenia, Belarus,
• 27:52
  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
• 27:55
  It's Moscow's answer to the Security Alliance framework,
• 27:58
  but not with NATO's, I don't know what,
• 28:03
  credibility, I suppose.
• 28:04
  And in September 22, Azerbaijani attacks on the
• 28:07
  sovereign Armenian territory, Armenia invoked Article 4, a
• 28:11
  collective defense.
• 28:12
  And the CSTO did hold an extraordinary session
• 28:15
  at Armenia's request.
• 28:16
  It sent a mission.
• 28:17
  It talked.
• 28:17
  But what it did not do was provide
• 28:19
  military backing Armenia thought it should get.
• 28:23
  Armenia officials later said CSTO had unclear positions
• 28:26
  in that Prime Minister Pashinyan said the mechanisms
• 28:29
  had failed Armenia in 2021 and 22.
• 28:32
  That's what he was talking about when he
• 28:34
  said it was a CSTO failure.
• 28:36
  So Putin says, well, to be honest, once
• 28:38
  you recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, CSTO
• 28:42
  intervention is improper.
• 28:43
  He made a legal argument.
• 28:45
  But Pashinyan said he's talking about their internationally
• 28:48
  recognized territory of 2022, not simply Karabakh.
• 28:52
  And he's saying they should have come in
• 28:53
  to get something and they got a little
• 28:54
  sloppy about it.
• 28:55
  Never occurred.
• 28:56
  Anyway, culturally, I want to pull you back
• 28:59
  to the Georgian pilot, which is a pretty
• 29:01
  cool story.
• 29:02
  And I'm going to give you a little
• 29:04
  bit of culture now from that point of
• 29:07
  view.
• 29:07
  And this is Chito Gvrito.
• 29:09
  And I always enjoyed this song.
• 29:12
  Couldn't tell you why I just do.
• 29:14
  And so I'm going to share it with
• 29:17
  you if I can find it.
• 29:19
  Oh, it's the last one, not the first
• 29:21
  one.
• 29:21
  That's why I had to go through each
• 29:23
  and every one.
• 29:24
  But here it is.
• 29:26
  Enjoy, please.
• 29:27
  Chito Gvrito.
• 29:28
  It's a fragment from the film Mimino.
• 32:01
  I don't know why I just like that
• 32:03
  song.
• 32:04
  And I always have.
• 32:05
  And as soon as I heard it in
• 32:06
  the movie, it's like, you know, I'm going
• 32:07
  to have to put that in a playlist
• 32:09
  somewhere.
• 32:10
  And I found it and put it in.
• 32:12
  It's called Chito Gvrito.
• 32:14
  Chito Margarito.
• 32:16
  And that is actually Georgian.
• 32:19
  And it's from the film Mimino, where a
• 32:21
  Georgian pilot, you know, dreams of something bigger
• 32:24
  in his life.
• 32:26
  And if you read some of the some
• 32:29
  of the commentary in songs like that, or
• 32:33
  if you read into it after that movie,
• 32:35
  those type of movies just don't exist anymore.
• 32:37
  They just don't.
• 32:38
  And it's a pretty cool movie.
• 32:42
  And I challenge you to find it in
• 32:45
  English.
• 32:46
  Even so, it's a it's a more of
• 32:48
  a moral story at the end, you know,
• 32:51
  home is better, blah, blah, and that kind
• 32:54
  of thing.
• 32:54
  But it's a but it's a cool, a
• 32:56
  cool story, a film with a lesson, let's
• 33:00
  say, that many of us have never learned.
• 33:05
  Because we go all over the place.
• 33:08
  And it's there's there's a home doesn't really
• 33:13
  exist for some of us.
• 33:15
  And we just, you know, live where we
• 33:18
  live.
• 33:18
  And I've never really established a place that
• 33:21
  I necessarily called home.
• 33:24
  Until I moved to Missouri in 2001.
• 33:28
  I never lived anywhere longer than three years
• 33:31
  for no, that's not true.
• 33:32
  I lived in Minnesota for five when I
• 33:35
  was a kid.
• 33:37
  But my father was in transportation.
• 33:39
  And so our family moved around a lot.
• 33:42
  And I was in the military.
• 33:43
  And I moved around a lot.
• 33:45
  I was in Dallas for law school for
• 33:48
  about not quite five years as well.
• 33:53
  And then came to Missouri in 2000, mid
• 33:57
  2000.
• 33:58
  And I suppose if I had to call
• 34:02
  a place home, it'd be Missouri.
• 34:05
  But I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I
• 34:09
  don't know.
• 34:10
  I people ask you, where are you from?
• 34:11
  Well, shit, I was born in Cincinnati.
• 34:13
  But there you have it.
• 34:16
  Anyway, there's plenty more to go into that
• 34:18
  I wanted to get into, especially about this,
• 34:22
  these, the further discussions.
• 34:25
  And after we get there, we'll play a
• 34:26
  little bit more music for you and talk
• 34:28
  about some more about Armenia.
• 34:31
  So let's get out of the Caucasus.
• 34:35
  And we're gonna move now into, you know,
• 34:39
  I played the Chito Gavrito.
• 34:42
  And what the Caucasus story tells us that
• 34:45
  we're going to move to Germany next is
• 34:48
  like this.
• 34:50
  Russia is stopping the transit of Kazakh oil
• 34:54
  to Germany's Schwett refinery via the Druzhba pipeline
• 35:00
  starting in May.
• 35:01
  Okay.
• 35:01
  And it does hit a major fuel artery
• 35:04
  for Berlin and immediate public rationale from Moscow.
• 35:08
  So, so the whole world is revolving around
• 35:10
  energy right now.
• 35:12
  Trump's trying to take over energy in Venezuela
• 35:14
  and in Iran.
• 35:17
  EU is scrambling to cover where it's, I
• 35:20
  read a report yesterday that is actually pretty
• 35:22
  cool.
• 35:23
  The Canadians are trying to open a northern
• 35:25
  sea route that doesn't have to go through
• 35:28
  Hudson Bay and has to go through instead.
• 35:33
  I mean, the American side doesn't have to,
• 35:36
  no American port touching anything coming out of
• 35:40
  Canada.
• 35:41
  They're opening their own Northern Arctic route to
• 35:46
  Europe and they're going to start supplying fuel,
• 35:50
  which right now has to come through the
• 35:52
  U S.
• 35:53
  And so they've announced this thing.
• 35:56
  It's billions of dollars to Winterify.
• 36:01
  I suppose you'd call it this Northern port
• 36:04
  in Canada.
• 36:07
  And we have icebreakers that escort and take
• 36:11
  people across the ocean to the EU countries
• 36:16
  without any dealing with the United States.
• 36:21
  So this is both the EU and Canada
• 36:24
  avoiding America intentionally.
• 36:29
  It's a, it makes much more sense and
• 36:31
  they can get much more money straight dealing
• 36:34
  with the EU.
• 36:36
  You wonder if they'll use American dollars to
• 36:38
  get that done.
• 36:39
  That's a, that's just a wonder for me.
• 36:41
  And so there's all kinds of juggling everywhere.
• 36:47
  What did Putin talk about with Pashinyan?
• 36:49
  He talked about oil.
