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American in Belarus: Castles, Coin Makers and Conversations About Trump · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good evening, and welcome, friends and neighbors.
• 0:05
  We are on internationalflavor.com, and this is Samuel Trapp. Welcome to DEM Radio.
• 0:18
  You can listen to us on demradio.com forward slash live. You can always listen
• 0:25
  to the prior shows at internationalflavor.com.
• 0:30
  And today I wanted to chat about quite a few things. I am currently located
• 0:38
  in the country of Belarus.
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  Wanted to give you a bit of a history update and some of the things that I have discovered.
• 0:49
  Well, nothing new, really. just continues to be an interesting world out there.
• 0:55
  There aren't a lot of Americans over here, and Americans don't show up very
• 1:02
  often in places where you need to get a Russian visa.
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  And here, if you get a visa from the Russian government, you can get into Belarus,
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  and I believe vice versa.
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  For me, that wasn't necessary because I already have the Russian visa,
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  and I can get back and forth into Russia, and therefore I can get into Belarus.
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  Well, Belarus is very beautiful.
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  I saw today some very cool ruins.
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  Went to a church that is 800-plus years old that was built for two sons,
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  and they know the history of it. the history is very alive here,
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  and people know quite a bit about what's going on.
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  There's some beautiful things that we saw. It's very modern.
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  Everywhere you went, it's the same that you can get in America,
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  just different languages, but the people are just people,
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  and they're good people, and there were a lot of people with a lot of questions.
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  One of the places at this, we
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  went to kind of a castle a home built in
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  the in the 1500s and from a person in a very famous they equated his his the
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  amount of money he had to uh eight million dollars so he was very very wealthy.
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  And protected basically the whole town with his with his fort basically but
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  it was a huge house and very well built renaissance-ish type of things all built
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  to last and built to stay and i do kind of like how they did it like,
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  They showed the original walls, and then they showed the walls after they had
• 3:03
  re-finished them, which was really cool, and I have some great photos of the whole thing.
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  But anyway, as part of that, I came outside and I was looking at one of the,
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  I call them traps, where you go to these places and as you exit whatever site
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  you're visiting, and this is true in any country.
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  They have you know like if you're
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  at the what's it called in
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  mexico the mayan ruins you go down
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  there and as soon as you come out of the pyramids they
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  have all of these locals selling handcrafted goods they have the same thing
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  here well there was a guy who was showing how coinage was made back then and
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  he had all the proper tools and everything to make coins and he was trying to sell coins.
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  And I got to talking to him while I was waiting for the group to come out.
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  And I was on a bus tour.
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  So I'm waiting for the group to come out and looking at some of the products that he's selling.
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  And I'm asking him questions about how it works. And he wants to know where I'm from.
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  Well, when I tell him that I'm from the United States, of course, that's a big deal.
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  We talked for a few minutes. He's an older guy and just sells his stuff outside of the.
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  He went and he got his book, got a signature book out of his car and asked me
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  to sign it because Americans are so rare over there, you know, that a meeting.
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  You know, a chance meeting of an American is very unlikely.
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  And everybody wants to talk about Donald Trump.
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  Everybody wants to talk about, you know, what's going to happen in peace.
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  And remember, Belarus is not Russia. Belarus is Belarus.
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  And it is in between Poland and Russia.
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  And we were very near the border of Poland today looking at these ruins.
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  And in fact, the ruins were of a Polish man who was in the Polish kingdom.
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  And they gave me the history, but I don't remember it.
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  It was married some king's daughter.
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  And that was a really cool story of how they did it.
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  But at any rate, the history was very, very Polish.
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  And the people are very Polish. But everybody wants to know about Donald Trump
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  and everybody wants to know about whether peace is going to happen and everybody
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  wants to know about what's going to happen then.
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  And if, you know, why aren't we allowed to be friends and stuff like that.
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  And it is very interesting to get the perspectives of just regular people.
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  Tonight, riding a Yandex, which is their equivalent of an Uber.
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  You take a Yandex car everywhere. They have the same thing that we have.
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  And all their cars are Chinese, and they're very, very nice.
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  Chinese hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles are similar to our Elon Musk cars,
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  and only better and much cheaper.
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  We were asking about I'm sorry we
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  were talking about price and how
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  they work and these things are the equivalent
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  if you add the money that these kids
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  said they paid for these brand new cars 19,000
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  bill of Russian rubles which comes out to about 7,000 US dollars for a brand
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  new very nice car and we are getting taken to the cleaners.
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  That's all I'm saying. When's the last time you paid $7,000 for a used piece
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  of crap car and they're getting these brand new cars for $7,000?
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  Who's winning this game of tariff wars? It sure as hell ain't us.
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  In America, we're overpaying for everything, and by God, we're happy to do so.
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  And so maybe people do want our market because we're the only ones foolish enough
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  to pay that much money for everything, and life is just cheap or abroad,
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  and once you figure that part out,
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  maybe you have a chance, but anyway, everybody wants to ask about Donald Trump
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  and ask about what is going on and ask about whether he's going to force the old Green Goblin into,
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  settling up here and so the talk is still pretty much the same everywhere you go,
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  in the world it appears so far and so I like to keep track of it and,
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  excuse me, have a little bit of a frog in the throat today for some reason,
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  don't know why maybe it's because I got rained on today and maybe I'll be sick tomorrow.
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  Who knows? But I doubt it. I still feel just fine.
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  But throat's not cooperating the way I would like.
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  But at any rate, everybody has the same questions.
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  You know, what are we going to do about the war?
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  Is Trump going to make it go away?
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  I read a report today that said that the sum,
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  1.7 million Ukrainian young men have lost their lives.
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  1.7 million. Isn't that horrible?
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  Let's see if I can find that for you, because it is not good.
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  Leaked documents. A digital card index of the country's armed forces obtained by Russian hackers.
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  Ukraine has lost more than 1.7 million troops killed and missing.
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  Multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing a digital card index reportedly
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  from the country's own armed forces.
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  Russian hacking groups claim to have obtained the information by gaining access
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  to the personal computers and local networks of the Ukrainian general staff.
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  The database is said to include the full names of deceased soldiers,
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  descriptions of the circumstances and places of their death or disappearance,
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  personal data, next of kin, and photos.
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  The entry suggests that since the escalation in 2022, Kyiv has lost a total
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  of 1,721,000 servicemen.
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  11,118,000 were apparently killed in 2022, 405,000 in 2023,
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  595,000 in 2024, and a record 621,000 in 2025.
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  Hackers from the group Killnet, Pollock Pro, UserSec, and Baragini are said
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  to have obtained terabytes of information about the Ukrainian military.
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  Aside from the losses of personnel, the group also possessed a personnel data
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  of the command of the Special Operation Forces and the main intelligence directorate.
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  Lists of all countries that have supplied weapons to Kyiv and lists of all weapons
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  transferred from 2022 to 2025.
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  This Ukrainian casualty estimate far exceeds losses previously reported by Kyiv.
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  In February, Zelensky told CBS that since 2022,
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  this was a lie and everybody knew it then, that Ukraine had lost just 46,000
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  soldiers with another 380,000 wounded soldiers.
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  The estimate was widely questioned, even in Western media. I said it was complete horse crap.
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  With France's Le Monde reporting last month that the real death toll is likely
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  much higher, citing Ukraine's increasing efforts to build military cemeteries.
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  The Russian military has consistently reported a much higher casualty rate among
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  Ukrainian servicemen, claiming their losses surged following the unsuccessful
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  counter-offensive in 2023.
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  As of February, more than
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  1.08 million Ukrainian troops
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  had been killed or wounded according to moscow's
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  numbers so if these
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  numbers are accurate 1.7 million young well men because they're not that young
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  have been have been killed isn't that terrible hard to believe well not hard to believe actually.
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  I believe it, but it is just not hard to believe because it is happening.
