Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : Is the Kremlin Losing Patience?

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Pepe Escobar : Is the Kremlin Losing Patience?See 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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That's audible.ca. slash wondering. Hi, Hi, everyone. here for judging freedom. Today is Thursday, October 9th, 2025. Pepe Escobar will be here with us in just a moment. He's coming to us from Thailand on, is the Crenlin losing patience? And why is the Chinese middle class so prosperous? But first this. My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this. From October 10th to 12th, McKell Thorpe, host of the expat money show, is bringing together top experts from around the

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Well, I am in Thailand, in between trips. I'm waiting for a very important visa to a very important destination. For the moment, I cannot disclose it. All right. Well, I hope that you get the visa. Me too. I hope that we can interview you from that destination. But before we get to your travels and your observations in China, I want to talk to you about the latest in Gaza. Why should anybody trust the Israelis to leave Gaza and stop the genocide once their hostages have been returned?

and Hamas has put down their arms? That's the key question. We cannot trust them. Well, at least now we have three important two Arabs and one Turk actors directly involved, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. So we can assume that Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, considering that the prime minister of Qatar was directly involved, Erdogan himself was directly involved,

This is before the Netanyahu reduction of the Trump, the so-called Trump peace plan, which is not a peace plan, by the way. Basically, the only thing that matters is the return of the hostages. There's not a single coma about how people in Gaza are going to live from now on, where they're going to live since everything is destroyed, and not to mention the reconstruction of Gaza. So if the death cult in West Asia, decides to do something against the agreements, we have these three who will be exercising

direct surveillance. And of course, the president of the United States, with his eyes in the Nobel Prize, will be extremely displeased as well. Does that guarantee that the Descald will respect the agreements? No, because they never expect. Won't Carter and Egypt do whatever Trump asks them to do? Judge, at the moment, we cannot answer this question. Really, it's impossible. We don't know. And we don't know the degree of commitment, especially Egypt, which is also a shape-shifting enterprise.

Right. Here, O'Conn, business relations with Israel were not touched by the genocide. He continued to have the BTC oil pipeline transporting oil from Azerbaijan through the BTC to Israel, which is 40% of Israel energy needs. So nothing has changed. So these are very dubious, to say the least, characters. Perhaps the most trustworthy in the situation is Qatar, because Qatar had been helping Hamas for a long time

and the Hamas political office in... And what happens if Netanyahu attacks Carter again? Once again, Judge, this is an excellent question, but we don't know. How not only Qatar, but the other players in leading to the agreements, how they're going to react and the Arab world as a whole? Well, at least I would say that the desk also will be definitively unmasked. They are already definitively amassed. That would be an extra unmasking, in fact.

But we are, I think, evading the key question. Why now? this is an enormous piece of theater with different layers in fact it's like Anaristophani's Greek tragic comic endeavor and more tragic than comic in fact Netanyahu gets some respite he deviates the attention from the genocide so now all over the world people are not talking about the genocide

for the past few hours or day or so. They are talking about the so-called ceasefire, peace plan, et cetera. Trump has his sights on the Nobel Peace Prize, which is going to be announced if I'm not mistaken tomorrow. So probably he's not going to get it. Maybe he's going to get it next year. And, of course, what is the main subject, considering the desk cult in West Asia and the support

and the symbiosis in the axis of Zionists between the United States and Israel, a possible attack on Iran. This is the main subject, and this is what they're going to concentrate on from now on. Reports have circulated in the West that on October 7th, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called President Putin and attempted to get him to cancel his plans to say, deliver anti-missile defenses to Iran. I couldn't imagine that Netanyahu could talk Putin into what he wants. Absolutely not, but this is ridiculous. And this is spin and

bad spin and childish spin. Okay, Judge, I cannot reveal the content of our discussions. But before I started my travels in China, towards the West, I had an off-the-record lunch meeting in Beijing after the Victory Parade, Tianjin Summit, S.C.O. Et cetera, with So-Boh. Zoh-Boh is a former PLA colonel. He wrote an excellent book, which is a collection of some of his articles for the past few years, which, by the way, I was trying to find here in the best Japanese bookstore in Thailand.

not. And he said, yes, you cannot find my book. It's very hard to find my book. And his book is not on Kindle. Should the world be afraid of China? And during our conversation, what I can reveal is that China is helping Iran actively and not only diplomatic. This is as much as I can reveal. Okay. Much appreciated. I have another question. ask you about Russia. From the Russian side, Judge, yes. I'm sorry. I just got off air with my twice-monthly interview of the great game.

Dimitri's Symes. You know Dimitri. Of course I do. Yes. First question he asks me, is Donald Trump serious about giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? This is a very, very serious concern. And then he said, has he made up his mind already? But he just won't say.

