Judging Freedom - 🔥🔥🔥 Larry Johnson: Ukraine Attacks 2500 Miles Inside Russia.

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

🔥🔥🔥 Larry Johnson: Ukraine Attacks 2500 Miles Inside Russia.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 2nd, 2025. Russia is attacked 2,500 miles inside its border with Ukraine, and Larry Johnson is here to explain. 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, it's not too late for you to buy yours. The same experts that predicted gold at $3200 an ounce now predict gold at $4500

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Learn how you can store gold in your IRA tax and penalty free or have it sent directly to your doorstep. There's zero pressure to buy and you have a 100% risk-free purchase guarantee. It's time to see if gold is right for you. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent. Larry Johnson, welcome here my dear friend. What is your understanding of the who, what, when, where, how of this drone attack on Russian civilian and military? A Western intelligence operation planned and executed by the Ukrainians, but clearly the West was involved.

A Pyrrhic victory, a classic Pyrrhic victory, which means a tactical win but a strategic defeat for Ukraine. And candidly, the exuberance and the giddiness being expressed in the West over the so-called devastation of the Russian Air Force is just, it's not only wrong, but it's ridiculous. Yes. How many times have you seen the phrase in the past eight or nine hours, Pearl Harbor, as if to compare what Ukraine did with Russian intelligence about which more in a minute with what happened on December 7th 1941. Yeah well actually I think it's an appropriate analogy not in terms because

remember that Japanese attack was supposed to destroy all the US aircraft carriers and decimate the US Navy. What happened? Japan got its ass kicked because the carriers were still intact. And four or five months later at the Battle of Midway, the United States wiped out four Japanese aircraft carriers. So all these morons in the press using that as a metaphor or an analogy, obviously they know nothing of history. But I think the parallel is correct in the fact that the attack

of Pearl Harbor was described by Admiral Yamamoto as we have awakened a sleeping giant. Up to this point, Russia has been content to carry out the special military operation which means this has not gone to a full-fledged war footing. I think that's now going to change and and I think Russia's going to move towards a war footing which means targets that previously they ignored or kept off limits are now going to be on the target list and this is going to lead to greater devastation in the part of Ukraine because you know candidly

they may have hit or damaged seven aircraft and You know, I'm not trying to pretend that it was an you know, it meant absolutely nothing But what it did symbolize was These ship these aircraft were vulnerable because Russia's abiding by the Star-2 Treaty, which requires those bombers to be visible. Now that Russia, that the West is allowing them to be attacked, and I'll note that Donald Trump and his administration, oh, we know nothing about this.

Well, that's called plausible deniability. I guarantee you at least one, if not more, officers within the Central Intelligence Agency knew about this and may have even had been involved with the planning for it and the operation of it. Isn't it inconceivable that John Ratcliffe, director of CIA or Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence or Marco Rubio,

the secretary of state and national security advisor or president Trump himself did not know about this. How credible are those denials? Well, that's why it's called plausible deniability. Yeah, sometimes you keep the principles in the dark so that they don't know about it, because that's deliberately how they wanted it. Don't tell me about this. Just go get it done. How confident are you of the fingerprints of CIA MI6 and

perhaps a massage on this? 100% You know, just the operation of initiating, you know, turning the drones on, just think of the process. You've got them, you know, hidden under this roof, so the roof has to open up. That requires an external command. Now, the reports are that they were using the Russian phone network, maybe, but I think Starlink, Elon Musk's operation was involved with this as well. You can't rule out satellite communications as a source of overhead imagery. It was reported, and I've seen no confirmation of it, that Pete Hegseth was watching the attack real time. Which means he absolutely knew it was coming

off. And the Ukrainians had drones with other drones with video capability, which in part explains why you're seeing some of the drone footage that's out there. But some of it has also been AI gened up by artificial intelligence. Well, here's, here's the BBC version. It's a little under two minutes. Uh, Alistair Crook downplays it substantially. And we've been chided for even relying on the BBC. I'm not relying on it for accuracy, but this is what the West wants us to believe. And I'll be happy to hear your thoughts, Larry.

