Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Analyzing the Moscow Concert Attack

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Scott Ritter: Analyzing the Moscow Concert AttackSee 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 Thursday, March 28th, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us again. Scott, very much appreciate your time, particularly since this is your second time with us this week. I'm interested in your analysis from your knowledge of the players and from your own research as to what happened, who the forces were behind the assault on the concert hall, the Krokus concert hall outside of Moscow. But before we get there, some big picture questions. Why are the U.S. and the U.K. so adamant about who was and who was not behind this attack? Well, I mean, the key thing about covert action, and

if the United States was involved in this action, if the British were involved in this action, it would be a covert action. That's a deniable action. And so a key aspect of it is to deny, to come up with a cover story and to stick with that cover story and to emphasize that cover story and to do everything possible to dissuade people from considering any other options other than the cover story. So I think that's why they are, you know, the interesting thing is one would normally expect them to say, hey, we're keeping an open mind here, guys. Let's come in. Let's investigate. We'll help you investigate. But what they're saying straight up is, no, this is the Islamic State, and that's it. There's no other options, and it's definitely not Ukraine. Didn't the U.S. sort of inadvertently show its hand by saying it's the Islamic State and it's definitely not Ukraine within an hour of the attack itself before there was any evidence available to the people in the State Department

that made this statement? They did. And the other thing they did by committing that early to it is that they also called into question the motive behind their so-called duty to warn. The March 7th announcement by the U.S. Embassy, allegedly backed up by intelligence that the United States claims was unofficially provided to Russia about an imminent attack by extremists against venues such as concert halls. You know, when you have, you know, the whole mechanism of duty to warn, the notification, I'll give you an example. The Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, he would be a likely recipient of that. Normally in a duty to warn situation, the United States State Department would approach him together with members of the intelligence community and offer to provide a confidential briefing about this imminent attack, or the State Department would empower people at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow

to bring the relevant expertise to the foreign ministry and say, here's a briefing, a formal briefing. This is what the Russians did, by the way, when they warned us about the Tsarnaev brothers in the lead-up to the Boston bombing. They came to the United States. I've spoken to the FSB officer who did this, and they gave an entire dossier saying, we've been tracking these two kids from Dagestan. They're in the United States right now, and we believe that they're plotting to carry out a terrorist action. That's how you do it, formal chains of channels of

communication. But apparently, we didn't do it that way. We did it informally and unofficially. Now, if you're the Russians and you receive unofficial intelligence of this nature, are you being set up? What's the purpose? Is it designed to achieve the desired impact of getting the Russians to respond? or you're deliberately creating ambiguity and uncertainty and yet covering your basis, so to speak, so that when the attack goes, you can say not only, aha, we warned you, but also it's done in a way that furthers the cover story. So there's a lot going on here between the duty to warn notification and the early conclusions drawn by the rapid conclusions drawn by the United States about whodunit. So why the informal low-grade warning? Is this a reflection of Joe

Biden's negative, petty comments about President Putin? Is it a reflection of Victoria Nuland's comments about a nasty surprise is coming? Is it a reflection of the near total breakdown in diplomacy and regular communications between the United States and Russia? Is it a factor of everybody understanding that there would be no war in Ukraine were it not for the United States financial and military involvement? Is that a reason not to save the innocent lives of Russian young people at a concert on a Friday night? I think we have to understand that the United States doesn't care about innocent lives of young Russian people at a concert on a Friday night. We are at war with Russia. It's an undeclared war, but it's a war nonetheless. It's a war that we've invested, you know, over a hundred billion dollars in. It's a war that's designed to destroy Russia economically, socially, politically, militarily. And part of this war is covert action that,

you know, is geared to achieving a desired result. And one of the covert action techniques that the United States has trained our Ukrainian partners in is unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, otherwise known as terrorism. Remember, operating under the notion that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. We're training Ukrainians, and we we train the CIA Special Activities Division. Ground Branch has trained Ukrainians in unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, how to form cells of operatives deep behind enemy lines who can operate and carry out acts of sabotage, direct action events, et cetera. This act of terrorism is what, from our perspective,

an act of unconventional warfare designed to achieve a political result, that is to terrorize the Russian people into lowering their support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, suppressing their support for the state of Russia, and increasing the possibility that they might rise up against Vladimir Putin. That was the goal and objective of this terrorist attack. And that's why I firmly believe that this wasn't Islamic State. This was Ukraine, definitely. And the Russians appear to have definitive intelligence on that.

