Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Ukraine On the Brink

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Ray McGovern: Ukraine On the BrinkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, December 16, 2024. Ray McGovern will be here with us in just a moment on Ukraine truly on the brink. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years. Save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value. Just the cost of groceries is absurd. Let me be brutally honest. I think the dollar is on its way to being extinct.

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investing for over 27 years. They help me diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. You recently tweeted or put out on X your view that a series of betrayals going back to 2014 were the triggers for the destruction of Ukraine. And you listed them as Maidan, Minsk, Delaware, and Istanbul. I think I know what you're talking about. The most curious one is Delaware, and Istanbul. I think I know what you're talking about. The most curious one is Delaware, but we'll get there. Tell us a little bit about each of those and how they

brought about the destruction of this country. Well, Judge, there's a historian of Russia who has kind of put out a piece. His name is Gordon hahn and he's very very good he put out a piece calling these four things these deceptions uh the four for the four horsemen of the apocalypse in ukraine and he's right on the money uh so let's take them one by one he starts out with the maidan a disturbance there in february of 2014 arranged by victoria noland and jeffrey piatt our ambassador there and announced on youtube by an intercepted conversation a week or two weeks and a half before actual coup in the february uh 14thth, February 22nd it was. So what we have here is something that was clearly, clearly arranged by the United States. And we're still, if you're talking about deception,

Joe Biden called up Yanukovych, the president at the time, the president on the 14th of February. Okay. And he said, look, this is okay. You don't have to worry about it. Don't let your police resist these people. We're just trying to have a peaceful transition. And things were in place to do that. Okay.

And Obama called Putin, who was in Sochi, and said, not to worry, this is not to worry about. And so Putin stayed in Sochi. He didn't go back to Moscow the next year, the next day, the 23rd of February, when he had to figure out what he was going to do. First thing, of course, was Crimea. That was the first deception about which Gordon Hahn talks. The second one was Minsk, and Minsk is very simple. There was a ceasefire. There was an agreement back in 2014, 2015 in the Belarus city of Minsk, where both sides agreed to be a ceasefire, and there would be a change in the Ukrainian constitution to allow for a measure of autonomy for the Donbass, okay? Now, what happened? That was 2015. Nothing happened because the German and the French, I guess, was the guarantors didn't lean on anyone, okay? And so later, as the war began, Angela Merkel,

who was the Chancellor of Germany at the time, and Hollande, who was the President of France, admitted that this was just a ruse to give enough time to build up the Ukrainian army, to arm it and make it as good as any army in Europe. So Putin fell flat. They said that out loud and were joking about it. Okay. So that's the second one. The third one is what I take particular satisfaction in because you have to read everything, right? And I knew that there was this call between Putin and Biden at Putin's request

on the 30th of January 2021, okay? And he said, look, we're having negotiations coming up in Geneva. Look, you could really help things. You have the makings of a threat of missalry in Poland and Ukrainian. Would you tell me, would you reassure me so I can tell my military you're not going to got them into Ukraine. And they said, Mike Dodd, you better talk to Putin. You better talk to Biden. And so I did. Can you do that? And Biden was all alone, home alone at Christmastime, okay, the 30th of December. He said, makes sense to me. Okay, all right.

So the readout was, Mr. Biden said that the U.S. has no intention of putting offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. Big sighs of relief, big rejoicing in Moscow the next day, New Year's Eve. Putin's lieutenant saying, finally, finally, they're taking us seriously. What happened two weeks later, Lavrov meets with Tony Blinken, and he says, well, how about that? Well, we start negotiating. Tony Blinken, forget about it. He was without us. The president, he didn't have his advisors there, so no.

Now, we have every right to put offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. Now, we will if they ask us, and maybe we talk about limiting the number of them. But look, forget about it, okay? Now, in many respects, and Gordon Hahn suggests this was the last straw, okay? That was the 21st of January, 2022. Where does Istanbul come in in this history? Oh, that was the fourth indignity or the fourth horseman, according to Han.

Istanbul was the finalization of talks between the Ukrainian government and the Russian government, which started in Belarus, ended up in Istanbul. And in April, there was a initial agreement which said Ukraine would forswear any admittance into NATO. There would be a ceasefire for the Russians and the rest of the people concerned would provide security guarantees for Ukraine so they wouldn't worry about it. And there would be a certain demilitarization on both sides. Now what happened, Boris Johnson came in, and we know that from the

Ukrainian negotiator, for God's sake. He came in and said, no, no, fight on, fight on. We're good for as long as it takes. If you do this, we won't give you any more arms. And so Zelensky caved into that. So those are the four. On the Maidan, the second one, the Minsk deceptions, the third one, the fact that the U.S. went back on its word with respect to putting hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, and the fourth, when they had a deal, the Ukrainians and the Russians had this deal, it's in writing, and we have the attestation of the Ukrainian negotiators as well as the Russians won and was put the kibosh on six weeks after that war started. So six weeks before a half million Ukrainian soldiers were killed, six weeks before another hundred thousand Russian soldiers were killed. It could have ended right then, but it didn't.