Uh, cut number one. Far from Ukraine's borders, an attack of astonishing audacity. Russian strategic bombers picked off one by one by a fleet of drones. Ukraine calling this Operation Spider's Web, personally overseen by President Zelensky. One of Kiev's boldest attacks so far, a reminder, despite Russia's overwhelming strength in numbers, that Ukraine is a resourceful, determined enemy. Sources say this took a year and a half to prepare. Dozens of drones smuggled into Russia, stored on wooden pallets, loaded onto trucks,

driven to distant airbases and launched remotely. driven to distant air bases and launched remotely. Swarms of drones picked up on social media from Siberia to the Arctic Circle. At a petrol station north of Irkutsk, a glimpse of the operation in progress. With smoke already rising behind, a drone emerges from the truck and heads off to join the attack. Moments later, another, and gunfire as police officers try to bring it down. Ukraine claims to have done a staggering $7 billion worth of damage and knocked out a third of the planes Russia uses to deliver cruise missiles. We know exactly whom we are dealing with. We will defend ourselves by every means available to us,

available to Ukraine, available to Ukrainians. Not for a single moment did we want this war. We offered the Russians a ceasefire. Earlier, a different kind of wreckage. This, the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, after the country suffered a major earthquake, offered the Russians a ceasefire. Earlier, a different kind of wreckage. This, the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, after the country suffered another major drone

and missile attack. Elsewhere, 12 Ukrainian soldiers were killed at a training base, the head of Ukraine's land forces tendering his resignation. What chance then for another round of peace talks set to take place in Istanbul? Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to be there, but after 24 hours of mayhem the Oman's for a breakthrough Maybe the only accurate thing in there is that the Oman for a breakthrough does not look good. Writers reported that they stopped talking after less than an hour.

But let me ask you about the accuracy. Seven billion in losses, one third of the Russian fleet. Is that accurate, Larry? No, no, it's not accurate. And note that at least two of the planes that Russia is, other channels are reporting up to seven planes were destroyed or damaged. And not all of the air bases that Ukraine claims were actually hit because several of

those air bases, their electronic warfare defense systems downed the attacking drones. But look, this is another example of again, Western backed propaganda. You know, that this is what the coordination of this with the CIA, that you know, this news report is just a case in point that it the CIA and MI6 through their information operations, you know, information warfare, they put this information out in order to you know expand it because what they're trying to do is Convince in part Donald Trump that boy Ukraine's got an excellent chance They can still pull this off and Russia's weak. Look, they can't stop it Just but ignoring everything that's taking place

particularly on the ground. So this was a PR black eye for Russia, certainly. But you don't win war on PR black eyes. You win war on how many people you kill on the battlefield. And on that front, Russia has a decisive advantage. Were there civilian casualties? Did these drones attack a domestic train line? Well, there were civilian casualties caused by a couple of the trailers. In one case, a driver had some suspicions like, this doesn't feel right. And as he got up to examine it, it blew up and I think killed him.

But actually, the civilian casualties that were suffered over the weekend came from, I don't classify, Russia's classifying this attack on the strategic air bases as a terrorist attack. I don't put that as a terrorist attack. They're a legitimate military target. Ukraine found out a way to try to attack. That don't put that as a terrorist attack. They're a legitimate military target. Ukraine found out a way to try to attack. That's not terrorism. The attack on the civilian passenger

train in Bryansk, which was caused by detonating a bridge, bringing it down onto the train, as well as another bridge that was blown up in Kursk. Those are acts of terrorism. Those serve no military purpose or the primary purpose, in particular with the one in Bryansk, was when the Ukrainians blew it, they waited until they saw that train coming, so that when they detonated the bridge, that the bridge would cause damage to the train,

and it killed at least 12 people. That was terrorism. If Hegseth did watch this and he knew about it ahead of time obviously if he was watching it, wouldn't he have had an obligation to inform the president? Oh again plausible deniability judge. There's certain things you don't tell the president so the president can legitimately say, gee I didn't know about that. Will the Russians ever trust Donald Trump? Here he is trying to negotiate with Vladimir Putin and his central intelligence agency is trying to blow up Russian assets and kill Russian civilians. I don't think the Russians trust

