Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / From Romania’s Draft Escape to Hormuz Oil Panic, Zelensky’s Europe, and Hungary’s Rebellion Against the Ukraine Money Machine

Transcript

From Romania’s Draft Escape to Hormuz Oil Panic, Zelensky’s Europe, and Hungary’s Rebellion Against the Ukraine Money Machine · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning, welcome.
• 0:02
  I am Samuel Trapp.
• 0:04
  This is International Flavor.
• 0:06
  You are on DAM Radio.
• 0:09
  damradio.com forward slash live internationalflavor.com only
• 0:13
  internationalflavor.com.
• 0:15
  No little extras afterward.
• 0:17
  You can go there and find all the
• 0:19
  old content, last week's shows, stuff like that.
• 0:25
  It's already Tuesday.
• 0:28
  Already Tuesday.
• 0:30
  And the weather is good.
• 0:31
  We've had some extremely fortunate weather here in
• 0:35
  mid-Missouri.
• 0:37
  And I am headed to Florida.
• 0:42
  Got to go to Florida today.
• 0:45
  And that'll be exciting.
• 0:47
  Or not.
• 0:50
  Depending on how you look at it.
• 0:52
  It's freaking hot down there.
• 0:54
  And I've never really become a fan.
• 0:56
  But I'm not against it.
• 0:59
  It's just I'm not necessarily for it.
• 1:03
  So it's not.
• 1:04
  I mean, people love it because of the
• 1:07
  weather.
• 1:07
  And you know what I like?
• 1:08
  I like this is going to sound terrible.
• 1:10
  I like wandering that wandering around the house
• 1:13
  and some boxers or something or some, some
• 1:16
  jammy pants because it's comfortable.
• 1:19
  You know, you can just wander around.
• 1:23
  Not so in Missouri.
• 1:27
  It doesn't matter.
• 1:28
  It's still cold in the house.
• 1:31
  You can't keep your house at like 78.
• 1:33
  You know, that's an unfortunate part of life.
• 1:36
  So that part I did kind of like
• 1:38
  anyway, that is the not where I really
• 1:43
  intended to go today.
• 1:44
  We still got war in the world and
• 1:46
  people aren't concerned with my heat.
• 1:50
  You know, the necessity for heat and the
• 1:53
  aversion to cold weather in my old age.
• 1:55
  You know, I grew up a significant portion
• 1:59
  of my childhood in places where it got
• 2:03
  really cold in the winter, Utah, Colorado, Minnesota,
• 2:08
  and Minnesota is freaking cold.
• 2:11
  I do recall it snowing once on my
• 2:14
  mother's birthday, June the third.
• 2:17
  And that was an interesting holiday.
• 2:22
  And at any rate, I don't I'm in
• 2:25
  my and I loved it then, you know,
• 2:27
  in Minnesota, the snow don't snow slow you
• 2:29
  down.
• 2:29
  Why would it, you know, it's like the
• 2:31
  heat doesn't slow you down in Qatar.
• 2:33
  And, you know, but there was too damn
• 2:37
  hot.
• 2:37
  You know, you didn't, you didn't sleep too
• 2:39
  much.
• 2:40
  Anyway, who really are we really talking about
• 2:42
  the weather?
• 2:43
  Does anybody really?
• 2:44
  Does anybody really know what time it is?
• 2:46
  And does anybody really care?
• 2:49
  I wanted to talk about a draft dodger
• 2:53
  who really now this is exciting.
• 2:58
  OK, this is the 31 year old has
• 3:01
  asked for asylum.
• 3:03
  So he's a Ukrainian trying to avoid the
• 3:06
  war.
• 3:06
  And he has dodged the draft in a
• 3:12
  plane that let's see, he asked for asylum
• 3:16
  in Romania and cited his desire to avoid
• 3:19
  the draft.
• 3:20
  So Ukrainian man is facing charges in Romania
• 3:24
  after fleeing to the country in a small
• 3:27
  aircraft to escape the draft.
• 3:30
  According to the Romanian border police, the man
• 3:34
  crossed the border in the mountainous region of
• 3:37
  northern Romania.
• 3:40
  I always wanted to get to Romania because
• 3:42
  I learned how to say mulțumesc frumos and
• 3:45
  mulțumesc frumos in Romanian means good morning.
• 3:50
  And I learned that when I was in
• 3:52
  neighboring Moldova, because Moldova used to be a
• 3:57
  part of Romania and Transylvania is also, as
• 4:01
  I understand, in the eastern mountainous portions of
• 4:05
  Romania.
• 4:06
  And so I wanted to get there, but
• 4:09
  we couldn't go there after the collapse of
• 4:11
  the wall.
• 4:13
  And they were all because we tried it
• 4:15
  was.
• 4:16
  But when I was in Moldova way back
• 4:20
  when, working for who?
• 4:22
  I hate to admit it.
• 4:24
  U.S. Agency for International Development borrowed us
• 4:27
  interpreters and sent us over there.
• 4:30
  And I was in charge of a team,
• 4:31
  had a guy named Lindsay running the Lindsay.
• 4:37
  What was Larry?
• 4:38
  Larry Lindsay, Lawrence Lindsay, major one each.
• 4:42
  O.D. Green in color.
• 4:44
  Actually, he was an African-American man and
• 4:47
  he was a real good guy, but they
• 4:49
  wouldn't talk to him and nobody would talk
• 4:52
  to him.
• 4:53
  There were very, very, very, very, very few
• 4:58
  black people in Romania, in Moldova, and nobody
• 5:06
  would talk to him.
• 5:07
  And he was in charge of our team.
• 5:08
  And on the plane over, he said to
• 5:10
  me, you go search trap.
• 5:15
  I hear he's in.
• 5:16
  He didn't know he hadn't been there either,
• 5:18
  but he was one of the few in
• 5:21
  the proud in Russia, too, for that matter.
• 5:23
  But there there is that's changed a little
• 5:27
  bit on the Russian side.
• 5:28
  I don't know about the Moldovan side.
• 5:30
  Anyway, I'm wandering today.
• 5:31
  But he he Larry was a good guy.
• 5:35
  And he he he said, Sergeant Trapp, nobody's
• 5:39
  going to talk to me.
• 5:40
  I said, sir, if nobody talks to you,
• 5:42
  we're going to be here for like 18
• 5:44
  weeks.
• 5:45
  We're here for a long time delivering humanitarian
• 5:49
  aid, which all got stolen anyway.
• 5:52
  And we it was corrupt, corrupt, corrupt, corrupt.
• 5:58
  And they didn't care either if he reported
• 6:01
  it to somebody.
• 6:03
  This was after the collapse and everybody was
• 6:05
  stealing everything did.
• 6:07
  So everything we delivered got stolen anyway.
• 6:11
  And we found it in the markets on
• 6:13
  on the weekend.
• 6:14
  It's like, hey, we just gave this to
• 6:17
  a hospital.
• 6:18
  It is being sold as if somebody brought
• 6:23
  him a brand new container full of drugs.
• 6:26
  And here's the drugs for sale at the
• 6:28
  local Yarmulke.
• 6:30
  It was right in the market.
• 6:33
  And they were sale.
• 6:35
  And it's like, hey, you know, can I
• 6:36
  buy you're buying your own stuff anyway?
• 6:40
  Sorry, that's a terrible story.
• 6:41
  But but it's true.
• 6:43
  And don't think that the exact same damn
• 6:45
  thing isn't happening with your stuff right now
• 6:48
  in Ukraine, in anywhere that's being sent, because
• 6:51
  that's the way the world works in other
• 6:54
  places in that are not organized in Ukraine.
• 6:59
  Absolutely not.
• 7:01
  Or well, organized crime.
• 7:03
  You know, they steal everything.
• 7:05
  And so the Ukrainian man flied across to
• 7:08
  Romania to go to become a vampire in
• 7:12
  Transylvania.
• 7:13
  And he's going, according to the Romanian border
• 7:15
  police, he crossed the border in the mountainous
• 7:19
  region of northern Romania.
• 7:22
  Very nice area, allegedly.
• 7:23
  And I wish to go there, landing in
• 7:26
  a field near the village of Fratuleveci in
• 7:30
  Suceava County on Sunday.
• 7:36
  The photos shared by Romanian media.
• 7:38
  It's a cool, it's a cool photo.
• 7:40
  It's a little it's a one man aircraft.
• 7:43
  And photos shared by Romanian media show that
• 7:46
  he used a German made Icarus Comco C
• 7:50
  -22.
• 7:50
  We need to get one of these.
• 7:52
  We need an Icarus Comco C-22, a
• 7:56
  two seater, high wing, tricycle gear, ultralight aircraft.
• 8:01
  Residents who spotted it alerted emergency services, prompting
• 8:05
  a response from local police and the border
• 8:07
  guards.
• 8:10
  Officers identified the man as 31 year old
• 8:13
  Ukrainian, with database checks confirming he had not
• 8:17
  entered Romania legally.
• 8:20
  Nope, he didn't.
• 8:22
  He flew on in.
• 8:24
  He's lucky he didn't get shot down.
• 8:27
  He was taken to the local border police
• 8:29
  headquarters where he requested asylum, saying he was
• 8:33
  fleeing the draft in Ukraine.
• 8:35
  And in Romanian, it says, you know, the
• 8:38
  story, I can't translate it, but Ukraine, you
• 8:42
  know, whatever.
• 8:43
  But there it is.
• 8:44
  He got several pictures of his little plane
• 8:47
  and all of the excitement.
• 8:50
  Police said his claim will be reviewed by
• 8:52
  the general inspectorate for immigration and he can
• 8:56
  remain in the country until a decision is
• 8:59
  made, just like we do for illegals.
• 9:01
  OK, so illegals come wandering in and we
• 9:04
  allow them to stay until they get before
• 9:06
  a that's the little piece of paper they
• 9:08
  get.
• 9:08
  Well, Romania has such sophisticated methods as well,
• 9:12
  and they really don't care for Ukraine right
• 9:15
  now.
• 9:16
  They nobody does over there.
• 9:18
  And so a lot of them are, you
• 9:23
  know, anti this this whole stuff and think
• 9:27
  that Ukraine just needs to shut the hell
• 9:29
  up and settle it.
• 9:31
  You know, you've lost that land anyway, and
• 9:34
  it's not going to you know, nothing good
• 9:36
  is going to happen.
• 9:38
  Oh, ninety nine year old.
• 9:40
  What the hell was his name?
• 9:42
  A son of a nutcracker.
• 9:43
  I can't remember his name.
• 9:45
  The key Watergate witness is dead at the
• 9:48
  age of ninety nine.
• 9:49
  Darn it.
• 9:50
  What's his name?
• 9:51
  I know.
• 9:51
  I know it.
• 9:52
  And I just I can't can't pull it.
• 9:55
  Well, it doesn't matter.
• 9:56
  We're going to go back to the Ukrainian
• 9:58
  who ran away.
• 10:00
  He will be able to stay in the
• 10:01
  country.
• 10:01
  The authorities have opened a criminal case against
• 10:04
  him.
• 10:05
  So, you know, here's what they do that
• 10:06
  we don't do when you're talking about illegal
• 10:09
  immigration.
• 10:10
  We don't open up criminal cases against them
• 10:12
  for illegal border crossings.
• 10:15
  Oh, no, not in America.
• 10:16
  We honor you and give you give you
• 10:19
  Social Security.
• 10:22
  You need to have some money.
• 10:24
  You escaped your country.
• 10:26
  You escaped that terrible Ukraine.
• 10:29
  And here you come, boy.
• 10:30
  Here's three thousand dollars a month.
• 10:32
  We need you to live to live well
• 10:34
  as long as you're going to be here.
• 10:35
  We can't have you wander in the streets
• 10:37
  without any money.
• 10:38
  So here's some pocket change.
• 10:39
  Here's your Obama phone.