Why? Because the U.S. wanted to give a black eye to Russia, wanted to weaken Russia. That was the name of the game. It had nothing to do with Ukrainian independence. How close is Ukraine today, Christmas time 2024, to the utter collapse of its military? Judge, there is a key town named Pokrovsk, okay? It's just on the edge of the Donbas and it's about to be defeated. It's the only lasting fortification and they had formidable fortifications, the Ukrainians did, before the Russian army can go to the river, the Dnieper River. So it really all depends on what Putin wants to do.

Now, we've been saying all along that Pokrovsk is the key. It's about to fall. Whether it falls in two weeks or two months really depends on how Putin reads Trump, okay? Now, Putin's got the high cards. Trump is smart enough to know that, but there's a degree of flexibility, and I think Putin wants to invite Trump into sensible negotiations where it will not be a complete victory for Russia just yet. There will be other things to discuss like Odessa. Remember when I mentioned Odessa, Putin mentioning at a very big meeting two years ago saying, yeah, Odessa could be. It doesn't have to be a yablata razgora, that is, an apple of discord. It could be a way to settle differences and get together and do it in a peaceful way.

Yes, it has still not been occupied, and neither has that other great big city in the north. And what about those tens of thousands, probably down to 9,000 now, Ukrainian troops in Kursk? Are they going to be surrounded? Yes. Are they going to be killed? No. Are they going to be captured? Yeah. Well, there's a bargaining troop. Maybe Trump will say, hey, that'll be good. We want those persons repatriated. And that would be one thing that Putin would prepare to give. Last thing is Ukrainian membership in NATO. That, of course, is a net. Right.

Now, the U.S. is saying, well, how about delaying that for 10 years? Still a net, Putin's people. 50 years, maybe. Trump, 35 years? There's lots of leeway here. I can't imagine the number that Putin would agree to. I'm going to play a clip in just a second of Mike Waltz, President-elect Trump's likely national security advisor. Before we talk, I'll tell you why I'm smiling.

When you said apple of discord, it reminded me of my studying classics in high school and college. So the apple of discord is the, in Greek mythology, the apple sent by the goddess Iris to the other goddesses saying, for the fairest. And they fought over who was the fairest of them and who was entitled to the apple and that produced the Trojan War. Interesting mythology.

I won't say who, but I had a sister-in-law that we once nicknamed Iris. She since has changed. Here's Mike Waltz talking about American changing attitudes about Ukraine. Cut number six, Chris. Well, President Trump just said in the interview that, you know, a blank check in his interview with Time magazine, I believe, you know, a blank check isn't, you know, just isn't a strategy. This just kind of forever war that we seem to be backing into.

What does success look like in line with our interests? How do we end the war? Who's at the table? How do we drive all sides to the table? And what's the framework for for an agreement? Those are things that we're thinking through with his fantastic team that he's assembled. What can Trump do? I mean, it's a given that he can't end this war in 24 hours, in part because both sides are so dug in, in part because Joe Biden continues, even as we speak, Ray McGovern, to ship billions, billions in military equipment to the Ukrainians. What can Trump do?

Well, it's very clear that Putin has all the high cards. It's also very clear, unclear to people who watch the TV news, it's clear that Putin doesn't want to take over all of Ukraine, okay? Nor does he want to take over Poland or the Baltic states, nor anything else. He just wants a degree of security so that U.S. hypersonic missiles aren't put into Ukraine, okay? Now, that's big. So what can Trump do? He can say, well, you know, Joe Biden said that Putin wants to take over Poland as well.

And I've dissuaded him from doing that. He says, we're not going to do that. Oh, he's not going to even take a vote. We're going to do a sort of sanitaire, a cordon sanitaire, where we can separate the forces. And, you know, Putin might be willing to put off Ukrainian membership in NATO for 50 years. Does Zelensky have to go? Because Putin's not going to negotiate with Zelensky, and Zelensky doesn't want to negotiate with Putin, even if the intermediary is Mike Walsh or Keith Kellogg or Donald Trump himself. Zelensky is our puppet. He will go when we decide it's time for him to go.

The fly in the ointment are all those neo-Nazis that are unable to abide any kind of different leader, in quotes, than Zelensky. So it's a sticky wicket. But Zelensky will go to one of his villas whenever we tell him that he's up. And that's going to happen, in my view, about two weeks into Trump's accession to power. Is there a sense of panic and desperation, either in the Ukraine military, in the Ukraine government, or a bigger picture among the European elites? Well, let's take the Ukrainians first. The military knows where they are. They have to know. Also, the populists. The populists that used to be really, really strong to defend our motherland, they got very tired. They're very much wanting peace now.

