Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : Our Week In Moscow

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Larry Johnson : Our Week In MoscowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Text fees may apply. Hi, for judging freedom today is Tuesday, October 21st, 2025. Larry Johnson will be here in a minute on our week together in Moscow and other relevant, even breaking news. But first, this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse. And look at where we are now, 37 trillion in national debt. Stocks at record highs defying gravity. So we're What happens next? Groceries, gas, housing, everything's going up.

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Is it too late to buy or is it just the money? right time call my friends at lear capital to find out ask questions get the free information there's no pressure and that's why i buy my gold and silver from lear and right now you can get up to twenty thousand dollars in bonus medals with a qualified purchase call 800511 4620 or go to lear judge nap dot com today larry welcome here my dear friend thank you for accommodating my schedule, as always, the matter of where... You're accommodating mine. Let's be honest about this. I was about the matter where you are or I might be.

We were, of course, next door neighbors for a week at a lovely hotel in Moscow, about which more in a minute. Let's get right to the breaking news. The breaking news and our end of the world, and yours, of course, is the cancellation. I don't know if it's a permanent cancellation, but the cancellation of the meeting in Budapest between President Trump and President Putin. This apparently occurred after our mutual friend Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke with Secretary Rubio, and Rubio indicated some demands or positions that were so at odds with the Russians

that decided wasn't time to meet. What's your take? What's your understanding, Larry? Trump administration needs to go see an audiologist, you know, one of those ear doctors, the checks they're hearing, because Russia's position has been quite clear, very firm, no vacillation since June 14th of 2024. So we're now, what, a year and five months after that? And their position was this.

First of all, the West is going to recognize Danes, Le Hans, Persons, Zaporisha, and Crimea, as permanent part of Russia's territory, that Ukrainian troops that are on Russian territory in Zaporizia and Hearsan and what's left in Donetsk, that they will vacate that, leave it, and then on top of that, NATO will agree that they will have no more relationship with Ukraine. Then we can talk. We can figure out what the peace agreements are, what the relationship is. Russians have been saying that all along. I don't know what it is with the Trump people. They have a learning disability.

They can't hear properly. They have trouble reading. I mean, the fact that they're acting like this is a surprise shows they haven't been paying attention. I was taken by Foreign Minister Lavrov's phrase that Russia has consistently called for addressing the root causes of the special. military operation. We could probably put those root causes in one acronym, NATO. And instead of wanting to discuss NATO, the Americans wanted a ceasefire before serious and meaningful conversations. When did this come up? Did they even, did the U.S. even demand this in Alaska, as far as we know? Well, no, in fact, in Alaska, Donald Trump made it very clear

at the press conference with Putin, that a ceasefire wasn't the way to go, that there had to be negotiations about the long-term solution. So he had actually come around to what the Russians have been calling for all along. No, none of this Kellogg, Captain Kellogg nonsense about a temporary or permanent ceasefire in place. Russia is not going to have a ceasefire in place. Number one, they're winning on the battlefield. They continue to advance. all across a front concentrating operations in ways that they never have in the last two years or three years for that matter so this is not a new position what the only thing that's new is the fact that the trump administration again they they didn't listen to what was said in alaska

they've not paid attention to what lavrov Putin peskov uh zakharov zaka zakov uh all of them have said. It's, you know, I, I'm mystified. My take on this before was that, you know, they'd meet in Budapest, and maybe discuss, hey, let's name our ambassadors so we will be in constant communication. Right, right. Let's upgrade relations. Let's, you know, let's settle, return our property that you, the United States have taken illegally, you know, to start, hey, let's have direct flights between Moscow and New York or Washington. in D.C. Let's stop with the travel bans. But, you know, here's Trump missing an opportunity to have an opportunity to make peace. You and I spoke with some rather significant people,

and we heard many times the disappointment, I'm speaking, the Russian disappointment, that those initial steps weren't even taken. There's the U.S. Embassy. It's empty. It's a magnificent complex. It's only a half dozen people working there. It takes you for forever to get a visa. They could have resolved the type of thing you're talking about. Direct flights, direct communications, allow my Amex card to work in Moscow, fill the embassies with people,

return the seized assets. Trump could have done that with a phone call. While we've been on the air, and I have more questions for you, Chris points out to me a statement in today's Hindustan Times, It's very interesting. It's going to bring in Venezuela, Larry. Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Rubikov, whom you've met, had accused Western media of spreading fake news and chasing sensational headlines

over the upcoming Putin-Trump summit in Budapest. This is before it was canceled. So earlier today, your time. Speaking in Moscow, Ribikov said the Kremlin remains committed to strengthening ties with Venezuela and dismiss claims of secret deals. If everyone is working within their agencies, there is nothing more to say, he noted, urging calm and speculation. Rybikov's remarks came as global attention mounts on the anticipated Russia-U.S.