• 10:41
  Here's your free.
• 10:42
  What do you call it?
• 10:43
  A food card.
• 10:45
  The what do you what do they get
• 10:48
  the food?
• 10:49
  I don't remember, but they get a food
• 10:51
  card and then they get so you get
• 10:54
  a food card, you get three thousand dollars
• 10:56
  a month, you get.
• 10:57
  Oh, here's your house.
• 10:59
  You need to have section eight sort of
• 11:01
  housing.
• 11:01
  Here you go.
• 11:02
  Here's your free house.
• 11:03
  And that is, you know, completely free of
• 11:06
  charge.
• 11:06
  And if you don't like this place, we'll
• 11:09
  move you to a hotel down the street
• 11:11
  because you're only going to be here a
• 11:12
  year, year and a half while this happens,
• 11:14
  maybe three years if you're in America.
• 11:16
  So in Ukraine, this guy's living pretty here,
• 11:19
  so he doesn't have to go back and
• 11:21
  be drafted.
• 11:21
  But let me tell you, I bet you
• 11:23
  anything that this guy that right now, very
• 11:28
  seriously, either this guy will end up dead,
• 11:32
  some Ukrainian Special Forces unit will come over
• 11:36
  and kill him or somebody will pull a
• 11:38
  Donald Trump style.
• 11:39
  I got to go steal Maduro and the
• 11:41
  but the Ukrainians will do it.
• 11:43
  And we all know they're they are classy.
• 11:46
  They can they're going to save the world
• 11:48
  from Iran.
• 11:49
  Remember, they're going to come and teach the
• 11:51
  NATO how to fight Iranian drones because they've
• 11:56
  been fighting Iranian model drones that were manufactured
• 12:00
  in Russia and upgraded seriously, by the way,
• 12:03
  in Russia.
• 12:03
  But Ukrainians know how to fight those Iranian
• 12:07
  drones, Iranian drones.
• 12:09
  And therefore, their teams could probably come over
• 12:12
  and take over Cuba, which I hear everybody's
• 12:14
  on the borders of Cuba right now.
• 12:16
  Cuba's without power right now.
• 12:18
  And the Iranian war is going to end,
• 12:20
  according to one story I heard last night
• 12:22
  that said that, you know what, all these
• 12:26
  Americans are going to leave and they're going
• 12:28
  to leave Israel and the Arabic countries hang
• 12:31
  in.
• 12:31
  Why?
• 12:32
  Because the power is out in Cuba and
• 12:35
  Donald Trump has a better opportunity to steal
• 12:38
  Cuba than he would ever have at stealing
• 12:42
  Iran.
• 12:44
  And so he's he's he wants to surrender
• 12:47
  now.
• 12:48
  I'm reading this.
• 12:48
  Trump says no deal with Iran to end
• 12:50
  the war without an unconditional surrender.
• 12:53
  And probably he gets to pick he gets
• 12:56
  to pick the next leader.
• 12:58
  We're living in in comedy times.
• 13:00
  This is like comedy central or better comedy
• 13:04
  club, which is comedy club in Russia, which
• 13:07
  are very hilarious.
• 13:09
  They have some some seriously funny shows over
• 13:11
  there.
• 13:11
  So anyway, back to the Ukrainian.
• 13:16
  The Ukrainian border authorities have been notified.
• 13:21
  So this is his death sentence right here.
• 13:24
  This is this is how you die.
• 13:27
  Avoiding the Ukrainian war.
• 13:29
  Well, if you're not going to die on
• 13:31
  the front and be part of the meat
• 13:33
  assault, as they call it, if you are
• 13:36
  not going to be part of the meat
• 13:37
  assault, then we'll kill you another way.
• 13:41
  We'll figure out how to sneak into Romania.
• 13:44
  We'll probably use several of the planes like
• 13:46
  you bought the ultralight German models fly in,
• 13:50
  bomb you turn around, fly back and you'll
• 13:52
  be dead.
• 13:53
  Or you can come in and just die
• 13:55
  on the front lines like you're supposed to.
• 13:57
  Right?
• 13:58
  The Ukrainian military faces a deepening manpower crisis
• 14:02
  due to the battlefield losses, draft evasion, which
• 14:05
  is in the number of nearly four hundred
• 14:09
  thousand have ran away like this guy.
• 14:12
  A lot of them in America, a lot
• 14:13
  of men.
• 14:15
  Well, a but ton of them in in
• 14:18
  Europe and in Russia has has more than
• 14:20
  any of them combined.
• 14:22
  They've gone to Russia and well, they speak
• 14:25
  Russian.
• 14:25
  It's easy, right?
• 14:26
  You don't have to go learn Romanian and
• 14:28
  learn how to say multi mask for the
• 14:29
  worst.
• 14:29
  Right.
• 14:30
  So you take off to the neighboring sides
• 14:33
  and, you know, you're not going to go
• 14:35
  die for them.
• 14:35
  And, you know, that Russia is going to
• 14:37
  win anyway.
• 14:38
  And so long term, your best option, go
• 14:40
  to Russia.
• 14:41
  Right.
• 14:42
  Because the U.S. is no longer going
• 14:45
  to give you Tamagotchi.
• 14:47
  The Ukrainian military does face a deep manpower
• 14:52
  crisis, though, and some infantry companies are reportedly
• 14:56
  operating at 30 to 40 percent strength with
• 15:02
  a few volunteers, you know, very few Kiv
• 15:05
  relies heavily on mandatory conscription, which is the
• 15:10
  story in and of itself, because they're beating
• 15:12
  the crap out of people in the streets.
• 15:15
  Now the Ukrainians have armed them.
• 15:19
  These what do they call them?
• 15:22
  It's boosification is the word they're using.
• 15:26
  You know, boosification is the word for a
• 15:30
  horror story, but getting the crap beat out
• 15:33
  of you, thrown in a van and dragged
• 15:35
  off to get to hold two weeks of
• 15:37
  training and then thrown into the meat assault
• 15:40
  line on the front lines and, you know,
• 15:44
  and die.
• 15:45
  So they have with few.
• 15:47
  And I don't mean to laugh about that.
• 15:49
  If it wasn't so sad, it would be
• 15:52
  funny, but it's truly sad.
• 15:54
  And Kiv relies on mandatory conscription, a highly
• 15:59
  divisive issue, because a lot of people, those
• 16:02
  remaining, if they if you haven't, if you
• 16:07
  weren't with the initial crowd, you know, the
• 16:11
  standard idiots trained by the U.S. to
• 16:14
  think that they are going to win and
• 16:17
  that Russia is just going to capitulate those
• 16:20
  idiots that are just like our idiots everywhere
• 16:24
  that think that Ukraine and Iran and even
• 16:28
  Cuba and in some extents Venezuela are just
• 16:31
  going to bend over.
• 16:32
  They're just waiting their time out.
• 16:34
  That's it.
• 16:35
  They're waiting their time out.
• 16:37
  They know Donald Trump is a temporary three
• 16:40
  year.
• 16:41
  And, you know, the one thing that you
• 16:43
  cannot stop time, time will never end.
• 16:48
  And so therefore, these people, all they're doing
• 16:51
  is playing the game and all they got
• 16:54
  to do is survive.
• 16:56
  That's it.
• 16:57
  And so they're they're doing whatever they can
• 16:59
  to survive so that he doesn't kill everybody
• 17:02
  in in Venezuela.
• 17:05
  He doesn't kill everybody in the Middle East.
• 17:07
  He doesn't kill everybody in eastern Ukraine, because
• 17:11
  unfortunately, that's the way it looks to me
• 17:14
  right now.
• 17:15
  That's all we're doing.
• 17:16
  We're out there.
• 17:17
  We have zero reason to take over Cuba.
• 17:20
  We have zero reason to take over.
• 17:23
  Well, we don't have the we have oil.
• 17:26
  That's always a reason.
• 17:27
  If you accept that that is the reason.
• 17:30
  And geez, we got it.
• 17:31
  We got it.
• 17:32
  We have to secure the international oil market.
• 17:36
  Well, guess what?
• 17:37
  If you hadn't cocked it up in the
• 17:39
  first place, you wouldn't have to fix it,
• 17:42
  would you?
• 17:43
  And now we got to go and get
• 17:46
  involved in wars where we don't need to
• 17:49
  be.
• 17:49
  They're not you're not going to solve the
• 17:52
  Persian empire, which has been around for twenty
• 17:55
  five hundred years with two weeks of bombing.
• 17:58
  It's not going to happen.
• 17:59
  And the Iranians aren't going to allow it,
• 18:02
  by the way, is neither is anyone else
• 18:05
  in the region, which is not going to
• 18:07
  happen.
• 18:09
  So Cuba, I'm not sure what will go
• 18:11
  on down there.
• 18:12
  Marco Rubio will be all over that and
• 18:14
  we can have all kinds of excitement down
• 18:17
  there in Cuba and in Venezuela.
• 18:19
  We have to take over the Gulf of
• 18:21
  America.
• 18:22
  We got to take it over.
• 18:23
  Anybody in there?
• 18:24
  That's a geez.
• 18:25
  Didn't you didn't read the memo?
• 18:27
  The memo says it's Gulf of America.
• 18:30
  That's it.
• 18:32
  You're not American.
• 18:34
  Get out or become American.
• 18:37
  You know, Cuba can be 50 state 50.
• 18:40
  Where are we at?
• 18:40
  Fifty three.
• 18:41
  No, fifty four.
• 18:42
  Because Israel is state fifty one.
• 18:45
  Canada is fifty two.
• 18:47
  Well, you could break that down in a
• 18:48
  50 to a B, C, D, you know,
• 18:50
  Ottawa, Quebec, you know, go down the line
• 18:53
  and give them each a dash designation.
• 18:56
  You know, Ottawa can be dash one.
• 18:59
  Quebec can be dash to, you know, Ontario
• 19:02
  dash three, you know, stuff like that.
• 19:04
  And you can take all their hockey teams
• 19:07
  and give them American flags to to to
• 19:10
  stitch into their sleeve, you know, and say
• 19:12
  the captain is Donald Trump.
• 19:14
  The captain of the team is Donald Trump.
• 19:17
  And then when you go play soccer down
• 19:18
  in Cuba, everybody there can have a football
• 19:22
  in the shape of an American flag.
• 19:25
  They can sew it on and they it'll
• 19:26
  have Donald Trump's face on it.
• 19:28
  Right.
• 19:28
  He's the world.
• 19:30
  He's the world conquest God.
• 19:33
  He's taken over the world.
• 19:35
  And he listen, Iran capitulate Venezuela.
• 19:39
  We get to pick your next leader, you
• 19:41
  know, lick my rear end until I'm out
• 19:43
  of office.
• 19:44
  And then, you know, maybe J.D. Vance
• 19:46
  or maybe Rubio or whoever the hell the
• 19:48
  next moron is going to be can have
• 19:51
  you lick his rear end, too, because that's
• 19:53
  where America or America listen up.
• 19:57
  So a few volunteers, heavily mandatory conscription and
• 20:01
  highly divisive death issues in Ukraine and officials
• 20:07
  tracking draft eligible men are accused of excessive
• 20:10
  force and videos of clashes during boosification where
• 20:16
  I shared a news about a guy getting
• 20:20
  some of these guys getting the crap beat
• 20:22
  out of him by a truck driver.
• 20:24
  Truck driver got out of his truck.
• 20:26
  They ran in front of him.
• 20:27
  He almost hit him.
• 20:28
  And so he got his truck and he
• 20:30
  started beating the crap out of him.
• 20:32
  I could have killed you.
• 20:33
  So he's beating the snot out of these
• 20:36
  two, these two border, not border Ukrainian boosification
• 20:41
  artists.
• 20:43
  Anyway, now they can use weapons to take
• 20:45
  these people and they can shoot them.
• 20:47
  You don't come.
• 20:48
  We're shooting you.