And I said to the first question, I don't know to the second question. He said he made up his mind, but he didn't say which way he decided. I mean, what will happen if he authorizes this? This will accelerate things radically in the wrong direction, won't it? Absolutely, Judge. And I'll give you the short answer. And this answer was not giving by Putin during the Valdei. By the way, the Valdei this year was very disappointing.

Nothing important happening before Putin's intervention. And his Q&A was relatively mild and not as sharp as the previous ones in the Valdei and in the forums in St. Peter's World. We saw a Q&A where the questioner was one of our on-air colleagues, our friend, Professor Glenn Deeson. I thought Len asked a great question, and Putin gave a question. that's the answer. Exactly. Very articulate, grammatically correct, well thought out, but not groundbreaking. Not groundbreaking, exactly. And if you would ask, for instance, people at the top of the SVR or the FSB, what if they launched Tomahawks against targets inside the Russian Federation? Their instant response will be, okay, we go Orishnik.

and we go to Ershnik stores, the sources, and the sources we all know are NATO, American and NATO. So this obviously putting as a hyper, cool, calm, collected, calculating legalistic mind, he cannot say that in public. But he at least could be a little more emphatic these past few days, analyzing the possibility the new Tomahawk soap opera, let's put it this way. What he said,

if I remember well, for the past 48 hours, is if this happens, Russian-U.S. relations will go back to zero. Not in these words, of course. But most important, Judge, in my opinion,

is what Sergei Ryabkov, number two, foreign ministry, one of the best diplomats on the planet. This is what he said in the past 24 hours. He compared Russia-U.S. relations to collapsing building. And he basically said, the building is collapsing or maybe it's practically collapsed. For us, we would like to, of course, start rebuilding this construction. But apparently there's no interest on the other side. Ryabkov is a very, very subtle guy. This is his way of saying, look, the ball is in your court.

And if you throw a tomahawk ball, you know exactly what's going to happen. Are the Kremlin elites growing impatient with the duration of the war in Ukraine? Completely. Especially very powerful oligarchic circles, which Putin has to negotiate with. financial, banking, ultra-important CEOs of state companies, and obviously many of them were, okay, we know that for the past three, three and a half years. This is an almost war, their own definition in informal dinners in Moscow. It should have finished a long time ago. Why didn't we go for the head of the snake? Which is basically,

you hear off the record from people very well positioned in the whole intel apparatus and people in the think tanks who are not trying to play ball with the atlanticists which is the case of the valdi club i have many friends who are members of the valdi club and we discussed the valdi of the record as well they are two atlanticists and they are too accommodating vis-à-vis the west other for instance other centers of learning in Russia, they are much more, I wouldn't say aggressive, but sharper, understanding that Russian patience has reached its limit. And there are no limits to the Empire-NATO and the Empire-NATO compound provocation.

Tomahawk is just the next one. There will be others after that. Well, you know, Chancellor Mertz is talking about about a building long-range missiles. Will the Kremlin wait for those missiles to be aimed at Moscow and St. Petersburg? Well, they destroy the munitions plants. When I put that question to Dimitri Simes this morning,

even though it's his show, not mine, I turned to question him, which he left, basically said to me, what do you think? And the look on his face was, of course. We cannot say, of course, Judge, because the ultimate decision is Putin's. And as much as we have inklings of how Putin sees the war long term and how he sees the chessboard moving bit by bit, but long term, he plays long-term chest, 10 moves in advance.

He does. He also makes mistakes, of course. and he is criticized the major mistake was that he could have finished this war at least a year ago and he did and this comes from inside circles inside or around the top level but that observation presumes that his goal was just territorial if his goal was to decimate the military the class of human beings who would populate the military. That goal wasn't reached a year ago.

It's closer now. Am I right? You're absolutely right, Judge. The goal was never territorial. The goal explicitly via Putin and other people in the government. Demilitarization of Ukraine and demilitarization of NATO, which is in progress. Slowly but surely, a chameleon style.

Russian style. And denazification, which is a much more complicated process, which would take probably two or three generations. But the Russians want to start it now. Before we switch over to China and you just had a fascinating time in China, I asked you earlier what happens if Netanyahu attacks Qatar again. Chris took screenshots of the look on your face and on mine when I asked that question and you said, here are the screenshots. Excellent question. Look at the looks on our faces. We just don't know. No. No. I mean, the latest news out of Tel Aviv is that Netanyahu has postponed his cabinet meeting to approve the Trump proposal. Apparently, he doesn't have the votes.

We were supposed to get an approval today, right? Yes. Yes. So they've delayed that meeting until 8 p.m. Tel Aviv time, which is about 40 minutes from now. I don't know when and if that approval will come. Stodry, Jan Vibir, and their buddies could leave the government. Then what is that thing who do? Can we imagine, Judge, convincing those mega fanatics, part of the Descult, that we? what they wanted in the first place, which was destroy Gaza, kill everybody inside and annex Gaza. This dream is over, at least for now.