But more importantly, it's Ukraine acting as part and parcel of an overarching American strategic objective. Does this mean that the West has recognized that the war in Ukraine is lost, the use of Ukraine as a battering ram to remove President Putin from office is futile and gone, and so now they've resorted to this irregular or asymmetric style of warfare, which includes the slaughter of civilians. I don't think the United States ever expected Ukraine to be able to militarily defeat Russia. The goal was always to make this conflict as painful as possible for Russia. So I think there's a recognition now that the military aspect of this conflict has run its course, and that we are in the pain to Ukraine aspect of the phase of this

conflict. But the goal is still, ultimately, victory was going to come by achieving the conditions conducive for a Moscow Maidan moment, to repeat the Maidan coup d'etat that took place in Kiev in February of 2014, to repeat it today in Moscow, but this time, instead of removing Viktor Yanukovych, you're removing Vladimir Putin. Economic sanctions were designed to break the Russian economy. The war in Ukraine was designed to break Russian morale and get and make them feel vulnerable, make them feel that there was a need to change the leadership. So I think we're seeing an acceleration of the unconventional warfare aspect because the military side is starting to collapse. The Russian people no longer think that this is going to be a frozen war. They actually not only believe firmly in their cause, but they are confident in the fact that they're going to win. So there's a lot of pressure on

right now, the CIA, Ukrainian intelligence to maximize, you know, other vectors. And one of the vectors are the vector of unconventional warfare, terrorism, which is what we see. And we can expect to see more of this, too. Here's Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, succinctly addressing all of this yesterday in Moscow. In order to deflect suspicion from this very collective West, from Washington, London, Berlin, which literally discussed in direct text, as I said, possible tourist attacks in our country. Paris and other NATO countries, they had to find something, anything, something, some explanation. So they resorted to ISIS, took this Trump card out of their sleeve so to speak, and the White House, together with the State Department, declared at the

Maidstat that Ukraine had nothing to do with it." On the basis of what data? On the basis of what information did they draw that conclusion? It is completely unclear. Only one thing is clear. They began to excuse the Kiev regime in order to excuse themselves because everyone understands perfectly well that there is no independent Kiev regime without Western financial support and military aid to this regime. As everybody understands well, that there is no independent Kiev regime without Western financial support and support of this regime. She's got her finger right on it, Scott. She does. And she also, you know, the danger of starting a game of deception with somebody who is comfortable with the facts is that they bring up uncomfortable points and they

ask uncomfortable questions. And the key question she asked is, upon what data did you make this conclusion? You've made a definitive conclusion, not a speculative conclusion, not saying these are a range of options, but a definitive conclusion that Ukraine was not involved upon what basis of fact did you make that conclusion? And the United States can't answer because there is no basis of fact other than it's a cover story designed to, you know, the ISIS blame is a cover story designed to protect Ukraine. And that's what the United States is in the process of doing, protecting Ukraine and protecting themselves by extension. She hit it right on the head.

I'll tell you what, I would never, ever want to enter a debate with her. She's just too sharp, too sharp. What is your best understanding, after a week of research from your sources and from open sources, as to the probabilities here. What probably happened? Who were these four guys? How did they get there?

Who orchestrated, plotted, planned, sought to gain from all of this? ISIS has long been a front for American intelligence, nefarious intelligence actions. We helped facilitate the creation of ISIS. And one of the reasons why we allowed it to fester and grow was that we used ISIS to attack the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And we have used Turkish control of ISIS to direct terrorist attacks, to get inside ISIS, to use ISIS to do other things. So ISIS is a unwitting tool of American intelligence and other foreign intelligence actions. And so as a tool, when you're looking to carry out such a nefarious action as an attack on innocent civilians in Russia, you need a cover story. And so we decided that ISIS would be the cover story. And so this entire scheme was concocted from the recruitment of the individuals to the creation of a network inside Moscow. It was all done, built with the notion of saying this looks like ISIS, smells like ISIS.