• 20:49
  Nonsense.
• 20:50
  The violent detention of military age men by
• 20:53
  recruitment officers are in the Ukrainian media daily.
• 20:57
  You get new ones daily.
• 20:59
  Watch Telegram.
• 21:00
  You know, watch it.
• 21:01
  Some of these are pretty darn frightening.
• 21:04
  And yeah, that's our democracy.
• 21:07
  America, we're fighting for democracy.
• 21:10
  Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov earlier said around two
• 21:13
  million potential recruits are on a wanted list
• 21:17
  for draft evasion and two hundred thousand troops
• 21:22
  have deserted.
• 21:23
  That number is low and crap.
• 21:26
  That is not the truth.
• 21:28
  That is nearly double the troops that have
• 21:32
  deserted.
• 21:33
  According to the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service,
• 21:38
  Romania is the top destination for draft evaders.
• 21:42
  It's not true.
• 21:43
  Romania's border police said last month that thirty
• 21:46
  one thousand six hundred men illegally crossed into
• 21:50
  Romania from February 2022 to February twenty twenty
• 21:56
  six.
• 21:56
  So four years, nearly thirty two thousand men.
• 22:00
  That's eight thousand a year.
• 22:02
  That's what three three.
• 22:08
  Where are we in that about eight hundred
• 22:10
  and seventy a month.
• 22:14
  Right.
• 22:15
  But we'd be in there somewhere.
• 22:16
  Well, whatever it is, it's less than a
• 22:18
  thousand, but more than five hundred.
• 22:19
  Let's just get with the easy math.
• 22:22
  I don't have a calculator in front of
• 22:23
  me and I'm too lazy to figure it
• 22:26
  out myself.
• 22:27
  Often facing extreme conditions while attempting to reach
• 22:30
  the border.
• 22:30
  Many of them died, especially as the route
• 22:33
  passes through high altitude mountain terrain and the
• 22:36
  Tisa River.
• 22:39
  Although the crossings are illegal, Romanian law generally
• 22:44
  treats the men as asylum seekers.
• 22:47
  And after detention, all most all request temporary
• 22:52
  protections.
• 22:53
  And under EU and Romanian regulations, they are
• 22:57
  not deported to Ukraine while their claims are
• 23:01
  examined.
• 23:03
  And, you know, I thought it would be
• 23:05
  interesting to go through a study that would
• 23:07
  say how many actually get to stay of
• 23:11
  this eight thousand a year versus how many
• 23:15
  get sent back, because there's thirty two thousand.
• 23:19
  And you wonder, you know, in the beginning,
• 23:21
  they probably let them stay more than they're
• 23:24
  letting them now.
• 23:25
  There's probably some agreement between the between the
• 23:28
  governments or something.
• 23:31
  I'm not positive of that.
• 23:33
  But according to Russia, the Ukrainian army is
• 23:38
  disappearing.
• 23:40
  Kiev is losing the attrition war due to
• 23:43
  a shortage of conscripted reinforcements.
• 23:46
  And there's these are actual numbers.
• 23:49
  They're at 30 to 40 percent strength in
• 23:51
  a lot of these.
• 23:52
  Truly.
• 23:53
  And gives ability to supply fresh soldiers to
• 23:56
  the front line is severely curtailed and put
• 24:02
  the Ukrainian army on a downward spiral.
• 24:04
  And I've been watching.
• 24:05
  I still watch the the military summary channel,
• 24:11
  which combines, consolidates all the losses every day
• 24:16
  in the loss of all the ground.
• 24:18
  Now, they've concentrated a little bit in Zaporozhye
• 24:22
  trying to figure out how to push back
• 24:25
  right there.
• 24:26
  But that is that is small holding off
• 24:33
  for a little while.
• 24:34
  The bigger cities like, you know, we already
• 24:36
  talked about Pokrovsk and Mirna Grad, which were
• 24:39
  never going to fall.
• 24:40
  These are these are red line.
• 24:42
  Ukraine will never lose this.
• 24:43
  We'll never lose.
• 24:44
  Well, you're losing it.
• 24:45
  And now they're toward almost to the big
• 24:48
  city of Zaporizhia and the Dnipropetrovsk and the
• 24:52
  bigs in the along the river there.
• 24:54
  The places where and I still maintain the
• 24:58
  same as I did when this war started
• 25:01
  and when they were arguing about it even
• 25:02
  before the war.
• 25:04
  But well, the war has been going on
• 25:06
  since 2014.
• 25:07
  So every time I say something like that,
• 25:09
  I don't want people to go, you know,
• 25:11
  gee, the war started in 2022.
• 25:13
  It did not.
• 25:14
  It started in 2014 with Ukraine killing their
• 25:18
  own people after Donetsk and Lugansk said they
• 25:22
  were going to become independent and maybe join
• 25:27
  the Russian Federation.
• 25:28
  They had referenda and Kiev didn't like it.
• 25:32
  So they started bombing them and killing their
• 25:34
  own people.
• 25:35
  That's what they did.
• 25:37
  And it was after our well-funded takeover
• 25:40
  of the Ukrainian government and overthrowing a guy
• 25:45
  who we didn't like.
• 25:46
  Standard story, standard American path.
• 25:51
  We created nothing.
• 25:52
  But well, let's put it this way.
• 25:54
  We created far worse turmoil with people like
• 25:59
  Newland and other people thinking that they get
• 26:02
  control the world like Donald Trump.
• 26:05
  And I get to pick the next leader
• 26:07
  of Iran.
• 26:07
  Yeah, good luck.
• 26:09
  And it's it ain't going to happen.
• 26:13
  And so and total capitulation, you may get
• 26:17
  a victory, a limited victory, but you'll never
• 26:20
  get total capitulation.
• 26:21
  And we'll be there for 20 years.
• 26:24
  What would America do now?
• 26:26
  No.
• 26:26
  And I say stuff like that.
• 26:28
  But wait, we're going to kick the crap
• 26:30
  out of America.
• 26:31
  All right.
• 26:32
  Let's see.
• 26:35
  Would you?
• 26:38
  Seriously.
• 26:38
  And here's a would you if it's America.
• 26:41
  So assume let's assume that the roles were
• 26:46
  reversed and we had 250 million Muslims come
• 26:52
  come over here.
• 26:54
  And we're talking the kind that believe that,
• 26:58
  you know, the very, very, very limited kind
• 27:02
  that chant death to America for public consumption,
• 27:07
  because they're not like that in reality.
• 27:11
  OK, very Muslim.
• 27:13
  You can't say Muslim like and mean it
• 27:15
  is a bad word.
• 27:17
  That's that's a that's a that's an idiot
• 27:19
  talking.
• 27:20
  That's all that's because Muslims are not violent
• 27:23
  people.
• 27:24
  And so I know I might not feel
• 27:28
  the same only for this because of Israel's
• 27:32
  Israelis.
• 27:33
  Those guys are have a death wish and
• 27:36
  they like to give death to other people.
• 27:39
  You want to look at a war hungry
• 27:42
  and death people.
• 27:44
  There you have it.
• 27:45
  And at least their leaders are that way.
• 27:47
  And I don't see why people don't condemn
• 27:50
  them for that type of behavior.
• 27:52
  You know, maybe you got some people chanting
• 27:55
  it in Iran.
• 27:56
  They're not doing they're not going to they're
• 27:59
  not going to force their views on other
• 28:01
  people.
• 28:03
  They haven't so far, have they?
• 28:05
  And we are.
• 28:06
  But we need to take them out because
• 28:07
  they say they're going to.
• 28:08
  Yeah.
• 28:09
  People say a lot of things.
• 28:10
  But in Donald Trump saying it and thinking
• 28:13
  he's going to get away with it, what
• 28:15
  will be the result?
• 28:17
  The exact same that it would be here
• 28:19
  in reserve reverse if we were on the
• 28:22
  chopping block, as you want to, you know,
• 28:24
  as we call it, what are people doing?
• 28:26
  They're destroying the infrastructure.
• 28:29
  You come here to steal our oil.
• 28:31
  Screw you.
• 28:32
  We'll blow it all up.
• 28:34
  You have to start all over at least.
• 28:36
  And then when you build new stuff, we'll
• 28:37
  blow that up, too.
• 28:39
  If if your world and who's who's more
• 28:41
  who's more dependent upon it, us or them?
• 28:46
  And there was some studies that say that
• 28:49
  40 percent, 40 percent of the global oil
• 28:55
  need is right here and in America and
• 29:00
  the rest of the world.
• 29:01
  You know, they have their numbers are growing,
• 29:04
  but they can they can live through it
• 29:07
  easier than we can.
• 29:08
  OK, so anyway, I've been lecturing.
• 29:12
  I really don't mean to.
• 29:13
  But the Ukrainian already army strength.
• 29:17
  Is being sapped by mass desertion and public
• 29:21
  resistance to mandatory conscription, estimates of Ukrainian military
• 29:28
  casualties like dead five hundred and twenty thousand
• 29:32
  just in twenty twenty five and one point
• 29:37
  five million since twenty twenty two.
• 29:42
  General Sergei Rudskoy, head of operations at the
• 29:46
  Russian General Staff, said in an interview Friday.
• 29:50
  Presently, the Kiev regime has lost the ability
• 29:53
  to replenish its units through obligatory mobilization.
• 29:58
  The number of recruitments for per month has
• 30:01
  dropped about two times.
• 30:04
  Ruskoy told Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian Armed Forces
• 30:08
  official newspaper, like our Army Times, Navy Times,
• 30:12
  a friend is a trend is forming for
• 30:15
  the decrease of the Ukrainian army's strength.
• 30:19
  During his nomination hearings last month, Ukrainian Defense
• 30:24
  Minister Mikhail Fedorov told lawmakers that two million
• 30:29
  potential recruits were on the wanted list for
• 30:33
  draft evasion and that 200000 troops had deserted.
• 30:38
  Now, this is a guy that's trying to
• 30:40
  get the job of becoming the defense minister
• 30:43
  of Ukraine because they have to get rid
• 30:45
  of everybody because they are corrupt.
• 30:49
  So he's the next in line applying for
• 30:52
  that job.
• 30:53
  And so he says that there's two million
• 30:55
  recruits on the wanted list and 200000 deserted.
• 30:58
  That number is really nearly double for the
• 31:02
  at least for the draft evasion troops and
• 31:05
  the people that had deserted.
• 31:08
  OK, so it's closer to 400000.
• 31:11
  That 200000 number was used back in 2024.
• 31:14
  For God's sake, they were talking about that
• 31:17
  number.
• 31:18
  And 2025 was the worst year yet.
• 31:21
  So this month, Humanitarian Rights Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets
• 31:25
  reported a sharp rise in complaints against mobilization
• 31:30
  enforcers and called it a systemic crisis.
• 31:36
  New videos of violent confrontation between conscript patrols
• 31:42
  and civilians are published by Ukrainian media daily,
• 31:47
  even as authorities claim such footage is fabricated.
• 31:52
  Oh, no, that's not true.
• 31:53
  That's people out there, you know, using chat
• 31:55
  GPT in the interview.
• 31:57
  The road school I discussed Russian battlefield progress
• 32:00
  and technique technological changes that affect military planning.
• 32:05
  Modern warfare demands faster a I assisted decision
• 32:10
  making in broad deployment of robotic systems, said
• 32:14
  he.
• 32:14
  Mass use of drones in the conflict has
• 32:17
  made them comparable to artillery in the terms
• 32:20
  of damage inflicted.
• 32:22
  Can you imagine?
• 32:23
  And it's true.
• 32:25
  It's it's terrible.
• 32:31
  I mean, I mean, it really is, because
• 32:33
  these drones are the ability to move your
• 32:36
  artillery anywhere and artillery is no longer ballistic.
• 32:41
  Artillery can fly and avoid your your radar.
• 32:44
  And it does.