talks billed as Trump's most ambitious peace yet 45 minutes before the Soviet, forgive me, the Russians announced there is no meeting in, in Budapest. Does any of this surprise you? No, it's unfortunate. I mean, it is here is the United States and Donald Trump wanting to be the peace president. Russia is willing to talk. Russia's been willing to talk from the outset. As you recall, it was in December of 2021 that Russia submitted a proposed peace plan to Joe Biden, that it was completely rejected. And I did have,

have a conversation with the Deputy Foreign Minister Ryupkoff in Moscow in December of 2023. And at the time, he lamented the fact that there was no communication going on between Russia and the United States at the time. Now, since then, the Russians have been happy to admit, finally, they are in communication with the State Department, with the Secretary of State and with the White House. But communication is one thing, listening and understanding is a whole another thing. And the Trump and his team are failing to listen, failing to understand. They think that they hold some cards here, that they can coerce Putin.

You know, we keep hearing this nonsense. Oh, boy, the Russian economy is collapsing. Nonsense. This shows the United States people don't even know what a collapsed economy. is. The Russians had one in 1992 through 1999. They've been there. They've done that. They've got the T-shirt. I just sat in a traffic jam with our friend Igor for about an hour and a half getting from Rick Sanchez's studio at RT to my hotel. Because there were so many cars in the street not lined up to get gas. They're just going home. It's rush hour. You got to give Igor my best

I want to ask you about Tomahawks, but before we do, here's a noted Russian expert discussing Tomahawks just a few minutes ago. Obviously, we saw that just a few days after the peace deal was announced, it's already been broken. Right. And the Israelis are saying now they have a right to go in there and re-attack, which they have. What do you make of that? Well, when we saw the peace deal, the alleged peace deal at Charmiel Sheikh, you had Donald Trump, You had all the guests, you know, like a wedding. You know, he had the Europeans and you had the Gulf Arabs and you had a couple of Muslim nations, the Turks and the Indonesians.

You didn't have a bride and groom, okay? Right. There wasn't the Gaza bride and the Israeli group. It's like the in-laws decided to. Yeah, so we're going to have a wedding ceremony except there's nobody to exchange vows. Yeah. So as soon as you saw that, you knew it was a hoax. Yeah.

And I wrote about that on my blog at Sonar 21. And I said, you know, this is a hoax. And based upon the history of previous ceasefires, you know, at best this will last a year. Well, it didn't even make it three weeks. All right. We have a number of clips of you. I thought that was about Tom Hawks. But you have been consistent in describing the Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, Donald.

Donald Trump-Gaza deal as a wedding without a bride and groom. Since you and I parted on Sunday, we have learned of a Israeli general revealing off the cuff. I don't know if he knew it was being taped. Ray saw the tape. I just saw a description of the tape that they are paying. The Israelis are paying gangs, militias, terrorists, to start conflagration. even to shoot at IDF members so that they, the IDF, can have a pretext for invading Gaza again. This is no surprise.

You predicted this. Ritter predicted this. Professor Sachs predicted this. Professor Mearsheimer predicted this. But Donald Trump, as recently as 15 minutes ago in the Oval Office, taking credit for the Gaza peace deal. is there a clip coming up or you want me to respond no no i want your thoughts on that we're still looking for uh yeah no chris has the clip it was mislabel so it was it was it was johnson on gaza rather than johnson on tomahawks no look unfortunately don't trump's

foreign policy is performance art it it's all about showmanship with no substance or the the substances there is deceiving, deceitable. You know, this was, if they were serious about a Gaza peace plan, then they would have had the Palestinians sitting there with the Israelis in the same way that, you know, when it was Bill Clinton hosting the Egyptians and the Israelis in the Rose Garden back then. That was a genuine effort at peace. And note that both Anwar Sadat and the Israeli prime minister were both subsequently assassinated for making progress on that. And the fact that the Israelis are paying, you know, starving Palestinians to both kill other Palestinians as well as to take pot shots at Israelis so that the Israelis have a justification to shoot destroy.

And according to this general, and I don't know if he knew he, was being taped, and this is scurrilous, and you know Ray on this, this drove him up the wall. They're paying these militias to steal food, to steal food from their starving fellow Palestinians. Yeah, so they can then claim that it's the Palestinians stealing the food. And it's all, look, we've known now for years that in the early days of Hamas, they were being paid for by Israel because Israel wanted to use them to sabotage any chance at the peace process. And what the Zionists never countered on was the fact that the Palestinians and Hamas in particular were sincere about wanting to have a homeland and that they would negotiate for it

if possible. But if they had to, they'd fight for. And fighting they are. And Israel has completely failed to disarm Hamas after two years where Israel's had every military advantage in the war. And it's just sad. But, you know, this ties in back to Trump's policy in Russia with the tomahawks. Because once again, I have never seen, I have had extensive conversations today in the last two days with nine different people, including the head of the Communist Party in Russia, who's, you know, they're the largest opposition party that operates in Russia, with the former prime minister of Ukraine, who served as prime minister in Ukraine from 210 to 2014, just before the Maidan, as well as a couple of different generals, including

Opti al-Aludinov, who was sort of, we call him the hero of cursed. with whom you dined the other night. Yes, yes, that was quite an experience. I was excluded. Now, I'm only kidding. I was in my way to the airport. You were invited. You just had a plane to catch.

