Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Moscow's Silence/Moscow's Threats.

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Alastair Crooke: Moscow's Silence/Moscow's Threats.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 9th, 2025. Alistair Crook will be here with us in just a moment on what is Moscow really thinking about the drone attacks from NATO last week. But first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold.

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Al Steyer, good day, my friend. Welcome here. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. Are you, after examining for a week the various news reports and other sources of information available to us about the NATO attack on Russia using drones last week, and are you still of the view that this was little more than a pinprick and a PR stunt? Absolutely no change in what I said last week, except I didn't think I had said it was, I mean, I said it turned out to be a pinprick. But of course, the attack was much more serious in its intent. I mean, this targeted all five airfields, housing strategic bombers, all five.

Now, as it turned out, three of those attacks, for whatever reason, the roof didn't open, there was a malfunction in the system, but the attack took place on two. Now, what I said was in the sense that it was a pinprick in the way in which really the exaggeration of the amount of damage done was huge. I don't know the Russians say no aircraft have been destroyed. I would say that it's between three and seven, something like that, which were destroyed,

out of a total of about 55 of these big nuclear bombs. So it was a strategic attack on the triad, on the nuclear system. Yes, of course, it didn't work this time. It wasn't turned out to be a fizzle, I feel like a pinprick. But what if it had worked? What happens if it's done again with more success? You know, this is not something that Putin or the leadership can ignore. This is something really serious

because their own nuclear strategic doctrine determines that if a conventional force attacks their nuclear strategic triad then Russia should respond with nuclear weapons. That's in the change that was made in recent months. So you know this was a hugely serious thing. And I think what you say, what does it, what do they make of it is this, that in the subsequent conversation with Trump, Russia absolutely knows. Trump knew that America was deeply involved in it, and Trump knows that Putin knows that. And that is the basis of their discussion. However, Putin also understands Trump better than perhaps many of us do, and that he knows

that what you don't do with Trump is humiliating by exposing this, by saying that this was an attack, this was orchestrated by the CIA, by other intelligence services. Part of it was, if you like, part of it was certainly terrorist, other parts on the bridge and on, if you like, the trains were terrorist attacks. But the main thing was what was behind why attack all five strategic airfields? Well, Putin has got to say, is there something behind this plan? Is this a plan not just to have a if you like, a pleasant affair, but is this something that is going to lead up to the future that the West is preparing for war with Russia and wants to, if you like, identify ways in which it can target one component of its nuclear triad?

So I think that is the case. The other part of it, which gets messed up and gets muddled because I don't think people understand why he keeps talking about the Putin keeps talking about if you like the terrorist element of it is because Russia is in the process of moving from a special operation to a counter-terrorist operation. This is a procedural process required by law and implies different constraints. For example, in the special military operation, you can't target the leaders of Kiev,

but under a counter-terrorist operation, all that changes. There are not the same restrictions imposed. So this was a procedural way of doing it. He didn't go on about how America was clearly behind this and America and Britain particularly and others were behind this attack on the airfields because he didn't want to humiliate. What would be the point of cornering Trump at this stage? Right, right. Why humiliate him? When President Trump told the American public

that he told Putin that the United States had nothing to do with this, was he lying to Putin or was he lying to the American public or was he lying to both? You know, of course it wasn't true. And as I say, Putin knows it wasn't true. And he knows that Putin knows it wasn't true. And I'm told by people in Russia that this is the basis of their discussion. We don't go into these very sensitive categories. So it was probably made actually not only for that but for the American public but more important for the Senate and the others who do not wish to acknowledge and refuse to acknowledge that this is a war launched on the United States. I've seen people who say, oh no,

but perhaps America didn't know anything about it. It's nonsense. I mean, I know how the CIA work. You know, they don't sit in their embassies and just receive reports from the Ukrainians. They are probably on the other side of the man's desk. If they're not on the other side of his desk, they're in an anti-room next to them.

They don't sit far away. They're on the ground everywhere and in all of these bureaucratic organizations of here. And so are other intelligence services. So they're new. There's no doubt. Do you think that Donald Trump personally approved of this, authorized it, signed off on it before it happened, or learned about it when it was too late to stop it?

No, I think, I mean, I've seen Kellogg's latest piece that he put onto X Twitter, in which he says, well, you know, with my great experience as a general and a former military commander, you know, I found that, you know, innovative, unexpected, special forces type operations, they really can change the whole paradigm of a war. They really can do this. So obviously he knew, and I suspect that what happened was that, you know, we have this thing called credible deniability in the West where, you know, leaders are supposed to lie in order to preserve deniability. And I think probably his team sat with him and said, listen, Mr. President, you know, something bad is going to happen in Ukraine. Now, I don't think you need to have all the details, but, you know, this really may end up by putting pressure on Putin to agree to the ceasefire.