You know, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck, right? And so that's the idea was to make it look like ISIS. The problem is these guys, they didn't have good operational technique. I think a data is going to come out about their phones and the Russian exploitation of these phones. But the Russians have them on the phone talking to entities inside Ukraine who are preparing to greet them as heroes and create an opening in the border so that they could flee into it. And that is not something that an ISIS operation does. There's a lot wrong with the ISIS cover story. It's a very dots between Mrs. Newland and these events? And actually, in fairness to you, before you answer that, Chris, let's play 15 and 16 back to back. Here's Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.

I think you know him. He's a world-recognized Russia expert, an American PhD who lives in Brussels. But here are two clips back-to-back on the Nuland connection, if there is one, and he thinks there might be, and connecting the dots. We note that several related facts, Madam Nuland, Victoria Nuland, was fired on the 5th of March. It's highly interesting that this coincidence. I and others have spoken of her connection with the German generals plotting a strike on the Kerch Bridge using their cruise missiles. However, it is more likely that she was fired because the mission

that she had supervised to attack Russia, a terrorist attack using Islamic extremists, on the 8th of March, was no longer operable. They are working on expanding further the information leads they have now on the connections with ISIS in Istanbul, on the timing of the American warning to Russia that a terrorist attack could take place. Let's remember that was on the 7th of March. That's to say two days after Victoria Nuland was fired and one day before the planned execution of the terrorist attack in Moscow. So the bits and pieces, the dots are falling into place. I repeat that Mr.

Bortnikov would never dare to say what he said yesterday without the blessing of Mr. Putin, and Mr. Putin has always been a very cautious player. Portnikov, the head of the Russian FSB, he doesn't give press conferences, but he did, and that's the one that the professor was referring to. What is the significance of him making a public statement when asked if the United States, Great Britain, and Ukraine were involved? He said, we believe this is so. We're still investigating. That's a profound statement for the head of FSB to make publicly, is it not? 100%.

First of all, I have deep respect for Dr. Gilbert. Dr. Rowe, I think some of your guests have clashed with him before, but it's an honest clash. I've had clashes with him before in terms of nuance of Russian policy, but he is a very well-informed and very thoughtful person. And he hit the nail on the head here. You know, Ray McGovern, another one of your guests, taught me something a long time ago. He's an old Sovietologist. And, you know, we were talking about the good old days where we were trying to read the

tea leaves of what was going on behind the scenes in the Communist Politburo. And he said, you know, all you had to do is listen to them. All you had to do is listen to the Soviets. They weren't trying to hide anything. If you read their newspapers, if you read the speeches, if you listen, they were telling you exactly what they were up to. There was no subterfuge. And I would say that's the case here today. When you have somebody like the director

of the FSB, who as Dr. Rowe pointed out, is not a public official. He's not like the head of the FBI or the head of the CIA who come out and make statements. He doesn't talk to anybody. He never does this. So for him to come out and speak, understand the Russians believe that words are important. Words have meaning. You don't throw words away. They're very important. So for him to come out and say things, understanding, A, he wouldn't be doing this unless he had the blessing of a president, Putin, who likewise is very careful with what he says, very guarded, doesn't get ahead of himself. He wouldn't do it without the blessing of Putin. And it's done for a reason.

He is committing to a narrative that says this is the fact and we are going to act on it. As he said, everything is ahead of us. That's what should send a shiver up everybody's spine who was involved in this, including Victoria Nuland, because everything's ahead of us. He's talking about revenge. He's talking about retribution. He's talking about a Russian response. And the Russians will be responding to a narrative that is framed by Ukrainian involvement with the backing of the United States. Is it conceivable that Mrs. Newland knew about this and pushed for it and just didn't report it to the right channels? And that's one of the reasons she's gone.

I mean, the timing is inescapable in terms of her statement about nasty surprises, her firing, the original date of this thing, it being canceled, it being moved back by three weeks after she's up at Columbia University. Policy doesn't occur in a vacuum. And Victoria Nuland was the architect of this policy. That means when there's an interagency meeting in Washington, D.C. of the deputies level, she's chairing it. The CIA is carrying out covert action that is based upon the direction she is giving it. She's the one who's the conductor of the orchestra, so to speak. And this is a policy that goes back to, for instance, why did we support the counteroffensive of 2023? We supported to achieve harm to the Russian military, not to defeat it, but to bring harm, to commit casualties. And why did we increase