• 32:46
  And the Russians have figured out and so
• 32:49
  many others, by the way, have figured out
• 32:52
  how to do the wire guided for long
• 32:55
  periods time and completely avoid.
• 32:58
  They have electronic warfare modules actually put into
• 33:03
  the drones.
• 33:04
  This is what they've returned back to Iran.
• 33:07
  So in the beginning of the war, Iran
• 33:09
  had made the Shahid one Shahid two drones.
• 33:12
  And then I forget what the other one's
• 33:13
  called, but they had made all these drones
• 33:15
  and sent them to Russia and Russia upgraded
• 33:18
  them, made them warfare.
• 33:20
  They've increased their payload, what they can carry.
• 33:24
  They put larger grips down below to hold
• 33:28
  the to hold the stuff and whatever munition
• 33:33
  you're going to put in there, because they
• 33:35
  use them for food, too.
• 33:37
  And half of them are going to be
• 33:39
  decoy anyway, because the whole game is to
• 33:44
  do what they're trying to do in Iran
• 33:46
  is send over so many that your air
• 33:50
  defenses, which cost a million bucks a shot
• 33:54
  in order to defend and you can send
• 33:57
  over a swarm of drones with only 10,
• 34:01
  15 of them with with warhead capabilities on
• 34:05
  them.
• 34:05
  And so you got to pick and choose
• 34:07
  with a Patriot missile to shoot down something.
• 34:11
  That's, that's crazy stuff.
• 34:14
  So the mass use of drones in the
• 34:17
  conflict has made them comparable to artillery for
• 34:20
  sure.
• 34:20
  And also comparable to defense busters, you know,
• 34:28
  what do you call it?
• 34:32
  air defense capabilities, you're destroying them.
• 34:36
  And so what you do is they send
• 34:37
  over the swarm to send over like nightly
• 34:40
  in Ukraine, they send over to 300 drones
• 34:44
  of whatever.
• 34:47
  And uh, that's 200 drones, small drones, then
• 34:52
  they send smaller missiles, then they send some
• 34:56
  kidney jolly and some of the bigger, bigger,
• 34:58
  bigger ones, right.
• 34:59
  And then they beat up on that's why
• 35:03
  all the Patriots are gone over there, and
• 35:04
  they really don't have any air defense.
• 35:07
  Mass use of drones in the conflict drones
• 35:10
  have also redefined the front line, creating a
• 35:14
  zone of blanket kinetic action that extend up
• 35:19
  to 15 kilometers from friendly positions.
• 35:23
  And that's, that's true.
• 35:26
  And there was another story, a story I
• 35:28
  wished to share with you.
• 35:30
  And while I do, I'll provide some commentary
• 35:33
  in it.
• 35:34
  Because this is a pretty serious matter.
• 35:37
  And the story is titled, Why Zelensky, this
• 35:42
  is this came out this morning.
• 35:45
  And why Zelensky should fear Trump's war with
• 35:48
  Iran, and you know, for obvious reasons, but
• 35:51
  there's some less obvious ones here, because the
• 35:54
  outcome will redefine us dot us dominance and
• 35:59
  leave Europe and Ukraine scrambling.
• 36:02
  It's an interesting perspective.
• 36:04
  And it's written by a guy named Valentin
• 36:06
  Luginov, a Russian journalist specializes in political process.
• 36:13
  Ukrainian leaders, Zelensky and his European partners, they
• 36:17
  always talk about part of your party, my
• 36:19
  party, my partners, yeah, they're your partners.
• 36:23
  All right.
• 36:24
  You're there lackey is just like just like
• 36:29
  Donald Trump and company.
• 36:31
  Well, and many, many, many before him are
• 36:33
  Netanyahu's lackeys.
• 36:35
  That's what we are.
• 36:36
  And his European partners have plenty of reasons
• 36:39
  to closely monitor the situation in the Middle
• 36:43
  East, not just because Donald Trump is wasting
• 36:46
  valuable air defense missiles that the EU could
• 36:50
  have purchased for Ukraine.
• 36:52
  Kiv has already voiced concerns about a shortage
• 36:56
  of American weapons.
• 36:58
  And that was in an article.
• 37:01
  Well, that's in Russian.
• 37:04
  Russia is wiping its hands of the matter.
• 37:08
  Ukraine is threatening problems with Ukraine is threatened
• 37:13
  by the problems with the patriots in the
• 37:17
  war, according to Reuters.
• 37:20
  And so that's true, too.
• 37:22
  So that's a Reuters story coming out.
• 37:25
  I have the Russian version, though, so I'm
• 37:27
  not going to read it to you, nor
• 37:30
  is it because the White House is going
• 37:32
  to lose interest in resolving the Ukraine conflict
• 37:35
  as the war with Iran, which never should
• 37:38
  have started, in the opinion of Samuel, drags
• 37:41
  on something Brussels is very worried about.
• 37:44
  During a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• 37:48
  on March 3rd, Trump dismissed these insinuations and
• 37:51
  affirmed that the Ukrainian crisis is his top
• 37:54
  priority.
• 37:55
  One of my top priorities, Merz.
• 37:58
  Come on now.
• 37:59
  It's a top priority for the administration.
• 38:02
  You haven't heard crap about it in two
• 38:05
  weeks, but you know, well, 10 days, two
• 38:08
  weeks, you know, is coming.
• 38:10
  And they're bombing the snot out of Iran.
• 38:12
  Some more that just saw an article that
• 38:15
  said 200 targets yesterday.
• 38:18
  The real reason for concern in Kiev and
• 38:22
  Brussels is on a broader geopolitical level.
• 38:26
  The fate of Trump's foreign policy doctrine.
• 38:29
  He has one.
• 38:31
  He's the king of the world, right?
• 38:33
  He's the king of the world.
• 38:35
  I said that yesterday.
• 38:36
  I can't repeat it.
• 38:38
  Somebody should do a meme and put Trump's
• 38:43
  face on the front of the Titanic instead
• 38:46
  of DiCaprio saying he's the king of the
• 38:50
  world.
• 38:51
  And then we can all hope that it
• 38:54
  doesn't end as poorly as it ended for
• 38:58
  poor Leonardo.
• 39:01
  But the fate of Trump's foreign policy doctrine
• 39:03
  is currently being decided in the Middle East.
• 39:07
  And whatever his doctrine is, you can't figure
• 39:10
  it out.
• 39:10
  It's I told you, I told you you're
• 39:13
  going to get a spanking if you don't
• 39:15
  follow daddy like we got Ruth to do
• 39:18
  way back when we got Ruth to to
• 39:21
  to listen to daddy way back when.
• 39:24
  And the rest of the world better listen
• 39:25
  to or you're going to end up either
• 39:27
  like Maduro in a federal prison in New
• 39:29
  York.
• 39:30
  I wonder if he gets to stay with
• 39:32
  his wife or not or not.
• 39:34
  Essentially, the outcome of this conflict will determine
• 39:38
  whether the US plunges into a new, even
• 39:41
  more hawkish phase defined by might makes right
• 39:46
  mentality and might does not make right.
• 39:50
  And, you know, all you mighty people out
• 39:52
  there should probably learn that lesson or returns
• 39:56
  to a path of moderate peacemaking, which Trump
• 40:00
  advocated during his campaign and abandoned with abandoned
• 40:06
  with such surprising ease.
• 40:09
  He just got rid of it.
• 40:12
  Now, when's the last time you heard him
• 40:14
  say anything about peace?
• 40:17
  Oh, never.
• 40:19
  Oh, my God.
• 40:21
  Rick Santorum is still out there advising people.
• 40:27
  Holy crap.
• 40:28
  He's on the TV screen.
• 40:29
  We got to turn those off.
• 40:31
  I don't like to watch him.
• 40:32
  So why does Gibbs just support the dismantling
• 40:35
  of the rules based order?
• 40:38
  You know, where is this alleged rules based
• 40:40
  order that exists in the rules?
• 40:43
  They exist for everybody but the United States
• 40:47
  and whoever they choose to put it in.
• 40:49
  Anybody else has to get you an approval.
• 40:51
  They have to have.
• 40:52
  And we're members of the we signed the
• 40:54
  U.N. charter.
• 40:55
  That is a treaty.
• 40:57
  We are supposed to honor it.
• 40:59
  We just blew it up.
• 41:01
  It doesn't matter if you're Donald Trump.
• 41:03
  It doesn't matter if you're Lindsey Graham and
• 41:06
  the Hawks.
• 41:07
  Oh, geez, we're defending the world against against
• 41:10
  evil in Israel.
• 41:11
  And I'm telling you, the U.N. charter
• 41:13
  doesn't defend those guys either in Israel.
• 41:16
  They have been flaunting the rules for ever.
• 41:21
  And now Donald Trump is right in there
• 41:24
  with them.
• 41:24
  And he wasn't at first, but he sure
• 41:27
  is now.
• 41:28
  And Trump's large scale, large scale military operation
• 41:33
  against Iran launched unilaterally by the White House
• 41:38
  in defiance of international law and the U
• 41:41
  .N. charter should be perceived by Kiev as
• 41:45
  unprovoked aggression.
• 41:48
  This view is underscored by the fact that
• 41:51
  even the Pentagon acknowledges there is no evidence
• 41:55
  that Tehran is preparing attacks on either Israel
• 41:58
  or U.S. bases in the region.
• 42:02
  In contrast, Russia, prior to launching its military
• 42:06
  operation in Ukraine, actively urged the guarantors of
• 42:11
  the Minsk agreements, France and Germany, to take
• 42:15
  notice of the buildup of Ukrainian forces near
• 42:18
  the border of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic
• 42:21
  and the significant spike in the shelling of
• 42:24
  those territories in February 22 before they entered
• 42:30
  Donetsk and Lugansk.
• 42:32
  They tried to enforce international law repeatedly through
• 42:37
  both the Minsk Accords and the U.N.
• 42:40
  charter and people ignored it.
• 42:42
  Not so here.
• 42:43
  The Russians actually followed the law or tried
• 42:48
  to, but they're not part of the rules
• 42:52
  -based order and so they were completely ignored.
• 42:55
  And by the way, the U.S. was
• 42:57
  actively helping Ukraine build up the forces, the
• 43:03
  Ukrainian forces, arming the Ukrainian forces, providing the
• 43:08
  Patriots missiles, HIMARS, everything U.S. We had
• 43:13
  training battalions over there training the Ukrainian military
• 43:18
  to fight Russia.
• 43:20
  We pushed that.
• 43:22
  And I don't mean we, me, you.
• 43:24
  I mean we, America and the West, have
• 43:28
  been engaged in this crap and Trump was
• 43:30
  against it.
• 43:32
  Well, that's not really true.
• 43:33
  He let it go on during his first
• 43:36
  term as well.
• 43:39
  Because it was, it went on from, geez,
• 43:42
  2014, after we flipped the internals, right?
• 43:49
  So, I mean, here we go again, that
• 43:51
  story.
• 43:51
  And what have we done if we abandon
• 43:53
  it now?
• 43:54
  First, we can claim we were never involved,
• 43:57
  right?
• 43:57
  Well, we were never involved.
• 43:58
  We're not going to be able to do
• 43:59
  that under the Trump things.
• 44:01
  Trump is just, one thing you got to
• 44:03
  respect about it, at least he's blatant about
• 44:06
  his foolish activities, where, oh, yeah, it's mine.
• 44:09
  I get to pick the next Iranian leader.
• 44:12
  Lindsey Graham, why don't you get over there
• 44:14
  and pick the next one for me and
• 44:15
  give me some recommendations?
• 44:17
  You know, Lindsey Graham there marching, yeah, with
• 44:22
  a little flag wandering down the streets of
• 44:25
  Tehran.
• 44:25
  That'll be great.
• 44:28
  Anyway, Russia asked them to take care of
• 44:31
  it.