• 36:50
  He talked about infrastructure and the, the war
• 36:55
  and coming, the economic wars will be around
• 36:59
  long after these attempts at domination by the
• 37:03
  powerful, by the Americas of the world, or
• 37:06
  by Russia trying to force something or convince
• 37:09
  Armenia that they need to do something right
• 37:13
  in Canada as we're going to avoid America
• 37:15
  entirely and work straight with the EU and
• 37:18
  vice versa.
• 37:19
  They're going to have back and forth between
• 37:21
  their ports cutting out America.
• 37:23
  That's the part that's important to me is
• 37:25
  we're being cut out in a lot of
• 37:27
  places and we've used our, our position to
• 37:32
  dominate to no one's advantage, but our own,
• 37:39
  not even thinking of the other sides with
• 37:41
  force, with power.
• 37:43
  And well, we're the largest economy in the
• 37:46
  world.
• 37:46
  You have to deal with us.
• 37:47
  Well, they're telling us that they don't in
• 37:50
  a lot of different ways.
• 37:51
  A lot of people are saying it too.
• 37:52
  Canada, after the speech of Carney recently said,
• 38:01
  you know, we're, we're, we're getting alternatives.
• 38:04
  They're dealing with China directly.
• 38:05
  That's another way of the Northern Strait, the
• 38:08
  Northern Sea through the Arctic.
• 38:10
  Why do you think Donald Trump, who knows
• 38:12
  this once Greenland, Canada and Alaska, he wants
• 38:15
  all of those and he wants more.
• 38:18
  But the Caucasus story that I just related
• 38:21
  to you in the German story that I'm
• 38:22
  giving you is geography still rules.
• 38:25
  Pipeline still rule rails still rule.
• 38:28
  And all the speeches in Brussels and Washington
• 38:31
  don't move a barrel of oil until somebody
• 38:33
  controls the infrastructure and the map.
• 38:36
  And in Armenia, Putin was saying to Pashinyan
• 38:38
  that history and logistics still matter more than
• 38:41
  Western slogans, democracy, blah, blah, blah.
• 38:44
  In Germany, Moscow is now making the same
• 38:46
  point, but more harsh energy routes are still
• 38:49
  used like a wrench across European machinery, whether
• 38:52
  you like it or not.
• 38:54
  So starting May 1st, Kazakh oil, Russia is
• 38:58
  cutting it off.
• 38:59
  You can't do so.
• 39:00
  The issue with the Druzhba pipeline and one
• 39:04
  of the reasons that Viktor Orban got booted
• 39:06
  by his electorate in Hungary is because the
• 39:11
  Druzhba pipeline allegedly of Ukraine destroyed it so
• 39:17
  that Russia couldn't get fuel to Hungary so
• 39:21
  that Orban would be forced to agree to
• 39:24
  the 90 billion that the EU was hold
• 39:28
  that he was vetoing to go to uh
• 39:32
  the um corrupt hellhole of Zelensky's regime, right?
• 39:39
  And now that Orban is gone, the Druzhba
• 39:43
  pipeline was fixed in a matter of a
• 39:45
  week because the as the new Magyar leader
• 39:51
  of Hungary said open it up or we're
• 39:55
  in the same boat and so Druzhba was
• 39:56
  repaired.
• 39:57
  Ukraine said it's repaired.
• 39:59
  Well, and then the leader of Hungary is
• 40:03
  off to Brussels to give his approval so
• 40:06
  that the Ukrainians can get this 90 billion
• 40:10
  to continue fighting the Russians.
• 40:11
  Meanwhile, Russia, who supplies oil and allows that
• 40:16
  same pipeline to carry Kazakh oil to go
• 40:20
  through the pipeline to Germany in a different
• 40:22
  section, now says now that we can get
• 40:26
  Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary,
• 40:31
  you're and you won't buy Russian oil?
• 40:34
  Screw you.
• 40:35
  We're not going to allow our share of
• 40:36
  the pipeline to transport Kazakh oil.
• 40:39
  They're sanctioning in reverse and saying you then
• 40:43
  can't have Kazakh oil through the Druzhba pipeline
• 40:46
  Germany to go to the Shwed refinery in
• 40:53
  Druzhba beginning on May 1, 2026.
• 40:57
  And that's a major fuel artery for Berlin
• 40:59
  that carries about 20% of the fuel
• 41:02
  necessary for that part.
• 41:03
  However, it's a bite and it's also another
• 41:07
  punch in the face because that same refinery
• 41:09
  is 54% owned.
• 41:12
  54.17 is legally owned.
• 41:15
  That refinery is owned by Russia's Rosneft, a
• 41:20
  Russian oil company, state-owned oil company.
• 41:24
  It's a big deal.
• 41:25
  And it owns more than half of this
• 41:29
  plant.
• 41:30
  And so Germany says it's going to get
• 41:32
  the alternative.
• 41:33
  And they took it and put it in
• 41:34
  receivership and have been operating it anyway.
• 41:37
  They're trying to steal the pipeline and say
• 41:39
  it doesn't matter.
• 41:39
  You own 54 percent or not the the
• 41:42
  refinery.
• 41:43
  And so they're taking that.
• 41:45
  And so they're going to get their alternatives
• 41:46
  through Gdansk or Rostock.
• 41:48
  And then the prices are going to still
• 41:50
  kick them in the butt.
• 41:51
  They'll at least have a different.
• 41:54
  And they're under a trusteeship.
• 41:55
  Germany has kept the refinery in a trusteeship.
• 41:58
  So if we go from these beautiful songs
• 42:03
  and mountains to pipelines and refineries, the political
• 42:06
  class like to talk about values.
• 42:09
  But in winter, what are they going to
• 42:10
  talk about if the gas isn't flowing?
• 42:12
  The gas usually gets the last word.
• 42:14
  And there's another another collision between Russia and
• 42:17
  Germany.
• 42:18
  And this one is not with tanks.
• 42:19
  It's a Druze pipeline.
• 42:22
  And the PCK refinery in Schwett, with 100
• 42:25
  kilometers from Berlin, supplies most of the fuel
• 42:28
  used in the German capital and in the
• 42:31
  Brandenburg region.
• 42:32
  Reuters reports that from May 1, Russia is
• 42:36
  going to stop the Kazakh oil through there.
• 42:40
  Why was Germany using Kazakh oil in the
• 42:44
  first place?
• 42:44
  Because after the 2022 political break with Moscow,
• 42:48
  Berlin moved away from direct Russian crude.
• 42:52
  And Schwett has historically been built around Russian
• 42:55
  pipelines.
• 42:56
  But once Germany decided it wanted to turn
• 42:59
  the tap off from Russia, it had to
• 43:01
  find replacement.
• 43:02
  And one fix was to bring in Kazakh
• 43:04
  oil through the very same Russian-controlled transport
• 43:08
  architecture.
• 43:09
  And that was always a strange arrangement.
• 43:11
  Russia providing oil to Germany, but not our
• 43:17
  oil.
• 43:17
  It's Kazakh oil.
• 43:19
  Germany wanted not Russian oil, but the route
• 43:22
  still depended on Russia and a Russian-controlled
• 43:25
  pipeline.
• 43:25
  Where's the logic in that?
• 43:27
  In other words, Berlin is trying to quit
• 43:29
  one habit but still buying cigarettes from the
• 43:32
  same shopkeeper, right?
• 43:34
  So you get rid of your Marlboros and
• 43:36
  you move over to Salem, yeah?
• 43:39
  That arrangement might have worked for a while,
• 43:41
  but it had a built-in weakness.