That's according to the latest surveys. With respect to the Europeans, they don't know what they're doing. The European leaders don't know what they're doing. The facts that the UK and France now are authorized to send these longer range missiles into russia and they do it i don't know what that that that bites but i do know that uh that that fellow schweitz in germany is not long for this world i don't know whether it's going to be any better once he leaves because the likely successor is all for sending even longer range missiles into russia those would be the uh the talrus missiles that the germans

have so it's a can of worms in western europe but once trump says look this is what's going to happen if we want nato all right cooperate if you don't want NATO, well, this is what we're going to do anyway, so see what happens. I think that's Trump's attitude. I think these guys had it coming for a long, long time. Not so much that they didn't spend enough on defense, but they kowtowed to these whimsical ideas that people of the stripe of Tony Blinken and Jacob Sullivan did, and there's no defense against that kind of stupidity. Do you think the Trump administration will get rid of Zelensky right off the bat? That's hard to say. It all depends.

You know, maybe he'll change his attitude and maybe they'll work through him. But it will depend on how much pressure they can put on him and how much pressure he feels from the people not susceptible to our pressure, that is the neo-Nazis, to stay there or to avoid doing our bidding. He's not wrong for this world. He's actually illegal, as the Russians claim happens to be right. And so he's got to go. How soon he goes, I can't really predict. I said a couple of moments ago, maybe two weeks into Trump's tenure, but that's just a guess. I know there are forces in the Ukrainian military who are motivated by ideology,

but they must also be tempered by realism. Larry Johnson reports that the Ukrainian military lost 20,000 soldiers in a week last week. I mean, they don't have the manpower to replace that, and even the most ardent ideologue must recognize that, no? Well, yes, Judge. Those figures are pretty accurate. And the deal here is that, oh, we'll draft 18-year-olds, 18 to 25. The problem is there aren't many of them to draft. When they should have been conceived, there was a very, very low birth rate in Ukraine. There aren't many of them to begin with. And the notion that Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken are blaming manpower now. They're saying, look, we gave them all the arms.

We gave them everything they need. When you put a tank up there, you put this AAA aircraft and missiles and stuff, you need manpower to man them, and there aren't enough troops in the Ukrainian army. They have to get these 18-year-olds in there. Well, you know, it's a fallacy. I mean, there were enough troops until half a million got killed, and now they really think they're going to be able to draft a cohort that doesn't exist. It's really cynical in the extreme for Blinken and Sullivan to be blaming the lack of manpower in Ukraine when we have been saying, you know, fight to the last

Ukrainian. And it doesn't matter if they're 18 years old, 25 or 55, like I was one time. Just fight till the last minute. Sorry. I mean, this is extraordinary analysis, Ray, and I can only hope that Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz and Sebastian Gorka and maybe even Donald Trump himself listen to it. I'm thinking of Gorka's threat to increase the amount of military aid that we would send to Ukraine, referring to past aid as peanuts compared to what the new aid would be. They don't have the manpower to uh to operate it and it seems as though

everybody that knows what's going on privately recognizes ukraine is on the break uh gorka doesn't know what he's talking about of course we've given them more than they could use i fault our military, starting with military, then Austin, starting with Millie, who was chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Austin. I mean, they bubble up to the top because they saluted smartly and said the right things. They should have warned our presidents.

Look, this is a lost cause, for God's sake. And Obama himself said, the stupidest thing we could do and the worst thing for the Ukrainians would be to give them the idea that they could prevail militarily against a much stronger Russia. Obama was right. Anybody who looks at a map knows he was right. Anybody who looks at the population figures or the difference in AAA or artillery and everything else, knew that was the case.

So why did he do it? Because Biden had this mission that he's going to make sure they gave a bloody nose to the Russians. The sanctions didn't work. The support for Ukraine didn't work. What are they going to do now? They only have five weeks, Judge. That's what bothers me. I think the Russians are on high alert for some sort of false flag or some other gimmick that will start an even broader war, whether it's in Ukraine

or it's in the Middle East with the Israelis going after the Iranians got helpless. Ray McGovern, thank you very much. Great, great analysis. A lot of us have maybe taken our eye off the ball of Ukraine because of the events in Israel in the past several weeks and, of course, the catastrophe in Ukraine. But I appreciate you bringing us up to speed. Many thanks, my dear friend. We'll see you at the end of the week

for the Intelligence Community Roundtable with that youngster, Larry Johnson. Most welcome, Judge. Thank you, my dear friend. We'll see you at the end of the week for the Intelligence Community Roundtable with that youngster, Larry Johnson. Most welcome, Judge. Thank you, my dear friend. And the aforementioned youngster, Larry Johnson, will be here with us at 11 o'clock at 12 noon, Pepe Escobar. At one o'clock in the afternoon Eastern, a new guest, Kiervork Almasian, a Syrian exile living in Europe, who is a fantastic source on what's happening there. And at four o'clock, Chief Dennis Fritz. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.