Yes, I don't know that even the persuasive powers of Benjamin Netanyahu, even the chicanery of Benjamin Netanyahu, even the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu could pull that off. No, it's absolutely impossible. And the fact that Netanyahu came out and said, that this is a national and moral victory for Israel, this does not even qualify as a childish joke. Yeah, yeah. First of all, because what they did is beyond immoral.

They conducted a genocide, thinking that they could kill everybody inside and annex lands that are not theirs. And second, this is a defeat. They had to accept Trump's plan or else. There was nowhere else to go. Scott Ritter was on with us, Pepe, about five hours ago. He agrees with you 100%. He said virtually the same thing.

Yeah. Exactly. And, of course, they want to deviate people's attention from the general side and concentrate on Iran from now. And that explains the time. Right, right. Switching gears to your trip. How prosperous is the Chinese middle class?

my jaw fell on the floor day after day because I saw the whole of China on the move even before the famous golden week which finished only it finishes today by the way finished yesterday I'm sorry eight days of holidays everybody in China dreams of it

the whole year and you saw whole families in their jeeps and SUVs discovering the West of China for the first time. It's something to behold. And this is something we discussed with Uyghur businessman on the spot. Something I discussed when I was still in the Gansu corridor before getting that. That's the central part of the Silk Road before you get to Xinjiang. These pictures that you're showing, I'm really pleased that you're showing them,

These are on my telegram channel, some bits and pieces of my travels. So you have ancient Buddhist cities of the 6th or 7th century. You have this absolutely spectacular alpine lake at almost 4,000 meter high. You have the Buddhist paintings in the Mogau caves on the Beziccic caves that are showing now. You have fantastic pasta, Lamian from La Mianne from La Jorne with special spices. And this beautiful bronze horse that you just showed, this is considered the absolute masterpiece of bronze, a craftsmanship in China.

It's in the museum in Gansu. It's the famous flying horse of Gansu, and it's literally a flying horse in bronze. Chris, can you put up the Silk Roads again? Yes, that's the flying horse of Gansu. So I'm telling you about the significance of these modern-day Silk Roads, the most western part of which is in Rome. So this is a map, Judge, of the ancient Silk Roads and the Maritime Silk Road as well,

going all the way to the now Swiss Canal. So they made a sort of mix of the ancient Silk Roads and the New Silk Roads in this map. It's in one of the museums. If I'm not mistaken, this one is in the Cian History Museum in Shanzhi. All these museums, not only they are, it's amazing. To get in, if you go there in the morning, there are gigantic queues because it's free. You just need to show your Chinese ID card and you get into the museum free. So obviously, everybody goes all the time.

And the collections are absolutely mind-boggling, especially in terms of Silk Road's artifacts, from, I would say, at least the third century all the way to the 16th, 17th century. This is our director of photography, Stan. He was shooting me on one of the lost cities in the middle of the desert. We flew a drone, and then the police came because we didn't have authorization to fly a drone and that was a major problem you didn't end up in jail or i would have heard about it i'm sure no no we did not they were very very polite but they said look if you do this next time you're

going to be in trouble and we said look we didn't know that we need an authorization because we are in a canyon in the middle of nowhere it doesn't matter there are there are cameras all over the place what is this magnificent lake this is the white sand lake in the pamir lands This is, when you leave Uyghur lands and you take the Karakuram to get to the China-Pakistan border, this is one of the lakes. It's at around 3,000 meter high. It's considered one of the most beautiful lakes all across Eurasia. And the other one is Lake Karakou, which is closer to the China-Pakistan border.

This is the Chinese doing their camel caravan outside of Duwang, part of the Silk Road as well. You see zillions of families queuing. you won't believe how you do it, Judge. I got a QR code on Alipay to get a camel ride. And when I got my camel, I was surrounded by 25 million tourists. That's how it works. Last question before I let you go, and I think I know the answer. How independent of the West is the Chinese economic prosperity?

Totally independent. I would say, Judge, of being on the road for almost a month, from the east to the west, because I started in Sian, which is one of the major cities in eastern China. And I ended in Kashgar, which is the fabled oasis, the beginning of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is an essential part of the New Silk Road. I would say that the headline is, how socialism. with Chinese characteristics managed to develop a whole region, the size of Western Europe, in only two decades. And now prosperity is available to virtually everyone. Wow. Fascinating, my friend. What a life you lead and how generous you are to share all of it with us. My pleasure. Come on.

Well, when you get to this secret place, please let us know and we'll interview you from there. Godspeed. Exactly. If I get there, Judge, the first interview is going to be for you. There's no question. Thank you, my man. Everybody loves hearing from you, and not the least of words. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody. Safe travels. Thank you. Bye, bye, bye. Great human being. So, so charming, intelligent, and lovable. Coming up this afternoon, more charm, intelligence, and love.

At 2 o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 o'clock. Professor John Mearsheimer at 4.30, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you. Thank you.