Donald Trump. They recognize, I think they understand Trump for what Trump is and and they're going to deal with him accordingly, but they're not going to take any of his promises to the bank. You know, Trump, Trump already really discredited himself over the course of the last week, where, you know, still he's not come out and denounced the Ukrainian attacks on these Russian bases, hasn't, to my knowledge, has not said a word about it. The only thing we do know is that Lavrov and Secretary of State Rubio had a conversation yesterday. So far, Russia has not released a readout of that conversation. I would imagine Lavrov and you and I know him, read Rubio the riot act. Yeah in in Lavrov, you know without yelling Without getting emotional but sending a very clear message

I see I suggested that maybe Rubio after the conversation had to go change his underwear but It is They understand that here's Trump who has been condemning Russia that here's Trump who has been condemning Russia over the past week for Russia's previous strikes on May 24th and 25th inside Ukraine without mentioning word one about the 1,400 Ukrainian attacks that preceded that in the week prior to May 24th. So you know I think Russia recognized that Donald Trump's not an honest broker, Donald Trump is not a objective guy in this process.

And I think they also understand Donald Trump faces many political constraints at home. But they would prefer to have a dialogue. And look, the good news yesterday is at least Rubio and Lavrov talked. That's a, you know, That didn't happen under Biden. Did the United States attack Russia? If I was Russia, I'd say yes. I'll take you back. You're the judge.

So if you've got a guy sitting in front of you who has shot a woman on the street and there's a guy in the audience The supplied this guy with a gun knowing that he was capable of shooting people that he was he was vowing to attack this woman Would you consider that guy in the audience equally culpable? Well, the guy in the audience would be arrested by the prosecutors and their agents immediately. Yeah, exactly. So it's that simple. We are accessories to the crime. Could you imagine, and you and I and our colleagues have talked about this till we're blue in the face, if the situation were reversed, if somebody sent drones into the United States to attack American military installations and destroy a train on which civilians were riding, our response would be over the top. Yeah, we'd be furious. Well, you know, we even saw it like after 9-11, we went out and attacked countries that didn't have anything to do with 9-11, namely Iraq.

So, you know, we use these things as an excuse. Russia is focused upon bringing an end to this, as they say, dealing with the root causes. And as you correctly noted with the talks today in Istanbul, it concluded at the end of the hour, the Russians, you know, Russians, even though I talked with Pep Eskobar earlier this morning and he said, yeah, these are dead on arrival, these talks, but Russia's not walking away from it. Russia's not gonna be the one said, you know, screw you, We're going to kill you. You know, Russia's continue to play, keep the high road,

which I think is just driving the Ukrainians crazy because Russia's OK. Now, next agreement we'll have is we'll agree to exchange bodies of soldiers. We'll call on certain spots on the front line, two to three days, ceasefire so you can come collect your bodies. Hmm. What kind of pressure is there on President Putin to send, and I'm just going to use this phrase as a metaphor, Ereshniks to Kiev? Oh, I think there's significant pressure. This is what's also sort of puzzling, peculiar and insane about the Western,

parent Western strategy that seems that, man, if we only get rid of Putin, boy, things will be okay with Russia. And it's like, are you kidding? You want to deal with Medvedev? What this illustrates, this latest incident, is that the public opinion in Russia is growing more supportive of harsher actions against Ukraine, not less, more.