sanctions? Why did we do targeted sanctions of oil? To bring pain to Russia and the CIA actions. Again, an attack of this nature doesn't happen overnight. It's planned well in advance with political objectives that are linked to broader objectives. Victoria Nuland directed this attack to be made. It was part of the overall posture of the CIA's covert action arm that is working in Ukraine. But things changed. The foundation of reality that had the United States thinking they could get away with something like this suddenly changed when money that we thought was going to be automatic. Remember, Victoria Nuland saying that money will be released. She had to have it released because her policy won't work without that money. But suddenly Mike Johnson's holding it up,

and Victoria Nuland now is out there with a policy she desperately wants to implement, but she can't because the money's not released. So she gets ahead of herself. She continues to push it back. She was told to pull back. She didn't. She greenlighted it. And that's why I believe she was relieved because she said, we must go forward.

And other people said, we can't go forward. This thing's done. Put it on ice. We're finished. And she let it go forward. I think she has a lot to worry about. If Congress ever wakes up and starts doing the oversight that they are mandated to do by the Constitution, if they start doing the people's work and start asking the questions, she's going to not come out of this very good. She may even find herself in legal problem. Here's Dr. Doctorow talking about the public sentiment in Russia

from and after the attack on the concert hall. The discussions now on the premier Russian talk shows, and I have in mind the Vladimir Soloviov show of last night, have taken a radical turn towards violence. One of the Duma members, a member of a key committee on relations with the former Soviet Union, said last night openly, it's time to raise Kharkov to the ground. We should give Kharkov as where the terrorist attacks, the Russians call them terrorist attacks. They are missile and artillery attacks and also border incursions on the Belgorod frontier region of Russia. They're coming from Kharkiv. They are intolerable. Dozens of Russian civilians are being killed each week. And that makes very bad news on Russian television and the the our Patriots who say time to finish this the Ukrainians are no longer our friends they never again will be our friends and

it's time to give a notice to kharkiv that everyone should get in their car back their cars and head West because we're going to level Kharkov to the ground and that language did not exist until after this terrorist event. There's also talk yesterday on the Solovyov show, it's time to flatten the presidential palace in Kiev, time to flatten all of the decision-making military and civilian institutions in Kiev. That violent language did not take place until now. Will that violent language animate President Putin and his decisions on how to use Russian military force? Not at all. Vladimir Putin is a mature, responsible leader. Talk shows like Soloviev Live and others are effective safety valves for the expression and release of anger and angst.

And so people could come on there, they can voice these things. But Putin is, I'm not going to say an emotionalist man, but because he clearly is capable of emotion, but he doesn't allow anger to drive him. He allows the best interest of Russia to drive him. And so he's not going to do anything that precipitously exposes Russia to harm or condemnation in the eyes of the world. Right now, he has a winning hand. The Ukrainians are carrying out effective violations of international law by their bombardment of civilian targets in Belgorod using checkmate vampire multiple launch rocket systems. Why would he level the playing field by doing similar actions against Kharkov? That's just not the way Putin operates. That's not the way the

Russian government operates. And I think we need to make a distinction between the bellicose rhetoric that you're hearing on these talk shows and the way the Russian government operates. If the U.S. and the U.K. were responsible for training either the very individuals or people in their ballpark for this attack, if they knew it was coming, if they were indifferent to it? Is it likely the rest of the EU knew, stated differently? Is this now an asymmetric war against Russia? And if it is, isn't it dangerous that it could get out of control? Well, it's always been an asymmetric war because NATO has never intended to put the full weight of its military capacity for what it is on the ground in Ukraine. So they've

always been seeking to use Ukraine as a proxy and then to assist the Ukrainians through economic warfare, diplomatic isolation efforts, things of that nature. There's always been this asymmetric aspect of it. But remember, covert action is covert action. And so there's no way that Europe would be appraised of American covert action because it's no longer covert. It's designed so that if it gets uncovered, as it has, the United States can say, we have no fingerprints on this. It's not us. It's not us. The last thing you want to do is say, it's not us the fact that the United States and other European nations and NATO have been helping the Ukrainians carry out attacks inside Russia. For instance, the Kerch Bridge or the attacks against Russian oil refineries and storage depots. There's a whole bunch of attacks that have been taking