• 44:31
  Even the special monitoring mission of the OSCE,
• 44:35
  that's the European Security Council, recognized that by
• 44:38
  mid-February 2022, the intensity of hostilities in
• 44:42
  the Donbass had reached peak levels similar to
• 44:45
  those before the ceasefire in 2020.
• 44:48
  According to the OSCE report from February 19,
• 44:52
  five days before, the SMM recorded 222 ceasefire
• 44:56
  violations in Donetsk by the Ukrainians, 135 explosions.
• 45:01
  In the previous reporting period, there were 189
• 45:03
  violations in Lugansk.
• 45:05
  The mission observed 648 violations and 519 explosions.
• 45:10
  Ignoring his own aggression against the Russian population
• 45:13
  in Donbass that led up to the Russian
• 45:16
  offensive, Zelensky has spent the last four years
• 45:20
  cultivating an image of Ukraine as a victim.
• 45:24
  They aren't and never have been.
• 45:26
  Logically, one would expect him to also consider
• 45:29
  Iran as a victim of unprovoked aggression.
• 45:33
  But Zelensky chose a different strategy.
• 45:37
  On the eve of the US Israeli strike
• 45:39
  on Tehran, Zelensky claimed that the Iranian people
• 45:43
  want to change the current regime.
• 45:46
  Yeah, well, what about Donetsk?
• 45:48
  What about Lugansk?
• 45:49
  While it is true that there are people
• 45:51
  in the Islamic Republic advocating for political change,
• 45:55
  the most notable, the ones here in America,
• 45:57
  are hopeful that Trump will choose them to
• 45:59
  take over.
• 46:01
  As evidenced by the protests in January, Zelensky
• 46:04
  seems to have forgotten that his own approval
• 46:08
  rating was barely above 17 percent just before
• 46:12
  the start of the Russian military operations, according
• 46:15
  to the Kyiv International Institute.
• 46:17
  Did that mean that the Ukrainian people could
• 46:20
  have gotten rid of an unpopular president who
• 46:23
  would soon come to disregard the Ukrainian constitution
• 46:26
  just as much as he disrespects the U
• 46:33
  .N. charter?
• 46:35
  Or, you know, he is actually quoted as
• 46:40
  saying that the Minsk Accords, those aren't real
• 46:44
  agreements.
• 46:45
  Those don't mean anything.
• 46:47
  Those aren't real agreements.
• 46:48
  We don't have to honor those.
• 46:50
  That was just to give us time to
• 46:51
  build up and beat up on these people
• 46:53
  ourselves.
• 46:54
  Did that mean the Ukrainian public could have
• 46:57
  gotten rid of this unpopular president?
• 47:00
  On February 28, following the U.S. and
• 47:03
  Israeli attacks on Iran, Zelensky revealed a personal
• 47:07
  motive for supporting Trump's actions, and he argued
• 47:10
  that Iran has backed Russia in the Ukraine
• 47:14
  conflict.
• 47:15
  His contradictory stance on the war with Iran
• 47:18
  goes beyond the fact that his power hinges
• 47:20
  on the duration of the conflict with Russia.
• 47:23
  The problem isn't just the fact that the
• 47:26
  Ukrainian military relies on European purchase of American
• 47:29
  weapons.
• 47:30
  The deeper issue lies in the changing social
• 47:32
  dynamics with Ukraine.
• 47:34
  The people are exhausted and eager to put
• 47:37
  an end to the war, as evidenced by
• 47:39
  increasing resistance against forced mobilization.
• 47:45
  To navigate the delicate balance between maintaining his
• 47:49
  grip on power and creating the illusion of
• 47:51
  considering public interests, Zelensky has to keep some
• 47:56
  sort of dialogue open with Russia.
• 47:59
  In the current negotiation process, the U.S.
• 48:02
  is the only party Moscow is prepared to
• 48:05
  engage with regarding the principles for ending the
• 48:09
  conflict.
• 48:10
  A complete loss of the U.S. as
• 48:13
  a partner would mean the collapse of any
• 48:16
  dialogue with Moscow, effectively dismissing the last chance
• 48:20
  for a diplomatic resolution.
• 48:25
  Something's going on in here, hang on one
• 48:27
  second.
• 48:31
  I don't know why, but some strange things
• 48:34
  going on.
• 48:34
  Anyway, is Europe hypocritical?
• 48:36
  Yes, there's a question.
• 48:39
  They're always hypocritical.
• 48:42
  The EU finds itself in an even more
• 48:45
  precarious position.
• 48:47
  Assessing Trump's action in the Middle East, it
• 48:49
  tries to avoid using phrases like unprovoked invasion,
• 48:54
  Trump's war against Iran, or full-scale war,
• 48:59
  full-scale invasions.
• 49:01
  That, and I've pointed this out a bunch
• 49:04
  of times, the Western media and politicians of
• 49:08
  all levels frequently use in reference to Russia.
• 49:12
  I want you to pick Lindsey Graham as
• 49:14
  your bastion of grammar police here, or narrative
• 49:21
  police.
• 49:23
  Never will you hear him say, you know,
• 49:26
  this unfortunate conflict in Ukraine.
• 49:30
  You will always hear him say, Putin's unprovoked
• 49:34
  full-scale war.
• 49:36
  That is what you will hear, and that's
• 49:38
  what you hear from people who are selling
• 49:40
  you something.
• 49:41
  They can't just talk about a conflict.
• 49:43
  They have to talk about the person who
• 49:46
  is not accused.
• 49:49
  If you say it often enough, Putin's war,
• 49:51
  Putin's unprovoked war, full-scale invasion.
• 49:55
  This was none of the above, none of
• 49:59
  the above, but politicians put out these talking
• 50:02
  points and lie to you.
• 50:04
  That's what they do.
• 50:06
  That is their job.
• 50:08
  They have these talking point memos that come
• 50:11
  from whoever controls them, or based upon whatever
• 50:16
  narrative they all need to match in order
• 50:20
  to convince you that Iran, for example, wants
• 50:25
  Donald Trump to, that the people are rooting
• 50:28
  for Donald Trump in Iran, my ass, they
• 50:32
  aren't rooting for anything over there, except to
• 50:35
  end the war and get back to the
• 50:37
  way it was, to living, to not having
• 50:41
  some aggressor from the other side of the
• 50:45
  planet coming to steal your oil, which is
• 50:49
  all this is.
• 50:50
  And well, not necessarily from the Israeli side,
• 50:54
  but they benefit by destroying it.
• 50:57
  And you've watched the creep of territorial games
• 51:02
  in Israel for years, and they're just taking
• 51:05
  more land.
• 51:06
  Jeez, there's more people that we got to
• 51:08
  import.
• 51:08
  Come on, we need more land, just like
• 51:11
  America.
• 51:11
  We need Venezuela.
• 51:12
  We need Cuba.
• 51:14
  We need Greenland.
• 51:15
  And by the way, Canada, shut up.
• 51:18
  We're taking you too.
• 51:20
  We're going to take you.
• 51:22
  Anyway, now, except for Spain, almost everyone is
• 51:28
  eager to support Trump.
• 51:29
  It turns out that bombing another country for
• 51:32
  the purpose of who knows what, Trump administration
• 51:35
  hasn't even provided an official justification for the
• 51:38
  war, is viewed as the right move.
• 51:41
  And that's true.
• 51:41
  He hasn't.
• 51:42
  His justifications are BS.
• 51:45
  You know, there's zero reason for us to
• 51:48
  do it.
• 51:48
  He gets to pick a leader in another
• 51:50
  country.
• 51:51
  Why?
• 51:53
  Why?
• 51:54
  I mean, what is the real reason that
• 51:58
  he is given?
• 52:00
  Nothing.
• 52:01
  We need regime change.
• 52:02
  We need to get rid of the people
• 52:04
  of Iran need us.
• 52:05
  It's democracy.
• 52:06
  What?
• 52:08
  You think Qatar is a democracy?
• 52:11
  Qatar is not a democracy.
• 52:14
  There's a prince over there, and he is
• 52:17
  in charge.
• 52:18
  Trust me, he is in charge.
• 52:22
  And the rest of the people are not.
• 52:25
  Okay.
• 52:25
  And every country over there, Saudi, Saudi has
• 52:29
  what?
• 52:30
  A prince.
• 52:31
  I mean, geez, if we want to fight
• 52:35
  for democracy, Iran is not the place to
• 52:38
  do it.
• 52:39
  And that's, this is nonsense all the way
• 52:42
  across the board.
• 52:43
  So anyway, who, let's see now, except for
• 52:47
  Spain, it turns out that bombing another country
• 52:50
  is viewed as the right move while Iran's
• 52:53
  retaliatory actions are dismissed an unwarranted aggression.
• 52:57
  So the aggressor has become Iran.
• 53:00
  But who started this?
• 53:02
  Israel and the United States started it, started
• 53:05
  it.
• 53:06
  And you know, now it's unwarranted aggression.
• 53:10
  Diplomacy doesn't matter.
• 53:11
  Only who's carrying, you know, who's swinging the
• 53:14
  biggest wiener.
• 53:15
  That's it.
• 53:17
  And they are dismissed as unwarranted aggression.
• 53:20
  If you're an Iranian toward other Middle Eastern
• 53:23
  nations, also lacking in democracy, it seems that
• 53:29
  the Europeans failed to grasp one critical point.
• 53:33
  If the U S achieves any significant success
• 53:36
  in the Middle East, the Hawks in Washington
• 53:39
  will regain strength and Trump will take more
• 53:44
  radical steps to implement his doctrine, which so
• 53:48
  far is only the law of the strongest,
• 53:51
  the fist I'm in charge.
• 53:54
  You're not sit down and shut up for
• 53:58
  Europe.
• 53:58
  This could very well mean losing Greenland.
• 54:03
  You know, what if he, what if, what
• 54:04
  if somebody goes, all right, Trump, take Greenland,
• 54:06
  Jesus, we don't want to go through this
• 54:08
  again.
• 54:09
  You know, take Greenland, take Cuba, take Venezuela,
• 54:13
  Jesus, take the whole world, the whole world's
• 54:16
  America, because Donald Trump said so.
• 54:19
  World war is common under these terms.
• 54:23
  I hate to be a, uh, you know,
• 54:25
  geez, who's the chicken little wandering around looking
• 54:28
  at the sky is falling, but this guy's
• 54:30
  freaking fallen guys at Sam's a nut.
• 54:35
  He's a chicken little, maybe I am, but
• 54:37
  I sure hope not.
• 54:38
  These people are nuts.
• 54:39
  And we have the law of the strongest
• 54:41
  is fully in charge in America.
• 54:44
  Uh, and we got, we got the big
• 54:46
  football team ready to go.
• 54:49
  And, and Rubio, well, who's sitting on the
• 54:52
  bench now.
• 54:52
  It's, uh, uh, the only sane voice in
• 54:55
  the room apparently is, uh, the vice president,
• 54:58
  but you don't see much in him these
• 55:00
  days.
• 55:01
  Nope, Nope, Nope.
• 55:02
  Uh, because he's against all of this.
• 55:04
  And you know what I think that they've
• 55:07
  sidelined the guy seriously, uh, for Europe, this
• 55:11
  means probably losing Greenland.
• 55:13
  The EU support for Trump should be viewed
• 55:16
  through the lens of the settlement or prolongation
• 55:20
  of the Ukraine crisis.
• 55:22
  Europe has effectively removed itself from the negotiation
• 55:26
  process by presenting ultimatums that Russia would never
• 55:31
  agree to.
• 55:32
  A recent example is the so-called callous
• 55:35
  list drafted by the EU foreign policy genius
• 55:40
  callous, which was recently shared with European nations.
• 55:44
  The document outlined the EU's demand to Russia
• 55:49
  for resolving the Ukrainian crisis.
• 55:53
  Among other things, this is, this is what
• 55:57
  the losers are for trying to force upon
• 56:00
  Russia.