This is going to change the psyche of this war and actually put pressure on Putin to come to our terms. In practice, it's done the opposite. It's done completely the opposite because they don't understand Russia. Are the Ukrainians in their MI6 and CIA and maybe Mossad, I'll ask you about Mossad in a minute, collaborators naive enough to think

that something like this would drive Putin to the negotiating table rather than drive Putin to retaliation, serious, severe retaliation? Absolutely, they do believe in this. We've said, you know, we've had it from Kellogg several times, you know, we have to put pressure. The only way that Russia comes to terms with an adversary is under pressure, pressure, pressure. Yes, this is an article of faith in the United States, both in the deep state and in their security bureaucracy. Here's the X from General Kellogg.

I think General Kellogg is full of nonsense and you may have used the same word to describe him. I'll read it. This is his posting. field as seen by and he goes to a link this weekend. This event can be a forcing function for peace but both sides must remain committed to President Trump's mission, stop the killing and end the war. The guy doesn't want to stop the killing and end the war, he wants to keep battering Putin using Ukraine. Forces, you know, this forces the situation. Forces it which way? Well, clearly Putin agreed to the American proposals, Kellogg proposals for a ceasefire.

I mean, it's extremely stupid and not understanding. And what he's done, and I think I said this before, I found it when I was in St. Petersburg just recently, that everyone has now changed their view. I mean, even in liberal St. Petersburg, it's all clear. They say the war must go on. We have spent blood in getting this far. And if there was a ceasefire or an agreement at this point, that blood would have been wasted. And that what is more,

we will have to spend more blood in four years time when the Americans and the British have rearmed Ukraine and sent them on the next phase of it. So we are not, no one supports that. The troops on the ground, ordinary people, and everyone understands that, Putin understands that very clearly, that the war has to go on. So he's not under pressure any longer from people who are saying, oh well he's not doing enough, he should be moving quicker, he should be

doing this or that. He's not under pressure because everyone understands what he is doing is playing chess really with the American psyche. As I mentioned, he's trying to, that's why I'm saying he doesn't humiliate Trump. He doesn't say, in your nose, look, we know you were involved with all these things. We know MI6 was involved in that. There was no point in doing that because we know, and he knows, and this is a very important thing, that in Russia, it's understood that Trump believes this bill, this big, beautiful bill,

with, if you like, stuck at the moment in the Senate, I think it's going perhaps there today or something, this bill which is vital to keeping his very disparate coalition together, that if it doesn't pass or getting it to pass until it passes, he is hamstrung in his ability to be taken seriously by Putin. So he knows, and that's why I think he's now backing off somewhat from supporting Ukraine, because he knows that Putin knows that he can't move because of the bill.

They read politics, they read what's going on in America, and they know that with 80% of the Senate in favor of escalation as seemingly or in favor of sanctions on Russia, unless Trump can wind that back, unless he can come to terms and get his bill through, he seems powerless to Putin, to the rest of the world. He seems as if with no ability to actually change politics. Here's the first public statement he made about this. It's in the Oval Office on Thursday. You wrote a piece early last week

pointing out how odd and peculiar it was that Trump was silent for a couple of days. Here's how he broke the silence. Now, I suggest to you what he said was very childlike. And I'm going to ask you, how does the Kremlin read this? President Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, June 5, cut number one. But sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other and they're fighting in a park. Cut number one. Putin yesterday, I said, President, maybe you're going to have to keep fighting and

suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart, before they're able to be pulled apart. But it's a pretty known analogy. You have two kids, they fight, fight, fight. Sometimes you let them fight for a little while. You see it in hockey. You see it in sports. The referees let them go for a couple of seconds, let them go for a little

while before you pull them apart and maybe, maybe, and I said it, and maybe that's a negative because we're saying go, but a lot of bad blood, there's some bad blood between the two. Do you have any understanding of what's going on there? None, because I mean quite clearly for Russia this is an existential war and to categorize it as sort of children hustling in the playground is both condescending and humiliating towards Russia and the Russians all see that. This is why they're getting so angry. And I think I've described it before, that they feel, you know, the West, they just, they really are disliking the West intensely. So it was a terrible analogy to make. But the whole thing we've seen, they've, of course,

watching what happens with Elon Musk and Trump. And they see this as another child, some of the language was just like children or teenagers sort of squabbling and hitting out each other. But they see it as something much more serious. They see it as the beginning of the erosion of the Trump, if you like, project. Why? Because you have within that system, if you like, totally contradictory currents. You have the tech brothers who have a rather distepid view of the future, which is all about the future based on robotics and tech and control of the people. And on the other hand, you have the populists, the populists who want to get back a real human economy again, which is the opposite to what the Elon Musk and Drew and all his colleagues in that,

who want something quite different from it. Do you think that in the Kremlin, they are asking each other, who controls American foreign policy? Of course, because it is at the moment in a stage of some chaos. I mean, America has sort of three different visions about its own economic future.