place against Russian rail networks throughout Russia that the media hasn't picked up on, but it's there. And there's other incidents of that nature that is part of this irregular warfare, this asymmetrical warfare. But this terrorist attack, because that's what it is. This is a terrorist attack designed to destroy the morale of the Russian people. This attack was supposed to take place on March 9th, which was with that 48-hour window of warning that the U.S. Embassy put out. It was supposed to take place exactly where it took place, at the Crocus City Hall and Concert venue. A terrorist was there on March 7th, scoping out the facility because on March 9th, this Russian superstar named Shaman was going to perform. Very patriotic singer, packed audience. And had they attacked then and carried out casualties then, it would have just resonated even far more greatly because

there were some very senior Russians at present. Fortunately for Russia, they had adequate security and the terrorists came back and said, we can't do it today. Security is too great. So they went down, they hunkered down and they waited until security dropped and they struck during the performance, again, of a band named Picnic, a Soviet era band that is popular with Russians of all ages. Grandparents remember them from their youth. They exposed their children to that. So the parents were raised on that. And they've now, they were taking their kids and saying, this is the songs of our youth.

This is a family outing. This is where Russian families were going to celebrate life. And we killed them. Here's President Putin, number 21, Chris. Here's President Putin two days ago. We know that the crimes were committed by radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries. We also see that the U.S., through various various channels is trying to convince its satellites and other parts of the world that according to their intelligence there is no trace of Kiev in the Moscow terrorist attack. That the bloody terrorist attack was committed by followers of Islam, members of the ISIS organization banned in Russia.

We know by whose hands this atrocity against Russia and its people was committed. We are interested in who ordered it. The joint work of our special services and law enforcement agencies should provide answers to a number of questions. For example, whether radical and even terrorist Islamic organizations are really interested in striking at Russia, which today advocates a just solution to the escalating Middle East conflict. And how do radical Islamists, who position themselves by the way, faithful Muslims practicing so-called pure Islam, go to the lengths of committing grave atrocities and crimes during the holy

month of Ramadan? These as well as other more specific professional questions, remain to be answered for an objective investigation of the crime committed in Moscow. Sounds like it's got a good handle on things, Scott. But it is clear his view that the United States promoted false defenses of Kyiv. I think, first of all, we have to place what he's saying in proper perspective because I've I've seen some um some articles that have come out lady that lately that are you know mocking uh Putin and saying he's naive about Islam hey ladies and

gentlemen this is the guy who was the president started out as prime minister, and then president for not just one, but two wars with Islamic fundamentalism in Chechnya. He was the commander in chief, and he won. This is the guy who sent his troops to Syria to work with the Syrian government to defeat ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and he won. This man knows modern day Islamic fundamentalist terrorism better than anybody out there. He also, because he's a, as they say, a nation that has not just Christianity, but Islam as part of their core religions, the Chechen Republic, you know, he is linked to Kazan. Kazan is, you know, in Tataristan, it has received delegations from around the Islamic world. It's one of the truth of how Islam works and what a perversion to Islam this is. And there's no leader better in tune with the Muslim world today, Western leader, a non-Muslim leader, than Vladimir Putin. So when he's saying these things, again, words matter. He's not

speculating. He's asking questions. But when a Russian president asked a question, let me just make it clear, he already knows the answer. So he knows exactly what's going on. He knows who's to blame referred to as the special military operation, is now to be referred to as war. the lights, the party's over. This will change everything because it will change how they target and it also changed the scope and scale of the operations. I just want to remind your audience that the Russian military recently announced the creation of what they call the Dnieper River Flotilla. Now, Russia doesn't control the Dnieper River. So why would Russia need to create a Dnieper River Flotilla that'll be ready for operation sometime in the early summer? Because Russia plans on controlling the Dnieper River sometime in the early summer. And if they control the Dnieper River, that means they're going all the way to Odessa. They're going all the way through Kharkov.

It means that this war has fundamentally changed its character. And that bodes very badly for the future survival of Ukraine as a modern nation state. Scott Ritter, thank you, my dear friend. I so much appreciate the double duty this week. Happy Easter to you and your family. We'll see you next week. Thank you. Happy Easter to yourself. Of course. Coming up later today, yours truly at one o'clock Eastern for Ask the Judge. Any question you want about the Constitution, about natural law, about natural rights, or about what we discuss on this program. At 2 o'clock Eastern, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson.

At 3 o'clock Eastern, Kyle Anzalone. And at 4 o'clock Eastern, we're pretending it's Friday, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with the boys, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.