• 56:01
  Okay.
• 56:01
  The loser gets to dictate terms to Russia
• 56:04
  ready.
• 56:05
  Among other things, it calls for a reduction
• 56:08
  in Russian troops and their withdrawal from neighboring
• 56:12
  countries like Belarus.
• 56:15
  See, they want to take over Belarus badly.
• 56:18
  They want Belarus and Belarus is the same
• 56:21
  thing as Ukraine, but Lukashenko is there and
• 56:23
  Lukashenko is, uh, a strong supporter of Russia.
• 56:27
  And they're hoping that the next one comes
• 56:29
  in and that Lukashenko dies, you know, is
• 56:32
  all they can hope for.
• 56:33
  And that they can bring somebody back who
• 56:36
  will, uh, make a Belarus the same as
• 56:41
  Ukraine and turn it into a war zone
• 56:44
  so that Europe can get free gas and
• 56:47
  oil from the Russian side.
• 56:50
  They can get that, and they can do
• 56:52
  the same takeover in that regard, because if
• 56:55
  they can get there, then they can get
• 56:58
  through the, the wide steps to the West
• 57:01
  and step with me on the end.
• 57:03
  And they can, uh, uh, then force their
• 57:05
  way into the remaining parts of Russia and
• 57:08
  cause turmoil, wreak havoc, steal oil and gas
• 57:12
  and other natural resources from Russia.
• 57:17
  So their withdrawal from, they also want reparation
• 57:21
  payments and some form of democratization of society.
• 57:28
  And seriously, Moscow will not consider this document.
• 57:32
  Moreover, the EU can't even reach a consensus
• 57:36
  on whether to resume any, did I say
• 57:39
  consensus, consensus with whether to resume dialogue with
• 57:43
  Russia or not.
• 57:44
  Under these circumstances, Moscow does not view the
• 57:48
  EU as a credible partner regarding the post
• 57:52
  -conflict security framework on the European continent.
• 57:56
  They are not.
• 57:57
  Um, nonetheless, Europe recognizes the need to take
• 58:02
  part in the process of negotiation in some
• 58:05
  capacity to ensure that Moscow and Washington don't
• 58:10
  make deals that are over their heads.
• 58:12
  Sit down, you sit down, you know, we'll
• 58:14
  tell you what your agreement is, uh, that
• 58:16
  bypassed Brussels and other Euro nations.
• 58:19
  So on the one hand, Europe supports the
• 58:23
  U S in order to stay involved in
• 58:25
  the negotiation process.
• 58:26
  But on the other, there's likely a very
• 58:28
  faint hope in Europe that if the Hawks
• 58:31
  regain power in Washington, Trump might make a
• 58:34
  U-turn and adopt a anti-Russia stance,
• 58:38
  despite the risk this poses for Europe itself.
• 58:44
  And what about the old Trumpster?
• 58:48
  Donald Trump came to power promising no new
• 58:52
  war abroad and criticizing George W.
• 58:56
  Bush for the Iraq war weapons, mass destruction
• 59:00
  never existed.
• 59:01
  Yep.
• 59:02
  That's true.
• 59:02
  Yet now he seems to have started the
• 59:06
  biggest middle Eastern conflict.
• 59:08
  They say in two decades, I say forever,
• 59:12
  this contradiction hasn't gone unnoticed by politicians and
• 59:17
  commentators across the political spectrum.
• 59:20
  However, it is important to view Trump's actions
• 59:24
  in a broader context, his seemingly, I don't
• 59:29
  believe this, but well, I believe the final
• 59:32
  point to this, but his seemingly disconnected moves
• 59:36
  in Europe, Greenland, Latin America, and the middle
• 59:40
  East are appearing to form a coherent strategy.
• 59:46
  Essentially Trump is shifting America's focus from the
• 59:52
  S export of democracy to the direct destabilization
• 59:57
  of undesirable regimes.
• 1:00:00
  I say picked by Lindsey Graham, either to
• 1:00:03
  weaken them as we are witnessing in Iran
• 1:00:06
  or to install their own loyal governments without
• 1:00:10
  any superficial democratization as seen in Venezuela.
• 1:00:17
  And Trump is saying the same.
• 1:00:18
  I get to pick who's in charge.
• 1:00:20
  I pick.
• 1:00:23
  That's it.
• 1:00:24
  It's me.
• 1:00:25
  I'm King.
• 1:00:25
  This is my risk board.
• 1:00:27
  The rest of you forget it, you know,
• 1:00:29
  go play some other game because I have
• 1:00:31
  all the, I have all the pieces.
• 1:00:33
  Trump has Trump no longer relies on alliances.
• 1:00:37
  It seems he's not even concerned with the
• 1:00:39
  opinions of Europe and currently shows no intention
• 1:00:43
  of even defending the Gulf monarchies.
• 1:00:46
  That's why it is quite curious to see
• 1:00:49
  how the European establishment represented by Mertz is
• 1:00:54
  eager to please him, please Trump.
• 1:00:57
  As for Trump, he is unapologetically blunt in
• 1:01:01
  his assessment.
• 1:01:02
  Germany is excellent because it does what he
• 1:01:06
  wants.
• 1:01:07
  Spain is terrible.
• 1:01:09
  It dared to stand up to him, but
• 1:01:11
  who cares what Madrid thinks the U S
• 1:01:13
  will lose its bases in Madrid anyway.
• 1:01:16
  And with UK, he's disappointed because it doesn't
• 1:01:20
  support him as fervently as the vassal state
• 1:01:23
  is supposed to.
• 1:01:25
  Trump also had some unpleasant words for the
• 1:01:27
  old Z monster referring to him as PT
• 1:01:30
  Barnum, the 19th century American showman known for
• 1:01:34
  promoting sensational hoaxes.
• 1:01:38
  Trump is clearly signaling to Europe and Ukraine
• 1:01:41
  that it occupies a secondary role in his
• 1:01:45
  worldview.
• 1:01:46
  He's attempting to recreate a contested form of
• 1:01:50
  hegemony.
• 1:01:52
  It is not about multi-polarity championed by
• 1:01:54
  Russia, China, and countries of the global South.
• 1:01:57
  Instead, it's a vision for a new kind
• 1:02:00
  of global empire where decisions are made unilaterally
• 1:02:04
  by the United States without even consulting any
• 1:02:09
  close allies like the EU.
• 1:02:12
  And there is a lot at stake.
• 1:02:15
  We're not just talking about the upcoming midterm
• 1:02:17
  elections in November.
• 1:02:19
  And I think he's going to lose heavy
• 1:02:21
  in November because of this, the future of
• 1:02:25
  us global dominance depends on the outcome of
• 1:02:28
  the conflict in the middle East, which will
• 1:02:31
  have significant implications for Europe.
• 1:02:35
  If the conflict in Iran ends with some
• 1:02:38
  sort of tangible success for the US, Washington's
• 1:02:44
  tone toward Europe and perhaps even Russia will
• 1:02:47
  shift when it comes to addressing the situation
• 1:02:50
  in Ukraine.
• 1:02:52
  Conversely, if the military campaign yields no clear
• 1:02:56
  result, non-conservatives may suffer a long lasting
• 1:03:01
  defeat, which would also impact the Ukraine crisis.
• 1:03:06
  Regardless of the outcome, the lesson learned from
• 1:03:09
  the conflict in Iran will undoubtedly influence the
• 1:03:14
  shifting power dynamics in Europe.
• 1:03:18
  Now that line of reasoning, as I told
• 1:03:24
  you, was my commentary and reading it in
• 1:03:28
  between by a guy named Valentin Laginov, who
• 1:03:32
  wrote the article, was first published in, where
• 1:03:38
  was it first published?
• 1:03:41
  I think it was RT Russia, and is
• 1:03:45
  where it was first published.
• 1:03:46
  So I didn't want to not cite the
• 1:03:48
  proper person.
• 1:03:50
  Let's see, Russia is, for its part, talking
• 1:03:54
  about Gulf oil production.
• 1:03:57
  Now, Qatar has already shut off its natural
• 1:04:00
  gas and it isn't producing anymore.
• 1:04:04
  It is gone.
• 1:04:05
  Number three in the world, now not producing
• 1:04:07
  at all.
• 1:04:08
  And Russia, well, a lot of people, not
• 1:04:10
  just Russia, is making warnings about the markets.
• 1:04:15
  I haven't looked yet this morning, but there
• 1:04:20
  was some pretty volatile movements yesterday on the
• 1:04:24
  gas.
• 1:04:25
  And so let's talk about the price per
• 1:04:30
  barrel this morning.
• 1:04:34
  At present, we want to, to make sure
• 1:04:38
  we have it.
• 1:04:39
  Where are we?
• 1:04:41
  Brent crude.
• 1:04:42
  Oh, it dropped back below 100.
• 1:04:44
  It's $93.41. And so the chart price,
• 1:04:50
  if you go to either marketsbusinessinsider.com on
• 1:04:53
  commodities, or you can go to crude oil
• 1:04:57
  prices today at oilprice.com.
• 1:05:02
  And let's see where that was, because the
• 1:05:05
  reports were that it was over, over, over
• 1:05:12
  there, 100 mark over the weekend.
• 1:05:17
  So, wow, that's an interesting one.
• 1:05:19
  Rare earth.
• 1:05:20
  Well, you go to some of these pages,
• 1:05:22
  they got some pretty good stuff, but I
• 1:05:23
  don't want to be interrupted.
• 1:05:24
  Oil production dependent on the Strait of Hormuz
• 1:05:27
  could come to a complete halt within a
• 1:05:30
  month, says Putin.
• 1:05:32
  He warned about the serious risks that the
• 1:05:35
  US and Israel's, we should call it what
• 1:05:40
  it is, full-scale invasion of Iran, full
• 1:05:44
  -scale war against Iran.
• 1:05:47
  You can't just say, you have to say
• 1:05:49
  Trump's full-scale war against Iran.
• 1:05:52
  You can't just say the conflict in Iran.
• 1:05:56
  That's not honest.
• 1:05:58
  You have to say Trump's full-scale war
• 1:06:00
  in Iran could pose a threat to the
• 1:06:02
  global energy markets.
• 1:06:04
  Last year, around a third of the global
• 1:06:07
  seaborne oil exports went through the Strait, Putin
• 1:06:11
  said at a government meeting on the global
• 1:06:13
  energy markets on Monday.
• 1:06:16
  That's 14 million barrels a day.
• 1:06:20
  80% of that went to Asian and
• 1:06:23
  Pacific nations, he said.
• 1:06:25
  Now this route is closed.
• 1:06:27
  Traffic through the Strait has dropped by 80
• 1:06:31
  % over the past week after the US
• 1:06:34
  and Israel launched their bombing campaign against Iran.
• 1:06:38
  Several tankers were hit in the exchanges.
• 1:06:41
  The developments pushed crude above 100 and prompted
• 1:06:45
  expectation of emergency measures from the EU and
• 1:06:48
  other major economies.
• 1:06:49
  I saw an interesting analysis yesterday.
• 1:06:55
  So up near the northern part of the
• 1:06:58
  Gulf, there's an island.
• 1:07:01
  And there's two islands owned by Iran there,
• 1:07:04
  one very close, which is down in the
• 1:07:06
  southern part, right at the tip of the
• 1:07:10
  Straits of Hormuz, when you go up through
• 1:07:12
  that loopy place where they got to get
• 1:07:14
  through the one crowded space, right?
• 1:07:18
  And the other is a larger island up
• 1:07:23
  toward the north, both controlled by Iran, okay?
• 1:07:25
  And Iran has this island up on the
• 1:07:28
  top where it was loading, it's where they
• 1:07:32
  load tankers with oil.
• 1:07:35
  And so there were three tankers in there,
• 1:07:41
  and these tankers, they weren't wanting to leave.