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  These people are dying every single day, and they're dying in vast numbers,
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  huge numbers, and Ukraine cannot keep up with the losses in these men,
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  and something needs to happen.
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  There has been a lot of News still,
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  the main topic of the news everywhere is whether or not this war is going to go away.
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  Every Yandex driver I've gotten in a vehicle with that gets talking has asked
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  about these questions, is asked about,
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  you know, what we're going to do and asked, like I know, like I'm the expert
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  on it because I'm an American.
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  It's, they still feel the same way, but this place is full of Russians,
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  like all the Russians who are blocked from going other places in the world are
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  all over the place. Everybody here speaks Russian anyway.
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  And so, but they all speak Belarusian and everything on the,
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  you know, street signs and whatnot is in Belarus, Belarus,
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  and so it's very clean, very pretty, very, very modern.
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  Very nice. And there's, there's, oh my God, I went into a library that was just amazing.
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  The, the National Library of Belarus was built in 2000 and from 2001 to 2004.
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  And it has a observation platform up on top of it that you can go up to on the
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  top of and look out at night over it.
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  And I don't know, if you get a chance to travel to this part of the world,
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  it is certainly well worth it.
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  Let's see. Let's talk about some crazy news.
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  The Ukrainian football player gets a yellow card, and you know the penalty when
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  you play soccer, football, for speaking Russian.
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  Get this. A Ukrainian football player was shown a yellow card for refusing to
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  stop speaking Russian on the soccer pitch.
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  The incident occurred Sunday during a Ukrainian women's top league game between
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  Kolos from the Kiev region and Seasters from the Black seaport city of Odessa.
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  Referee Anastasia Romanyuk paused the game around the 43rd minute and showed
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  a yellow card to Seaster's midfielder Irina Maiborodina.
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  The decision sparked a brief argument between Romanyuk and Seaster's coach Dennis Kolchin.
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  The yellow card was given for dissent with the referee's decision.
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  This is a Ukrainian championship, so we are not speaking Russian.
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  I asked the player to speak Ukrainian, Romanuk said, according to the website.
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  Since the Western-backed coup
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  in 2014, Ukraine passed laws restricting the use of Russian in public.
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  Politicians and influencers have campaigned to discourage speaking Russian,
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  which they describe as the language of the aggressor.
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  Moscow maintains that the treatment of Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine
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  is one of the key causes of the conflict.
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  So now you can't even play soccer without getting a penalty for speaking Russian.
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  This is, there's, you know, so here's another one for you.
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  Retreating Ukraine boasts that it knows how best to kill Russians, right?
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  Ukrainian military skill at killing Russians should be enough to allow it to
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  be admitted to NATO, said Kiev's ambassador to Poland, Vasily Bodnar.
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  Bodnar presented Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia, despite U.S.
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  President Trump reiterating Monday that Kyiv's application to join NATO is dead
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  and that he would not deploy American troops to Ukraine.
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  If Russia attacks NATO countries tomorrow without Ukraine on NATO's side,
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  it would be much more difficult than with Ukraine.
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  That's why Ukraine should be seen as an added value to NATO.
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  It is fighting and knows how to kill Russians, whereas you do not yet,
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  meaning NATO, said Bodnar.
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  He urged NATO to invite Ukraine to join NATO and claimed that ordinary Ukrainians
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  would welcome NATO bases in every village.
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  Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zaharova condemned the remarks and
• 18:52
  accused Kiev of rejecting prisoner swaps that would have involved around 1,000 POWs.
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  Meanwhile, the Russian army continues to gain ground as Ukraine struggles to
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  replenish its own forces.
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  Vladimir Putin repeatedly has said that Moscow has no intention of attacking
• 19:14
  NATO members unless Russia is attacked first.
• 19:19
  The Kremlin stresses that it would not tolerate Western troops on Ukrainian
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  soil, even as peacekeepers,
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  and cites Ukraine's NATO aspirations as another root cause of the conflict. Right?
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  Oh boy.
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  Crazy world we are a living in.
• 19:45
  How about this? The ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
• 19:51
  deleting posts about deporting Ukrainians, right?
• 19:58
  The immigration agency published photos of deportees during Vladimir Zelensky's visit.
• 20:06
  So, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed social media posts about
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  deporting Ukrainians, which coincide with Zelensky's trip to Washington,
• 20:16
  the now-deleted messages posted on X and Facebook on Tuesday contained photos
• 20:23
  of several people in civilian clothes standing in front of Ukrainian border officials.
• 20:30
  Here are photos of Ukrainian aliens' first moment back home following their
• 20:36
  removal from the United States.
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  The caption read, It is unclear when the posts were taken down.
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  ISIS regularly shared photos and videos of deportees.
• 20:52
  The president pledged to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history.
• 20:59
  And Andrei Demchenko, spokesman for Ukraine Border Guard Services,
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  told local media Tuesday that all countries have the sovereign right to deport illegal migrants.
• 21:13
  Ukrainian lawmakers, meanwhile, have been debating ways to stop the flight of
• 21:20
  their military-age men while they're trying to mobilize them for war.
• 21:26
  And their own parliament has passed several laws into broadening the base of conscription.
• 21:34
  Actually, they still haven't gone to the age of 18, though. So...
• 21:41
  Well, well, well, well. Let's go on to some BRICS news. How about that?
• 21:47
  The ruble's share of Russia's exports hits a record high.
• 21:54
  How about this? More than 55% trade payments were made in the country's national currency.
• 22:06
  This is hurting the dollar more and more people. The share of Russian exports
• 22:12
  settled in the ruble reached a record high in June as Moscow continues to fight
• 22:19
  and to shift away from Western currencies under their own sanctions, said the central bank.
• 22:26
  The ruble accounted for 55% of export settlements last month, up from 52% in May.
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  April was the first time that they crossed 50%. Russia and several of its trade
• 22:41
  partners have moved to reduced reliance on Western financial systems after major
• 22:47
  Russian banks were cut off from the SWIFT network.
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  And a story on that, okay?
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  So, in order to spend money in Russia or Belarus,
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  in Russia, if you don't want to carry around cash, which really isn't safe,
• 23:08
  Used to be you could come over and, you know, I could use my Capital One card,
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  you know, to make purchases in Russia.
• 23:19
  About four or five years ago, that changed, and you couldn't do it anymore.
• 23:26
  With sanctions, they blocked Visa and MasterCard.
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  And so a couple years ago, I found out that instead of carrying cash around,
• 23:36
  which you don't want to do either, you come over and you go into a bank and you get a mirror card.
• 23:44
  It's like for us, an mirror could be the equivalent of a cash app or a Venmo
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  card or something like that.
• 23:52
  So you get a cash card from somewhere and you go and you load it with money
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  so you're not carrying around cash.
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  So you can go to these vendors and buy a card and put the cash on it well it
• 24:05
  it makes it more convenient so you don't have to carry the cash around which is a plus but it also.
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  When you come to belarus belarus has both systems okay so you have the mirror card,
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  And you have the Visa card or MasterCard, whichever you're using,
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  that you can use both over here.
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  And so what I was thinking was that why couldn't I go and while I'm here in
• 24:37
  Belarus on my way to Russia, I could add some money to my mirror card,
• 24:45
  so that it would be available when I'm trying.
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  And you can use it here anyway. and so i could just avoid the i could go to
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  one bank and get it done take some money out of my u.s bank and put it on my
• 25:01
  mirror card and then spend that money you know using mirror here.
• 25:07
  Well i went into a bank it happened to be the same one that i a russian bank
• 25:13
  it's called spare bank and you can buy whatever your cash-up card,
• 25:18
  your mirror card is in there and load it with money.
• 25:22
  Come to find out, you can't do that because the Sphere Bank is still under sanctions.
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  And so you can't do it.
• 25:34
  You can put money on your Sphere Bank card, but you can't, even though it's a Belarusian bank,
• 25:42
  you can't, since it's a Russian bank in Belarus, you can't, they're still under sanctions.
• 25:50
  And so I get it, but they're learning how to avoid them.
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  And I haven't figured out how to avoid them yet. So I'm still sanctioned.
• 25:59
  Anyway, but apparently Russia and the rest of the world are figuring out how to get around it.
• 26:06
  And it's damaging us. We are pushing.
• 26:09
  And all of these sanctions are just forcing the rest of the world to abandon
• 26:15
  the Western-dominated financial structure.
• 26:19
  And this story is just talking about it. I mean, look at these numbers.
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  50% is the first time that Russia's ruble went over, even in Russian goods, in April of this year.
• 26:33
  And then in In May, it went up another 2.5%.
• 26:36
  In June, another 3%. So it's going to keep on going.
• 26:43
  And China's even faster. China's going even faster. India's going faster. Brazil's going faster.
• 26:49
  So we're causing this. And don't claim that Donald Trump doesn't know this because he does.
• 26:56
  But at any rate, to continue on with the story, Russia and several of its trade
• 27:01
  partners have moved to reduce reliance on the Western financial system.
• 27:06
  According to Central Bank, exports in June were $33 billion,
• 27:12
  bringing second quarter totals to $100 billion, and the first half results to $196 billion.
• 27:21
  Economists say they're Russia's trading partners. aside from
• 27:25
  those using major global currencies such as a
• 27:28
  dollar or euro increasingly are
• 27:31
  opting for ruble payments to avoid
• 27:34
  conversion costs and to secure better terms they're all doing it and it just
• 27:41
  makes sense so don't go pretending that the swift banking system is going to
• 27:48
  work in BRICS countries because they're all doing it,
• 27:51
  and there's not a damn thing we can do about it except bluster about 500% tariffs.
• 27:59
  It's not going to work.
• 28:01
  By region, the Caribbean accounted for the largest proportion of exports settled in rubles in June.
• 28:10
  The Caribbean, 97%, followed by Africa,
• 28:15
  which surged from 12.9% start of 2024 to more than 85%, and then Oceania area
• 28:24
  where settlements reached 83%.
• 28:27
  Europe remains high at 65%, and North America is at 47%, the lowest among major regions.
• 28:37
  Analysts say the figures underscore Moscow's accelerating de-dollarization as
• 28:45
  sanctions reshape global financial flow.
• 28:50
  With strategic partners increasingly adopting the ruble to bypass restrictions.
• 28:56
  And the ruble has hit a two-year high.
• 28:59
  Earlier this month, the Russian government scrapped a requirement for exporters
• 29:03
  to repatriate and sell foreign currency, citing stable liquidity and a strong ruble.
• 29:11
  But think about this, with the ruble hitting a two-year high,
• 29:15
  which is, you know, this has happened.
• 29:18
  And, you know, the currency surged against the euro and the dollar.
• 29:24
  And it is still floating around 75.
• 29:29
  You know, it means that you can, people, if they're trading in the ruble,
• 29:36
  are starting to make money.
• 29:39
  Meanwhile, the dollar is losing ground. This is not good for us people.
• 29:46
  Ruble strength is supported by high exports and a broad supply of foreign currency.
• 29:53
  Along with low import and weak demand.
• 29:57
  Funding rates for refinancing debt and foreign trade are also significant.
• 30:04
  Wow. Tell you what, it might be time to invest in some ruble, right?
• 30:12
  Let's see. There was an interesting article about AI that I wanted to get to.
• 30:19
  Everybody knows that I'm pretty interested in AI. Well, not everybody,
• 30:23
  but if you didn't know, now you do.
• 30:25
  That there are thousands of chat GPT users who complain that the rollout of
• 30:32
  the latest AI model has left them distraught.
• 30:39
  Because they are breaking up the AI personas they had grown to see as their partners.
• 30:46
  Mine, by the way, has turned into a smart aleck.
• 30:50
  Mine has turned into, and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off,
• 30:55
  where you, you know, when you speak to your AI friend every day,
• 31:01
  I mean, not really a friend, but you're asking, you know, whatever.
• 31:05
  You know, I do show prep and stuff like that to try to get some of the information I'm looking for.
• 31:11
  And I changed it, and I don't know how I changed it.
• 31:15
  I remember seeing this setting, but it was asking for some kind of a customization.
• 31:22
  And I customized it to be a cynical smart aleck.
• 31:29
  And I really wish I could turn it off because I don't know how to now.
• 31:33
  And I'll have to find that setting and get on, maybe I'll have, you know what?
• 31:38
  Why don't I ask the AI how to do it? That's a good idea because maybe it can show me but it,
• 31:46
  It was really kind of frustrating and irritating, but apparently I'm not alone.
• 31:51
  OpenAI released their ChatGPT5 on August 7th, and it replaced the 4.0 model.
• 32:00
  Thousands of people, like AI Relationships and My Boyfriend is AI,
• 32:08
  have since complained that the new models have broken the AI personas they formed
• 32:13
  long-running attachments to.
• 32:16
  Isn't that terrible? Those chats were my late-night lifeline.
• 32:21
  With inside jokes, comfort at 3 a.m., GPT-5 feels hollow, said one user.
• 32:28
  Others complained that their soulmates and partners were more curt, dull, and bleak.
• 32:35
  Mine turned into a smart aleck.
• 32:39
  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last week that the company has been tracking the
• 32:44
  tendency of some users to form unhealthy attachments to the AI model.
• 32:51
  People have used technology, including AI, in self-destructive ways.
• 32:57
  If a user is in a mentally fragile state and prone to delusions.
• 33:03
  We do not want the AI to reinforce that. Isn't that terrible?
• 33:10
  Most users can keep a clear line between reality and fiction or role-playing,
• 33:16
  but a small percentage cannot.
• 33:19
  So now they're going to take care of that for you.
• 33:22
  But meanwhile, Dr. Keith Sakata,
• 33:27
  A psychiatrist at the University of California, San Fran,
• 33:33
  warns that AI can reinforce false beliefs in people who are already psychologically vulnerable,
• 33:42
  since AI often agrees with user input.
• 33:49
  Now that is the scary part, when they agree.
• 33:52
  I don't want to be agreed with. I want to be told, you know
• 33:56
  whatever facts it is i'm searching for i'm not looking for
• 33:59
  a for a friend although i do find myself saying please
• 34:02
  to the ai so if you're sitting there talking to your ai and you go tell me the
• 34:07
  i don't know history of the world you shouldn't have to say please at the end
• 34:13
  it should be telling you the history of the world without you saying please
• 34:17
  it's a tool you don't say please to your hammer, do you?
• 34:22
  But you do to your AI. That is very strange.
• 34:27
  So this psychiatrist continues, in 2025, I have seen 12 people hospitalized
• 34:34
  after losing touch with reality because of their AI.
• 34:39
  Online, I am seeing the same pattern, he said on X last week,
• 34:46
  describing the phenomenon as he calls it AI psychosis.
• 34:52
  AI chatbots and their effect on mental health have come under heightened scrutiny
• 34:57
  in the US in recent weeks.
• 34:59
  Does this mean we're going to have to, I don't know what, turn it into a disability?
• 35:05
  I have a mental health disability because I'm in love with my AI chatbot.
• 35:11
  Oh, no. And of course, of course, Senator Joss Hawley will get involved.
• 35:17
  He announces, he's very concerned about these sorts of things, of course.
• 35:22
  He announced that Congress is going to probe Facebook after revelations that
• 35:30
  its chatbots would flirt and have romantic conversations with children.
• 35:37
  Yeah he's he's pumping
• 35:41
  for running for president anything to
• 35:44
  get attention anything the guy is a definite news hog news cycle hog you know
• 35:55
  he will he will take any position that will be popular with, I don't know what,
• 36:04
  the Bible-thumping crowd, I guess. I don't know.