• 43:43
  Moscow can turn off the route, and then
• 43:45
  now they have.
• 43:46
  So the official line, Russian Deputy Minister Alexander
• 43:51
  Novak said the halt was due to technical
• 43:53
  possibilities.
• 43:54
  And Kazakhstan's Energy Minister also discussed the disruption
• 43:59
  and talked about recent attacks and infrastructure problems
• 44:02
  in Kazakhstan.
• 44:03
  But Reuters separately reported that Russia's oil output
• 44:06
  was hurt in April by Ukrainian drone strikes.
• 44:09
  So there's a real infrastructure disruption backdrop.
• 44:13
  And it's not just Russia.
• 44:14
  It's not just Kazakhstan.
• 44:16
  It's Iran.
• 44:17
  It's all of the Gulf states.
• 44:18
  There's serious problems.
• 44:20
  There's no reason to be naive about this.
• 44:22
  When Russia said it lacks the technical possibility
• 44:25
  to move oil in a direction that hurts
• 44:27
  Germany, but flows are fine in other directions
• 44:30
  that help Hungary and Slovakia, the technical explanation,
• 44:34
  you know, are, you know, not necessarily the
• 44:41
  same as the political necessity of doing it.
• 44:44
  So the timing is also pretty interesting.
• 44:46
  On the same day, Russia reported that, or
• 44:49
  I'm sorry, Reuters reported that Russian oil resumed
• 44:51
  flow again through the Ukrainian section toward Hungary
• 44:54
  and Slovakia.
• 44:56
  Reuters reported that Hungary's position on the 90
• 44:58
  billion euro loan for Ukraine shifted and unblocked
• 45:02
  the package.
• 45:02
  The restart of that line matters because energy
• 45:05
  transit and EU bargaining are now entangled.
• 45:09
  So you wind up with a pretty interesting
• 45:12
  picture.
• 45:12
  One part of Druzhba reopens in a way
• 45:14
  to keep Hungary and Slovakia supplied and clears
• 45:17
  an EU financing obstacle, but another part is
• 45:20
  effectively shut down for Germany's benefit via the
• 45:24
  Kazakhstan barrels.
• 45:26
  That's not pipeline maintenance.
• 45:28
  It's a chess with energy, right?
• 45:31
  So Shvet itself, this is important because the
• 45:34
  refinery is the story.
• 45:37
  PCK Shvet is not some obscure industrial outpost.
• 45:42
  Reuters repeatedly describes it as supplying most of
• 45:45
  Berlin's fuel.
• 45:47
  Historically, 90% of the German capital's fuel
• 45:50
  came through Shvet, which is almost 55%
• 45:54
  owned by Russia.
• 45:55
  That means whenever Shvet is pressured, the consequences
• 45:58
  travel fast into transport, pricing, supply, and public
• 46:01
  nerves.
• 46:02
  When the government says there's no supply risk,
• 46:04
  that usually means translated into ordinary talk for
• 46:08
  ordinary folk.
• 46:09
  We think we can keep the lights on,
• 46:11
  but it's going to cost more.
• 46:12
  Take rear routing and involve some improvisation.
• 46:15
  Government rarely announce a problem and go, yeah,
• 46:18
  it's fine.
• 46:18
  Don't, you know, please ignore, you know, the
• 46:21
  smoke.
• 46:22
  There's no fire over there.
• 46:23
  What are you talking about?
• 46:24
  The ownership structure is, you know, from Moscow's
• 46:28
  point of view, Rosneft still owns 54.17
• 46:32
  % of Shvet.
• 46:33
  And even though Germany puts Rosneft's local subsidiaries
• 46:37
  under state trusteeship, in plain terms, Russia's flagship
• 46:42
  oil company still has a legal stake in
• 46:44
  the facility, but Berlin controls it administratively to
• 46:47
  protect its own supply and keep politics from
• 46:51
  blowing up the refinery operation.
• 46:53
  Because trust me, Russia would shut it down
• 46:55
  in a heartbeat if they hadn't stolen it.
• 46:57
  So they put it in this trusteeship and
• 46:59
  are running.
• 46:59
  There's all kinds of scams going on and
• 47:01
  pulling the money out of from Russia.
• 47:03
  So Reuters reports in 2025 that Germany extended
• 47:06
  the trusteeship again while Rosneft sought a sale
• 47:10
  of their portion.
• 47:11
  So think about the picture.
• 47:12
  Germany is trying to run as vital refinery
• 47:14
  without relying on Russian crude, while the largest
• 47:17
  shareholder is still Russian and the replacement oil
• 47:21
  still runs through Russian controlled transport.
• 47:24
  You know, it's crazy.
• 47:26
  Now, can Germany replace the missing barrels?
• 47:28
  Probably on paper.
• 47:31
  Poland's pipeline operator Pern said it prepared to
• 47:34
  route oil for Shvet non-Russian shareholders through
• 47:37
  a port of Gdansk.
• 47:40
  Non-Russian shareholders.
• 47:41
  Germany's economy ministry pointed to alternatives via Gdansk
• 47:46
  or Rostock, but these alternatives aren't magic.
• 47:49
  Port shipping schedules, pipelines, inland transfer capacity, terminal
• 47:53
  availability, storage balances, refinery, blending all really matter.
• 47:58
  And Reuters notes that logistics takes time.
• 48:01
  And even if Berlin avoids a dramatic shortage,
• 48:04
  regional prices are going to be hiked.
• 48:06
  And that's the difference between a talking point
• 48:09
  and a supply chain.
• 48:10
  When a politician says, we have alternatives, it's
• 48:13
  like, fine, but how much are they going
• 48:14
  to cost?
• 48:15
  And how long is it going to take
• 48:17
  you to get it?
• 48:18
  And there's another player that shouldn't be ignored
• 48:21
  in this story.
• 48:21
  It's Kazakhstan.
• 48:23
  So, Kazakhstan has been building up its exports
• 48:28
  to Germany through Druzhba.
• 48:30
  Reuters reports that in 2025, Kazakhstan delivered 2
• 48:34
  .146 million metric tons to Germany through that
• 48:37
  route, up sharply from the year before.
• 48:39
  And in quarter one 2026, it already supplied
• 48:42
  730,000 tons.
• 48:45
  That means Kazakhstan was trying to prove it
• 48:47
  could serve Europe as non-Russian source, even
• 48:50
  while using Russian transit infrastructures.
• 48:53
  Moscow's decision reminds Kazakhstan of a hard truth.
• 48:58
  Central Asian producers may sell non-Russian oil
• 49:02
  and gas, but if the transport remains in
• 49:04
  Russian control, Moscow still has its fingers on
• 49:08
  the valve.
• 49:08
  So, this is not only pressure to Berlin,
• 49:10
  it's a signal to Astana, do not confuse
• 49:13
  ownership of crude oil with control of the
• 49:16
  route.
• 49:17
  And that's what makes this so important beyond
• 49:19
  Germany.
• 49:21
  Iranian oil?
• 49:22
  Fine, don't buy it, but how are you
• 49:23
  going to get it out of the Straits
• 49:24
  of Hormuz, right?
• 49:28
  You want to buy U.S. gas?
• 49:30
  Great, but how are you going to get
• 49:31
  it across the ocean to Europe or anywhere
• 49:33
  else?
• 49:34
  Venezuelan oil?
• 49:35
  Fine, how are you going to buy it
• 49:36
  if the U.S. blocks the way?