And Putin, to his credit, is trying to keep those emotions from guiding and controlling Russian decisions. It sounds as though Zelensky and his colleagues did not consider the natural and probable consequences of this, one of which is what you just articulated, coalescing Russian, articulated, coalescing Russian, it was already coalesced, but reinforcing Russian public opinion being President Putin. I just wonder what you think President Putin will and should do. They're very close to achieving, you and Ritter and McGovern and McGregor have told us they're very close to achieving their goals on the ground. Well, you got to ask what is the strategy? You know, you carry out certain actions to ultimately accomplish a goal. What was the strategy in this to destroy Russia's strategic bomber force? Well, in order to weaken Russia so that Russia would feel

compelled to surrender? Well, if that was the strategic goal, it failed. In fact, you have to look at the opposite consequence. It has now emboldened Russia to pursue the war in a more aggressive fashion to the detriment of Ukraine. And that's the problem. What you have here with Ukrainians is lack, complete lack of strategic thought. They are all focused on tactics. You know, they've got, they basically have like the brain of a teenager. The teenager is thinking only about immediate gratification, immediate pleasure,

not thinking about if I do X, it's going to lead to Y and Z and what will be my preparations to deal with that outcome. So they are not taking steps to shore up their ability to stop the Russian advance on the ground. And now they have basically energized the entire Russian population to a greater degree than was the case, say, two months ago about the need to destroy Ukraine. And that's where this is headed. Here's a great military strategist from South Carolina. I can't even say this with a straight face. Cut number two.

We saw credible evidence of a summer, early fall invasion, a new offensive by Putin. He's playing the game at the peace table. He's preparing for more war. And I think the Senate is fed up with Putin. The American people see Putin as unreasonable. They say Ukraine is trying. President Trump has made that distinction real. So the Senate and the House of Representatives in the next two weeks

will be moving forward with a sanction bill that's bone crushing. Yeah, you know, Lindsey, Lindsey has been wrong about every one of his predictions with respect to Ukraine and Russia. I have it on solid authority that Lindsay is financially compromised vis-a-vis Ukraine and that that is actually going in the process of being investigated which will help explain a lot why he is just so blindly insistent upon keeping this war growing. I guess you keep it going if you're making money off of it it's a good deal but the notion that the Senate is going, I think the Senate likely will pass the sanctions,

it's not a sanctions on Russia, it's sanctions on India and China. And if they think that's gonna make India and China crumple into a fetal position and say, oh yeah, we gotta surrender to the United States, it's just going to infuriate them more. What Graham and his ilk do not understand is that this kind of actions by the United States are insistence upon being the hegemon, being the guy in charge, is alienating the vast majority of the world's population and

the countries that actually control natural resources. Here's counterproductive. Here's Senator Graham's traveling companion and new friend, the liberal Democrat, Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut in the same interview, cut number three. Putin is playing President Trump. He's taking him for a sucker.

He is, in in effect stalling and stonewalling, prolonging the conversation so that he can mount this offensive and take control of more territory on the ground. If I were President Trump I'd be insulted and offended by this affront personally, as well as to the United States of America. And America should be angry, deeply angry. In fairness to the two of them, these interviews were given before the Ukrainian attack.

I don't know if they knew about it. How could I possibly know? I'm sure they were briefed on it while they were there. Absolutely. You know, this is But okay America's angry. What are you gonna do about it America? Send them a sternly worded letter What America is doing is enabling the terrorism

facilitating the continued military activities of Ukraine, and basically ensuring that probably another four to five hundred thousand Ukrainians are going to die before this thing is over. So, you know, the United States is an accessory to murder. Larry, I know you're traveling, but I hope we can hook you up with Ray McGovern by the end of the week. Thank you very much for your time Thank you for the forcefulness and clarity Of the analysis you gave us today all the best my friend. Thank you judge Sure and coming up later today at two o'clock this afternoon on all of this and some Analysis on Gaza as well Aaron Maté and at three o'clock, and he's very hot

because I've been hearing, getting his emails all morning. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge in the Palo Tano for Judging Freedom. Music