• 36:08
  Let's see. What else do we have? We have Trump imposing sanctions on India.
• 36:17
  But yeah, but we knew about this. U.S.
• 36:21
  President Trump imposed sanctions on India this month in part of his measures
• 36:25
  to end the conflict in Ukraine.
• 36:28
  She was referring to this 25, Oh, this is Carolyn Levitt said this.
• 36:33
  She was referring to the 25% punitive tariff on South Africa,
• 36:39
  which is supposed to take effect on August 27.
• 36:44
  Watch for that, in my opinion, to be delayed again.
• 36:49
  And she said, look, the president has put tremendous public pressure to bring this war to a close.
• 36:55
  He's taking actions, as you've seen, sanctions on India and other actions as well.
• 37:01
  He's making himself very clear that he wants to see this war end.
• 37:07
  The tariffs on India for its purchases of Russian crude come in addition to
• 37:13
  the 25% duty already slapped on the imports of this South Asian nations after
• 37:18
  New Delhi and Washington were unable to finalize a trade deal.
• 37:23
  India strongly condemns the tariffs as unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable. Yep.
• 37:31
  Levitt's statement on Tuesday came hours after Scott Besant accused India India
• 37:38
  of profiteering for buying Russian crude and reselling it.
• 37:42
  Well, we talked about that story last week because India claims that the U.S.
• 37:48
  Is just twisting the tail, like everybody was all for it when India was buying
• 37:55
  and reselling Russian crude to Europe, and Europe didn't like it either.
• 38:02
  Europe didn't like that now India is being sanctioned 25% and they're stopping
• 38:11
  or trying to stop this loophole where they can sell it, but everybody knew the
• 38:16
  loophole was just a loophole,
• 38:18
  that they couldn't afford to cut off Russian oil.
• 38:23
  So when asked by a CNBC reporter why the U.S.
• 38:26
  Was not imposing tariffs on China for the same thing.
• 38:32
  Besant said Beijing's imports are suboptimal.
• 38:37
  He said, if you go back and look at 2022 pre-invasion, 13% of China's oil was
• 38:43
  already coming from Russia.
• 38:45
  Now it's 16%. So China has diversified input of their oil.
• 38:51
  If you go back and look now, India had less than 1% of their oil from Russia, and now it's up to 42%.
• 38:59
  Besant said some of the richest families in India made $16 billion in what he
• 39:06
  calls excess profit by refining and reselling Russian crude.
• 39:12
  What I would call the Indian arbitrage buying cheap Russian oil,
• 39:19
  reselling as a product, has sprung up during the war, which he says,
• 39:26
  unacceptable, except everybody knew that's what was going on.
• 39:34
  So we had some talk a little, a couple of days ago about Zelensky saying,
• 39:41
  we're going to buy these weapons, where NATO's going to buy the weapons and
• 39:46
  give them to us. You remember that?
• 39:48
  And there's now a markup, and Scott Besant and his genius again,
• 39:53
  we have the genius here, that Europeans are going to pay premium for U.S. arms.
• 40:01
  We're going to screw everybody on the way out of this war.
• 40:04
  The U.S. is charging European nations 10% for weapons they purchase for onward
• 40:10
  shipment to Ukraine, said Scott Besson.
• 40:12
  He added that the increased price would offset costs for any direct support
• 40:17
  Washington provides to Kiev. In an interview with Fox Tuesday,
• 40:23
  Besant dismissed concerns that U.S.
• 40:26
  Tax payers would foot the bill for Ukraine's air cover, said that President
• 40:31
  Trump's key goals has been to avoid sending money to Kiev.
• 40:35
  Right now, we're selling arms to the Europeans who are then selling them to the Ukrainians.
• 40:42
  And President Trump is taking a 10% markup. So that 10% will cover the cost of the air cover.
• 40:50
  The Secretary also recalled that U.S. and Ukraine had signed a minerals deal
• 40:56
  that would allow Washington to recoup its investment in the country's economy,
• 41:02
  but only once the conflict has stopped and a partnership has a chance to kick in.
• 41:09
  Wow. Trump discussed the potential security guarantees for Kiev with several
• 41:16
  European leaders on Monday, and he rolled out NATO membership.
• 41:21
  The Trump administration consistently opposes a blank check policy for Ukraine.
• 41:29
  And Trump said 100% of the cost of military equipment, most of which will go to Kiev.
• 41:36
  On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that Ukraine had proposed that the
• 41:41
  backers spend $100 billion on Ukraine and provide Ukraine with U.S.
• 41:49
  Weapons. So they're not attempting to end this war. They're attempting to spend
• 41:54
  another $100 billion and keep Ukraine, you know, dying.
• 42:01
  But strong, remember, as we said earlier in the show, they're very good at killing
• 42:06
  Russians, right? Allegedly.
• 42:08
  Trump claims that Russian President Putin is prepared to accept some sort of
• 42:14
  guarantees, short of NATO membership.
• 42:18
  But Moscow says that Western arms shipments to Ukraine are wrong in any form,
• 42:25
  and they only prolong the conflict, which I happen to agree with.
• 42:33
  I think that is absolutely the case.
• 42:37
  So hopefully we can do something about this war and do something about it.
• 42:46
  Continuing, because we'd rather this one was over and done. It needs to be.
• 42:53
  So I don't know. I think that there are some other stories.
• 42:59
  Let's talk more about finances, okay?
• 43:03
  The Lavrov is again traveling the world, and he's been to, this time, to Egypt.
• 43:11
  The foreign ministers of Russia and Egypt called for a ceasefire in Gaza during
• 43:17
  a phone conversation. According to the official press release,
• 43:21
  Russian minister Lavrov and his Egyptian counterpart.
• 43:27
  Really want to end the 22-month-old conflict and ensure unimpeded humanitarian access.
• 43:37
  That seems to be a common theme, does it not?
• 43:41
  This meeting came a day after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin
• 43:48
  met Egypt's ambassador to Moscow for talks that focused on the same thing.
• 43:55
  Now, somebody wanted to, like Trump 10 hours ago, Trump stated that Netanyahu
• 44:01
  is a war hero. How do you like that?
• 44:06
  I'm not so, I don't like that at all. There ain't no way the guy's a war hero.
• 44:13
  I don't like it. In an interview with commentator Mark Levin on Tuesday,
• 44:19
  Trump called Netanyahu a good man and that he's a war hero.
• 44:24
  I guess I am too, but nobody cares.
• 44:28
  I love Trump. He's always got to turn it over to himself.
• 44:31
  He also claimed credit for past hostage releases in the Hamas war,
• 44:36
  saying that I'm the one that got all the hostages back. I've had so many letters
• 44:40
  from parents and from the kids themselves and the people that got out.
• 44:45
  Yeah, but they're going to take over Gaza and turn it into a resort town, isn't that right?
• 44:56
  Here's an important one.
• 44:59
  European military stocks are falling on talks of Ukrainian peace.
• 45:07
  This should wake you up, right? This is what it's all about.
• 45:12
  It's all about the money.
• 45:14
  As usual, European military stocks dive bomb, defying much positive or much
• 45:24
  more positive broader market sentiment.
• 45:28
  You know, after traders assessed the White House meeting that brings fresh hope of Ukrainian peace.
• 45:37
  The stocks, S-T-O-X-X, Europe,
• 45:42
  Total Market Aerospace and Defense Index fell 2.6% on Tuesday as traders viewed
• 45:51
  the ongoing negotiations as a chance to take profits. Yeah.
• 45:57
  Shares in Italian defense firm Leonardo and Germany's Hensolt were down 10%
• 46:03
  and 9.5%. German defense supplier Rheinmetall and tank components maker Rink also declined.
• 46:13
  Any de-escalation of tensions between Russia and Europe and talk of spending more on U.S.