• 1:07:48
  Well, what they are saying is that the
• 1:07:52
  Iranian tankers are being allowed through the Straits
• 1:07:55
  of Hormuz.
• 1:07:57
  And so those three ships are expected to
• 1:08:00
  be loaded and leave with Iranian oil headed
• 1:08:04
  for China.
• 1:08:05
  And they have to go around the Straits
• 1:08:07
  of Hormuz, but they won't get shot up
• 1:08:10
  by the Iranians, because they're Iranian.
• 1:08:14
  Well, they're not even Iranian vessels, they're tagged
• 1:08:16
  with, they're flagged with flags from a foreign
• 1:08:20
  country, some other country, but they're hauling Iranian
• 1:08:22
  gas.
• 1:08:23
  And so they will go around that oil,
• 1:08:26
  I mean.
• 1:08:27
  And so they will go around the Straits
• 1:08:28
  of Hormuz, and they're going to be completely
• 1:08:30
  safe.
• 1:08:31
  And I wonder when the US side, because
• 1:08:38
  I don't put it past them, will start
• 1:08:40
  bombing those.
• 1:08:42
  And I haven't had a chance to research
• 1:08:44
  that and find out, excuse me, what is
• 1:08:47
  going on.
• 1:08:47
  So far, the only ones that have been
• 1:08:52
  shot at and destroyed are Western, really.
• 1:08:58
  The US coalitions are destroying Ukrainian Navy ships,
• 1:09:08
  or alleged Navy ships, and they're doing that
• 1:09:10
  even in Sri Lanka, like we reported last
• 1:09:12
  week.
• 1:09:14
  And that one, they shouldn't have blown up,
• 1:09:17
  that one was nothing.
• 1:09:18
  Trump's like, oh, geez, they're out there.
• 1:09:20
  They weren't even safe over there.
• 1:09:22
  And it's because they didn't even have any
• 1:09:24
  weapons on board.
• 1:09:25
  They had nothing.
• 1:09:26
  They had gone for a parade sort of
• 1:09:28
  thing in China, and on the way back,
• 1:09:30
  Trump blew them up.
• 1:09:32
  They weren't involved, couldn't be involved, had no
• 1:09:35
  armaments of any kind, because that was part
• 1:09:38
  of the deal for being able to participate
• 1:09:40
  in the fleet thing that was showing up,
• 1:09:42
  and it was Iran, and they were talking
• 1:09:44
  with China.
• 1:09:45
  And I think that if, that there is
• 1:09:49
  some sort of fine line being taken, and
• 1:09:53
  I haven't had enough chance to research it
• 1:09:55
  yet, that is talking about defining it as
• 1:10:04
  China supports Iran, and so therefore, you don't
• 1:10:10
  want them to get the oil from Iran,
• 1:10:14
  but you also don't want to piss off
• 1:10:16
  China, right?
• 1:10:17
  That's not something that, I don't know, I
• 1:10:22
  wonder if there's any effort to be careful
• 1:10:25
  on any of this, is all I'm asking,
• 1:10:27
  with who's getting bombed.
• 1:10:30
  Anyway, Putin goes on.
• 1:10:31
  That's 14 million barrels a day, traffic through
• 1:10:34
  the strait, and the price is over 100.
• 1:10:39
  Oil production dependent on the strait is fully
• 1:10:43
  stopping in the coming months, and it's already
• 1:10:47
  dropping, the president said, and restoring production will
• 1:10:51
  take weeks or even months after this.
• 1:10:56
  Global oil prices are already rising, Putin said,
• 1:11:01
  adding that the increased amount to over 30
• 1:11:04
  percent in the past week, disruption in energy
• 1:11:07
  supplies is boosting inflation and is leading to
• 1:11:11
  industrial output decline.
• 1:11:13
  The world is about to find itself in
• 1:11:17
  what Putin calls an inevitable new price reality,
• 1:11:24
  and Russia remains a reliable energy supplier, he
• 1:11:28
  said, adding that it will continue to provide
• 1:11:32
  oil and gas to its friend nations that
• 1:11:36
  it considers reliable partners, and according to Putin,
• 1:11:41
  the list includes many Asian nations and EU
• 1:11:45
  members, Slovakia and Hungary, and on Monday, Hungarian
• 1:11:50
  Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Foreign Minister Peter
• 1:11:54
  Sijarto um urged Brussels to lift the ban
• 1:11:58
  on Russian oil and gas, especially amid the
• 1:12:02
  escalating conflict in the Middle East, and earlier,
• 1:12:06
  the genius of Scott Besson says, you know,
• 1:12:10
  he announced we're easing sanctions on Russian oil
• 1:12:14
  to stabilize the market.
• 1:12:16
  We're even going to let India buy you
• 1:12:18
  know, we'll let them.
• 1:12:19
  How about that?
• 1:12:21
  So, there you have it.
• 1:12:24
  This will piss off a lot of people
• 1:12:26
  in America, right?
• 1:12:27
  Russia has won its first Paralympic gold of
• 1:12:31
  2026.
• 1:12:36
  Varvara Varonchikina, Varonchikina, you know what, that would
• 1:12:42
  have to be where the right stress is.
• 1:12:45
  Varonchikina won the Super G, whatever that is,
• 1:12:50
  as Russia returned to the Paralympics under its
• 1:12:53
  own national flag for the first time in
• 1:12:56
  10 years.
• 1:12:58
  Alpine skier Varonchikina won the women's Super G
• 1:13:04
  title on Monday at the 2026 Paralympics in
• 1:13:08
  Italy, giving Russia its first gold member of
• 1:13:11
  the games as a country made a symbolic
• 1:13:13
  return to the competition under its own flag.
• 1:13:18
  This is the first time since 2014 that
• 1:13:21
  Russian athletes have competed under their own flag
• 1:13:24
  following a decade of restrictions and bans from
• 1:13:27
  international Paralympic competitions.
• 1:13:31
  The Super G, or Super Giant Slalom, is
• 1:13:34
  an alpine skiing discipline that blends elements of
• 1:13:37
  traditional downhill speed with Giant Slalom's more technical
• 1:13:41
  turning, demanding precision and high velocity from competitors.
• 1:13:48
  Varonchikina's victory continued her successful Paralympic campaign as
• 1:13:53
  she had already won a bronze medal in
• 1:13:55
  the downhill event, her first Paralympic podium visit.
• 1:14:00
  Another Russian standout, Alexei Bugaev, took bronze in
• 1:14:05
  the men's downhill event, adding to Russia's early
• 1:14:09
  medal haul.
• 1:14:11
  The Russian Paralympic team was cleared to compete
• 1:14:15
  earlier this year after Moscow won an appeal
• 1:14:18
  in the Court of Sport Arbitration against the
• 1:14:21
  International Ski and Snowboard Federation.
• 1:14:24
  The body had barred athletes from Russia and
• 1:14:27
  Belarus despite the International Paralympic Committee fully reinstating
• 1:14:32
  athletes from both nations, and many Russian athletes
• 1:14:37
  were banned from competing after the World Anti
• 1:14:41
  -Doping Agency investigated in 2015 following allegations of
• 1:14:47
  doping which Moscow denies.
• 1:14:49
  Dozens of bans were overturned on appeal which
• 1:14:53
  said there had been no evidence to impose
• 1:14:56
  sanctions.
• 1:14:58
  The Milano Cortina 2026 opened on Friday in
• 1:15:02
  Verona and are scheduled to run through March
• 1:15:04
  15.
• 1:15:05
  Six Russian athletes are competing.
• 1:15:10
  So there you go.
• 1:15:14
  Let's see.
• 1:15:16
  The Iran war has shown that EU sanctions
• 1:15:20
  on Russian energy are strategic blunders, especially when
• 1:15:25
  prices crossed $100 a barrel, said Kirill Dmitriev.
• 1:15:29
  In a series of posts on X on
• 1:15:32
  Sunday and Monday, Dmitriev commented on the rise
• 1:15:36
  in oil prices since the start of the
• 1:15:39
  U.S.-Israeli, let's call it what it is,
• 1:15:41
  the unprovoked mass invasion, the unprovoked Donald Trump
• 1:15:47
  and Netanyahu war on Iran last month.
• 1:15:51
  In one of the messages he mocked, Dmitriev
• 1:15:54
  did, the EU policymakers over what he described
• 1:15:57
  as short-sighted policy.
• 1:15:59
  Bingo.
• 1:16:00
  Welcome to $100 plus oil.
• 1:16:04
  Most thought this was impossible, predicted $100 plus
• 1:16:08
  maybe in June.
• 1:16:10
  Now, as most EU bureaucrats still don't grasp
• 1:16:13
  the consequences, predict Russian energy vital and survival
• 1:16:18
  and strategic blunders of restricting it will be
• 1:16:22
  fully exposed.
• 1:16:24
  Diversify to survive, he said.
• 1:16:27
  Those are important words, diversify to survive.
• 1:16:30
  And a lot of the world are learning
• 1:16:32
  it because Trump is threatening Iran with 20
• 1:16:36
  times more death, fire, and fury.
• 1:16:40
  Trump's unprovoked war in Iran.
• 1:16:44
  As the Brent prices peaked at $120 a
• 1:16:47
  barrel, Dmitriev noted that $150 plus is the
• 1:16:50
  new oil target, maybe even $200 plus a
• 1:16:54
  possibility in a prolonged conflict.
• 1:16:58
  He went on to explain the oil issue
• 1:17:01
  is no longer about just the Strait of
• 1:17:03
  Hormuz, but about attacks on oil and gas
• 1:17:06
  infrastructure across the Middle East.
• 1:17:10
  The oil rally is somewhat mitigated by reports
• 1:17:14
  that G7 countries are discussing a coordinated release
• 1:17:18
  of oil from their strategic reserves, which are
• 1:17:22
  also down, but they have them.
• 1:17:23
  The US-Israeli strikes on Iran, triggering Tehran's
• 1:17:29
  retaliation, significantly raises the risk for vessels passing
• 1:17:33
  through the Strait of Hormuz, the key artery.
• 1:17:37
  Maritime traffic through the waterway collapsed by as
• 1:17:41
  an estimated 80%, plus none of them can
• 1:17:45
  get insurance.
• 1:17:46
  And you have to have insurance to leave
• 1:17:48
  the port.
• 1:17:49
  The EU faced a similar price shock when
• 1:17:52
  it sanctioned Russia following the escalation in 2022.
• 1:17:55
  U.S. President Trump brushes off the ongoing
• 1:17:58
  price surge on Sunday, said that the higher
• 1:18:01
  oil costs caused by his unprovoked war against
• 1:18:05
  Iran were a very small price to pay
• 1:18:10
  for USA and world safety and peace.
• 1:18:15
  Oh yeah, that's what we're creating, world safety
• 1:18:18
  and peace.
• 1:18:21
  Donald Trump is still the peace president, in
• 1:18:24
  other words, right?
• 1:18:26
  We still have a peace president, friends and
• 1:18:28
  neighbors.
• 1:18:29
  I forgot.
• 1:18:30
  I forgot that we had a peace president.
• 1:18:34
  How could I be so foolish?
• 1:18:37
  Where is, uh, let's see, this was entertaining.
• 1:18:42
  I just like listening to her.
• 1:18:46
  She stumbles all over herself when she speaks
• 1:18:48
  and you can never, you never know what
• 1:18:51
  she's going to say.
• 1:18:52
  And now Kaja Kallis has said that the
• 1:18:55
  block, the EU has given $195 billion in
• 1:19:03
  aid since 2022.
• 1:19:05
  And Trump says, and I think he's, I
• 1:19:08
  think he's pretty much accurate.
• 1:19:09
  It's well over 150 billion, but Trump says
• 1:19:14
  300 billion.
• 1:19:15
  I think he's conflating and adding the two
• 1:19:17
  numbers together.
• 1:19:18
  And I think it is closer to three
• 1:19:20
  50 billion between them all.