• 49:38
  This is all about energy infrastructure.
• 49:42
  The entire world conflicts.
• 49:43
  This is all energy, just like it was
• 49:45
  when Bush claimed there were weapons of mass
• 49:48
  destruction in Iraq that we had to take
• 49:50
  down, right, and when they lied to us
• 49:52
  about that.
• 49:54
  Germany, for its part, thought it had cleverly
• 49:57
  replaced Russian crude with Kazakh crude, and Moscow's
• 50:00
  answer is, okay, nice, still our pipe.
• 50:03
  That's a kind of lesson great powers like
• 50:06
  to teach because it lands hard.
• 50:08
  It's one thing to sanction Russia on paper.
• 50:10
  It's quite another to discover that your replacement
• 50:12
  system still is owned by Russia passing through
• 50:16
  Russian-controlled infrastructure, so Europe keeps trying to
• 50:19
  build a post-Russia energy order while still
• 50:22
  dragging around chunks of the old Russian energy
• 50:24
  order like a ball and chain, and so
• 50:26
  they can't get, you know, how long is
• 50:29
  it going to take them to build this
• 50:30
  Arctic route with Canada?
• 50:32
  Years, and then they may be able to
• 50:35
  replace, you know, but in the meantime, they're
• 50:36
  up for some energy problems in Europe, so
• 50:39
  the Poland angle is also worth dwelling on
• 50:42
  because Poland sits between Germany's emergency and the
• 50:45
  politics of a broader eastern flank.
• 50:47
  In late 2022, Reuters reported that Germany and
• 50:50
  Poland agreed to work on securing crude supply
• 50:53
  to Schwedt after Russian oil was being phased
• 50:56
  out.
• 50:56
  Russia has pushed that up.
• 50:57
  That was supposed to be 2030.
• 50:59
  That was the emergency scaffolding.
• 51:01
  Now, in 2026, the Gdansk route is again
• 51:04
  central, but using Poland as a rerouting lifeline
• 51:07
  is not elegant or cheap, and it's not
• 51:10
  stable at all.
• 51:11
  It adds a maritime dependency, terminal pressures, and
• 51:13
  political coordination.
• 51:15
  Poland can help, but Poland isn't a fairy
• 51:17
  godmother.
• 51:18
  It's a state with its own infrastructure limits,
• 51:20
  costs, strategic priorities, so there are alternatives, but
• 51:24
  these are going to be vulnerabilities as well.
• 51:29
  So let's talk about the great strategic move
• 51:32
  because I think it seems to be a
• 51:34
  good move on Russia's part.
• 51:43
  If Russia wants maximum pain with minimum drama,
• 51:47
  this is like a textbook move.
• 51:49
  It doesn't openly cut off all energy to
• 51:52
  Germany.
• 51:53
  It doesn't create an instant apocalyptic shortage.
• 51:57
  Instead, it removes a meaningful slice of the
• 51:59
  supply.
• 52:00
  It's a politically symbolic refinery.
• 52:03
  It's like a thumb in the eye.
• 52:04
  It's not the end of the world, but
• 52:06
  we've exposed the weakness of Germany's substitute architecture.
• 52:11
  We've pressured Kazakhstan, reminded Europe that replacement logistics
• 52:15
  are frail, and all doing this while citing
• 52:18
  a technical reason rather than an economic warfare.
• 52:22
  That's smarter than throwing a tantrum, and it's
• 52:26
  a pressure test.
• 52:27
  By the way, how's Zelensky going to turn
• 52:30
  off Druzhba?
• 52:32
  I'm worried about that, frankly.
• 52:34
  Once he receives his 90 billion, does he
• 52:38
  go right back to being the a-hole
• 52:40
  and turning off the stuff for Hungary just
• 52:44
  to stick it to them until Russia restores
• 52:47
  it to Germany?
• 52:50
  I don't know, but nobody wants oil from
• 52:53
  Russia, remember?
• 52:54
  Germany isn't being squeezed in a vacuum.
• 52:56
  Last week, Reuters reported that Germany under Merch
• 52:59
  has become Ukraine's top European military supporter.
• 53:03
  55 billion in aid since 2022, and further
• 53:06
  support pledged.
• 53:08
  It matters because every energy move is in
• 53:10
  a broader position, and there's a question about
• 53:13
  whether Germany can simply shrug and say, fine,
• 53:15
  we're done with Russian anything, like they're trying
• 53:18
  to.
• 53:18
  Maybe eventually, but they can't do it instantly,
• 53:21
  at least not without great cost.
• 53:23
  And the European refining margins are already negative
• 53:26
  because of competition and market strain, and the
• 53:29
  refineries are priced, and the fuel prices are
• 53:32
  high.
• 53:33
  That means Schwett isn't operating in a relaxed
• 53:35
  market where everybody can reorder, you know, and
• 53:38
  just have a different meal on the buffet.
• 53:41
  The broader environment is already tight and expansive.
• 53:45
  A disruption in crude routing is much nastier
• 53:49
  than the same disruption would have been years
• 53:51
  ago.
• 53:52
  It's the difference between missing a bus on
• 53:54
  a sunny afternoon and missing a bus at
• 53:57
  midnight in the freezing rain.
• 53:59
  So the first, you know, you catch on
• 54:02
  the basic story.
• 54:03
  Russia's choking in a German artery, and the
• 54:06
  move is strategically important.
• 54:08
  And second, the precise mechanism, isn't it?
• 54:10
  Moscow is cutting off Russian oil to Germany.
• 54:13
  However, it's halting the transit of some other
• 54:16
  country.
• 54:17
  Kazakhstan's crude to Germany through Druzhba, which hurts
• 54:20
  Schwett materially.
• 54:22
  And third, the restart of Druzhba flow through
• 54:24
  Ukraine toward Hungary and Slovakia, and the clearing
• 54:27
  of the 90 billion Ukraine lane show that
• 54:30
  the pipeline flows in EU politics are still
• 54:32
  lashed together.
• 54:33
  And Rosneft continuing stake in Schwett talks about
• 54:36
  how incomplete Germany's separation is from Russian energy
• 54:40
  in reality.
• 54:41
  And Poland and Germany ports offer alternatives, but
• 54:44
  the alternatives aren't going to be comfortable.
• 54:46
  In the end, the big beautifully connected in
• 54:50
  the caucuses, Putin was telling Armenia, the geography
• 54:54
  and infrastructure limit fantasies.
• 54:56
  And in Germany, Russia's saying the same argument
• 54:59
  with oil.
• 55:00
  And you can announce a political era, you
• 55:02
  can wrap yourself in the EU.
• 55:05
  Oh, geez, we love democracy.
• 55:06
  If you can call it that you can
• 55:08
  sanction posture and moralize.
• 55:10
  But until you replace the old infrastructure with
• 55:14
  a new infrastructure that actually works, you're still
• 55:17
  living inside the physical system built by the
• 55:19
  old order.
• 55:20
  And Europe has been trying to escape Russia.
• 55:23
  And sometimes it succeeds, and it may ultimately
• 55:25
  succeed.
• 55:26
  But Russia's rebuilding toward the east and the
• 55:29
  south.
• 55:29
  And Europe is building to take stuff through
• 55:33
  the Baltics and American and Chinese or Canadian
• 55:37
  oil.
• 55:38
  In other words, that might be the real
• 55:40
  lesson of Druzhba, which means friendship in 2026.