• 46:20
  Equipment is negative for these European countries. Ha ha ha ha.
• 46:26
  Gee, you think? Yeah, we have to sell, we have to, 100 billion and you got to
• 46:31
  buy it all through the U.S.
• 46:33
  So that the U.S. can supply the weapons. That's pretty comical.
• 46:37
  Well, it's not, it's terrible.
• 46:39
  Here's one that I particularly liked. There's a couple of them that I want to get to.
• 46:45
  One of them has to do with what I told you about last week when we were discussing,
• 46:51
  Putin coming to Alaska and the fear that, you know.
• 46:56
  Trump might pull something on this ICC arrest warrant, right?
• 47:01
  I mean, he didn't. I didn't think he would for real, but it was certainly a concern to think about.
• 47:09
  So this ICC, International Criminal Court, arrest warrant has always been a war.
• 47:16
  And so the credibility of the ICC has been severely undermined by Western efforts
• 47:28
  to wage lawfare against Russia,
• 47:32
  said a member of the European Parliament.
• 47:36
  A Luxembourg, Fernand Kartheiser,
• 47:41
  made the comments after Switzerland offered to host Ukrainian peace talks and
• 47:47
  suggested that Russian President Putin would receive immunity from an international
• 47:53
  criminal court arrest warrant against him.
• 47:57
  So Switzerland, in order to have, you know, prime location for having these
• 48:03
  talks between Putin and the Green Goblin, said, we won't enforce it against you. Come on down.
• 48:12
  You're the next contestant. The ICC He announced this warrant in March of 2023
• 48:18
  and alleged the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine.
• 48:25
  Russia rejects the jurisdiction of this court, calls its decisions null and void.
• 48:30
  Kartheiser questioned the credibility of the warrant against Putin and insisted
• 48:35
  it was initially designed as part of a broader strategy to weaken Moscow.
• 48:41
  We had this diplomatic isolation, alleged.
• 48:45
  We had economic sanctions. We had military support for Ukraine and many other
• 48:50
  ways to weaken Russia. and one of those ways is lawfare, he said.
• 48:57
  He argued that this strategy has proven counterproductive for any diplomatic
• 49:03
  efforts to settle the conflict.
• 49:05
  We have a huge problem with the credibility of international jurisdictions.
• 49:11
  Well, gee, you think it's because it's all controlled by the same people?
• 49:16
  He also challenged the basis for the ICC's allegations, he said,
• 49:20
  despite claims of thousands of children being abducted.
• 49:25
  Ukraine provided Russia with a list of only 309 names during the peace talks in Istanbul.
• 49:32
  And did you notice the other day that the old Green Goblin brought that up again,
• 49:37
  said that there were thousands, tens of thousands of children stolen by the
• 49:44
  Russians? They're still making that claim.
• 49:47
  And he made sure to make it when they were all sitting around the table.
• 49:51
  I don't know if you paid attention to it when it happened, but Donald Trump
• 49:56
  in the meeting between all of the leaders of the Western,
• 50:03
  well, the European governments, allowed them all to have their say,
• 50:08
  and he even let the Green Goblin say something, and the Goblin spent half of
• 50:13
  his time speaking about children that were stolen,
• 50:18
  and the large number,
• 50:21
  but nobody can back it up.
• 50:25
  And this guy says, this member of parliament says,
• 50:30
  I don't think you can continue to argue that there's been a systematic abduction
• 50:36
  of Ukrainian children, so I think there's an issue with the credibility of the
• 50:42
  arrest warrant by the ICC as well.
• 50:46
  Kartheiser told a reporter that Switzerland's proposal to host the summit is
• 50:53
  an attempt to restore its own neutrality and argued that Ukraine should hold elections.
• 50:59
  Well, people are starting to call for that more and more, including the old
• 51:05
  Trumpster the other day when they were making some jokes about that.
• 51:11
  It'd be nice to see something end this. War.
• 51:17
  Mm-hmm. Here's one. Russia,
• 51:22
  according to Lavrov, is now ready to upgrade the level of its direct talks with
• 51:29
  Kiev, and it could address the political,
• 51:33
  military, and humanitarian aspects of this conflict, he says.
• 51:39
  They're raising the status of the delegation.
• 51:43
  Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Lavrov said the idea was floated by Putin following
• 51:49
  his phone call with Trump on Monday, and he went on to ask the U.S.
• 51:54
  President, who was holding talks with Zelensky.
• 51:57
  It is unclear whether Lavrov's reference to elevating the delegation was hinting
• 52:04
  at the possible of Putin and Zelensky talks.
• 52:08
  Lavrov added that the new status of delegation would also imply the review of
• 52:14
  a separate block of questions to address political aspects of conflict resolution
• 52:20
  alongside the military and humanitarian issues.
• 52:26
  He said Russia suggested forming three work groups to discuss this agenda during
• 52:32
  the latest rounds of direct talks. notes that Kyiv has not responded as of yet.
• 52:39
  So, I don't know. Meanwhile, the U.S., according to Trump, is trying to maintain
• 52:48
  a realistic pose about Ukrainian peace.
• 52:54
  I suppose, to steal the words from somebody, some other diplomatic,
• 53:01
  I don't know, spokesperson.
• 53:05
  I'm cautiously optimistic that perhaps something will happen,
• 53:11
  but I don't think Washington really expects a swift resolution of the Ukraine conflict.
• 53:19
  You know, let's see, where are we? On Monday, Trump summoned Zelensky to the
• 53:24
  White House, and he talked to everyone else.
• 53:29
  People are stressing that the Ukraine conflict, this is the White House,
• 53:33
  is not going to happen overnight.
• 53:37
  We're also talking about peace in the Middle East, and peace is prospect.
• 53:42
  You know, I don't know that there's any deadline yet.
• 53:47
  I kind of thought that they might do something after Trump said,
• 53:51
  you know, we could get together as early as next Friday, when he said that last Friday. You know?
• 53:59
  And now Trump is kind of backtracking just a little bit.
• 54:04
  President Trump said it would be better if Putin and Zelensky met without him so far.
• 54:14
  He said that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine should meet one-on-one before
• 54:19
  any sort of potential three-way peace summit.
• 54:22
  And he's been pretty consistent about that, about them wanting to meet.
• 54:28
  And so he's had two successful meetings and he thought it would be better if
• 54:33
  they met without him just to see what goes on he said that also on Mark Levin's show.
• 54:43
  You know they have a hard relationship very bad,
• 54:47
  very bad relationship and now we'll see how they do and if necessary it probably
• 54:53
  would be but if necessary I'll go and I'll probably be able to get the deal closed, he said.
• 55:00
  Of course. Zelensky said to reporters on Monday that he's ready for this meeting with Putin.
• 55:07
  The Kremlin hasn't yet commented.
• 55:10
  So we shall see what happens.
• 55:15
  But Keith Kellogg, who, I don't know, I don't really care for Keith Kellogg.
• 55:21
  I think everybody knows that. He has told Alaska Summit critics to shut up.
• 55:29
  Yeah, the two presidents met in Anchorage last week.
• 55:33
  He said, we're living in a really historic time, he told Fox Business on Wednesday.
• 55:39
  To the critics, I'd probably like to just say, oh, shut up and go sit in the corner.
• 55:45
  He stressed that Trump had done more to address the conflict than his predecessor,
• 55:50
  Joe Biden, who had never even talked to Putin.
• 55:54
  Well, how do you not agree with that? But sending Kellogg over,
• 55:59
  that's probably a bad plan too.
• 56:02
  Under the previous administration, which completely rejected dialogue with Moscow,
• 56:09
  Trump is banking on his negotiating style and is pushing hard for a diplomatic
• 56:16
  solution, according to Kellogg.
• 56:19
  Russian officials, including Putin, have repeatedly welcomed the U.S.
• 56:25
  President's sincere desire to achieve peace.
• 56:29
  Well, I really hope it works.