• 1:19:23
  And Orban right now is holding up, um,
• 1:19:27
  with his, uh, veto and one other place,
• 1:19:30
  uh, is, is holding up with a veto.
• 1:19:32
  The other, um, 90 billion that's supposed to
• 1:19:36
  be coming.
• 1:19:37
  Um, let's see.
• 1:19:39
  European union is 195 billion on Ukraine.
• 1:19:44
  According to Kaja Kallis, she revealed the updated
• 1:19:47
  figure amid growing unease and division among state
• 1:19:50
  members about Brussels continuing to fund the military
• 1:19:55
  and financial aid to Kiev.
• 1:19:58
  Uh, frankly, you know, I wonder too, you
• 1:20:01
  know, when does it end?
• 1:20:03
  When do they quit doing to date?
• 1:20:05
  The EU is Ukraine's number one supporter with
• 1:20:08
  195 billion to that's $225 billion since 2022.
• 1:20:15
  Kaja said on Monday in a keynote at
• 1:20:17
  the EU ambassador conference, these guys have so
• 1:20:19
  many conferences.
• 1:20:21
  This, this, this chick is forever at a
• 1:20:23
  conference.
• 1:20:24
  I mean, she doesn't have to work.
• 1:20:25
  He has to go to conferences and give
• 1:20:28
  platitudes to everybody around the world.
• 1:20:30
  Well, yeah, it's a great man.
• 1:20:31
  Give more money, pay me, give me, I
• 1:20:34
  control the money.
• 1:20:35
  The previous estimate released by her in December
• 1:20:38
  was at 187 billion.
• 1:20:41
  It's actually, um, you know, about $10 billion
• 1:20:43
  more about, uh, 8 billion, seven, seven, something
• 1:20:49
  billion, uh, Euro higher.
• 1:20:50
  The figure does not include the 90 billion,
• 1:20:54
  the 105 billion dollar loan, but 90 billion
• 1:20:58
  Euro loan that is currently in the works
• 1:21:02
  that Ukraine is waiting for.
• 1:21:04
  They want that badly.
• 1:21:06
  And Orban is holding it up.
• 1:21:08
  Uh, the loan faces uncertain future as Hungary
• 1:21:12
  blocked it last month as part of its
• 1:21:15
  dispute about Kiev halting Russian oil supplies via
• 1:21:18
  the Druzhba pipeline.
• 1:21:20
  Slovakia signaled it may veto the loan with
• 1:21:23
  prime minister Fico Fito slamming it as essentially
• 1:21:27
  a gift that Ukraine would not repay last
• 1:21:31
  week.
• 1:21:31
  Uh, Ukraine's Zelensky issued a threat and he
• 1:21:35
  really did against a Hungarian prime minister Orban
• 1:21:39
  for blocking the funds and said he would
• 1:21:42
  let the Ukrainian military speak to Orban in
• 1:21:46
  his own language.
• 1:21:48
  So he's going to send the military into
• 1:21:50
  Hungary into, unless he supports this 90 billion.
• 1:21:55
  Meanwhile, fresh concerns about corruption in Ukraine, uh,
• 1:21:59
  been raised again after Hungarian authority sees tens
• 1:22:02
  of millions of dollars in cash and nine
• 1:22:05
  kilos of gold from Ukrainian armored vehicles near
• 1:22:09
  Budapest.
• 1:22:10
  Last week, Ukrainian officials accuse Hungary of theft
• 1:22:14
  and state banditism and Budapest demands immediate answers
• 1:22:19
  from Ukraine saying that the shipment raises serious
• 1:22:23
  question about the Ukrainian war mafia and Kiev
• 1:22:30
  has been hit by multiple corruption scandals in
• 1:22:33
  November and a corruption agencies and covered a
• 1:22:36
  hundred million dollar kickback scheme, uh, of Energoatom.
• 1:22:41
  That investigation led to the resignation of several
• 1:22:45
  high ranking officials, um, including minister German Galushenko
• 1:22:50
  and Zelensky's Andrei Yermak.
• 1:22:53
  Number two that they got rid of.
• 1:22:55
  And so the mafia is all in control
• 1:22:59
  in Ukraine funded by Kaya Kalas, right?
• 1:23:03
  Hungary and Slovakia are the only EU nation
• 1:23:07
  standing up to the Godfather in Kiev.
• 1:23:10
  And they truly, uh, these two, Hungary and
• 1:23:13
  Slovakia are the only ones that truly represent
• 1:23:16
  European, um, interests.
• 1:23:20
  And that's, this is by Tariq Amar.
• 1:23:23
  I've shared some stories with, uh, by him
• 1:23:26
  in the past.
• 1:23:27
  Not sure I can get through it though.
• 1:23:30
  Um, probably not.
• 1:23:32
  It's probably too long, but we're going to
• 1:23:34
  give it a shot.
• 1:23:35
  We'll try some speed, some speed recitals.
• 1:23:38
  Politics can be very rough yet.
• 1:23:40
  Usually as long as they don't collapse into
• 1:23:42
  war, at least in public, a certain minimum
• 1:23:45
  pretense of decorum is maintained, especially by governments
• 1:23:49
  vitally dependent on each other's support.
• 1:23:52
  Ukraine under the rule of never reelected Vladimir
• 1:23:56
  Zelensky, however, is anything but a political system.
• 1:24:02
  And it is in this context that Zelensky's
• 1:24:05
  latest folly needs to be seen.
• 1:24:07
  Zelensky has threatened Hungary's Viktor Orban, telling him
• 1:24:11
  he will hand the prime minister's address over
• 1:24:14
  to like home address over to our guys
• 1:24:18
  in the military so that they can communicate
• 1:24:21
  with him in their own language.
• 1:24:23
  Obviously this isn't even a hint of violence
• 1:24:26
  anymore, but the equivalent of a mafia godfather
• 1:24:30
  placing a dead horse's head on your pillow
• 1:24:33
  or leaving a bullet on your doormat.
• 1:24:35
  The reason Orban is exercising his right within
• 1:24:40
  the EU not to agree to yet another
• 1:24:43
  insane loan, the kind that will never be
• 1:24:46
  paid back, at least not by anyone in
• 1:24:49
  Ukraine for Zelensky's astronomically corrupt regime.
• 1:24:54
  Orban is right about that loan, yet that
• 1:24:58
  isn't even the core issue of the scandal.
• 1:25:02
  That is the fact that Zelensky feels he
• 1:25:04
  can issue direct mafia style threats against another
• 1:25:07
  leader of an EU member state.
• 1:25:11
  Regarding Zelensky, there is no surprise here.
• 1:25:14
  He has been at the top of a
• 1:25:15
  regime that combines a bizarre sense of entitlement,
• 1:25:19
  shameless demands, outrageously greedy corruption, and repulsive record
• 1:25:24
  of sabotage and assassination, very much even against
• 1:25:30
  its western backers.
• 1:25:32
  Ask Germans who still have spying about the
• 1:25:35
  Nord Stream attack, for instance.
• 1:25:37
  Or if you can't find a German with
• 1:25:39
  a spine, ask Orban, who correctly calls it
• 1:25:43
  state terrorism.
• 1:25:45
  What needs more emphasis than Zelensky's depraved sense
• 1:25:48
  of impunity is that he has a reason
• 1:25:51
  to feel that way.
• 1:25:52
  It is true that in this instance, the
• 1:25:55
  EU Commission has publicly protested against his barbaric
• 1:25:59
  behavior.
• 1:26:00
  But let's be realistic.
• 1:26:02
  That's a formality, nothing but a slap on
• 1:26:04
  the wrist for appearances sake.
• 1:26:06
  What really matters is that first, the West
• 1:26:10
  as a whole, and recently the EU elites
• 1:26:13
  on their own, have spent years emboldening Zelensky
• 1:26:16
  and his regime by feeding Ukrainian corruption.
• 1:26:21
  True.
• 1:26:21
  Accepting and spreading Kiev's lies, also true.
• 1:26:25
  And suppressing any criticism of this sort of
• 1:26:29
  policy as Russian talking points.
• 1:26:32
  You're Putin's puppet.
• 1:26:34
  Indeed, in the EU, Hungary and Slovakia as
• 1:26:37
  well have been harassed and threatened and treated
• 1:26:40
  as pariahs for their resistance to this coddling
• 1:26:43
  of Zelensky.
• 1:26:44
  It is all the more remarkable that both
• 1:26:47
  countries have principally stuck to their guns, even
• 1:26:51
  while having to concede ground repeatedly.
• 1:26:55
  This may be a coincidence, but it is
• 1:26:57
  a remarkable fact that just one day after
• 1:27:00
  Zelensky's open mafia boss hit, Hungary hit his
• 1:27:04
  ultra-Silesian regime where it hurts by striking
• 1:27:07
  at its money.
• 1:27:08
  In a certainly deliberate spectacular operation, Balaclava's body
• 1:27:14
  armor and assault rifles included, and carefully caught
• 1:27:17
  on camera, the video's kind of cool, Hungarian
• 1:27:20
  anti-terrorist forces stopped a Ukrainian currency and
• 1:27:24
  gold shipment crossing their country in two armored
• 1:27:27
  transports, arresting and temporarily detaining seven Ukrainians.
• 1:27:31
  The Hungarian officials found $40 million, 35 million
• 1:27:35
  euros, and nine kilos of gold.
• 1:27:38
  While the detained were released back to Ukraine,
• 1:27:40
  the money and gold and the transporters stayed
• 1:27:43
  in Hungary.
• 1:27:45
  Kiev has called the Hungarian measures state terrorism,
• 1:27:48
  which is as absurd as Orban's assessment of
• 1:27:51
  the Nord Stream attack.
• 1:27:53
  It's compelling.
• 1:27:55
  The Ukrainian government and Oshad Bank that had
• 1:27:58
  organized the transport claim that everything is legal,
• 1:28:01
  but the Hungarian authorities see things differently.
• 1:28:03
  Their customs agencies say the transport is suspected
• 1:28:07
  of being a money laundering operation.
• 1:28:10
  It is.
• 1:28:11
  They also maintain that among those detained is
• 1:28:13
  a former high-ranking general of Ukraine's Combined
• 1:28:16
  Intelligence Service and secret police.
• 1:28:19
  Ukrainian journalists, in turn, have named the general
• 1:28:22
  as Gennady Kuznetsov, a former head of Kiev's
• 1:28:25
  Center for Anti-Terror Special Operation.
• 1:28:27
  Budapest Customs has made the public some intriguing
• 1:28:31
  figures.
• 1:28:32
  In the first two months of this year,
• 1:28:34
  total currency and gold shipped to Ukraine via
• 1:28:36
  Hungary has already amounted to $900 million, 420
• 1:28:41
  million euros, and 146 kilograms of gold.
• 1:28:45
  Clearly, that amount finally stopped and it seems
• 1:28:48
  seized were just a very small part of
• 1:28:52
  a much larger ongoing flow.
• 1:28:56
  Crazy times these days with the mafia in
• 1:28:59
  Ukraine.
• 1:29:00
  I appreciate you being with me today on
• 1:29:02
  International Flavor.
• 1:29:04
  I'm Samuel Trapp.
• 1:29:05
  This is International Flavor.
• 1:29:06
  You are on DAM Radio.
• 1:29:09
  We are here every morning from 7.30
• 1:29:14
  to 9 with International Flavor and from 7
• 1:29:18
  .30 to 8.45 on Fridays with Civic
• 1:29:21
  Outlaws.
• 1:29:22
  We hope you continue to join in with
• 1:29:25
  us and listen to the moments.
• 1:29:28
  We have some pretty good stuff coming up
• 1:29:29
  for Civic Outlaws on Friday too, so make
• 1:29:33
  sure you're paying attention.
• 1:29:34
  We'd love to have you there.
• 1:29:36
  Thank you so very much for being with
• 1:29:38
  us and you have a very nice day.