Yes. But they all are expressing a lot of consternation about the tomahawks because they can't guarantee that the tomahawk is not carrying a nuclear weapon. Right. I've done my best to try to reassure them that it was, that was dismantled and re-equipping them with that capability would take some time. However, Donald Trump, by his behavior, his inconsistency, his backflips, his lying has not given them any foundation for trust and belief that the United States would not do something

crazy. And therefore, if Trump somehow is cajoled into allowing the Tomahawks into theater, there is going to be an enormous blowback. Here's what he said recently. I believe it was either on Sunday or yesterday about Tomahawks in his conversation with Putin, the conversation that occurred when you and I were together in Moscow. Chris, cut number four. When you spoke to Vladimir Putin, did you tell him that you were considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? Are you still seriously considering that? Well, I've been asked by Ukraine if they could have tomahawks, and I'm looking at it.

I spoke with Vladimir Putin about it, not that he would be thrilled. It's a violent, vicious weapon. But we have to remember one thing. We need them for ourselves, too. You know, we can't give all of our weapons to Ukraine. We just can't do that. And I've been very good to President Zelensky and to Ukraine, but we can't give, you know, if we're going to be short, I don't want to do that. I can't jeopardize the United States. When you and I spoke with Maria Zakharva, the chief spokesperson for the foreign minister, When I say spoke with her, we did a two-hour interview with her. We don't have a clip from it yet, but we'll get it.

She indicated what her boss had said, which is no, send all the tomahawks they want. No change on the battlefield, but a profound change in Russian-American relations. Yeah. What would that change in Russian-American relations likely be, Larry? It would be an end to the conversation. And it would be the Russians starting to strike back potentially at NATO targets in Poland and Romania. I, you know, I spoke today with a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was here. I spoke with a former general or colonel.

I did it. I spoke to a general yesterday, and then I spoke to General Al-Odinov the night before, as well as three members of the Duma, three members of the legislature. This is an issue that is a genuine red line, one that Putin is not going to back away from. And the U.S. government better understand that any attempt to introduce something like the Tomahawk, into the conflict at this stage will, could potentially trigger an expanded war, possibly going into World War III. The Russians are serious about this. Here you are with Rick Sanchez on RT. That's Russia today. These are the people that invited Larry and me and Ritter and others to Moscow.

this is a international broadcast medium that has an enormous, enormous reach. Here's what they heard from Larry a few minutes ago. You know, it would be one thing, you know, they've been pushing to get the tomahawk missiles. And I realize one of the things I've learned this week, across the board in Russia, there's genuine concern about if the United States deployed those tomahawks, that would be seen as crossing a... red line, a genuine red line. Now, I tried to provide some reassurance that the Tomahawk is, there was a time when it could carry a nuclear warhead, but those were dismantled under the

INF Treaty, and we've seen no evidence that the United States has tried to reverse that process. So what you wind up with is about a 300 pound of explosive on a cruise missile that travels subsonic speed. Heading toward Moscow? Well, no, they could do pinpoint damage. Yeah. You know, it could blow some windows out in the Kremlin, for example. It could take out Lenin's tomb.

But it doesn't accomplish anything militarily. A good military analyst in the United States who's of Russian heritage. He pointed, he did an analysis the other day of one of the major refineries in Russia and pointed out, it would take 100 cruise missiles. to destroy that one refinery. Destroy it. Well, the United States doesn't have a hundred, you know, tomahawks. And so that's the problem.

Do you believe Mr. Trump, when he says we just don't have him to give to you? Oh, absolutely. Really? They're both true. Yeah, finally telling the truth. My impression, not only from Maria Zekarava, but from the other Russians with whom we spoke, is that they get Trump.

They understand him. They know he's filled with bravado. that he changes his mind, that he makes threats, that he says this and that, I think 90% of this stuff goes in one year out of the others and out the other, with the exception of the Tomahawks, because you and I were deluged with concern about that. Well, yeah, if you, I was struck by his conversation with Maria Barter Romo, and he had the chance to say, oh, yeah, no, we'll give him Tomahawk, no, but, so he was careful to actually downplay that.