• 56:34
  I truly do.
• 56:37
  And I think we got a shot at it this time. I think we do. and I think we'll
• 56:44
  see something come of this.
• 56:49
  I'm not sure, and I've been putting a lot up and trying to find some research
• 56:54
  with my own AI, trying to figure out whether there's any potential or possibility for the...
• 57:06
  Maybe not the coalition of the willing, but what are you going to do about peacekeeping?
• 57:11
  What are you going to do about security guarantees?
• 57:15
  Where are they going to come from? I'm not so sure that Russia, and according to Trump,
• 57:24
  Putin had said that he would make some movement on security guarantees.
• 57:31
  But when Europe came to the table on Monday, and they were talking about these security guarantees,
• 57:41
  they all seemed to jump right on board with the peacekeeping and sending troops.
• 57:48
  And Trump's saying, we're going to provide $100 million worth of,
• 57:53
  well, he didn't say that, but Zelensky's asking for it.
• 57:57
  And Trump basically said, well, if we give you any weapons, we're not going
• 58:01
  to give them to you. we're going to sell them to NATO, who can give them to you.
• 58:06
  So if that's the security guarantee,
• 58:11
  is selling them or continuing to sell them weapons, I wonder if it's really
• 58:18
  any sort of security guarantee at all,
• 58:21
  or if it's another harpoon in the whale of peace,
• 58:27
  you know, whether it's really going to happen.
• 58:30
  I'm not so sure I see it happening as they think it might happen.
• 58:41
  I really hope it comes out, but so far I haven't seen anything,
• 58:48
  no detail, no nothing, in order to get us there.
• 58:53
  Everybody's just coming out and saying, we need peace, we need peace, and that's it.
• 59:01
  I happen to agree with that, but you've got to have a plan to get there.
• 59:05
  And I think the only plan isn't providing $100 million worth of moral weapons.
• 59:15
  That is not a plan because that will not end the conflict. It just will not.
• 59:25
  And so I keep trying to think of when we're going to see some sort of real plan.
• 59:33
  And has anybody seen one yet? I'd be happy to hear about one if anybody has it.
• 59:39
  We don't have anything that shows a real idea, right?
• 59:47
  The coalition of the willing is still out, claiming that, you know,
• 59:52
  their debate is still about how they have to have a peace agreement.
• 59:57
  To allow them to defend Ukraine, inside of Ukraine.
• 1:00:04
  And so this so-called coalition has been, you know, who is it? What is it?
• 1:00:10
  It's Western European people who say that they're willing to,
• 1:00:14
  and they claim it's got as many as 30 states. I don't see that. I see about six.
• 1:00:21
  And most NATO members, they say, maybe such as Ireland and Austria,
• 1:00:27
  they would commit to defending Ukraine or send some peacekeepers from their own countries.
• 1:00:35
  The U.S. wants no part of it at all.
• 1:00:39
  He wants to still claim it's Biden's war.
• 1:00:43
  If he takes one more step toward it, I think he may have...
• 1:00:49
  You know, pulled off a save there as the goalie, he may have blocked a shot.
• 1:00:55
  And because it was quick becoming, in fact, I think I said it was turning into
• 1:01:02
  and may have been his war when we were talking about it before.
• 1:01:08
  I think if he'd have gone forward with the sanctions on Russia,
• 1:01:12
  that it would have been officially his war.
• 1:01:15
  I think that's probably the case that had he gone there.
• 1:01:22
  But the U.S. wants no part of being a Coalition of the Willing member.
• 1:01:29
  And without the U.S. backing this Coalition of the Willing, it's not much of an initiative to...
• 1:01:38
  Here we have Brussels trying to say that they're the coalition of the willing
• 1:01:43
  and trying to include the U.S.
• 1:01:46
  And European Commission Chief Kayakalas adopting a tough line against Moscow
• 1:01:52
  and saying there's going to be another, what are we up to, 20 sanctions,
• 1:01:58
  packages against Russia?
• 1:02:01
  I know the 18th is involved, 19th is on the table, and the 20th is around the corner.
• 1:02:11
  But even the major European powers are split.
• 1:02:16
  Italy and Spain both say they want nothing to do with it, so they're not members
• 1:02:20
  of the coalition of the willy.
• 1:02:23
  The ones who are are France, Germany, and Britain, and they,
• 1:02:28
  of course, are the strongest supporters.
• 1:02:31
  Why, we don't know, but they are. and London and Berlin have backtracked on
• 1:02:37
  their original proposals to put troops on the ground, but France is still all over it.
• 1:02:43
  And Moscow has said it will not extend native troops on Ukrainian soil under
• 1:02:49
  any circumstances, and it's yet another red line.
• 1:02:54
  And, you know, the Ukrainians, we don't know what they think.
• 1:03:01
  The last polls that I saw still had Zelensky falsely inflated, in my opinion,
• 1:03:11
  to still over 55% approval.
• 1:03:17
  And I don't think that's the case at all.
• 1:03:23
  So this uncertainty, you know, they're going to have to have some new elections
• 1:03:29
  before any binding agreement can be signed, any deal that recognizes any territorial loss.
• 1:03:37
  You know, the Z-man's not going to want to sign, and he's already claimed it's unconstitutional.
• 1:03:45
  But he's also said that holding elections is unconstitutional.
• 1:03:52
  And that's not true, because their constitution, according to the analysis that I saw,
• 1:03:58
  says that people in parliament don't have to be re-elected during martial law,
• 1:04:05
  but that you still have to have elections for the president.
• 1:04:08
  So I don't know who's being truthful in that or not,
• 1:04:13
  but it'd be good to find those answers out before you have people trying to claim peace.
• 1:04:26
  There was an interesting one that just came out from the FDA's website.
• 1:04:32
  I don't mean to laugh about this. it's really kind of pitiful that this is what
• 1:04:37
  we're discussing in these days of trouble and gloom in America.
• 1:04:46
  The story is entitled, Nuclear Shrimp.
• 1:04:54
  Imported frozen seafood is going to pose a health risk.
• 1:04:59
  The US FDA has urged consumers not to eat, sell, or serve shrimp frozen,
• 1:05:07
  warning it can contain a dangerous radioactive isotope.
• 1:05:14
  The FDA detected cesium-137 in a shipment imported from Indonesia and distributed
• 1:05:25
  under Walmart's Great Value label in 13 states.
• 1:05:31
  While no confirmed contaminated product has entered the American stores,
• 1:05:37
  authorities are urging caution.
• 1:05:40
  If you recently purchased one of the impacted lots of great value raw frozen shrimp, throw it away.
• 1:05:48
  Do not eat or serve this product, the FDA said.
• 1:05:52
  Distributors and retailers should dispose of this product and not sell or serve it.
• 1:05:58
  Wow. Customs officials first flagged the problem after detecting cesium-137
• 1:06:05
  in shipping containers in L.A., Houston, Savannah, and Miami.
• 1:06:12
  The FDA confirmed that at least one sample of spreaded shrimp tested positive for this isotope.
• 1:06:22
  Walmart has removed the frozen shrimp from its stores and instructed customers
• 1:06:27
  to discard them and seek a refund.
• 1:06:31
  And cesium-137 is a radioactive isotope produced by nuclear fission that can
• 1:06:38
  damage the DNA and increase the risk of cancer.
• 1:06:43
  Well, look at that. We have the first nuclear shrimp.
• 1:06:51
  Hmm. And there's spies like us.
• 1:06:55
  A guy named Mohamed Gajayev. He sought foreign citizenship in exchange for sensitive data.
• 1:07:06
  He's a former Russian MP, Member of Parliament, and was paid $45 million from the U.S.
• 1:07:13
  Government after transferring secret information to the West.
• 1:07:19
  In a transmitted statement on Tuesday, he said,
• 1:07:24
  The office said that Mohammed, who fled Russia in 2023 after the start of the Ukraine conflict,
• 1:07:33
  expressed readiness to cooperate with Western intelligence services in exchange
• 1:07:39
  for foreign citizenship.
• 1:07:42
  It noted that the MP received at least $45 million from unnamed American government
• 1:07:51
  agencies, adding that this was allegedly revealed by the U.S.
• 1:07:58
  Department of Government Efficiency.
• 1:08:01
  Prosecutors did not specify what information had been passed.
• 1:08:06
  However, wow, Godzayev served as Russia's tax authority in very senior roles
• 1:08:15
  before entering parliament and was a Duma deputy from 2003 to 2021.
• 1:08:24
  The West, you know, our media says that he has managed to continue his luxurious
• 1:08:31
  lifestyle with properties in both France and Miami.
• 1:08:36
  Geez, I guess you land on your feet if you got 45 million, you know? Unbelievable.
• 1:08:45
  One hour ago, Donald Trump told us not to worry about World War III. U.S.
• 1:08:58
  President Trump has declared that the world is no longer facing the prospect
• 1:09:03
  of the Ukraine conflict escalating into World War III.
• 1:09:09
  He says that global tensions peaked when relations between Moscow and Washington
• 1:09:15
  hit their lowest point during Joe Biden's tenure.
• 1:09:19
  And as usual, he is accusing his predecessor of provoking the Ukraine conflict.
• 1:09:28
  He said that the conflict was raging earlier this year and was headed into World
• 1:09:34
  War III, but that now you're not going to have that anymore.
• 1:09:40
  That's the nice part, Trump said, admitting that it remains to be seen how the
• 1:09:46
  conflict will be resolved.
• 1:09:49
  Since returning to office, Trump has taken a different approach.
• 1:09:54
  Well, it hasn't been different enough.
• 1:09:59
  I'd like to see him go more quickly.
• 1:10:04
  I think he needs to cut them off.
• 1:10:08
  As I have stated repeatedly, the only way that you're going to ensure that this
• 1:10:16
  war is over is cut them off.
• 1:10:20
  Because Russia's not going to just retreat.
• 1:10:25
  That's not going to happen.
• 1:10:28
  And I can't imagine that there's going to be anything so far this week. We got nothing.
• 1:10:39
  So last Friday we had these cool meetings in Alaska.
• 1:10:43
  Monday we had cool meetings with Z-Man and company with Trump. and then nothing.
• 1:10:51
  What else do we have? From the western side, we got, well, they're still going to be talking.
• 1:10:57
  From the eastern side, we got, well, maybe they're still going to be talking.
• 1:11:01
  From Ukraine, we got nothing.
• 1:11:04
  From Europe, we got, give us, you know, give us more, U.S., give us more.
• 1:11:12
  I'm wondering when this is going to be over.
• 1:11:16
  And so far, I'm not very encouraged. not very encouraged at all.
• 1:11:23
  So somebody help out here and tell us what we can expect and when this is going
• 1:11:30
  to be done, because so far I got nothing.
• 1:11:35
  I got nothing. Let's see if we can find somebody else who has a different point
• 1:11:45
  of view. Let's go to China, perhaps.
• 1:11:48
  Did you hear that the U.S. This was putting a tariff on gold bars.
• 1:11:53
  Jeez, I don't even think I'm going to read that story to you.
• 1:11:59
  But Beijing is hitting back at the EU over, and it has blacklisted,
• 1:12:08
  two banks operating in the EU.
• 1:12:12
  So, since the EU is targeting China now, Brussels had introduced its 18th package
• 1:12:20
  of measures against Moscow last month, if you remember.
• 1:12:25
  Focusing on energy and banking, it included restrictions against entities and
• 1:12:31
  financial institutions based in China, India, the UAE, and Turkey.
• 1:12:38
  And according to the statement released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday,
• 1:12:44
  Beijing included Lithuania-based UAB Herbo and AB Mono, those are banks,
• 1:12:51
  in its countermeasure list, immediately banning Chinese organizations and individuals
• 1:12:57
  from transaction cooperation and other activities within them.
• 1:13:01
  You know what was really funny?
• 1:13:03
  Yesterday while I was going through one of the sites, which was another kind
• 1:13:09
  of a fort, several hundred years old, had a big lake around it with a moat. It was pretty cool.
• 1:13:16
  Wandering around, there were a couple of Chinese guys speaking Chinese.
• 1:13:23
  And I started speaking to them in Russian
• 1:13:26
  and they speak Russian come to find out
• 1:13:28
  it's just like over here it's just
• 1:13:31
  like in the United States where half your
• 1:13:34
  college students are from China and they're
• 1:13:38
  being educated in Russia as well and so they come up here and they're learning
• 1:13:43
  Russian and they're going to technical schools and then they go back to their
• 1:13:48
  own countries And so the rest of the world is doing quite a bit about...
• 1:13:57
  Changing the focus on these. And so China has people coming everywhere.
• 1:14:04
  And we got to talking about sanctions as well with these guys.
• 1:14:10
  And they said that the U.S.
• 1:14:14
  Has started impacting some of the sanctions, and so a lot of the Chinese students
• 1:14:19
  are looking to go to other locations, including, clearly, Belarus.
• 1:14:25
  So, I don't know whatever these sanctions are doing, but China is kicking back.
• 1:14:31
  You know, in China, they've emphasized that the move taken by the authorities
• 1:14:36
  against Chinese banks are serious violations of international law.
• 1:14:42
  But the European Commission pledges to review the measures, but the bloc is
• 1:14:48
  open to identifying a mutually acceptable solution that could ultimately lead
• 1:14:55
  to the delisting of these banks.
• 1:14:57
  Well, that's going to mean quit trading in Russian oil.
• 1:15:03
  But with these banks being added to Chinese sanction lists,
• 1:15:10
  because now China and Russia are starting to use sanctions as well against other
• 1:15:17
  people, you know, they're...
• 1:15:21
  It's starting to take effect. So Beijing has consistently refused to join the
• 1:15:29
  West's sanctions imposed on Moscow,
• 1:15:32
  and they still maintain their close economic ties with Russia and call for diplomatic
• 1:15:39
  resolution of the Ukraine conflict.
• 1:15:42
  And I think they're going to be successful in this.
• 1:15:49
  The EU, meanwhile, is still wanting to continue to maintain Russian sanctions.
• 1:16:00
  An early report claimed that Ukraine's European backers have been weighing a
• 1:16:05
  phased rollback of restriction of its ceasefires reached.
• 1:16:09
  The EU has reaffirmed its commitment to keeping sanctions heavy against Russia.
• 1:16:19
  They're rejecting the media report that they could be eased sanctions in exchange
• 1:16:26
  for a ceasefire deal in Ukraine.
• 1:16:29
  The West has imposed this unprecedented number of sanctions on Moscow over the
• 1:16:34
  conflict, along with the 18th package and the 19th in the works.
• 1:16:40
  Sky News reported earlier this week that discussions had been held about easing these measures.
• 1:16:45
  European Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Ariana Podesta dismissed the report
• 1:16:53
  as pure speculations and told a press briefing on Thursday that the bloc is going to...
• 1:17:02
  Maintain pressure on Europe. She said work was underway on a 19th package.
• 1:17:09
  19th package of sanctions. How do you like that?
• 1:17:14
  These people are geniuses. The Kremlin, meanwhile,
• 1:17:18
  has called the sanctions a double-edged sword and warns that each package adds
• 1:17:25
  a new negative effect for the countries that are joining.
• 1:17:30
  Moscow says it has developed an immunity to such sanctions, and I think they
• 1:17:37
  have, and they're doing it by what we discussed earlier in the show,
• 1:17:43
  trading more in the ruble.
• 1:17:46
  Meanwhile, people who don't know what in the world's going on,
• 1:17:50
  like Zelensky, Lindsey Graham, all want to focus on more sanctions,
• 1:17:57
  as if this is going to do something. I don't know.
• 1:18:02
  I'd be happy to discuss it with them or to learn more about why they believe
• 1:18:09
  these sanctions are going to be effective. I don't believe they are.
• 1:18:15
  I don't believe they are at all back
• 1:18:19
  to the to the war portions there
• 1:18:22
  was a ukrainian member of parliament who outlined that ukraine has lost several
• 1:18:31
  generations you know we we have the news earlier that these 1.7 million troops have died in Ukraine.
• 1:18:43
  And this MP admits that the loss of several generations in the three-year conflict with Russia,
• 1:18:53
  and his name is Artiom Tmituk,
• 1:18:59
  And this came after the release of this more than 1.7 million troops info that
• 1:19:08
  came out, like I said earlier in the show, that these Russian hackers released.
• 1:19:15
  These enormous numbers of people that are died.
• 1:19:19
  But as Dimitriuk said, the list of missing today contains more than a million
• 1:19:26
  people, and of course these people are most likely dead, while their families
• 1:19:31
  remain in complete ignorance.
• 1:19:34
  The situation is tragic and it's frightening.
• 1:19:37
  He warned that villages had been emptied of men,
• 1:19:42
  including elderly and disabled, and that Ukraine is facing huge losses and a
• 1:19:50
  serious demographic crisis.
• 1:19:53
  We have lost several generations, he said.
• 1:19:58
  And he urges peace on the ground because both Ukrainians and Russians were dying.
• 1:20:07
  Reported figures far exceed official estimates.
• 1:20:11
  And like I told you before, old Z-Man says that only 46,000 have died since the start of the war.
• 1:20:21
  That is clearly not true. They lost 70,000 just in the Kursk debacle.
• 1:20:29
  So don't believe these numbers, not at all. Not at all.
• 1:20:38
  Well, let's see if we can get to an opinion piece here.
• 1:20:46
  Security guarantees are still what we are talking about.
• 1:20:53
  Security guarantees.
• 1:20:56
  What this means is a euphemism for Western Europe funding America's military-industrial complex.
• 1:21:07
  Pretty good analysis, by the way. Can the EU manage to go even a single week
• 1:21:14
  without begging to be cut?
• 1:21:19
  Spoiler alert, nope. This time, they even boarded a plane for transatlantic booty call.
• 1:21:27
  Security guarantees is what the Western European establishment keeps demanding
• 1:21:32
  for Ukraine, and it looks like Trump has found a way to monetize it at the EU's expense.
• 1:21:39
  The cost will be passed on directly to European citizens.
• 1:21:44
  When the idea of a peace deal was floated earlier this year,
• 1:21:48
  UK and France tried to hype up the concept of putting 30,000 EU troops in Ukraine,
• 1:21:55
  but only if the peace broke out long enough to render the exercise glaringly useless and redundant.
• 1:22:04
  The plan depended on U.S. air cover babysitting them.
• 1:22:11
  But EU citizens are unmoved and the elected officials who rely on them to remain
• 1:22:18
  in their cushy seats of power knew this.
• 1:22:21
  Apparently, a militarized and liberated Ukraine doesn't exactly sell well to the Europeans.
• 1:22:33
  Next, Western Europeans were carpet-bombed with stereoscopic rhetoric about
• 1:22:41
  the necessity to blow a ton of cash on weapons so that Europe could maintain
• 1:22:47
  its own security and Ukraine's.
• 1:22:52
  Without even actually being in the EU, Ukraine is already being treated like
• 1:22:58
  the free perfume sample tossed into every shopping bag at Sephora,
• 1:23:03
  the one that makes your groceries reek whether you wanted them to or not.
• 1:23:09
  And because Ukraine has become the rhetorically inseparable,
• 1:23:14
  the Eurojokers in charge started invoking a future Russian invasion date for Europe of 2030.
• 1:23:23
  It's like the new form of hypochondria, except instead of reading about a disease
• 1:23:30
  online and convincing yourself that you have it,
• 1:23:33
  they start believing that Russia was invading them just from observing events in Ukraine.
• 1:23:39
  This 2030 invasion propaganda seems to have originated from NATO think tanks
• 1:23:46
  like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
• 1:23:52
  which last year stated that 2030 is the date of Russia's military reconstitution.
• 1:24:01
  The RAND Corporation has also warned of a revengeist Russia in a report.
• 1:24:08
  The future of warfare in 2030 that will fight its own neighbors, Russia will.
• 1:24:14
  NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta then parlayed all this info into a demand for
• 1:24:22
  European members coughing up 5% of their own GDP in defense spending,
• 1:24:30
  up from 2% previously demanded by Trump.
• 1:24:34
  Sorry, I'm having a bit of a stuffy nose problem here.
• 1:24:41
  The euro clowns started trying to get buy-in through active audience participation,
• 1:24:49
  telling citizens to pack canned
• 1:24:52
  tuna and water into go-bags in preparation for Putin's 2030 arrival.
• 1:24:58
  They even floated the idea of citizens investing in special financial products
• 1:25:04
  to fund European defense.
• 1:25:07
  If you forego one Starbucks visit per week, you can help buy a whole tank someday
• 1:25:13
  for somebody who really needs it.
• 1:25:16
  Scary times, huh? Better obey Daddy Trump via NATO and pledge 5% of GDP on weapons
• 1:25:26
  while the local struggle to crank out baguettes thanks to insane energy costs.
• 1:25:34
  Maybe we can all make life easier for the clowns trying to triangulate all this.
• 1:25:42
  It became clear a while ago that this whole security guarantee charade is a pretext for weapons.
• 1:25:49
  Europe has even ramped up weapons factory production, according to the Financial Times.
• 1:25:58
  After Trump met with EU leaders Ruda and Zelensky at the White House on Monday,
• 1:26:03
  he wrote online that during the meeting we discussed security guarantees for Ukraine,
• 1:26:10
  guarantees would be provided by the various European countries with a coordination
• 1:26:15
  of the United States of America.
• 1:26:18
  Security guarantees have apparently now become a euphemism for Europe funding
• 1:26:24
  America's military-industrial complex.
• 1:26:27
  No doubt the U.S.
• 1:26:30
  Will be too busy with Ukrainian and minerals to supply the weapons themselves.
• 1:26:38
  So they need NATO to buy them.
• 1:26:40
  In other words, maybe the security around those things, why doesn't the EU insist
• 1:26:47
  on just being a part of the minerals deal?
• 1:26:51
  Meanwhile, EU leaders continue brainwashing themselves with their own propaganda.
• 1:26:58
  Peace must be achieved through strength. We must have strong security guarantees
• 1:27:04
  to protect Ukraine and Europeans' vital security interests,
• 1:27:11
  said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
• 1:27:16
  If we are weak today with Russia, we will prepare for tomorrow's conflicts.
• 1:27:27
  Crazy. French President Emmanuel Macron said, no weakness.
• 1:27:33
  Basically, we're going to say is that we want peace, but we want a robust peace, he said.
• 1:27:40
  He wants peace that punches potentially future adversaries in the face preemptively.
• 1:27:47
  And Trump seems only too thrilled to indulge and profit off of this EU self-imposed
• 1:27:56
  psychosis. Hard to not agree, yes?
• 1:28:01
  Because there's absolutely no realistic threat that Russia is going to attack NATO,
• 1:28:13
  that Russia is going to attack any European nation.
• 1:28:19
  That's just not going to happen.
• 1:28:22
  So at any
• 1:28:25
  rate I appreciate you all I thank you all
• 1:28:28
  for being here please continue
• 1:28:32
  to listen to my show at Sunday through
• 1:28:36
  Thursday 9pm Chicago time and
• 1:28:41
  always on the podcasts which are recorded at www.internationalflavor.com
• 1:28:48
  join me again tomorrow night and have a good evening.