• 55:45
  The friendship in the pipeline name died long,
• 55:48
  long ago.
• 55:49
  But the structure remains in the structure is
• 55:51
  outliving the slogan.
• 55:53
  Germany wanted post Russian energy without fully post
• 55:57
  Russian routing.
• 55:58
  Kazakhstan wants European access without escaping Russian transit
• 56:02
  leverage.
• 56:03
  And how are they going to do that?
• 56:05
  They can't.
• 56:06
  The EU wanted to bankroll Ukraine while juggling
• 56:09
  Hungarian Russian fuel through the pipeline.
• 56:13
  And Russia in one move has reminded all
• 56:16
  of them that steel valves, ports and geography
• 56:18
  still control.
• 56:20
  And in politics, people talk about values, but
• 56:23
  in energy, the map is what controls.
• 56:27
  Values do not.
• 56:29
  So there you have it.
• 56:31
  I've got a few more things.
• 56:33
  But before I get to it, I want
• 56:35
  to add for you another song from a
• 56:42
  movie.
• 56:43
  It's called Когда весна идет, не знаю.
• 56:48
  When is spring coming?
• 56:50
  And the cold people in Germany, Ukraine and
• 56:54
  other places that don't have any gas supply
• 56:58
  really want to know.
• 57:00
  And this is from Весна на заречной улице,
• 57:03
  which is spring on River Street.
• 57:07
  And the song is When will spring come?
• 57:09
  I don't know.
• 57:12
  And it's a kind of a love song.
• 57:14
  And it's a cool song.
• 57:17
  Who is the guy who sings this?
• 57:19
  Nikolai Rybnikov.
• 57:21
  And he's also a star in the movie.
• 57:24
  And he sings it.
• 57:26
  And it is a tasty song of a
• 57:29
  good version and a life long gone in
• 57:32
  the Soviet Union.
• 57:33
  And I hope you enjoy it.
• 57:37
  I do.
• 57:38
  And so there you have it.
• 57:40
  Have a have a have a listen.
• 1:01:04
  Nikolai Rybnikov sang a song, a good song.
• 1:01:08
  I like it.
• 1:01:09
  And so there you have it.
• 1:01:11
  We're gonna try to make it move a
• 1:01:13
  little bit with the next song.
• 1:01:15
  We'll give you something a little bit more
• 1:01:20
  upbeat.
• 1:01:21
  But that was a love song of a
• 1:01:23
  guy who couldn't get the girl that he
• 1:01:25
  that he wanted to notice him in a
• 1:01:29
  very famous song, very well thought of in
• 1:01:32
  Soviet era.
• 1:01:34
  And also now for those who, you know,
• 1:01:39
  look back upon history.
• 1:01:40
  It's like having cool stuff in hours.
• 1:01:42
  You know, you go to your Elvis Presley
• 1:01:43
  movies, there are a lot of plenty good
• 1:01:45
  things in there too.
• 1:01:46
  Good stuff.
• 1:01:47
  I like it a lot.
• 1:01:51
  And so there you have it.
• 1:01:52
  We're gonna move on to talk about this.
• 1:01:59
  You know, one more layer that under the
• 1:02:02
  surface over the past year, Ukrainian forces have
• 1:02:06
  dramatically expanded their use of long range drone
• 1:02:09
  drones inside of Russian territory, particularly targeting oil
• 1:02:15
  infrastructure, refineries, storage depots, export terminals, and they
• 1:02:20
  haven't been symbolic.
• 1:02:21
  They've caused real disruption to Russian processing capacity
• 1:02:24
  and logistics.
• 1:02:26
  Russian officials point to infrastructure damage and technical
• 1:02:30
  limitations when explaining the reductions in their own
• 1:02:33
  throughput.
• 1:02:35
  So these drones are Ukrainian operated, but European
• 1:02:40
  countries, Germany in particular, are among Kiev's largest
• 1:02:45
  supporters in funding equipment and advanced system, including
• 1:02:48
  components that fall into the dual use category.
• 1:02:54
  Which include the drones.
• 1:02:56
  This doesn't mean that Berlin is launching drones
• 1:02:59
  into Russia, but you're hearing increasing rhetoric that,
• 1:03:03
  hey, Germany, hey, France, hey, England, you keep
• 1:03:09
  supplying these drone parts that are being used
• 1:03:12
  to target us and we're going to consider
• 1:03:14
  the factories that you are producing them in
• 1:03:17
  as legitimate targets.
• 1:03:20
  We're going to attack your soil.
• 1:03:22
  And then last week, they published a list
• 1:03:27
  of all the companies and their locations and
• 1:03:31
  addresses that were supplying drone parts or drones
• 1:03:35
  to Ukraine.
• 1:03:37
  And saying, well, here's a list of potential
• 1:03:39
  targets.
• 1:03:40
  And people going, that's secret information.
• 1:03:43
  Well, not secret anymore.
• 1:03:45
  Russia put it out.
• 1:03:47
  But Western support is part of the ecosystem
• 1:03:50
  that enables Ukrainian's operational reach to get into
• 1:03:54
  Russian oil.
• 1:03:56
  And so from Moscow's perspective, that distinction matters
• 1:04:01
  less than Brussels might hope.
• 1:04:05
  So when you see Russia halt oil transit
• 1:04:08
  that affects Germany while citing a technical strain
• 1:04:12
  tied to recent disruption, especially in Iran, especially
• 1:04:15
  through Ukraine blowing up pipelines, you don't have
• 1:04:21
  to leap into a conspiracy theory to see
• 1:04:23
  the connection.
• 1:04:24
  It's not really a straight line.
• 1:04:25
  It's a pressure system.
• 1:04:27
  Ukrainian strikes degrade the infrastructure.
• 1:04:29
  That creates a constraint.
• 1:04:31
  Those constraints are then selectively applied in ways
• 1:04:34
  that maximize its own political and economic leverage.
• 1:04:37
  And if Germany happens to be a key
• 1:04:40
  backer of Ukraine and also a vulnerable endpoint
• 1:04:44
  in the pipeline, it's not unreasonable to see
• 1:04:47
  how those pieces go together.
• 1:04:50
  Not as a single coordinated event, but part
• 1:04:52
  of a broader pattern of energy, infrastructure, and
• 1:04:57
  war are now completely intertwined.
• 1:05:00
  So, you know, is it possible that Russia
• 1:05:06
  is responding to drone strikes?
• 1:05:09
  Sure, it's probably even.
• 1:05:11
  But is it provable as the direct reason
• 1:05:14
  that Druzhba is being disrupted into Germany only?
• 1:05:19
  No, not totally.
• 1:05:20
  But it makes sense.
• 1:05:23
  And so, I don't know, if you talk
• 1:05:26
  about Ukraine, power, and money in this question,
• 1:05:29
  there's a final layer and it takes us
• 1:05:32
  right into Kiev, Brussels, and the uncomfortable territory
• 1:05:35
  of war, politics, and money.
• 1:05:38
  We have a situation where a massive European
• 1:05:40
  financial package, 90 billion in long-term support,
• 1:05:45
  is moving toward Ukraine at the same time
• 1:05:49
  that critical infrastructure like the Druzhba pipeline is
• 1:05:52
  suddenly functioning again in a way that cleared
• 1:05:55
  the political obstacle inside the European Union.
• 1:05:59
  Hungary was one of the most major holdouts.
• 1:06:01
  And once energy flow is stabilized and internal
• 1:06:04
  EU negotiations have shifted, the resistance appears to
• 1:06:08
  have softened.
• 1:06:09
  But those two things, whether they're directly connected
• 1:06:12
  or not, or just aligned is up for
• 1:06:16
  debate.
• 1:06:17
  But the alignment is definitely real and it
• 1:06:19
  definitely matters.
• 1:06:20
  But if you go to Ukraine's internal situation,
• 1:06:24
  President Zelensky is in power under extended martial
• 1:06:27
  law.
• 1:06:28
  He was supposed to be gone in May
• 1:06:29
  2024.
• 1:06:31
  He's now two years over.
• 1:06:33
  He has now been renewed multiple times.
• 1:06:36
  And under Ukrainian law, elections are effectively suspended,
• 1:06:39
  which is the formal justification.
• 1:06:41
  But here's why the continues to build.
• 1:06:44
  The longer the corrupt Zelensky regime stays in
• 1:06:47
  power and the more longer this continues, the
• 1:06:50
  more it raises a structural question.
• 1:06:52
  At what point does emergency government or governance
• 1:06:56
  look like indefinite governance?
• 1:06:59
  There's no clear election timeline.
• 1:07:01
  Zelensky won't even mention it.
• 1:07:03
  No transitional roadmap, no physical mechanism for political
• 1:07:07
  reset.
• 1:07:07
  And at the same time, there's persistent discussion,
• 1:07:11
  some of it coming from, you know, credible
• 1:07:13
  political circles about potential leadership alternatives.
• 1:07:16
  One of them, and the frequently mentioned one,
• 1:07:19
  is Valeriy Zeluzhny, who built a strong reputation
• 1:07:21
  during the early phases of the war and
• 1:07:24
  has been removed from command by Zelensky.
• 1:07:26
  And then he was sent to England to
• 1:07:28
  be the ambassador.
• 1:07:31
  Well, that actually strengthened his popularity.
• 1:07:34
  His popularity domestically and internationally has made him
• 1:07:37
  a recurring figure in conversations about Ukraine's political
• 1:07:40
  future.
• 1:07:41
  There have also been discussions in Western policy
• 1:07:44
  circles, not always public, but not exactly entirely
• 1:07:47
  hidden, about leadership stability in Kiev.
• 1:07:50
  And people don't like Zelensky anymore.
• 1:07:52
  His popularity is not that great.
• 1:07:55
  So when you combine these three things, extended
• 1:07:58
  martial law, massive income support, and unresolved leadership,
• 1:08:03
  it's a situation that is quite skeptical to
• 1:08:06
  the rest of the world, right?
• 1:08:08
  Not because there's proof of any wrongdoing, although
• 1:08:11
  there's plenty in the workings of the Ukrainian
• 1:08:17
  people.
• 1:08:18
  There was an article that I read about
• 1:08:20
  undercover people, I got it on video, of
• 1:08:23
  them taking stuff in the EU.
• 1:08:25
  Now, the structure itself is quite opaque.
• 1:08:27
  Large sums of money move in a system
• 1:08:29
  that isn't operating under normal accountability.
• 1:08:32
  And that's not conspiracy theory, that's recognition of
• 1:08:36
  the pattern and of reality.
• 1:08:39
  And so infrastructure, if you keep coming back
• 1:08:42
  to it, is one thing, the entire equation
• 1:08:45
  that cannot lie.
• 1:08:46
  The Druzhba pipeline was disrupted by Ukraine, then
• 1:08:50
  restored.
• 1:08:51
  Energy flows are constrained and then reopened.
• 1:08:53
  Political resistance in the EU was firm until
• 1:08:57
  it was softened.
• 1:08:58
  Funding is delayed, now it's advanced.
• 1:09:00
  None of it proves coordination, but it does
• 1:09:02
  show that energy, finance, and political decision-making
• 1:09:04
  are moving in parallel tracks.
• 1:09:07
  And those tracks intersect more often than officials
• 1:09:09
  are comfortable talking about.
• 1:09:11
  So when you wonder if some things could
• 1:09:13
  magically happen to the pipeline after the funds
• 1:09:16
  are received, there's no evidence to support a
• 1:09:19
  specific disruption as planned.
• 1:09:21
  But there's also a demonstrated pattern throughout the
• 1:09:24
  conflict that infrastructure is repeatedly used as leverage
• 1:09:28
  by multiple sides at moments of maximum strategic
• 1:09:31
  value.
• 1:09:32
  Pipelines aren't just pipes, they're negotiating tools.
• 1:09:35
  They're pressure valves, they are signals.
• 1:09:37
  In the middle of all of this, Ukraine,
• 1:09:39
  in a war, dependent on external financing, operating
• 1:09:43
  under emergency situation, and navigating real survival needs
• 1:09:48
  and realities of international power politics, they're definitely
• 1:09:52
  occurring.
• 1:09:53
  And Zelensky isn't simply a wartime leader, he's
• 1:09:57
  a central figure in a system where military
• 1:09:59
  necessity, political continuity, and financial dependency are all
• 1:10:05
  tied together.
• 1:10:06
  So in the end, the question isn't about
• 1:10:08
  whether any one event is a coordinated event,
• 1:10:11
  the question is whether the system as a
• 1:10:14
  whole is producing outcomes where war, money, and
• 1:10:17
  infrastructure keep aligning at exactly the moments when
• 1:10:21
  leverage is needed.
• 1:10:23
  Hello, Straits of Hormuz.
• 1:10:24
  And if that pattern continues, then what we
• 1:10:27
  are watching is not really chaos, it's structure
• 1:10:31
  and pressure on that structure.
• 1:10:33
  And structure, infrastructure especially, once you see it,
• 1:10:37
  is very hard to unsee.
• 1:10:41
  I mean, it's absolute, right?
• 1:10:44
  So allegedly, the UAE has requested a bailout,
• 1:10:51
  some money from the US.
• 1:10:53
  And I'm gonna play one more song before
• 1:10:55
  we get to that part.
• 1:10:57
  And I'll end the show on that.
• 1:11:00
  And we're gonna play, this is a much
• 1:11:03
  more upbeat song, and it's a more modern
• 1:11:06
  song of Tatyana Kortakova, that is a pretty
• 1:11:14
  cool love song.
• 1:11:15
  And it's called Adnovo.
• 1:11:16
  And I like the beat, and I hope
• 1:11:18
  you do too.
• 1:11:19
  It's a pretty, oops, sorry, wait, we're playing
• 1:11:21
  something that shouldn't be being played.
• 1:11:24
  There you have it.
• 1:11:25
  We got to get to Tatyana Kortakova.
• 1:11:28
  And we shall do that even now.
• 1:11:32
  Here she is, Tatyana Kortakova, song is called
• 1:11:38
  Adnovo.
• 1:13:20
  Adnovo.
• 1:14:10
  Adnovo.
• 1:14:49
  You can't help but sing along to that
• 1:14:52
  song if you can do it.
• 1:14:53
  It's kind of hard to do, but you
• 1:14:56
  can do it.
• 1:14:57
  That is that.
• 1:15:00
  And so that was Tatyana Kortakova, and the
• 1:15:05
  song was Adnovo.
• 1:15:08
  And I actually happened to like it.
• 1:15:10
  So let's see, I was talking a little
• 1:15:13
  bit about Ukrainian theft.
• 1:15:17
  And Ukrainian, there's a story that came about,
• 1:15:20
  Ukrainians are stealing in the hopes of living
• 1:15:23
  in Dubai, the US military official to an
• 1:15:27
  undercover journalist, okay.
• 1:15:30
  So hidden camera footage shows discussion of rampant
• 1:15:33
  corruption in Kiev, as well as in the
• 1:15:36
  Iran war, and America's WMDs.
• 1:15:39
  A US Army nuclear security official has reportedly
• 1:15:44
  described the rampant corruption he witnessed in Ukraine
• 1:15:48
  since the administration of US President Barack Obama.
• 1:15:52
  The interview was released by a media group
• 1:15:55
  run by the controversial journalist, James O'Keefe,
• 1:16:01
  whose mode of operation is to send reporters
• 1:16:04
  on dates with their targets to record candid
• 1:16:08
  conversations.
• 1:16:09
  He identified the subject as Andrew Hug, H
• 1:16:13
  -U-G-G, the US Army's chief of
• 1:16:16
  chemical and nuclear surety, a role tied to
• 1:16:19
  safety oversight rather than command of the US
• 1:16:22
  nuclear apparatus.
• 1:16:24
  He's a branch chief, nuclear and chemical security,
• 1:16:27
  US Department of the Army.
• 1:16:29
  The undercover video, Hug claimed he had lived
• 1:16:32
  in Ukraine and personally witnessed Kiev officials plundering
• 1:16:36
  US taxpayer money.
• 1:16:38
  Washington and Kiev have consistently denied accusations of
• 1:16:42
  graft involving American aid programs.
• 1:16:46
  That government is so corrupt, he said, they
• 1:16:49
  stole our money.
• 1:16:51
  They just stole it and bought houses, cars,
• 1:16:54
  like $100,000 cars.
• 1:16:56
  If they can get themselves rich and go
• 1:16:58
  live in Dubai, they don't care about their
• 1:17:01
  people.
• 1:17:02
  This is Andrew Hug, okay?
• 1:17:04
  Speaking of domestic issues, Hug claimed that the
• 1:17:08
  US still possesses nerve agents, referring to the
• 1:17:11
  US Army chemist allegedly exposed to a chemical
• 1:17:14
  agent and commented on the possible assassination of
• 1:17:18
  Iran's newly elected Supreme Leader.
• 1:17:20
  If he, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, doesn't change
• 1:17:24
  his ways, yes, they're going to kill him,
• 1:17:26
  he said, while dismissing civilian and child casualties
• 1:17:30
  in Iran as collateral damage.
• 1:17:33
  Hug also disclosed details of the US nuclear
• 1:17:36
  posture and described a rapid decision-making progress
• 1:17:39
  in which a launch could be triggered.
• 1:17:42
  If a Girl Scout gives you a message,
• 1:17:44
  if it passes all the checks, go.
• 1:17:47
  At one point in the conversation, Hug ironically
• 1:17:50
  admitted to his undercover date, it's a date
• 1:17:54
  he's gone on, the easiest way to get
• 1:17:57
  intelligence is send a pretty girl to talk
• 1:17:59
  to a guy.
• 1:18:01
  And that's what they did to him.
• 1:18:03
  So after the video was released, Army spokesman
• 1:18:06
  Cynthia Smith reportedly told O'Keefe that Hug
• 1:18:08
  had been placed on administrative leave, you think,
• 1:18:11
  while the service conducted what she called a
• 1:18:13
  thorough investigation.
• 1:18:15
  Several unconfirmed reports alleged that Hug had been
• 1:18:18
  escorted from the Pentagon.
• 1:18:21
  The new report follows a series of undercover
• 1:18:24
  stings by O'Keefe's outlet targeting government personnel.
• 1:18:27
  In January, a Secret Service agent assigned to
• 1:18:30
  Vice President J.D. Vance's detail was placed
• 1:18:32
  on leave after hidden camera footage showed him
• 1:18:35
  having sharing sensitive protected information.
• 1:18:39
  Critics have long accused O'Keefe of using
• 1:18:42
  unethical methods and selectively editing his content to
• 1:18:45
  further conservative causes.
• 1:18:48
  In 2023, he parted ways with his former
• 1:18:52
  organization, Project Veritas, amid allegations of financial impropriety
• 1:18:57
  and launched a new media group called OMG.
• 1:19:01
  So there you have it.
• 1:19:03
  We wonder what is going on in the
• 1:19:06
  world.
• 1:19:07
  But that was interesting.
• 1:19:12
  The old Trumpster has created, according to Politico,
• 1:19:18
  a naughty list.
• 1:19:21
  Who's naughty and nice?
• 1:19:22
  The White House has reportedly drawn up a
• 1:19:25
  NATO naughty and nice list, sorting member states
• 1:19:29
  into tiers as it considers how to reward
• 1:19:32
  countries that backed the U.S. war against
• 1:19:35
  Iran and punish those that did not.
• 1:19:40
  Santa Claus.
• 1:19:42
  According to Politico, you get a lump of
• 1:19:44
  coal.
• 1:19:45
  No, the internal paper was prepared ahead of
• 1:19:48
  NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's recent trip to
• 1:19:51
  Washington.
• 1:19:53
  It reportedly lays out member contributions to the
• 1:19:56
  bloc and appears to reflect Pentagon rhetoric about
• 1:19:59
  model allies deserving special favor and others that
• 1:20:03
  face consequences.
• 1:20:06
  The administration has not publicly spelled out what
• 1:20:08
  punishments are going to be on the table,
• 1:20:10
  but officials cited by Politico said options could
• 1:20:14
  include shifting troops, scaling back exercises or redirecting
• 1:20:19
  military cooperation away from the bad members and
• 1:20:23
  toward the more obedient ones.
• 1:20:25
  That will benefit countries like Poland and Romania,
• 1:20:28
  both seen as being in Trump's good graces.
• 1:20:30
  Poland hosts around 10,000 U.S. troops
• 1:20:32
  right now.
• 1:20:33
  In Romania's expanded Mikhail Gogolny Air Base has
• 1:20:38
  been singled out as a potential site that
• 1:20:40
  would take more American forces.
• 1:20:41
  For years, Trump has berated NATO members for
• 1:20:44
  allegedly not paying for their own defense.
• 1:20:48
  Even as they pour billions upon billions into
• 1:20:50
  arming, financing, sustaining Kiev in its conflict with
• 1:20:53
  Russia at the same time, many of those
• 1:20:55
  same governments invoked a specter of looming Russian
• 1:20:58
  threat to justify militarization and bigger, larger military
• 1:21:02
  budget.
• 1:21:04
  Now the split is widened over Iran.
• 1:21:07
  Spain was among the clearest holdouts.
• 1:21:10
  Britain and France were also reported to have
• 1:21:12
  rejected or stalled U.S. requests for support.
• 1:21:15
  Other states like Romania and Bulgaria were portrayed
• 1:21:17
  as more helpful with regard to basing our
• 1:21:20
  logistics.
• 1:21:21
  In practice, the reported naughty list would give
• 1:21:24
  Trump another way to hollow out NATO without
• 1:21:26
  formally quitting it and returning the treaty to
• 1:21:29
  a more openly transactional arrangement, like Trump likes
• 1:21:33
  to do.
• 1:21:35
  Trump has made little secret of his contempt
• 1:21:38
  for members he sees as freeloaders and cowards.
• 1:21:41
  Earlier this month, he blasted NATO over its
• 1:21:44
  reluctance to join the Iran-Iran fight, while
• 1:21:48
  Ruta again found himself trying to smooth things
• 1:21:52
  over after his last visit, where he was
• 1:21:54
  ridiculed for calling Trump daddy.
• 1:21:58
  And he should have been ridiculed for that.
• 1:22:03
  Oh, my.
• 1:22:06
  Let's see.
• 1:22:08
  Where else are we going here?
• 1:22:11
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:22:12
  This was um, important.
• 1:22:16
  The U.S. Navy secretary departed.
• 1:22:20
  Guy named John Phelan left effective immediately yesterday.
• 1:22:25
  He stepped down in an abrupt move announced
• 1:22:28
  by the Pentagon with no explanation or indication
• 1:22:31
  that his exit was linked to the naval
• 1:22:33
  blockade of Iran.
• 1:22:35
  But Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the statement
• 1:22:38
  was that he was departing the administration at
• 1:22:42
  once, and that Undersecretary Hong Chao would become
• 1:22:46
  acting Secretary of the Navy on behalf of
• 1:22:48
  the Secretary of War Department of War.
• 1:22:51
  We are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his
• 1:22:55
  service to the department and to the United
• 1:22:57
  States Navy.
• 1:22:58
  We wish him well.
• 1:22:59
  No reason was announced.
• 1:23:02
  He's a businessman, an investor with no prior
• 1:23:04
  military service, and he was sworn in as
• 1:23:07
  79th Secretary of the Navy.
• 1:23:08
  That's got to be offensive to all those
• 1:23:11
  who served in the Navy for so many
• 1:23:12
  years.
• 1:23:13
  And you take the.
• 1:23:17
  Position, you know, that's crazy.
• 1:23:20
  Sudden personnel change is sensitive moment for U
• 1:23:23
  .S. in the Middle East, where Washington is
• 1:23:25
  maintaining a blockade confrontation in around Straits of
• 1:23:28
  Hormuz.
• 1:23:29
  This guy was just a huge backer, lots
• 1:23:31
  of money to the Trump campaign.
• 1:23:34
  So the post is not directly responsible for
• 1:23:37
  authorizing combat operations, which under U.S. law
• 1:23:41
  flow through the president, the defense secretary and
• 1:23:43
  relevant combatant commanders.
• 1:23:45
  But the Navy secretary oversees the Department of
• 1:23:48
  Navy's core affairs, meaning Phelan would have been
• 1:23:50
  involved in readiness, deployment, policy execution during the
• 1:23:54
  standoff with Iran.
• 1:23:55
  Chao, who had been serving as undersecretary, will
• 1:23:57
  now take over.
• 1:23:59
  Phelan has previously praised him as a key
• 1:24:01
  part in the dependence department's effort to rebuild
• 1:24:04
  the warrior ethos.
• 1:24:06
  And the department is just weeks after had
• 1:24:08
  set forced out army chiefs of staff, Randy
• 1:24:12
  George and two other senior army generals in
• 1:24:14
  a Pentagon shakeup.
• 1:24:17
  And apparently there was a race and gender
• 1:24:21
  row that caused the previous ones.
• 1:24:24
  Randy George was dismissed after he classed with
• 1:24:26
  the U.S. Secretary of War were promotions
• 1:24:29
  for black and female army officers.
• 1:24:31
  The U.S. Secretary of War Hegseth fired,
• 1:24:34
  this is a week or two ago, fired
• 1:24:38
  chief of staff of the army, Randy George,
• 1:24:43
  and he was the service's top uniformed officer
• 1:24:46
  in a lingering row over promotions linked to
• 1:24:50
  race and said the New York Times.
• 1:24:53
  Hegseth reportedly dismissed two other generals in a
• 1:24:57
  purge that is undermining the war in Iran,
• 1:24:59
  allegedly.
• 1:25:00
  Sources familiar with the matter told the paper
• 1:25:02
  that Hegseth ordered George, a 61-year-old
• 1:25:05
  veteran who served both in Iraq and Afghanistan,
• 1:25:08
  to retire immediately, describing the move as rooted
• 1:25:12
  not in policy but in the secretary's long
• 1:25:14
  -running grievance with the army and its leadership
• 1:25:17
  and a troubled relationship with Army Secretary Daniel
• 1:25:20
  Driscoll.
• 1:25:22
  Hegseth didn't give a reason, previously vowed to
• 1:25:24
  depend the Department of Woke Culture and fight
• 1:25:28
  the practice of promotions based on race and
• 1:25:30
  gender.
• 1:25:31
  At the heart of the fallout was reportedly
• 1:25:33
  Hegseth's months-long campaign to remove four officers,
• 1:25:37
  two black men, two women, from a one
• 1:25:39
  -star promotion list comprising roughly other 29 officers,
• 1:25:43
  most of them white men.
• 1:25:45
  I don't know the truth of any of
• 1:25:46
  that, but that's in the story.
• 1:25:48
  According to the NYT, George and Driscoll pushed
• 1:25:51
  back, saying that officers with long records and
• 1:25:53
  exemplary service about two weeks before he was
• 1:25:55
  fired, George reportedly sought a meeting with Hegseth
• 1:25:58
  to discuss the removals and what he viewed
• 1:26:00
  as unnecessary interference in army personnel decisions.
• 1:26:03
  A request Hegseth declined.
• 1:26:06
  George had served as a senior military assistant
• 1:26:08
  to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin under the Biden
• 1:26:10
  administration.
• 1:26:12
  New York Times sources note that George and
• 1:26:15
  Driscoll had a tight partnership with Hegseth at
• 1:26:20
  the odds with them later.
• 1:26:22
  Hegseth can't fire Driscoll, an unnamed administration official
• 1:26:25
  told the Washington Post, so he's going to
• 1:26:28
  make his life hell.
• 1:26:30
  Hegseth also fired General Hodney, who was headed
• 1:26:33
  the U.S. Army's Transformation and Training Command,
• 1:26:36
  and Major General William Green, Jr., the chief
• 1:26:38
  of chaplains.
• 1:26:40
  No reason was given for any of the
• 1:26:41
  firings.
• 1:26:42
  George's term was not due to end until
• 1:26:44
  2027.
• 1:26:45
  According to New York Times, as army chief,
• 1:26:47
  he spearheaded initiative aimed at fielding new drone
• 1:26:50
  technology, AI-powered targeting systems, while opposing a
• 1:26:55
  new light tank program argued that it was
• 1:26:57
  too vulnerable to cheap UAVs.
• 1:27:00
  General Christopher Laniv, once Hegseth's top military aide,
• 1:27:05
  is expected to serve as the acting Army
• 1:27:07
  Chief of Staff.
• 1:27:12
  Tis indeed a crazy, mixed-up, muddled-up,
• 1:27:18
  shook-up world, except for Lola.
• 1:27:22
  So what we're gonna do now is I
• 1:27:25
  think we got a little bit more...
• 1:27:29
  where'd that one go?
• 1:27:30
  Did I delete it?
• 1:27:31
  Son of a nutcracker.
• 1:27:32
  I think I did.
• 1:27:33
  Here's another song I wanted to play for
• 1:27:35
  you that comes from another Russian movie, and
• 1:27:40
  I think I shall.
• 1:27:41
  This one comes from Слёгким паром, Ирония судьбы.
• 1:27:46
  So enjoy, here it comes.