So I would take that as some further reassurance that while it was on the table being pushed by the likes of Kellogg, probably Rubio, and definitely Zelensky. But, you know, I did learn one thing today, Judge, about what's driving this thing in Ukraine. And that was in the conversation with a man, his name, and I'll have it posted in English, hopefully by first of next week. Vasili Vakarov. Vassili Vakarov was a prosecutor in Ukraine, and he said that the whole power behind Zelensky are these oligarchs who have been stealing billions. We're not talking millions, billions of dollars to enrich themselves. Zelensky is getting paid in the process. It's the best paid acting job he's ever had.

but this it is these oligarchs that are behind all of this chaos and mayhem that it continues to unfold and until that's addressed the the Ukrainians are going to continue to try to fight as long as they cannot because these guys want to continue making the money what's the money they are terrified in fact he said today he knows for a fact that they were terrified that this meeting and budapest was going to come off because if it did it might mean significant progress towards ending the war and ending their chance to slurp at the government trough of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Wow. So the money that the oligarchs are stealing is not from their Ukrainian treasury.

It's from money that Joe Biden sent their cash. Yeah. Wherever you live in the United States, you guys are taking your money. Your money is funding the lifestyle of some great rich criminals in Ukraine. Wow. The president was asked over the weekend an interesting question in which he acknowledges that the Russians are going to seize and retain some real estate. I was surprised at his answer, cut number five. Did you get any sense from Putin that he would be willing or open to the idea of ending this war without taking significant property from Ukraine?

Well, he's going to take something. I mean, they fought and he, he, uh, he, He has a lot of property. I mean, you know, he's one certain property. If you say that, he's one certain property. We're the only nation that goes in and wins a war and then leaves, you know. Like we did under President Bush in the Middle East, we go in. We blast the hell out of everybody, destroy the place, and then we leave, you know. Remember, I used to say, keep the oil.

But I really didn't say, I said two things. I said, don't go in. But then they went in. And I said, well, don't go in. But if you're going to go in, keep the oil. But we didn't keep the oil. What do we do? We go in, we blast it to pieces, and then we leave, you know.

Doesn't make sense, never made sense. Interesting part to me was the first part about retaining the property. I mean, that I think it's the first time I've heard Trump recognize the realism, using a Mirschimer word, of one of Putin's consistent demands. We're going to liberate the Russian speaking and historic. Russian real estate that Ukraine claims is theirs and on which Ukraine is attempting to kill Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Right.

Well, and Putin and the General Gerasimov, who heads up the general staff, the General of the Army, have since updated that, they said, look, if you don't take the negotiated deal that we're offering, you know, accept the five pieces of territory that are now part of the Russian federation and get the hell to have nato get the hell out of our territory then the next step will be we will take additional territory and what they're talking about karkiv in the north sumi potava nepro petrovs and odessa in the south they will take that and frankly judge i think you know we'll write this down see if i am correct but my prediction is this war will continue until the Russians have secured all of that territory that is east of the Nipa River

as well as Kiev. They will take Kiev, they will take Odessa, and there will not be much left of Ukraine. In fact, the former prime minister that I spoke with today, how's that all? He pointed out, he said, look, when I took office in 2010, he said, there were 57 million Ukrainians. He says, today, 20 million. 20 million. That wasn't me. That was him. Wow.

You know, you don't see that in the Western press. Not at all. You don't see it at all. The Western press would make it sound like all is well if you're not on the battlefield. So we're obviously not talking about deaths. We're talking about people who have fled the country, either to avoid force conscription or to avoid death. and destruction.

Well, in fact, I told him, I said, well, I said, Mr. Prime Minister, I can sort of confirm that my dentist left Ukraine four years ago, and I had a guy under repair my refrigerator six months ago. He was from Ukraine as of two years ago. Wow. Well, will we see you for the roundtable, or are you traveling Friday? Nope, I will be at the roundtable. I'll be up late. I think. The return flight is still up in the air. All right. Well, I hope you have better luck than I did. I obviously made it in one piece, and it was ultimately comfortable, but it was just 24 hours late.

What are you going to do? So I keep thinking today is Monday. Today is, of course, Tuesday. But where you are, it's almost Wednesday. Larry, thank you very much, my dear man. Always a pleasure to be with you. Our time together there was very special and with memories that will not leave me. And we'll look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

I have trouble eating breakfast because you're not there to help coaching. No, the breakfasts were second than none, that's for sure. And we resolve the problems of the world in our 60-minute luxurious breakfast. True. All the best, Larry. Sleep well, thank you. Bye-bye. It was a great experience. Moscow was a beautiful city filled with hustle and bustle and tremendous.

activity and Mr. President, Donald Trump, I didn't see any gas lines and gas costs less in Moscow than it does in Manhattan. Coming up at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Matt Ho. At 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Joseph Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.