I mean, the Democrats have the vision of Keynesianism and parts of the, if you like, the tech world, the tech oligarchs have a completely vision of extreme radical libertarianism, whereby the oligarchs are in control, like Plato's wise men who will advise America on its economic future. And then you have Trump with his own project, which is trying to rebalance, if you like, by devaluing the dollar and sort of trying to get a little bit of balance between an oversized dollar debt, global dollar debt that's sitting out there, a danger to the United States and a contracting productive base. And he's trying to, if you like, expand one and contract the other to get better balance back. Will it work? Russia won't know any better than I would do whether this is going to work or not.

But you can see these tensions and the complete, if you like, tension. Those tech oligarchs came over, changed Silicon Valley, changed and started supporting Trump. Why did they do it? It's a very interesting question. And I think one of the reasons that they did this was that apparently they'd done polls a little early and they came out so bad about the future, about American sort of feelings,

about oligarchs and about the business situation for people who lost much of their wellbeing over these years since the seventies, that they realized that they had to do something. They couldn't just go back to the old sort of Keynesianism of the Democrats. So they switched to the Republicans in order to try and think that, you know,

who can manage this difficult situation? Well, Trump was the only person they could think of that might find a way through this. So they put their money and their backing behind him, but it is a very contradictory sort of structure. Right. But back to foreign policy, if they just hinted and intimated something big is going to happen and they didn't tell him so he has plausible deniability, don't they humiliate him?

This is a major, major American, British, NATO orchestrated event and the President of the United States did not know what was happening? Is he going to keep the same foreign policy team? Is Marco Rubio running foreign policy instead of Donald Trump? I think, you know, what they would have said to him, I've been in these sort of meetings, they'll have just said, Tim, listen, President, you don't need to have all the details, but something bad, which is going to put pressure on Putin to come to our way of thinking is about to happen. But we won't give you all the details because it's better if you have deniability on this operation. That's very common. And that's probably what happened.

I don't know, I'm guessing, but knowing the background of how these things are decided, I would say that's probably what happened in this case. But clearly, those advices, I mean, and we've seen this from General Flynn, who's come out with an excoriating message saying how dangerous it was and do these idiots not understand that attacking a nuclear power's triumph, you know, can take you to war. Literally take it. He's come up who was his previous advisor, national security advisor. Here's what General Flynn said and I'm quoting from your piece entitled The Silence of the Bears, which

you published late last week. Here's General Flynn, quote, the deep state is now acting outside of the control of the elected leadership of our nation. These persons in our deep state are engaged in a deliberate effort to provoke Russia into a major confrontation with the West, including the United States," end quote, you might add, and the President of the United States didn't authorize it. Agreed? I agree. I think it's a pity that General Flynn is no longer in the team advising the president at this moment. I mean, what all he said, it was a long statement. It was very, very correct and very profound and very accurate

in his warning of what's happening. And the deep state, either they don't know or they don't care and think that anything that they can do to put pressure on Russia is somehow a good thing, is misguided and can take us into dangerous situations. What is more puzzling is why doesn't the president do something? I mean, I would say to the president,

if I were there, which I won't be, but I would say, look, why don't you just say, look, that presidential finding authorizing the CIA to be responsible for attacks deep into Russia, you know, it wasn't legal anyway, because perhaps it was signed by the auto pen during the last president's presidency, whether it was or wasn't doesn't matter. But I mean, you can say that and then you get out of that and say, it's over, it's done. But why doesn't he do something to do that? All we get is really nothing.

All this talk about the children on the playground having a good old scrabble with each other in the dust. It needs to have, he needs to have some structure of process leading to a relationship with Russia. I mean, there are various things, like saying the old finding is no longer valid, like saying, yes, we can have if you like direct flights. These things can be done, except he's terrified of the Senate, with 80% of the Senate opposed either to the Iran deal or to his deal normalization with Russia and want an escalation. This is very dangerous. So who's in charge of foreign policy? The Russians may be asking himself.

Well, not President Trump, but it will be split up between the deep state, the Congress and Israel. Osterkrupp, thank you very much. A masterful, no surprise, masterful analysis from you of all of this. Thank you for it. Thank you for letting me pick your brain and much appreciated. We look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure,

Judge. Thank you. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at two this afternoon, Aaron Mate, and at 4.30 this afternoon from Moscow on all of this. Larry Johnson, Josh Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC